Deadly Cargo: A chilling naval terrorism thriller

by Rich Johnson

  “Aye, Capitan Sleagle, it is good to see you again.”

  “Is it me, or is it my money?” Sleagle laughed. “It’s good to see you again, too, my friend. How is your family?”

  “Ah, they are doing well. Now that Ramon has gone off to school, Solange has come to help me run this place. She takes care of the books, makes sure we don’t run out of anything important, and keeps me in line.”

  “We all need some of that,” Sleagle said. “I’ll have a shot of El Fuego.” In two hours, he was due back on the bridge deck of the Desdemonda preparing for the final leg of the voyage, and he couldn’t afford to have more than one drink in his belly.

  “Coming your way,” Ignacio said cheerfully. The shot glass of amber liquid slid across the polished bar and Sleagle caught it with a practiced hand and raised it to eye level as he quickly bowed his head. He couldn’t count the times he had been in the Papagayo, sitting on this same barstool, downing this same drink, engaging in this same ritual.

  Of all the places his career had taken him around the world, Panama was among his favorites, but not because of its scenery, and not even because of the Papagayo: it was the canal itself. The place seemed to defy the odds. Every time he transited the canal, he thought about the thousands of lives lost to accidents, yellow fever and malaria during its thirty-four years of construction. Of the 80,000 people who worked on the canal during the French and American construction years, nearly 30,000 died here. His great-grandfather, Cornelius Sleagle, was one of them. And yet, even with the losses, the project went on.

  The human toll was huge, but while governments are sometimes capable of turning a blind eye to the cost in skin and bone and blood, they do not so easily ignore the financial expense. At more than $352,000,000 of 1914 US dollars, the canal was the most costly construction project the United States had ever undertaken up to that time. Money was poured into the job and, in spite of the rising death toll, occasional poor management, perpetual lack of equipment, and seemingly impossible engineering challenges, the canal was built. And now, just shy of a century later, abandoned by the ambivalent political interests of its American creator and left to the whims of local dictators and Chinese opportunists, the canal continued to live. No matter how many lives it claimed, the canal itself seemed to defy death. In the Papagayo, Captain Sleagle always bowed his head and raised his glass in a silent toast to the canal and to his great-grandfather.

  Unlike many who prefer to toss back their shot of liquor, Sleagle nursed his, letting the warm liquid do its work slowly. Over the din of voices coming from the small cluster of people surrounding the pool table, he heard the word ‘hurricane’, and it immediately caught his attention. The word came from the television that was suspended near ceiling level in one corner above the bar.

  “Ignacio,” Sleagle called out. “Can you please turn up the volume? I want to hear this.”

  The barkeep nodded, wiped his hands on the thin apron hanging from his waist and reached for the remote control.

  “… the track of Hurricane Yolanda is predicted to sweep into the Yucatan Channel, but we cannot say when that will happen. Right now, the storm has stalled south of Jamaica and is building strength. We will post the storm track hourly, because these things are unpredictable and she could start to move again at any time. In anticipation of what is to come, the entire coastline from Honduras to Cancun is under storm warning, and there is no indication that Yolanda, now at category 4 with winds of 135 miles per hour, will weaken before making landfall. Wave heights in the open sea around Yolanda are running nearly forty feet, creating extremely hazardous conditions. And now in other news …”

  Captain Eric Sleagle pushed the glass away from him without finishing his drink and left the Papagayo, walking toward the container ship terminal as fast as the heat and humidity would let him.

  Waterfront warehouse district – Manila, Philippines

  Rain pounded the streets of Manila and ran ankle deep in the gutters. Along the waterfront, tarped flatbed trucks came and went, spewing diesel exhaust into the sodden sky. Growls of forklifts and the occasional bark of a foreman filled the night air as the men on the graveyard shift moved pallets of cargo from trucks and into the warehouse. Under the cover of an overhanging eave, Josh Adams and Susan Vellum melted into the shadows, their eyes pinned to a metal entrance door at the end of the gray street.

  Josh pulled back the sleeve of his raincoat and pressed the stem of his wristwatch. For half a second, the watch face lit up. “He’s twenty minutes late.”

  Susan nodded slowly, and turned her eyes to scan up and down the street. “When you’re on the warehouse gang, you’re not always in control of your own time. Let’s give him ten more.”

  “Antonio Almidori Filho,” Josh rolled the name over in his mouth. “Has a nice ring to it.”

  “Well, if he’s got what we want, he can quit his night job, ’cause the reward money will keep him in rice and beans for a long time.”

  From the end of the street, a split of light suddenly shot from the metal door. The silhouette of a man showed briefly against the light, then the door closed. They trained their eyes on the approaching man and listened to the quick splash of his feet on the flooded street as he jogged toward them. Susan’s hand went into her pocket and her fingers tightened around the grip of her Beretta.

  The man stopped running and stepped forward slowly, hands held open and palms forward at shoulder level. “It is I,” the man whispered in a thick Filipino accent, yet with perfect English grammar. “Antonio Almidori Filho.”

  “We were told you have done work for us before. What do you have for us?” Josh asked.

