The Carbon Cross (The Carbon Series Book 2)

by Randy Dutton

  “Wait, my phone’s vibrating....” He looked at the screen. “Great, Mac just emailed the chart with the fiord. Now let’s go.”

  They reached the cargo bay unobserved. Anna paused and pressed her hand against her ear. The crackling voice said, “Carlos, come in...Carlos, do you copy?”

  “They’re calling for Carlos, and he’s not responding,” she said.

  “They’ll probably assume he’s derelict in his duties, possibly seasick or taking a nap. Let’s quickly take care of these cylinders. We don’t need to skulk around the cargo bay now. If someone comes in, we’ll hear him first. And if they find Carlos, all hell will break lose.”

  They quickly set about cutting wires, dismantling valves, and resetting the heaters.

  Chapter 102

  June 13, 2300 hours (local time)

  The Spider

  Monaco

  The young security officer’s focus moved to each of ten monitors. He was going through his graveyard shift routine – checking camera images, monitoring underwater acoustic sensors around the yacht, and listening to radio chatter from roaming guards. One overhead OLED monitor might as well been an illuminated global map for its perpetual lack of change. He sipped his coffee – he still had five more hours until he could get some sack time.

  A rapid beeping broke the monotony to alert him of a status change. He looked up at the global map. His eyes narrowed.

  Why would a green dot appear in Southern Chile?

  Putting down the coffee, he checked the serial number associated with the dot.

  It’s one of the two unused coins the boss has a particular interest in.

  The young man watched it for a minute, considering whether to alert the Head of Security at this late hour. He shook off the worry and picked up his telephone.

  “Mr. Cooke, sorry for the late call, but you wanted to know immediately if any new coins appeared...one just popped up...and it’s on your watch list.... It’s in southern Chile.... Yes, Chile. Started at a hotel in Puerto Montt and went to a dock.... It’s been five minutes since it came online. It’s pinging every minute.... Yes, Sir, I’ll continue to monitor it.”

  Gabriel put the phone down. He was already dressed and downstairs in his home office. Twenty minutes earlier he had received a wakeup from his old CIA buddy giving him Anna’s and Sven’s location. Gabriel was skeptical, but had promised Duke the reward just in case.

  At the touch of a button, his computer screen came alive. Moments later the activated program showed the same coin-monitoring display as in the security office. He stared at the green dot, his thumb and forefinger cradling his jaw. “Anna, is that really you?” he asked hopefully.

  While researching the coin’s location, a second green dot appeared near the first, but with a different serial number. His heart rate increased with anticipation. “Well, isn’t this interesting?!” He chuckled when he realized he was talking out loud.

  Oh how I’ve missed talking with you, my young protégé. Are you sending someone a message? Me, maybe? Are you signaling the FBI for help? Or someone else? And why are you in a backwater port in Chile?

  Studying the port map, his eyes narrowed at the pier’s big storage tank and two industrial buildings. His chin now rested in his cupped hand.

  Is this where Sven’s been hiding? Why a ship...unless...

  His eyes widened.

  My god...is he planning something else?

  His thoughts reflected on the first telephone call.

  How did Duke know you and Sven were alive, and your location? Have you been with Sven this entire time? It seems unlikely. Or have you been hunting him?

  What source did Duke have that I didn’t? He always did play his hand close to the vest. Well, a deal’s a deal – it’s Swanson’s money anyway. My old CIA partner gets the bounty if they’re captured alive and I don’t have to bring in anyone else...only half for their recovered bodies.

  It’s odd.

  Gabriel’s brow furrowed.

  Duke promised the files against Swanson wouldn’t be released as long as you and Sven were the only targets. Who else would we target? Family? Co-conspirators? Are you protecting your Canada guy?

  He scowled.

  How could Duke have known about you unless he was in direct contact? Have you two been in league? That would make him equally dangerous.

  Gabriel leaned back and sipped a coffee, contemplating the turn of events. He grinned and thought how his plans were coalescing.

  This’ll improve Swanson’s sour mood...but I’ll only tell him after I wrap this up.

