Reprisal!- The Eagle's Sorrow

by Cliff Roberts

  It was several seconds until the man finally blinked and stated, “I’d better call the harbor master’s.” He proceeded to reach for the radio phone.

  “Are you daft? I’m from the harbor master’s!” Yousef bellowed loudly as he pointed to his hat while one of the two men with him turned around showing the man the back of his jacket. The first mate stopped reaching for the phone but continued to look at Yousef as though he had three eyes.

  After a moment, the first mate spoke again. “Still, I’d better call the harbor master’s office because we were told less than an hour ago that we wouldn’t be taken to our berth until tomorrow morning. It is highly unusual not to be called before the schedule is changed. It’ll only take a minute to confirm that you have the right ship,” the first mate stated in clear, British-accented English as he grabbed the radio phone attached to the chair.

  The report of the .40 cal. Sig Sauer echoed loudly off the metal walls of the bridge. The five crewmen stationed on the bridge jumped at the noise and backed away from the body of the first mate as it fell to the floor at the foot of the captain’s chair.

  “Where is the captain?” Yousef asked in a calm voice, sending a chill through everyone as he eyed each man while holding the gun on them. An older, gray-haired man, in a plain white shirt and pants, took a step forward, glancing at the first mate, now dead on the floor. He then glanced quickly at the other men standing there, giving them a reassuring look. He then turned his attention back to Yousef.

  He looked Yousef directly in the eye, his anger clearly etched across his face, fury burning in his eyes as he said, “I am the captain.” There was a heavy Scandinavian accent to his voice. “What is the meaning of this?” he then asked as he started to step around the chart table separating Yousef and him.

  Yousef extended his hand, pointing the gun directly at the man. It was aimed at his forehead, which caused the captain to stop moving forward, clearly understanding the meaning of the gesture.

  “Your ship is being hijacked. Now, all of you, please stand against the windows, facing out!” Yousef ordered in a calm voice. The bridge crew and the captain stood staring at him without moving, so he shot the man furthest to the left in the shoulder. His intention wasn’t to kill the man but to clarify who was in charge. He then pointed the gun at the man next to him and repeated the order. The bridge crew quickly moved to face the windows with the captain slowly following.

  Aijaz stepped onto the bridge wing and waved to the men below, signaling them to come aboard. As they were doing so, two crewmen came running from the bow anchor housing shed yelling something in Swedish. The terrorists shot them dead, unwilling to deal with them and not knowing what they were saying anyway.

  They left the bodies where they fell and continued to quickly ferry the four wooden boxes into the superstructure, where they began unpacking the supplies. One of the three men set about placing several small anti-personnel mines about the entrances to the superstructure in the hopes of discouraging anyone from entering. Then, the other two men moved forward.

  They went to the vent stacks and removed the vent covers so they could install the bombs inside. Once they had secured the bombs in the stacks, they sealed them with the rubber grommets the Pakistanis had created. Once the shafts were sealed, they replaced the vent covers and moved on to placing small bombs with alarm clocks for timers. They hoped to delay the bomb squad in their attempts to defuse the bombs in the containment vessels.

  After setting the last charge and double checking the timers to be sure they were set to the proper time, the three men made their way to the bridge via the interior stairs. The two new men didn’t say a word but went directly to the doors leading to the bridge wings to stand guard.

  While the men had been setting the bombs, Aijaz had tied up the crew, binding their hands and ankles, then looping the ropes around each man’s waist, tying him to the next man and then to the console off to the far left side, out of reach of the engine and steering controls. Yousef then had Aijaz, who would actually pilot the ship up the Elbe, start making the ship ready to sail.

  Yousef dragged the captain a few steps over to the intercom and ordered him to tell the other crewmen to stay where they were and not to ask any questions at this time—simply remain where they were and he’d answer their questions later. Reluctantly, the captain did as Yousef told him. Yousef then ordered Aijaz to start the engines.

  The chief engineer stationed in the engine room balked at starting the engines for Aijaz, who tried to claim he was the first mate. It was a delay that clearly infuriated Yousef as they were quickly falling behind schedule. Dragging the captain over to the intercom, Yousef had him confirm that they were indeed going to full power and setting sail for the gas terminal upriver, a full day ahead of schedule.

  When the chief engineer remarked that it was odd that the schedule had changed, clearly challenging the captain’s orders, the captain’s reaction was almost caustic. He didn’t skip a beat and practically screamed into the intercom informing the chief that some idiot at the harbor master’s office had confused their ship with another when they made the earlier scheduling change. The real change was to sail upriver now. That seemed to satisfy the chief engineer, and soon, Yousef felt the vibration caused by the huge engines reverberating through the ship.

  Yousef leaned in close to the captain and said quietly, “Excellent!” He then shoved the man back into line in front of the equipment console. Yousef took a seat in the captain’s chair, where he watched as Aijaz began to weigh anchor using the automated system, except all of the lights did not go out, signaling that the anchor had not fully retracted.

