A Final Broadside

by Buddy Worrell

  Ken found that her business and people skills, although unrefined, were formidable. The volunteers and hourly kids absolutely adored her, but there was no question as to who was in charge. She was regarded as a fixture of the memorial, just like the twelve-foot American alligator named Charley that glided around the murky waters surrounding the hull of the ship.

  Ken and Ethel met on his first day at work. Ken was dressed in his working uniform “cammies” with his nameplate, his spit-shined black combat boots, and his eight-point combat cap. He wore his master chief insignia on his cap and his sleeves. Donna described his look as “impressive as hell!”

  He was welcomed into the gift shop with the smiling staff shouting, “Welcome, Master Chief Hager!”

  Ken smiled and returned the greeting with a sharp salute. “Master Chief Hager reporting for duty, shipmates!”

  The staff interpreted Ken’s greeting as evidence of his approachability, concern for the ship, and love for what was to become his job. All of the staff except Ethel quickly gathered around Ken, introducing themselves and offering any assistance that he might require during his early days as superintendent. Ken met each one with a handshake, noting each name so that he could refer to them by their names quickly.

  As the last well-wisher finished his introduction, Ethel moved toward Ken with her right hand extended and a huge smile on her face. “Welcome, Master Chief. We are all so happy to have you here!” she said earnestly.

  Ken grasped her hand in a warm handshake and returned her smile. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Breaux. I am quite honored by all of your welcomes and look forward to working with each of you. BB-55 is a grand old ship and a treasure to the people of North Carolina. To see folks like you and your staff caring for her the way you do is most impressive!”

  Ethel continued beaming at Ken as she released his hand and said, “Thank you for the kind words, Master Chief, and please, stow the Mrs. Breaux stuff and call me Ethel. Everyone does.”

  “I appreciate that, Mrs. Breaux, but I couldn’t possibly refer to you as anything other than Mrs. …” Ken stopped short upon seeing Ethel’s face change dramatically. It was a look his mother had used when he was a child and about to really screw up. “Unless you insist,” he offered.

  Ethel’s smile returned immediately, and she asked him if he would like to review the books sometime that day.

  Ken looked around, and spying an old-fashioned percolator coffeepot, he asked, “Does that coffeepot work? What I would really like to do is have a cup of coffee or three or four and then ask you to take me around the shop. You know, what is selling and what is not, ideas you have for the place, that kind of thing.”

  Ethel nodded quickly, and within minutes the shop was filled with the morning aroma of Luzianne coffee and chicory. As they toured the shop and sipped the dark, fragrant brew, Ken knew he had an ally in Mrs. Breaux—or Ethel, he reminded himself.

  As the early months passed, Ken busied himself with the many events held on the ship. He served as grand marshal of the Azalea Festival parade; hosted the annual Fourth of July fireworks display; officiated at the Roll of Honor in the wardroom, where a list of names of servicemen and women who had lost their lives in World War II was read aloud; and organized a reunion of sailors who had served on the North Carolina. The reunion was always fun, and the Gunslinger was always the celebrity in residence. It became Paul Hodge’s job to offer a toast to those who had passed away, and in doing so, he created another tradition. Instead of toasting with champagne, the Gunslinger offered his version of a North Carolina iced tea—a sixteen-ounce glass of iced sweet tea combined with an unknown amount of 190 proof Everclear grain alcohol. The idea was to chug it like a beer, which almost no one could do except the Gunslinger. Ken always made sure he had a ride home after one of these events!

  A major part of the job was to keep the “Showboat” in top condition. She was over seventy years old and in need of some serious maintenance. Ken’s first project had already been initiated by members of the Historical Commission. A year before Ken arrived, a delegation of officials from Myanmar, looking for some goodwill in the United States after years of estrangement, had visited the memorial. In a matter of months, several truckloads of the highest-quality teak decking had arrived, followed by several other loads purchased by the commission at a substantial discount. Ken helped the commission find some of the finest boat wrights from his navy contacts to install the precious decking.

  Additional projects included the beginning of a needed hull refit in which Ken was crucial in promoting the idea of doing the work in Wilmington rather than towing the ship to Norfolk or Charleston. The commission opted to accept Ken’s proposal and use the cofferdam process recently employed on the USS Alabama. In this process, a metal dam is constructed around the hull of the ship, and the water is pumped out. The result is a dry dock, saving tens of millions of dollars in towing fees.

  Ken was also very interested in getting the sixteen-inch turrets to turn and elevate as they would have during the war. That would be an interesting engineering problem since those turrets had not moved since 1946.

  Donna settled quickly into her role as professor of marine studies. As a full professor, she taught mostly senior- and graduate-level courses, and her love for the students and subject was obvious. But her real passion was research. Within weeks of her arrival, Dr. Hagar was leading a research team from the university, mapping ocean temperatures in the Gulf Stream on the research vessel Cape Fear.

  Her interests included commercial fishing off the Carolina coast, and she regularly caught a ride with the local shrimpers in Calabash or the charter fleet out of Ocean Isle Beach, measuring the catch, taking samples, and recording the captains’ thoughts and impressions regarding particular catches’ quality and quantity. As an added bonus, she got to hear a ton of fish stories!

