Deadly Straits (A Tom Dugan Novel) (13 page)

Surprise was complete as soap flew into the guard’s face. His weapon hung slack as he jammed fists to burning eyes. In one fluid motion, Santos plucked a pen from his pocket and drove it into the man’s throat. Blood covered Santos as he grabbed the man’s wrists and pinned him against the bulkhead, praying no sounds of the struggle reached the control room. The man gasped and bled out, powerful spurts soaking Santos’s face and front. It took an eternity before the flow dwindled, and a stench filled the space, signaling loss of sphincter control. He let the body slide down the bulkhead and stood trembling, willing the face from his memory.

Santos cleaned himself as best he could with paper towels from the toilet. A mop from the cleaning-gear locker became his improvised lock, jammed across the narrow passageway between the outward-opening control-room door and the opposite bulkhead, its tangled head compressed tight against the door just above the knob. He grabbed the hijacker’s gun and hurried up the stairs.

USS Hermitage (LSD-56)
Malacca Strait
North of Riau Island, Indonesia

Captain Jack Leary, USN, sat in his ready room with the sat phone at his ear.

“Captain Leary, this is Jim Brice from the embassy in Singapore. I’m conferencing in Jesse Ward from Langley. We need your help. Go ahead, Jesse.”

Leary listened. When Ward finished, Jim Brice spoke.

“Port Klang has nothing unaccounted for near
China Star
, and they didn’t send out any escorts,” he said.

“Are they following up?” Ward asked.

Brice sighed. “I suspect they’ll drag their feet until she’s out of their waters.”

“That’s not gonna hack it,” Leary said. “Any threat needs to be handled before the passage narrows at Phillip’s Strait. But what can
we
do about it?”

“Can you check it out?” Ward asked.

“I’m running a multinational effort planned for months. I can’t just head north.”

Ward persisted, “Maybe one vessel—”

“Look, Ward,” Leary said, “I can’t go into territorial waters without consulting my counterparts. And they’ll request instructions, and we’ll get no decision until the tanker is in flames or safe and halfway to Japan. See my problem here?”

Ward sighed. “Yes, I do, Captain, but what
can
we do?”

After a long silence, Leary replied. “I guess we take a risk. I can get a chopper over her without being too obvious. If there’s a problem, we close, and if that ends well, we call it a multinational effort and all take a bow. If not… well, I never wanted to be an admiral anyway.”

“Thanks, Captain,” he said. “By the way, is that sailor from the hijacking with you?”

“Broussard? Yeah, he’s one of our referees.”

“Might be a good idea if he was on that chopper.”

M/T China Star
Malacca Strait

“Where the hell have you been?” Richards demanded.

“Preparing our escape,” Sheibani said. “Allah smiles on the prepared.”

“Good,” nodded Richards, mollified. “How much longer?”

“We turn into the western channel now and ground off Rupat Island in an hour, maybe a bit longer. I will reduce speed. I don’t want to ground hard enough to breach both the outer and inner hulls.” He smiled. “It is difficult to swim in crude oil.”

Richards returned the smile, heartened by mention of escape. Sheibani moved to where Ortega stood near the helmsman.

“Make your course one seven oh,” Sheibani said.

Holt stepped in from the wing just as the second mate protested. “The western channel is too shallow. We cannot!”

Sheibani shot Ortega in the head, and Holt recoiled as wet bits of brain hit his face and slid from his chin to fall beside Ortega’s twitching corpse.

“One seven oh,” Sheibani repeated, and the terrified helmsman spun the wheel.

“Half ahead,” Sheibani said.

Bonifacio stood on the far side of the bridge, waiting, but the captain stood frozen, staring down at Ortega’s body, barely visible in the predawn light. Bonifacio raced to the console.

“Half ahead, aye, sir,” he shouted.

Such a pity, Sheibani thought. Just when I get these monkeys trained I have to kill them.

***

Anderson stole a glance at the clock, willing Santos to hurry.

The head man said something, and his underling started for the door. Anderson’s mind raced, desperate to buy Santos time, when unexpected motion caused him to grab the console storm rail as the ship turned.

The head man reached the console just as the engine control changed to half ahead.

“What you do?”

Clueless, thought Anderson, looking past the head man to the second man, halfway to the door, unsure what to do given the new development.

“I do nothing,” Anderson said. “We don’t control here. Bridge do.” He pointed to the phone. “You talk friends. They tell you.”