  “I have been one of yours for more than five years, working the waterfront and keeping my eyes and ears open. When word came that you were looking for a particular shipping container, I started poking about.”

  “What can you tell us?” Susan relaxed her hand but kept it in her pocket nonetheless.

  “One of the drivers was in a bar about a week ago. Late into his drinking, his mouth loosened up and he started talking about a strange incident involving a container with an RV trailer in it. A woman named Alicia Gomez gave him orders to deliver the box to a container ship named Desdemonda, with specific instructions about how the delivery was to take place. Seemed odd to the driver. Under command of Captain Eric Sleagle, Desdemonda left the harbor on the 13th, headed for the Panama Canal and then on to Miami. That is all I know.”

  “That is all we need to know.” Josh reached out his right hand to grasp the informant’s hand. He reached out his left and handed over an envelope. “This is only part of it. If this pans out, you’ll get the rest.”

  Antonio Almidori Filho took the envelope, stuffed it into his pants pocket, and bowed slightly. “Glad to be of service. Good luck on this.” Then he turned and jogged back into the rain. In a moment, light showed around the perimeter of the door again, then it was gone.

  “How would we ever do it without guys like that?” Susan put words to the very question that was running through Josh’s mind.

  “We couldn’t,” Josh answered. “Without native boots on the ground, our job would be impossible.”

  Susan finally pulled her right hand out of her pocket. “We can go after this Alicia Gomez later. Sounds like she’s a figure around here and she’s playing with the bad guys. Maybe, with the right kind of incentive package, we can put her to work for us.”

  “Yeah,” Josh chuckled. “Make her a deal she can live with, or die without. She can cooperate and make a living as a double agent, or disappear the hard way.”

  “Works for me,” Susan said, reaching in her pocket and pulling out a flip phone. She punched in a speed-dial number and waited.

  “Delamo,” the voice said on the other end.

  “We’ve got it. Desdemonda. Left Manila on the 13th for passage through the canal and on to Miami. Target is inside an RV trailer being transported via container.”

  “Susan, stay in Manila and see if yo
u can track down a container number and some more specifics about the shipment. I want Josh on the next flight to Panama. I’ll pull the rest of the team back here and get on things from this end.”

  “Right, chief.” Susan ended the call and turned to Josh as she stuffed the phone back in her pocket. “I stay here to chase paperwork. You go to Panama to chase the ship and the bad guy. Lucky dog.”

  “I already know this bad guy. Wanna trade?”

  She smiled. “Not for a minute.”

  ****

  At NIA headquarters, Curt Delamo identified himself as a CIA officer, which was technically true, when he made his call to the Coast Guard station in Panama City. NIA was not known outside a small group of elite intelligence leaders inside CIA, so Delamo resorted to his link with the parent organization when working with other agencies such as the Coast Guard or Homeland Security. It was a fact that every NIA agent was also a CIA agent, the difference being that they were assigned to a black-ops Special Projects detachment that was known to only a select few.

  In Panama, Captain Klaus Pfister picked up the line and listened to Delamo’s request. Pfister was a hardline military type, trained to do things by the numbers and take no shortcuts. “Sir, can you give me a number where I can reach you? I’ll need to kick this upstairs for approval.”

  “For heaven sakes,” Curt almost yelled into the phone, but managed to hold it down to just a loud voice, “all I’m asking for is the status of one of the container ships coming through the canal. Is it there yet? Has it already passed through? That’s all.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I don’t know who you are. We live in a different age and work by a new set of rules since 9/11. Until I verify your identity, your request will go unanswered. Do you want me to proceed?”

  Curt exhaled with a degree of exasperation. “Forget it. I’ll just call the Port Authority.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but if you are really who you say you are, you might not want to involve them. Meaning no disrespect, but there is reason to be cautious with classified information, especially when dealing with the Port Authority in Panama.”

  “I appreciate your candor. This is a highly classified operation, and it needs the most urgent attention. What can you do for me?”

  “I can do what I said and then get back to you. Is that what you want?”

  “How long it is going to take?”

  “I can’t make promises, but I can say that I will personally see to it.”

  Curt understood bureaucracy well enough to know that it was futile to argue. “Then go ahead and do whatever you have to do. But please expedite.” He gave the captain the number for a secure line into the CIA, a number to an upper echelon officer who would provide the right cover for Delamo. Then he hung up the phone.

  Delamo’s second call was to the Homeland Security, where he was put through to Secretary David Robinson. Robinson was already in the loop, so after brief pleasantries Curt got right to the point. “We think we have identified the ship. I am working on verification of its present location, and will notify you as soon as I have something more.”

  “Good,” Robinson said. “Your people are on this, so we’ll stand out of the way until it becomes a more domestic situation. But I’ll start putting things into place in case we need to conduct a mass evacuation or go in and handle a decontamination-and-recovery mission.”

  “Thank you, Mr Secretary. I’ll keep you updated.”

  Curt hung up, then placed his third call to Secretary Rick Keller at Defense. “Mr Secretary, I recommend that we put Seal Team Seven on standby and positioned for interdiction.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Keller said. “I’ll have them stationed at Pensacola so we can conduct a fast attack.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Curt Delamo’s next call was to his wife. “Honey, don’t ask any questions. I’m not going to be home for a while. I want you to take the kids and go to visit your uncle Mick in Scotland.”

