by Jeff Edwards
The captain nodded again. “All good points, Pat. These are the kinds of things you have to think about before you send your people into a tight spot.” He shifted his eyes to Ensign Harvey. “Let’s talk about the sunset issue for a moment. Carol, why are we sending our teams out to board a potentially hostile vessel while the sun is going down? More specifically, why don’t we order the Lotus Blossom to heave-to and drop anchor? Then we could sit here and keep an eye on her until the sun comes up and send our boarding teams over in daylight.”
Ensign Harvey cleared her throat. “I can see two reasons for boarding tonight, sir. First, if the Lotus Blossom really is a smuggler, any contraband cargo she’s carrying is going to get tossed over the side as soon as the sun goes down. The only way to prevent that is to seize the ship now and post a guard on the crew while we search the cargo.”
“Good,” the captain said. “What’s your second reason?”
Ensign Harvey grinned. “I just came from Combat Information Center, sir. The Lotus Blossom is still ignoring all attempts to establish contact. They won’t respond to our signal flags or our flashing light, and they refuse to answer on bridge-to-bridge radio channel 16, which international law requires all major vessels to monitor at all times. In other words, Captain, they’re ducking our calls. And we can’t very well order them to heave-to and drop anchor if we can’t even establish communication with them.”
“True,” Captain Bowie said. “I’ll bet ten dollars against a month’s pay that—when we do finally establish contact—we’ll discover that their bridge-to-bridge radio is broken, and somehow they just didn’t see our signal flags or our flashing light.”
“By the looks of things,” Ensign Elliot La’Roche said, “they haven’t noticed us at all. Personally, I think if I had a ninety-seven hundred–ton destroyer cruising a few hundred yards off my starboard beam, I’d probably notice.”
“I agree,” the captain said. “And that brings up another point of discussion. Why did we position ourselves on her starboard beam? This puts us close to Iranian territorial waters, and the Iranians do not like foreign warships in their water. If we crowd the line too closely, they’ll send a couple of missile boats out to keep us company. Wouldn’t it have been smarter for us to come in on Lotus Blossom’s port side? That would have kept us farther away from Iranian waters and less likely to provoke a nasty international incident, or—worse—a missile attack.”
Ensign La’Roche rubbed his chin. “It might have been a little safer to do it that way, sir, but it definitely wouldn’t have been smarter.”
The captain nodded once. “Go on.”
“When we first picked the Lotus Blossom up on radar,” La’Roche said, “she was well east of the established shipping lanes and hugging the territorial waters of Iran. According to our TACMEMOs, that’s a tactic favored by smugglers who are trying to penetrate the naval blockade against Siraj. It gives the smugglers a chance to dart into Iranian waters if they think they’re about to be intercepted. As I understand it, Iran has no particular interest in harboring smugglers, especially ones who are bringing aid to Siraj, but the Iranians are fiercely protective of their national waters. If we go in there, even in pursuit of a known smuggler, we’re going to get shot at. By coming in on Lotus Blossom’s starboard side, we cut off her escape route into Iranian waters.”
“Excellent,” the captain said. “You kids have done your homework. One final question before recess …” Something caught his attention: the sound of approaching footsteps. He held up a hand. “Just a second.”
Lieutenant (junior grade) Mitchell Hayes walked up to the little group. He came to an abrupt stop about two paces away from Bowie, drew himself up to attention, and snapped out a salute. “Sir! All equipment checks and communications checks are complete. The boats are ready and at the rail. VBSS teams Blue and Gold are manned and ready to deploy.”
Captain Bowie returned the salute. “At ease, Mitch.”
Lieutenant (jg) Hayes relaxed his posture a notch and held a radio headset out to Bowie. “Your crypto is loaded and keyed, sir.”
The captain nodded and took the headset. “Thanks. Your teams can stand easy for a few minutes. We have to establish comms with our suspect vessel.”
“How are we going to do that, sir?” Ensign Harvey asked.
