Death Ship

by Joseph Badal

  “Well, let me know if anything happens. I’ll be up on the bridge.”

  On the bridge, Michael spotted his father across the room.

  “Mike,” Bob called.

  He moved to where his father and Admiral Wyncourt stood. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hi, Son. You were told I’ve been called in on this matter?”

  “Yes.” Michael smiled. “How’s retirement treating you?”

  Bob smiled back.

  Wyncourt said, “We need to bring you up-to-date.” He stabbed at a chart with a finger. “This was just printed off. Every one of the ships circled here is a tanker. As you can see, there are nearly one hundred within fifty nautical miles of Piraeus Bay. There are a couple dozen in the bay already. We’re checking the AIS system to try to identify each tanker. So far, every one we’ve pinged appears legitimate.”

  “I thought the suspect tanker had shut off its AIS identifier,” Michael said.

  “That’s right. What we’re trying to do is find one tanker that shows on radar or satellite but which doesn’t have an active AIS system.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Hours. Unless we get lucky.”

  The Kerkira had reversed course and moved toward Piraeus Bay. At 7 a.m., it slipped into a long queue of container, tanker, and fishing vessels. Ahmed Boukali stood on the bridge next to Jalil Fouad and pointed toward the mouth of the bay. He was about to ask for a time check from the captain when he was startled to see a huge ship, an aircraft carrier, anchored outside the bay. He grabbed a pair of binoculars. Butterflies exploded in his stomach when he spotted the American flag on the ship’s bridge and “U.S.S. Andrew Jackson” painted on the ship’s bow.

  “Sonofabitch!” Boukali muttered.

  “What?” Fouad said.

  “The target’s not in the harbor.”

  “So what? It’s not that far away. I’ll just maneuver the Kerkira over to her.”

  “We pull out of line and move toward the carrier, she’ll blow us out of the water before we can get close enough to do damage.” Boukali put his hands behind his head and paced.

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  “Give me a minute to think,” Boukali said. “In the meantime, maintain course.”

  After a couple minutes of pacing and thinking, Boukali returned to stand next to Fouad. “Continue into the bay,” he told him.

  “To what purpose?”

  “Slight change of plan. We’ll offload our oil cargo at the refinery. If the Americans are onto us, that’s the last thing they’d expect us to do. Then we’ll turn around. We’ll get as close to the aircraft carrier as we can when we exit the bay.”

  Fouad shook his head. “You’re a devious bastard, Boukali. You had the engineer install the AIS/LRIT systems from the Tripoli Star because you anticipated the Americans might somehow identify the Kerkira as a threat.”

  “If they discovered that we transferred the Kerkira’s electronics to the Arias, then they’ve probably already questioned Captain Mustapha.”

  “And learned nothing,” Fouad said.

  “That’s right. By now, they’re either looking for a tanker with the Arias’s electronics or are trying to find a tanker with its AIS/LRIT systems turned off. There’s no way they can know about the Tripoli Star being in dry dock and that we are using her systems.”

  “I would love to live long enough to see the aftermath of what we are about to cause.”

  “Jalil, your sacrifice will be acknowledged.”

  Fouad frowned at Boukali. “What sacrifice? I’ll be dead from bladder cancer in less than a year anyway.” He thought about the five hundred thousand dollars that would be deposited into an account for his wife and children.

  Boukali patted Fouad on the back. “Regardless, you should take great satisfaction from what you are about to do.”

  Fouad laughed and turned away.

  Boukali left the bridge and climbed down to his cabin. After two hours of tossing and turning, he unplugged his satellite phone and cell phone from their chargers and went back to the main deck. He had not used the cell since the start of this cruise. He switched it on and called a number in Athens.

  “Embros,” a woman said.

  “This is Ahmed with Farouki Holdings.”

  “Ya sas, Ahmed. Pos eestay?”

  “All is good, Katerina. Have the insurance transactions been executed?”

  “Everything is done, Ahmed.”

  “Excellent. Thank you for your assistance. As I told you before, I am not someone who likes to take risks.”

