Piranha

23

Maria Sandoval was nearly done with her daily inspection of the Ciudad Bolívar’s vehicle decks. As the master of the ship, her responsibility was to make sure her cargo arrived safely, so she regularly checked the condition of the interior to make sure there were no leaks in the fully enclosed decks that could allow salt water to damage the shipment and to verify that everything remained in its proper place.

The Ciudad Bolívar was the pride of the Cabimas fleet. At 700 feet long and eleven stories high, she could transport up to five thousand cars, primarily serving the growing South American market. Her current load had significantly fewer vehicles because the ceiling of deck 10 had been hoisted to accommodate large construction equipment — graders, backhoes, mobile cranes, dump trucks, bulldozers — all destined for Brazil. The deck below this one was dedicated to cars and SUVs bound for Venezuela and Argentina.

The total value of her shipment was over one hundred and fifty million dollars, and Maria took her responsibility for its care seriously. Her short dark hair and round face made her look younger than her thirty-eight years, and burly new crew members tended to underestimate her when she met them, in her nondescript trousers and unrevealing light sweater. She ran a tight ship, for her first command, driven by the pressure to succeed as the company’s only female captain. With the loss of three Cabimas vessels in the last three months, the crew was edgy, and Maria had spent plenty of restless nights worried about her ship, so she was especially attuned to anything that might pose a hazard.

The construction vehicles stretched out in long rows, parked side by side with inches to spare, maximizing the usable capacity in the cavernous, well-lit interior. Maria was the sole occupant of the hold. Even with the vibration of the ship’s engines and the rumble of the air-handling system, the lack of any other sound in the gigantic space was eerie.

She tested the tie-downs on random vehicles, which had been driven into place on the roll on/roll off ship. She knew her men inspected them on a periodic basis, but she liked to go over their work to ensure that their reports were accurate. If any vehicle came loose in heavy seas, particularly ones like these that weighed upward of fifty tons, it could wreak major damage on the cargo or start a fire.

While the smaller vehicles were secured with canvas straps, those for construction were cinched down with heavy steel chains. Nothing short of a Category 5 hurricane would be able to budge them, and the forecast called for smooth sailing until they reached Puerto Cabello.

Maria finished her assessment and was pleased with the results. She expected a lot from her crew and they never let her down.

She was walking toward the stairs to the bridge when she heard a grinding sound. But it wasn’t coming from the engine. It seemed to be emanating from the hull itself.

Before she could move, the shipwide klaxon shrieked, causing her to instinctively cringe. Instead of short bursts indicating fire, the horn sounded in lengthy peals.

There was a hull breach. The ship was taking on water.

The list would have been imperceptible to anyone not as familiar with the ship as she was, but Maria could feel the slightest tilt to port. She raced to the stairs, pulling the walkie-talkie from her waistband.

“Jorge!” she yelled over the wail of the klaxon echoing in the stairwell. “Report!”

She pressed it to her ear and could tell that Jorge, her executive officer, was responding, but the klaxon drowned out the words.

“All stop!” she shouted, and didn’t listen for an answer.

Maria sprinted up the ten flights and flung the bridge door open, panting from the exertion as she entered. The ship was slowing, the controls set to stop as she’d ordered. Three men were on the bridge: Jorge; the navigator, Miguel; and the helmsman, Roberto. They were moving efficiently, no panic evident, but stress oozed from their pores.

Jorge, a balding man ten years her senior with a potbelly and a goatee, looked at her in utter confusion.

“What did we hit?” Maria asked.

“Nothing, Captain,” he said. “There aren’t any other ships in visual range, and the depth is steady at over two miles. We couldn’t possibly have hit a reef.”

“Rogue storage container?”

“Not likely.”

“How big is the breach?”

“Breaches. We have compartments flooded in eight different locations of the ship.”

“What?”

Jorge showed her the plot of the breaches. They seemed to be concentrated on the port side.

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“A crewman who saw a breach in the bow compartment said it was six inches in diameter and looked as if it had been bored with a drill.”

Maria was astonished. That simply wasn’t possible. A single large gash she could understand. But eight smaller holes opening in a double-hulled vessel was unprecedented.

“Was he able to patch the hole?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. The pressure was too great. He had to seal off the room. I’ve also shut the watertight doors to the engine room. We got major flooding in some of the holds before we were able to seal off the rest of the damaged compartments, but those closed-off areas are still filling with water.”