  The move to Wilmington seemed to be a gift. Both Ken and Donna were taking up their new duties with ease and skill.

  There was, however, one significant detail missing from the story. Ken thought about it often but kept his questions and anxiety to himself. He knew that he was supposed to be on the ship, but he did not know why. Ken could feel almost no paranormal energy coming from the North Carolina. He had not been visited by any supernatural entities, nor did he feel the need to search out any of these spirits. Compared to the Arizona, the North Carolina just felt like a museum. Several men had died in battle on the ship but seemed to have passed on to another place, like Ken’s grandfather said he had when visiting young Ken after his funeral.

  When Ken had posed the question to his father on his first visit to the North Carolina’s bridge, about whether this was where he should be, Ken’s entire body had shaken, and the unmistakable answer “yes” had filled his mind.

  The new home and the new job were great but really quite normal. The normality was about to take a turn toward the paranormal, and even Ken did not sense the enormity of what was about to befall him and all that he held dear.

  CHAPTER 39

  The engines of the Gulfstream moaned along, and the air at 42,000 feet was smooth. Rithipol sipped a tall flute of 1986 Dom Perignon and reached for the telegram he had received before departing from Geneva. It was only then that he noticed its origin was a Carmelite convent in Italy.

  He quickly opened the message and read what he already knew instinctively: his mother was dead. Mother Superior Mary Sophia explained that she had passed away peacefully in her sleep and had not suffered from any illness. Mary Sophia said that Sister Vimean spoke of him often and appreciated the many gifts he had sent to her and the convent through the years. Mother Superior closed by saying that Sister Vimean would be missed and offered blessings to her son. For one brief instant, Rithipol felt loss, and a single tear formed in his left eye. But the moment passed. There were other pressing matters to consider.

  Rithipol took a long drink from the champagne flute before lea
ning back in the plush, leather executive chair and closing his eyes. For the last two years, he had planned what he expected to be his greatest criminal triumph, the extortion of $1 billion from the government of the United States—a bargain actually, compared to the devastation that would occur as a result of nonpayment.

  His mind began to relax as the champagne and cabin pressurization exerted their effects, and he remembered key events in his life that had led to this moment.

  His schooling at the hands of the Jesuits had been extraordinary. As the priests had quickly realized, Rithipol was not an ordinary student. He excelled in the sciences, languages, psychology, and theology, the latter of which he considered pure fantasy. On the day of his graduation ceremony, Rithipol simply disappeared along with several hundred million Italian liras he had spirited from the school’s accounts. Within days, he had converted the liras into Swiss francs and deposited them into the first of what would become many numbered Swiss bank accounts. A smile crossed Rithipol’s lips as he recalled his first criminal endeavor and its sweet success.

  As the years passed and as he grew older and more creative, Rithipol had established ties with several criminal organizations. As a consultant and advisor to these groups, he tried to “internationalize” their operations. These organizations included several tongs and triads in China, La Cosa Nostra in Sicily and Italy, La Ema in Mexico and Central America, and the Krysha after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He had been most successful in dealing with individual despots and dictators on the African continent.

  He also had established an international gang that executed his plans with enviable speed and precision. Most members were recruited from the streets of large third-world cities such as Mexico City, Bangkok, San Paulo, Cairo, Dhaka, Delhi, and Ankara. They were street children who exhibited street smarts and demonstrated skills in survival, thievery, and deception. Almost all were orphans, and none were missed when he recruited them, moved them into local “safe houses,” fed and clothed them, and tutored them in the fine arts of crime. He became their benefactor, mentor, and extended family. “Rather like Fagin from Oliver Twist,” he mused. Rithipol demanded total loyalty and unquestioned obedience. Occasionally, one or more of the children would disobey an order or question a decision. For these or any other offenses, they would simply disappear.

  Rithipol smiled again as he recalled one of his protégés (as he liked to call them) stealing into a local port official’s home in Karachi. This official had refused a very large bribe to look the other way as Rithipol loaded tons of opium from the poppy fields in Afghanistan onto processing ships that would convert the opium into morphine and ultimately heroin as the ships steamed westward toward the United States.

  The protégé (in this case a twelve-year-old boy from Karachi) broke silently into the official’s house and successfully planted several highly venomous cobras in the bedrooms of each of the official’s children. A note telling of the snakes and a much smaller bribe was left on the sleeping official’s pillow. Days later, the opium was loaded onto the processing ships unmolested by city police or other local security personnel. Rithipol seemed to remember a gross proceed of over $120 million when he sold the cargo to eager distributers supplying the East Coast of the United States.

  He opened his eyes and peered out the Gulfstream’s window at the steel-blue sky and the Alps as the mountains disappeared underneath. He reached for the champagne flute and thought of another of his most eager protégés. The boy was now twenty-two years old and had been claimed from the streets of San Paulo. Fabiano was especially close to Rithipol and seemed to know in advance what his mentor and master required.

