Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  He’d graduated number three in his class, and since then his promotions had been very rapid. His superiors said that he was an officer with good instincts.

  “If you’re going to act like our new captain and prowl around in the middle of the night when you get your own ship, you’re going to give your crew the crazies.”

  “He was up here?” Vasquez asked.

  “Twice.”

  “What did he want?”

  “The same thing as you,” Sozansky said. “Do me a favor, Jaime, go back to bed, let the computer run the ship, and let me do the babysitting.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Sozansky laughed. “Not a word. Not one bloody word.”

  Something about the captain wasn’t adding up in Vasquez’s mind, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure what it might be. He’d worked under a lot of sour, even angry masters before; men who were mad at the world. And they had the same smell about them, the same look. But with Slavin it was somehow different. Maybe because he was a Russian.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “Oh, the last time he was here he took the watch schedule with him,” Sozansky said. “I thought you might want to know.”

  “I gave him a copy this afternoon.”

  Sozansky shrugged. “Maybe he’s going to change it. Captain’s prerogative.”

  “Yeah,” Vasquez said. He left the bridge and went down one deck to officers’ territory. Just at his cabin door, he hesitated for a moment. If their new captain was prowling the ship, maybe he was looking for something; maybe the man’s instincts were telling him that something was wrong.

  No one was out and about at this hour of the morning. The bridge was manned and the engine room would have someone on duty to watch over the machinery, and he supposed the cook and his assistant might be stirring by now, prepping for breakfast. But most of the crew and officers were in bed, asleep, as he should be.

  He let himself into his cabin, careful to make as little noise as possible, so as not to wake up his girlfriend, Alicia Mora. She was one of the stewards, and she’d have to get up in a couple of hours to help set up the officers’ wardroom for breakfast.

  None of them had gotten much sleep in the past few days, trying to make the ship as presentable as possible for their new master. Last night when she’d come to him, she’d been tired and a little cranky. After they’d had a couple of glasses of wine and made love, she’d fallen asleep and had not awoken when Vasquez got out of bed, got dressed, and went up to the bridge.

  “Jaime,” she called softly.

  “Go back to sleep,” Vasquez said. He got undressed, hanging his clothes over his desk chair.

  “What time is it?” Alicia asked sleepily. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he told her. “Now, go back to sleep, you’ve got a couple hours.”

  The bedside light came on. Alicia was sitting up in bed, her short dark hair standing on end in spikes. The covers had fallen away exposing her tiny, milk-white breasts. “British girls don’t get tans,” she’d explained to him. “We just burn and peel.”

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. “I can see it on your face.”

  He kissed her, and got into bed beside her, propping up his pillow so that he could lie back against the bulkhead. She came into his arms, and he held her against his chest. When they were first getting to know each other, they had sat up in bed talking like this sometimes the entire night. He was taking her with him aboard his new ship, and after their first cruise he was going to ask her to marry him. They were lovers, but even more important they were friends. She had become his sounding board.

  “It’s our new captain,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t trust him,” Vasquez said. “I don’t know what it is, but something’s not quite right with the man.” He looked down into Alicia’s large brown eyes. “He’s been turning up all over the place at all hours of the day. Like he’s looking for something.”

  “It’s a new ship for him,” Alicia suggested. “Maybe he’s trying to get the feel for her, and for his crew.”

  “The son of a bitch is waiting for us to fuck up,” Vasquez told her, all of a sudden understanding what had been bothering him. “He’s waiting for me to fuck up so he can take away my new command even before I get it. He had me take the ship out. He said he wanted to see how I did.” Vasquez shook his head. “He wanted me to fuck up.”

  “So don’t screw up,” Alicia said. “You’re a good officer, otherwise the company wouldn’t have promoted you.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Something cold stabbed at Vasquez’s heart. “Has he tried to hit on you?” he demanded.

  Alicia shook her head. “I almost wish he had,” she said. “When he looks at me, there’s nothing in his eyes. It’s like he was dead. Nobody’s home.” She laughed a little at herself. “Gives me the creeps.”

  Graham held up in the starboard stairwell at the officers’ deck. Vasquez had returned to his quarters from the bridge five minutes ago, and it was likely that he was settling in for the rest of the night. It was also likely that the steward who’d come to his cabin around ten would be staying.

  He listened to the sounds of his ship; the oddly pitched engine vibrations of the gas turbines, the air coming from the ventilators, perhaps a radio or stereo playing what sounded like American country and western, but from a long ways off, below, perhaps in the crew’s galley. The cook’s assistant was from Chicago, or someplace like that, and he’d been playing hillbilly music when Graham had passed the galley after dinner last night. He’d be up now, prepping for breakfast.

  Timing would be everything. If his actions were to be discovered too soon, and an alarm raised, his mission could disintegrate.

  Around midnight, less than twelve hours from now, conditions throughout the ship would be essentially the same as they were this morning. It would be the third officer and two ABs on the bridge. He would kill them first, and then send his message.

  When he’d received confirmation that the rendezvous was set, he would immediately go to the engine room where he would kill the two or three men on duty.

