Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck

by Daniel Ganninger

  It was not a stretch then that the Alterra could do the same. The most inconspicuous thing the pirates could do was to act like every other merchant ship on the route.

  The route they were following was a common lane of traffic for vessels traveling to the Panama Canal from the South Pacific. They had been heading due south for over twenty-four hours and had not yet encountered any other merchant ships.

  “Are the colors in place?” Captain Marquette asked Balboa.

  “Jes, sir,” he answered, “they are in place.”

  The colors the Captain was referring too indicated what country the vessel was registered. It is called a flag of convenience. It meant that the vessel was registered to a foreign country and thus the operation of that ship fell under the laws of that country. It was a common practice for ships to be registered to countries that had few restrictions and regulations on merchant vessels. This reduced operating expenses for the shipping companies that owned the ships. Many countries had an extremely high amount of foreign owned ships under their registry. Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Liberia, Marshall Islands, and Panama had the largest foreign owned fleets.

  The Trusian had been registered under the flag of the Saint Vincent and Grenadines Maritime Administration and was owned by a U.S. shipping company called Regentex Maritime Shipping, but the pirates had erased all evidence of that registry. The Alterra now flew the flag of the country of Liberia in Africa where it was registered with a ship ownership originating in Latvia. This made it even more difficult to track because of the difficulty in obtaining information from Liberia. The fact was, a true ship named Alterra existed, but its location remained a mystery.

  The bright black and yellow flag of Liberia flapped in the wind at the stern of the ship. The pirates painted the same outline of the flag in the same colors on the side of the ship. All evidence of the Trusian was gone, even many of the records that indicated the name of the ship on the bridge had been removed and replaced with the documents indicating that it was the Alterra. They had moved through all areas of the ship removing any indication of the name, just in case the ship was boarded by military personnel. The disguise also ensured that the pilots they encountered in any ports of call would be none the wiser. It was a brilliant feat of deception and coordination.

  The pirates had good reasons for covering all their bases. The Liberian government in 2004 had brokered a deal with the U.S. government that allowed any U.S. Navy vessel to board a Liberian registered ship if that ship was suspected of harboring weapons of mass destruction. This deal significantly reduced the anonymity of this country’s registry, but the pirates felt confident there would be no reason for suspicion.

  The pirates had gone to great lengths to emulate a legitimate cargo shipping operation. They had phony manifests, documentation of loading from a previous port of call, and a rock solid ownership with a Latvian shipping company. The pirates also had records from navigation and radio communication throughout the Pacific. It was an intricate and complicated plan.

  As to their motive and agenda, only the pirates knew. But the men in the cargo hold would know their fate soon enough.

  Captain Marquette refigured the course of the ship. When he was satisfied that all was in order, the Captain gave over control to Balboa so he could get a bite to eat and some sleep.

  The other eleven pirates aboard went about their work as if they were regular sailors on the vessel. Balboa checked the route and radar, making sure all the documentation was in order for where they were headed. A list in front of him showed the ship’s itinerary, each port of call, and the time frame. He hadn’t been made aware of their destination, but the bottom of the manifest read Cape Town, South Africa. This was a destination this ship would never make.

  -Chapter 7-

  Dimitri and the rest of the crew spent the day huddled together in the supply room off the galley. The talking amongst them had died down and the crew sat silently with their thoughts.

  Dimitri‘s thigh pain had begun to subside, but he dared not move. He had been lucky that the bullet had entered and exited on the lateral portion of his thigh. It would have been a different story if the bullet had found its way just a few inches to the right of the entry wound. Dimitri found he could stand on it with a little pressure, but the pain quickly returned, making it difficult to maintain a standing position.

  In the late evening the men heard the clank of the lock to the door. The door swung open and three of the pirates appeared. They were dressed in regular clothes, but their faces were covered with black ski masks. Each man held an assault rifle aimed directly into the room.

  “Move to back vall,” the first man yelled at the crew in a heavy accented voice, which sounded to Dimitri like an Eastern European dialect.

  Dimitri tried to gather information from their appearance, but the bright light from the galley blinded his eyes temporarily. The crew inched themselves to the back wall of the supply room per the pirate’s instructions.

  “Turn around, hand on head,” the pirate barked again.

  The fear was palpable through the men, thinking this was their last moment in life. They silently did as they were told.

  The remaining two pirates moved quickly and blindfolded the first few men they came upon and secured their wrists with plastic ties.

  “One move and jou vill be shot,” the first man said forcefully. His English was just good enough to get his point across.

  Once the pirates were satisfied the men were secure, they were pushed out the door and disappeared from Dimitri’s view. He didn’t know if he would ever see them alive again.

  A few minutes passed, and the pirates returned to repeat the process. Two pirates would secure the hands of the crewman, blindfold them with a canvas bag, and escort them out of the room. The first man kept his gun trained on the remaining crewmen the entire time. After ten minutes the room was cleared of the last crew member, leaving only Dimitri on the floor.

  “No sudden move,” the pirate told him.

