Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  “If I turn the big chrome wheel to the right, the ship goes faster. To the left and we slow,” Zarguj Wahab proudly reported. “I think the little wheel makes us go backwards.”

  Wahab’s voice crackled from a box in the overhead behind Nurizam. He guessed that if he spoke into the microphone hanging from the box, he would be able to talk to the jihadist back in the engine room.

  “Wahib, do not touch anything. Wait for the Americans to wake up. Then shoot the officer. He’s the one with the funny pins on his collar. Tell the others that you will shoot them too, unless they do exactly as you say. Do you understand my orders, Wahab?”

  “Yes, mullah. I understand.”

  Reality came back slowly, creeping through the fog and pain. Jim Ward fought to shove the gray cobwebs from his mind.

  What in hell had happened? Where was he?

  The last thing he remembered, he was sitting on the bridge, drinking bitter coffee and talking procedures with the Nav. Had someone shot at them? Had the Nav been wounded? Or was it all just a horrible dream?

  Ward groaned involuntarily and tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t seem to force his eyelids open, no matter how hard he tried.

  What was happening to him? Something blocked his vision.

  He finally managed to push himself to a sitting position. Every muscle screamed in agony.

  “You! Lie back down!”

  The disembodied words growled out of the darkness. It wasn’t a voice that Ward recognized. The accent sounded strange, guttural, and carried absolute authority.

  The hard slap came out of nowhere and the unexpectedness of it made it sting all the worse.

  The force of the blow knocked Ward back down onto the cold deck. His face burned from the blow and his head hurt even worse after bouncing off the steel deck.

  So, it certainly wasn’t a dream. Something terrible, something unfathomable, had happened. The questions raced through his swirling mind. Was he still on Corpus Christi? What had happened to Brad Hudson? Even more important, what had happened to the rest of the crew and the boat? Was it possible that someone had…?

  Ward could hear other groans around him besides his own. He wasn’t quite sure, but it sounded like some of his shipmates waking up from a particularly bad night at Andy’s Hut in Guam. What had happened? Whose voice had growled at him? Who had hit him? Ward just couldn’t quite fit all the pieces together.

  Someone grabbed him roughly and yanked him upright. He fought the dizziness and the urge to vomit but still couldn’t force his eyes to open.

  “Shut up, degenerate!” the now familiar voice rumbled. Whoever it was, he was so close that Ward could feel the warm spray of spit as he spoke. And the man had obviously eaten garlic recently.

  Unseen hands yanked the tape from Ward’s face, ripping away skin and hair as it tore loose. Ward blinked hard in the sudden blinding light and tried desperately to focus on who or whatever was around him. He could tell that he was standing on Corpus Christi’s mess decks.

  Clumps on the floor came into focus. Bodies, strewn everywhere, stacked like cordwood in the confined space.

  Someone—it looked like Neil Campbell—was slowly coming around, climbing to his knees just in front of him. Ward couldn’t quite make out anyone else for sure. What with the tape and the sudden bright lights, it was taking a while for his vision to come around.

  Then something hard rammed into his kidney.

  “Walk, infidel. We have work for you, before you die.”

  It was the same harsh voice, dripping with menace. Whoever it was, he was now standing just behind Ward. The prodding was unmistakably a gun barrel jammed into his back.

  Ward moved forward as he was ordered to do. The jabbing forced him toward the forward ladder.

  “Up, dog,” the voice commanded in heavily-accented English. “Climb up or I will shoot you here. You will be but one more slave for me in paradise. Maybe you have a sister for me to enjoy, too.”

  Young Ward fought the almost overpowering impulse to turn around and go for the man’s throat. One thought stopped him. What would father do? Ward knew the answer before he asked himself the question. He would conquer his emotions. He would think through the situation, find the best solution, and wait for precisely the right moment before he hit with everything he had. Jim Ward had no idea what he was in the middle of but, as he began climbing the ladder, he vowed that he would do exactly what his father expected, what he would do in the same situation. Right now, that meant going along with whatever the gruff voice stabbing him in the back with the gun barrel told him to do.