The hijacker picked up the phone, and when he hung up, Anderson launched into a stream of technobabble.

“OK, OK. You shut up now.” The hijacker stuck the gun in Anderson’s face, Santos forgotten for the moment. Anderson sneaked a look at the time. Damn it, Ben, what’s taking so long?

***

Santos stood in the CO2 room, racked with indecision. Was he really meant to trigger the CO2? He had a gun now. Should he try to rescue Anderson? He felt the ship turn and slow and decided to trust his instincts. He crossed himself, pulled the release, and raced aft.

***

“What you do?” the senior terrorist demanded, gun to Anderson’s chest.

“Not me. Bridge do,” Anderson screamed over the alarm. “Big mistake. Someone started gas to put out engine-room fire. Gas comes in twenty seconds!” He pointed to the raucous alarm and the large red sign beneath it.

DANGER—CO2 RELEASE—WHEN ALARM SOUNDS VACATE IMMEDIATELY.

The head man reached for the phone.

“No time! We stay, we die!” Anderson moved toward the engine-room door.

The head man dropped the phone and leveled his gun. “Stop,” he ordered, as the other hijacker struggled with the most obvious exit, the door leading to the deckhouse.

“No,” Anderson lied, pointing to the blocked door, “that door locks automatically to keep people out of engine room. Don’t worry about your friend. He’ll escape with Santos. We must go this way.” Anderson pointed through the control-room window to a large sign stenciled on the engine room bulkhead, reading
EMERGENCY ESCAPE ROUTE
, with an arrow pointed down.

The underling rushed to Anderson’s side, and an argument broke out between the hijackers. Anderson grabbed three masks from the rack, keeping one and setting the others on the deck to allay the men’s suspicions. The men didn’t notice that the two he’d set out for them came from a shelf of discharged masks, awaiting recharge.

Anderson slung the mask around his neck and fled into the engine room, with the men on his heels, juggling masks and guns. He raced down the steep stairs sideways in a controlled fall, right hand gripping the rail behind as he steadied himself with his left on the opposite handrail in front, feet hitting every third step. It was an acquired skill, and he was soon well ahead, increasing his lead on each flight of stairs as he spiraled downward. The hijackers could do nothing to stop him, for they dared not kill their guide out of the maze.

He planned to lead them to the emergency escape trunk, sure that when they saw the vertical ladder out, they’d push past him in their panic. When they were on the ladder, he planned to fade back into the engine room and escape by a different route with his mask. The hijackers wouldn’t know Santos had locked the hatch until they were at a dead end, on top of the ladder, with no escape.

The warning horns continued their plaintive wail as Anderson reached the lower engine room and rushed aft beside the giant turning shaft. He hadn’t figured on such a lead. They would be suspicious if he stopped now. He decided to lie on the deck at the foot of the ladder, feigning a pulled muscle. He stepped into the escape trunk and looked up.

To a square of black sky and stars. Shit. Ben hadn’t closed the hatch.

OK, change of plans. He’d try to make it out and lock the hatch down behind himself. He started up the long ladder at breakneck speed as the alarm horns began to fade. Halfway up, the CO2 began to roar through distribution nozzles, and he looked down. The expanding gas sucked heat from the humid space, condensing moisture in the air. His terrified pursuers emerged from the thick white fog, climbing toward him for all they were worth.

***

Santos stood on the main deck looking at the hatch. Was he really meant to close it? What else could the chief have meant by the “not going to escape aft” clue? But what if he misunderstood and cut off the chief’s escape? But no, the clue could mean nothing else. Santos grabbed the cantilevered counterweight that held the heavy cover open just as the horns stopped wailing below. He hesitated. One quick look, then he’d close it for sure.

He peeked over the hatch coaming to see Anderson climbing fast with the hijackers right behind, all eyes on the ladder and none looking up. Santos braced himself and waited until Anderson began to emerge.

“Jump, boss,” he yelled as he hooked his arm under Anderson’s and heaved, their combined strength sending Anderson over the hatch coaming to land in a heap. Santos pulled up on the counterweight with all his strength, and the heavy cover crashed shut. He slapped one of the threaded dogs in place and spun the wing nut to screw it down tight. No one else was coming out.

Below, the junior hijacker was in the lead, and he balanced himself on the ladder and loosed a burst up at the hatch cover in spite of his boss’s screams of protests. The protests died quickly, as did the men, as ricochets caromed through the close confines of the steel escape trunk.

