“I’m going to try and prevent the Uranium from getting to Jakarta,” he said. “First things first. Step one is getting you, your husband and the crew off this freighter!”
“How are you going to do that? There are forty of us and hundreds of them!”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ve got to get you off this ship,” he told her emphatically. “I’ve got to talk to your Mr. Christian first.”
“Don’t you dare make that joke with him; especially in the shower!”
He sighed, plucking the soap from her dainty hand and scrubbing the diesel oil off the wetsuit, muttering, “James Bond gets all the fun. Somehow I’m in the shower with a beautiful woman and I end up scrubbing myself! Story of my life.”
“Get over it Slade! I’m out of your league. You got an eyeful; that’s more than you deserve!” Eva snapped, stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel.
“Okay Eva, thanks, you’re right. Any one of the Don Juan’s in your life could save you from the two hundred sweaty guys outside who want to shower with you next,” he reminded her.
She put a hand to her mouth in surprise. “I forgot about that, sorry,” she admitted. “Goodness sakes Slade, you made me forget all about them. I have to admit, you do make a girl feel safe.” She dropped the towel and posing coquettishly, telling him, “This you cannot afford; but it’ll be worth it if you can save our lives.”
“The visual is more than enough to send me to Confession Eva. Now be a good girl and send your husband in,” he told her.
Eva shrugged on a robe. Before she left she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Are you really that nice a guy Slade?”
“Unfortunately—yes,” he smiled. “It’s a curse; a bloody curse.”
Eva ducked into the bedroom. Captain Fletcher entered the bathroom momentarily. Slade didn’t meet him in the shower. Their conversation was much more to the point, much more professional, and Jeremiah didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.
Raised voices stopped their conversation. One voice was Eva’s, but there were other voices, male voices, and one was Colonel Nikahd’s.
Fletcher grabbed a towel and after a glance at Slade, he hurried out into the bedroom. The voices approached the bathroom door. A moment later Nikahd said, “What are you doing captain? Is there something in there you don’t want me to see?”
“No, nothing!” he said.
“Stand aside,” Nikahd replied sternly. Apparently the captain didn’t move fast enough. “Stand aside or I will have your wife raped in front of you.”
The latch turned. Slade had only a single moment to act.
CHAPTER 34: Taking the Plunge
Colonel Nikahd opened the bathroom door. It was dark. He turned on the light. That showed him what the captain had been hiding. Shaking his head, the colonel reached across the small space and picked up the Glock 9mm sitting on the counter next to the sink.
He lifted it, pointing it at Captain Fletcher’s forehead. The huge man dwarfed the wiry Iranian. He didn’t move, and Nikahd asked him, “What were you going to do with this captain; did you really think you could take over the ship with a pistol?”
“No,” Fletcher said soberly. “But when the time comes I can keep my wife from being tortured by you bastards!”
The two Iranians with Nikahd stepped forward in anger, but the colonel shouted at them with surprising fury, “Stand down! I did not give you permission to move!”
They stepped back, smoldering, but not daring to cross the most feared man in the Iranian Army. Nikahd cocked the slide, spitting out the bullets in the pistol until there was only one left. Then he handed the gun back to Fletcher. “There, when the time comes, you will have to decide whether to use that last bullet on me or your lovely wife.” He smiled, adding, “I can understand a man like you, Captain Fletcher.”
Then they left.
Fletcher and Eva rushed into the bathroom. Slade was nowhere to be seen. The captain threw open the shower curtain—nothing. “Where the Hell did he go?”
A black shape dropped from the ceiling above the shower, surprising them both. It was Slade.
“Holy! You scared the crap out of me!” the big man said. He turned to Eva, and said, “He didn’t do that to you did he?”
She blushed and said, “No, and a good thing to!”
Slade exhaled sharply, “Playing Spiderman doesn’t get any easier with age, I’ll tell you!” He took out a couple of clips from his belt and handed them to Fletcher. “Here, you may need more than one; just in case.”
