The Weapon

by David Poyer

  The oncoming ship grew even more swiftly than the one that had just creamed by. She seemed smaller, but maybe that was the rain-colored half-light that was gradually filtering up out of the sea, the unearthly radiance that seemed to come from nowhere and not really even to be light. She was stacked deep with containers and he could make out the outline of cranes forward, or maybe just one.

  The boat rocked again, crossing the wave system the Dutchman trailed behind him. Dan made out streaks of creamy foam lying parallel to their course. He could almost see his guys now, see the team’s weapons, the bamboo poles, the boarding ladder rolled up in the bow. They didn’t have much longer, if they were going to pull this off. He swung back and focused. This sucker was really roaring along. Was it the right one? He couldn’t wait. Not with dawn coming. After the molasseslike hours out here, suddenly events were moving so fast he felt overwhelmed.

  He keyed the VHF and tried for an accent. Fortunately ship-to-ship commercial comms were nearly always in English, or at least, something resembling that language. He said slowly, “Motor Vessel Fengshun, Motor Vessel Fengshun, this is Motor Vessel Van Linschoten, ahead of you in eastbound channel, over.”

  “This is Fengshun Number Five. Over.”

  “This is Van Linschoten. Be advised we have lost rudder hydraulics. Advise you proceed with caution as we are slowing and do not have steering control.”

  “This is Fengshun. Hear you loud and clearly. We are slowly. Are you need help? Fengshun, Fengshun. Over?”

  He clicked the transmit button on and off quickly, giving the effect, he hoped, of a broken signal. He caught Oberg squinting at him. No time to interpret. He said urgently to Carpenter, crouched at the wheel, “Same drill as before. Down her port side. Lights off as we close. Then cut in tight under her stern, tight, line up and match speed. Got it?”

  He said he did. Dan watched the pilothouse as they neared. Dim yellow lights glowed behind the large square windows high above the container-crammed deck. They had to be there. Someone had answered up on 12. He still couldn’t see anyone though.

  “Chinese characters,” the Hawaiian said from the bow. “This might be our boy.”

  Dan looked back at the horizon, at the men lying on the ceiling boards, at the swiftly approaching vessel. He stared at the white water at the stem but couldn’t tell if it was lessening, if they were shedding speed. He could almost make out the large white letters that marched along the black wall. It was still dark, but the day was coming. “All three engines,” he snapped to Carpenter. “Hold your course . . . hold your course . . . now. Lights off.”

  Carpenter flipped a switch and spun the wheel. The boat was only just starting to turn when the bow wave hit them. They rose, tipped crazily, almost went over. Dan crouched, butt tight against the gunwale, clinging to the helm console. Spray shot over the side and drenched them. The Hondas spooled up, bellowing together in a chorus of power. Beside him Oberg turned his ear as if to hear them better. The boat shot past the swiftly moving steel wall, now only yards away, and hit a slick patch. “Cut left! Cut left and line up!” Dan shouted.

  “Son of a bitch—”

  Oberg grabbed for the wheel but Dan pushed him back. The chunky sonarman hunched over the console. The boat bounced, snarled, canted hard as it came hard left again. The stern loomed alarmingly close. “Cut power! Cut power!” Dan nearly screamed, but kept it to a guttural shout.

  “Jesus Christ,” Henrickson shouted. “He’s gonna slam into—”

  “Why don’t all you fuckfaces just shut the fuck up,” Carpenter said between gritted teeth. He pulled two throttles back and left the middle one all the way forward. “She’s slowing down. Get Oberg ready.”

  But when Dan turned the SEAL was already on the bow, holding the long thin shadow of the bamboo pole like a harpooner about to thrust. Kaulukukui stood behind him, holding a coil of line out of the way. They crouched tensely, staring up at the gigantic stern swaying above them, like figures caught on a heroic frieze. Dan pushed back from the helm, willing himself by main force not to grab the wheel as Carpenter wrestled it this way and that. A pale luminescence played down from the stern light, swaying high above. The pulse of the freighter’s screw hammered at the soles of his feet through sea and fiberglass and leather like the repetitive pounding against its bars of a maddened panther. He balanced as the boat tossed in the screw wash, as the bow swung crazily, lurching and bouncing in the turbulence.

