Tribulation

by Scott B. Williams

Sixteen

  ALTHOUGH JONATHAN WAS CONTENT to stand at the rail much of the next day and watch the scenery unfold as the C.J. Vaughn worked its way upriver, Eric was too restless to be content with that. When he wasn’t hanging out with the captain in the pilothouse, he followed Ralph Stewart, the chief engineer, as he made his rounds about the ship. Eric had spent a lot of time aboard a wide range of vessels during his years in the Navy, but this was his first experience with an inland towboat of this type and he wanted to know all about it. Ralph was happy to show him around, and Eric learned that he’d worked on ocean-going oil tankers before switching to riverboats.

  “I never get tired of the Mississippi,” he told Eric. “I’d rather run up and down this river the rest of my life than ever go to sea again. To me, it’s just more interesting. An empty horizon on all points gets boring fast.”

  As they continued to talk, Eric told Ralph about the schooner and some of the possible destinations he had in mind whenever he got Megan out of Colorado. He knew he had a lot of shore time ahead of him before he raised sails on that schooner again, but there was nothing wrong with thinking about it and sharing the dream with a fellow mariner. Eric was going to get along just fine with Ralph and Captain Anderson, and the deckhands were friendly enough too now that they were underway. It was just the security men that were still making a point of keeping to themselves.

  “I guess they’re just doing their job,” Ralph said. “I’m not sure we even need them, but the company insisted on putting them aboard anyway, and Captain Anderson didn’t have a choice. I think the chances of running into trouble on the lower river are pretty slim, and there’ll be more federal patrol boats the farther north we get.”

  “I suppose you can’t be too careful. I’ve worked a few vessel security details myself since I got out of the Navy, mostly in waters where Somali pirates were the threat. They were more interested in ransom money than the ship’s cargo, but all this fuel we’re pushing upriver is a lucrative target. Over there they’d come at us fast in small boats, armed with AKs, RPGs and grappling hooks. It worked well for them as long as they were boarding ships with unarmed crews. When the freighter companies started hiring guys like us, the odds of them surviving to enjoy their profits went way down.”

  “With a background like that, you should be the one getting paid instead of having to pay for your passage. I doubt any of those three have ever faced an attack like that. I hope we don’t have to find out if they’re any good with those rifles or not.”

  “I’d prefer to have one myself, but that sergeant back there couldn’t let us through with weapons and the captain won’t sell me anything until we make Kansas City. I guess I’ll just enjoy the cruise I paid for and trust my safety to the pros for a change,” Eric said.

  He could joke about it, but in reality, he would never let his guard down, and if something happened, he planned to be in the middle of it one way or the other. When he left the engine room that morning after his conversation with Ralph, Eric decided it was time to have a little chat with the men entrusted with the security of the C.J. Vaughn. Two of the three appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties. The third, who looked at least mid-forties, seemed to be the boss, so Eric sought him out and found him alone at the rail of the upper deck, glassing a long sandbar on the west bank of the river with binoculars. “Seen anything to be concerned about?” he asked.

  “Nope, just watching the eagles fish mostly. There’s nothing else moving out here.”

  “Boring job, huh? I’ll bet you’re wishing you were somewhere else most of the time when you’re doing a hitch like this.”

  “It all pays the same. Things can change fast too. Just because it’s quiet now doesn’t mean it’ll be that way around the next bend.”

  Eric had decided beforehand not to mention his own experience to this fellow and his partners. If the captain had already told them, that was okay, but he didn’t see any reason the security team needed to know. It wasn’t like they were going to offer him a weapon and ask him to help out. But he did his best to be friendly, telling the man his name and offering his hand.

  “It’s Kendall,” he said, returning the handshake. “Captain Anderson tells me you and your family were going all the way to Kansas City with us. You must have given him a damned good reason to bring you along. That would never have been approved if you’d asked before we left Galveston. My team and I are obligated to report any anomalies to the company upon return to port, but Captain Anderson promised me a bonus if we’d keep quiet. I plan to do just that, unless you give me a reason not to.”

