“So how do the goods get on board?” Lam asked.
“Easy. The crewman, who is an Arab, packs the booby traps in a box marked ‘bread’ or ‘fruit’ or some other foodstuff and nobody would think a thing about it. Once it’s on board, the Arab takes that box and hides it until he needs it.”
“What Jewish boat captain would hire an Arab?” Mahanani asked.
“Lots of folks,” Senior Chief Sadler said. “The Israeli population is made up of twenty percent Arabs. They work everywhere. Why not on a fishing boat?”
“So it could happen that way,” Murdock said. He’d been sitting in listening. “What other ways could those little bombs be sprinkled on the water?”
“Pleasure craft at the right time and right place,” Fernandez said.
“How about a low-flying aircraft, drop the goods and beat it out to sea,” Luke Howard said.
“Yeah, but Israeli radar would be on him like a bear on a honey tree,” Ching said.
The room went silent.
“Come on, you guys. Part of the reason you’re getting paid the big bucks is your brainpower. How else could these bombs be spread?”
“Private powerboat.”
“A sailboat.”
“Some asshole on a surfboard pretending to be fishing.”
“All three of those would be so obvious the Israeli cops would be down their throats in a second,” Jaybird said. “The innocuous fishing boat fits the picture and the job. Must be hundreds of them sail out of a dozen ports along here every morning.”
“Senior Chief,” Murdock said. “Find out which tides the explosives usually come in on. Is it the first one of the day, like they could have been planted early in the morning, or are they more likely planted during the night and come in during the night?”
“If they are scattered at night, gonna be a hell of a tough job to catch the bastards,” Jefferson said.
“When do we get started on this one?” Frank Victor asked.
“Israeli cops have rented a fishing boat through private parties,” said Murdock. “They are going fishing in the morning at 0400. Lam, Jefferson, and I will be on board in deckhand outfits and with binoculars and long guns. We’ll go out to see what we can see. We’ll have to continue to the fishing grounds, fish some, and then come back with the fleet. Our captain and another crewman hidden on board will probably do most of the fishing.”
“Good, the rest of us get to go exploring Tel Aviv,” Jaybird said.
“Not so, oh, motor-mouth,” DeWitt said. “Tomorrow the rest of us have several projects. We’ll get assignments from Colonel Ben-Ami at 0800.”
“Doing what?” Ching asked.
“As far as I know, we’ll be checking out the supply operations that furnish these fishing boats with food, drink, supplies of all kinds. There has to be a contact here somewhere to help get the booby traps on board one or maybe more than one boat.”
“What else?” Canzoneri asked.
“How many fishing villages and ports do you think there are along this sixty-mile strip from Haifa to Tel Aviv?” DeWitt asked. “I don’t know, and any one of them could be where the explosives are coming from. It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle, showing a black orchid on a black background. We’ve got almost nil to work with.”
“Best part so far is that nobody is going to be shooting at us,” Jaybird said. “How is Bradford coming along?”
Ed DeWitt looked up. “Had a report on him from the doctors. The slug missed all the vitals. Grazed a bend in his small intestine but didn’t rupture it; otherwise we’d be sending him home in a box. He’ll be transferred to the base hospital here in two days.”
Senior Chief Sadler looked at his notes on a clipboard. “So, we have chow at 0630 same place we ate tonight. We report here in our cammies, with no visible weapons, at our ready room at 0800. That’s it. Commander Murdock will tell his men when and where. You’re dismissed.”
* * *
The next morning at 0345, Lam, Jefferson, and Murdock stared at the boat beside them at the fishing dock. They all wore used deckhand clothes like the other fishermen had on; jeans or blue pants, T-shirts with various emblems on them, and loose blue work shirts for the chill of the morning. They wore used running shoes for stability on the fish-slippery decks. The boat wasn’t what they’d expected.
