The Shipkiller

by Justin Scott

  “And your only involvement was radioing messages about the ship?”

  “Until Capetown that was true.”

  The Prime Minister glanced from the concerned faces of his advisors to the death’s-head of his Mossad Chief, to Weintraub, and back to Donner. “What happened in Capetown?”

  “Miraculously, Hardin survived the same storm that nearly sank the ship. I suspected he might.”

  “How?”

  “There is a tenacious quality about him. I had—”

  “Intuition?” the Prime Minister asked scathingly.

  “Yes, sir. I arranged to remove his companion from the tender mercies of the South African police and—”

  “What companion?”

  “A young Nigerian woman named Ajaratu Akanke,” said Donner, looking at the minister for African affairs.

  The man raised his brows. “Brigadier Akanke’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought she was in England.”

  “She went with Hardin.”

  The African affairs man smiled broadly. “Wonderful. Akanke can be a good friend.” His smile faded. “Why didn’t you inform me?”

  “Security,” said Donner. “I was waiting until the project had reached completion. General Akanke agreed to delay his thanks.”

  “Security?” snapped the Prime Minister. “Who else knows of what you’ve done?”

  “No one, including Akanke. I told him nothing of my connection with Hardin. I then helped Hardin outfit his boat in Capetown and I arranged passage, discreetly, for him and his boat to Durban so he could avoid the heavy seas off the Cape. He was in rather poor shape.”

  “And what is he doing in Durban?”

  “He sailed out of Durban the day he arrived.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what does he intend to do?”

  “Sink LEVIATHAN.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere between Durban and Arabia.”

  The Prime Minister glanced at the wall maps. After a long pause, he said, “That is four thousand miles. Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I radioed when LEVIATHAN was ready to sail. He hasn’t answered his radio. I would guess either the Mozambique Channel or Ra’s al Hadd. Most likely the Channel. He needs a restricted area.”

  The Prime Minister’s eyes turned opaque. “Would you step outside, please? We’ll call you.”

  Weintraub gave him a worried nod as he stood up and left the room. An attractive young woman soldier brought him tea while he waited. Eventually, they called him back.

  Only Weintraub, the Mossad Chief, and the Prime Minister would meet his eye. The others stared at the table. Then Weintraub shrugged slightly and spread his hands as if to say he was sorry. The Prime Minister spoke.

  “Your friend Zwi Weintraub has convinced us that you have acted in a bold tradition. Nonetheless, the Committee fears that the risks involved are greater than the possible gains. We veto your plan.”

  Donner shook his head angrily and spoke with nothing to lose. “There will come a time when you will wish you had the weapon I’ve tried to give you. Sometime when you need a threat.”

  “Thank you for coming here,” the Prime Minister said stiffly. “What about Hardin?”

  “We’ll stop him,” said the Mossad Chief.

  “No!” Donner said emphatically.

  The others stared at him.

  “Zwi,” said Donner. “Please.”

  Weintraub stood up.

  “Let Miles cover his own tracks. It’s his right.”

  “It’s a little late to talk about his rights,” said the Chief. “We can’t have any more mistakes.”

  Weintraub smashed a fist to the table. “It’s his right, Mr. Prime Minister. And he doesn’t make mistakes. He’s the best you have.”

  21

  The monsoon rampaged into the high coastal mountains of southeastern Arabia and ricocheted across the Arabian Sea toward the Makrn shore of the Indian subcontinent. Hardin left it behind as he rounded the tall light and radar tower on the sandy cape of Ra’s al Hadd and entered the Gulf of Oman.

  The change was as abrupt as slamming a door. It was hot, the water flat. In the space of a few miles he sailed from tumultuous seas to a stagnant pond. He bagged the heavy headsails that had borne him the last sixteen hundred miles and boomed out a light spinnaker. The Swan ghosted northwest two miles off the increasingly high and barren rock cliffs of the eastern Arabian coast.

  She was crusted with salt. There was no more blowing spray, but the air was still humid; and in spite of the heat, which made the perspiration pour from Hardin’s body, it would be days before the pale sun rid his bedding, clothes, and food of the pervasive mold that had grown in the constant moisture.