  The captain waited a few moments before he spoke. He informed Yousef that the portside bow anchor had suffered a generator failure and that he had two men working on it, but apparently they been unable to repair it yet. Yousef looked at his men at the wing doors and both shrugged their shoulders before one of them explained that the men had come running at them so they shot them.

  Yousef was immediately enraged and was about to shoot his own men when Aijaz spoke up. “Yousef, the meter shows that anchor is fully extended. That means the anchor pin can be pulled and the anchor and chain will simply slip into the sea.”

  Looking at the other two men with a steely gaze, Yousef commanded them to get down the anchor shed and release the anchor. The captain suggested that they take a couple of his men along because it may sound easy to do, but it was not.

  Yousef quickly looked at Aijaz for confirmation of his claim and Aijaz shook his head negatively. Yousef swore at the two men who were still standing there, and as they left, he spun around and shot the captain in the arm.

  “That’s for trying to fool me. If you should feel the need to try again, I will kill you,” Yousef snarled. In less than five minutes, the anchor was discarded and they began slowly increasing speed as they moved forward into the river’s main shipping channel.

  A quick check of the bridge clock told Yousef that they had fallen far behind schedule. He ordered Aijaz to increase speed and move upriver as fast as possible. Then, for good measure, he told him not to slow down for anything or anyone. If pleasure craft got in the way, he instructed Aijaz to run them over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A short while later, the first sign that the hijacking wasn’t a secret any longer, appeared when a small police boat entered the channel upstream and turned towards them. Yousef ignored the radio, which began to squawk as the police attempted to contact the ship. When the ship failed to respond, the police ordered them to stop and prepare to be boarded. But, again, there was no reply from the ship.

  Foolishly, the two police officers in the boat then decided that they would block the path of the eleven hundred foot plus tanker, which weighed in at more than 400,000 metric tons, to try and force it to stop. They pulled their twenty-four foot open-bowed boat sideways in front of the large ship.

  A ship this size does not stop quickly. At its current speed of eight knots an
d weighing as much as it did, the ship required almost two kilometers to stop. Even if Yousef had been willing, the huge ship could not be stopped before it ran right over the small boat.

  The two officers suddenly realized that the ship wasn’t going to stop. They managed to race away from in front of the ship’s bow, barely missing being sunk by the behemoth as it continued upriver. Despite the close call, they then tried to pull up alongside the ship by the still-lowered gangway, which was partly awash from the wake caused by the huge ship as it plowed steadily upstream, while fighting a six knot current.

  It wasn’t easy, but they managed to secure their boat to the gangway. That quickly proved to be another mistake as the wake immediately rode up and over the small boat’s bow, nearly swamping it. The quick thinking of one of these officers, slashing the line with his pocket knife, was all that kept them from being sunk and pulled under the ship into the giant blades of the twin screw.

  Partially submerged, the two brave but reckless officers were valiantly making for shore when two of the terrorists stepped onto the bridge wing and fired a dozen AK47 rounds at each of the helpless men, killing both of them and sinking their small boat. Their colleagues watched helplessly from shore as the remains of their boat were swiftly swept under the ship and chewed to bits by the huge twin propellers.

  The next obstacle Yousef and his team faced came in the form of armed police officers waiting on the bridge that spanned the river at Glucksadt. The bridge was lined with police all looking through binoculars in an effort to see what was happening on the ship’s bridge. The police had a clear view of the two dead men on the main deck and of the four men now standing in the windows of the bridge. Other than that, they could see no one.

  Surprisingly, the police snipers still took two shots through the bridge windows, shattering them, driving the five crewmen to the floor and making two rather large black holes in the back wall of the bridge. Fortunately, Yousef and his men had, at the first indication of trouble, taken refuge on the floor behind the wheel and captain’s chair or under the console, making themselves nearly impossible targets to see, let alone hit.

  Yousef decided now would be a good time to make his point to the police, hoping to stop any further sniper action. He ordered two of his men to toss the crewman he had wounded earlier overboard through the bridge wing door. Despite the captain’s protests—and Yousef almost having to shoot him to get him to shut up—the wounded man was dragged out on to the bridge wing.

  Before any of the police could react, the terrorists grabbed the man by his hair and his pants and hurled him over the railing. The man dropped to the river below as several shots rang out, pinging off the side of the superstructure, forcing Yousef’s men to quickly slip back inside out of sight. The man who was tossed overboard hit the river, only to be sucked under the huge ship now traveling at fourteen knots. He was chopped to a fine, pink mist that floated on the water in the ship’s wake.

  Yousef and his LNG tanker next encountered the police when two helicopters buzzed the ship as they were passing Lühesand Island. They made three passes before they flew off upriver. It was then that Yousef decided to have some fun with the authorities, though the plan did not call for them to talk with the authorities at all.

