Deadly Coast (A Tom Dugan Novel)

by R. E. McDermott

  Ward processed what he’d just learned. He didn’t know quite what he’d expected, but certainly not the fantastic tale he’d just heard.

  “Even assuming what you’ve told me is true, that was decades ago. You can’t possibly imagine these weapons are still viable.”

  “Believe me, Agent Ward,” Imamura said, “I’ve imagined little else for over sixty years. The containers were stainless steel of the finest grade, so corrosion will be minimal. Pressure will be extreme due to the depth—over thirty-five hundred pounds per square inch by my rough calculations—but the cylinders were thick-walled, with a small cross-sectional diameter. They may be crushed, but I doubt they ruptured.”

  “So what,” Ward said. “Even if everything is intact, the nerve gas and virus would have degraded over time.”

  “Possibly, but it’s very cold at that depth—a degree or two above freezing. I suspect there would be degradation of the nerve gas, though some of it’s probably still lethal. But I’m most concerned about the virus. In our tests it was extremely hardy, and able to survive in all manner of environments. At extremely low temperatures, it almost seemed to hibernate, for want of a better word. I think, given the size of the shipment, some might survive. It takes only a tiny bit to begin replicating.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Ward said. “You help engineer a deadly virus that can wipe out civilization as we know it, and thankfully, it gets sent to the bottom of the ocean. You then say nothing for over sixty years until you’re on your deathbed. Don’t you think it would have been a bit more useful to tell us about it a bit sooner—say, fifty-nine years ago—so we could have been working on a vaccine?”

  “Did your investigation reveal my former position at USAMRIID?”

  “Sure,” Ward said. “Senior researcher in infectious diseases.”

  “And did it also,” Imamura asked, “reveal my specialty?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “I was senior researcher for hantavirus and related viruses. I worked on nothing but finding a vaccine or cure for over forty years, but I was hampered by both inability and unwillingness to reproduce the actual strain we’d developed in Japan.” He smiled wanly. “So condemn me as a monster if you will, Agent Ward, for I deserve that. But never doubt I labored mightily to put the genie back in the bottle. I regret that I failed.”

  The silence grew until Ward broke it. “If someone is trying to raise this virus, what do you recommend?”

  “Do everything in your power to see that it doesn’t surface,” Imamura said, with a fierceness that belied his fragile condition. “If you fail, then redouble your efforts to destroy it. And most importantly, if it does come into your control, don’t be swayed by those who will want to keep it to study for ‘defensive purposes,’ because that’s the siren song. Unit 731 started with the noble aim of preventing disease, and ended cultivating those very diseases as weapons. Power corrupts, Agent Ward, as surely as the sun rises.”

  Imamura had risen onto one elbow as he spoke, gesturing at Ward with his hand for emphasis. The effort proved too much for him and he collapsed back on the bed with those last words, his breathing labored.

  Ward stood. “Are you all right?”

  A smile flickered at the corners of the old man’s mouth. “As ‘all right’ as a dying man can be, I suppose.”

  “I … I meant …”

  “I know what you meant, Agent Ward, and thank you. I’m fine, but if there’s nothing else I can tell you …”

  “No. I can’t think of anything.”

  “Very well then,” said Imamura. “Good luck in your operation.”

  “Thank you,” Ward said, moving toward the door.

  Mrs. Lomax was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair in the hallway, clutching a well-worn Bible. She rose as soon as she saw Ward, and pushed past him before he could speak. He shrugged and headed for the elevator.

  “Dr. Imamura?” Mrs. Lomax called.

  Eyes flickered open and Imamura gave her a weak smile.

  “Would you like me to read you some scripture, Doctor?”

