Seaghost

by William H. Lovejoy

  McCory wasn’t a marksman, but his target was large and close. The slug caught him high in the chest and slammed him backward into the doorjamb of the cargo bay.

  He was propped against the wall for a full two seconds as his knees wobbled. The gun tumbled from his hand and hit the deck. His eyes held total surprise.

  Then he collapsed and died.

  Or maybe it was the other way around.

  McCory was numb, his ears ringing.

  *

  1854 hours

  Ibn el-Ziam had heard both shots. The spacing was awkward, perhaps a minute and a half apart.

  He sidled along the front of the building to the door and tried the handle. It turned easily, and he pushed it open a few centimeters.

  Inside, it was brightly lit. He leaned close to the gap and scanned a narrow area. Seeing no movement, he edged the door open a little further.

  Still, he saw no one.

  But there was the boat. Ibrahim Badr had been correct. He frequently was.

  El-Ziam stepped inside.

  The boat moved.

  A head appeared in the hatchway near the dock, and el-Ziam slipped back outside and pulled the door nearly shut.

  It was not Chambers.

  He assumed it was McCory.

  He watched for another minute, then saw Chambers. McCory was dragging his body out of the boat.

  Softly, he closed the door. Obviously, McCory was going to be busy for a little while.

  While scanning the empty boat yard, he pondered his moves. Colonel Badr wanted the boat, and el-Ziam had a memorized list of approximate positions for the Hormuz. He was certain he could operate the boat. The only unknown was the fuel state. If there was enough fuel, he would take the boat out late at night. If the fuel was low, he would simply blow it up, drive to Miami, and fly to Beirut. He would no longer be needed.

  From inside his waistband, el-Ziam withdrew the .22 caliber Bernadelli, found the silencer in his pocket, and screwed it in place. It was already cocked, and he slid the safety off.

  Again, he turned the door handle slowly and eased it open.

  McCory was less than five meters away, his arms wrapped around the chest of the dead man, dragging him toward the door. McCory held an automatic pistol in his right hand for some reason.

  El-Ziam shoved the door fully open.

  It squeaked.

  McCory looked up. “Oh, shit!”

  El-Ziam raised the pistol and fired.

  Unfortunately, he shot the dead man again as McCory pushed the body aside and dove toward the floor.

  McCory fired as he fell, and the bullet whined past el-Ziam’s head. He dodged sideways, lining the Bernadelli once again.

  He had McCory sighted perfectly.

  When McCory’s second shot hit him in the right cheekbone.

  His vision blurred, then blacked out entirely.

  Allah.

  *

  1951 hours

  The Sikorsky Sea King set down in the middle of the street, amazing a few drivers who had been forced to a stop. They clambered out of their cars and stared. Dust and paper litter swirled away from the rotor blast.

  Monahan slid the door back and dropped to the pavement. He waved off the copilot as he ran for the curb, and the helicopter lifted off immediately.

  He looked around, spotted the office on the other side of the parking lot, and started toward it.

  Down in the marina, people emerged from their boat cabins to check on the ruckus. Two women stood outside the office, the door open behind them. Monahan strode purposefully across the lot and up to them.

  “I’m looking for Kevin McCory.”

  One of the women, a girl really, said, “What are you? A captain?”

  He smiled at her. “Commander Monahan. Is McCory around?”

  “No,” the girl told him. “He left an hour ago.”

  “Do you know where he went? It’s important.”

  “He was supposed to come to my boat for dinner tonight, but he had to work,” the older woman said. It was difficult to tell her age. In retirement, certainly, but she had damned nice legs under the shorts.

  “Do you know where he’s working, Mrs.…?”

  “Kuntzman. But people call me Mimi. What’s the Navy want with Kevin?”

  “It’s…kind of like consulting.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he went up to Barley’s place. He’s got a big boat he’s working on.”

  “Where is this Barley place?” Monahan asked.

  The girl smiled at him. Perhaps she liked uniforms. She was examining his hand. Looking for a ring?

