Scaffolding of metal struts had been lowered over her fantail, and men in grease-smeared coveralls were working on the freighter’s rudder bearing.
As the patrol craft approached, the NCO acting as captain of the nimble boat raised a megaphone to his mouth. “Ahoy, Norego,” he said in Farsi. “Please be advised that we are going to board you.” Muhammad Ghami repeated his words in English, the international language of maritime trade.
A moment later, a grossly overweight man wearing a sweat-stained officer’s shirt appeared at the head of the gangway. He nodded to a subaltern, and the boarding stairs began to descend.
As they drew nearer, Ghami saw captain’s epaulets on the man’s shoulders and sourly wondered how a man of such rank could let himself go so badly. The Norego’s master carried a heavy gut that sagged ten inches over his belt. Under his white cap, his hair was greasy black with gray streaks, and his face was covered with stubble. He could only imagine where the owners of such a decrepit ship would find such a man to command her.
With one of his men standing behind the patrol boat’s .50 caliber machine gun, Ghami nodded for another sailor to tie the rigid-hulled inflatable to the gangway. Another sailor stood close by, an AK-47
slung across his shoulder. Ghami checked that the flap over his holster was secured and leapt onto the boarding stairs with his second-in-command at his heels. As he climbed, he observed the captain try to smooth his hair and straighten his filthy shirt. They were futile gestures.
Ghami reached the deck, noting that the plates were sprung in places and hadn’t seen paint in decades.
Rust caked nearly every surface except for the shipping containers, which probably hadn’t been on board long enough for the crew’s lack of diligence to affect them. There were gaps in the railing that had been repaired with lengths of chain, and corrosion had eaten into the superstructure so much that it looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Hiding his disgust, Ghami snapped a crisp salute at the captain. The man scratched his ample stomach and made a vague gesture at the bill of his cap.
“Captain, I am Ensign Muhammad Ghami of the Iranian Navy. This is Seaman Khatahani.”
“Welcome aboard the Norego, Ensign,” the freighter’s master replied. “I am Captain Ernesto Esteban.” His Spanish accent was so thick that Ghami had to go over each word in his head to make sure he understood. Esteban was a few inches taller than the Iranian sailor, but the extra weight he carried hunched his shoulders and curved his back so that he and Ghami appeared almost the same height. His eyes were dark and watery, and when he smiled to shake Ghami’s hand his teeth were yellowed and crooked. His breath smelled like curdled milk.
“What seems to be the trouble with your steering gear?” Esteban cursed in Spanish. “The bearing froze up. Fourth time in a month. The cheap owners”—he spat—“won’t let me have it fixed in a shipyard so my men have to do. We should be under way by tonight, maybe in the morning.”
“And what is your cargo and destination?”
The captain slapped one of the shipping containers. “Empty boxes. They’re all the Norego is good for.”
“I don’t understand,” Ghami said.
“We’re transporting empty containers from Dubai to Hong Kong. Full containers get shipped in, unloaded, and pile up on the dock. We take them back to Hong Kong, where they are reloaded.” That explained why the ship was riding so high in the water, Ghami thought. Empty containers weighed only a few tons each. “And what do you carry on your return trip here?”
“Barely enough to cover our costs,” Esteban said bitterly. “No one will insure us with anything more valuable than boxes of nothing.”
“I need to see your crew manifest, cargo manifest, and the ship’s registration.”
“Is there some kind of problem?” Esteban asked quickly.
“I will determine that after I have seen your papers,” Ghami said with enough menace to make certain the disgusting man complied. “Your vessel is deep in Iranian waters, and I am fully in my right to inspect every inch of this ship if I see fit.”
“No problema, señor,” Esteban said with oily smoothness. His grin was more grimace. “Why don’t we step out of this heat and into my office?”
Bandar Abbas sat tucked in the tightest curve of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf. Summertime temperatures rarely dipped below a hundred and twenty during the day, and there was little wind. The metal decking beneath the men’s feet was quite literally hot enough to fry eggs.
