“Whatcha need, Woody?” asked Junior. “You’re holding up progress.”
“Where are you?”
“Last seam. Maybe three feet,” Junior said. “Course, that’s just the first pass. I figure I ought to give ‘em all at least one more.”
“No need,” said Woody. “Just seal all the seams with epoxy. It ain’t like it’s a permanent job.”
Junior nodded. “Whatever you say. You think this is gonna work?”
“Don’t see why not,” Woody replied. “All any pirate opening the tank cover or the ullage hatch is gonna see is gasoline. They won’t know they’re looking at a six-foot-square box with a couple of tons at most and that the rest of the tank is full of seawater. The digital readout in the cargo control room will show the tanks all full.”
Woody shrugged. “And even if they’re suspicious enough to gauge the tanks by hand, those funnels and capped pipes we have rigged to line up under the ullage hatches will let the tape go all the way to the tank bottom and show gasoline all the way.” Woody smiled. “I gotta admit, that Dugan’s smart.”
Junior nodded, and started back down into the tank.
“Junior,” Woody said, and Junior stopped and looked over. “Don’t forget to cut a couple of little holes in the tops of the walls of the false tanks so the inert gas can equalize. Put ‘em way up at the top, right below the main deck where nobody can see ‘em. I don’t know how savvy these pirates are, but I don’t want any of them getting suspicious ‘cause there’s no inert-gas blanket on the cargo.”
Junior nodded again and disappeared into the tank.
Drillship Ocean Goliath
Arabian Sea
The black hull rushed toward Dugan as he threw his weight to the side, attempting to spin on the rope. At the last moment, he twisted in flight and his back slapped against the hull, snapping his head against the steel with a dull thud, cushioned by the thick neoprene of the survival-suit hood. The impact drove the air from his lungs. He clung to the rope and saw stars and fought to retain consciousness.
He saw Borgdanov at the rail of the fishing boat, screaming up at the deck of the drillship and gesturing wildly. Then Dugan was moving again, almost in slow motion at first, then rushing toward Borgdanov as the drillship rolled and Kwok overcorrected again, sending the fishing boat charging at the drillship. Dugan dipped into the water to his knees, staring up helplessly at Borgdanov as the bow of the fishing boat towered above him on the crest of an approaching swell. He squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of being crushed between the steel hulls.
Then the rope bit his chest even harder, and he was jerked upward as the drillship reached the end of her roll and started back in the opposite direction. Dugan opened his eyes to see Borgdanov flash by, as if Dugan was ascending past him on an express elevator. A strong hand grabbed his leg, and he heard a thunderous crash and the screech of steel on steel as the rope slackened its grip on his chest and he felt himself falling—not swinging now, but straight down.
Dugan landed on top of Borgdanov, driving him to the deck of the fishing boat some feet back from the mangled handrail. He heard muffled Russian curses below him, as Borgdanov rolled him off and got to his feet before reaching down to help Dugan. Dugan took the offered hand and pulled himself up.
Borgdanov put his facemask against Dugan’s so he could be heard over the engine. “Are you injured, Dyed?”
“Ju-just my pride,” Dugan said, as his breath returned. “Thanks.”
The Russian gestured up toward the drillship. “Is thanks to Ilya. He pulled very hard when you were in water, and then released rope at just right moment so I can pull you in. We are very lucky, I think.”
Dugan stepped back and nodded before waving up at the sergeant, who returned his wave. He took in the situation. Kwok was maintaining station next to the drillship, and Dugan could make out a steady stream of abuse in English and Korean coming through the open window of the wheelhouse, even with the noise and the mask. He had no doubt the little Korean was tallying repair expenses mentally, even as he maneuvered his boat. There was a sizable dent in the hull of the drillship, and the gunwale of Kyung Yang No. 173 was set in a good eighteen inches, with the attached handrail mangled. Dugan had a fleeting thought about Woody’s cement-box patches and put it out of his mind. First things first. He put his facemask against Borgdanov’s.