The ship’s list was at ten degrees and accelerating. Maria was already having to support herself with the console. If they did nothing, the Ciudad Bolívar would reach a literal tipping point. Once it did, it would capsize and sink in minutes.

They couldn’t plug the holes, but they might be able to balance the ship enough to keep it from flipping over. The ballast tanks were already full, so they couldn’t add water to the starboard side to equalize the vessel.

Maria knew she had to find a way to arrest the list. Like all other car carrier captains, she had heard the story of the Cougar Ace, an auto transport vessel like hers that nearly capsized when the captain was cycling the ballast water before entering U.S. waters off Alaska to avoid contaminating American shores with nonnative foreign species. A malfunction during the transfer sequence caused the Cougar Ace to keel over, but not so far that she completely capsized. It took the valiant efforts of a salvage team to right her again after thirty days on her side.

Unlike container vessels where most of the stowage is on open decks, a car carrier is fully enclosed. No other type of cargo ship could have survived turning on its side because at such an extreme list the lower outside decks would have let water into the hull.

Ever since the Cougar Ace accident, most large ships, including the Ciudad Bolívar, had been equipped with a load monitor computer application that helped her crew determine how to arrange the vehicles in the vessel for optimum stability. It also made sure that transferring ballast water was done as safely as possible.

Emptying the ballast tanks on the Cougar Ace had caused the accident, but perhaps Maria could save her ship with the same tactic.

“Miguel,” she said, “send out a distress call. Jorge, input the flooded spaces into the load monitor.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know which portside ballast tanks to drain.” When he looked at her like she was crazy, she prodded: “Hurry.” The list was now fifteen degrees.

“Aye, Captain.”

While Miguel transmitted the distress call, Jorge’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Two minutes and another five degrees of list later, he said, “Ballast tanks three and four are our best hope. But if the numbers are wrong, we won’t have time to abandon ship.”

As much as the cargo was her responsibility, the crew was an even higher priority.

“Jorge,” she said, “take Roberto and Miguel to gather the rest of the men at the muster station and prepare to launch the lifeboat.” Since it was on the port side and closer to the water, they should still have time to lower it. At least there was no danger of dying from exposure in the tropical climate.

“We’re staying, Captain,” Jorge said. Miguel and Roberto nodded in agreement.

“No, you’re not. It only takes one of us to do this. If it works and the ship is righted, I can bring you back aboard. But if it capsizes, there’s no reason for us all to go down.”

“Just you?”

“It’s my ship. Now, go take care of the men. Let me know when you’re away.”

Jorge swallowed hard, but he could see that further objection was useless. With forced smiles and good luck wishes, the three of them scrabbled out, holding on to anything they could as they walked on the inclined deck.

By the time the crew had reached safety, she might not be able to hold herself upright or even climb out of the bridge. She wasn’t suicidal or excited about a hero’s death. She wanted to survive if at all possible. If things went wrong, she wanted a backup plan.

Maria went outside the bridge to the wall-mounted fire hose. She opened the case and pulled the hose out, unreeling it so that the nozzle snaked into the bridge and slid all the way to the other side. When it was completely unreeled, she went back in to the computer terminal and looped the hose around her waist.

Two minutes later, Jorge radioed that the lifeboat was launched and all crewmen were accounted for. They were motoring to a safe distance, ready to pick her up if she decided to leap from the ship. She thanked him and told him he’d know her choice when he saw what happened to the ship.

The list was now forty degrees, and the hose cut into her hip as the tilt threatened to make her lose her footing. If her plan worked, it would save the ship. If not, the new imbalance might turn it over before she had a chance to escape.

A faithful Catholic, Maria crossed herself and kissed her crucifix pendant. Then she pressed the command to empty ballast tanks 3 and 4, praying that the pumps were still working.

The immediate impact was anticlimactic. No sudden movement, no noise of machinery winding into action. But the screen indicated that the pumps were functioning. The levels of tanks 3 and 4 were declining.

A jolt rocked the ship, increasing its list by ten degrees in seconds, and Maria feared that she had made the wrong choice. Her last order would be the one that killed her and sunk the ship.