  A heavy canvas bag was placed over his head, blocking his vision, and the pirates scooped him up under each arm as he yelped in pain. The pirates dragged Dimitri from the room and down a hall. He tried to concentrate on where they were taking him, but the pain was to excruciating for him to focus. Dimitri managed to gain his faculties just enough to realize they were heading towards the crews’ quarters. Unfortunately there was no conversation, but he sensed he was passing other men. Dimitri could hear footsteps only a few feet away.

  Dimitri and the two pirates traveled up a stairwell where they had to lift him to ascend. He could hear what he assumed to be a third pirate traveling close behind. He sensed from the distance and footsteps they were traveling to his cabin. Dimitri was forcefully pushed through a door and onto a bed. The canvas bag was ripped from his head, and he squinted from the sudden burst of light. It was his cabin, but it looked nothing like the way he had left it. The first thing he noticed was all of his personal items were gone, and the small porthole was covered with a film that let in light but blocked the view to the outside. All that remained in the room was his desk with the drawers missing, his bed, one chair, and a box of food and water at the foot of his bed. The pirates had attached a lock with a latch to the door of the room. This was going to be his new prison.

  The pirates looked Dimitri over again before one of them pulled out a syringe and plunged it into his thigh. He had no time to react and screamed from the pain. Dimitri stared up at the man with the syringe who showed no emotion. Almost immediately the room began to spin, and Dimitri noticed the room turning black. He fell helplessly back on the bed before blacking out completely, the result of a heavy anesthetic.

  When Dimitri awoke, the porthole showed nothing but black outside. He looked at his watch, surprised he was allowed to keep it. It now displayed 4:41 in the morning. He was numb from the waist down, and when he reached for his gunshot wound he felt small sutures in his thigh. Someone had repaired his wound. On the desk was a pill bo
ttle with the words “pain killer” scribbled on it.

  Dimitri was shocked. Why had the pirates sutured his gunshot wound? He hadn’t expected to be alive. He considered the reasons why they may want him in good health and hoped theses reasons extended to the crew as well.

  He reached for the pill bottle. “I’ll take my chances,” he decided as the pain in his leg began to grow. Dimitri threw back two of the pills and waited expectantly for the result of the pharmaceutical. After twenty minutes he felt the pain in the leg subside.

  Dimitri scanned the room again, realizing there was no possibility of escape. He stood and tested his weight. It was painful, but the leg held him. Dimitri tried to scrape off what was on the window, but it was some sort of clear adhesive and didn’t budge.

  The first mate pondered the thoughts running through his head. Why keep him alive? Perhaps the pirates were after the most common reason for hijacking—ransom money. Millions of dollars could be made from the ransom of a crew, its cargo, and the ship.

  Dimitri didn‘t believe this was the reason, however. Something told him that these men weren’t after a ransom. He had no evidence other than the pirates, or what he believed were mercenaries, were too polished, highly trained, and deadly. They had a well coordinated plan and timeline in place. These mercenaries were not poor thugs.

  Dimitri considered it again rationally and it struck him. If the pirates were after the cargo, as he assumed, then what would they need to get to it? They would need the loading officer for the unloading of the cargo, but they would need him for the security codes. The crew of the Trusian was not aware that some of their cargo had security systems in place on the containers themselves. Only Dimitri knew the codes of these containers. It was not common practice to have this type of high-level security on their type of vessel. The contents of the containers were confidential, but he knew it must be valuable. “This must be what the pirates are after,” he thought.

  There were millions of dollars worth of goods on the Trusian. How to offload them was the bigger problem. This was a gigantic vessel, capable of carrying thousands of tons of materials. The pirates would need container cranes to offload any of the containers. Those particular ports where these cranes were located were highly regulated. If the pirates were interested in a particular group of containers, another problem arose. If those containers had been loaded deep into the ship, then hundreds of other containers would need to be moved to get to them—a daunting task.

  Dimitri figured he would be called on soon enough by the mercenaries, and he would know their plan. But what would they do with him when he was of no more use? The fear spread throughout his body. At least if the crew were held for ransom they would have a chance. Dimitri hoped that was all the pirates were after. Until then he needed to find a way to alert the authorities or escape, even if it might prove impossible.

  -Chapter 8-

  The main offices of Regentex Maritime Shipping sat in a downtown office building in San Francisco, California. Their dispatch and operations were contracted through a company in Los Angeles called SeaBoard Logistics. Seaboard tracked the vessels and cargo of many smaller merchant marine companies that couldn’t afford to dedicate the resources to such a task. Their offices were located in the Port of Los Angeles, near the freight terminals.

  The staff at SeaBoard was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Trusian to the port to offload its cargo and exchange crews. Tim Elway was in charge this particular morning, coordinating the arrival of several vessels with their handoff to the harbor pilot who would guide them into port when the ship’s time was due. Elway had been in contact with the Regentex offices. They had been informed of the Trusian’s problem.

  Elway had tried all morning to raise the crew of the Trusian, but to no avail. He sent satellite email messages and radio calls, but there had been no response in the last twelve hours. An alert had been sent to the U.S. Coast Guard giving the ship’s last position. Elway had also sent a request to all incoming vessels, some as far as five hundred miles off the California coast, to be on the lookout for the Trusian.