  He picked up the secure telephone. “Yoav, reactivate your surveillance. I think we’ve found Anna,” he said excitedly. “Yes, alive.... I want an immediate review of all recent Google Earth and browser searches of the Puerto Montt, Chile area, particularly centering on the docks.... Oh, and Yoav, we’re going on a trip.... Bring our new recruit.”

  “Yes, Sir,” came the excited response.

  Gabriel made another call and barked, “I want the jet fueled and a flight plan to Puerto Montt, Chile.... Yes, tonight! Full weapons and communications package. The passenger list will be for seven.”

  Chapter 103

  June 13, 1230 hours

  Green Dream

  Gulf of Ancud, Chile

  The pair of saboteurs leaned against the last tank.

  “Okay, now we need to buy time.” Anna tipped back and finished her water bottle. “Feel how much the ship’s been rolling the last half hour?”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “It means we’ve cleared Reloncaví Sound, which was smaller and had choppier waves. We’ve entered the Gulf of Ancud. It’s larger and more exposed to the westerly wind, so the ship will roll much more. They’ll also increase speed. We’ve got about three hours to take the ship. But first, we need to isolate the engine room. Follow me.”

  Anna led Pete to the steel engine room door. “Ready?”

  “Lead the way.”

  Anna put the optical contact microphone to the fire-door. She whispered, “They’re playing poker.”

  Pete gently pushed the door open, being careful not to hit metal on metal. Warm fumes of heavy bunker oil and stagnant bilge water flooded their senses. They stepped onto a metal landing looking down a long metal stairway. Down one level, and under slowly swinging florescent lights, two enginemen were cajoling each other over their cards.

  With the cover of the thrumming ship’s engine, Anna, ninja-like, stealthily descended the steel steps. At the bottom, she passed a wire-mesh tool locker containing a cutting torch, and pumping equipment that seemed freshly installed.

  She was within five meters of the enginemen before they realized her presence. Eyes wide with surprise, they sprung, arms outstretched for something, anything, to fend off the intruder. She dashed forward and hooked the back of one engineman’s knee with her foot, yanking his leg out from under him. He crashed onto his back.

  Pointing her silenced pistol between the other man’s eyes, she yelled in Spanish for both to lay face down on the steel deck.

  Pete closed and guarded the door, holding his UMP9 in the light to show the sweaty enginemen she wasn’t their only threat.

  These were just crewmen, not guards – they weren’t up for a fight, so acceded to her orders.

  She zip-tied their wrists and ankles then put more ties loosely around their necks and a vertical steel support. Anna pulled duct tape from her cargo pocket and slapped strips over their mouths, ears, and eyes. Sensory deprivation ensured their silence.

  She moved to the engineering control panel and started removing parts and cutting wires.

  Pete’s brow lifted. “What are you doing?”

  “Every ship has an aft engineering station that provides backup engine controls. I’m disabling the connection, making it harder for them to shut down the engines in case they do get in. I’m also cutting the fire-fighting pump power so their fire hoses can’t be used against us.”

  “Clever.” He
motioned to his left. “Over here.... These pumps are new. Wanna bet they feed the phyto tanks?”

  Anna clipped another control wire. “That would be my guess. Your turn to break something.”

  He flipped the breaker box, then pulled out his VersaTool and cut some wires and broke off some valve stems.

  “Now for the back door.” She grabbed a large monkey wrench and climbed a ladder to the engine room’s escape hatch. With some effort she removed the nut and disassembled the mechanism that held the hatch wheel in place. Without it, the locking pins couldn’t be turned from the outside – the hatch would remain impassable. She wadded up some epoxy and placed it to further ensure the pins wouldn’t move, and wedged the wrench between two pivot arms.

  After an hour, the duo exited the engine room. They were back into the cold salt-air, partly concealed by dark shadows cast by a lower sun. Sea spray whipped across the deck making it slippery.

  Pete pointed starboard. “I see lights.”

  “Just a small farming island called Buta Chauques. After we enter the

  Corcovado Gulf, there’ll fewer lights along our path.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it does. There’s a new military airbase on the Gulf that’ll be on our port.”