  “Five miles down the coast,” Kuntzman said.

  Monahan sighed and looked around. “Is there someplace where I could rent a car?”

  “Ah, you don’t need to do that, Commander. I’ll take you down,” Kuntzman said.

  “I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Debbie, I’m going to take the Camrose.”

  “Don’t scratch it,” Debbie said. “He’ll dock my pay, and there isn’t that much left to dock.”

  “C’mon, Commander. We’ll go this way.”

  Monahan followed her around the office, through a chain-link gate, and down a ramp. She sure had nice legs.

  *

  2012 hours

  An hour after he had killed two men, McCory was still in shock.

  That made three in a week. Little over a week.

  They were going to put him away forever.

  He didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

  There had been some thought of loading the body of Chambers into the back of the truck, driving somewhere remote, and dumping it.

  He had been right about Chambers. The man’s wallet held two driver’s licenses, one in the name of Richard Chambers and one in the name of Harold Davis. He decided the correct name was Chambers when he found an ID card listing Chambers as an assistant vice president of Advanced Marine Development, Incorporated.

  For a moment there, his shock had been overcome by his rage. The bastards would have killed him to protect the secret of the SeaGhost’s origins. For the ten-thousandth time, he again questioned whether or not the explosions in Fort Walton Beach were accidental or not. He would have Daimler look into Chambers’s history, see how long he had been working for Malgard.

  McCory sat there on the deck in the corridor for a couple of minutes, holding his Browning in one hand and the dead man’s wallet in the other. Finally, he had roused himself, shoved the wallet back into the man’s coat pocket, and picked up his gun from the deck. He didn’t even think about fingerprints. He inserted the gun back into the holster under Chambers’s armpit, then got up and wrestled the body upright, dragging it to the hatchway.

  The body was heavy, and it took some time to get it back onto the dock.

  Where in hell will I dump it?

  He knew he wasn’t thinking too clearly, but he didn’t worry about it. There was blood on his hands from the chest wound, though it hadn’t really bled profusely. He was still gripping the Browning tightly in his hand.

  Why?

  The smoking gun. The killer weapon.

  Jesus. They’ll fry me.

  Damn, the body was heavy. The limp feet dragged on the chipped concrete of the dock head.

  He should just call the cops, explain his way out of this thing. AMDI sent a hired killer, after all.

  The door squeaked.

  McCory looked up and saw a handsome, well-dressed man with a long gun standing in the doorway.

  The gun moved, and McCory didn’t even think. He pushed the body away and fell down, squeezing the trigger twice.

  And then he had two bodies.

  His first reaction was to abandon everything and run for the truck. He’d successfully hidden himself and the Kathleen from the insurance company for years. He’d do it again.

  Then he pulled the other body out of the doorway, closed the door, and locked it. He shoved the Browning into the waistband of his jeans. Though he fel
t as if he might gag, he knelt beside the body and patted the pockets until he found a wallet and a passport.

  Francisco Cordilla? Who in hell is Francisco Cordilla? My God, they’re coming out of the woodwork.

  There was nothing to identify him beyond a Spanish name and address in either his wallet or passport. He was carrying a lot of money, both U.S. and Spanish bills.

  Leaving the bodies sprawled on the dock head, McCory went back to the SeaGhost, stumbled inside, and got himself a Dos Equis from the refrigerator. He sat in the banquette and took deep breaths and deep draughts of the dark ale.

  Time slipped by jerkily, the minutes racing, then dragging their feet.

  Christ, call the cops, you jerk.

  An AMDI assassin would strengthen McCory’s case against the company.

  Or would it? AMDI was just trying to get its boat back, and its repo man was iced by the thief.

  Who was the other one?

  He thought about the bodies.

  Looked at his watch.

  Didn’t want to touch the bodies. Not again.

  Had to do something.

  And McCory finally decided to go chase Ibrahim Badr. He had worked out a feasible plan earlier in the day. He needed to make an early start, though, before Ginger caught up with him.