“OK. Let’s try this again. Do you think you should remind Ilya to make damn sure I’m on the ladder before he snubs up the safety line?”
Borgdanov smiled through the mask. “Nyet. I think he remembers now.”
Dugan nodded and moved to the side of the boat. He jumped on the ladder without hesitation this time, and ten terrifying seconds later, he crawled over the handrail onto the deck of the drillship. Borgdanov was on the ladder and starting up as soon as Dugan cleared the rail, and the Kyung Yang No. 173 moved away to trail the drillship.
As previously agreed, the Russians armed themselves and took the lead, communicating with long-familiar hand signals. The ship’s movement was different than the fishing boat’s, more extreme due to the weight of the pipe in the derrick but less erratic. Dugan cast a worried look at the storm clouds to the south. The seas were coming from the starboard quarter now, striking the vessel diagonally on the stern. If the wind and waves shifted to the beam, things could deteriorate quickly. He pushed the thought from his mind and fell in behind the Russians.
Besides the single body they’d already spotted on the open deck, they found several more in the deckhouse passageways. When they pushed open the crew lounge, Dugan almost lost it. Bodies were everywhere, leaking blood and fluids. It was all he could do to keep from vomiting in his mask. He closed the door, and they began a room-by-room search of the rest of the quarters, faster now, sure they would encounter no armed resistance.
They found two more bodies in upper-deck rooms and encountered the last one on the bridge, lying in a pool of his own blood and vomit on the deck next to the dynamic positioning console. Dugan studied the bank of flashing video monitors on the DP console and considered trying to bring the vessel’s bow into the weather. One look at the controls dissuaded him. He didn’t know the system, and this wasn’t the time for on-the-job training. He could make things worse.
Instead, he gestured the two Russians close. Without the noise of the fishing boat engine, they could hear each other better now, but they still had to yell to communicate through the masks and hoods.
“I think that’s all of them,” Dugan yelled. “We need to get all the bodies into the crew lounge with the rest so we can burn them.” He looked at Borgdanov. “If the sergeant can do that, I need to show you something.”
The two Russians nodded, and the sergeant moved toward the body, but Dugan caught his arm. “Don’t touch them directly,” Dugan said, and pointed to the curtain between the chart room and the main area of the bridge. “Throw a curtain or shower curtain over the bodies and then roll them over onto it. Then you can drag them down the stairs or into the elevator without touching them any more than you have to. After you get the bodies taken care of, find the laundry and look for some bleach. Slosh it over any body fluids on the deck.”
The sergeant looked confused. “Bletch?” he said.
“Klornogo otbelivatelya,” the major said, and the sergeant nodded his understanding before moving to tear down the chart-room curtain.
Dugan motioned Borgdanov to follow, and led him out the bridge door and up the external stairway to the helideck perched high over the bow of the drillship. He found the nearest fire station, freed the fire monitor, and swiveled it to point overboard before opening the valve wide to send a stream of water arcing over the ship’s side. He left it there, and with the Russian in tow, crossed the helideck to the fire station on the opposite side of the ship and repeated the operation.
“These monitors will spray water until I stop the fire pump and drain the line,” Dugan said. “That may take a few minutes. While that’s happening and Ilya is moving
the bodies, I want you to look for the gas cylinders. According to Ward, they look something like scuba tanks. When you find them, put them with the bodies in the crew lounge. Get the sergeant to help you when he finishes with the bodies.”
Borgdanov nodded, and Dugan continued. “But remember, while you’re doing that, keep an eye up here on these monitors. If you see diesel shooting over the side, one of you needs to get up here quick and close the valves. Got it?”
“Da. As you explained on the boat, I understand.”
Dugan nodded and headed for the stairs.
Sweat squished between Dugan’s toes as he raced down the external stairs on the port side of the deckhouse. Only the fact that the boots were tight kept his feet from slipping around inside them. He hit the main deck and moved aft toward the machinery casing, his footing made even more treacherous by the loose layer of silver coins shifting across the open deck with each roll of the ship.
