The Black Freighter

by Fred G Baker

  Wilson’s phone beeped. It was Pendergast. “I thought you’d want to know that the Shanghai Maiden is back at anchor again, near where it’s been all along.”

  Wilson’s head began hurting again. “How’s that?”

  “They offloaded some containers, then drove back and anchored. I don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “What the hell is with those guys? Don’t they have any other business?”

  “Beats me,” Pendergast said. “Got other news you’re goin’ to like too. You ready?”

  “Yeah, hit me.”

  “The Varoushka is nowhere to be seen. Seems like the Ruskies shipped out last night sometime.”

  “Oh, man. You’re a source of merriment for me at all times.” Wilson contained his need to vent. He looked out the window, and sure enough, he could just make out the mooring lights of the black freighter—his nemesis.

  “OK. I’ll need to think about all this. Thanks.” He hung up.

  “What was that all about?” asked Madeline.

  “I’m not feeling so good. Call me if there’s anything important—otherwise, I’ll be sleeping.” He didn’t wait for a response. He walked out of the bar, his head spinning with too much news.

  Chapter 18

  Wednesday

  Wednesday was dominated by the tail end of two storms. Tropical Storm Betty was finally ready to stop tormenting the island of Grenada. The winds lessened, the storm surge began falling, the rain slackened to scattered showers, and the lightning ceased driving thunder through the skies. The sun made a dramatic appearance late in the day, providing a rainbow as consolation for Betty’s rude visitation.

  The second storm was one made by men—who chose to overturn years of peaceful existence on the land and pervert it for their own gain. That storm had raged through the night in battle after battle, the protectors of the peace fighting the well-armed foreign menace. It had been a struggle, but the tide had turned in favor of the islanders.

  Fighting had continued all night at several locations—the most contentious of these battles being at the downtown government office building, where foreigners had invaded the structure. It took a great effort before the police could dislodge the intruders, who had figuratively dug in to defensive positions. The police fought bravely, but made slow progress.

  Several battles had gone well. Some, not so well for the police. They liberated the radio and TV station from the foreigners, but had many casualties and lost a few hostages in the process. Fortunately, the intruders had knocked out the station’s broadcast capability when they overran the station, denying themselves the fruits of their labor. By sunrise, the invaders still had two hostages who were their only remaining means of survival.

  Of the seven locations that the foreigners had targeted, only the hospital, the central bank, and the airport remained in their control. Eight foreigners were trapped at the hospital, and they had made demands for safe passage to the airport to rejoin their desperate brothers there. They had already harmed several patients in an attempt to prove their resolve. Negotiations continued.

  The second-largest and most successful attack had been on the airport, where fully half of the Cuban forces had been deployed to obtain an aviation beachhead of sorts, so that additional troops could be brought in for their support. Fighting there had been intense—partly because the better-trained Cuban army was led by their overall commander, Major Cortez. After skirmishes around the airport facility, twenty-two Cubans and thirty-six Grenadian police officers had perished, along with several airport employees and tourists. The number of active Cuban fighters had fallen to thirty-five, with some of those suffering serious injuries. Hostages were also part of the situation there. No negotiations were seriously under way, as the battle was still intense.

  No attempt had been made to secure the harbor or any number of other transportation facilities. No one knew why the foreigners—the Cubans, Venezuelans, and Chinese—had failed in these efforts. Perhaps there had been a shortage of troops for those objectives. In any case, the harbor was not very active. Reports were that only one terminal was busy loading containers onto a single ship with great deliberation. The cranes and ship were manned entirely by Chinese staff.

  After the storm, life at the Hempstead on Grand Anse Beach began with the staff busily providing services, and the guests clamoring for breakfast in spite of the difficulties of the current conditions. Tim Martin was sipping his morning coffee when he learned that the election interference story he and Wilson had penned was posted in the online version of the Miami Observer. His story broke on the Caribbean world with great consternation that any country would interfere with the elections of another sovereign nation. He was getting calls from his editor to write more copy, and to feed the sudden need for details of the ongoing revolution. Martin was one of the few journalists lucky enough to be right in the thick of things—an enviable spot for any writer.

  The volcano had sent mild earthquake tremors throughout the island. No one knew what that meant. There was no news to keep people informed because the radio and TV stations were all off the air. The people at the bar speculated about possible eruptions and tidal waves. One man said he saw strange waves that might presage a tidal surge. That scared the hell out of everyone, into at least ordering more drinks and thinking about which direction to run if a huge wave suddenly appeared in front of the resort.

  Tim Martin and Wilson were two of the few journalists on the island who could cover the volcano story—unless something dramatic happened, like a huge eruption and a massive wave sweeping over the island. Then, they might not be around to write any story. Martin settled in to drink rum punch and looked terrified with each new tremor. “I’ll die in a temblor,” he mumbled sadly. “Story of the century, and I’ll just wash out to sea.”

  Robert Wilson awoke in his room later that morning with a headache, a mild hangover, and a sense of dread. His sleep had been plagued by horrendous dreams of a young woman being tortured to death, and then unceremoniously crammed into a suitcase. The dream had come back throughout the night, never letting him forget his guilt in its origination. Even as he showered and tried to shake off the vestiges of the dream, it ran in the back of his mind.