“Don’t you want it back?” he said, taking the clips and inserting a full one into the pistol.
Slade shook his head. “If I need something I’ll get it from the Iranians; they brought enough for all of us.” He went to the port hole and looked out. Turning back to the couple he pointed to the door.
“Lock that. Only open it if Nikahd announces himself. Then be polite. I have to get the crew out now. The lifeboat is the obvious solution. But we have to wait until tonight to go, I’m looking at about 2 am Tehran time; they’re circadian rhythm will be low, and we’re going to need all the advantages we can get. I’ll come and get you, but if I don’t then you two just head to the lifeboat—got it?”
“We can’t go without the crew,” Fletcher told him emphatically.
“Captain Fletcher if I don’t show up then you are going to be all that’s left of the crew. Get off the ship. There’s an LA class attack sub off our starboard side, the Key West. They will see you; they’ll take it from there.” Without another word Slade opened the hatch and slipped out the back.
Fletcher and Eva followed close behind but when they stepped out on the deck Slade was gone.
As the day progressed the coast of Iran fell away to the north and the coast of Oman fell away to the southwest; the Galaxus entered the Arabian Sea. Their course turned to starboard at midafternoon, heading into the open water between the Arabian Peninsula and the subcontinent of India. Slade napped part of the day, staying out of sight and out of mind in the lifeboat. He wasn’t looking to make trouble, at least not until he got the crew safely off the Galaxus.
When evening finally fell he waited patiently until he had complete darkness. Then he crept out of the lifeboat and scouted out his route. The aft hold where the crew was being kept was a catch all for the ship. It was specifically for dry goods, but it wasn’t designed for enormous containers—or people for that matter—but often the ship would store a quantity of spare parts, even spare engines when necessary. It was the primary way for accessing the engine room from the outside. This gave Slade a way in other than the above deck entrance which was guarded.
He worked his way down to the engine room, looking specifically at where the Iranians had their men. It didn’t take long to map out his route and the impediments in his way. After that it was simply a matter of waiting.
At 1:30 am, an hour-and-a-half after the guard changed, at about the point where the guards were starting to get sleepy and complacent through inactivity, Slade crept into the engine room. Three men were on duty there, monitoring the engines, the fuel levels, environmental control systems and the like. Two were at a small table playing cards. A third was making the rounds.
Slade waited until the man turned the corner, putting the loud, hulking, green painted starboard diesel between his fellow terrorists and himself. The terrorist walked by, his eyes on the diesel gauges. He never heard Slade creep up behind him. The black shadow wrapped an iron muscled arm around the terrorist’s throat and plunged his blade in between the ribs, pricking the heart from behind.
The terrorist lost consciousness almost instantly. He was stone dead before Slade dragged him between the engine blocks and secreted his body beneath the catwalk. Disarming the Iranian gave Slade a P90 submachine gun with a red dot sight—a nice little gun—as well as a Glock 9mm.
His silencer fit both the P90 and the Glock. That made the two card players an afterthought. After sighting them from behind and using four bullets on them, Slade hid the
ir bodies and secured the engine room, locking the hatch and chaining it shut.
There were two entrances into the aft hold. One was a large set of double doors. That was intended for bulk equipment. However, there was also a normal hatch. Slade listened with his ear against the steel before cracking the hatch and peering within. The first thing that hit him was the smell. After a few days the stench of sweat, shit and piss was almost unbearable. The Iranians didn’t furnish the crew with access to latrines. There was no reason for it. They were to be slaughtered anyway. The crew had no choice but to pick an area for their latrine and make the best of it.
It took some effort to get the men moving. They were dazed and confused by lack of food, water and air. Once they were moving, however, they were motivated. Slade armed four of them and led them through the now deserted engine room. Up the stairs they went. He stopped them outside an exterior door.