  His loyalty and faithfulness were unquestioned, which was why Rithipol did not trust him and kept a close watch on him. Rithipol observed that this boy possessed high intelligence and an ability to ingratiate himself to others. Given the right opportunity, Rithipol reasoned that Fabiano would sell him out and not blink an eye. Fabiano had wanted to accompany Rithipol on this trip, but Rithipol had declined, saying Fabiano needed to watch over the younger protégés in his absence.

  Rithipol took a long sip from the freshened flute and closed his eyes again.

  “Dr. Chin,” said a feminine voice over the jet’s intercom, “we are approaching the English Channel on our way to the United States. We should be landing at Teterboro, New Jersey, in about six hours. We will alert you when we are about one hour out so that you may refresh yourself before the last leg of the flight. Do you require anything from the staff before I lower the cabin lights for your rest?”

  Rithipol pressed the intercom button on his seat console and replied, “Thank you, my dear. I am quite fine and wish to sleep for a while. I will call on you if I require something.”

  He released the intercom button and settled back into his leather seat. The voice belonged to Ariana, a child when he supposedly rescued her from a hovel in Kabul and now a beautiful and intelligent young woman of twenty-five. She had been in his employ for over fifteen years and was an excellent hostess as well as a promising copilot. Her loyalty to him was unimpeachable, and he held her in high regard. She also was an excellent aide on trips and in meetings where female companionship was considered desirable.

  As his mind began to relax once more, he remembered dozens of forays into the African continent from the mid-1970s to the turn of the century. The civil war in Angola had proven exceptionally successful, especially the illegal arms trade with the multiple warring factions and the illicit diamond trade to finance it. On several occasions his “rented” Egyptian C-130 cargo plane had been loaded with arms in the back and diamonds in the front on the same trip.

  And then there was Uganda and his old friend there—“His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Conqueror of the British Empire.” He vividly remembered their first meeting.

  CHAPTER 40

  Rithipol had become involved with Idi Amin several years after Amin overthrew Milton Obote in a military coup. As with all would-be despots, he was long on words and short on arms. Several sections of the Ugandan Army did not support Amin, but before he could hunt them down and kill them, most of Uganda’s arms were spirited out of the country. Early in his rule, Amin was pro-Western and received aid as an ally versus the Marxist rebels in Angola and elsewhere in central Africa. But because of his vicious oppression of human rights, including tribal genocide, extrajudicial killings, rumored cannibalism, corruption, and nepotism, and because of the way he drove his country to the brink of financial destruction while simultaneously enriching himself, his family, and his henchmen, the Western powers abandoned him. This loss of Western support was only a small distraction to Amin, who immediately declared himself a Muslim and sought aid from Libya and Saudi Arabia.

  At the request of the East German government, Rithipol flew to Entebbe to meet with Amin and discuss very large arms purchases. Amin’s government and reputation had become so toxic that the East Germans were attempting to quietly exit Uganda.

  Upon their meeting, Rithipol immediately sized up the field marshal and determined that he was not to be trusted, nor should one ever turn one’s back in his presence. As the meeting progressed, Amin was at various times gracious, overbearing, thoughtful, arrogant, erratic, predictable, militaristic, and inept. Rithipol knew that the Americans had a word to describe such a person: “asshole”!

  Rithipol agreed to supply certain arms (including obsolete MIG fighters from Ukraine) but requested cash or gold in advance for payment. Amin immediately broke into a tirade about how his credit was good enough for the Eastern Bloc, and Rithipol would accept the same terms. Amin rose from his kingly chair to display all of his six-foot-four-inch, 300-pound frame to physically intimidate the five-foot-seven 145-pound arms dealer.

  Rithipol stood and began to walk toward the door.

  “What makes you think I will let you leave here alive, you tiny almond-eye?” Amin boomed.


  Rithipol turned and looked directly into Amin’s black eyes and said, “Field Marshal Amin, you are an intelligent and wise man. You would never risk the aerial drop of highly refined plutonium on your capital city. It would render the capital uninhabitable for several thousand years, in addition to killing every living thing within two hundred square miles of the drop.”

  “You have no nuclear weapons!” Amin sneered.

  “You are correct, Dr. Amin. I only have about one half pound of plutonium 239 in an atmospheric dispersal unit. If my calculations are correct, that is sufficient to cause 100 million cases of incurable lung cancer,” Rithipol answered calmly.

  “If I kill you now, you cannot summon your dirty bomb,” Amin said as he moved to draw his sidearm.

  Rithipol drew his Walther PPK first and with dead aim between Amin’s eyes replied, “You misunderstand, Dr. Amin. My plutonium is already here, in a jet circling your capital and this airport at 42,000 feet. The drop is automatic. Only a call from me can stop it. Do you wish to discuss terms again, or shall we let the current drama play out?”

  The rage in Amin’s face drained as he began to comprehend the situation, even with his slow wit. He holstered his weapon and threw his head back in a fit of laughter, shaking as he guffawed hard enough to momentarily lose his breath. Regaining composure, Amin said through a flash of teeth, “Dr. Chin, you are a worthy opponent and someone with whom I will deal. Come, let us sit together and have champagne as we discuss my needs and your terms.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Amin. But I must complete our business and get airborne to call off the delivery of plutonium.”