Death Ship

by Joseph Badal

  Silence.

  Farnwell, followed by Davis, padded up the steps to the main deck. There was no one in sight. Then the boat’s forward progress suddenly slowed and the roar of its engines subsided. “What the hell is Vangelos doing?” He pointed forward toward the VIP stateroom and whispered to Davis, “Check it out.”

  Davis raced through the saloon and then the galley. He stopped at the steps to the skylounge and saw that it was empty. No one manned the helm station. He ran to the stateroom on his level and threw the door open. Empty. He wheeled around and moved back to the ladder down to the galley where Farnwell waited. Davis ran toward the midships companionway to the upper deck, while Farnwell moved out into the open cockpit.

  Then Davis noticed that the boat had picked up speed. As he approached the companionway, the speeding craft suddenly lurched left, and right, then left again. “What the—” he yelled as he lost his footing and crashed to the deck. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Farnwell fly into the air as though catapulted, and then cartwheel over the rail into the sea. Then the boat’s engines suddenly stopped and the craft went into a bobbing coast. Davis scrambled to his feet, rushed to the skylounge companionway, and climbed up. He used his left hand to brace himself. His right hand held the AK-47. His head had just cleared the top of the steps when his heart seemed to stop. Vangelos stood four feet away with a spear gun pointed at his face.

  “Make a decision fast,” Vangelos said. “Drop your weapon or die.”

  Davis didn’t consider dropping his weapon, even for a second. He gripped the ladder’s rail while he brought up the AK-47.

  Bob quickly came out of a crouch and went around the galley counter. He surged toward Davis, drove the diving knife into the man’s right calf, and twisted it until he howled like a banshee. Davis fell down the ladder, landed on his back, and gasped to catch his breath. Bob kicked him in the head and jerked the rifle from his hand.

  “Watch him,” Bob shouted at Nick who still had the spear gun in hand, and looked down at him. “If you have some rope handy, tie him up.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Nick said.

  With Davis’s AK-47, Bob turned and fast-walked to the cockpit. He gripped a line tied to a life preserver and stepped over onto the swim step. The hatch to the lower deck hung open. He looked through the opening but saw no one. Then he heard Peterson yell something. Bob’s breath caught in his chest as he descended the steps. Even at idle, the engine noise inside the confined space was shockingly loud. The hot smells of oil, gas, and paint hung heavily in the space. Bob took three short steps forward. There were metal lockers on either side of the walkway and two engines visible at the far end of the area. A diamond-patterned metal walkway ran from just in front of Bob to the end of the room, between the engines.

  Bob bent slightly and slowly moved forward. He carefully stepped onto the metal walkway, padded forward as lightly as possible, and looked for Peterson. The man had to be in front of him. But where? And where were Liz, Miriana, and Robbie? As though in answer to his question, he suddenly saw three pairs of feet at the far end of the room, behind the port engine. Peterson must have seen them at the same time. He stepped from behind one of the mechanical lockers, aimed a rifle, and shouted, “Come out from there.”

  No one moved from behind the engine.

  Bob aimed Davis’s rifle at Peterson’s back. He had to be careful. If the man moved, the round would go right toward the engines.

  “I said to come out,” Peterson shouted. “If you don’t, then I’ll shoot.”

  “You’ll blow us all up if you hit one of the fuel tanks,” Robbie shouted back.

  Peterson advanced toward the Danforths. “If I have to drag you out of there, I’ll make you all suffer,” he yelled.

  Robbie, Miriana, and Liz shuffled out from behind the engine.

  “We’re going topside,” Peterson shouted.

  Just as Bob pulled the automatic weapon hard into his shoulder and aimed at the center of Peterson’s back, the boat rocked. His shoes scraped the metal walkway as he widened his stance for better balance.

  “What—” Peterson muttered. He swung around and stared right at Bob. Then he raised his weapon and fired a burst just as Bob fell sideways and smashed his hip into a corner of a generator enclosure. Pain shot through his body. He thought he had been hit by a bullet.