  The dampness and the petty annoyances of weeks alone at sea had worked insidiously against his spirit, distracting him, grating his temper, so that small problems—like the need to constantly adjust the self-steering gear, which was slipping from wear—took on disproportionately large dimensions; bigger problems—the leaking hull—loomed enormous. The beating she had taken in the monsoon seas had aggravated the condition, and his imagination, whetted by solitude, conjured vivid pictures of the cabins filling and the Swan plummeting to the bottom with him trapped inside.

  Ironically, the land also unnerved him. He had been all but a week of the past three months at sea, sailing deep and open waters, and the presence of a nearby coast was vexing—an obstacle and a danger.

  The wind stopped in the afternoon and the sails hung slackly. The rocky coast was barely visible in the haze off the port side. To starboard, miles distant, moved the ghostly gray-black shape of an oil tanker heading for the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf. At times, as the afternoon broiled hotter, several were visible at once, a menacing parade seen softly through the gauze of the humid airs.

  He heard an insistent wail and, combing the shore with binoculars, spied a red stone minaret in a tiny village. The call to prayer came loudly over the still water. He had seen several settlements along the shore where rivers and inlets trickled into the gulf. Most seemed too small and primitive to sell diesel fuel, nor did he have currency for the Sultanate of Oman, whose shores these were. The Sailing Directions named the Rial Saidi as the coin of realm and mentioned that the Sultanate had close ties with Great Britain. He wanted to buy fuel, but he was afraid.

  Sur, up the coast, was a small port, but there he ran the risk of discovery. It was doubtful that many private yachts sailed these waters, and the Swan would be noticed and remembered. Port authorities would demand visas and bribes and probably forward his passport number to the nearest American consulate. Worried, and torn by indecision, he waited for wind.

  The sails began to flap. But the breeze was out of the northwest, dead ahead. He raised the genoa and sailed close-hauled north. When he reached the edge of the shipping lane, he came about and tacked back toward the coast, consulting the Sailing Directions for water depths close to shore. The wind, the northwest shamal, grew stronger.

  He beat against it through the afternoon, tacking between the coast and the channel. He was on a tight port tack when a big redhulled double-ended Persian Gulf dhow appeared ahead on the horizon and crossed his bows. The Arab lansh was running with the wind, driving hard out of the northwest, her high lateen sail billowing like a scimitar-shaped cloud. Her sailors, a dozen hawknosed swarthy men, gaped at the trim white sliver of the Swan as they lumbered past.

  The air cleared somewhat in the evening. He saw occasional stretches of flat land between the shore and the hills. They were shaded with the green hues of farms or orchards, but they would end abruptly as the cliffs and promontories shot up again and the land became barren. Another dhow passed him just before dark, hugging the coast as he was to avoid the giant oil tankers.

  He sailed through the night, dozing on the tacks, waking to come about, trusting his finely tuned internal clocks to rouse
him before he sailed too close to the land or the busy sea-lanes. Three months ago he would have considered it a foolhardy stunt, but he had done almost nothing but sail the Swan in that time and he knew things about it he himself hadn’t known before.

  The wind died in the morning and a thick mist settled over the water. As he was safely midway between the shore and the shipping lanes and there was no current, he wrapped himself in a storm sail for protection from the chilly damp mist and fell asleep in the cockpit, knowing that the sails would rouse him if the wind picked up.

  He awakened with his scalp prickling danger and peered into a thick fog. He heard the muffled grind of a marine engine. He couldn’t tell from what direction it was coming, but it was getting unmistakably louder. Now it sounded astern.

  The high raked bow of an Arab dhow parted the mist.

  Hardin leaped up, shouting at the lookout perched atop the jutting stempost. The Arab yelled his astonishment in a high-pitched frightened voice and gesticulated frantically toward the stern of the speeding lansh.

  Hardin braced for the collision. The dhow was so close he could see a little model airplane mounted on the bow like a figurehead. The clattering din of a diesel engine revving in reverse raced to a high whine. Twenty feet away, when he and the lookout were staring into each other’s faces, the high bow slued around and the freight vessel slid past, circled slowly, and stopped beside the Swan, which was bobbing in its wake.