  He dressed and then threw open the drapes that cloaked his lair from daylight’s intrusion. He stared out at the sea—now still rough, but not whitecapped, and reflecting some of the sky’s blue patches. Waves crashed on shore, forming long lines of white surge as they moved diagonally to follow the length of the beach, only to do so again and again. Seagulls and pelicans were out again, signaling the end of the storm and hunting for fish after a long fast. The storm surge was gradually draining away from the land after so many days of flooding.

  The black freighter was gone.

  Shit! How could this happen to me again? It was his watch, and he had somehow failed his mission again. Where had the damn ship gone to this time?

  He picked up his phone and was assaulted by its flat, dead battery. His lifeline had abandoned him. He grabbed his charger and ran out of the room in his bare feet to the main bar, where he plopped down on a stool and searched under the edge of the bar for the electrical outlet he had used once before to recharge his battery.

  Gordon happened to be tending bar and brought him a cup of hot, black Grenada roast to start off his day. “Good morning, Mr. Wilson. It was a hell of a night, eh?”

  Wilson wasn’t sure if he meant that he had had nightmares, too, or if he read the depths of exhaustion and despair that must have haunted Wilson’s features.

  “A hell of a night, indeed.” Mr. Morant sat down next to Wilson for a chat. “There’s still fighting at the airport and at Government House, they say. My suppliers are still making their deliveries in spite of the uprising.”

  “Uprising? What do you mean?”

  “I suppose some of the GPC people are upset that they lost the election yesterday and are trying insurrection as a means for success,” Morant said. “We still have no radio
or TV. The storm must have wiped them out, too—like so many services.”

  “But there was an attempted military takeover of the government last night!” Wilson shouted. “Cuban soldiers were involved.”

  “Oh, Mr. Wilson. You must have really tied one on last night.” Morant seemed amused. “Cubans? Why, that was long ago. That couldn’t happen in this day and age. Countries don’t just invade other countries.” Morant called over to someone and then excused himself as he dealt with a delivery.

  “But it’s true,” Wilson said, to no one in particular. Gordon brought him the bar menu, and he ordered. By this time, his cell phone had a minimal charge. He dialed Pendergast.

  “She’s in harbor now, loading some containers on deck. Been there since sunup,” Captain Jimmy said. “They must be in a hurry to sail out of here, with all the talk of revolution going on. Say, what have you heard about the takeover? With no radio, we’re just getting rumors. Some say it’s just a few opposition guys letting off steam.”

  “I can’t really say just now. I have to make some calls.” He hung up.

  He sat at the bar recharging both his phone battery and his psyche while eating breakfast. He tried raising Lightchurch and Madeline with no luck. He wondered what had happened last night after he had turned in. Without TV, radio, and his computer for Internet, there was no way to get an update. There was little communication going on anywhere on the island, except for a few cell phones, and no information coming into or leaving the country. Almost nobody knew what was going on, and what they did know was based on rumor.

  Finally, his phone beeped. It was Madeline. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you. Get your ass over to the warehouse.” She hung up.

  Wilson returned to his room and got what he needed for the day: Phone, charger, handgun, and binos. Everything else was still at the warehouse. The nightmare had settled into the back of his conscious mind. He knew that the horrors would likely return when he lay down to sleep.

  Chapter 19

  Wednesday

  He drove the truck over to the warehouse, water still filling the streets, and went inside to meet Madeline. Lightchurch was there, as were the same men who had fought at the government offices. They were in the middle of a discussion about the current fighting by the foreigners. Another mild earthquake shook the building.

  “The chief said that the intruders at the airport are the main problem. They’re well organized and equipped, although they do not have the heavy weaponry that Madeline and Robert reported seeing four days ago,” Lightchurch said. “The questions, then, are where are those weapons, and where are the Chinese fighters we expected?”

  “The fighters at the airport are Cubans too? No Chinese?” asked Wilson, as he pulled a chair up to the table.

  “So far, only Venezuelans and Cubans have been encountered. We were just discussing what this means,” Nash said.

  “Our assumption has been that elements from the three countries were involved in the coup. The arms used so far are of Chinese manufacture, even though the serial numbers have been removed from individual weapons,” Lightchurch said.

  “It seems odd to me,” Wilson said. He directed his attention to Lightchurch. “I did hear from a source that there are no Cuban fighters at the harbor, which is one of the targets that we expected would be overrun. But my source said that there are Chinese workers at the port loading containers onto a ship, the Shanghai Maiden. No locals are helping.”

  Lightchurch stared at him in disbelief.

  Madeline continued the weapons discussion. “Really? That seems strange. Maybe they didn’t commit to the use of military force, but still supplied the weapons? Why would they make such an arrangement?”

  “Maybe the parties had a disagreement of some kind,” Wilson said. “If that’s the case, the foreigners were undermanned—but if they were not all in agreement, why would the Cubans and Venezuelans proceed with an understrength invasion force?”