  Ward climbed the ladder to the upper level. He glanced to his right as he reached the top-most step. There, in a heap on the deck, lay Lieutenant Commander Hilliker. There was no way for him to tell for sure if the XO was alive or dead, but it sure didn’t look good.

  He slowly made his way down the corridor toward the control room, the man with the gun still close enough behind him to prod him every few steps. The skipper’s door was shut. No way to find out the status of Commander Devlin. It was clear that he was not in command of the boat anymore. But who was?

  The gunman grabbed Ward’s shoulder and shoved him into the control room. More dead or unconscious men lay strewn around the room, not moving. His shipmates apparently lay where they had fallen when the gas grenades were dropped down the hatch. There was a stranger standing by number two periscope, dressed in an odd black outfit. Someone else, also dressed in black, sat in the helmsman’s chair as if he belonged there. He was tentatively moving the wheel to steer Corpus Christi, so it was clear that they were still underway.

  The man at the periscope noticed Ward standing there. He stepped forward and carefully looked the young sailor over.

  “Mr. Ward,” he began, staring directly at the Midshipman’s nametag on his chest. “I am Sabul u Nurizam. I am anointed by Allah to free all of Asia of the infidels. You have been chosen to assist in my holy mission. You will drive this ship. You will do exactly as I say or I will sacrifice your shipmates, one at a time, while you watch. Do you understand me?”

  Ward gulped. The guy had to be nuts. There just didn’t seem to be any other logical explanation. But crazy or not, he was obviously in control.

  “But…you don’t…I…,” Ward stammered.

  The man calmly pulled out a pistol, knelt down and placed the muzzle against the inert helmsman’s temple. He looked Ward directly in the eye and smiled as he pulled the trigger.

  Ward gasped as the sharp report echoed around the control room. The helmsman’s body jerked involuntarily. Brain matter and blood spattered onto Ward’s poopie suit as he tried to step back. The other invader still stood there and shoved him back with the nose of his weapon.

  The man named Nurizam’s eyes gleamed with what looked like pure joy. Ward watched as the man’s body shuddered with what looked suspiciously like an orgasm.

  “Now, do as I tell you. Do it without question, or someone else will surely die.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Nurizam,” Ward yelled out, fighting the gorge that rose in his throat. Reality had arrived entirely too quickly. This man, Sabul u Nurizam—whoever he was—was nothing but pure evil. Jim Ward had no idea how he was going to stop him. He only knew that he would die trying.

  “Now, you will steer the submarine,” Nurizam said with a sneer, waving the bloody snout of his pistol in the direction of the helmsman’s seat. “If you even begin to think that you can stop me, I will know it. Even before you do. I’ll shoot one of your shipmates every time you start to hesitate.” He moved closer to Ward, close enough for the midshipman to see the vacant iniquity in his cold, black eyes. “Now, sit down and steer this boat!” he shouted.

  Young Ward did as he was told. He slid into the seat and grasped the wheel, then instinctively nudged the rudder a degree to the left, swinging the bow slowly around toward the northeast.

  Nurizam jumped forward and jammed the pistol hard into Ward’s left ear.

  “Do you value your
life so little that you try to trick me in front of my own eyes? What do you think you are doing?”

  Ward slowly lifted his hands away from the wheel. He fought to force down the panic and to inject calmness into his voice.

  “I was only bringing the head back to the northeast. It was falling away to the south while we were talking.” Ward swallowed hard. His throat was dry. “Your man was steering something about zero-nine-zero before. I figured I would come around to that. Then I’d ask what the ordered course was.” He waited a few seconds. The next few words felt vile in his mouth even as he formed them. “It’s standard procedure…sir.”

  It felt wrong giving this monster the respect of the title “sir.” Damn wrong.

  But the effect on Nurizam was obvious and immediate. Now he sensed that young Ward was totally in his power. The terrorist stood, glanced through the scope, and ordered, “Steer zero-five-five then, Mr. Ward.”