  If he could clear those two spaces without detection, he would return to the officers’ deck where he would kill the chief engineer, and the two remaining deck officers—Vasquez and Sozansky—and the first officer’s woman if she were with him.

  He would reload then, and descend one deck to the crews’ quarters where he would work his way down the main alleyway, starboard to port, opening doors and killing everyone in their beds.

  He had made up a new crew schedule, so that he would know where every single soul aboard would be located. But it was important that he maintain a running tally of the body count. He did not want to miss anyone who could reach the bridge and radio a Mayday.

  It came down to timing and accuracy.

  He was wearing a dark blue windbreaker with his name and the name of the ship stenciled on the left breast. In his left pocket was a stopwatch, and in his right a spare flashlight battery, which represented the eighteen-round spare magazine he would carry.

  Stuffed in his belt beneath his jacket was a long, three-battery flashlight, which represented the 9mm Steyr GB pistol and silencer he would be using.

  Graham turned and went back up to the bridge deck, his non-skid, rubber-soled sneakers whisper silent. He moved like a ghost, an avenging angel, but he felt no emotion other than a sharp desire to do the job right so that he could survive to strike the next blow. And the next.

  Sozansky looked up in surprise as Graham came through the hatch. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  Graham managed a tight smile. “First night out aboard a new ship.”

  Sozansky nodded. “I understand,” he said. He glanced at the integrated display, which showed the ship’s course and speed. “We just finished our first turn to northwest
, round Point Gallinas.”

  “Right on schedule, are we?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Graham went over to the port-wing lookout, put his hand in his left pocket, and started the stopwatch. He turned back to Sozansky and hesitated a moment to simulate pulling the pistol from his belt.

  Bang. The officer was down. The two ABs would be startled. They would start to turn. Bang, one of them would go down. Bang, the second would fall.

  “Sir, is everything okay?” Sozansky asked.

  “Just fine,” Graham said. He would move to the short-range VHF radio, careful not to step in any of the blood that would be pooling on the deck, and send the message.

  “Yes, sir,” Sozansky said uncertainly.

  The second officer was confused and a little irritated; it showed on his face. But by midnight the only look on his face would be one of death.

  He would wait for the reply, which should come immediately.

  “I’ll get out of your hair now,” Graham said, and he left the bridge.

  The short alleyway to his cabin was empty, as was the starboard stairwell, which he took all the way down to the gallery one level up from the main deck, which housed the turbines and control panel in its separate space behind a plate-glass window. The noise was deafening.

  Two men, including First Engineering Officer Peter Weizenegger, were seated in the control room, their backs to the main floor. One engineering AB, next to a tool cart pulled up to an electrical distribution panel directly below where Graham stood, was taking a measurement with a multimeter. He wore sound-suppression earmuffs.

  Graham moved along the gallery catwalk to the center ladder, which he took down to the main deck between the two turbines. From here he could not be seen by anyone in the control room.

  He stepped around the end of the turbine where it angled down through the deck. He was a couple of meters behind the AB.

  Bang. The AB would fall. He was number four out of nineteen.

  Keeping a neutral expression on his face, he walked across to the control room, and went inside.

  Weizenegger and the AB looked up, startled. “Captain,” the engineering officer said.

  “Is there something wrong with our electrical system?” Graham asked. Bang, the officer was dead. Number five.

  Weizenegger glanced toward the AB on the main deck. “No, sir. Chiang is doing a scheduled P.M. routine.”

  “Very well,” Graham said. He looked at the AB. Bang, the man fell. Number six. “Carry on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Weizenegger said.

  Graham headed topside toward the officers’ quarters, but he heard the music again coming from the galley. At midnight the cook might not be in the galley, but it was likely that his assistant and perhaps some of the crew coming off duty might be in the mess.

  This morning it was Rassmussen, the cook, mixing pancake batter and frying bacon. He looked up when Graham appeared at the doorway. “Ah, Captain, can’t sleep? Son of a bitch I know how it is. Coffee?”

  “No, I’m on my way to bed,” Graham said. Bang, the cook or whoever was in the galley would be down. Number seven. “Everything okay down here?”

  The cook nodded effusively. “In my son of a bitch kitchen, it’s always okay.”

  “Very well,” Graham said. He went back into the mess.

  Four steel tables with six stainless steel stools were bolted to the deck. No one was here at this hour, but he had to count on at least some crewmen eating a midnight meal. Say three of them? Bang, the crewman at the coffee urn fell. Number eight. The two at their table were rising in alarm. Bang, number nine. Bang, number ten of nineteen.

  Graham hurried up to the officers’ deck where he stopped at the chief engineer’s door. Bang, number eleven. He moved to Vasquez’s cabin where he and his girlfriend would be in each other’s arms. Twelve and thirteen.

  Down one deck, he stopped at the doors of the remaining six crew members. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

  The Apurto Devlán had become a ghost ship.

  Graham headed topside to his quarters. He took the stopwatch from his pocket and clicked the Stop button. Nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds had elapsed, and the ship was his.

  SEVEN

  MARINA JACK, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

  Kirk Cullough McGarvey raised the air horn and blew one long and one short, the signal requesting the tender to stop traffic and open the New Pass Bridge. It was a few minutes after noon, the spring Saturday beautiful. Although traffic was heavy the bridge tender immediately sent back the long and short, that the bridge would be opened as requested.