  Ahead of him, Oberg was reaching up.

  Teddy cursed between clenched teeth. The idiot on the helm couldn’t keep it steady for even a second. Behind him Sumo had his hand in his belt, trying to brace him, but he still staggered, trying to keep from falling overboard, while riveting his attention on the deck-edge above. It was higher than he’d expected. Subtract the boat’s and his own height, he might have just enough bamboo to hook on, but not a millimeter to spare.

  “Can you get it?” Lenson yelled.

  “Wait one—gonna have to—”

  The bow surged and he lunged with it, thrusting with the pole to his tiptoes. The grapnel skidded off, the point grating on metal. The bow dropped away and the pole came back down and nearly took him into the water with it before he and Kaulukukui got it under control. There didn’t seem to be any lip, or water channel, on the deck edge, the way he’d expected, for the hook to lock on. That wasn’t good.

  “Can you make it?”

  Lenson, sticking his fucking oar in from back by the helm. Teddy didn’t bother to answer. He crouched, watching the edged silhouette above them move away. The Hondas picked up speed and he heard that chatter again. Just so it held up until they got away, that was all he asked. The boat fell, rose, and he lunged again, grunting with effort. The hook clanged and grated and fell away. “Keep it fucking steady!” he shouted over his shoulder. His shoulders and arms burned but he blocked it. They could hurt when he was on that deck. If he made it.

  Lenson, at his side. “Want me to give it a try?”

  “Get off my back, Commander. Just give me room.”

  The boat roared forward. He staggered to his feet and had the pole halfway up when fiberglass crunched into steel as the prow slammed into the freighter. He lost his balance and shot forward. Just as his feet left the deck he pushed off, stretching upward and twisting in midair to get the hook turned backward, not sideways, the way he’d angled it the first two tries. It clanged into something hard, vibrating down the pole, and all at once he was swinging free, dangling through the dark air at what felt like a terrific speed, boots kicking. He struggled to get himself up the pole. But it was slick with the spray and his gloves slipped as he swung back and forth above the roaring maelstrom below him. The bulky weight of the rolled boarding ladder was like two full packs dragging him down. He stared upward. All that fucking hook had to do was make a quarter turn and it would come right off.

  He got his knees locked on bamboo and started inching.

  When he reached the deck edge he got an arm over it and hung there while his eyes decided whether to come out or stay in their sockets. When they stayed he raised his head slowly.

  No lookout came out of the shadows to kick him back overboard. That didn’t surprise him. The ship might have posted one going through the Strait, but that lay miles back. A merchant could do a lot to discourage boarders. But the only antiboarding measure he spotted here was barbed wire, already salt-rusty, wound perfunctorily around the top liferail.

  He got an arm over the lower rail, pushed the rolled-up caving ladder through, then followed it, wriggling under. He backed instantly into the shadow of a large winch and crouched immobile, waiting for an alarm, a shout, a probing beam.

  None of those things came. He gave it fifteen seconds, counting it out and trying to work the cramps out of his long muscles, then pulled the lashings off the ladder. Staying low as he rolled out from behind the winch, he locked two large stainless carabiners around a lifeline stanchion and kicked it over the side. He got out his Glock and sawed thro
ugh the barbed wire and let it drop overboard.

  Kaulukukui came over the rail and handed over Teddy’s AK without a word. Obie checked magazine seating, safety, sight position. He felt better armed. He pointed to a light burning above a doorway, what looked like a starboard side passageway. Gliding from shadow to shadow, they took position.

  Teddy turned his attention back to the ladder as another head bobbed above the liferail, followed by a boot. The way the guy came over it he’d have castrated himself if the wire had still been there. When he stood Teddy saw it was Lenson. The commander oriented and joined them. “Where’s Sumo?” he whispered

  Teddy pointed. “Perimeter. Till we’re all aboard.”

  “Going to be light soon. Got to get moving.”

  As far as he was concerned, they weren’t going anywhere until everyone was aboard. “You got comms with the boat?” Lenson nodded. “Check it. Then tell me you got it. Sir.”

  Dan hesitated, then nodded. He put the radio to his mouth and made sure the earbud was in. “Carpenter?”

  “Here.”

  “Donnie and Monty coming?”