“Lead the way,” Ghami said, and swept his hand toward the superstructure.
The interior spaces aboard the Norego were as dilapidated as her outside. The floors were chipped linoleum, the walls bare metal with large swatches of peeled paint, and the fluorescent lights mounted to the ceilings buzzed loudly. Several of them flickered at erratic intervals, casting the narrow corridor in stark shadow.
Esteban led Ghami and Khatahani up a tight companionway with a loose railing and onto another short corridor. He opened the door to his office and gestured for the men to enter. The captain’s cabin could be seen through an open door on the opposite side of the office. The bed was unmade, and the sheets that spilled onto the floor were stained. A single dresser stood bolted to the wall, and the mirror above it had a jagged crack running from corner to corner.
The office was a rectangular room with a single porthole so rimed with salt that only murky light came through. The walls were adorned with paintings of sad-eyed clowns done in garish colors on black velvet. Another door led to a tiny bathroom that was filthier than a public washroom in a Tehran slum. So many cigarettes had been smoked in the office that the stale smell seemed to coat everything, including the back of Ghami’s mouth. A lifelong smoker himself, even the Iranian naval officer was disgusted.
Esteban jammed the bare wires of a desk lamp into an outlet next to his desk, cursed when they sparked but seemed pleased that the lamp came on. He eased himself into his chair with a groan. He indicated for the two inspectors to take the seats opposite. Ghami used a pen from his shirt pocket to flick the dried-out carcass of a cockroach from the chair before sitting.
The captain rummaged through his desk, coming out with a liquor bottle. He eyed the two Muslims and returned the bottle to its drawer, muttering in Spanish. “Okay, here’s the manifest.” He handed over a binder. “Like I said, we’re carrying nothing but empty containers bound for Hong Kong.” He set other binders onto the desk. “My crew’s manifest. A bunch of lazy ingrates, if you ask me. So if you want to detain any of ’em, be my guest. These are the Norego’s registration papers.” Ghami thumbed through the list of crew members, noting their nationalities and double-checking their identity papers. The ship’s complement was a mixed bag of Chinese, Mexicans, and Caribbean islanders, which jibed with the men he had seen working on the rudder. The captain himself was from Guadalajara, Mexico, had been with Trans-Ocean Shipping and Freight for eleven years and master of the Norego for six. Ghami was surprised to see that Esteban was only forty-two. The man looked closer to sixty.
There was nothing here to arouse suspicion, but Ghami wanted to be thorough.
“It says here you are carrying eight hundred and seventy containers.”
“Thereabout.”
“They are stacked in your holds?”
“Those that aren’t deck-loaded,” Esteban agreed.
“I do not wish to insult you, Captain, but a ship such as this was not designed to carry containers efficiently. I suspect there is room in your holds where contraband may be hidden. I wish to inspect all six.”
“Until my steering gear’s fixed, I’ve got nothing but time, Ensign,” Esteban breezed. “You want to go over the whole ship, you be my guest. I have nothing to hide.”
The office door was suddenly thrown open. A Chinese crewman wearing coveralls and wooden flip-flops jabbered excitedly at the captain in Cantonese. Esteban cursed and launched himself from his desk. His quick movements alerted the t
wo Iranians. Ghami got to his feet, resting a hand on his holster.
Esteban ignored him entirely and raced across the room as fast as his extra hundred pounds of flab would allow. Just as he reached the bathroom door, the plumbing made a throaty, wet gurgle. He slammed the door shut, and, a moment later, they could all hear the sound of water erupting like a geyser and splashing against the ceiling. A new, more pungent smell overwhelmed the cramped office.
“Sorry about that,” Esteban said. “Seng here’s been working on our septic system. I don’t think he quite has it yet.”
“If they’re hiding anything,” Seaman Khatahani whispered to his superior in Farsi, “I don’t think I want to find it.”