  “You don’t have to worry about us, Kendall. My wife and I are just trying to reach our daughter. We’ll do anything we can to help out, but we’ll stay out of your way too. Is there anything in particular to look out for? Anything you want us to let you know about if we see it?”

  “I doubt you’ll see it before we do if there’s trouble. If it comes, it’ll come fast and hard, but don’t worry, Mr. Branson, we’ll take care of it,” Kendall said, patting the receiver of his AR-15 as he looked at Eric with a confident smile. “Just enjoy the ride. We’ve got it all under control.”

  Eric’s first impression of the security team had been about right, he realized, after talking to Kendall a few more minutes. They had all worked in the armed security industry for years, but none had military or even real police backgrounds. Kendall said he and one of the younger guys had worked together for an armored car company, and the other associate had been a guard at a chemical manufacturing facility. They had been hired for this towboat duty by a startup security company that offered its services to the owners of the C. J. Vaughn after the first reports of attacks on riverboats. Eric doubted they would be effective if the tow came under attack by determined hijackers.

  “As valuable as this fuel is, you’d think they would invest a little more in protecting it,” Shauna said, when Eric told her later what he’d learned.

  “They’re counting on the lower river being safe because of the troops in places like Simmesport, New Orleans and St. Louis. But it seems to me that sooner or later, someone out here in the boonies in between will get an idea, seeing these tanker barges going by loaded with all that fuel while they can’t get any at all. It would be easy enough to take one, with just a little advance planning.”

  The third morning on the river out from Simmesport, Eric found out just how right he was about the possibility of someone making an attempt to hijack the tow. He had been out on deck late the night before, talking to Jonathan after Shauna went to sleep early. It was after midnight when he finally crawled into his bunk across from hers to crash, and it seemed he’d just drifted off when he was suddenly awakened by what sounded like pistol shots from somewhere quite close outside the cabin. A quick glance at his watch told him it was just after 0600 and when he looked across to the other bunk, he saw that Shauna was no longer in the cabin with him.

  Eric was on his feet in an instant, peering out the nearest port light into the early morning fog that hung low over the river and obscured the distant bank to the west. In the smoke-like mist he caught a glimpse of what looked like a waving handheld spotlight a few hundred feet to port of the C.J. Vaughn, barely at the edge of visibility. There was a boat out there in the fog and he assumed the gunfire had something to do with it, possibly one of the security guys firing warning shots.

  Eric quickly pulled on his pants and T-shirt and adjusted the knives in his belt before exiting the small guest cabin, looking for Shauna. She wasn’t in the hallway, so he made his way aft to the nearest exit to make sure she wasn’t outside on deck. As soon as he opened the steel door though, a bullet struck the jamb inches to the right of his face, and he immediately slammed it shut and locked it behind him, dropping to the floor and crawling as several more rounds followed the first, ricocheting off the metal door and bulkhead outside. Someone already aboard the vessel was trying to kill him!

  * * *

  After talking late into the
night with Eric, Jonathan still wasn’t sleepy, so when Eric left to return to the cabin he shared with Shauna, he decided to sneak out on the barges and have a look around. The security crew had stopped him when he tried that in the daylight, but now all he had to do was wait until the one guy making rounds was on the opposite end of the vessel. Jonathan tricked him into thinking he’d retired for the night like Eric, but then he quickly slipped back out, keeping to the shadows where it was unlikely that whoever was in the pilothouse would see him climb out there onto the tow.

  Once he made his way to the very front of the entire raft of barges, at the bow of the third tanker to starboard, he sat staring ahead at the dark river, listening to the gurgle of the bow wave, so far from the engines hundreds of feet astern that he could no longer hear their rumble. He doubted the captain would want him to be out there either, but it was the security men that had been such assholes about it. Jonathan enjoyed defying them and slipping out there under their noses even though they were supposed to be pros at keeping watch over things aboard the ship. He wasn’t worried about any repercussions of getting caught, but he didn’t plan to anyway. He’d get back onto the towboat and be inside the cabin before daylight, all he had to do was watch closely and time his exit.

