by Evan Graver
The captain’s face went slack, and his big blond head dropped between his shoulders. He slowly shook it side to side. When he looked up, there were tears coursing down his cheeks. In a shaky voice, he said, “My name is Anders Mikkelsen. I am innocent of these charges. I was captain of this vessel when she sailed as SEACOR Mariner. The new owner, Arturo Guerrero, offered me a substantial raise. It was much later I realized I was to pilot a pirate ship. By then, Guerrero was having my family watched and he threatened me. He said if I quit, he would kill them.”
“Can we verify the threat on his family?” Ryan asked Landis.
Landis whispered in his ear, “We’ll work on it.”
“They live on Maple Street in Anaheim, California.” He gave the house number.
Landis spoke again. “We verified the captain’s papers, and his employment with SEACOR. They gave him a glowing review. We’re checking out the family.”
Ryan extracted a pack of Camel Blues from a shirt pocket and removed a cigarette. He lit it and drew the smoke deep into his lungs.
“May I have one as well?” Anders asked.
Ryan shook another from the package, placed it between the captain’s lips and lit it.
Anders took a deep breath. “Could you take the cuffs off, please?”
Ryan cut the cuffs loose and placed a new set on Anders, so his hands were in front of his body.
“Where did the weapons come from?”
“We met a ship off the coast of Belize. I dealt with a man by the name of Jim Kilroy. He is American, I believe.”
Larry Grove grunted.
Ryan asked, “What?”
Larry elaborated, “Kilroy is a major arms dealer operating out of Central America. He owns resort properties all over the Caribbean Basin and launders his money through them.”
“You’ve been chasing this guy?” Ryan asked.
“He’s well-connected politically,” Larry said. “When the winds of fortune blow his way, he gets protection from the U.S. government. When they blow the other way, we go looking for him. The old ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ routine.”
Ryan understood all too well. He’d seen it happen many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. “When are you supposed to meet Kilroy again?” he asked Anders.
“Not for a while. Guerrero arranges the shipments. We made a pickup a week ago. That is why we have so many weapons on board.”
“Is your only method of smuggling via stolen sailboats?”
“No, we also meet fishing boats and offload guns into their holds. Those fishermen make more money on one run for Guerrero than they do fishing all month.”
“Do you move drugs?” Larry asked.
“No, Guerrero likes to keep his businesses separate.”
Ryan asked, “Why is Guerrero moving all these weapons into the United States?”
Anders held up his cuffed hands. “All I do is drive the ship.”
“I didn’t figure a Danish sea captain would be privy to Guerrero’s master plan.”
Anders snorted. “No, I don’t care at all. I’m only trying to protect my family.”
“Do you know where Guerrero is now?”
“He has a home in Tampico. He runs his operations from a compound there.”
Mango entered the bridge. He made a beeline for the coffee. Kimber and Jinks removed the dead man from the bridge.
“Captain, are there any men you trust to run the ship?” Larry asked.
“Yes, my chief engineer and my first mate. They came with me when Guerrero bought the ship. I believe they locked themselves in the mess. If you didn’t kill them during your assault.”
“There are men locked in the mess who refuse to come out,” Mango said between sips of coffee.
“We made plans, in case someone attacked the ship,” Anders informed them. “They were to lock themselves into the mess. You can trust us, Mr. Weller. We have no wish to harm you or your men. We only want to do our jobs and not continue the piracy and gunrunning.”
“I’m not letting your men out,” Ryan said.
The man next to Anders remained sullen and refused to look at anyone.
“Who is this?” Ryan asked, pointing at the man.
“He’s the new chief engineer. Guerrero sent him aboard after he bought the boat.”
Larry motioned for Ryan to join him in a corner away from the captain. When they stopped, Larry sipped from his mug and watched Anders Mikkelsen. “You need more than two people to run this ship, and as much as I like Greg, he needs someone to help him on Dark Water. The seas are pretty rough for him to be running the boat by himself.”
In his ear, Ryan heard Landis. “I agree with the SEAL. Keep everyone confined. You’ll have to make do until the Coast Guard gets there. They got a late start.”