“We’re going to give them a little technical assistance in repairing their radio,” the captain said. He pulled the radio headset over his ears and positioned the throat mike in front of his mouth. When he was satisfied with the setup, he keyed the mike. “TAO, this is the Captain, over.”
The Tactical Action Officer’s voice came back in his ear a second later. “Captain, this is the TAO. Read you Lima Charlie. Standing by for orders, over.”
Bowie keyed the mike again. “TAO, this is the Captain. Lay a 5-inch round across the bow of motor vessel Lotus Blossom. You have batteries released, over.”
“Captain, this is the TAO. I copy—lay a 5-inch round across the bow of suspect vessel. I understand I have batteries released, over.”
The captain reached into the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a pair of flanged rubber earplugs: a standard part of the at-sea uniform. “Well, kids … I suggest you put your hearing protection in.”
* * *
A few seconds later, the 5-inch gun mount spun ninety degrees to the left with a speed that seemed impossible for so large a machine. The rifled barrel of the large-bore cannon locked instantly on the bridge of the Lotus Blossom and tracked it with an eerie electro-mechanical precision, continuously making minute adjustments to compensate for the pitch and roll of the Towers and of her target. It hung there for a few seconds, and then suddenly it swung forty degrees to the right and fired. The ninety-six–pound steel projectile rocketed out of the barrel with a flash and a thunder that would have shamed a Norse god. Bowie knew that it had broken the sound barrier before it was even clear of the gun.
The shell impacted the water less than fifty yards off the Lotus Blossom’s bow, throwing up a surge of spray that looked like a golden fountain in the failing sunlight.
The spray had barely settled back to the wave tops when a voice came over Bowie’s headset radio. “Captain, this is the TAO. Apparently the motor vessel Lotus Blossom has repaired her bridge-to-bridge radio. Her captain is on Channel 16 screaming his head off in Arabic, over.”
Bowie smiled and keyed his mike. “TAO, this is the Captain. Put our interpreter on bridge-to-bridge Channel 16 and ask the motor vessel Lotus Blossom to kindly heave-to and drop anchor, over.”
“TAO, aye.”
Bowie looked at his small group of junior officers. Every one of them was grinning from ear to ear. “I do believe,” he said, “that those boys have managed to repair their radio.”
* * *
Forty minutes later, Lieutenant (jg) Hayes stood on the starboard bridge wing of MV Lotus Blossom and looked out across the five hundred yards of water that separated the old freighter from his own ship. The destroyer’s phototropic PCMS tiles were darkening steadily in response to the failing sunlight, making the warship’s squat angular profile increasingly more difficult to see as the sun went down. On the one hand, it was impressive to witness the technology at work. On the other hand, this mission was making Hayes nervous enough, without having to watch the vessel that represented home and safety pull a slow-motion disappearing act. Although the logical side of his mind was well familiar with the limitations of phototropic camouflage, his imagination harbored a tiny (and admittedly irrational) image of the ship continuing to fade until it vanished completely, perhaps with a tiny plop, like a soap bubble bursting.
Hayes turned his eyes back to the ship he was standing on and keyed the mike built into his headset, “Towers, this is VBSS Team Leader, over.”
Captain Bowie’s voice came back in his left earphone. “VBSS Team Leader, this is Towers. Standing by for your report, over.”
Hayes keyed the mike again. “Towers, this is VBSS Team Leader. VBSS Gol
d Team has secured the bridge and engineering spaces. The vessel’s crew is assembled on the fantail, under guard. The head-count is fourteen, that is one-four. VBSS Blue has completed an initial sweep of all spaces with the exception of the cargo holds, over.”
The captain’s voice came back. “Towers, aye. Say again your head-count for the crew, over.”
“Towers, this is VBSS Team Leader. Head-count is fourteen, that is one-four personnel, over.”
There was a brief pause before the reply came. “VBSS Team Leader, this is Towers. Be advised, the vessel’s paperwork indicates a crew of seventeen, that is one-seven personnel, over.”