“You’re right,” Ghami replied. “There isn’t a smuggler in the Gulf who would trust this fat lout or his broken-down scow.” Considering that smuggling along the Persian Gulf was a time-honored and noble tradition, Ghami wasn’t being facetious. He addressed Esteban, “Captain, I can see that your hands are full with simply maintaining your vessel. Your paperwork appears to be in order, so we won’t take up any more of your time.”
“You sure about that?” Esteban asked, cocking a bushy eyebrow. “I don’t mind giving you the nickel tour.”
Ghami got to his feet. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Suit yourself.” Esteban led them out of the office and back along the dim hallways. The glare of the afternoon sun was especially brutal after being in the dim confines of the ship. Backdropped against the hazy horizon behind the Norego, a twelve-hundred-foot supertanker was easing its way northward, where its holds would be filled with crude.
Ghami shook Esteban’s hand at the head of the gangplank. “If your steering problem isn’t corrected by morning, you must notify the Bandar Abbas port authorities. They may need to tow your vessel farther from the shipping lanes and into the harbor.”
“We’ll get this pig fixed soon enough,” Esteban said. “She’s tired, but there’s still life in the old Norego.” Ghami threw him a skeptical look. He descended to the patrol boat and nodded to his crewmen when he and Khatahani were aboard. The line was cast off, and the boat accelerated away from the tired freighter, its wake clean and white against the dark salty water.
Standing at the rail, Esteban made to wave at the Iranian vessel if any of her crew looked back, but it was as if they couldn’t distance themselves from the Norego fast enough. The captain scratched his ample belly and watched the patrol craft vanish into the distance. When it was no more than a speck, a second man emerged from the superstructure. He was older than Esteban, with a fringe of thinning auburn hair wreathing his otherwise-bald head. He had alert brown eyes and an easygoing demeanor, and while he’d done a good job keeping himself in shape, a slight paunch pressed at his beltline.
“The microphone in your office needs to be replaced,” he said without preamble. “You all sounded like cartoon characters sucking helium balloons.”
The captain took a moment to pluck wads of medical gauze from behind his molars. The fleshiness around his cheeks vanished instantly. He then peeled off the brown contact lenses to reveal startlingly blue eyes. The transformation from a down-on-his-luck sea dog into a ruggedly handsome man was completed when he removed his cap and dragged the greasy wig from his head. His hair was naturally blond, and he kept it trimmed to a long crew cut. The stubble was his own, and he couldn’t wait to shave it off, but that wouldn’t come until they had cleared out of Iranian waters just in case he had to play Ernesto Esteban, master of the MV Norego , again. “Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, that’s us,” Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo said with a grin.
“I heard you had to hit the panic button.”
There were hidden controls under the desk in the office that Cabrillo could use in a variety of situations.
One of them summoned Eddie Seng, who’d been standing by to play the role of an ill-fated engineer, and activated a pump in the plumbing below the nonworking toilet. The pump made the commode erupt like a volcano. Chemicals added to the water furthered the illusion by creating a noxious smell.
“Ensign Ghami wanted to play Sherlock Holmes and have a look around. I had to discourage him,” Cabrillo said to Max Hanley, vice president of the Corporation, of which Juan was the chairman.
“Think they’ll come back?”
“If we’re here in the morning you can bank on it.”
“Then I guess we should make sure we’re not,” Hanley replied with a devilish look in his eye.
The two men entered the superstructure. Juan led them to a utility closet packed with mops, broom, and cleaning supplies that apparently had never been used. He worked the handles of a slop sink as though he was dialing a safe. There was a distinct click, and the back wall popped open to reveal a richly carpeted hallway beyond. Gone were the utilitarian metal walls and cheap linoleum. The hallway was paneled with dark mahogany, and chandeliers along the ceiling provided warm light.
Like the disguise Cabrillo had donned to fool the Iranian Navy, the Norego wasn’t what she seemed. In fact, that wasn’t even her name. By transposing the metal letters held to her bow and stern by magnets, the crew had created the Norego from her real name, Oregon.