  “On the ladder.”

  “As soon as they’re aboard, drop back half a mile and follow us. Zigzag, so it looks like you’re not keeping station, in case anybody’s got you on radar. Singaporean patrol craft, or anybody. I’ll check in when I can, but I can’t tell you how often that’ll be. If we call, or you see a flare, come in fast.”

  Carpenter aye-ayed and Dan clicked off. He started forward, but Oberg pulled him back. “Let us lead, Commander. This is our job.”

  “Okay, but I don’t see you leading.”

  Oberg fought to keep from backhanding him. “We got two more men to come. Just keep your pants on, Commander.”

  Dan looked anxiously back. It was getting lighter with every passing minute. Where in the hell were Donnie and Monty?

  Donnie was halfway up the ladder when it just got to be too much. His eyes squeezed closed. His hands cramped. He hunched in as it swayed. After a moment Henrickson, below him, slapped his boot. “Donnie! Wenck! You okay?”

  He couldn’t answer. The dark was all around him, rushing in his ears. He felt ashamed, but he still couldn’t move. Like pushing the buttons on a disconnected game controller.

  “Donnie!” The hand again, shaking his foot. He kicked it off savagely. “Jeez—you almost got me in the head!”

  “Wenck!” From above. “You’re holding up the program. Get the fuck up here!”

  “I can’t.” His voice sounded choked and high even to him.

  Something long came down and cracked across his back. He flinched, then gasped as something sharp hooked into his ass. It jerked upward, stabbing him painfully an inch away from his balls. “Get the fuck up here!”

  Oberg, that was who was jabbing him. Donnie let go with one hand and groped wildly for whatever it was he was jabbing him with. “Knock it off,” he half screamed, half whispered.

  “Get up here or I’ll tear you a new asshole for real. Now, dickhead!”

  The pain jabbed again, he felt the hook tearing skin, and he yelped and suddenly his hands moved and he scrambled the last few reeling feet and a hand came through the lifelines and got the back of his collar. “Oberg. What the fuck you poking me with—”

  The SEAL laid the bamboo aside, and the cruel steel clanged on the deck. “I’ll fucking ream you up the ass with something sharper than that, you don’t get with the fucking program. Get that AK in your hands and follow me.”

  “Fuck you,” he muttered, but not out loud. His legs were shaking even worse than at the range in Virginia. Something warm and wet was trickling down his leg. He couldn’t tell if it was piss or blood.

  “Get moving!” A shove, and he stumbled after a shadow, starting at every sound, fingering his rifle and trying desperately to remember if up was “safe” or if it was “fire.”

  Monty Henrickson followed Kaulukukui, making sure he kept his rifle pointed away from the Hawaiian’s broad back. They’d gone over this again and again on the printouts. Once aboard, divide into three teams. Oberg and Lenson to the comm room and bridge. Wenck to the engine room, and Kaulukukui and Henrickson to the crew’s quarters.

  So he knew where he was going, but it was different drilling it and actually running in the dark through passageways and up ladders you’d never seen before. What the layouts didn’t show was how spooky they were, how grimy, the white paint probably the original paint, never touched or even washed probably since the ship had left the builder’s. It had the air of a hospital fire-exit stairwell, a space that belonged to no one and no one took care of, just transited on his way from here to there. But the big man ahead of him went up surefooted and silent. He hugged the edges of the passageways and “sliced the pie” on the corners, covering his advance with the muzzle of his Kalashnikov. Monty followed in the combat crouch they’d learned at GrayWolf, trying to work spittle into a dust dry mouth.

  A man turned the corner so suddenly he ran into Kaulukukui. The SEAL had him down and was zip-tying him before Monty understood what was happening. The crewman rolled to look up at them and Monty instinctively covered his face. Then lowered his hand. With the beards, black scarves over their mouths, camo paint, and the dirty, ragged clothes they’d traded for with the rebels, he didn’t have to worry about being identified. As long as they remembered not to speak English, and whatever Kaulukukui was shouting at the guy, it sure wasn’t American. The big Hawaiian hauled the sailor up and shoved him on ahead of them.

