by Joseph Badal
Bob fast-walked down the street toward the harbor, happy to breathe in the sea air. At the end of the long, serpentine street, he arrived at the cross street that fronted the water and turned left. The yacht harbor was just ahead.
Hands in his jacket pocket, he strolled along the waterfront. Lights were lit on a couple fishing boats he passed. Men moved lethargically on their decks—almost in slow motion. He smiled as he spied the masts of several sailboats ahead on his right. For as long as he could remember, the sight of sailing craft stimulated within him a feeling of wanderlust. He loved the water. It always amazed him that he never fell ill on boats but always got queasy on airplanes.
He continued down the middle of the street and passed between parked cars. Ahead he saw the sleek lines of the Zoe Mou. He was totally at ease when something moved from under the car immediately on his left, shrieked, and ran down the sidewalk. Bob’s heart seemed to do a somersault and his breath caught in his chest.
“Sonofa—! Damn cat.”
Then someone laughed.
Bob stared to his right and saw Nick Vangelos on the Zoe Mou’s deck.
“Ee gata eenay o diavolos.”
Bob expelled the air in his lungs and laughed. “He is a devil. Scared the hell out of me.”
“You aren’t the first,” Nick said. “Why are you up so early?”
Bob crossed the catwalk and boarded the Zoe Mou. “I’m supposed to pass the hijackers’ sat phone to some guy who’ll be here shortly. What are you doing?”
“Some mysterious woman called and told me a team of Americans needed to take out my boat. I told her the only person who would pilot my boat was me. But I would be happy to have this American team along as passengers. For a fee, of course.”
Bob chuckled. “Some woman?”
“Said she was with the U.S. government.”
Bob nodded.
“Join me in the galley,” Nick said. “I’ve got coffee ready.”
Bob took a step to follow Nick, but stopped when he heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. He turned and saw a group of men in dark clothing and baseball caps move onto the finger pier and walk single file toward him. It was too dark to see their features but Bob thought he recognized the way the one in front of the file walked. He did a double take.
“Hey, Dad,” Michael said as he came aboard. He laughed and added, “You look as surprised as I am.”
Bob shook his head. “Nothing surprises me anymore, son.”
Michael looked over his shoulder. “Guys, this is my father, Bob Danforth. Why don’t you all come on board?”
As his men boarded the yacht, Michael asked Bob, “How’s everybody?”
“They’re great, but mom’s pissed off about the delay in our cruise. She thinks I’m bad luck. We finally take a vacation and we get hijacked. Miriana and Robbie are okay.”
“Okay?”
Bob frowned. “Miriana saw worse growing up in the Balkans. But Robbie shot a man who died from the inside out. You can imagine what a flare will do.” Bob half-smiled and added, “You should be extremely proud of how he conducted himself.” In an effort to change the subject, Bob asked, “How the hell does he know about sat phones?”
Michael shrugged. “No idea. But I know he reads—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. He reads a lot.”
“Maybe we’ll all be able to get together after we’re done here.”
“That would be good.”
Bob removed the sat phone from his jacket and handed it to Michael. “This belonged to the men who hijacked the Zoe Mou. I was told to deliver it to the Lone Wolf Team Leader. I assume at least one of your men speaks Arabic.”
“Yes, two of them do. Fluently. Tanya’s already briefed me on what has to be done, including making a status call on the sat phone at 2330 hours.”
“Good. I’ll introduce you to the boat owner.”
From behind a large white storage box at the head of the catwalk, Robbie was shocked to see his father with a group of men. He waited until they all went below deck. Then he raced down the finger pier, tiptoed up the ramp to the yacht, and stepped lightly over the gunwale into the cockpit. He looked around for a place to hide and then remembered the large storage lockers at the aft end of the upper deck. He went up the aft companionway to the boat deck, and tiptoed across to the lockers on the starboard side, next to the tender used to transport passengers from the boat to shore. Robbie opened the latch on a locker, shifted some of the scuba gear there to make room, and climbed inside. He lowered the lid with the intent to prop it open an inch or two to allow air to circulate inside the locker. But his hand slipped and the lid closed. When he tried to push it open, it wouldn’t budge.
CHAPTER 30
Ahmed Boukali descended the three sets of metal ladders into the empty space forward of the Kerkira’s oil storage tanks. It was 6 a.m.
“Are you making progress?” he asked the irritatingly insipid Iranian nuclear weapons engineer, Feramarz Alizadeh, who held a bundle of plastic, yellow-colored wires attached at one end to a green-painted cylinder placed flat on a metal rack.
Alizadeh turned and faced Boukali. “And why wouldn’t I make progress?” the diminutive engineer spat.
Boukali suppressed a desire to beat the engineer’s head against the metal hull. Little shits like Alizadeh had always bothered him.
“I’m pleased there are no problems,” Boukali said. “I want to report tonight that all is well.”
“I guarantee you will be able to do so. Of course, that assumes you stay out of my way and allow me to do my job.”
“Of course, Doctor Alizadeh,” Boukali said with false deference.
Boukali smiled all the way back to the main deck. He would make the little engineer pay for his arrogance and insolence.