  A sudden commotion drew their attention away from steering the ship and toward something that was happening in the forward passageway, a few feet in front of where they were. A man, dressed in underwear and a tee shirt, stumbled down the passageway, pushed from behind. He lost his balance from the final shove and fell hard onto the grate below the ladder to the bridge.

  Commander Robert Devlin slowly pulled himself erect, using the ladder as a convenient handhold. He made it almost erect when Enrique Tagaytai stepped out of the shadows behind him and slammed his pistol butt hard into the back of the skipper’s head. The submarine commander fell back down onto the deck like dead weight. A deep groan escaped his lips and blood quickly matted his thin, gray-brown hair.

  Somehow, he managed to roll to Ward’s feet and tried to pull himself up again. Ward reached out and held out his hand to help Devlin upright. The skipper gripped his hand with surprising strength and used the younger man’s assistance to pull himself upright.

  “Captain, we’ll get out of this,” Ward whispered. “We’ll stop ‘em.”

  The blow came like a flash of lightning, an open hand slap that slammed Ward’s face into the wheel. The coppery taste of fresh blood filled his mouth.

  “Shut up,” Nurizam said with surprising calm as he idly rubbed the bits of hair and flesh from the handle of his pistol. “If you speak again, you will join your friend on the deck.”

  Commander Devlin looked down and, for the first time, saw the dead seaman lying there. He dropped to his knees beside the dead helmsman and then looked up at Nurizam, hate flashing from his eyes even as tears poured down his cheeks.

  “You son of a bitch! Why? Why did you shoot him?” Devlin’s voice was somewhere between a wail and a moan. “He was a kid. He couldn’t possibly hurt you. This young man had not even shaved yet.” He beat the deck with his fist as he looked back down at his lost crewman. “His mother wrote me…made me promise to bring him back safely. She said he was going to play the piccolo in the Honolulu symphony when he…”

  The captain could say no more. He was overcome by his emotion.

  Nurizam didn’t seem to notice. He was already studying the powerboat through Corpus Christi’s periscope once again, ordering Jim Ward to make course corrections around other obstacles that lay in their path.

  26

  It was an hour before sunrise. Ahead of them, Sabul u Nurizam could now see his way out. The tug and the barge it towed were Allah’s gift. Nurizam had known all along that Allah would provide the answer.

  The terrorist studied the ponderous pair of vessels as they slowly approached, unaware of the sacrifice they were about to make for the cause. The two cigarette boats were already alongside the tug, their low, dark shapes near invisible in the thick darkness. Even with the fine optics in this American submarine’s periscope, Nurizam was sure he wouldn’t be able to see the other craft if he didn’t know where to look. It was doubtful anyone on the tug—even if anyone were awake—would be able to see them either.

  The large tug had once been white, but was now streaked with rust and layered with the dirt and debris from a hard-working life at sea. There was nothing elegant in its lines. It had the beamy, broad-shouldered look of a ship built for strength and power. The superstructure, topped by a wheelhouse and flying bridge above it, sat well forward on the deck. A low jumble of equipment took up almost the entire after half of the vessel. Nurizam guessed that it must be the towing gear. He could see a heavy black hawser leading out of the stern and disappearing into the water a few meters farther aft.

  It was the barge, though, that most captured Nurizam’s attention. It was huge, at least two hundred meters long and forty meters wide. Although ocean-going tugs with large barges under tow were very common in these waters—and the Abu Sayuff pirates had taken more than a few—he had never seen one anywhere near this large. It was stacked high with some complex cargo that Nurizam could not quite figure. It didn’t matter. That barge was a perfect cover for the submarine.

  One of the boats snuggled up alongside the tug’s side, almost all the way aft where it would be hidden from anyone in the wheelhouse. Nurizam thought he could make out the dark shapes of his men as they scurried onboard the tug. The other boat was not visible, hidden by the tug, but Nurizam knew that it was on the opposite side, making sure no one escaped the craft in that direction.