  Ginger.

  Thinking about her forced him into action. She might show up at any moment. Taking one last gulp from the bottle, he went up to the dock and devoted ten minutes to loading the bodies back aboard the SeaGhost. He laid them out, side by side, in an aft corner of the cargo bay, then tossed a tarp over them.

  He would drop them over the side on his way north. At the moment, it didn’t seem as if he had anything else to lose. He could devote his whole being to the task of running Badr down.

  McCory activated the instrument, radar, and sonar consoles. He started the engines.

  Climbing back to the dock, he went to the front of the building and shut off the lights. The interior lights of the SeaGhost, in the standard white mode, appeared spooky through the bronzed windows. A white glare from the open hatch bathed the side dock.

  He walked out to the end of the dock and raised the sea door by hand.

  Heard the deep gurgling of a V-8 marine engine.

  It sounded suspiciously like Camrose.

  While he stood there, the bow of his aged Chris Craft nosed inside the dry dock.

  Mimi Kuntzman said, “Hi, there, Kevin!”

  *

  0340 hours, Norfolk

  Ibrahim Badr had not thought that he would see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge ever again, and in reality, he did not see it clearly. It was very dark, and the skies were hung with low clouds.

  Through the windshield, the bridge lights were visible, as were the unceasing strobe lights that warned aircraft. In the video monitor, it was a ghostly structure that quickly passed out of the camera’s vision as the Sea Spectre raced beneath it at fifty knots.

  To the north were the running lights of several ships moving up the bay. Amin Kadar had identified their passive sonar signatures as those of medium-sized commercial craft.

  “Twin screws, three thousand meters, almost directly ahead of us,” Kadar said over the intercom.

  Badr turned the boat slightly to the right but did not decrease speed. He was becoming very confident of the Sea Spectre’s ability to go where it wished, invisible to the normal world. They were, in fact, proceeding head-on in the middle of the outbound traffic lanes, hugging the southern coast. He did not think the Coast Guard would stop him for that illegality. The lights of Virginia Beach gleamed through the left-hand windows like the well-rubbed beads of a tangled set of worry beads.

  Ahead were the lights of the Hampton Bridge. Like the bridge behind them, very little traffic moved on it at this time of the morning. In the magnified bow video, he counted seven pairs of headlights.

  Then the running lights of a naval vessel. Perhaps a frigate of some kind. It passed a kilometer to their left as he circled wide around it.

  There were no alarms, not a visible alert aboard the ship, nor excited radio messages. Kadar had set the radios to the frequencies used by the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and though they frequently heard messages or intercepted telex traffic, both forms of communication were now indecipherable. Someone had realized that the Sea Spectre could eavesdrop and begun to employ some code. Kadar had been unable to make sense of it but felt assured that most of the warships were still searching for them far to the south.

  It was the Christian Sabbath, an appropriate day to launch his largest offensive yet, Badr thought. He would wreak upon the Atlantic Fleet headquarters the same kind of chaos the Japanese had delivered to the Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor on another Sunday.

  Once the bridge was visible in his rearview screen, Badr reduced his speed to fifteen knots. The telltale whiteness disappeared from the wake.

  The U.S. Naval Shipyard passed on his left, and he turned left around its point, moving into the Hampton Roads. There were ships of various descriptions and unknown purposes anchored in the Roads. He ignored them and concentrated on the naval base on his left.

  When he reached the confluence of the Lafayette and Elizabeth Rivers, fighting to join the James River, Badr slowed and reversed the boat, heading back to the north.

  The lights of the naval base were now on his right, sleepy and peaceful.

  Unexpectant.

  “Omar, you may proceed.”

  “I am using electro-optical targeting,” Heusseini said. “Missile bay doors opening.”

  “Missile bay clear,” Rahman reported.

  “Raising launcher.”