  “Why yes, Mrs. Lomax,” Imamura said, “I’d like that very much.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  CIA headquarters

  Maritime Threat Assessment

  Langley, VA

  Ward hadn’t bothered to go home—he was already in the doghouse with Dee Dee. He’d just texted her he was working over and gone back to the office. He was still there after midnight, peering through a magnifying glass at satellite photos of Ocean Goliath, searching for some clue of a problem aboard. As far as he could tell, it was business as usual aboard the drillship, with Mukhtar’s presence the only indication something might be wrong. And even that was circumstantial, revealed by the presence of a sat-phone signal, hardly conclusive. He didn’t even know for sure the drillship was going after the damned sub. But what if it was? Imamura’s nightmarish scenario replayed itself in his mind’s eye.

  He laid the magnifying glass on his desk and leaned back in his chair, pondering his options. How could he mount an operation against a perfectly legal and high-profile salvage operation taking place in international waters, funded by a rich Omani with American connections? Based on what? A suspicion there was a terrorist aboard? A suspicion that they were trying to salvage devastating bioweapons from a long-lost submarine? A suspicion based on no hard evidence whatsoever, but on the dying words of a ninety-four-year-old man who may or may not be delusional? No one above him in the food chain would authorize an operation based on what he had. But then, no one else had heard Imamura’s story, and Ward knew in his gut the man had been telling the truth.

  But he couldn’t proceed without more intel, and collecting it without alerting the terrorists was a problem. He couldn’t very well contact the company in Houston, since he didn’t know who might be involved in an effort to salvage a bioweapon, or even if such an operation was underway. And even if no one ashore was involved, they might inadvertently let something slip during later communications with the drillship. No, he had to figure some way to gather intel independently, and it was pretty damn tough to sneak up on someone in the middle of the ocean. Unless you look like something they expect to see.

  He thought of Dugan’s nondescript tankers. According to his last unofficial report from Anna, the two ships were a day’s run from the Ocean Goliath. What if one of those tankers could pass close to Ocean Goliath in the night? Nothing to cause alarm, just a tanker in innocent passage. And what if that tanker pumped a bit of oil overboard in the darkness? Not a lot, just enough to cause a sheen. Enough of a sheen to attract attention from shore to investigate the source of the pollution. His resources in Oman were limited, but he’d deal with that later—for now, he just needed to talk Dugan into a little side trip.

  He looked at his watch—coming up on midmorning in the Arabian Sea. He dialed Dugan’s sat-phone and got a recording, hung up without leaving a message, and tried again five minutes later with the same result. After three tries, he left Dugan a message to call him no matter what the time, and hung up.

  He sat for a moment, weighing the benefits of going home. He’d have to be back in the office in four hours anyway, and the hour and a half roundtrip to his house would have to come out of that time. He sighed and moved to his office sofa, and stretched out to wait for sleep that never came.

  M/T Pacific Endurance

  Arabian Sea

  Dugan watched on the safe-room monitor as the first pirate scrambled aboard, trailed by five more. Following what Dugan now knew was standard pirate operating procedure, one man remained in the boat and moved it away from the ship to starboard, maintaining his distance from the wildly swinging stern of Pacific Endurance. Dugan nodded, and cranked the sound-powered phone.

  “Da,” answered Borgdanov in the officers’ mess room.

  “Six, repeat, six papas onboard,” Dugan said. “Stand by and I’ll notify you when they’re inside and locked down.”

  “Standing by,” Borgdanov
replied.

  Dugan watched as the pirates left the field of vision of the deck cameras and waited for them to appear on the passageway cameras inside the house. He didn’t have to wait long before he saw the outside door open and the pirates move into the passageway.

  “Papas are in the house,” he said into the phone. “I count one, two, three, four—damn! Four papas inside, repeat, four papas inside. I’ll wait a bit on the other two before I lock down.”

  “Standing by,” Borgdanov said.

  As Dugan watched the monitor, the four pirates moved toward the centerline of the ship and began to file into the central stairwell. Dugan spoke into the phone.

  “All four papas in stairwell, I am locking down before we lose what we have. You’ll have to adjust,” he said.

  “OK,” Borgdanov replied, and Dugan threw the switch that sucked the magnetic bolts home on all the exterior deckhouse doors and all the stairwell doors above A-Deck, trapping the pirates. Then he turned off the lights in the windowless passageway and stairwell, plunging the pirates into darkness.

