Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  “If there’s a fight, you won’t get the money,” McGarvey said.

  The whore understood the situation. “Cabimas,” she told McGarvey. “He said he was shipping out. He was going to Cabimas to get his ship. If he’s still in Venezuela he’ll be there, across the lake.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “No.”

  McGarvey got to his feet as the bouncer reached him. The girl snatched the money and got out of the way. A crowd was gathering inside the bar and outside on the street. Sailors loved a good fight. But once it started it would become nearly impossible to get away before the police arrived.

  He’d gotten an answer, although it wasn’t the one he’d expected. The girl had said Graham had come for a ship; he’d not mentioned anything about a crew. Either he’d been indiscreet or he had been covering his tracks.

  The girl said he’d been here two days ago. But if Cabimas had been his target, why had he spent his first two days on this side of the lake, in this kind of a neighborhood? And why had he bothered to get a whore mad at him?

  The bouncer planted himself a couple feet away from McGarvey, a fierce grin on his broad face. He knocked the baseball bat into the palm of his left hand with a flat slap. He was at least six-five and three hundred pounds, most of which was not fat.

  McGarvey spread his hands and stepped away from the table. “No trouble,” he said. He wasn’t going to pull his pistol for fear someone innocent would get hurt, but he wanted to get back to the hotel, find Gallegos, and get over to Cabimas as soon as possible.

  The bouncer poked the bat into McGarvey’s chest. “I don’t like gringos,” he said in good English. “Loud-mouthed bastards who come here with their money to buy the little Maracuchos.”

  He poked the bat in McGarvey’s chest again.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” McGarvey tried one last time.

  “¡Bastardo!” he said. “You’re leaving feet first.”

  The bouncer cocked the bat as if he were preparing to hit a home run. McGarvey stepped inside the man’s swing, and hit his Adam’s apple with a short, very sharp chop.

  The bouncer reeled backwards, suddenly off-balance, unable to catch his breath through his badly bruised trachea. The horse-faced waitress came to his side as he dropped the bat and slumped to one knee.

  A hush had come over the crowd, and they parted to make a path for McGarvey as he left the bar. “Bad attitude,” he said to one of the sailors outside. “I don’t think he liked me.”

  TEN

  APURTO DEVLÁN, WESTERN CARIBBEAN

  It was midnight local when Graham held up at the door to the bridge. He’d managed to get a couple hours of rest in his cabin after dinner with his officers, but he’d not been able to sleep because of the recurrent nightmare about his wife, and he was very tired now. He would see her somewhere, usually downtown London in the workday crowds. He called her name, but she never heard him. When he tried to run to her, his legs were encased in mud.

  Helplessly he watched her step out into the street into the path of a police car, its lights flashing, weaving in and out of traffic, and she was struck and killed instantly.

  It was his fault that he wasn’t able to get to her in time. And now it was even worse because he could not see her face in his mind’s eye. Instead, he saw her likeness everywhere; the attendant on the Aeromexico flight to Maracaibo four days ago, the whore two days ago, and, aboard ship, the meddlesome Russian steward.

  He saw Jillian in all of them, and the fact that they were alive and his wife was dead filled him with a nearly uncontrollable rage. He wanted to lash out. Destroy them. Beat them into the ground. Mutilate them so that they would no longer resemble her.

  For a second or two longer, he stood at the door, swaying on the balls of his feet, a thin bead of sweat on his upper lip. This afternoon on the bridge and again earlier this evening in the officers’ wardroom his first officer, Jaime Vasquez, had given him odd looks, as if the man was searching for something, as if he were suspicious.

  It was the Russian steward who’d probably said something to Vasquez’s girlfriend, who in turn had gone to her lover. Nattering bitches just like some other women he’d known; unable to keep their noses out of people’s business. In that, at least, Islam had it right; women needed to be kept silent behind their veils.

  Graham took the pistol out of his pocket, checked to make certain that the silencer was tight, and slowly racked the slide back.