“VBSS Team Leader, aye. My interpreter has been questioning Captain Isam on the matter. Supposedly, two of the crew jumped ship in Jakarta, and the third was medically evacuated at sea due to an apparent heart attack. We’ve asked for documentation on the changes to the crew manifest, but Captain Isam is putting a lot of effort into carefully misunderstanding our questions, over.”
“Towers, aye,” Captain Bowie’s voice said in his ear. “I’d say the good captain is giving you the runaround. His vessel is based out of Singapore. Unless he’s fluent in Cantonese, it’s a pretty safe bet that he speaks English, over.”
Hayes wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of a sleeve and grimaced when some of the stinging liquid found its way into his left eye. He squinted and rubbed at the eye. “Towers, this is VBSS Team Leader, copy that and concur. GSM3 Rashid tells me that Captain Isam switches back and forth between Farsi and an Egyptian dialect of Arabic, depending on whichever gives him the best opportunity to be obscure and difficult. The man is definitely taking us for a ride, over.”
“Towers, aye,” the captain said. “That’s why we’re boarding his vessel in the middle of the night, over.”
Lieutenant (jg) Hayes nodded to himself. “Roger that.”
Yusuf Isam, the captain of the Lotus Blossom, had been acting suspiciously almost from the second his ship had appeared on the Towers’ radar scopes. The issue of the three missing crew members was just the latest in a whole string of evasions, accidents, and deliberate misunderstandings on the part of the Arab captain and his crew.
In view of Isam’s evasive behavior, Hayes was in total agreement with Captain Bowie’s decision not to wait until morning to board the Lotus Blossom, despite the fact that he didn’t care for nighttime boardings. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the last sliver of the sun sink behind the horizon. He did not like this at all. The fact that he agreed with the necessity did not make him any more comfortable about being on an unfamiliar ship in the dark. Factor in the thinly veiled hostility of the crew, three of whom were missing, and the situation became even sketchier.
He keyed his mike again. “Towers, this is VBSS Team Leader. Request permission to set Modified Security Condition Two, over.”
Captain Bowie’s voice came over the headset almost immediately. “VBSS Team Leader, this is Towers. Do you have an emergency or an escalating situation? Over.”
“This is VBSS Team Leader. That’s a negative, sir. But I’m not crazy about the vibes we’re getting from Isam and his crew. Nobody’s done anything snaky yet, but I get the feeling they’ve been waiting for the sun to go down. Don’t ask me what they’re expecting to happen, but they do outnumber my teams by two men, even if we don’t count the three who may or may not be missing. If those guys are hiding on board, we’re outnumbered by five. They might be armed, and they definitely have the home-field advantage, over.”
He didn’t voice the other half of his thought; any or all of the crew under guard could be armed as well. The United Nations guidelines did not permit VBSS teams to conduct body searches of suspect crew members unless they committed acts of physical hostility. Hostile attitudes and general lack of compliance were not considered sufficient grounds for a personal search. VBSS teams were permitted to ask the crew members if they were carrying weapons, which worked about as well as asking politicians if they were crooked.
“VBSS Team Leader, this is Towers. Understood. Stand by on your request, over.”
Hayes suppressed the urge to lay a hand on the butt of the Navy-issue 9mm Beretta automatic riding in the speed holster on his web belt. The sky was full dark now, and though a few operational deck lights had come on, they didn’t seem to be making much difference. He keyed his mike. “VBSS Team Leader, aye.”
Hayes had expected a delay. VBSS teams normally operated in Security Condition One, with their Beretta 9mms loaded but holstered. Condition One would cost the team a few seconds if they encountered a threat, but the risk caused by the delay was balanced by the fact that holstered weapons were less threatening and (theoretically) less likely to provoke a hostile response from the crew of the seized ship.
It made sense that the captain would want to think for a few minutes and maybe call in a couple of senior officers for a quick powwow before deciding whether to authorize the change to a more aggressive posture.