The shots were faint outside, swallowed by the myriad sounds of a ship underway.

“What now, Chief?” Santos asked, helping Anderson to his feet.

“Damned if I know, Ben,” Anderson gasped.

Chapter Eighteen

M/T China Star
Malacca Strait
North of Rupat Island, Indonesia

“
China Star
,
China Star
. You are out of the main channel. Repor—”

“Change,” Sheibani said into the mike, twisting the knob to a new channel. He keyed the mike rapidly and nodded at responding clicks from the boats, confirming compliance via a prearranged code.

“Too late to stop us, and their babbling might disrupt contact with the boats,” he said as Richards nodded. An unfamiliar alarm shrieked and they looked across the bridge to where Holt stood at a flashing panel.

“What are you doing?” Richards said as he rushed over, gun raised.

Holt seemed beyond caring, as if being forced to dump Ortega’s body overboard had erased any illusions of survival.

“I’m trying to silence this friggin’ alarm if you’ll get the fuck out of the way.”

Surprised, Richards complied. “What is it?” he asked, lowering his gun.

“CO2 release. Probably a false alarm.”

Sheibani frowned. He was reaching for the phone when the ship blacked out. He heard the distant muted roar of the emergency generator.

“Main-engine trip!” Bonifacio cried.

In the engine room, the generator engines had coughed to a halt as the CO2 rose to the level of the generator flat and the engines sucked in CO2. With no power, safety devices shut down the main engine and everything else, and the remotely located emergency generator sprang to life automatically to power limited emergency services.

Richards leveled his gun. “False alarm, my ass. Fix this. Now. Or you’re dead.”

“There’s no fast fix, you ignorant asshole,” Holt said. “The CO2 has to be purged. That means resetting dampers and starting fans. Takes time.”

“So how do you do that?” Richards asked.

Holt smirked. “I call the chief engineer.”

Richards knocked him to the deck.

“Enough!” Sheibani yelled as Bonifacio helped Holt.

Sheibani started to call the engine control room, then realized the futility of that action. Anyone still there would be dead.

“Yousif,” he said, “go down and check. Cautiously. If you have difficulty breathing, return at once.”

Yousif nodded and left as Sheibani moved to the chart and stepped off the distance with dividers. By the time Yousif returned, Sheibani was reassured. They were near Indonesian waters, and momentum would take them there.

“Gas,” Yousif said, breathless from his climb. “I got halfway down but saw the body of one our men. The control-room door is jammed close with a mop.”

“The man’s gun?”

Yousif shook his head. “Gone.”

Sheibani nodded. “Yousif, watch these three. Richards, join me on the wing.”

“This is bad,” Richards said when they were alone.

The Iranian shrugged. “She will ground with or without us. The VHF is on the emergency circuit, so we can communicate with the boats. If the Burmese died, it saves us killing them, and if any survived, they will report being led by an American. If the engineers are alive and armed, they will hide in a defensive position and wait for help.”

“But they know what went on.”

“They were in a windowless box and know nothing,” Sheibani said. “There are many hiding places, and time is short. And they are armed. Why risk being shot? We leave them.”

“OK. Let’s finish these guys, blow the boats, and get the hell out of here.”

“A half hour more,” Sheibani said, smiling at the lightening sky. “The farther we drift, the shorter our swim.”

***

Anderson studied his blood-covered subordinate in the growing light.

“Christ, Ben, are you hurt?”

“Not… not mine,” Santos said, suddenly drained. He looked down, as if seeing the gore for the first time, then bent and retched, as Anderson stood near, unsure what to do.

Santos straightened, wiping his mouth on a sleeve.

“We got a gun,” he said, retrieving it from the deck and thrusting it at Anderson.

Anderson accepted the unfamiliar weapon.

“What now, boss?” Santos asked again.

“A drifting VLCC will bring help,” Anderson said. “There’s three hijackers left aboard for sure, and even with a few more from the boats, they lack manpower to rig a tanker this size with enough charges to sink it, and they can’t use the cargo because we’re still inert. With a dead ship, the pumps are down, so they can’t even jettison cargo. And they seem like pirates, not terrorists, so why don’t they just clean out the safe and haul ass?”

Santos nodded as if equally baffled.