  There was a long silence on the phone, then finally Merrilee spoke. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. No questions. Just go. Plan for a long visit. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  “Is tomorrow okay? I have things to arrange. Call Mick, for one. And the kids are off running around. It’s not like I can just drop everything.”

  “Tomorrow will be fine. I need your support on this.”

  “Of course you have it. I’m sorry to be cranky. This caught me off guard.”

  “I know. Do what you need to do and call me from Mick’s when you get there. Wherever I am, I’ll be on the cell.”

  “Okay, honey. I love you.”

  “Love you, too. Tell the kids I love them. We’ll talk soon.”

  The phone was barely back on the cradle and it rang again. It was Captain Pfister. “Sir, your request is granted. Here’s what I have. The Desdemonda departed an hour and twenty minutes ago. Next port of call is Miami in approximately forty-nine hours.”

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “One problem, sir.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hurricane Yolanda is dead ahead of the Desdemonda. The two will collide within the next seven hours.”

  “What’s her strength?”

  “She’s at category 4 right now, sir. Winds are at 135 knots and rising. Sea state is at forty feet out of the southeast.”

  “A ship like the Desdemonda … what can she take?”

  “No ship is safe in those conditions, sir. Container ships are no exception.”

  “Can she be ordered back into port?”

  “We have no authority to do so, sir. Aboard ship, the captain is the ultimate authority; the safety of the vessel and her crew is his responsibility.”

  “Why did he leave, knowing that the storm was coming?”

  “I cannot speak for the captain, sir. But it is highly unlikely that he was unaware of the weather conditions. Perhaps he thought he could outrun the storm, make it into the channel and stay ahead of the weather.”

  “Racing the train to the crossing, huh?”

  “In a sense.”

  “Stupid, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask, sir, but I have to agree.”

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “Think nothing of it, sir.”

  Delamo hung up the phone, thought a moment, then picked it up and called the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Noel Page took his call and started to read him the standard forecast.

  “Mister Page,” Curt stopped him in mid-sentence, “I can log into your website if all I want is the forecast. I want to know what this storm is really going to do. How bad will it get? Where is it going to make landfall? What would it do to a container ship caught in its path?”

  There was a momentary silence on the line, and Curt was just about to ask if anybody was still there. Then Page spoke up. “Mr Delamo, I can’t tell you with any degree of exactness what is going to happen with this hurricane. With the possible exception of my mother-in-law, there is nothing on earth as unpredictable as a hurricane.”

  “Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?”

  “We can make predictions based upon similar factors from past storms, but a hurricane is kind of like a serial killer: you can look at patterns of past behavior and make a guess about where he’s likely to strike next and what he’ll probably do, but you can’t really know until after the fact. Wish I could tell you more.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Chapter Twenty

  October 28th – The bridge deck of the Desdemonda

  Desdemonda steamed north from Colon for more than fourteen hours, making 320 nautical miles before veering slightly to the northwest, well outside the hazards to navigation presented by the islands of Providencia. Captain Eric Sleagle propped himself against the helm station with feet wide apart and knees bent to absorb the ship’s movement. He held a binocular to his eyes, scanning the southeastern horizon.

  Solid overcast blanketed the
sky, and the water was the color of new steel. A persistent swell from just ahead of the starboard beam rolled the huge ship slowly. It was a slow, lazy motion that was not yet uncomfortable for the crew on a ship the size and displacement of Desdemonda. Still, Sleagle was worried. This was not the usual swell, and he knew that it foretold the fury of a powerful storm still to the east and heading his way. The winds were already howling through the ship’s superstructure. His instruments indicated a wind speed of 58 knots, gusting to 63. No, this was not at all normal for this time of year in the southwestern corner of the Caribbean Sea.

  Sleagle was one of those men who had discovered his calling in life at an early age. He was a man of the sea, not only by career choice, but also as the fulfillment of a dream he held since childhood. He grew up reading sea tales, some fictional and some true. He was certain that, as with all tales of the sea, even the ones that claimed to be true, were embellished with a modicum of editorial license. Now, as he stood at the helm and considered what was coming at him, he recalled the story of a brigantine named Tesoro do Rei that was lost not far from here back in 1571.

  As the tale went, the ship set sail for its home port in Portugal in late October, loaded with booty stolen or otherwise obtained from the natives of what is now Guatemala. Three days after weighing anchor and heading into open sea, a powerful hurricane ripped the ship apart and she sank with all hands.

  The following year, men aboard another ship sailing toward the mainland saw smoke rising from a tiny island off present day Honduras. The captain ordered the sails down and sent a party ashore to investigate. They discovered Guillermo Ascente, former commander of Tesoro do Rei, living the life of a castaway in a primitive hut, wearing rags, skinny and almost lifeless, eating whatever he could scrounge from the jungle and the sea.

  After returning to Portugal, Ascente became somewhat of a local hero as he told his story of surviving the hurricane that came to be known as ‘O Gigante’.