  “That’s why my company is here.” She clucked and added, “Your timing is perfect. I assume you’ve heard about the panic in Athens.”

  Boukali’s stomach seemed to tighten. “What panic?”

  “Oh my God,” the woman said. “There are rumors that a terrorist group might target Athens.”

  Boukali’s right eyelid jerked convulsively. He took a calming breath and asked, “How did such a crazy rumor start?”

  “I have no idea. But the television and radio stations spread it and it seems as though the entire population of Athens deserted the city.”

  Boukali said, “The news media shouldn’t be allowed to get away with making up such fantastic stories. They thrive on drama.”

  “Very true, Ahmed.”

  “I appreciate your attention to my needs, Katerina. I look—”

  “One other thing. The regulators from the Department of Finance & Insurance called me about the name of the tanker you insured. They asked a lot of questions. Of course, I told them your company had done business with me for years and that it is highly reputable.”

  “Thank you, Katerina. I’ll be in touch.”

  Boukali laughed. The precautions he had taken had been worthwhile. The Americans could search high and low for the Kerkira. They would never find it.

  Boukali disabled the sat phone, fast-walked to the closest side of the ship, and tossed the phone overboard.

  “Ray, it’s Conrad.”

  “Hey, Conrad, what’s up?”

  “A call just went through to that insurance agent in Athens. Katerina Safterou. It was from a guy named Ahmed with Farouki Holdings, checking on his insurance coverage.”

  “You locate the caller?”

  “The best we could do was to locate a satellite phone in Piraeus Bay. But the call lasted less than two minutes and then the phone dropped off the satellite read.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Raymond Gallegos felt as exhausted as he could ever remember being. It was now 2 a.m. in Washington; 9 a.m. in Greece. Lack of sleep, too much fast food, and tension had become a lethal cocktail that made him feel as though he moved and thought in slow motion. Something nagged at his subconscious. Someone had asked him for information, but he couldn’t remember who it had been or the subject matter. He opened up his Company email account and forced himself to concentrate. A spark fired in his fatigued brain as he read a message from the Immigration & Naturalization Service. Then his exhaustion seemed to slip away and he suddenly felt energized as he read another message from the CIA lab. Attached to it was a summary DNA report on the five terrorists the SEALs had captured and the one killed on the two boats in the Ionian Sea. After reading the summary, he felt as though his body was in adrenaline overload. He initiated a conference call that tied in Laila Farhami, Tanya Serkovic, and Frank Reynolds.

  “Laila asked me to check on a woman named Anne Parker who supposedly married a foreign student who studied here in the United States,” Raymond said. “Anne Parker did marry a foreign exchange student from Iran. The student’s name was Ali Shirazi. They married here and then moved to Iran after Parker became pregnant. The INS tracked down Anne Parker’s mother in Corvallis, Oregon. She told them her daughter has never returned to the States. The last she heard from her was a letter in which she included a family photograph of the Shirazi family, including two sons and a daughter. Anyone want to take a guess about which of the terrorists captured
on the hijacked yachts looks exactly like Zaidi Shirazi, Anne Parker’s oldest son?”

  “That sona . . .” Laila blurted. “Don’t tell me it’s the guy who claimed his name is Parviz Baluchi.”

  “One and the same, Laila,” Raymond said.

  “But he is Iranian, as he claimed to be.”

  “Half-Iranian. But get this. I just reviewed the DNA report on the men the SEALs captured, including the one they killed. Shirazi is the only one with Persian DNA. The others are either Semitic or Eastern European.”

  “So, Shirazi lied about the names of his comrades?” Tanya said. “He gave Laila Iranian names.”

  Laila said, “The two bodies the medical examiner on Sicily autopsied were also, more than likely, partially Eastern European.”