  Its sail was furled around a massive yard that lay on the deck like a long, ruffled snake. It was high sided and heaped with cargo: crated washing machines and refrigerators, bales of figs, cotton, and dates, some motorcycles, and an old black Mercedes Benz. What had appeared to be mounds of canvas began to stir, and the crew—a ragtag sun-blackened group of men and boys in turbans, headcloths, and robes—emerged from their makeshift beds and gathered to stare.

  A big man, the captain by the quality of his robes and the sound of his voice, stormed out of the square aft deckhouse, shoved between two sailors, and loosed a torrent of outraged Arabic at Hardin. His face was bronze. Black stubble shadowed his chin, and his eyes, black and flashing and separated by a massive hooked nose, blazed angrily.

  Hardin waited until he paused for breath. Then he pointed at his slack sails. The Arab’s face darkened. Hardin tried a friendly smile; diesel exhaust hung in the wet air.

  “Hello,” he croaked. He hadn’t spoken a word in five weeks. Clearing his throat, he called again. “Hello!”

  The Arab captain beetled his brow and turned to his crew. Several minutes of animated discussion were punctuated by gestures at the Swan’s sails. Finally, after a white-haired old man pointed at the dhow’s lowered yard, the captain turned back to Hardin.

  “Salaam!”

  “Salaam,” said Hardin.

  The captain stretched his arms at the size of his boat. She was over seventy feet long and must have displaced a hundred tons. Then he grinned and held out two fingers to remark upon the Swan and outcome of a collision.

  Hardin grinned back. Conscious that both he and the captain were fast running through their store of universal gestures, he pointed at the pipe stack that was thrusting blue-black engine exhaust above the lansh’s wheelhouse.

  “Diesel?”

  “Diesel,” the captain repeated proudly. “Taali!”

  Diesel—Taali? Hardin smiled and nodded admiringly, searching for a word for fuel.

  “Taali!” the captain reiterated, motioning Hardin to come aboard.

  Taali—come. Hardin hesitated, wary of boarding the Arab boat.

  The sailors tossed a hemp line to Hardin and hauled the Swan closer until it rubbed alongside the reddish hull. Hardin climbed onto the cabin roof, took their extended hands, and pulled himself up to their deck. His own hands and arms, burned by the months at sea, were nearly as dark as the Arabs’. For a long moment they looked each other over.

  The dhow crew were of all ages. Some sported fierce moustaches, others were clean-shaven, or bristling like the captain. Hardin relaxed. Beneath their exotic clothing they were workingmen and sailors.

  The captain finished inspecting him, then announced with a broad happy smile, “English!”

  “American.”

  The smile faltered. “American?”

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Oh, yes. Once. Enough. Long ago more. Hello, pound, trade.” He searched his vocabulary. His face lighted. “Diesel.”

  He led Hardin through the stacked crates of cargo to the wheel-house. It was a small square structure of painted wood and glass near the stern. A helmsman squatted patiently at the wheel, puffing on a hookah. Acrid tobacco smoke wreathed the cabin.

  The captain pointed toward the back of the wheelhouse, down through an opening in the deck where an old Cummins 4–71 chugged in neutral, tended by a boy with bony wrists and red-rimmed eyes that teared in the oil fumes.

  “Diesel fuel?” Hardin asked.

  The captain regarded him gravely, digesting the question. Then his eyes lighted and he shouted loud orders. A sailor scrambled over the side and bent a towline to the Swan’s bow. Hardin decided it would be too complicated to stop him. The captain shouted down to the engine room. The boy engaged a large lever and the engine engaged with a low whine. Another shout and the chugging quickened. The helmsman twirled his spokes. The sailors holding the towline played it out and the lansh was underway, heading northwest, dragging the Swan after it like a new toy.

  Hardin asked where they were going and pointed at the old compass screwed to the wood in front of the helm. A sextant lay beside it with a shattered horizon glass. The captain pulled a dog-eared chart from a bunch rolled up in a slot above the wheelhouse windows and smoothed it out on a crate outside the doorway. First he pointed at the Oman coast, established their position twenty miles southeast of Muscat, then pointed at the capital city itself.