“Let’s assume the worst,” Anderson said. “If the murdering assholes aren’t gone before help arrives, the hostages become bargaining chips. If we can free at least some of them, they can scatter and hide.” He looked at the sky. “Let’s move before full light.”

Santos nodded and trailed Anderson around the machinery casing, into the deckhouse and the glow of emergency lighting. Anderson eased the stairwell fire door open and peeked up the first flight to the A Deck landing and started up. A putrid smell washed over them as they left the stairwell on A Deck.

“Christ,” Anderson whispered, “smells like somebody shit in a meat market.”

Santos’s face contorted, and he rushed forward, stopping short at the rope lashing the lounge door and the sight of grenades hung from the door frame. The metal door was peppered with dents, as if attacked inside by hundreds of screwdrivers. Scattered fragments had penetrated to smash into the steel bulkhead across the hall and fall mangled to the deck. Stench wafted from the holes.

“We have to go in, Ben,” Anderson said softly. “Some might live.”

Santos untied the rope as his boss studied the grenades. Pins in place. Window dressing. Anderson was careful nonetheless as he pulled the grenades from their magnetic clips and set them aside.

The battered door refused to budge, and Anderson leaned into it. It yielded suddenly, with a wet sucking sound, as the partial torso blocking it slid away, and Anderson pitched forward on his hands and knees. Gore squished between his fingers and soaked the legs of his coveralls as he stared at body parts in a horrifying jumble. The reek of open bowels was overpowering. He tried to rise and slipped, then scrambled backward on his hands and knees through the gore to draw himself up against the far bulkhead of the passageway, fighting down vomit and wiping his hands furiously on his coveralls.

Santos stared into the room. After a moment, he crossed himself and closed the door before sliding down the bulkhead to sit opposite Anderson.

“No one alive there, boss,” he said quietly.

“They mean to kill us all, Ben. I have to try to help whoever’s left, but we only have one gun. Hide, Ben. Survive to testify against these bastards.”

Santos shook his head. “In that room,” he said, “are two cousins and my sister’s husband, and others from my town. What will I say to their families? That I hid only so I could live to testify? Who will believe it? I would not be alive, boss. Only waiting to die. We go together.”

USS Hermitage (LSD-56)

Chief Petty Officer Ricky Vega passed the backpacks to Broussard and scrambled aboard the SH-60 Sea Hawk as the younger man stowed them.

“Welcome to Malacca Air,” said the pilot into his helmet mike. “I do believe this is the earliest I’ve ever seen boat people vertical and ambulatory.” He grinned over his shoulder.

Vega grinned back. “Fuck you… sir.”

“I see rising in time to actually put in a day’s work has made you cranky, Chief Vega.”

Vega just grinned. He waited until they were well clear of
Hermitage
before speaking.

“So what’s up, sir? They told me to get Broussard here ASAP. I decided to tag along.”

“Milk run,” the pilot said. “Gotta eyeball some gunboats shadowing a tanker.”

Broussard and Vega exchanged looks.

“How are you armed?” Vega asked.

The pilot laughed. “In the middle of a multinational exercise? Not a chance. It’s not great PR to kill your allies while you’re training ‘em.”

Vega moved his backpack so his Beretta M9 was in reach. Broussard did the same. Neither had gone unarmed since the
Alicia
incident. Another “milk run.”

“Got it on the scope yet?” the pilot asked.

“Christ, yes,” said the copilot. “She’s huge. Be over her in twenty.”

M/T China Star
0618 Hours Local Time
4 July

The boats were visible now and Rupat Island a dark slash ahead. Sheibani looked into the wheelhouse at the captives, wondering which would foul themselves when the boats exploded. It would be amusing when they found themselves unharmed. Like killing them twice. And Yousif. He would be denied even the illusion of martyrdom and understand before he died just how he had been used.

“Chopper.” Richards pointed.

“Sooner than expected,” Sheibani said, unconcerned. “Very well. Let us end it.”

He smiled on his way to the VHF. “We’ll soon be in Paradise, Yousif.
Allahu Akbar
!”

“
Allahu Akbar
!” Yousif parroted with a nervous grin.

Sheibani keyed the mike, and the roar of engines split the air as the boats rocketed away. Five hundred yards out and they turned, and the crews shouted encouragement to each other before speeding at
China Star
, rooster tails behind them.

