SANCTION: A Thriller

by S. M. Harkness

  The transport dropped lower in the sky. The captain began to panic and make mistakes. Instead of lowering the starboard side flap, he lowered the port side. The plane did a half barrel roll and dropped fifty feet in less than two seconds. The starboard wing smashed into a four story apartment building. Its fuel tanks ruptured and hot jet fuel surged into the already massive fire created by the impact.

  23

  Azraq Jiden Island

  After twenty excruciatingly long minutes, Ben’s makeshift underwater rudder control was done. He lowered the craft back into the water with the crane control box and undid the lifting straps. He dropped the straps into the water and knelt down next to the American reporter on the deck.

  The oxygen tanks he had rigged were bobbing along on the surface of the water next to the yacht, thanks to the buoyancy compensator vests they were wrapped in.

  Ben pulled Emily’s rig from the warm blue water and held it up for her to slip into.

  “We’re in the worst possible situation, with little chance of surviving.” He said softly, as he locked the plastic clasps on the front of her vest.

  “Anything can go wrong at any moment. In fact, I’m not even sure that what I’ve rigged would work if we were given the perfect set of circumstances to test it in.” Ben said carefully eyeing her response. He wanted her to get to a hyper-alert state, where fear was subordinate to function and task.

  “I will be steering the craft while you hold on to a rope that I have secured toward the front of the boat. If you let go of that rope, or if you hit your head against something, there is nothing I can do for you. I am going to set the throttles at full speed before I take up my position behind the rudder. From that moment on, you’re on your own. I am telling you this so that you will understand how much you need to concentrate on the one task that you have. There may be obstacles that you will encounter along the way. This water is very clear and I will try to steer us away from them. There is tremendous risk in what we are about to do.” Ben said finally.

  Emily stared at him for a long time. She was shaken up even more after the speech, but she was also more sober. She placed the regulator in her mouth as she choked back tears and watched the Israeli retrieve his own tanks and mount them expertly. Ben gave her a solemn nod and then helped her into the water near the front of the boat. He handed her the rope he had secured to the railing on the deck and wished her luck.

  He disappeared into the wheel house again. Moments later, the massive Harkin-Marine engines rumbled to life.

  Schweitzer tied the end of a thin spool of twine to the gear shifter at the captain’s console. He unrolled it as he exited the wheelhouse and stepped from the boat to the deck. He set the twine down on the deck and walked over to the side entrance of the garage. The spy placed a single finger underneath a bank of four wall switches. He took a deep breath and flipped up on all the switches simultaneously. He didn’t know which was going to raise the door for the slip that his modified yacht was in and he didn’t have time to play with them individually. All of the doors for the slips began to rise and the overhead lights flickered once and then flooded the garage with white light.

  Ben raced back to where he had stored the spool of twine and picked it up. He sat on the edge of the deck and lowered his legs into the water. He gently pulled on the thin rope until there was no slack in it and then slipped the rest of his body into the sea.

  Below the surface, the twin screws viciously churned a bubbling froth of salt water in Ben’s face. He held onto the heavier gauge mooring and pulled on the twine. The lever popped into place and the boat shot forward out of the slip. It scraped and bumped the deck on either side of its hull as it surged toward open water.

  The Arabian Sea had turned crisp and blue when they’d exited the dull shadows of the floating garage. As they accelerated, the line in Ben’s hands stretched out behind the rudder so that he was a good three yards behind the craft and battling the turbulent wake. The propellers sliced through the water with ease, sending the boat to the top of each crest and cutting a wide V through the island’s inlet.

  Ben’s biggest concern now was immoveable objects, like coral reefs, rock formations and the possibility of running aground on a sandbar or the island’s shoreline. At the speed the yacht was traveling, the Israeli would have no time to divert the boat out of the path of danger.

  Several of Nazari’s foot soldiers stared in shock as one of the island’s boats exited the garage and recklessly skirted the shoreline. Knowing that only the catamaran was on patrol, one of the guards aimed his rifle at the craft and began firing. Soon, others joined in and shards of splintered wood and fiberglass began to peel from the boat’s surface and cascade down to the water like confetti. There was no reason for the terrorists to believe that the yacht was being controlled from underneath, so they simply continued to aim where the Israeli should have been, the wheelhouse.

  Ben caught a glimpse of a dark shadow that rose quickly from the sea floor. He jerked the rope in his hands hard to the right. The craft leaned to the left and scraped its length along a rugged rock formation. He feared they were closer to the shoreline than he had originally thought. He kept the rope pulled tight for an extra second, hoping that this would correct the problem and center the boat in the lagoon.

  When the geography of the island produced an outcropping that prevented them from pursuing the fleeing vessel further, the men raced down to the mouth of the inlet where the channel spilled into the Arabian Sea and waited for the craft to come within range again. As it approached the opening of the inlet, another round of heavy attack ensued.

  The ocean ahead grew dark as they soared toward it, signaling that they were almost out of the inlet and heading into deeper water. Once they broke free from the confines of the island, they would be in a much better position, or so they thought.

