by Rich Johnson
“Geez,” Josh grinned, “wish I’d have been there to see that!”
“Yup, then the family sailed off heading north until they could make radio contact with someone to report the incident. Borboleta was heading south, picked up Whisper’s call and had a SSB radio that got through to us, and that’s how we found out about all of this.”
“Did they verify the serial number on the container?”
“They did. BA11M
“How long until we’re over San Luis Miguel?”
Pfister checked his watch. “About another hour and fifteen.”
“And the Victory?”
“About twelve hours.”
“What’s the plan?”
“If we can locate and verify the container, I have orders to quarantine the area and a hazmat team will be brought in from Homeland Security. Right now we’re just trying to isolate and secure the container.” Pfister looked at Josh. “And if this is the one, what are your orders?”
“I’ll be with hazmat. In fact, I’ll be the first one into the container.”
“I don’t envy you, Mr Adams.”
“You’re a smart man, captain.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Sixty-eight miles north of San Luis Miguel, the red and black powerboat flew over the ocean with only the rear one-third of the hull touching the water. Both tachometers read 4500 RPM, and the huge outboards were screaming. Husam al Din stood with the wheel gripped in both hands, his eyes blurry from the wind. He had been confined too long to be satisfied with sitting now, so his legs were spread and his knees absorbed the motion of the boat as it skimmed the endless blue surface. It felt good to have the wind blowing through his hair.
On his face was a fresh beard that had grown to its previous glory while he was imprisoned in the container. It felt good to be bearded again, and he wore the mask of an Islamic man proudly. His t-shirt and blue jeans were draped across the passenger seat, drying out after having been washed clean of the stench when, earlier in the day, he had stopped the boat for more than five hours. The pause took a long time, but to him it was worth every minute. Besides washing his filthy clothes, the break gave him a chance to take a salt-water bath to purify himself through the wudu ritual ablution. Then he took a compass bearing to the east, the direction toward Mecca, half a world away. On his head, he wore a black turban, and a long robe covered his body, clothes that he had brought in his duffel so he could feel properly dressed for Salaat, the ritual prayer, and for the moment of his jihad.
From the duffel, he unrolled his prayer rug, then, standing erect with his head down and hands at his sides, he recited his own personal call to prayer. “Allaahu Akbar,” it began, and was repeated four times. “Ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah,” twice repeated, bearing witness that God is great and that there is none worthy of worship except God. He begged forgiveness for his weakness and for missing so many prayers. For good measure, he performed wudu and recited the Salaat five separate times to make up for some of those he had missed. Allah, he hoped, would understand and bless him on his mission. The five hours lost from his voyage left him feeling renewed and clean again.
In the hot tropic afternoon, the t-shirt and blue jeans were soon dry, and he dressed again in the chameleon clothing that he hoped allowed him to pass unnoticed among the people where he was going – Miami, Florida. It was the place where he intended to begin his holy war. Once started, it would spread quickly across America, and engulf the Great Satan in a deadly disease. Too bad – the thought made him shake his head – I left one of the flashlights in the trailer. But I still have this one; he gripped the weapon and smiled as he folded his turban and placed it into the bag. And I still have this; he pulled the dagger from its sheath, admired the gleam of sunlight from its razor edge, then slid it back in its case and placed it in the duffel.
With his purification and prayers behind him, he had stirred the big outboards back to life and raced for an hour across the open water. He scanned the chart plotter, noted his course line and turned the wheel a little to port to correct his route. While studying the instruments, he suddenly noticed the fuel gauge and gasped. Immediately, his hand went to the throttles and he pulled them back. The boat dropped out of plane and the ocean grabbed the hull, bringing it to a halt as surely as if it had brakes.
His eyes were pinned to the fuel gauge needle, and he watched it bob a little, dangerously close to the empty mark. He turned the ignition keys counterclockwise, and the engines fell silent. I must find a place where I can get fuel. He scanned the chart plotter, but the GPS indicator showed that he was in open water and a long way from the nearest island.