***

“Boats moving away,” the pilot said, swinging the chopper to frame the boats in the open side door. As Vega and Broussard watched, the boats turned, their crews shouting and gesturing before the sea behind the boats boiled and the boats shot forward.

“Those are our boats!” Broussard screamed into his mike. “They’re gonna ram the tanker! Suicide bombers!”

“Get closer,” Vega said. “Put us right on their asses and keep them in the door.”

“Roger that,” the pilot said as he descended and closed on the boats sideways. Vega and Broussard left their seats and gripped grab rails as they opened fire.

Firing pistols from an unstable platform at a bobbing target was a long shot. They hoped to get lucky. They didn’t. The boats separated, making it impossible to target both, and the second man in each boat manned a .50-caliber machine gun. The pilot turned to present a minimal target and fled.

Broussard and Vega watched fireballs erupt at the ship’s side, followed by booming thunderclaps as water and debris rained down. They awaited secondary blasts that never came.

***

Sheibani and Richards emerged from behind the drawn curtains of the chart room, where they’d sheltered against the possibility of flying glass. Sheibani walked toward a confused Yousif as Richards stepped out on the wing.

“Just burn marks on the hull and debris in the water,” Richards said as he returned. “The chopper’s hovering a mile off, probably reporting. Let’s go.”

“In good time,” Sheibani said and smiled at Yousif.

“I… I don’t understand,” Yousif said. “Why didn’t we explode?”

Sheibani shrugged. “Our brothers’ sacrifice was a regrettable but necessary subterfuge.”

“You had men martyr themselves for… some sort of… of trick?”

“Just so,” Sheibani said. “Now, as far as you are concerned—”

“For Christ’s sake,” Richards said. “If you wanna give speeches, run for Congress.” He shot Yousif in the face.

“I told you no head shots!” Sheibani yelled, looking down at Yousif’s ruined face.

“So they ID him with DNA and fingerprints,” Richards said. “He’s wearing armor, genius. Should I have shot him in the foot and waited for gangrene? Let’s finish and go.”

“Very well,” Sheibani said. “Since you’re so eager, you do the honors.”

Without hesitation, Richards shot Urbano in the head, but as he turned the gun on Bonifacio, Holt shoved the third mate, and Richards’s burst went wide, shredding the man’s ear and shoulder. As Bonifacio fell, Holt charged, aiming a left-handed haymaker at Richards while deflecting the gun with his right hand. Richards slipped the punch and it glanced off his head. Unable to raise his gun, he fired a burst across Holt’s thighs and twisted like a matador as the captain’s momentum carried him wounded to the deck.

Richards scrambled backward and felt his ear, cursing as his hand came away bloody.

“Why the hell didn’t you shoot him?” he demanded over his shoulder.

“I assumed you could kill unarmed men. Now if you’re done mucking about, we can—”

Sheibani jerked at an explosion to port.

***

The chopper hovered, with orders from
Hermitage
to “continue at discretion,” which the pilot figured meant he was screwed no matter what.

“Whadda ya think, Chief?” he asked. “Not much damage.”

“I concur, sir,” Vega said.

“Get closer,” Broussard urged. “We need to know what we’re facing.”

“Listen, Rambo,” said the pilot, “our entire arsenal is your unauthorized peashooters.”

“C’mon, Lieutenant,” Broussard said. “The .50s are gone, and they’re not likely to take us down with small arms. We can get closer.”

“
We
aren’t flying this bird, sailor. That would be
me
.”

“The orders
are
to continue surveillance, sir,” Vega said. “Can’t see much from here.”

“Shit. All right, we’ll circle fast, then dart out of range.”

He tilted the chopper toward
China Star
.

M/T China Star

Anderson waited to dash up the exterior stairway to the starboard bridge wing. The sea was littered with debris, and he stood parsing this latest development. They had one gun, limited ammunition, and grenades taken from the lounge. A search of the workshops had yielded no weapons but led to the discovery that inspired their plan. They’d found scuba gear and two underwater scooters on the starboard side of main deck.

The plan was to get between the hijackers and the hostages and leave the escape path clear. They had crept to D Deck, one level below the bridge, and Anderson waited on the starboard exterior stairs for Santos to creep through the deckhouse and toss a grenade overboard to port as a diversion. With the hijackers focused on the port side, Anderson hoped to rush onto the bridge from starboard and get between the hostages and hijackers, keeping them at bay until Santos joined him. He hoped that, faced with resistance, the hijackers would run.