“This thing floats?” Lam asked. She was thirty-two feet long and made of wood that had been scraped and patched and painted for what Murdock figured could have been a hundred years. She smelled like fish from bow to stern. Twin outriggers stood straight overhead next to the skinny mast with antennas on it. The outriggers were on cables that were controlled by hand winches on the deck. A small, unpainted cabin hunched at the bow. There the real live fisherman who worked for the police made his final checks on the craft. He came out of the cabin and waved the three men on board.
“Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Ravid Sartan. I’m the captain of this magnificent craft. Welcome on board. I have talked with the Army people and know what to do. You can help or watch, but you must look like you belong to the crew so others don’t get curious. For now, two of you go below, one will help me cast off.”
Murdock pointed at Lam and Jefferson and they vanished below the deck. Murdock talked with the captain in muted tones. Captain Sartan was slight, with black eyes, a sharp nose, and a long face. He had a mustache and his hair was a little long. His hands and arms looked strong enough to bend steel bars, and his body was quick-moving on seaman’s legs.
“We’re here to do anything we can, and watch whatever we can. Let me know what needs to be done.”
“Yes, they told me you’d be coming,” Captain Sartan said. “We’re ready to sail with the rest of the fleet. We won’t do anything out of the ordinary to make us stand out. I have another crewman below who will help us with actual fishing once we get to the right spot.”
“We’ll try to blend in and stay out of sight and out of your way. You know what we’re looking for. Did you know the man who brought supplies on board here this morning?”
“Yes. He’s been working several boats along here for ten years. Solid, absolutely trustworthy.”
“He looked like an Arab.”
“He is an Arab,” Captain Sartan said. “You know, one out of five who live in this country are Arabs.”
“I heard. You’ll go out the harbor just beyond the breakers, and then, I understand, some boats go right and some go left, working just outside the breaker line before heading for their fishing spots.”
“Right. Every captain has his own ideas where the best location is to fish. Some know, some don’t. When one man gets a good bite, he radios it to the rest and we all move that way. Usually the bite is over by the time we get there.”
“You troll or use the nets?”
“Both. The net is small and has an open mouth. We pull it in once every hour.”
“Baited hooks on the trolls?”
“Right, and some flashers and feathers, anything to entice the fish to bite,” Captain Sartan said. “Fishing is not good off here. The captains try to earn a living, pay for their boat, and dream of a bigger boat so they can afford longer-range fishing on the rich banks off Ethiopia. You won’t recognize any of the fish we catch today.”
The captain checked an old pocket watch, put it away, and went to the cabin. Murdock and a regular crewman threw off the lines, and the old diesel engine began hammering as the small craft pulled away from the dock. Murdock found a good spot just in back of the small cabin and took out the 9x35 binoculars. He kept them under his blue shirt. As soon as they moved up the surf line, he would have them out and watching the three or four other fishing boats near them. If any one of them threw anything overboard, he would take the name of the boat and radio it in. An Israeli coastal cutter would be on his stern within minutes.
Murdock and the other two SEALs checked every fishing boat they could see with binoculars as half a dozen sailed along the coastline at a steady ten knots. It was still dark, but there we
re enough work lights and deck lights on each craft to give the watchers the vision they needed. None of them saw anyone throw or drop anything overboard.
Twenty minutes later all but one of the craft had turned away from shore, heading for favorite fishing areas. Murdock helped with the net, getting it ready to let out. Then, when they began to bait the large hooks and stow them in special compartments along the inside of the rail, he worked at that too. Most baits were inch-wide “steak” slices through the backbone of a fish about an inch and a half thick.
A half hour later the ship slowed and the deckhand let out the net that trailed far aft. Then he let down the outrigger poles that held six lines each. Each line had thirty baited hooks or lures on it.
After an hour of trolling back and forth, they used a power winch and pulled in the small purse seine net. Captain Sartan came to supervise. When the net came in, they were busy pulling small fish out of the tangle of the net itself. Each fish, no matter how small, was thrown into a fish box about two feet wide, three feet long, and eighteen inches high.