  A part of him was reluctant to return to the real world after fourteen days of vacation, while another part of him was resigned. Something was out there. Someone was coming for him.

  Four days ago at the Faro Blanco Marina in the Keys, the dockmaster had come out to where the Island Packet 31 sloop, which McGarvey and his wife Katy had chartered, was tied up. He said that he’d forgotten to get the Florida registration number on the bow. But that was a lie.

  McGarvey had followed him back to the office, and watched from a window as the man tossed the slip of paper on which he’d jotted down the registration number into a trash can, then made a telephone call. It was a pre-coms; someone was sniffing along his trail.

  Yesterday, anchored just outside the Intracoastal Waterway channel near Cabbage Key, they’d been overflown twice around dusk by a civilian helicopter. He was certain that the passenger had looked them over through a pair of binoculars.

  He’d said nothing to Katy about his suspicions, but that evening while she was having a drink in the cockpit, he’d gone below for his 9mm Walther PPK that had been safely tucked away since the start of the cruise. He checked the action, and loaded a magazine of ammunition into the handle, racking a round into the firing chamber.

  When he turned around, Katy had been looking at him from the cockpit hatch. “Gremlins?” she’d asked.

  “I’m not sure,” McGarvey said. “But somebody seems to be interested in us.”

  Katy shook her head, disappointment on her pretty face. “I thought it was over.”

  “Me too.”

  McGarvey was a tall man, fiftyish, with a sturdy build and a good wind because of a daily regimen of exercise that he had not abandoned last year after he’d resigned his position as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Although there was no longer anyone to oversee his workouts, he went out to the Company’s training facility near Williamsburg as often as he could to run the confidence course and spend an hour or two on the firing range. Just to keep his hand in, and to see how his daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Todd, were doing. They were instructors.

  He had quit the CIA after twenty-five years of service—first as a field officer, and then for a number of years as a freelancer, working black operations, before he came back to Langley to run the Directorate of Operations, and finally the entire Agency—because he was tired of the stress.

  Good times, some of them. Good people. Friends. But more bad times than he cared to remember, although he could not forget the people he’d killed in the line of duty. All of them necessary, or at least he had to tell himself that. But all of them human beings, whatever their crimes. Their deaths were on his conscience, especially in the middle of the night when he often awoke in a cold sweat.

  Because of his profession his family had been put in harm’s way more than once. It was another reason he’d quit.

  Kathleen came up on deck, shading her blue eyes against the bright sun. “Are we there yet?” she asked, a slight Virginia softness to her voice. She was a slender woman, a few inches shorter than her husband, with short blond hair and a pretty oval face with a small nose and full lips.

  “We will be if they open the bridge for us,” McGarvey told her. There were several other sloops, their sails also furled, and a couple of powerboats whose antennae or outriggers were too tall to pass beneath the bridge when it was closed.

&
nbsp; “Then what?” Kathleen asked.

  “I’ll give Otto a call and see if he’s heard anything.”

  Traffic up on the bridge was coming to a halt as the road barriers were lowered.

  “I meant afterwards,” Kathleen pressed. She was serious. “You’re taking the teaching job at New College. We’re selling the house in Chevy Chase and moving down here. Permanently. Right?”

  The roadway parted in the middle and the two leaves began to rise.

  McGarvey pointed the bow of the Island Packet to the middle of the channel and gave the diesel a little throttle. The tide was running with them through the narrow pass into Sarasota Bay, giving them an extra three or four knots.

  “Right?” Kathleen repeated.

  McGarvey glanced at her and smiled. “That’s the plan, sweetheart.”

  She shook her head and smiled ruefully. “God, you’re handsome when you lie,” she said. She came aft to the wheel, gave her husband a kiss on the cheek, then started pulling the dock lines and fenders from a locker.

  She was wearing a bikini with a deep blue and yellow sarong tied around her middle; her feet were bare. McGarvey was dressed only in swim trunks, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. Except for the couple of nights they’d dressed for dinner ashore, they’d worn nothing else for most of the fourteen days since they’d slipped their lines at Marina Jack and headed out to the Gulf of Mexico.

  They’d gunk-holed down Florida’s west coast, slowly heading for Key West; anchoring early in small coves, drinks in the cockpit at dusk, power up the barbecue grill for dinner. Awake with the dawn, the water flat calm for a swim before breakfast, then pull up the anchor, and sail farther south. Sometimes they’d stop especially early so they could snorkel along the reefs just offshore, or walk the beaches, or fish, or just lie in the cockpit in the shade of the bimini to read a book.

  For two weeks they never turned on the radio, saw a television set, or read a newspaper or newsmagazine. And the trip had done wonders for both of them, after the hell they’d gone through because of McGarvey’s last assignment in which he’d resigned from the CIA in order to track down an al-Quaida killer. Kathleen, who’d been pregnant as a surrogate mother for their daughter Elizabeth, had very nearly lost her life in the ordeal. But Mac had saved her and the baby, who’d been born six months ago.