“Coast Guard,” Ryan said. “I thought the Independence was meeting us.”
“They broke down. Something to do with turbine failure.”
“Shocker. How long until the Coasties get here?”
“You have a few hours,” Landis said. “We had to reroute a ship out of Galveston.”
“Who are they sending?” Mango asked.
Ryan repeated the question to Landis.
“The cutter Manowar.”
Ryan informed Mango, who nodded and said, “Good guys. Captain’s name is Raymond Watson.”
“Give me an ETA,” Ryan said to Floyd and then to the rest, “I don’t trust this guy and I don’t think we can trust the crew. Shelly has her captain’s license. DiMarco will stay with Greg, and the rest of us will crew this vessel until we can turn it over to the Coast Guard. Mango, you used to be a boatswain’s mate, you should be able to do something useful.”
Mango crossed his arms and knitted his brows together. “Really, bro?”
Larry grinned, and Ryan shrugged.
Mango’s face relaxed into a grin. “I know more about running a boat than any of you squids.” Then he turned serious again. Looking at Ryan, he said, “I need to talk to you about something.” He motioned with his head toward the ladderwell.
The two men walked down the ladder and stood on the forecastle deck. Standing behind Ryan, Mango tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to stay put. He then wrote a note in a small notepad he carried and held it out where Ryan could see it and the camera could not.
“Landis, I need to go offline for a few minutes.”
“Ryan, don’t you …”
Ryan shut off the camera and the mic. “What’s so important?”
Mango moved into the captain’s cabin and crossed to the bunk. He lifted the mattress and a steel lid covering a six-inch-deep locker. The locker contained half a carton of Marlboro Gold cigarettes, a partial bottle of Akvavit, and a random collection of personal possessions.
“I almost overlooked this.” Mango pointed to a small catch on the side of the locker tray. He flicked it to the side and raised the tray. Underneath lay stacks of bound one-hundred-dollar bills. Ryan and Mango each picked up a packet of bills wrapped in a white currency band with mustard-colored strips and labeled $10,000.
“I need a calculator, but there’s at least a million here,” Ryan said.
Mango said, “Closer to five if my earlier count was right.”
Ryan chuckled as he fanned the bills with his thumb. He tossed the bundle back in the locker. “I wouldn’t be disappointed if those found their way onto Dark Water.”
Mango scrutinized his friend. “Are you serious?”
“Cliff Olsen told me there’d be occasions when we found ourselves in a situation like this. Think of it as a bonus.” He slapped Mango on the back and they both laughed.
Mango tossed his bundle back in the locker. “What did you get from the captain?”
“He works for Arturo Guerrero.”
“The pro wrestler?”
Ryan burst out laughing. “That’s Eddie Guerrero.”
Embarrassed, Mango changed the subject. “What about Aztlán?”
Ryan, still grinning, sa
id, “He says he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“You believe him?”
“No. He claims Guerrero is threatening his family. He would have quit a long time ago rather than run guns and contribute to high-seas piracy.”
“He has to know more.”
“We need to interview someone from the RIB boat crew. Did you see anyone you recognized when we were handcuffing people?”
“I saw the guy who ran the boat, but he isn’t talking. Jinks put a bullet in his chest right after he killed Paddington. There were several men who are wearing the Aztlán patch.”
Ryan pursed his lips. “Let’s find someone who knows what’s going on.”
They stepped back into the forecastle’s common area and looked at the men sitting or lying on the deck.
“Let’s grab that guy.” Ryan pointed at a Mexican kid in his early twenties with a wisp of a mustache and a mop of floppy, black hair.
“No, señor, no!” The kid screamed. He kicked and fought violently as Ryan and Mango hooked their arms under his and dragged him into the captain’s cabin.
They threw him on the bunk, and he slithered onto his knees. “Por favor, no, por favor!” Please, no, please. Tears streamed down his face as he sat back on his heels.
“Cállate,” Shut up, Ryan bellowed. “Stop whining.”