He slipped twice, the second time falling to his hands and knees as the ship took a hard roll to port. He froze at the metallic clang of drill pipe shifting in the towering derrick beside him, then breathed a sigh of relief as the vessel began to right herself. His relief was short-lived.
There was a thunderous boom, and he felt the steel deck vibrate through his gloves as the pirates’ fishing vessel once again lost its fight with the mooring lines holding it captive and surged back against the side of the drillship. Dugan struggled to his feet on the tilting deck. Christ! How the hell did he get into this mess? He swallowed his fear and pressed aft to the machinery casing, hoping the layout wasn’t too different from what he was used to.
He found the main fire pumps on a lower level, turned off the one that was running, and closed the discharge valve before dropping into the bilge to trace the system piping. He found the drain valve a few feet away. Water gushed over his legs and into the bilge when he opened it, cooling him a bit. He was tempted to linger, but he had no time. Truth be told, not even enough time to drain the system properly—there would be water trapped in branch lines unless he opened the valves on every single fire station—but that didn’t matter. Opening the two monitors at the very top of the system would allow enough air into the system to drain the main line and allow it to vent when he refilled it. That would have to do. Reluctantly, Dugan climbed out of the cool bilge in pursuit of his next objective.
He spotted the centrifugal purifiers first, and found the diesel-oil transfer pump not far away. He traced the pump discharge piping until he found what he needed—a branch line about the same size as a fire hose—then traced the system farther, closing valves as he found them, isolating the branch line.
The hacksaw he’d taken from the Korean boat was old and dull. Undoubtedly, there were better tools aboard the drillship, but he had little time to find them and figured they might be under lock and key. His hands were sweating in the clumsy rubber gloves, and he almost lost his grip on the saw several times before it began to bite into the pipe. When he penetrated the top of the pipe, diesel gushed out, covering his hands and making the pipe and saw slick under his rubber gloves.
Dugan bore down hard on the saw and his right arm ached with the effort, as the dull blade sank through the pipe with glacial slowness. The pipe finally parted with a snap, and Dugan lurched forward as the hacksaw slipped from his grasp and clattered in the bilge below. Good riddance! He moved to the nearest fire station.
He cut the fitting off the end of the hose with a knife from his backpack and dragged the hose to the severed diesel line. The hose slipped over the end of the pipe easily. It was a bit bigger than the pipe, and it might leak, but he prayed it would hold long enough. Five minutes later, the hose was clamped securely to the pipe with a half dozen stainless-steel hose clamps scavenged from the fishing boat.
Water dribbled from fire-system drain valve in a feeble stream, intermittently petering out then increasing with each roll of the ship. Close enough. Dugan shut the drain valve, lined up the other valves in his jury-rigged system, and started the diesel-oil transfer pump. The pump growled to life and the flat fire hose ballooned to a cylindrical shape as diesel gushed through it to fill the fire main. So far, so good. He rushed up a steep stairway to the engine control room.
The ballast control console was straightforward, and the mimic board allowed him to understand the system immediately. He started a single ballast pump, opened and closed several remotely operated valves, and then left the engine room to dash up the stairs and pick his way forward over the shifting silver carpet of the open deck. The ship took another bad roll, accompanied by the thunderous boom of the fishing boat against the side and a sound like a huge slot machine disgorging a jackpot, as coins spilled from the last intact pile to skitter across the deck.
He spotted the Russians on the starboard side, each with a cylinder on their shoulder, and worked his way across the pitching deck.
“Are the monitors—”
“Do not worry, Dyed,” Borgdanov said. “Ilya closed monitor valves.”
Dugan glanced at the sergeant and saw confirmation in the stain on his legs where diesel had splashed him.
“And I found cylinders,” Borgdanov said. “Thirty-seven in two cargo baskets near crane. These are the last two.”
Dugan nodded and fell in behind the Russians, just as the captive fishing boat banged against the hull again.