  Frank interjected, “The building in Rome that housed the Iranian students and was funded by an Iranian Foundation was nothing but a diversion, too. A sort of false flag front. Documents were found in the bombed out building that initially seemed to be communiqués from the Iranian government to someone in the building instructing him how to pass on information from the three hijacker/terrorist teams to a telephone number in Teheran. But NSA hacked that number and discovered it was the personal cell phone for the head of the Iranian Quds Force.” Frank snickered. “They listened to a couple calls and so far have discovered the guy has a girlfriend in Beirut and is moving government money from Teheran to a private bank account in Zurich. We’ll be able to milk a lot of data from that number. But we don’t believe some conduit in Rome would be calling the major general in charge of Iran’s Quds Force about a terrorist mission. The general would never expose himself so easily. We think whoever’s behind the aborted attacks near Sigonella and whatever is planned in or around Athens planted the Iranian’s phone number.”

  “They want us to think Iran’s behind everything,” Laila said.

  “Right,” Tanya said. “It could be that the only Iranian link is Shirazi, and it wouldn’t be the first time that Iranians had affiliated with non-Iranian-sponsored groups. By the way, the Italian Anti-Terrorism Directorate informed us there should have been one more body found after that building in Rome was destroyed. They tried to track down the missing student, but it turns out the name the guy had used was false. He’s the one who probably placed and detonated the explosives, and was photographed by our man killed in his car when the bomb in Rome went off.”

  “I’d love to go back to Sigonella and interrogate Shirazi,” Laila said.

  Tanya said, “I wish I could send you there, but what you’re doing now is more important. Besides, Shirazi had a stroke that’s incapacitated him. He won’t be able to answer questions for a while, if ever.”

  Frank said, “Someone must have recruited Shirazi right from under the Iranians’ noses. He’s not just a terrorist to us; he’s a traitor to Iran. I wonder who recruited him.”

  “You know, there’s something familiar about all of this,” Laila said.

  “How so?” Tanya asked.

  “Usually terror groups are ethnocentric. They only recruit their own people. Look at Hamas, Al-Shabab, and Boko Haram. Even many Al Qaida cells tend to be comprised of people from a local area.”

  “What are you thinking, Laila?” Ray asked.

  “What group has recruited from all over the globe? Britain, France, the United States, Turkey?”

  “The Islamic State,” Tanya said. She paused, and then added, “We need to talk with DCI Cole. I’ll set up a meeting. I want you and Frank there, too. Thanks everyone.” Then she said, “Laila, keep up the good work. I suspect your assignment over there is about to end. I want you to identify every player at Gerhardt Anlageberatungs who’s in a position senior enough that he or she would know the names of principals at the company’s largest clients.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Laila said.

  “Good to see you all,” Jack Cole said as Tanya, Frank, and Raymond entered his office at 4:15 a.m. Cole looked as though he’d been pulled out of bed. He wore a suit and white shirt, but no tie. His hair was frazzled and his eyelids drooped. “I hear our girl in Germany has done good work.”

  “It’s amazing what happens when we put good people in the field,” Raymond said.

  Cole laughed. “Yeah, but too many politicians think HUMINT is passé.”

  “They’ll never learn,” Tanya said. She then brought Cole up-to-date. She finished by saying, “I reminded Farhami to provide a list of all the major players at Gerhardt Anlageberatungs and at any of their largest clients, just as you suggested, boss.”

  “We’ll sweep those people up in a massive operation before the end of next week,” Cole said. “I’ve coordinated with the head of the Bundes Nachrichtendienst. They’ll manage the German end of the operation.”

  “What about other intelligence agencies?” Tanya asked. “GA has clients all over the world.”

  “I considered deploying our people to countries where GA’s biggest clients are located, but decided that would be like herding cats. Instead, the Germans will take down the top half-dozen people at GA and give them a choice: Cooperate or be charged with aiding and abetting terrorism. That would lead to long prison sentences as well as confiscation by the government of all of their assets.”

  “GA is a rat’s nest,” Frank said. “I can’t wait for us to sift through their records.”

  Cole said. “Have we located the Kerkira yet?”

  “Not yet,” Ray answered. “Piraeus Bay and the sea around it is the nautical version of rush hour traffic into and out of D.C. The Navy is electronically challenging each tanker in the bay, but it’s a long, laborious process.”