The soles of her shoes finally lost their grip and Maria’s feet flew out from under her. Her shoulder smacked into the rubber-coated floor. The hose was the only thing that kept her from tumbling out the door and over the railing, spiraling to the metal deck below.

Like a climber rappelling down a cliff, Maria planted her feet against the floor and gripped the hose with both hands. She needed to get up to where it was attached to the exterior wall before the angle of ascent wouldn’t allow her to use her legs to support her. She was strong, but her arms weren’t muscular enough to pull herself up by her hands alone.

It was a race between her and the ship’s tilt. She clambered up, making sure she had one hand on the hose at all times. One slip and she could smash her head against any of the consoles.

She was halfway up when the hose knocked against the radio on her belt. Before she could grab it, the walkie-talkie detached and tumbled gracefully through the air until it shattered against the railing, a fitting demonstration of what would happen to Maria if she followed it.

With renewed vigor, she climbed the final steps and hauled herself out onto the exterior metal wall of the bridge. She lay back and sucked in deep breaths, exhausted from the effort. It was only then that she realized the list had stabilized. Although the ship wasn’t righting itself, it wasn’t in imminent danger of turning turtle, either.

Maria estimated that the list was seventy degrees, making the whitewashed walls temporary floors. She untied herself from the hose, stood, and walked along the exterior of the crew’s living area situated atop the ship, careful to avoid stepping on the windows. There was no point in going back inside the bridge and trying to adjust the ballast tanks further in the hopes of righting the ship. She could just as easily capsize it. Better to let an expert salvage company do the job.

Maria shielded her eyes from the sun blazing above the western horizon. It would be dark in a few hours and she had to decide whether it would be possible to descend to the port side safely so that she could join her crew. She could open doors into the interior, but navigating the upturned hallways would be riskier than it was worth. She’d wait out on deck until a rescue ship could arrive. Unless there was a naval vessel within range, the ship was too far from any shore for a helicopter to lift her to safety.

She put her hand over her eyes and surveyed the sea until she spotted the lifeboat coming around the aft end of the Ciudad Bolívar. Maria could only imagine the view the crew had of the green hull cocked at such an unnatural angle, the single propeller hovering above the water and the red underbelly exposed for the first time since dry dock.

She waved both arms madly until she saw the men waving back. Their cheers carried to her over the water. When they approached as close as they dared, she shouted down to them that she had lost her radio and would stay on the deck until help arrived. As long as an unexpected squall didn’t develop, camping out under the stars wouldn’t be so bad, given the circumstances.

An hour went by. She lay down and took a siesta, during which she puzzled over the damage that had nearly sunk her ship. She couldn’t think of any phenomenon — natural or man-made — that would cause circular holes to be gouged in the ship’s hull.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of an engine. She sat bolt upright and scanned the horizon for a vessel. Then she saw it coming toward them from the east, a gunmetal gray boat eighty feet in length. Too small for a cargo ship, but not the configuration of a pleasure yacht, either. Then she recognized it as an ancient fishing trawler.

It must have been in the vicinity and heard their distress calls. Jorge was probably on the radio with them now. As it approached, Maria was already thinking of ways that they could string up a belaying rope to lower her down.

She waved as it slowed and came alongside the lifeboat, but she couldn’t see anyone on board. Her crewmen crowded along the open weather hatch, waving and shouting joyful greetings.

The door of the trawler banged open and eight men rushed out, all with black objects in their hands. Her crewmen’s shouts of joy changed to cries of terror. She was baffled until she heard the unmistakable sound of automatic gunshots. Maria stood there, shocked into horrified silence, as muzzles flashed and her men were torn apart by the withering fire. It was over in seconds.

One of the men tossed two objects into the lifeboat and closed the hatch. Two thumps followed, and soon flames were consuming the boat. It would sink in minutes, taking her crewmen to the bottom and leaving no trace.

Maria was so horrifically mesmerized by the burning lifeboat that she wasn’t paying attention to the fishing trawler. Someone on board must have spotted her because bullets began to ping off the metal around her.

Without thinking, she ran, dodging rounds, in a desperate attempt to make it to the nearest door. The bullets were getting so close that she realized she wouldn’t have time to open it and climb inside before she was hit. She needed faster cover.

Maria leaped at the next window and braced her legs as she smashed its glass with her feet and plunged through.