  Peterson moved down the walkway toward him. Bob tried to raise his weapon but its sling had wedged between the generator and the walkway. He pushed away from the generator and got to his feet.

  Peterson stopped three feet away and pointed his weapon at Bob’s head. “Put your hands behind your neck. Turn around.”

  Bob realized with a sinking feeling that he and his family were in very big trouble. He had to do something, and quickly.

  In that instant, a loud “POP” sounded and the room became blindingly bright. A sound almost like a steak sizzling in a skillet filled the room and Peterson screamed as though he’d descended into the fires of hell. He dropped his weapon, collapsed face down on the walkway, and writhed as though electrically charged. The brilliant phosphorescent glare of a sputtering flare burned inside the center of his back; red smoke billowed out of the wound.

  Bob looked past Peterson and saw Robbie kneeling on the walkway, a flare gun at the end of his extended arms. Bob picked up Peterson’s AK-47. The man continued to convulse. He screamed as though his soul was under assault. The flare burned and burrowed into Peterson’s body. His screams turned to moans and, after a short while, he exhaled a long, hissing breath. Bob checked the man’s pulse. There was none. Bob moved to Robbie, took the flare gun from the boy’s hands, and hugged him.

  “You did good, Robbie,” he said. “You did real good.”

  Miriana and Liz scrambled forward and looked at Bob with saucer-sized eyes.

  Bob released his grandson and then pulled the women to him. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  On the main deck, Bob looked up at the skylounge through the companionway. “Nick, you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Nick called back. “I’m making for Syracuse.”

  “Good,” Bob shouted back.

  Robbie, Miriana, and Liz sat on the couch in the saloon. Miriana had an arm around Robbie’s shoulders.

  On the next deck down, Davis had been hog-tied and was secured to one of the table legs anchored to the deck. Peterson’s body was still down in the engine room. Farnwell was lost at sea.

  Bob went over to Liz and Miriana and asked, “You okay?”

  “I thought we were on vacation,” Liz said with a shaky laugh. “You know you attract trouble like sugar attracts ants. What the hell is wrong . . .” Liz took a breath and exhaled slowly.

  Bob took her hands in his, lifted her off the couch, and hugged her. He felt her body tremble and held her until the shaking ceased.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks to Robbie.”

  Liz looked over at her grandson and then back at Bob. She whispered in his ear, “Yeah, but is Robbie fine?”

  CHAPTER 12

  Luca Galante, the captain of the fishing boat, Rosalina, ordered his crew to retrieve their nets even though the boat’s iced storage hold was only half-full of fish. Normally, he would have fished until the hold was full or until about 6 p.m. Then he would have delivered his catch to the city of Gela on the southern coast of Sicily. But on this night he had other business.

  The bustarella—the payoff—Galante would receive to do this job would perhaps enable him to rise in the Mafia ranks. He had surely paid his dues in every important way—but one. He had provided muscle; threatened judges, police, and magistrates; even murdered, but he’d never been a big earner. That was all about to change.

  He climbed down into the hold and immediately felt a chill. He pulled his slicker around him as he moved toward the bulkhead next to the engine room door and dragged a tarpaulin back from a row of three wooden boxes. What the hell’s in here? he wondered. The cr
ates were about one meter in size on each side, wrapped in metal bands, and marked “ENGINE PARTS,” but Galante suspected they contained something altogether different; maybe uncut heroin. Perhaps the boats he would rendezvous with tonight would, in turn, transship the drugs to some place like Marseilles or Rome. He let his imagination unwind for a minute and thought about the real money to be made by the narco-trafficantes who would step on the product and then sell it to a myriad of assholes. Maybe someday, Galante thought, he, too, would share in the profits available on the retail end of the business.

  Galante returned to the deck and pulled his three-man crew around him.

  “We’re going to be late getting home tonight. For that extra work and time each of you will receive five thousand Euros.”

  “Santa Maria, Madre di Dio,” Marco, one of the crewmen, exclaimed.

  “Chi dobbiamo uccidere?” Giuseppe asked.