The kid shook now. A stain darkened the front of his trousers.
Ryan shook his head in annoyance. He squatted down beside the kid, Walther pistol in hand. In Spanish, Ryan spoke calmly to him. “What’s your name?”
“Ernesto.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Ernesto, but I will if you don’t cooperate.”
The boy nodded and sniffed back mucus.
“Good, your friends weren’t so lucky. They fought with us and now they are dead. You, my friend, will end up the same way if you don’t help me. Who do you work for?”
The boy shook his head.
“You don’t know?”
“No say,” Ernesto whined.
Mango knelt beside the kid, and Ernesto’s eyes darted to him then back at Ryan and down to the gun. They traveled in a constant circle, and when the eyes lifted to Ryan’s, Mango smacked Ernesto so hard he left a handprint on the boy’s face.
“Bastardo!” Ernesto moaned and spat blood on the deck.
“Tell me, Ernesto.” Ryan shoved the pistol muzzle against the boy’s kneecap.
The boy sobbed again. Tears streamed down his face. “No.” He shook his head.
“Tell me!” Ryan grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him upright. “You have the balls to sink my boat and steal from others, yet you cry like a puta.”
“They will kill me,” Ernesto sobbed.
Ryan pressed the gun barrel against the boy’s forehead and leaned in until his face was just inches from Ernesto’s, then screamed, “I’ll kill you.”
“Arturo Guerrero,” Ernesto wailed.
Still holding the boy’s lapels, Ryan asked, “What’s Guerrero doing with these guns?”
Ernesto stiffened as if he were proud. “They are for la Revolución.”
“What revolution, Ernesto?” Ryan relaxed his grip.
The kid backed away and pressed himself against the bulkhead. “We take back Aztlán from el Norte and restore our ancestral lands.”
“Guerrero is the leader of this movement?”
“He is our high priest. Once the lands reunite, he will be our ruler.”
“Was he part of the bombings in Austin and Los Angeles?”
“I hope so.” He spat a gelatinous glob of blood and spittle on the deck and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Where do they take the guns?”
“You should have asked Jorge. He knows the whole operation.” The boy wiped his eyes with his palms. “He is dead.”
Ryan and Mango left Ernesto bound on the floor of the cabin and went up to the bridge. The air felt good after being trapped in the cabin with the stench of blood, sweat, fear, and urine. Someone had duct-taped a sheet of plastic over the broken pane of glass. It blocked the wind but was flapping at the upper right corner. White-capped waves rolled on the horizon. The rain had ceased, but the seas were still rough. Clouds scurried across a half-moon even though the wind was dying down.
Both men grabbed cups of coffee.
Mango said, “I’ll take care of what we talked about when Shelly transfers over from Dark Water.”
Jinks came onto the bridge. He walked straight to Larry Grove and said, “You need to come with me.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Omar Salam Mansur listened at the door of his hidden chamber. Behind him, Wahbi Rahman Osman murmured a barely audible prayer to Allah.
“Silence,” Omar whispered in Arabic.
He’d heard gunfire and detonations he believed were from grenades. Now he could hear two men speaking in English. Omar didn’t recognize the men’s voices. Most of the ship’s crew spoke Spanish. He’d spent enough time listening at the door to recognize most of the crew by their speech patterns. Omar pressed his ear to the thin, metal bulkhead and listened to the conversation. The men had stopped right outside the door. Omar had trouble hearing the conversation over the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
“Hey, LT, I’ll be glad when we’re done with this op.”
“Yeah, me too. I wish Paddington hadn’t died.”
“It sucked, sir.”
“Damn right it does. What did you want to talk about?”
“Do you remember the top-secret intelligence brief about Al-Qaeda using boats to smuggle operatives into the U.S.?”
Omar slipped away from the door and picked up a satellite phone. He dialed the number stored in its memory and listened to it ring. A man answered in Spanish.
“As-salaam alaykum.” Peace be unto you, Omar said, offering the traditional Arabic greeting.
“Who is this?” the man asked in English.