When the main pocket of the net came in, they had many more fish, many of them still alive. They were dumped on the deck and scooped up with shovels into the fish boxes. When one was filled, it was lowered into a hold that was kept at thirty-five degrees to gradually chill the fish, keeping them fresh until they were back in port.
The captain looked at the three boxes of fish and shrugged.
“That pull might be good enough to pay for the diesel oil I’m burning on this run,” he said. “I see why I quit being a fisherman.”
When they pulled in the twelve lines one by one with hand cranks, they found fish on one out of six hooks. Some were small; three or four on each line were ten to twelve pounds. The captain was pleased.
When one line was cleaned of fish, it was quickly rebaited and let out again with a sinker of deliberate size to keep the hooks at a desired depth.
Slightly after 1600, they worked their trolling back toward Tel Aviv, and soon pulled in the lines and net for the last time. The captain shook his head when Murdock said he had hoped that they would find something.
“Wrong way to do it,” Captain Sartan said. “I know these men, these boats. I can pinpoint four or five captains who might be blackmailed into helping some Arabs do this terrible thing. They are weak, they are bad fishermen, and they have large debts that they can’t pay.”
Murdock brightened. “Will you come talk with the Army man who is investigating this problem?”
“For Israel, I will be honored to do so. As soon as we get in and I sell the fish, I will change clothes and go meet your Army man. I have thought the small bombs must be coming from the fishing fleet. I just didn’t know how. But after talking to some people I know, I think there is a pattern that we can work and men we can pressure. Yes, I think we can find a way to beat these terrorists.”
“Why didn’t you tell somebody before?” Murdock asked.
“Hell, I was deep in debt, trying to make the boat pay. I heard about the bombs. One even injured a friend of mine and his boy, but I was too blown away with my own problems. Then I sold the boat, got my debts cleaned up, and then the police came asking about using my boat. They told me why. So then I got to thinking. Know what I mean?”
“I know. We didn’t find a thing out there today. How would they do it if it is a fishing boat?”
“Easy if you know the Mediterranean the way a fishing boat captain does. The tide takes about six hours to come in, more or less. You want the bombs on the beach by daylight or soon after that. You wait for the change of tides that start about midnight and scatter your bombs on that day about midnight. Nobody can see you at night, and there isn’t much going on with patrol boats, especially when they see a fishing boat either going out early or coming in late.”
“That would do it.”
“Also, it would account for the bombs showing up on random days. Check the bombs and the incoming morning tide. My bet is that they would match.”
Murdock and the two SEALs helped scrub down the deck and hose off the fish scales and residue. When they pulled into the dock near the other fishing boats, the boat looked like any of the dozen or more docked there.
“When and where do we go see this Army friend of yours?” the fishing captain asked.
“As soon as we get cleaned up, in non-fishing clothes, and I can make a phone call.”
“Sounds good to me. I want to catch these murdering terrorists.”
It was almost an hour later that Colonel Ben-Ami, wearing civilian clothes, Captain Sartan, and Murdock met in a small cafe. They had half sandwiches, coffee, and talked. After ten minutes, the colonel studied the fisherman.
“Captain, I believe you have given us a good lead here. How do we proceed? You mentioned two or three fishing boat captains who do not own their boats and are working for hire who are also deep in debt and might be open to some kind of blackmail and bribery.”
“Yes, two. There may be one other. I’ll go to him asking for work tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell. The first one you need to check out thoroughly is Captain Ahron of the Fishing Fool. He’s about thirty-five, works hard, isn’t the best fisherman in port, and lets his deckhands get away with being lazy and sloppy. He docks on the B wharf.”
Both Murdock and Colonel Ben-Ami wrote down the name and docking area.
“The next man is probably more likely. Captain Ahron is mostly just dumb. This next one is sneaky, and I wouldn’t trust him with my maiden aunt. He’s Gabi Zekharyah. Early fifties, bald as a bowling ball, thickset, and all muscle. Hard worker, but always trying for a big deal that falls through. He thought he had a contract to supply all the fresh fish to a big chain of hotels. He needed two boats to supply enough fish. He tried to do it with one, and couldn’t meet the orders and lost the job to a competitor.