“Damn!” Galante cursed. The needle on the engine temperature gauge was close to the red zone. He looked at the pilothouse clock. We have to meet the third boat east of Syracuse at 6:30, thirty minutes from now, he thought. He backed off the throttle a bit. If the needle touched the red zone, he would have to back off his speed even more. He stabbed a finger at Giuseppe. “Give me an ETA at the rendezvous site if we make twelve knots.”
Galante kept one eye on the instrument panel while he maintained a north by northwest course. He set the throttle for a speed of twelve knots and said another silent prayer to Santa Rosalia that his engine would hold up.
After Bob wished Michael and his men good luck and left the Zoe Mou, he found a café in the process of opening and ordered a croissant and espresso. As he sat and waited for his order to arrive, he thought how badly he would have liked to join the Lone Wolf Team on its cruise. He faced the water and said a silent prayer for Michael and his men’s safety. No one on the U.S. side knew what they were up against or what the hijackers’ mission was. But Bob knew first-hand that the bad guys were perfectly prepared to commit murder.
Eyes closed, head raised toward the night sky, he thought about events and felt a chill that generated a shiver as though he’d been dumped into icy water. His instincts told him something terrible was afoot. And Michael was at the center of it.
Bob bent his head and opened his eyes, just as something brushed against his right foot. He jerked as though he’d been tazed and leaped to his feet. A black cat jumped from the sidewalk onto adjoining nearby chair and purred like a high-speed vibrator.
“Jeez,” Bob groaned. He sat back down and scratched the cat’s back. “So, they call you Devil around here.”
The cat arched its back and purred louder.
Bob shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re a good or bad omen,” he said. “But thanks for your company.”
Bob and the cat sat together for almost half-an-hour. When another café across the street opened its doors and a man in an apron came out with a broom, the cat came alert and raced across the street. “Good luck,” Bob said.
“Mister Vangelos, we appreciate your assistance,” Michael said. “But I must make something very c
lear. When we see the fishing boat, you must go below and stay there until we tell you it’s okay to come back on deck.”
“General, this is my—”
“No disrespect, sir, but if you don’t follow my instructions, I will have you forcibly restrained. Understood?”
Vangelos’s jaw clenched but he finally nodded. “I will follow your orders. But God help you if you damage my boat.”
Michael laughed. “I will treat the Zoe Mou as though it’s my own.”
Vangelos frowned.
Michael spun around and gathered his men together.
“We’ll assume there should be three men visible here when we meet the fishing boat. The hijackers of this boat were all in their twenties and thirties, so let’s go with Lieutenant Campbell, Master Sergeant Winfield, and Sergeant Morrell. The rest of us will stay below.”
“Do we know if the men on the fishing boat are armed?” Campbell asked.
“The satellite images showed one man armed with a shotgun. Nothing else.”
“Do we know what’s in the crates?” Morrell asked.
“The suspicion is explosives because the men who hijacked this boat had detonators with them. But we can’t be sure.” Michael paused and then said, “Lieutenant Campbell will be the only one above deck with a radio and ear buds. As soon as the crate is aboard, he’ll alert us. That will be our signal to return to the deck. So, Winfield, make certain the men on the fishing boat have been disarmed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Michael pulled Nick Vangelos aside. “Are you ready to take us out?”
“Sure. What’s my heading?”
“Due east. We’ll receive directions after we clear the harbor so we can vector in on the fishing boat.”
“Can’t we pick up the target on the Zoe Mou’s radar?”
“Not if the boat’s made of wood or fiber glass, which are non-reflective. And not if the fishing boat has its radar shut down.”
Michael stood at the stern and watched Vangelos expertly move the yacht from its berth and out into the harbor.
“Nice boat, huh, General?”
Michael glanced to his right and smiled at Lieutenant Lewis Campbell. “Yeah. Enjoy it while you can.”
CHAPTER 31
Rear Admiral Elijah Johnson, the commander of Sigonella Naval Base, entered an airplane hangar on the base, accompanied by a Navy SEAL, Ensign Stu Sherman, and CIA operative, Laila Farhami. For all intents and purposes, the hangar looked like almost any other military hangar. In the middle of this building sat a huge P-3 Orion aircraft, which the U.S. military had used for a variety of purposes for over fifty-five years.
Admiral Johnson, a bulldog-of-a-man, with café au lait colored skin, an aquiline nose, perfectly white teeth, and a posture that made him look as though he wore a back brace, stopped twenty yards from the airplane.
“Ensign Sherman will take over from here,” Johnson told Farhami. He turned to look at Sherman. “You’re to afford our guest every courtesy and assist her however she demands. You will not ask her unnecessary questions and it is none of your business who she works for and why she’s here. Understood?”
“Understood, sir!”
Johnson told Farhami, “Good luck, miss.” Then he walked away.
After Johnson left, Sherman said, “I understand you may need to use our guest quarters.”
“Is that what you call your . . . special ops facility?”
“Yes, ma’am. Please follow me.”