Built originally as a lumber carrier, the vessel had plied the Pacific for nearly two decades, hauling Canadian and American timber to Japan and the other Asian markets. The eleven-thousand-ton freighter had served her owners admirably, but the ravages of time were getting to her. As with any older ship, she was nearing the end of her useful life. Her hull was starting to corrode, and her engines no longer worked as efficiently as when they were new. The owners placed advertisements in maritime trade magazines that they were interested in selling her for scrap, knowing their once-proud flagship would fetch a few dollars per ton.
At the time, Juan Cabrillo was starting the Corporation, and he needed a ship of some kind. He’d visited ports all over the globe, looking for the right one. When he saw pictures of the lumber hauler, he knew he’d found his freighter. He’d been forced to bid against three breaker yards, but he still managed to buy the vessel for far less than had he purchaced a newer ship. He had no interest whatsoever with the vessel’s cargo-hauling abilities. He wanted her for her anonymity.
The Oregon then spent the better part of six months in a covered dry dock in Vladivostok, going through the most radical refit in history. Without changing her outward appearance, the vessel was completely gutted. Her old diesel engines were replaced with the latest cutting-edge power plants. Using a process called magnetohydrodynamics, the engines employed supercooled magnets to strip naturally occurring free electrons from seawater to produce a near-limitless amount of electricity. That power was then fed into four aqua pulse jets that pushed water through a pair of gleaming vectored-thrust drive tubes at tremendous force. The technology had been tried on only a few vessels, and since the fire on an MHD-driven cruise ship called the Emerald Dolphin it had been banished back to laboratories and scale models.
At the speeds the vessel was now capable of, her hull had to be stiffened and reinforced. Stabilizing fins were added, and her bow modified to give her modest icebreaking abilities. Several hundred miles of wiring were run throughout the ship for her sophisticated suite of electronics, everything from military-grade radar and sonar to dozens of closed-circuit television cameras. Keeping tabs on the system was a Sun Microsystems supercomputer
Then came the weapons. Two torpedo tubes, a 120mm cannon that used the targeting system from an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. She sported three General Electric 20mm Gatling guns, vertical launchers for surface-to-surface antiship missiles, and a slew of .30 caliber machine guns for self-defense.
All the weapons were cleverly hidden behind retractable hull plates, like the German K boats used during World War I. The .30 cals were tucked inside rusted oil barrels permanently affixed to the deck. With a flick of a button in the operations center, the barrels’ lids would pop open and the weapons would emerge, fired remotely by gunners safely inside the
ship.
Cabrillo added other surprises, too. Her aft-most hold was converted into a hangar for a four-passenger Robinson R44 helicopter that could be hydraulically raised to the deck. Concealed doors where she could unleash all manner of small craft, including Zodiacs and a SEAL assault boat, were at her waterline, while, along her keel, two massive panels opened into a cavernous space called a moon pool, where a pair of mini-subs could be launched covertly.
As for the crew’s accommodations, no expense was spared. The passageways and cabins were as luxurious as any five-star hotel. The Oregon boasted probably the finest kitchen afloat, with a staff of cordon bleu-trained chefs. One of the ballast tanks along her flanks, designed to make the vessel appear fully loaded should the need arise, was lined with Carrara marble tiles and doubled as an Olympic-length swimming pool.
The workers who’d done the refit had thought they had been doing the job on behalf of the Russian Navy as part of a new fleet of covert spy ships. Cabrillo had been assisted in this ruse by the commander of the base where the dry dock was located, an eminently corruptible admiral whom Juan had known for years.
The money to start the Corporation and pay for the conversion of the Oregon had come from a hidden Cayman Islands bank account that had once belonged to an assassin-for-hire Cabrillo had taken care of for his former employer, the Central Intelligence Agency. Technically, the money should have reverted to the CIA’s black budget, but Juan was given tacit approval to fund his enterprise by his immediate superior, Langston Overholt IV.
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