Security Condition Two, which called for the teams to operate with their weapons drawn, was inherently more threatening. It also slowed the search process, as it required his team members to work one-handed, the other hand being constantly occupied by a weapon.
Hayes had requested Modified Security Condition Two instead, which would require only the odd-numbered members of his teams to operate with weapons drawn, allowing them to protect their even-numbered buddies. To Hayes’ mind, it was a decent compromise; half of his team would have two hands to work with, and all of them would have some protection.
Isam was a snake. The VBSS teams hadn’t found any contraband yet, but Hayes was certain the man was a smuggler. Everything about the cagey old bastard and his crew pointed in that direction.
Hayes leaned on the railing of the bridge wing and looked down toward the darkened forecastle. The fore deck was cluttered with equipment and deck fittings, visible now only as dark shapes. There were a hundred places to hide down there. A hundred good places for somebody to ambush his teams. “Shit,” he said softly.
* * *
Three decks below, Operations Specialist Chief Harry Deacon stood at the entrance to the forward cargo hold. He scanned the darkened compartment and felt his jaws begin to tighten. “This looks like a real good place to get somebody killed,” he said softly.
The cavernous space was crammed with Conex boxes. The huge shipping containers were stacked far closer together than international shipping laws allowed, forming a maze of narrow passageways with walls of corrugated steel.
The lighting system, inadequate when the ship had been designed, had seen fifty-odd years of hard use. Less than half of the fixtures worked, and those had been fitted with energy-saving sodium-vapor lamps. What little light they produced was largely eclipsed by the towering rows of shipping containers.
Deacon counted thirty Conex boxes in this hold. With the twenty-two they had found in the aft cargo hold, his team had fifty-two shipping containers to search. Deacon had six men, including himself, to do the job. There were no ladders or catwalks to the containers on the upper level, so his team would have to haul themselves up with climbing harnesses.
He shook his head in disgust. The United Nations bureaucrats who had drafted the Security Council resolution that mandated these searches had not had a clue of what they were really asking; that much was patently clear. He shook his head again. This was going to take all goddamned night.
“Come on,” he said. “Get that first box open. And don’t forget to write down the number off the box car seal before you cut it off.”
* * *
Electronics Warfare Technician Second Class Paul Allen stepped up to the doors of the first Conex box with a pocket-sized notebook and a pair of orange-handled wire cutters. The EW2 was Chief Deacon’s second in command on the Blue Team. “We’ve got it, Chief.”
The chief nodded. “I’m going to head aft and check on Carlin and Finch.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Allen nu
dged his partner, an eighteen-year-old seaman named Steve Blandy. “Get your flashlight on this box car seal so I can get the number off of it.”
Blandy pointed his flashlight as ordered. “God damn! It smells like a stable in here. What the hell are they shipping? Yaks?”
Allen ignored him. It did stink down here, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise. A lot of these old freighters smelled like shit.
Blandy looked down and prodded the deck with the toe of his left boot. “One of these days, one of these rusty old bitches is going to fucking sink on us.”
“Pay attention to what you’re doing,” Allen said. “Hold the light steady.”
Blandy switched his attention to the flashlight. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m not kidding, though. Last week, when we were searching that Omani freighter, Jenkins put his foot right through a deck plate. It was rusted as thin as paper.”
Allen scribbled the last few digits of the serial number from the boxcar seal and slid his pen and notebook into his hip pocket. “Jenkins is always saying crap like that. He’s so full of shit his eyes are brown.”
“Not this time,” Blandy said. “I was there. I saw it happen.”
Allen latched the jaws of the wire cutters onto the thin metal of the seal. “Eye hazard—look away.”
Both men turned their faces away from the door of the shipping container, and Allen squeezed the handles of the wire cutters. The seal parted with a metallic twang and fell to the deck.
Allen turned back toward the container. “Clear.” He retrieved the errant seal and shoved it into a canvas pouch attached to his belt. He grabbed the latching handle of the Conex box and lifted. The handle moved slowly, with a groan of protest. “Give me a hand with this,” he said.