  The peace and quiet there all alone lulled him into sleep before he realized it though, and when he woke he saw by the gradually lightening sky that he was almost too late. The morning fog that hung over the river was so heavy though that even the pilothouse of the towboat was partially obscured from view. Jonathan quickly began to ease his way aft, keeping low behind the raised portion of the tanks as he crept down the narrow side deck on the outboard side of the starboard barges. He was halfway down the middle barge with one more to go when he saw someone coming his way, walking out onto the deck of the barge in the rear. Jonathan stayed low behind the raised tank and waited, hoping whoever it was would keep to the middle walkway and he wouldn’t be discovered. When he chanced looking up again, he saw there was now a second person aboard the barge, following the first one. In the dim light he could see just enough to tell that the first guy was a deckhand named Mike he’d talked to a little, while the one who followed was one of the younger security men. His heart began to race. Were they looking for him? Had someone seen him out here and reported him? He didn’t know if it would be better to just go ahead and call out to them or try to elude them. He was certain they didn’t know exactly where he was out there though, so he decided to just wait and see. If they kept going forward, maybe he could slip back to the towboat unnoticed.

  But the sound of footsteps on the steel grate suddenly stopped when Mike was nearly opposite from where he crouched. Jonathan heard a grunt and then a brief cry like that of someone hurt. Keeping low, he peeked around the corner just far enough to see Mike sprawled facedown on the deck, the security guy on top of him, striking him repeatedly in the center of the back. When he stopped, Jonathan saw to his horror that the guard hadn’t simply been hitting Mike with his fist. Jonathan watched as he wiped the blade of a knife on Mike’s shirt and then returned it to a sheath on his belt, behind his holstered pistol. The guard then got to his feet and rolled the body to the edge of the barge deck, where he then pushed it overboard through the gap between the bows of the barge they were on and the next one adjacent.

  Jonathan was afraid to even breathe, knowing this man would surely kill him too if he knew there was a witness to what he’d just done. There was nowhere to retreat to if he was spotted, other than to dive over the side into the dark river. Jonathan made up his mind he’d do just that if he had to though, because the man not only had the knife, but also the AR-15 on its sling and a pistol on his belt. There was little hope of defending himself against odds like that, and he had no idea of the man’s motive for what he’d just done. Did the other two guards know he was out here? Were they in on it too? Jonathan’s mind was racing as he tried to figure it out, while at the same time wishing he could make himself invisible. It seemed like ten minutes passed, but he knew it was probably only one or two in reality, before the murderer finally turned and walked back in the direction of the towboat. Jonathan glanced over the side at the dark water rushing past the hull of the tanker barge. The tow was maintaining its steady cruising speed, still pushing upriver as before. What in the hell was going on back there? Surely the captain and the rest of the crew were unaware of what just happened, as were Eric and Shauna, who were probably still asleep in their cabin? Jonathan didn’t know what to do now. He needed to tell Eric and Shauna what he just saw, but he couldn’t afford to be seen, and it was getting lighter by the minute.

  Jonathan worked his way further aft until he was halfway along the deck of the last tanker in the lineup. He hoped to get an opportunity to make a dash for it when the security guys weren’t looking, but just when he thought it was clear, two of them returned to the front of the towboat, this time on the outer walkway of the second deck, where they had a good view of the tankers. Jonathan was still crouching in the shadows down low, where he could watch them without being seen, but his chances of getting back to the cabin were zero as long as they stood there.