  Luca laughed. “You don’t have to kill anyone. Just meet three boats and transfer one of the boxes in the hold to each of them. We’ll rendezvous at midnight with a boat off the southeast corner of Sicily, near Pachino. From there we’ll motor around the tip of the island to another rendezvous off the southeast coast near Avola at 3 a.m. And, finally, just before sunrise, we’ll meet a third craft ten miles due east of Siracusa. It’s critical these rendezvous occur under the cover of darkness.”

  Luca could see the moonlight-reflected gleam in his men’s eyes. He felt warm inside as he thought about the two hundred thousand dollars he would receive, on top of the twenty thousand dollars he’d been given as a down payment. But, more importantly, if he performed well, there might be more jobs like this one. He knew his future was made.

  “Giorgio, Giuseppe, you watch for other boats,” Galante ordered. “If you spot a Guardia Costiera vessel, we will all go below and shovel ice and fish on top of the three boxes in the hold. Marco, you’ll steer the boat.”

  “What’s our course?” Marco asked.

  “We’ll shadow the Sicilian coast from a distance of two miles, skirt Comiso and Pozzallo, and rendezvous with the first boat near Pachino. Bene?”

  “Si, molto bene,” Marco answered.

  CHAPTER 13

  Liz brought Robbie a bottle of water and sat with him and Miriana in the cockpit. The boy was deathly pale and stared down at his twitching hands.

  “What you did was extremely brave,” Liz told him.

  He continued to focus on his hands.

  “You want to know how I felt the first time I killed a man?” Liz said.

  Robbie’s head jerked toward his grandmother. “You killed a man?”

  Liz nodded. “Yeah. A man threatened you and your mother when you were just a baby. He wanted your mother to give him classified information about what your father and grandfather were doing. He was the devil incarnate, but I was still left with an awful feeling inside after I shot him.”

  Robbie’s mouth dropped open. He swallowed hard and asked, “You really killed a man, Grandma?”

  Miriana patted Robbie’s shoulder. “Your grandmother saved both our lives that day. And, like that man, the men on this boat were scum. They probably murdered the real crew. They would have murdered all of us.” Miriana paused a beat. “You saved all of our lives. Remember that.”

  Robbie nodded.

  Miriana put her arms around Robbie as sobs suddenly wracked his body. She held him until he stopped crying.

  “Why don’t you take Robbie below?” Liz told Miriana. “I’ll be down in a little while.”

  Nick had earlier dragged Colin Davis to the aft end of the main deck, against the port hull in the cockpit. He’d tied his hands behind him and secured his ankles to a table permanently fixed to the deck. When he’d poured alcohol on Davis’s leg to sterilize his wound, the man had shouted curses at Nick, who then bandaged the leg. He’d left him there, per Bob’s instructions, and gone back to piloting the boat toward Syracuse.

  Bob left the man alone for half-an-hour. He wanted him to think about his situation before he questioned him. When he went back, he found Davis prone on the deck, his eyes closed. Bob didn’t think any man in this guy’s situation would be able to sleep, but he lowered a bucket on a rope over the side of the boat and brought up sea water. He dumped the water over Davis’s head.

  Davis jerked upward and muttered what sounded like a curse in a language that Bob didn’t recognize. Then he coughed, squinted against the sun at Bob, and cursed a stream of English.

  Bob noted anger on the man’s face. He pulled Davis to a sitting position. Then he dragged over a deck chair to within a couple feet of Davis, sat down, and said, “What’s your story?”

  Davis unsuccessfully tried to change his position. He winced as he settled back against the hull. Then he sneered and spat, “Go to hell.”

  “I opened your case and found detonators. It will go easier for you if you tell me what you and your friends had planned to do.”

  “Who are you? Why should I talk to you?” Davis said.

  Bob stretched the truth a bit. “I’m with the CIA.”

  Davis laughed, but there was no humor in it. He cursed again and shook his head. “We hijack a yacht in the middle of the Ionian with a CIA man on board. Some luck.”

  Bob told Davis, “What was that language you spoke a moment ago?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Bob smiled. “Okay, we’ll leave that subject for the moment.”

  “I won’t tell you shit.”