  He decided to try and stall them by issuing a string of demands, all in Arabic, just as they had done at the other ship. This time, though, his demands would be different. Yousef felt this would be great fun. He only wished he could be in the room with the authorities when they realized that these demands were different from the other ship’s. Yousef had the captain radio the police, and once the connection had been established, Yousef proceeded to have the captain read his list of demands to the police.

  “The gentleman here,” the captain began, “says that they demand all of the Muslim prisoners being held in German jails are to be released within the hour; that all military advisors and peacekeepers are to be removed from Afghanistan within twenty-four hours; that all Western nations remove their troops from Iraq within thirty days; and that the German government deposit one hundred million dollars in the Brotherhood Resolution Bank of Finance in the Sudan as a zakat symbolizing a prayer for forgiveness from Allah for all of the German peoples’ transgressions against the Islamic nations starting in the eighth century A.D.” The captain repeated the demands word for word a second time as Yousef listened closely to his recital making sure the man could indeed read Arabic and interpret properly.

  Then Yousef had the captain read the second part of his demands. “It is further required that all car traffic be stopped from crossing any and all bridges over the Elbe for the next three hours. The ship that is in the gas terminal, which has been commandeered by some other faction of want-to-be adventurers, is to be boarded, and the sons of dogs on board shot. This was our plan and our mission for Allah. They are interlopers! The ransom money that they have requested is not to be paid and communication with them is to cease.” The captain finished and looked at Yousef strangely. Yousef smirked in return.

  “This will take some time to arrange,” the police negotiator stated, then asked, “Will he show good faith by stopping the ship now so that we can work this out to a peaceful conclusion? We will give him a forum from which to vent his concerns,” the man speaking for the authorities asked, sounding as though he was reading straight from the police manual.

  “He says,” the captain replied, “if you will convert to Islam now, on television so the whole world can see that you did this, he will consider stopping the ship. But under no circumstance will he stop the ship before he has entered the Petroleumhafen canal where his brothers in arms have taken the other LNG tanker.” The captain looked at Yousef, who was leaning against a wall and grinning as his men snickered softly at the ridiculous demands and circular story.

  “You are a fool if you think they will even consider giving in to any of your ludicrous demands,” the captain snarled as he stared Yousef in the eye.

  “What makes you think that I even care if they do? I have no demands. I am the Sword of Allah here to punish the wicked. What country are you from?” Yousef asked after having done his best to impress upon the captain the hopelessness of his position.

  “I am from Norway,” the captain stated proudly.

  “Ah, yes, a Viking. Did you know that the Vikings, your ancestors, had sailed as far south as the Ivory Coast of Africa in the fifth century? They made a huge mistake when they tried to plunder the city of M’bour in what is now Senegal. There is a shrine built to mark the location and to praise Allah. It still stands today. It has a solid gold roof with doors and floors that are made of silver and ivory. I’ve been there, and it is beautiful beyond belief.

  “The craftsmanship is beyond compare, even today,” Yousef stated authoritatively as the captain just looked at him blankly.

  “But I digress. The Vikings heard of this great shrine and the fabulous wealth that was entrusted to the local imam and decided to sail down the coast from the Strait of Gibraltar and steal the gold, silver and ivory. They sailed for over a week and had almost reached the city when a fierce storm battered them for three days and three nights, forcing them very far out to sea before they could correct their course.

  “While the storm raged, the sheik of this ancient land, called Thies, had driven his army south from his palace in the city Thies, a five days’ march, but through the blessings of Allah, he accomplished the journey in just three days and nights, right up to the outskirts of M’bour where he prepared for the Vikings’ arrival.”

  Yousef took a deep breath before continuing, “In addition to covering the great distance in record time, Allah further blessed him as he lost no men or horses on the journey, which is fraught with danger from sandstorms, quicksand and the merciless, burning sun. Allah also provided the storm with its strong offshore winds to delay the Vikings’ arrival.” Yousef stopped for a moment and smiled as he looked off into space.

  “Where was I? Oh, yes,” Yousef said after a moment. �
��A week later, when the Vikings finally arrived, they were near exhaustion and without food or water. They had no choice but to attack, and so they did. The sheik allowed them to leave the harbor area with only minor resistance, whereupon they rushed through the streets towards the great shrine only to be ambushed and trapped in the public square. Over a thousand men surrounded the hundred or so Vikings within sight of their prize. There was a fierce battle, and when every Viking was either killed or wounded, they finally surrendered.

  “The sheik, who was a brave, honest, fair and faithful man, before he passed judgment on the survivors as was his right, he offered to let them convert to Islam and be sold into slavery, thus sparing their miserable lives. Otherwise, he would put them to death as harshly as he could.