Omar also switched languages. “This is Omar Salam Mansur. I am on the ship going to the United States. It has been compromised.”
“You are on La Carranza Garza?”
“If that is the name of the ship, yes.”
“What do you mean compromised?”
“I heard gunfire and grenades. Now, there are English-speaking men outside my door. One called LT. I know this is American slang for lieutenant.”
“Are you positive?”
The door to the hidden room flew open. Startled, Omar dropped the phone. Two men, clad in all black, carrying silenced machine guns, charged into the room. They forced Omar and Wahbi to sit on the floor, bound their hands and feet with plastic zip cuffs, and shoved gags in their mouths. Omar struggled against his bonds, humiliated at the rough treatment. He swore vengeance on these white Satans.
The leader of the two men in black picked up the satellite phone. He turned to his companion and said, “Let’s go.”
Larry Grove and Roland Jenkins burst onto the bridge. Larry marched up to Anders. “One of your crewmen told Jinks about a special compartment in the forward hold. Please tell us about it, Captain.”
Anders Mikkelsen blanched.
The SEAL team commander turned to Ryan. “There’s a hidden compartment with four bunks. We detained the two men in there. They’re foreign personalities associated with ISIS.”
“How do you know this?” Ryan demanded.
“I made a few calls of my own and ran them through a database.” Larry held up a satellite phone. “They also placed a call right before Jinks and I found them.”
Ryan asked, “Who did they call?”
“I don’t know,” Larry replied. “My guess would be their handler.”
Ryan couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice as he addressed Anders. “Why didn’t you tell us you were smuggling terrorists?”
“When we put into Veracruz for fuel and provisions, these men come onto the boat. I do not ask questions. I stay on the bridge and allow the Mexican crewmen to load the weapons and other con
traband. I thought they went off on the last sailboat.”
“You’re complicit in bringing Muslim terrorists to U.S. soil,” Larry growled. “You lied to us.”
Anders appealed to Ryan, “Mr. Weller, I have done these things to keep my family safe.”
Ryan shook his head and frowned. “Anders, I can’t protect you from this.”
“I am forced to do this.”
“So you say.” Ryan turned away from him. He looked down to see Dark Water alongside the Garza. Mango tossed a dark green duffle bag across the open water, and it landed near the fighting chair in Dark Water’s cockpit. It splashed water off the deck and Ryan could almost hear the thud the heavy bag made. A million dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills weighed twenty-two pounds. The duffle bulged at the seams and strained the top clasp holding it closed. Mango acted like it weighed closer to one hundred and ten pounds.
“Please.” Anders’s low, plaintive plea hung in the air.
Shelly was on the rail of the Hatteras. A wave caught the boat out of sorts and slammed it against the Garza. Rubber fenders saved the fiberglass boat from being damaged. Mango, Kimber, and Kellogg were standing along the Garza’s railing, ready to help Shelly across. Vodden had replaced Kellogg in the engine room. Shelly timed the waves and leaped to the Garza. The three men caught her at the rail and hauled her aboard.
“What else do you know about Guerrero’s operations?” Larry asked Anders.
The captain’s eyes dropped. “I have told you all I know.”
Ryan doubted it, but short of torturing the man, he wouldn’t get any more information from him. He’d scared the piss out of one guy today and that was his limit.
Shelly ran onto the bridge. Between breaths, she exclaimed, “Multiple suicide bombers detonated their vests inside Arizona’s State Capitol Executive Building. The building came down.”
The men on the bridge stood in stunned silence until Jinks asked, “Who’s claiming responsibility?”
“No one has yet,” Shelly replied. “It just happened. We heard it on satellite radio. It was breaking news.”
Three bombs in key Aztlán states looked more like Guerrero’s separatist movement than ISIS. Ryan always figured ISIS would attack Washington, D.C., or key ports to damage infrastructure. These bombings didn’t fit the profile Ryan had developed for Islamic terrorists. They did fit the profile of la Revolución. The work of a mad man destroying people’s lives so he could revise history. Next, there would be an army of Chicano warriors marching in the streets.