  They came to a narrow passageway walled with doors. The crew’s quarters. Monty started pulling doors open, pointing the gun, yelling at startled Asian faces in random Russian. “Davai! Ponemayite? Kto rukkava’ditiel?” Their cabins looked like rooms in a frat house: cluttered with beer cans, porn mags, snack wrappers, crammed with the tinny noise of cheap CD players and the flicker of VCRs. They stared back terrified, putting their hands up at once. Ahead the SEAL was shouting, too, herding men out into the passageway and zip-tying them. When they had them all out and lying on their faces Kaulukukui mouthed: search them. Monty bent and started patting and slapping bodies. They were little men, most of them, about his own size. They acted passive, as if they didn’t want to resist. Maybe he and the SEAL were pretty frightening.

  He remembered they were supposed to be thieves, and went back and got wallets and watches and stuffed them into a cheap red Marlboro tote from one of the rooms. Two had cell phones and one a knife and he took those, too. When he signaled they were clean, Kaulukukui gestured them to their feet.

  The plan was to take them to the crew’s dining area, one deck down, and hold them till they heard from the bridge team. He kicked the closest sailor. “Davai, tep’yer!” he shouted, waving the rifle, trying to look as if he wanted nothing more than to mow them all down. They shrank back, palms up to placate him, then scrambled where Kaulukukui pointed, his normally placid face the snarling mask of a Polynesian war god as Monty urged the last shaking kid along with his rifle-butt.

  Look at me, he thought. He tried to grin, but his lips were so dry they cracked. Childhood fantasies fulfilled mingled with utter fear. This was no joke. If they got caught doing this, it was an act of war. But it was still every boy’s fantasy, and he was living it.

  Look at me. Mom! Look!

  I’m a pirate!

  Donnie headed through the portside door. He swallowed, fingering his AK. The Commander had said not to chamber rounds, but as soon as he’d turned away Oberg had locked and loaded. Donnie hesitated, then did, too.

  All at once, he was alone. He hesitated, not wanting to do this. Wishing there was somebody with him. Then made himself head for the ladderway down.

  He crept down two decks through echoing brightly lit ladderwells whose turns were too sharp. His steps echoed. His breath echoed, too.

  The ladderwell ended at a watertight door. Machinery-roar vibrated the air. After a second he reached up with the butt of the AK and smashed the light over the d
oor. Glass tinkled and pinged.

  Inside the air was much hotter, the roar much louder. He moved along steel catwalks between huge engines. The reek of hot lubricants boiled off them. He tried the combat waddle they’d learned at GrayWolf, but finally just jogged along, bent at the waist.

  He found one guy in that whole huge space, ensconced in a glass-enclosed booth overlooking the engine floor. Heart pounding so hard he quivered, he eased the door open. Cold air flooded out.

  The watchstander sat at a control panel reading what looked like an Asian version of Hustler. His pants were around his ankles. He had something pink on his lap. A tube ran from it to a bulb in his hand.

  Donnie stared, then cleared his throat. The engineer looked up. His eyes grew round. He squeaked, reaching for an intercom.

  His snap shot was deafening in the little booth. And to his utter and complete astonishment, it connected. The intercom exploded. The engineer recoiled, crashing his chair over backward, sending the pink apparatus flying. He crawled across the deckplates, trying to pull his pants up, pleading in Chinese.

  Donnie gained confidence, hearing him sob. He spread-eagled him across the control panel and patted him down. He zip-tied his hands and pushed him out of the booth. He looked at the magazine, then tucked it into the small of his back. A souvenir. The corner of the pink thing peeked out from under the console. He hesitated, then kicked it out of sight.

  Seven decks up, Dan and Oberg were zip-tying the bridge team. One had made no attempt to resist, just dropped his eyes and stood waiting to be told what to do. The other, an older European who’d come storming up in a terry bathrobe, had begun shouting at them in Italian. Dan made him for the captain. Oberg pushed them both into a little nav compartment behind the bridge, after checking that there were no radios in there, and shut them in after waving his gun in their faces.

  Meanwhile Dan was studying the helm console, the autopilot, and the radar. He checked their course: 035. About what he’d made it as, when they’d been maneuvering to board. He found the RPM indicators for the main diesels and the speed log. Both held steady. If they stayed that way, Fengshun No. 5 had three hours on this course before they ran afoul of another high island. Past that was the open China Sea.