  “Perhaps the calculus changed when the Chinese learned that the soft coup wasn’t going to work,” Lightchurch said. “If they were involved in a military overthrow of a government in the Caribbean, maybe it would be bad for their business with other countries in the region. They might be more interested in spreading their business interests than in military expansion.”

  “That would be consistent with their longer-term view of dominating the world,” Nash said.

  “Well, so much for philosophy. What we must know now is where the rest of those weapons are.” Lightchurch came back to the practical question at hand.

  “Without a police escort, I doubt if we can get back onto the Wong property. That will have to wait,” Madeline said.

  “Wait a minute,” Nash said. “If the Chinese decided to drop out of the coup, why give the other forces light arms, but none of the heavy gear they would need for a complete takeover?”

  Wilson quietly thought about the problem, as did the others. If the Chinese had moved the weapons into the country, they had control of them—and apparently stored them at the Wong job site. The Cubans and Venezuelans apparently already had their small arms from the Chinese. They could distribute them easily to the sports facility, where most of the men could be armed—but they couldn’t disguise the larger weapons.

  “Suppose we look at this from a timing point of view?” Wilson began pacing the floor. “We know that the weapons were at the Wong site on Saturday night, but were gone by Tuesday night. The Venezuelans left the hotels late Monday and early Tuesday. The Cubans had left the sports facility by Tuesday evening. So, that means the small weapons were distributed Sunday or Monday—but the heavy stuff was kept under wraps until late Tuesday.”

  “That all makes sense—but so what?” asked Morgan.

  “The coup was probably not supposed to start until after the election results were announced—late Tuesday, or early Wednesday. They may have planned to distribute gear on Tuesday night, but not to do anything obvious until the next day or even later.” Wilson continued with his scenario. “Suppose it became clear to the Chinese that the election was not going their way? They would have known that by Tuesday evening, after they had already distributed the lighter arms.”

  “What if something went wrong with the plan?” Madeline picked up on the analysis. “Suppose they decided it was not working out as planned and had second thoughts? They may have wanted to hold off on the coup until it was clear how the election results would turn out. If the results were for the NSP, they may not have proceeded with the coup.”

  “But the Cubans, who were the driving military force of the coup, would not call it off,” Lightchurch added. “They may have instead decided on accelerating the plan. So, they started the coup even before the election results were in. They didn’t want to lose their chance at a second invasion of Grenada.”

  Wilson stopped pacing and sat down. “The Chinese then got cold feet, so they stopped distribution of the heavy weapons and called off their involvement. They hung the Cubans out to dry.”

  Madeline now began pacing. “But they couldn’t be found with all this heavy gear, so they had to hide it or get rid of it.” She stopped in her tracks. “But where?”

  They all sat around scratching their heads. Wilson wondered to himself, Where do you hide so much stuff?

  “They can’t take it back to the Wong site. That’s for certain,” Lightchurch said.

  “You know, it bothered me that we didn’t have time to check out the whole Wong site last night,” Madeline said. “Suppose the gear was there on-site, and we just didn’t see it while we were there? We never drove to the west side of the construction site, where there are other buildings.”

  “You’re right, Maddie. Suppose it never left the site?” Wilson jumped to his feet again. “Suppose they had it there and decided it was a no go? Then, they hid the weapons by putting them back into containers.”

  “The next step would be getting the containers where they could not be found,” Lightchurch
said. “How would they do that?”

  “Place them on a ship during all this chaos caused by the coup. No one has been watching the harbor.” Wilson looked from person to person as he spoke. “And there’s a Chinese ship in port as we speak, loading containers on board.”

  “You mean the Shanghai Maiden?”

  “Yes. As far as I know, they may have been loading that ship all night.” Wilson looked at his watch. “We have to hurry.” He pulled out his handgun and checked his magazine. “Maddie—you’re with me.”

  ***

  He and Madeline ran to the door, threw it open, and jumped into the pickup truck. He drove like a madman out onto the street and turned toward the Springs Main Road. They encountered an accident at the supermarket that had backed up traffic. Wilson turned onto a back street and, after some confusion, soon came to a road Madeline recognized that would take them down to the marina. After a few minutes, they encountered water-laden streets again and turned onto Lagoon Road. That led into central Saint George’s, but they were driving slowly due to the flooded conditions.

  As they crawled along the road that circumnavigated the marina basin, Madeline kept a lookout for the Shanghai Maiden. It was hard to see anything as light rain continued to fall. They could see that the lagoon and marina were packed with many smaller craft that had been moored there for protection from the storm and the threatening waves. They drove all the way around the lagoon to the freight dock, where the black freighter would be if it was still loading containers.

  They reached the main gate of the dock and found it locked. There was no one on guard. They got out of the truck, ran through the rain around to the fence, and looked at the loading area. No cranes were operating, and only two ships were tied up at the freight terminal.

  The Shanghai Maiden was not there. Nobody was.

  “Now what?” Wilson asked Madeline.

  “I don’t know. They must have left a while ago, because I can’t see them in the inner harbor,” Madeline said. “We can drive over to the cruise ship terminal and look out on Saint George’s Bay, but the streets may be blocked. Or, we can head back to Grand Anse. Either way, we won’t see very far in this rain.”