“He sails the Gimbra II, and docks near where we came in on the main wharf. He is loud, arrogant, and has a flash-fire temper. He would be my top suspect.”
“Next we check the tide charts to see when the next high tide will hit the beaches between eight and ten A.M.,” Murdock said. He explained to the colonel Captain Sartan’s theory about how such a drop would take place.
Colonel Ben-Ami used a cell phone and talked to the Israeli Coast Watch. The man on duty said there would be a medium-high tide in two days that would hit the beaches off Tel Aviv peaking at six-thirty A.M.
“Gives us time to get ready,” Murdock said. “Captain Sartan, we need to rent your boat again, to watch Zekharyah if he goes out of the harbor around midnight.”
“I can do that, Commander. Would I be in line for the reward if he turns out to be the one and you convict him?”
Murdock looked at the colonel. “There has been a forty-thousand-shekel reward offered for catching the killers,” Ben-Ami said. “That’s about ten thousand U.S. dollars. It’s been offered by several civilian groups. I think you would be considered, if we nail the man and he is the right one.”
“Not a word of this to anyone,” Murdock told the fisherman. “I bet rumors and talk spread on the dock like the mumps.”
“It does. My rental today I passed off as a look at the boat by a new buyer. That’s why we’re meeting here well outside the fishing community, and why I asked the colonel to come in mufti.”
“Just so you understand,” Murdock said. “If Zekharyah is the guy, he could simply not drop any booby traps until we got tired of watching him, if he did know we were watching.”
“No worry there, mate. My son’s a policeman. He’s told me all about those things.”
They left, each going a different direction. Murdock caught a cab, and used some of the expense money the colonel had given to him and the rest of the SEALs. The shekels felt strange and looked even weirder, but they bought goods and services.
He left the cab at the entrance to the air base, showed his papers to the guard, and made it inside.
As soon as he walked into the SEALs quarters he could sen
se that something was wrong. Ed Dewitt and Senior Chief Sadler had their heads together over cups of coffee. They motioned him over, poured him a cup, and Sadler scowled.
“We’ve got trouble, Commander. An hour ago we had word that Jaybird is in the Tel Aviv city jail.”
27
“In jail?” Murdock exploded. “How in hell?”
“Skipper, the men worked with the colonel on some dishy little jobs this morning checking out suppliers to the boats. It was a total waste of time. When we got back at noon, he said the men could take the rest of the day off. If anybody wanted to go into town he’d give them passes, but they had to be back by 1800. We had some expense money that we parceled out, so the guys wouldn’t be flat broke. Turns out this is an expensive town.”
“And?” Murdock said, urging him on.
“Jaybird didn’t come back. Just an hour ago we found out he’s in jail on several charges.”
“Such as?”
“They didn’t tell us, Commander.”
Murdock used a phone in the dayroom and called the colonel’s office. He wasn’t there. An aide said he might be at the officers’ club. He was. Murdock called and told him the problem.
“Yes, the talkative one. It’s happened before with some of my men. Be at my office in ten minutes in your cleanest cammies. No time for a dress uniform even if you had one. One of my aides and two of our military police will go with you. We usually have good relations with the Tel Aviv police.”
Ten minutes later at the colonel’s office, Murdock met a Captain Bildad, who arrived in a military sedan with driver.
“Commander, sorry about this,” said the captain. “If it isn’t too serious, we should be able to straighten it out. I have authorization to bring your man to our brig under military police escort. If it comes to that, I have a fund we can use to pay a fine or bail.”
“I can’t let these guys out of my sight for five minutes,” Murdock began.
Captain Bildad chuckled. “Sir, they are SEALs. We know about the dangerous jobs you do, the risks that you take. It’s only natural to let off steam once in a while.”
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