  He could see them well enough to tell that one was the man that he’d seen stab the deckhand. There was nothing else moving on the vessel as far as he could see, and he began to wonder if they’d done something to the other crewmembers on watch as well. He couldn’t see through the darkened pilothouse windows to tell who was at the helm. Could it be the other security guard? What if they’d killed the captain and the chief engineer? Some of the crew was bound to be off-watch and in their bunks, but what if these men had attacked them in their sleep? What about Eric and Shauna, who were both unarmed like him? The not knowing was killing him and Jonathan was kicking himself for falling asleep up there on the bow, but at the same time, he realized that might have been what saved him. Still, he was essentially trapped out there on the tanker barge until these men moved elsewhere. There was no indication they were in a hurry to do so though, as they seemed to be looking out over the river as if waiting for something to appear out there in the fog.

  When one of them lifted a handheld radio to his mouth and began to speak into the mic, Jonathan didn’t know if he was calling the third guard or someone else. The answer came when he saw the other one pointing at something in the river. Jonathan crawled around to where he could get a view in that direction and then he saw a light cutting through the haze. It was a searchlight or some other kind of bright light and he knew it was probably closer than it appeared because of the fog. The guard with the radio was obviously in communication with someone out there on another boat, but why? What in the world were they up to? The men didn’t seem concerned about the presence of the boat; otherwise they would have had their rifles in hand. As improbable as it seemed, Jonathan was certain the guards were expecting whoever was out there in the fog.

  But as he watched and waited to see what would happen, something else farther aft on the towboat drew the attention of the guards. One of them headed in that direction while the other one, the one who’d just stabbed a deckhand, waited where he was. Just seconds later, Jonathan heard gunshots ring out from the towboat. The guard he was watching was looking in that direction, but didn’t move to investigate. Jonathan was certain it was his partner that did the shooting, otherwise, there was no way the guy would just wait there where he was. Realizing the other guard may have just killed another of the crew; Jonathan knew he couldn’t keep waiting to see what was going to happen next. Something was up with whoever they’d been in radio contact with, and after what Eric had told him the night before; Jonathan had a strong suspicion it had to do with all the fuel that was in those tanker barges. Keeping low and out of sight, he worked his way around the barge, looking for something he could use as a weapon. The best he could come up with was one of the heavy pipe cheater bars he’d seen the deckhands using to crank the racket handles on the winches that were used to keep the slack out of the cables connecting the barges. He
hefted it in his hands and figured it would do. The security guard was still looking aft, apparently waiting for his buddy. When several more shots rang out in rapid succession, Jonathan knew he couldn’t afford to wait. If he was going to act, then the time was now.

  He looked out across the river again in the direction from which he’d seen the light, but there was nothing visible now through the fog from his vantage point. If the third security guard had taken over the helm, Jonathan could only hope his attention was focused out there as well. It was risky crossing from the barge to the tow now that there was enough light that he could be seen from the pilothouse, but it was a chance he had to take. He moved quickly, while the guard on the second deck still had his back turned, and ascended the steps behind him with the pipe in hand. It was easier than he expected. After seeing what this guy had done to poor Mike, the deckhand, Jonathan didn’t hesitate once he was in range. When the heavy pipe struck the side of the guard’s head, there was a hollow clang of metal clearly audible over the thud of crunching bone. The man went down with little other sound though, and Jonathan quietly laid the pipe on the steel grate of the catwalk and relieved him of his rifle and pistol. After checking that the chamber of the AR-15 was loaded and tucking the barrel of the pistol into his waistband, Jonathan slipped aft along the catwalk, looking for the source of the gunfire he’d heard in that direction. He had almost reached the first nearest entrance door to the second level interior when the higher-pitched hum of an outboard caught his attention over the grind of the towboat’s big diesels. Jonathan turned to see a motorboat closing in out of the fog, one man at the center console helm station and two more with rifles standing near the bow. He was stuck there on the open catwalk with nowhere to go, and he knew the men in the boat couldn’t miss seeing him whether he froze in place or made a run for it. Jonathan turned and raced back the way he came, towards the bow, stepping over the body of the guard he’d taken out as he made his way around the front of the cabin, heading for the other entrance on the starboard side.