  If Vasquez had become suspicious, as he had every right to be, he should have done something about it, Graham thought. At the very least call the company in Dubai to confirm Slavin’s background and description. Why couldn’t a Russian from St. Petersburg speak proper Russian? Had the tables been reversed it’s what he would have done.

  He held the gun out of sight behind his back, squared his shoulders, and entered the bridge, closing the door behind him.

  Third Officer Novak stood leaning against the chart table by the back bulkhead, several navigational charts, manuals, and plotting tools laid out. He was young and ambitious enough to study for his second officer’s test at every available opportunity. He’d confided that he had a fiancée in Detroit whom he would marry as soon as he made first officer. “An admirable plan,” Graham had told him.

  Only one AB was on the bridge, at the starboard radar display.

  Novak looked up, mild surprise on his face. “Captain.”

  “Where is your other crewman?” Graham demanded.

  “I sent him below for some coffee,” Novak said. “He should be back any minute.”

  The AB, a young Pole, looked up. “Sir, I’m painting a small vessel about eight miles off our starboard bow. She’s coming right at us. Very slowly.”

  “Damn fool,” Novak said, starting for the radar display.

  Graham brought the pistol from behind his back and fired one shot, hitting Novak in the back of the skull, driving him forward facedown on the deck. The front of his head exploded, spewing blood and brain tissue across the instrument panels and the side of the AB’s face.

  Graham switched aim and fired a second shot, hitting the AB high in the chest, staggering him backwards against the radar display. He was still alive. He raised his hand, as if to ward off another blow, his eyes wide, unable to believe what was happening. Graham steadied his aim and fired a third shot, this one hitting the AB in the forehead, killing him instantly. His body slumped to the deck.

  Keeping an eye on the door for the second AB, who would soon be returning with coffee for his dead shipmates, Graham went to the VHF radio, switched to channel 67, and took down the mike.

  “Ready one,” he said. “Ready one.”

  “Ready two. Ready two.” The reply came immediately.

  The door opened and the AB who’d gone for coffee came in, carrying a tray laden with two thermos pitchers and a plate of sandwiches from the galley. He spotted the mess in front of the starboard radar display, and pulled up short.

  Graham calmly replaced the mike on its hook and raised the pistol as he turned toward the young crewman.

  The AB dropped the tray and frantically scrambled back through the door as Graham fired one shot, hitting the crewman high in the left shoulder, and staggering him to his knees.

  Graham calmly walked to the door. The AB, his blue eyes wide, his mouth open in shock, blood splattered on his long blond hair, held out a hand in supplication.

  No one had heard the tray clattering to the deck, nor had the crewman cried out for help.

  Graham fired one shot at point-blank range into the boy’s forehead, flinging him backwards onto the deck. Careful not to step in the gore, he dragged the body back onto the bridge so that it would be out of the way when the mission crew came aboard. The little messes throughout the ship would have to be cleaned up, of course, and the bodies either dumped in the bilges, or stuffed in the frozen food lockers. But all that would be accomplished long before the sun rose this morning.

  The rendezvous was set fo
r two hours from now but Graham needed most of that time to get the ship slowed down so that everyone could safely get aboard. First he needed to finish the job of eliminating the crew.

  He had already fired five times, which left thirteen rounds still in the pistol, plus a full magazine of eighteen. More than sufficient.

  Graham shifted his attention to the ship’s multifunction display. They were on the proper course at the proper rate of speed, there were no incoming messages from the company waiting for a response, and the AB at the helm hadn’t had time to push the Automatic Distress Signal button.

  Everything was as it should be.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, but he could not bring Jillian’s face to his mind’s eye. This time his rage was replaced with a sense of calm; he supposed that he was going crazy finally, but it was of no import. He was willing to take refuge in his insanity, just as bin Laden had done. It was plain by the expression in the man’s eyes, and Graham was sure that he too had the same intense, yet disconnected look.