Sherman and Laila moved to the airplane and climbed a short set of stairs propped against the side of the fuselage near its middle. Sherman flipped a switch on the left, just inside the fuselage, and lights illuminated the inside of the one-hundred-sixteen-foot-long aircraft. He turned right and led Laila to the cockpit.
“This is a fully operational airplane. It has reconnaissance capabilities and can be airborne within a matter of minutes.”
Sherman reversed direction toward the rear of the plane.
“There are three interview rooms back here.” He opened the door to the first room. Inside were four metal chairs around a metal table, all bolted to the floor. “The other two rooms are equipped identically. Each has built-in video and audio recording equipment. Back outside the room, he slid a curtain to one side and revealed a window. “One-way window.”
Laila nodded.
In the tail section, Sherman opened a door to a large metal-walled room. Inside was a soiled mattress on the floor, a filthy bucket, and manacles affixed by chains to a wall. Speakers and a variety of lights were built into the ceiling. Laila detected the faint but pungent odor of urine.
“This should do,” Laila said. “How many of these cells are there?”
“Six.”
“Anything else?”
“You should probably check out the equipment room down at the end. I think you’ll find everything you need there.”
Five minutes later, Laila followed Sherman off the plane and out of the hangar. A bit of light leaked from the east.
“The sun will be up soon,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Nothing like the sunrises out here. Too bad there are so many assholes out there. They tend to spoil things.”
Laila laughed. “Maybe we’ll soon get rid of a couple of them.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Sherman said.
“Whose idea was it to put the interrogation facilities on an airplane?”
“Don’t know, ma’am. That information is above my pay grade.” He smiled. “But it was pure genius. Every time some Washington politician comes out here on a junket, the admiral orders a couple pilots to take the plane out on a recon mission.”
CHAPTER 32
The night sky just began to lighten when Bob returned to his hotel. He waved at the clerk behind the front desk and took an elevator up to his floor. After he quietly opened the door to his suite, he removed his shoes and padded across the carpet to his bedroom. Liz appeared to still be asleep. Maybe I can catch a couple hours sleep, he thought. He removed his clothes and slipped into bed.
“How long have you been up?”
Bob sighed. “Couple hours. I didn’t want to wake you.”
Liz chuckled. “I’ve been awake for a while. I never sleep well when you’re not in bed with me. It’s always been that way.”
He rolled over and wrapped an arm around her. “With all the times I wasn’t home, you must have lost a lot of sleep.”
“Gee, you think?”
“You okay if I try to get some sleep?”
“Of course. But I think I’ll get up and go down for breakfast. You want me to bring you something?”
“No, that’s okay. You might check to see if Miriana and Robbie want to go with you.”
Liz rolled out of bed. “You’re kidding, right? Miriana might want to go along but Robbie’s a teenager. He’ll probably be in bed ‘til noon.”
“Bob! Wake up.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Robbie’s not in his room.”
“What time is it?”
“You just got back in bed a couple minutes ago. I went to check on Robbie and found his room empty.”
Bob moved to the edge of the bed and sat up. He rubbed his hands over his face and tried to wipe away the cobwebby feeling. Then he stood and moved quickly to the sitting area where Miriana paced in obvious agitation.
“Did you check to see if he left a note?”
“Yes,” Miriana said. “Nothing.”
“How about his cell phone?”
“It’s gone.”
Bob went back to his bedroom, unplugged his cell phone from its charger, and dialed Robbie’s number.
Master Sergeant Burt Winfield sat at a deck table on the Zoe Mou’s upper deck. He had just cleaned and reassembled his pistol when he heard music. He jerked around toward the sound, but there was no one near him. The same riff played again.
Another one of the DELTA team members, Lloyd Siever, moved toward Winfield. “What the h
ell is that, Burt?”
Winfield put a finger to his lips and pointed at a locker. He clicked off the safety on his pistol and chambered a round.
The music played again. Then it stopped for good.
Siever released the latch on the locker lid and pulled it open.
Winfield pointed his pistol at a hunched figure. “Get out of there.”
A high-pitched voice cried out, “Okay, okay, I’m coming out.”
A boy crawled out and stood up. He had a cell phone in his raised right hand.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Robbie . . . Danforth.”
“Did you say Danforth?” Winfield demanded.
The boy opened his mouth as though to say something and then spewed a stream of vomit onto the deck and Winfield’s shoes.
“Sonofabitch!” Winfield cursed.
“What’s the commotion about?” Michael said as he approached them.
Winfield pointed at a kid on his hands and knees, hurling and coughing. “We found him in that storage locker, General. Looks like we got a stowaway.”
Michael moved to the side to get a better look, just as the boy raised his head. “Hey, Dad.”
CHAPTER 33
Raymond Gallegos sat next to a communications specialist in the Langley Ops Center and watched her follow the courses of the Zoe Mou and the fishing boat.
“What’s the distance between the two boats?” he asked.
“Less than five miles. The Zoe Mou has altered its course to vector in on the fishing boat.”
“How much time to rendezvous?” Raymond asked.
The specialist tapped on her keyboard and, after a long moment, said, “If the two boats maintain their present speeds, they should meet in twenty minutes and thirteen seconds.”