  “We could get help there—”

  “No! They could get help there if we allow a mayday to go out. We have to capture the ship around dusk and beyond the base to prevent interception.”

  “Roger that.”

  Anna plugged the steel fire door keylock with epoxy then tapped the pistol butt against the heavy door. “It would take a battering ram or cutting torch to get through this. And the torch is inside.”

  “Or explosives,” he added.

  “Yeah, or those.”

  The ship rolled suddenly, causing Pete to lean into her – his eyes just a hand’s width from hers.

  Bracing her body against the steel wall, she put another hand out to steady him. “It’ll be rough most of the next few hours. How’s your stomach, Marine?”

  He regained his balance. “I’ve had my time onboard ships. I don’t get queasy. Never tried the prosthetic at sea though...expect I’ll be zigzagging a little.”

  “Well, let’s hope the guards are landlubbers and are even more unsteady. Now, where do you suppose they stashed the weapons?”

  “Officers quarters, I’d guess...maybe the captain’s stateroom.”

  “Good as any.”

  His finger tapped her ear. “How goes their search?”

  Anna pressed her hand to the ear bud. “They’re still looking...not urgently, though.”

  He smiled deviously. “That’ll keep some of them off the bridge...well, onward and upward.”

  They quietly ascended a corner staircase to the third level where the officers’ staterooms and dining area were located. A young guard had braced himself against the bulkhead opposite a stateroom door. The growing sea swells were forcing the ship’s superstructure to pendulum in wider arcs – the higher the level, the worse the swinging. Each swell pushed his body to one side, then the next.

  Pete lowered his head so his hood shielded his eyes. With his left hand sliding along the corridor railing for balance and his right hand in his coat pocket, Pete casually approached the guard.

  The man was preoccupied with increasing seasickness and hardly noticed someone walking toward him. With glassy eyes, his head slowly turned toward the approaching figure. At three meters, the guard’s reflexes were too slow. In three quick steps, Pete swung his hidden pistol out of his pocket and conked the guard’s temple with the butt. The young man slumped onto the passageway.

  Anna took the machine pistol off the man’s shoulder and an ammo magazine from his pocket. Pete took his earbud and radio. Now both were connected and armed with automatic weapons.

  Pete wrapped the semiconscious guard in a bear hug from behind and hoisted him to his feet. Anna stayed immediately behind – her pistol raised to finish off any assault.

  Reaching past him, she turned the knob, while Pete used the guard’s body as a shield.

  As the door swung open, the late afternoon light from the glass porthole revealed a seated guard in the far corner loading the shortened-barrel version of the UMP9. The startled man was too far away for Pete to strike, so Anna expediently put a bullet into his forehead. The weapon’s ‘pop’ barely registered over the ship’s ambient noise. The guard slumped backward as Pete pushed into the room and dropped his human shield.

  Anna closed and locked the door behind them.

  Pete walked over to the man with the bleeding forehead and took his pulse. His voice revealed confusion. “The round didn’t even penetrate. He’s still alive.”

  “I didn’t intend on killing him unless it was necessary.” She released her ammo magazine in her grease-streaked left hand and held it flat in her palm – the magazine was blue. “Blue means it’s subsonic. It’s quiet but doesn’t hit as hard.”

  “A knockout round?”

  “Uh huh. It sent a shockwave through his skull that left him unconscious. I’ve got a red magazine in my pocket with hypervelocity silicone-coated SXT rounds, when noise isn’t an issue but bullet vests are.”

  His brow furrowed. “SXT?”

  She batted her lashes and smiled sweetly. “Mightn’t I remind you your lovely wife is an assassin?”

  “Was!” His smile broadened.

  “Last summer...did you by chance mistake me for a cheerleader?” She chuckled then reinserted the blue mag. “SXT means Supreme Expansion Tech. The silicone allows the round to penetrate ballistic clothing before it expands. Then the hollow-point spreads into six sharp, right-angle petals that shred flesh...very lethal.”

  After removing the unconscious guard’s radio, weapons, and ammo, they zip-tied him and duct-taped his mouth, ears, and eyes. She slapped a piece of tape over the man’s wound.