  Graham glanced at his watch. He was running a couple of minutes late, but he wasn’t seriously behind schedule. He took one last look at the multifunction display above the helm then went out into the corridor to the starboard stairway. He would begin with the engine room, just as he’d planned.

  He started down, but something out of the corner of his eye made him stop and look back. For a second he didn’t know what had attracted his attention. But then he understood. A light shone from beneath his cabin door behind the bridge. But when he’d left a half hour ago he’d turned out his lights. He was sure of it.

  His first thought was that the Russian steward had come to search his room. But she wouldn’t have the courage to do something like that on her own. She’d probably convinced Vasquez and his girlfriend to help her.

  It was just as well, Graham thought as he walked back to his cabin door, his sneakers whisper-soft on the steel deck. If all three were there he’d kill them first, no matter what they had found.

  Concealing the pistol behind his back as he’d done earlier, he opened his door and took one step inside. The situation was worse than he’d feared.

  Vasquez, a 9mm Beretta pistol from the ship’s emergency locker in hand, was positioned at the doorway to the bedroom, obviously standing guard. He looked up, startled. “He’s here,” he said, and he brought his pistol to bear before Graham could do a thing.

  Beyond him, Irina and Alicia had found his two leather bags, opened them, and spread everything out on the bed: Slavin’s clothing, as well as the Heckler & Koch M8 compact carbine with four magazines of ammunition, six one-kilo bricks of Semtex with a small metal box of detonators, leather gloves, a wire garrote, a stiletto and sheath, and an encrypted satellite phone/walkie-talkie.

  “Good evening, Mr.Vasquez,” Graham said, weighing his options, measuring the angles. Vasquez was a seaman, not a cop or a trained killer. He would be slow to fire at a man he assumed was unarmed.

  “What’s all this shit, Captain Slavin, if that’s really your name?” Vasquez demanded. He was nervous. It was obvious that he’d never held a gun on a man before.

  “My personal property for starts,” Graham answered mildly. “What made you think that you could break into my quarters and rifle through my things?”

  Irina came to the bedroom door, and said something to him in rapid-fire Russian.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said pleasantly. He nodded toward the weapons laid out on the bed. “It’s obvious that I’m an imposter. Thing is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Call the company for one, to find out where the real Captain Slavin is,” Vasquez said.

  “I killed him,” Graham said conversationally. “In Cabimas.”

  Vasquez was visibly shaken. “In that case we’re going to arrest you and hold you for the authorities when we reach Colón in the morning.”

  Graham shrugged, and held up his left hand as if he were giving up. “I guess I can’t argue with a man who’s holding a gun on me,” he said.

  Vasquez started to say something when Graham stepped backwards into the corridor and slid away from the open door.

  “Shit!” Vasquez shouted. A second later he appeared in the doorway, a frightened look on his face. Too late he saw Graham standing right there and he tried to rear back.

  Graham fired one shot into the first officer’s left temple. The man’s eyes suddenly turned blood-red, his head bounced against the door frame, and he crumpled to the deck half in and half out of the captain’s cabin.

  The women started to scream.

  Graham hurriedly stepped over the first officer’s body, dragged it the rest of the way into the sitting room, kicked his gun aside, and closed the door lest someone hear the racket and come to investigate.

  Alicia had come into the sitting room. Her hands were clutched to her breast, and she was wailing Vasquez’s name. But Irina had grabbed the M8 carbine from the bed, and was fumbling with a magazine of ammunition, trying to load the weapon.

  “You should have minded your own business,” Graham told Alicia, and he shot her in the face, the bullet striking her at the bridge of her nose, killing her instantly.

  Irina was frantically trying to get the magazine into its slot in front of the trigger guard, but in her haste she was forcing it in at the wrong angle.

  Graham walked across the sitting room, careful not to step in Alicia’s blood.

  Irina looked up at him, her face screwed up in a mask of absolute terror.

  “You’ll never get it loaded that way, my dear,” Graham said. He smiled.