  Badr advanced his throttles until the readout on the panel displayed fifteen knots. He would attempt to hold that speed, moving north back into the Roads, then around the peninsula and east toward the Hampton Bridge as Heusseini launched missiles steadily. Kadar was back in the cross-passage with Rahman, prepared to reload the launcher as quickly as possible. They had settled on twelve missiles.

  Badr did not know what land-based defenses were available to the Navy here, but he suspected that within minutes of the first impact, the many naval ships in the area would be alerted.

  Their position would easily be determined as the missiles launched. Still, in the four minutes required for reload, he could dart to another location and perhaps disappear for a few moments.

  The risk was high, but the rewards were immense. Already, his successful attacks on American continental bases had created consternation within the populace. And in a society that so heavily depended upon justice being served, not to mention a society that was so certain of its definition of justice, his escape would infuriate them further.

  Allah would see to it. Wyatt Earp would not get his man.

  Or was that a Canadian myth? It was of no moment. Badr thought of the Canadians as American clones.

  The Sea Spectre was less than a kilometer from the docks when Heusseini said, “We are ready, Colonel.”

  “Commence firing.”

  It was a beautiful rhythm. One ignition after another. The third missile was airborne by the time the first impacted somewhere inland. Heusseini selected his targets at random. Large buildings, ships at the docks, warehouses.

  As soon as the fourth was launched, Badr slammed the throttles forward, ran toward the Roads, then slowed once again.

  Three minutes.

  Three and a half.

  Fo…

  “Missiles ready,” Rahman reported. “Bay clear.”

  WHOOSH!

  Then another.

  Then the seventh and eighth missiles.

  Even through the insulated skin of the Sea Spectre, Badr could hear the sirens wailing. They were that close to shore. Fires were spotted all over the base, growing in intensity. The morning became artificially light.

  A missile struck what Badr thought was a cruiser in a dry dock, possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Yellow flame poured over the hull like fiery molasses.
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  “Missiles ready. Bay clear.”

  Badr had swung the helm eastward as they reached the middle of the James River. They were now two kilometers offshore from the naval base, three kilometers west of the Hampton Bridge.

  Four more missiles whisked away.

  Half a dozen naval boats and ships were underway, nosing out into the river, aiming in their general direction. Searchlights scanned the waters.

  “Load four more,” Badr commanded.

  To their credit, no one complained about the change in plans. They were totally involved in the operation.

  He raced forward at forty knots for three minutes, then slowed once again. The pursuing ships did not alter course to follow him.

  “Omar, you must put one of them in the city proper, one on the bridge, and two to the north, aiming for Langley Air Base.”

  “Allah willing,” Heusseini said.

  “He does,” Badr affirmed.

  They had nearly reached the bridge by the time missiles thirteen through sixteen had been loaded.

  Heusseini launched them quickly, and Badr watched his repeater screen as if he were mesmerized.

  A multistory building with lights in some of the windows, perhaps a sign saying some kind of insurance.

  The bridge. A semi-truck trailed by two small automobiles. The truck became immense on the screen until it blacked out. He glanced up through the windshield just as the missile erupted, spewing metal, asphalt roadbed, pieces of driver, and structural beams in magnificent confusion. Red and orange and blue flames squirted skyward.

  The air base. The missile homed in on a row of parked F-15 Eagles. Blackness. Badr wished he could have seen the actual explosion.

  More parked aircraft seen from the camera of the fourth missile, but Heusseini veered from them and centered the missile on the control tower.

  Blackness.

  American might defenseless against a single boat.

  The American ship sinking into oblivion.

  While Ibrahim Badr felt his spirit rising against that Satan.

  Rising, rising, to grasp the hand of the Prophet.

  Chapter 14

  0344 hours, 34° 55’ North, 74° 41’ West

  McCory thought that the radio messages rattling from the overhead speaker finally changed Monahan’s mind.

  He had been as stoic as they come for the past seven hours. He was trussed hand and foot on one of the benches of the banquette, the tail end of the rope wrapped around the table support. McCory wasn’t taking any chances with the Navy man. He looked competent enough to foul up anyone’s plans.