The Yemeni fishing boat Mukhtar had hijacked had seen better days when her previous—recently deceased—owner had acquired her a decade earlier. Maintenance since had been as needed, leaving her thinning hull a patchwork of steel of various thicknesses, held together by welds of indifferent quality. It was a miracle she had survived pounding against the stronger hull of the drillship as long as she had.
But even miracles have limits, and the repeated hammer blows took their toll. Steel bent and welds cracked, spreading through hull plating and frames as well. Water wept through the hull in a dozen places. Then the weeps became trickles; the trickles, streams; and the boat, heavy with water, moved more ponderously as it wallowed low in the water beside the drillship, straining on the lines that held it there.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Harardheere, Somalia
Ahmed squatted beside Diriyi’s lifeless body. The ripped throat, blood pool, and stench left no doubt the man was dead. He wasn’t surprised that he’d found Diriyi—Harardheere was spread out, but still easily covered on foot by a man fit enough to run at a steady pace. And Diriyi hadn’t been popular. The few people that had seen his tricked-out SUV pass were only too happy to share that information with Ahmed. That same SUV on the side of the road led Ahmed to the shed.
He was surprised, however, to find Diriyi dead and the woman missing, and that complicated things. Known now as a man of shifting loyalties, his alter ego, Gaal, was undoubtedly unpopular with the various pirate gangs that called Harardheere home. He’d no doubt that the same people so eager to point out Diriyi would be equally happy to point him out to anyone interested. His best option was to rescue the woman and call for extraction. There were two problems with that, of course—he couldn’t find the woman and he had no means to call anyone. Ahmed held the Glock in his right hand and began to search Diriyi’s pockets with his left. Diriyi’s cell phone would solve at least one of those problems.
The sound behind him was less than a whisper, but enough. He dived to the right as a bullet whistled past his ear. He landed on his shoulder and followed through in a tumbling roll, ending up with his Glock trained on—the woman!
“Don’t shoot!” Ahmed said. “I’m on your side. Sergeant Al Ahmed, US Army Special Forces.”
The woman’s own gun was trained on Ahmed’s forehead from less than five feet away, and it didn’t waver. “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Queen Elizabeth. Drop the gun! Now!”
Ahmed considered the situation. He couldn’t shoot the woman, so holding a gun on her was rather pointless. He bent, keeping both hands in sight, and laid the gun on the concrete floor.
>
“I’ve been undercover the whole time,” Ahmed said. “I helped the chief engineer and the others escape, and then I came after you.”
“Really?” the woman said. “Seems like the last thing I recall was you coming up to the captain’s quarters to help Toothless here stuff me in a duffel bag.”
“He zapped me with the stun gun too,” Ahmed said. “That’s why I couldn’t stop him from taking you.”
“I guess I missed that part, though I do remember you holding a gun to my head and pulling the trigger.”
“An empty gun,” Ahmed said.
“That would carry a bit more weight with me if we hadn’t both found out it was empty at the same time,” the woman said.
Ahmed shrugged. “I suspected. The terrorists disarmed me when I came aboard. They were unlikely to hand me a loaded gun before I proved my loyalty. Then Mukhtar turned away from me when he racked the slide to fake chambering a round, and when he did hand me the gun, it felt light, like the magazine was empty. And besides, if they planned to test me, I didn’t think they’d waste a high-value hostage like you. So I was pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?” she asked, her face reddening. “Did you say PRETTY SURE?”
Ahmed shrugged again. “It was a calculated risk.”
Her hand twitched and the gun barked. Ahmed’s hand flew to where his left earlobe had been.
“You stupid bitch!” he screamed. “You could’ve killed me!”
She stared at him with ice-cold eyes as he clutched his bleeding ear. “A calculated risk,” she replied. “And if I wanted to kill you, there’d be a hole between your eyes. But as you’ve probably figured out, I don’t believe your little fairy tale. That is, I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s a lie. That one percent is keeping you alive, so here’s what we’re going to do. If you’re who you say you are, you must have a contact. Someone who can convince me you’re legit. So you’re going to call them now and let me talk to them. Got it?”
Deadly Coast (A Tom Dugan Novel) Page 22