Turning off the lights, he opened the door and scanned the deck. There was an armed patrol that did the circuit of the ship, completing it in fourteen minutes. By his calculations they should be on the other side of the superstructure and just completing their circuit. Looking toward the bow he lowered the lenses of his Night Vision Goggles—nothing.
“We’re going to the lifeboat!” he said. Word went down the line. A renewed sense of hope infused the sailors with desperate energy. Leading the forty-one men along the deck was easy; they knew where they were and where they were heading. They followed Slade at a quick trot.
They reached the freefall lifeboat at the same time Eva and Captain Fletcher reached it. The men didn’t wait but piled into the boat through the aft hatch.
“Once you get in the water head away from the ship as fast as you can. The Key West should be out there; they should see your launch and be there to pick you up.”
“What about you?” Fletcher asked. “You sound as if you’re not coming.”
“I’m not, my job is to make sure this Uranium doesn’t get used by terrorists,” he said. “Now get going.”
Eva stopped by him and kissed him on the cheek again, “Take care of yourself Slade. I won’t forget this; my father won’t forget this.”
Captain Fletcher held out his hand. Slade took it. “Good luck!” the captain told him.
“Skol!” Slade said, giving the secret Vikings farewell.
“Skol!” Fletcher smiled.
Slade closed the hatch and stepped away from the lifeboat. Seconds later the latch released and the lifeboat plunged down the forty-five degree incline and into the water. The ocean completely swallowed the craft, but it bobbed to the surface fifty yards from where it entered the water with the engine running.
The orange lifeboat disappeared into the darkness.
Every light on the freighter came on. Colonel Nikahd’s strident voice sounded over the ship’s speakers, calling out, “All hands on deck! All hands on Deck! Alarm!”
CHAPTER 35: The Galaxus Game
Iranians spilled out onto deck armed and angry, driven by Colonel Nikahd’s fury. The launch of the lifeboat was automatically relayed to the bridge and the Iranian colonel was none too happy about it. When he discovered that all of his hostages were gone he was livid.
The two deck guards were thrown overboard—alive.
The rest of the troops were mustered on deck. They began a painstaking search of the ship. From the announcements Nikahd made over the ships address system, Slade thought Nikahd suspected someone other than Christian Fletcher and his crew but he couldn’t confirm it. So began a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
With almost two hundred men at his disposal, Nikahd could have someone in every section of the ship at once; this made it difficult on Slade, but the darkness helped. He was nearly invisible in his wetsuit. That was good, because Slade couldn’t just hide. Soon after the search started the Galaxus turned south. It took him a few minutes to figure out why. When the engines revved and the Galaxus picked up speed he finally figured it out: Nikahd was after the lifeboat.
The lifeboat was a marvel of modern engineering. It was completely self-contained with its own propulsion system, food, water, and with the ability to right itself if capsized by a wave. It was a true lifeboat, but it wasn’t a speed boat. The one thing the lifeboat could not do was to outrun its mothership. The mothership was supposed to be sinking or sunk; it wasn’t supposed to be tracking the lifeboat with radar and trying to run it down.
That’s exactly what the Galaxus was doing.
Slade intervened, shooting the thick cable running from the radar to the bridge. That effectively blinded the Galaxus; but it also told Nikahd he had a saboteur on board.
Despite the ardent searches Slade made it through the night without any serious encounters but when the Sun dawned things changed.
Slade went below deck, taking refuge in the labyrinth of corridors and storerooms, ductwork and mechanical shafts in the huge ship. He didn’t go deep into the ship, however, because in the back of his mind was the Key West. If Slade were in charge he’d torpedo the freighter, and that thought kept him thinking escape. Of all things that were possible Slade didn’t want to end his career or his life going down with a ship. The thought of drowning in the dark, trapped in the bowels of the Galaxus, sent shivers down his spine.
Possibly to cover his growing unease, or possibly because Slade hated being hunted with no repercussions, Slade took advantage of his situation and turned the table on the Iranians at every opportunity.
#
When dawn came Nikahd ascertained the position of the lifeboat visually. He came ten points to starboard and ordered the engines full speed ahead. “We’ll ram them! So much for their escape!”