In a compartment next to the wheel, he found a binocular. Land might be too far away, he figured, but perhaps he could find another boat out here and beg some fuel. It was his only chance of continuing on.
For four and a half hours, he let the boat drift northward on the powerful Yucatan Channel current while he fingered the binocular’s focus ring and swept the horizon. The tropic evening was closing fast, and yet there was nothing. He was alone on a huge and empty sea, nearly out of fuel and with no way to get any, unless another boat passed by.
A pink veil covered the western sky and the light was fading. Before long, it would be too dark to see, but he pressed on, using the last available daylight as he panned the binocular. Suddenly, an image caught his eye and he steadied the glass to the northwest. There, perhaps three miles away, almost invisible through the dim light and the hazy marine layer, he saw the faint profile of a sailboat. He braced his elbows on top of the windshield and watched the distant boat ghosting along under white sails with a black stripe slashing down the rear of the headsail. The light was almost gone when he turned the ignition key for one engine, pushed the throttle forward and watched the tachometer needle rise, then he swung the wheel toward the distant sailboat.
On the Whisper
“I hear something.”
Nicole looked up from the hammock seat that was perched between the dinghy davits. Sailing at seven knots was a peaceful experience; quiet except for the giggle of the wake as it passed beneath the stern of each hull. With almost no noise to disturb the silence of the evening, she immediately heard the low, throbbing tone of an outboard motor. To sailors, the sound of a power boat is irritating. And noise carries almost unimpeded across open water, so Nicole noticed what she considered to be a nerve-grating racket. “That’s an outboard. I can tell by the sound. Who’s out here at this time of night?”
“Drug-runners, maybe,” Dan said as he grabbed the binocular and stepped up on a cockpit bench for better visibility. “Of course, we’re out here and we’re not running anything illegal.” He pointed off the starboard quarter, “Still too far away to identify, but I’d say it’s coming from right over there. I can see a small dark spot, and from the continual rise in tone, it’s obvious that it’s coming toward us.”
Nicole sat up and looked where Dan was pointing. Even though the night was warm, she suddenly shivered and hugged her arms around herself. Worry lines furrowed her forehead, as she stepped onto the cockpit bench. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ve got no place to duck into.” Dan continued to stare at the spot on the horizon, as it grew in size and the noise became more distinct. He lowered the binocular and looked at Nicole. “Go below and make sure the kids are all right. I’ll see what this is all about.” Seeing her concern, he hugged her. “De la Vega is dead. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
She looked up into his eyes. “Yeah, but what if it’s his gang of pirates?”
“What would they want with us? Ruiz got all our money. They’ve got the container, and they’re probably back there trying to break in and get to the eleven million dollars I said was in there.”
“You told them there was eleven million dollars in the container?”
He smiled. “Yup.”
“How did you come up with that?”
“After you left the hut, Ruiz came back and told me exactly
what I knew he would, that the serial number on the container read BA11M. I told him it was a code used by Bank of America to indicate that there was eleven million dollars being shipped.”
She smiled, and he was glad to see an expression other than sadness and fear on her face. “That’s not bad, Mr Plover.” Then her attention turned again to the approaching sound. “So, who do you think that is?”
“Whoever it is,” he said, “I’ll take care of it. You go below and be with the kids. We’ve all had more adventure than we need today. I’m sure they’ll appreciate you being with them right now.”
For fifteen minutes, Dan watched the dark spot grow. It was coming faster than they could possibly escape, so there was nothing for him to do but stand and watch. With the memory of Nicole’s heroic action fresh in his mind, he loaded the flare gun and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts in the small of his back. Then he stood with the binocular to his eyes and let Buzz steer the boat to the apparent wind. In his gut was a sinking feeling of being totally alone and vulnerable. An image flashed through his mind of a priceless crystal goblet that had fallen into the path of stampeding bulls, and there was no one around to pluck it out of harm’s way. That was his family – a delicate and irreplaceable treasure. Why did I bring them here? Why risk everything like this?