  “Locked and dark,” he said into the phone. “All four papas in the stairwell but out of camera range. I have no visual.”

  “Do not worry, Dyed,” Borgdanov said. “We will get them.”

  I sure as hell hope so, thought Dugan, as he watched Borgdanov and his men in the feed from the night-vision cameras as they moved into the darkened passageway, the combination of night-vision goggles over gas masks making them look strangely alien. They moved to the central stairwell and Borgdanov directed his men with hand signals, his silent commands revealing nothing to the pirates in the darkness. At his signal, one Russian held open the fire door and two more rushed into the stairwell, returning in seconds, each dragging a scrawny pirate they had clubbed senseless in the darkness. Two more Russians rushed into the breach with tear-gas grenades and they also returned in seconds, empty-handed, as the Russian holding the door pulled it closed. Dugan saw flashes of light around the edges of the stairwell fire door and Borgdanov making a wait signal, holding his men for what seemed like an eternity before sending them back into the stairwell. They emerged with one man with bound hands and taped eyes and another who appeared unconscious. Borgdanov waved his men and their captives back toward the officers’ mess room, blocked open the fire door to the stairwell, and moved after his men to enter the door to the officers’ mess and close it behind him. Dugan nodded and started the ventilation fans just as the light of the sound-powered phone flashed.

  “I am sorry, Dyed,” Borgdanov’s voice came from the phone, “but we lost one. I hoped to take the last two with the gas, but I think the one highest up the stairs panicked when he heard his comrade behind him in the dark. Before the gas got him, he shot down stairs and killed his comrade.” Borgdanov paused. “Where are other two papas?”

  Dugan was flipping through the other monitor feeds as he listened to Borgdanov. He located the missing pirates just as the Russian finished speaking.

  “They’re both on the bridge, looking confused,” Dugan said. “You think they heard the gunfire in the stairwell?”

  “Is impossible that they did not,” Borgdanov said. “What about papa in boat?”

  Dugan pulled up the starboard bridge-wing camera feed in the second monitor.

  “He’s maintaining position. I don’t think he’s on to us, and I think he’s close enough to still be inside our jammer range,” Dugan said. “But it’s close.”

  “OK,” said Borgdanov. “I think these two on bridge are scared and will stay together now. We must take them without alerting comrade in boat. If he warns mother ship, we have big problem I think. I will take one man up stairwell to bridge deck and wait. I send Ilya and three men to port side, out of sight of man in boat. They will make distraction and draw papas to port side. When you see them react and rush to port, you throw switch and unlock stairwell door. That will be my signal to rush out and take them from behind. I think they will surrender, but if not, we shoot first and our weapons are suppressed. If we are lucky, man in boat hears nothing. Then we make plan to take him.”

  “Why don’t I just unlock the doors now? Maybe they’ll come to you.”

  “No, Dyed. Stairwell smells of tear gas even with ventilation. They will not enter, I think. Also, magnetic locks make noise, and they will be already jumpy, as you say in English. Trust me, Dyed. These are not soldiers, only piraty and prestupnikov—pirates and criminals.”

  “OK, how do you want to time it?” Dugan asked.

  “Is self-timing, Dyed. Ilya’s diversion makes prestupnikov go to port side. You watch and unlock doors after they move to port. Door unlocking is my signal to spring trap. Simple plan is always best, da?”

  “All right,” Dugan said. “Make sure your guys have their night vision secured and I’ll give you some light.”

  Korfa crouched on the port side, one deck below the bridge, tensing for his final charge. He took a deep breath and rushed up the steep stairs, his footsteps ringing on the metal treads, and covered the distance from the top of the ladder to the wheelhouse door in seconds, his weapon at the ready. To find—Ghedi charging in from the starboard side.

  The two pirates stared at each other in confusion.

  “Where’s the crew?” Ghedi asked.