  “That’s too bad,” Bob said. “Because when our people get their hands on you things will not go easy. Ultimately, you’ll tell us everything you know. But you’ll suffer in the process.”

  Davis smiled and said, “Your President won’t let you torture me.” He laughed heartily. “You Americans can’t even use EIM anymore. Your Senate made sure of that with its Torture Report.”

  Bob felt a pain in his gut. Even terrorists knew about the U.S. Senate’s report that came out in December 2014. No one in the U.S. military or the CIA would dare use Enhanced Interrogation Methods for fear of being thrown in prison. What a way to fight a war. He smiled back at Davis. “You know, you’re right. Except for one thing. I don’t give a shit what the U.S. Senate or the President thinks or does to me if I can prevent the loss of American lives. Besides, the President will never know what I do to you. You’ll talk, and then I’ll dump your body in the sea. If you talk to me, I’ll make sure—”

  A sound behind Bob caused him to turn around. Liz stood two yards away, her mouth agape.

  “It would be best if you weren’t here, Liz.”

  Liz’s face went red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “It’s okay, honey.” Bob smiled and pointed at the metal case Davis and his team had brought on board. He earlier returned the hijackers’ sat phone to the case. “How about you open that thing up and bring me the satellite phone in it?”

  “Sure.”

  Liz walked over to the suitcase and took out the phone. She turned the device over in her hands as she moved back to where Bob now stood and handed it to him.

  Bob turned the device over a couple times and stared at it as though it was from Mars. “This thing’s so state-of-the-art,” he said.

  Liz raised a finger in the air and said, “Maybe Robbie can help you.”

  “Please bring him here.”

  Bob looked at Robbie and asked, “You know how to work it?”

  Robbie shrugged as he took the phone from his grandfather.

  “Tell me what you can about it.”

  The boy fiddled with the phone for a minute. “You know it’s been used?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “See this,” Robbie said as he touched a button on the phone’s face. “There’s a number in the menu of calls. The same number was called twice in the last day-and-a-half, exactly twenty-four hours apart. Each call was placed at 11:30 p.m. and lasted less than ten seconds.”

  “How’d you figure that—” Bob interrupted himse
lf and said, “I know, I know, you read a lot. Can you tell who belongs to that number?”

  “Nope. But you could call the number and ask.”

  Bob smiled. “Yeah, I could, but that would probably not be a good thing to do.” He took the telephone from Robbie and placed it on a table. “Where’s your mother and grandmother?” he asked.

  “In the saloon.”

  “Go join them,” Bob said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  After Robbie left, Bob turned back to Davis. He thought about what Robbie had just told him. Two calls, twenty-four hours apart. Probably scheduled reports between field agents and their headquarters. He needed to get that number to CIA and NSA. Then he had another thought: If these guys were scheduled to check in every twenty-four hours, at 11:30 p.m., someone needed to make a call to the number about nine hours from now.

  CHAPTER 14

  Bob tried to cajole Davis to talk, with no success. He even pressed on the man’s leg wound. That didn’t work either. The man cursed again in a foreign language. Although it sounded familiar, Bob couldn’t quite nail it down. He decided to call Jack Cole, the Director of Central Intelligence at Langley, Virginia. Cole had been Bob’s boss and mentor at the Company and had brought Bob back in from retirement two years earlier to manage Operation Lone Wolf. That operation had prevented terrorist attacks against large U.S. oil pipeline facilities. Cole was Bob’s friend and an “uncle” to both Michael and Robbie.

  He left Davis, moved just inside the saloon, and closed the sliding door behind him. Robbie sat in a captain’s chair next to Nick in the saloon. Liz and Miriana were in conversation at the forward end of the saloon. Bob had tried his cell phone but couldn’t get a signal. He knew the yacht had a VHF radio with access to fifty marine channels, but it was only good where the Zoe Mou had line of sight to a receiving channel. The boat’s single side-band radio could reach other boats out of line of sight, but wouldn’t connect him directly to Langley. Bob tried to come up with another option, when his grandson suddenly appeared behind him and tugged on his sleeve.