Even though night was falling fast, the low-light binocular magnified and brightened the image, and what he saw astonished him. It was the same boat that had been tied alongside the dock at San Luis Miguel. His right hand closed around the flare gun while he continued to hold the glasses with his left. As the boat approached, he saw a man he had not seen before standing behind the wheel of the red and black powerboat. The man’s face bore a full dark beard, and he was wearing a white t-shirt. That much Dan could see. And the man was waving. The face was not one from the island, and none of the pirates wore a white; they were a grubby lot, and their clothes were dirty. The shirt on the man in the boat was very white, almost as if it were new.
Dan relaxed the grip on the flare gun and returned the gesture. “I need fuel,” Husam al Din yelled across the distance as the boat came closer. “I am almost out of gas. Do you have some that I can purchase?”
“Just keep your distance,” Dan yelled and made a pushing motion with his hands. “First of all, we don’t use gasoline. Our engine is diesel. And second, I want to know who you are. I saw your boat on an island. We were taken by pirates,” – his hand went back to the flare gun – “and I don’t want you to approach our boat until I know who you are.”
“Ah.” Husam al Din smiled and wiped his brow as a gesture of relief, then he launched into a lie that he made up even as he spoke it. “If you have been on that island, then you must know that my boat and I were hijacked by some bad men. I was taken hostage. But this morning, I was able to escape and get my boat going. But they left it without much fuel.”
The story sounded plausible to Dan. De la Vega and his gang could possibly have pirated this man’s boat, just as they had done to their own. Perhaps in the chaos of their own escape this morning, the other man was also able to escape from wherever they were holding him. It was possible.
“Well, I’m sorry,” – Dan wagged his head – “but we don’t have gasoline on this boat. But we should be able to send someone to help you as soon as we get into our next port. I’ll mark your latitude and longitude and send someone to find you. How’s that? Do you have enough food and water to hold on for a couple of days out here?”
Husam al Din shook his head sadly. “They left me with nothing.”
Dan thought about it for a moment. “Well, I can’t tow your boat. It’s too big and heavy for our sailboat to tow. But I can’t leave you out here without food and water. You stay right there,” – he pushed his hands to tell the stranger to back away from the catamaran just a little – “and I’ll put together some food and water for you. Then I’ll send someone who can bring you some gasoline. I’ll be right back.” He ducked into the cabin, leaving Buzz steering and the other boat following.
Just inside the doors to the main salon, Dan bent down and looked in the refrigerator. He pulled out a few things, gathered them into his hands and stepped into the galley, then slid open the cabinet where canned foods were stored. Over his shoulder, he called out, “Nicole, can you help me put together a package of food and water for this fellow? He’s out of gas and …”
“I’ll be right there,” Nicole answered as she stepped out of Cadee’s aft cabin, but the sudden look of terror on Nicole’s face stopped Dan in his tracks.
“What is it?” He spun around just in time to see the sweep of a fist driving into his temple, and then everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The sun was high when the C-130 banked into a long clockwise turn and Josh moved to a window to look outside. More than a mile below, he saw the green hourglass shape of a tropical island, resting like an emerald on a cobalt blue jeweler’s cloth. A beautiful sight. Like a bit of paradise.
After circling once at a high altitude, the airplane began a slow descent. Of what he could see from his view through the window, there was no activity on the ground. But that didn’t surprise him. Only the edges of the island and a couple of clearings were visible all the way to ground level, the rest of it was veiled by a dense canopy of trees. Still, as they circled again at a lower altitude, he saw no boats and no people.
“Maybe we ought to take a low and slow flyby,” he suggested to Pfister, received a nod of agreement and the captain relayed an order to the pilot.
On the next pass, the C-130 was less than a hundred feet off the water and moving just fast enough to stay airborne. Josh planted his face against the window and studied every shadow. “There,” he pointed, as they followed the contour of the east harbor, “see it?”