  Ben pulled back and forth on the mooring line, making very slight corrections to their direction. Emily’s heart pounded hard in her chest as she clung to the rope Ben had set up for her. She had closed her eyes when they’d hit the rock formation and they were still pinched tight as she waited for the ride of terror to be over.

  The yacht took a beating as it whizzed by the men at the end of the inlet. Button sized holes appeared all over the craft’s upper deck as a curtain of 7.62 caliber rounds rained down upon it. So many holes had penetrated the wheelhouse that it was now easy to see inside. In the frenzy of gunfire, no one had noticed the lack of Schweitzer’s presence.

  The yacht screamed out of the inlet at just over forty two knots as the sea floor melted away dramatically. Seconds later, Ben spotted another shadow and steered the rudder to the right but the object continued to stretch on far beyond his ability to maneuver out of its path. The Israeli feared he had miscalculated, perhaps they were headed toward another shoreline. As the boat closed the distance however, he saw that it was the hull of another vessel. There wasn’t enough time or room to avoid a collision, so he loosened his grip on the rope and braced for impact. There was also no way to warn Emily of the pending crash, he could only hope she saw it.

  Ben let go of the rope. The left frontal oblique of the yacht speared the other ship in a giant upheaval of wood, fiberglass and salt water. The intensity of the crash generated a storm of debris that whipped Ben and Emily around violently, stripping them of their scuba gear.

  • • •

  Mahdi was a crew member aboard the massive and luxuriously appointed, “Sea Wind”–a one hundred and twenty foot pleasure yacht flying an Iranian flag. He’d been watching the spectacle of the smaller yacht since hearing it roar from the garage in the lagoon. He braced himself when he saw that the craft was headed straight for the Sea Wind.

  The force of the impact had knocked him onto his back. He groaned as his muscles tensed around his spine and shoulders. After a few moments, the worker struggled back to his feet and looked over the railing. His eyes widened as he stared at the remains of the other vessel, as well as a gaping hole in t
he Sea Wind. Water rapidly poured into the opening.

  Other members of the Sea Wind’s crew began to shuffle onto the deck and peer over the side to investigate. Mahdi scooted himself over on the railing to give them room to gawk at the debris that floated around the cavity in the great ship. Though everyone had been informed of the missing Israeli and American, no one had been prepared for what had just happened.

  The captain was suddenly among them staring down in disbelief and shaking his head from side to side. He stuffed a thin Turkish cigar into his mouth and puffed. After a few brief but intense moments, he made his way back into the interior of the ship, leaving no instructions for his crew. The captain climbed the stairs to the control center and entered the bridge. He plopped himself down in the leather captain’s chair and pressed a button that said engine room in Farsi. The captain’s thick guttural accent flooded the speakers in the engine room.

  “There has been an accident.” He said, void of emotion.

  “We will need to evaluate the extent of the damage. Parviz, I need you to do this, you are more capable than anyone else to manage such a task. There is a hole the size of an automobile in the port side of the ship. I need a report within the next fifteen minutes.” The captain said calmly.

  • • •

  Ben’s body finally stopped spinning and he was able to discern various shapes in the water, though they were too mangled to identify. Black and tan colored fluids mixed with a confusing array of shattered boat parts and blue seawater, in a nightmarish maze of his own making. Emily ended up more than thirty feet away from him and the hull of the surviving ship. She was just shy of being out of his range of visibility. The Israeli spy looked around for an oxygen tank he had lost. If he couldn’t find it, he was going to have fewer options. He now had half the air he had started with. The sand on the bottom had begun to settle, but it was too far down to see clearly.

  From his position, Ben noticed that Emily wasn’t moving. Her body was limp, suspended in the water by her buoyancy compensator. Her limbs moved gently with the lull of the soft under current. Ben scissor kicked his legs to propel himself forward. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his lower left calf muscle. He looked behind him and saw a dark wisp of blood that poured from an open wound.

  Sharks were not known to attack humans simply because they were in their territory. But if they tasted blood, they were going to find its source. Now the extra tank was irrelevant, he had to get out of the water. He swam quickly to Emily. Her back was to him so that he had to go around her to get a look at her face without moving her. Through the full face mask he saw that her eyes were closed. He reached up to her throat and placed his index and middle fingers against her carotid artery. There was a strong, if not raised, pulse. There were no external injuries that he could see but he didn’t like the fact that she was unconscious. The most pressing issue was the possibility of internal hemorrhaging.

  Ben wrapped his arm around her waist and began kicking his way toward the stern, which he estimated to be at least fifty feet away. The only sound that could be heard was the loud clapping of the sea as it lapped up against the exterior of the ship. Ben swam for some time, laboring to carry the reporter’s dead weight with the pain that thrust through his leg.

  He neared the stern and slowed his pace. He moved past a set of large bronze screws and under the deck on the back of the ship. Ben inched closer to the edge and slowly broke the surface with his face.

  • • •

  The captain listened intently as Parviz gave him the details he had been waiting for. Parviz didn’t think the ship would sink but he also didn’t think it was a good idea to lift anchor before it was repaired. He relayed that several of the transverse frame members had been ripped apart, as well as the bilge strake below the water line. A stanchion beneath a deck beam had a new thirty degree bend in it also.