  Korfa said nothing, but tried to absorb what he was seeing. The big ship was plowing ahead, its bow swinging radically as the tanker made rapid and frequent course changes, the standard evasive technique to prevent pirate boarding.

  Except no one was at the wheel, or on the bridge at all.

  “It’s a ghost ship,” Ghedi whispered.

  Korfa snorted. “Don’t be a superstitious fool.”

  Both men flinched at the sound of gunfire.

  “That was no ghost,” Korfa said, nodding to the stairwell door and raising his weapon. “Go check it! I’ll cover you.”

  “Perhaps you should check it, and I’ll cover you,” Ghedi replied.

  “All right,” Korfa said. “Perhaps we should both just cover the door and see who emerges.”

  Ghedi nodded, and the pirates took positions on either side of the chart table, weapons pointed as the stairwell door.

  Dugan watched the pirates on the monitor and cursed the lack of communication. With the jammers activated and Borgdanov away from a sound-powered phone, there was no way to warn him that the pirates lay in wait outside the door. He switched the other monitor from the pirate in the boat and started cycling through the port-side camera feeds, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other Russians who were preparing the diversion. There was a flash of black as one of the Russians moved into view on the port-side exterior stairway, and Dugan’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what to do. If the pirates didn’t take the bait and move to the port bridge wing, there was no way he was releasing the magnetic lock and sending Borgdanov into a trap. Then what? Perhaps “simple plan” was not always the best.

  Sergeant Ilya Denosovitch stood on A-deck and debated whether to space his men out on the charge up the outside stairway or to group them together. Any way he spaced them, they would be sitting ducks for even a halfway-competent marksman firing down on them from the bridge wing. But that wasn’t likely, given what he’d seen of the piraty’s competence, coupled with the fact that the major would be attacking them from the rear as soon as they rushed to port. Presuming, of course, Dyed got the door unlocked promptly. The sergeant decided to rush the ladder as a group and nodded, sending his men clamoring up the ladder, each man pounding the rail with a free hand as he climbed, multiplying the sound of their approach.

  Both pirates jerked at the din coming from the port side.

  “What’s that?” asked Ghedi.

  “Go check,” said Korfa, and after a slight hesitation, Ghedi moved to the port door and onto the bridge wing.

  Korfa heard a burst of automatic fire to port, and Ghedi was back on the bridge. “Soldiers,” he yelled. “Coming up the port stairway.”

  “How many?” Korfa
demanded.

  “At least a dozen,” Ghedi gasped, moving toward the starboard door. “I didn’t stay to count.”

  Korfa took a last look at the closed stairwell door, and turned to flee to starboard with Ghedi.

  Dugan watched, racked with indecision, as one pirate moved to port and the other maintained his watch on the stairwell door. The pirate to port fired a burst down the outside stairway, and then rushed back across the bridge, shouting at the other pirate. The man at the stairwell door gave the door one last look, and then joined his companion, both headed for the outside starboard stairway. So much for the plan. Dugan released the lock on the stairwell door.

  Borgdanov heard the magnetic bolt release and burst onto the bridge, his weapon at the ready. Instead of seeing the piraty to port as he expected, they were fleeing to starboard, and had almost reached the door to the starboard bridge wing. He fired a short burst ahead of them, in an attempt to contain but not kill them, spider-webbing the thick glass of the bridge window. The piraty didn’t even slow down. They were through the door to the bridge wing and starting down the open stairway on the starboard side before he even reached the door to the bridge wing.

  He turned as Denosovitch and his men rushed onto the bridge.

  “Ilya,” Borgdanov said. “Send your men down the central stairwell to keep the pirates from entering the deckhouse from below. I will keep pressure on them from above. It will be easier to hunt them on the open deck without so much cover. You set up here on the bridge wing. You know what to do.”

  “Da,” Denosovitch said, and deployed his men as ordered.

  Dugan watched the scene unfold on the bridge, and switched the second monitor to the pirate launch. The boat driver was staring toward the ship, aware something was wrong. The cat was out of the bag.