Pfister stared, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. Looks like a dock back under the canopy where that river emerges.” He moved the helmet mic in front of his mouth and spoke to the pilot, then switched the mic off and turned back to the window. “I ordered another pass, this time right up the mouth of the river at tree-top level. We’ll have high-speed cameras going. Maybe they’ll pick up something we aren’t able to see.”
“It’s going to be the middle of the night before the cutter arrives?” Josh asked.
“Yeah. We’ll sort out what we can see from the photos on the onboard digital monitor, then go back to Panama. If the container is here like the message from Borboleta said, we’ll fly you out on a chopper to join the cutter crew before they arrive. That is, if you don’t mind making a refueling stop along the way.”
Josh rolled his eyes, “You do know how to tempt a guy.”
The plane leveled off just above the water and headed straight for the mouth of the river. Suddenly, the pilots revved the C-130 engines and Josh felt the aircraft begin to climb. Outside, the flash of green treetops became a blur as the plane rose through the saddle separating the two harbors. A message came into the helmet earphones.
“Anything else before we return to base, sir?”
“How about one more go-round,” the captain said. “I don’t think Mr Adams has gotten his money’s worth yet.”
“Aye, sir,” the pilot said, and he tipped the wings on end as the plane banked sharply to the right.
Eight minutes later, after a second pass up the mouth of the river and over the saddle, the C-130 pulled up and leveled off toward Panama.
“They’re ready, sir,” the words came through the headset, and Pfister motioned for Josh to follow him. In a forward cabin just aft of the cockpit bulkhead was a computer screen with the image of a wooden barge carrying a rust-colored container. Josh took a seat beside the computer operator and pointed to the corner of the screen.
“Can we move in on that?”
“Yes, sir.” The operator dragged the mouse over the photo and zoomed in on the requested spot.
“Can we clean it up?”
The operator typed on the keyboard, brought up a menu,
gave the commands, and the image sharpened.
“Can you take it another step?”
“The image will begin to pixilate, sir, but I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I just need to be able to read the serial number.”
“Aye, sir.” The operator manipulated the image to bring a higher level of sharpness and contrast. “How’s that, sir.”
Josh stared at the screen, then blew his lungs empty through pursed lips. “Perfect. BA11M. There it is. We’ve got it.” He turned to Pfister with fire in his eyes. “Soon as we touch down, I want to be on my way to that cutter. Nobody can go ashore ahead of me. Is that clear?”
Pfister sat back and studied Josh’s face, then scanned the faces of the two crewmen in the room. A look of surprise and expectation formed their expressions, and they glanced at each other and waited for the inevitable. The captain dragged his chair closer to Josh, then raised his voice and launched into a tirade.
“Have I been retired while I wasn’t looking? Did somebody put you in command of my Coast Guard? Let me tell you something mister,” – he pointed his finger at Josh’s chest, and Josh backed up – “this is my C-130, that’s my chopper and my cutter and my men. And, quite frankly, Mr Adams, I don’t like people, especially civilians, giving me orders and asking me if that’s clear. Is that clear?”
Josh looked away, exhaled and gathered his thoughts. His voice was low, when he spoke. “Yeah, sorry. I got carried away. I understand the military chain of command and protocol. It’s just that I’ve been chasing this guy halfway around the world.” The tone and strength of his voice grew, and his eyes cut a hole in Pfister. “You don’t know what’s going on, but trust me, this is probably the most dangerous situation the United States has ever faced.” He gritted his teeth, leaned in close to Pfister and snarled, “So forgive the hell out of me if I get a little excited. Okay?”
The two men stared at each other for a moment, and Pfister knew the ball was back in his court. Finally, his upper body began to rock and his head nodded very slightly. “Yeah, I’ll forgive the hell out of you. After all, you’re the one who’s going to have to face whatever is down there. So I guess you can be forgiven for losing it once.” He pressed toward Josh until their noses almost touched, tightened his jaw and growled, “But, mister, you’ve had your once.” The captain stood up and left the room. Josh looked at the two crewmen. Both were wearing grins.