  Hardin felt a stab of panic. By gestures, head shaking, and finally holding his finger at a point several miles past the harbor, he tried to explain that he didn’t want to go into the port. As his meaning dawned, the captain looked mildly incredulous. He was a coastal trader, bearing goods from dhow harbor to dhow harbor, and Muscat was the biggest port between Sur to the south and Khr Fakkn at the foot of the Musandam Peninsula, a hundred eighty miles to the north.

  He waved his hand over the chart. Where then was Hardin going? Hardin pointed beyond the top of the chart. The lansh captain pulled out his other charts, patiently unrolling one after another until Hardin satisfied him by pointing to Kuwait. He looked past Hardin’s worn shirt, shaggy hair, and cutoff khakis to the obviously costly Swan and nodded his understanding. Kuwait and a wealthy American were an obvious combination.

  He took Hardin through his cargo, pointing casually at the car and refrigerators. Then the sailors unfurled bright Persian carpets on the wooden deck. Hardin exclaimed over the splendid colors and knelt to feel the knots that corrugated the undersides.

  The Arab gestured with upturned fingers. Did Hardin wish to buy? Hardin held out empty hands and shook his head sadly. Beyond his means. The captain took his unwillingness as a bargaining stance and shrugged with a knowing smile. In the course of the haggling that followed, his English improved remarkably.

  But as he began to unroll more rugs, casting them over the deck with a graceful flourish, Hardin interrupted with his original question. “Fuel?”

  The Arab looked blank. “Diesel?” How much interest did an engine warrant? he seemed to be thinking.

  “Taali,” said Hardin, motioning toward his boat.

  The captain shouted at the helmsman, who called down to the engine room. The diesel slowed, and as the boom drifted along on momentum, the sailors hauled the Swan alongside. Hardin climbed down to the cabin roof and took the Arab’s arm as he followed.

  The Arab watched with interest while Hardin demonstrated the lifting power of the main halyard winch by lowering the main partway, then raising it tight to the masthead. Below deck, he marveled o
ver the lavish and compact galley. He turned the knobs of the stove, and struck a match, but the burners would not light. Hardin showed him the empty Calor gas bottle. The captain called up to his dhow and moments later a berobed sailor handed down a fresh gas container. Hardin thanked him and hooked it up. Together they lighted the stove. Then Hardin removed the companionway steps and opened the engine box.

  The Arab nodded appreciatively at the little two-cylinder engine. “Good.”

  “Diesel,” said Hardin. What the hell was the British word for fuel? “Petrol.”

  The captain threw up his hands, mocking his incomprehension.

  “Petrol!”

  Hardin nodded vigorously.

  The captain looked up through the open hatch and spoke to the sailors who were leaning over the side of the lansh, watching the proceedings. A length of hose was lowered from the dhow to the Swan. Hardin inserted it in the chrome fuel input on deck, the captain waved, an order was relayed by shouts, and moments later the hose quivered as a hand pump went to work in the depths of the lansh.

  The transfer completed, the captain invited Hardin aboard his boat for tea. Hardin offered him South African pound notes to pay for the fuel, but the Arab waved it away, and reiterated, “Tea.”

  Hardin took a small wooden box from his chart table and went with him. The lansh started forward again, tugging the Swan along, and the entire crew with the exception of the helmsman and the lookout on the bowstem took a tea break. Most of them squeezed into the old Mercedes, closed the doors and windows, and filled the car with blue smoke.

  Hardin, the captain, and a boy who turned out to be his son had their sweet black tea sitting cross-legged upon a red carpet atop a packing crate marked MACHINE PARTS. The boy had a battery-powered tape player. The Rolling Stones played softly while they talked.

  The captain’s English continued to improve with use. He said it was a language he had learned as a boy on his father’s dhows when the English colonial administrators still controlled the coast and dhow harbors between Kuwait and East Africa. He remembered them fondly because the English had supported free trade. Since then, he complained to Hardin, the dhows had fallen on hard times; the fleets had been decimated because the independent states that had succeeded the colonies impeded trade with high taxes and bureaucratic restrictions in every port from Muscat to Socotra to Lamu to Mombasa.