  “You’re the devil!” she cried.

  “Da,” he said in Russian, and he shot her in the forehead from a range of ten feet.

  Her body bounced off the bulkhead and crumpled to the deck, leaving a bloody streak on the white wall beside the large square window. But no blood got on the bedcovers, which for some reason Graham found pleasing. He’d always liked to think of himself as a tidy man, and the sooner he could get his operators aboard the sooner the ship could be cleaned up.

  Graham let himself out of his quarters, and headed down one deck. He had changed his plans. Now that the first and third officers were dead, it left only Sozansky and Chief Engineer Kiosawa alive, probably in their quarters. He meant to kill them first before sweeping through the galley and the crew quarters.

  At the end he would descend to the engine room, kill the crew, and slow the big computer-controlled turbines to idle.

  Nothing would get in his way. In less than ten minutes he would be the only one alive on the Apurto Devlán.

  A few minutes after two, the oil tanker was making less than one knot through nearly flat seas, under an overcast, pitch-black sky. Graham stood on the main deck amidships on the starboard side. The forty-eight-foot Feadship motor yacht Nueva Cruz out of Santiago de Cuba, showing no lights, was directly below, its pilot matching speeds perfectly.

  Ali Ramati came out on the yacht’s aft sundeck, and waved. He was a slightly built man who’d shaved his beard and his head to make him look very much like Vasquez. He was from the West Bank town of Ramallah, and he was a little crazy, but he was dedicated and bright. He had trained as Graham’s first officer for this mission, and, like the others, he was prepared to commit suicide for the cause without hesitation.

  The rest of the crew, fifteen of them men, most from the Philippines, plus the two women from Cairo, would remain out of sight until the boarding ladder was safely secured to the tanker, and they were given the all clear.

  Everything at this point was being done by hand signals. Although they’d detected no other ships out to fifty miles, well beyond the range of a walkie-talkie, Graham wanted to take no chances.

  He waved back.

  Ramati opened a large locker, took out a coiled, one-quarter-inch messenger line, and tossed it up to Graham, who caught it as it came over the rail.

  The line was attached to a boarding ladder, which came up out of the locker as Graham h
auled it in hand-over-hand. In five minutes he had the ladder attached to a pair of big deck cleats, and Ramati begin sending up the crew.

  As soon as they were all aboard, the Nueva Cruz would immediately head toward Costa Rica a little more than four hundred miles to the southwest, where the four supposedly wealthy French-Muslim businessmen who had chartered the yacht would fish for blue marlin. They would be directly off the Panama Canal tomorrow evening.

  First aboard was Mohammed Hijazi, one of their Syrian-trained explosives experts. He had dark eyes, a serious five o’clock shadow, thick shoulders and arms, but the delicate fingers of a piano player. As he came over the rail he smiled.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan,” he said formally. Hello. He was from Nablus, but for the past half-dozen years he’d operated out of the Damascus al-Quaida organization. He had fought in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, with a lot of bridges, police stations, schools, and hospitals to his credit.

  “As soon as everyone is aboard, get them started in the engine room, but watch out for the blood, I don’t want it tracked through the ship,” Graham told him.

  Hijazi glanced up at the aft superstructure. “They’re all dead?”

  “Yes,” Graham said impatiently. He didn’t have time for twenty questions. “I want to be back to cruising speed within the hour, and I want this ship cleaned up before sunrise.” There was a possibility, however remote, that one of the satellites GAC regularly bought time on to watch out for its interests, had taken notice that the Apurto Devlán had stopped in the mid-Caribbean for some reason and the company would call to find out why.

  A second crewman came over the rail, with three behind him on the ladder.

  “As soon as Ali is aboard send him up to me on the bridge.”

  “Aywa,” Hijazi said. Yes.

  “English,” Graham barked and headed aft.

  He had a plausible story about a propeller shaft vibration, but someone had to be on the bridge in case a call from Dubai came.