  He read the numbers from the periscope and ordered, “You will steer zero-two-seven.” The big sub slowly swung around until its nose pointed at the approaching tug. It would take a few minutes before the two ships were close by, but he needed still more time. Hopefully, Zarguj Wahab had done his job and made the Americans obey. Nurizam grabbed the microphone to talk to Wahab back in the submarine’s engine room.

  “Have you somehow persuaded the Americans to work with you?” Nurizam inquired. The derision in his voice was totally lost on the terrorist underling.

  “I did as you ordered, mullah. The one with the metal on his collar is dead. The others are like sheep. They jump to obey if I even fart.”

  Nurizam uttered a short, dry chuckle. The thought of the American sailors wetting their pants while jumping to obey short, fat Wahib was almost amusing. But there was work to do.

  “Wahib, we need to slow down,” he said. “Have them shut the throttles until I tell you to open them again.”

  “It will be as you order, mullah.”

  In the inky distance, several short bursts of light caught Nurizam’s attention. They flared up from inside the tug’s wheelhouse. Automatic weapons fire. So the tug’s crew was no more. Seconds later a green light flashed from the tug’s bridge. That was followed quickly by two more green flashes, the signal that the tug belonged to them. Now the hard part began.

  Nurizam stepped away from the periscope and looked around the room. The submarine’s captain sat with his head in his hands on a bench in front of one of the computer screens. Since he had found the murdered young sailor, the man had done little more than simply sit and stare at the inert form.

  The captain could be quite useful to the cause. Surely he knew how to steer the submarine better than any of Nurizam’s men. And he could give orders to his crew. They were trained to obey him.

  Nurizam yanked Commander Devlin from his seat and jammed his pistol hard beneath the captain’s chin.

  “You will do as I say,” Nurizam growled at the taller man, making his voice heavy with menace. “If you even think of disobeying, I will kill one of your crew while you watch the result of your defiance. And I will continue killing them until you are the only one left alive. Do you understand me?”

  Devlin nodded slowly, not even attempting to keep the raw hatred from flashing from his eyes as he looked down at the terrorist leader. But that hate was quickly replaced by resignation as the submarine commander realized the hopelessness of his position.

  Jim Ward watched as Devlin’s shoulders slumped, then the skipper shuffled slowly over to the periscope stand. The man was utterly defeated. How were they going to defeat these terrorists and take Corpus Christi back from them without
the Captain to follow? What was their game? Why had they hijacked Corpus and then stopped here in the middle of the South China Sea? And now, what were they about to make Captain Devlin do?

  Ward glanced back over his shoulder in time to see the terrorist leader, the one that the others called the mullah, grab the captain by the back on his head and jam Devlin’s eye forcefully against the periscope eyepiece. He muttered something into the skipper’s ear. Devlin nodded slowly and said something back, but Ward couldn’t make it out.

  Then the young midshipman heard Devlin as he gave an order over the 1MC general announcing system.

  “Spin the main engines as necessary to keep them warm. Rig out the outboard and shift to remote.” The voice did not carry the commanding presence that Ward was accustomed to. Would the crew obey the order? They surely knew that Devlin had a gun to his head. Then he heard Devlin’s voice coming over the same system again.

  “Open the forward escape trunk. Chief of the Boat and line handlers lay topside. Prepare to moor the boat port side to.”

  Ward glanced down and saw the “outboard power available” light blink on, followed by the remote control light. He quickly ran through what he could remember from his last circuit around the boat. Someone had gone to the aft elliptical bulkhead, as far back as anyone could get inside the submarine, and operated the local control for the outboard motor. When the hydraulic shift valve was operated, high-pressure hydraulic oil was sent out into the number five main ballast tank and pushed the outboard’s training shaft down until the little electric motor projected below the submarine’s hull, like a very powerful bass-boat trolling motor. From there, the motor could be trained in any direction so that its little propulsor could slowly push the giant sub in the direction the captain wanted to boat to go.