  The captain grunted under his breath and got up from his chair. He would have to tell his boss in person and immediately. He exited the interior of the ship on the lower deck platform, where a Zodiac was perched and ready for deployment. The Zodiac was a ten foot long nylon inflated boat, complete with an eighty horsepower outboard motor. Two crew members watched the captain’s distressed face as they lowered him and the craft into the water below. Once in the water, the captain pulled a chord to start the engine. It took six attempts to turn the engine over and when it did, it belched out a tiny cloud of gray exhaust. It hadn’t been started in months, as the owner of the ship preferred using the helipad to travel to shore. The captain skimmed across the water toward Azraq Jiden island, leaving the wounded yacht behind.

  Ben looked up at the hulking mass of the ship’s rear flank, its pearl white skin was blazoned with the name, “Sea Wind”. Now he understood the note that had been in the guard’s pocket back in the auditorium. Two Japanese Jet Skis sat on the lower deck. They were large, each with a bench long enough to accommodate three adults. Ben eased himself up and out of the water, keeping his profile below that of the Jet Ski’s so that no one from the shore would spot him. He laid down next to the expensive toys and slid an arm under Emily. He hoisted her onto the deck, rolled her onto her back and removed her facemask. He began to see the soft tissue of her eyelids move as her eyes rolled beneath them. After nearly a minute, she opened them and stared at Ben’s hovering face. The Israeli held a single finger up to his lips.

  “Shhh.”

  Ben peeked his head over the seat of the Jet Ski and surveyed the shore. The men who had so eagerly emptied their magazines on Ben’s boat, now mingled about in a dense cluster of smoke and idle chatter. They obviously assumed that no one had survived the accident aboard the smaller craft.

  Ben needed to get inside the ship and use the communications gear to contact Avner. Telling his superior at Mossad everything he knew about Nazari was the most important task on his list; even more important than surviving. He decided to move up the ladder on the far side of the bottom deck. He waited until the men on shore turned their back to watch as the aggravated captain beached the zodiac on the white sands of Azraq Jiden and stumbled over the top of a berm as he headed toward the private residence.

  Ben left Emily on the deck behind the Jet Ski and scaled the chrome ladder, while keeping his eyes trained on the men at the beach. He got to the top of the ladder and peered over the edge. Though he saw no one, he could hear the clamor of frenzied voices. The voices were too far away and too jumbled together for Ben to make sense of them. He took one last look at the shoreline and then threw his body over the top rung of the ladder.

  He landed on smooth rows of polished honey oak planks with his palms and feet. He got up and crept along the deck, keeping his head lower than the three foot wall that jutted up from the flooring until he came to the starboard side of the promenade deck. He passed by several porthole style windows and came to an open door. He leaned his back against the wall and craned his head through the door. There was a stairwell that lead to the lower promenade deck and one that lead to the upper. He was interested in the navigation deck. He took the stairs that traveled up higher into the ship and carefully rounded a corner. Urgency surged through his body as he combed the interior of the massive yacht. After ten minutes of painstakingly slow progress, Ben found the room he was looking for. It however, was not empty. One of the crewmen that worked on the bridge was leaning against a bulkhead door with a well-worn novel in his hands. He read the book while sipping from a bottle of Coca-Cola. Ben’s position on the stairs was directly in front of the man but the Iranian was too engrossed to notice the well-trained spy.

  Ben looked for the radio console that serviced the ship to shore and other communications needs of the vessel. He spotted a bank of radio equipment catty corner from where the crew member was. He had no time to waste. For the moment, Nazari’s men had grown silent, seemingly satisfied with the thought that Ben had perished in the wreck. That could change at any time, especially when the debris field in the water failed to produce a body, blood or evide
nce.

  Ben’s calf muscles squeezed tight and his body tensed as he prepared himself to pounce. Before he attacked however, the man grunted and set the novel down on a ledge below the wall of windows that provided the vessel’s pilot with a panoramic view of the ocean. One of the other crew members was calling him from beyond the bridge. He disappeared through a door on the opposite end of the wheelhouse that led to the deck on the port side of the ship.

  Ben shot up the last few treads of the staircase and materialized from the shadows. The room was vacant and silent, except for the constant soft pinging of an underwater range finder on the pilot’s console.

  The Israeli stepped up to the wall of radio equipment. The decks of electronic instruments hummed and glowed with digital lights and numbers. He grabbed the handset and placed it to his ear. The system was sophisticated enough to accommodate a simple version of ship to shore calling as well as its more modern successor. Ben punched in the familiar keys and placed the headset snug against his ear.

  It rang several times and then a woman picked up. Ben went through the usual spiel and security verification. He waited while she patched him through. The intensity of the moment felt like someone was twisting his nerves around his body. He could hear his heart pumping in his ear, the blood sounding like a wild river in his head. Ben was still waiting when he heard the voice of the crew member that had just left. The man was returning to the wheelhouse. Ben was about to set the handset down when Avner’s voice flooded the speaker next to his ear.

  “Ben, where are you?” He asked.

  “No time for that. Imam Nazari is dirty. He is planning…”