  Anna pulled a bottle of sleeping pills from her pocket, took out eight, and crushed them. She stuck half the powder into each of the two guards’ mouths. She poured a little water into the limp man’s mouth, then forced the seasick man to drink the remainder. They similarly zip-tied him, and stuck both men in a locker.

  “His seasickness probably saved his life.... Three guards, two crew down,” she added.

  Pete was distracted by the opened boxes. “Look at the weaponry! Why, I’ll bet it would have compared favorably with your villa’s arsenal!”

  She scanned the cache. “It’s short on finesse, long on mass effect.... Besides...I incinerated my stuff. Remember?”

  He sniffed the air. “Ah, the smell of gun oil and nitrates...almost as alluring as Chanel.”

  “And cheaper.”

  With a quick glance at her bemused reaction, he added, “Let’s see here.... Ten UMP9s with a case of ammunition, some in spare 30-round magazines. Can’t let them have these.”

  Anna picked up one of the dark gray machine pistols and collapsed the butt stock to make it shorter. With her right hand on the grip, she checked the chamber. “These are the same weapons Swanson’s security used. Light polymer construction, and...” She tossed it to her left hand, which grasped the grip. “...it’s ambidextrous.... I ever tell you I’m nearly as good a shot left-handed?”

  Pete chuckled. “My spousal pride runneth over. Grab me one of those with a strap. Now, let’s see...here’s a case of C4 with detonators, wire, and timers. Wanna bet they’d use this to rupture the cylinders as a last resort?”

  “Or scuttle the ship,” she added flatly, putting the pistol down.

  “We’ve got four Benelli M4 Super 90 12-gauge tactical shotguns and a dozen Beretta Px4 Storm 9mm pistols.” Pete picked up a shotgun by the pistol grip and peered through the ghost-ring sight.

  “Nice weapon. I used one in Iraq, but without the folding buttstock.” He checked the chamber, then collapsed the stock to reduce the length by 20 centimeters. He grabbed a handful of 3-inch shells and loaded it.

  Anna grinned. “Your birthday’s
coming up....” She was loading magazines with 9mm Parabellum rounds. “Want one?”

  “Thanks Babe, but my Mossberg 935 will do me just fine. Remind me to take you upland game hunting when we get home.”

  “You are an optimist!” She chuckled.

  “Of course.” He picked up a Berretta, checked the chamber, and slid his hand along the pistol’s side. “Nice smooth sides...no catching on fabric.” He inserted a magazine, checked the safety, and cycled the receiver. “Just in case!” He slipped the loaded pistol in his left pocket and put three 17-round magazines in his right pocket. “Want one?”

  She considered the extra bulk and shook her head, “No, I’ll stick with my smaller weapon and a machine pistol. I may still need the silencer, and my cargo pockets are already full.” She pulled a sheet off the bed, revealing more weapons.

  A couple two-meter long bolt-action rifles lay on the bunk. Pete’s eyes widened. “I’ve only seen pictures of this, and they’ve got two!” He slid his hand along the length.

  Her eyes furrowed. “I don’t recognize them. What are they?”

  Pete looked like Christmas had come early. “They’re Anzio Rifles with Vulcan 20mm shells and mounts! They’re anti-material sniper rifles.” He was in awe. “This baby’s got a 4,700 meter effective range!”

  “It’s longer than a BMG .50 cal,” she said dismissively. “Too much for me.”

  He picked one up and grunted. “God, it’s heavy...about 50 kilos. Can’t see lugging this around!”

  “What do you think? To take out helicopters?”

  “Or small boats.... It could even blow holes in the cylinders or through several steel bulkheads.”

  “Do we need them?” Anna asked.

  “Maybe one, but not both. We certainly won’t let them have them.” He pulled out the bolts. “They’re worthless without these.” He took his knife and slit the mattress along a hidden side. “I’ll stash a bolt here and some ammo...for the future.”

  He bounced a shell in his hand. “Wow...each is a quarter kilo.”

  “What about the other stuff?”