  “What if the tanker gets through?” Cole asked.

  “It’s a lose-lose situation,” Ray said. “It would be a one-in-a-million shot if the tanker actually got near one of our vessels—if that’s its target. But we have to assume the tanker is loaded with crude oil. We blow up the ship if it turns toward one of our vessels, we create an ecological disaster. The damage to Greece’s fishing, boating, tourism industries would be catastrophic. Every tree hugger in the world would hate our guts.”

  “They already hate our guts,” Tanya said.

  “That’s true,” Cole said. “But an oil spill would be nothing compared to a nuclear detonation near a city of over four million people.”

  “Like I said, a lose-lose situation.”

  Cole got out of his chair and paced to the windows that looked out on the green tree line beyond the building. He placed a hand on the glass and felt warmth despite the early morning hour. “It’ll be a hot one today.”

  Cole returned to his chair. “I remember when I was a kid in Seattle. My father had a little motor boat we would take out to fish. There was an old man who had worked the docks for decades. Guy named Peabody. Never did know his first name. Everyone just called him Old Man Peabody.” Cole paused and then said, “Old Man Peabody could name every damned ship that came into port there. If it had docked there once, he remembered the boat and its name.”

  “What are you getting at, boss?’ Tanya asked.

  “Betcha there’s an Old Man Peabody in Piraeus who would recognize the Kerkira if it’s ever docked there before.”

  “Based on the records,” Raymond said, “the Kerkira’s been a fixture in that part of the world for decades. Been in Piraeus dozens of times.”

  Cole smiled. “The problem with technology is someone can always fool it. They switch AIS transponders and the whole system becomes confused.” He spread his hands. “They could have painted over the Kerkira’s name and changed transponders again by now. But Old Man Peabody didn’t know a thing about AIS systems and he couldn’t even read. But he could tell you the name of a ship just by looking at it, even from a long way off.”

  CHAPTER 71

  Bob’s reaction when Raymond Gallegos called him on the U.S.S. Andrew Jackson at 11:30 a.m. Athens time was to ask, “Where the hell will I find an old guy in Piraeus who might know ships by sight?” But as soon as he
’d voiced the question, he thought of Nick Vangelos.

  “I’ll call you back, Ray,” Bob said. He immediately called Nick’s cell number.

  “Embros.”

  “Nick, it’s Bob Danforth. How are things on Samos?”

  “Everyone arrived safely and are now with my sister and brother-in-law in their home. I just returned to Athens on the private plane. Cost me a fortune. This damned terrorist threat is killing my budget.”

  “Thank you, Nick. You’ve gone out of your way to take care of all of us.”

  “When I book a charter, I assume responsibility for my clients. I would do the same for anyone.”

  “I don’t doubt that at all. Listen, I have another favor to ask.”

  Demetrius Stellides’s was four years old the first time he stepped on a fishing boat. He was now eighty-five. He’d fished the waters around the Attican Peninsula all his life, but had to turn over his fishing business and his fleet of three boats to a grandson a decade earlier. Now he sat at waterside cafes in Piraeus and shot the breeze with old cronies, when he didn’t wander around the docks offering unsolicited advice to fisherman and commenting on the condition of this or that boat.

  Nick Vangelos found Stellides at 1 p.m. seated on a cane chair in the shadow of a commercial fishing boat docked in Piraeus. The old man’s chin rested on his chest and thunderous snores resonated from his chest. He sported a six-day, white beard—he only shaved once-a-week before he went to church, and his black Greek fisherman’s cap covered his forehead and eyes.

  “Deme,” Nick said as he touched the old man’s shoulder.

  Stellides jerked his head up and brushed back his cap. He stared up at Nick as though confused for a moment. Then he put his hands on his knees, pushed himself up to all of his five-foot, five-inch height, groaned, and said, “Can’t a man take a nap around here?” Then he stepped forward, put his arms around Nick, and said, “Niko, paidi mou; it’s good to see you.” He stepped back, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “You look more like your father, Petros, every day.”