The crew abandoned their search to gather on the bow, eager to watch the destruction of the recalcitrant crew. Everything went according to plan until they closed within a thousand yards of the lifeboat. Nikahd was looking at the lifeboat through his binoculars when the water to the right boiled and turned white.
A great black tower broke the surface of the water followed by the smooth black hull of what could only be an American attack submarine. The boat launched out of the water, pointing directly at the tanker.
A message came over the radio over the international emergency frequency. “Champion Galaxus! Champion Galaxus, this is the USS Key West! Turn away from the lifeboat or we will fire on you and sink you! This will be your only warning!”
“Ram them!” yelled Nikahd’s lieutenant.
Nikahd back handed the officer across the face, knocking him to the deck. The helmsman looked stunned and the ship kept barreling toward the lifeboat. Nikahd shoved the helmsman aside and turned the rudder hard over, veering back east and away from the Key West.
The lieutenant got up, fuming. “You’re letting them get away!”
Nikahd drew his sidearm and shot the man in the face. He glared at everyone else on the bridge. “Does anyone else want to disobey Ayatollah Hayayi’s directives and jeopardize our Holy mission?” When no one spoke up, he said, “Good! Helmsman, steer course one-six-zero degrees. Speed twelve knots!”
“Yes sir!” the helmsman said, taking over.
He told his guards to remove the body of his lieutenant and then promoted the next man in line. Then came a call over his handheld radio.
“Colonel Nikahd, we are in the captain’s cabin; I think you need to see this sir!”
“On my way!” he said curtly. He hurried off the bridge with his private guard of four men. When he reached the cabin at the aft end of the superstructure, there were a dozen soldiers gathered there, murmuring and looking at the bed.
On the bed were four soldiers. Their mouths were stuffed with bacon. The men looked on in horror, imagining themselves humiliated in such a way.
Nikahd ran his hand through his hair, and said, “Our intruder has a strange sense of humor; a Western sense of humor.”
Another call came over the radio. Another man’s voice called for his attention. “Colonel Nikahd, sir, you will want to see thi
s. We are amidships on the starboard side.”
“On my way,” he said curtly, but he was thinking, “Now what?”
When Nikahd got there a dozen men were leaning over the side of the ship. He gazed at what they saw, reading aloud, “Uranium 235! He knows!” He looked up at the long black shape of the Key West, pacing them as they sailed southeast. “The submarine knows as well! By Allah, why haven’t they torpedoed us?”
Nikahd returned to the bridge. The Key West stayed abeam at about fifteen hundred meters. Nikahd was thunderstruck. “They know what we have on board but they haven’t destroyed us; that can only mean one thing: they are awaiting orders! They need permission to fire on a civilian vessel.”
“What do we do colonel?” his new lieutenant asked.
“We make sure their weak willed president will not give them permission to fire! Put me on the emergency frequency for satellite, High Frequency and Very High frequency radios!” he replied. Snatching up the microphone he began issuing a distress call.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is the cargo vessel Champion Galaxus! We are at the following coordinates. We are transporting sand to Jakarta for a children’s zoo, but an American submarine, the Key West has threatened us with destruction. They are following us now. We request immediate assistance! Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!”
When he finished Nikahd grinned. “Now let the Key West sink us! The president doesn’t have the balls to sink us!”
He turned back to his new lieutenant. “Broadcast that message every ten minutes. Continue the search! Bring me this Crusader alive! We will make sport of him by carving the Crescent of the Prophet on his chest before dispatching him by the Prophet’s own direction! We will sail into Jakarta with our cargo intact, our place in paradise assured and this Crusader’s head mounted on the bow of our ship!”
#
In the Situation Room Ms. Carrabolla stared down the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the CIA. She pointed to the news report on the president’s favorite news channel, MSNBC. They were playing the distress call of the Galaxus.
The Ghost of Flight 666 Page 27