  The ship had an expected port call of 4:45 P.M., and that time was drawing near. The Trusian would have had to be within 20 miles to arrive on time. It wasn’t unusual for a vessel to be extremely late due to weather or mechanical problems, but the fact that no vessel had seen the Trusian was very disconcerting to Elway. He decided to give the ship until 5:45 P.M. to communicate; otherwise he would have to declare an emergency. This meant the Coast Guard, Navy, and Federal Authorities would be involved, and a search for the vessel would commence. It would become a national security issue, and for Elway an extreme amount of paperwork.

  Elway and the officials at Regentex continued to call for updates on the ship. Regentex had access to the same GPS tracking as SeaBoard, and they were seeing the same thing on the tracking software as SeaBoard—nothing. This particular vessel had containers outfitted with their own GPS tracking devices, independent of the ship’s transponder. None of these were operating either. This little fact was the most troubling of all to Elway.

  The minutes ticked by slowly, and Elway had little hope in making a connection with the Trusian. As his personal cut-off time approached, Elway prepared all of his available staff to contact the proper authorities. They had no time to waste.

  As 5:45 P.M. arrived, Elway decided it was fruitless to wait any longer. He immediately got on the phone and contacted the Coast Guard with information about the ship’s last known coordinates, the location of which hadn’t changed since he contacted the Coast Guard hours before. The Coast Guard dispatched a jet to survey the area since it was so far off the coast and in international waters. A Coast Guard cutter was already steaming its way to the last known communication coordinate with the Trusian, and a U.S. Navy vessel steaming from Honolulu to San Diego was ordered to divert its course to search for the missing ship.

  Elway ordered the staff of SeaBoard to maintain strict confidentiality regarding this emergency outside the walls of the dispatch center. Despite his effort, he knew tonight the disappearance of the Trusian would be on the late evening news, every cable news outlet, website, and wire service. He cringed at the idea of the bad press, long hours, and mountain of paperwork he would have to do, but ultimately, he had no choice.

  After the necessary calls and protocols were under way, Elway got on the phone to the headquarters of Regentex Maritime and updated them on the situation. Regentex had already begun damage control and the formulation of public relations statements. This was the most damaging situation the company had encountered in their twenty year history. In today’s charged climate of hyper security, Regentex’s practices would be questioned at every turn. They would be subjected to public scrutiny, and items the company did not want public could be exposed. It was a natural reaction, even for a company that had nothing to hide.

  Thomas Saller, the logistics officer of Regentex, fielded the call from Elway. Saller was responsible for the overall operations of the Regentex fleet of ships. He was in charge of scheduling the necessary shipping points, crew assignments and replacements, connecting the cargo with rail and road, and knowing the overall status of the ships. He had already informed his staff of this pending emergency. Out of anyone in the company, he would have the most to answer for.

  Following the protocol for this type of emergency, Saller contacted McDonnell Marine Cargo Insurance Brokerage, located in San Diego.

  McDonnell was the insurance broker for Regentex and covered their shipping fleet and the cargo it carried. It was imperative to inform them of the loss of the Trusian.

  The ship itself was insured at a value of 39.9 million dollars, and the cargo was insured up to 63.3 million dollars. These were sums that Regentex would not be able to recover from the loss on their own, especially since they owed over 21 million on the Trusian to their creditors. The cargo was another story. The pending lawsuits that could result from the loss of the containers on board would be crippling. McDonnell was now
Regentex’s new best friend, and the only thing keeping them in business.

  Of course this particular news wasn‘t particularly easy for the McDonnell Insurance firm to handle, but it was why they were in business. The McDonnell representatives immediately went to work and contacted their lawyers and claims adjustors who arranged travel to the Port of Los Angeles.

  McDonnell Insurance had a daunting task ahead of them. They had to determine what cargo was on board the Trusian, and because of the sheer volume, they secretly hoped the vessel would come steaming into port when they arrived. The reps from the company would soon realize that the cargo aboard the Trusian was more than they bargained for.

  Thomas Saller arranged a flight for his team from San Francisco to LAX to meet with the representatives of the McDonnell Company and to perform damage control. This was going to be messy.

  Regentex had lost cargo before, as any shipping agent invariably had, but to have a complete loss of cargo along with the disappearance of a large container ship was something no one could have imagined. The company had contended with damaged ships and crew problems, but no one at the company ever dared talk about something of this magnitude. The Feds would be asking questions, McDonnell insurance would be asking questions, and the executives along with the shareholders of Regentex would be asking their own questions.

  The biggest problem each of these groups faced was that they had no idea where the vessel was and what may have happened to it. Saller was the first to ponder all the questions. Did it sink? The weather reports were favorable in the last area of contact, no adverse weather conditions. Did the crew experience catastrophic engine and navigational failure? Not likely since the vessel had only reported problems with the AISLive, the transponder system that tracked the ship’s position. They had never reported engine trouble and had indicated they were traveling at a set rate of speed on course. Was the ship hijacked? Not likely in the waters of this part of the Pacific. The emergency beacon had never been tripped and the captain of the vessel had not given the codes to indicate a hijacking.