The Emperor's Revenge

NINE

With a storm fast approaching, Cobus Visser didn’t want to stay out on the deck of the containership Narwhal any longer than he had to. He and Gustaaf Bodeker had been tasked with checking every single reefer unit connection to make sure they were secure enough to weather the morning squall. If the refrigerated containers lost power during the storm, the vegetables inside would rot before they could reach port in Malta.

As the lowest-ranking members of the twelve-man crew, Visser and Bodeker had been assigned this tedious and undesirable task. Lanky, twenty-year-old Visser was the newest addition, and while he didn’t mind the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, he didn’t understand why they’d been sent so far from their home port of Rotterdam. Normally, this small feeder cargo vessel was limited to short trips in the North Sea, distributing loads from Dijkstra Shipping’s giant containerships that carried goods from ports in Asia. But without explanation from the captain, the Narwhal had been suddenly diverted on the long trip to Malta, an island country located between Italy and Libya, which had caused much speculation among the crew.

“Why do you think the captain won’t tell us what we’re picking up in Malta?” Visser asked Bodeker, who was inspecting the connections on their thirtieth reefer unit. The former speed skater, with thighs the size of beef slabs, seemed irked by the discussion, but Visser didn’t care.

“We’re paid to go where the captain takes us and where the owner tells us to go,” Bodeker replied. “Why does it matter what we carry? All of the containers look the same anyway.”

“Yes, but we’ve always been told before. We know these reefers hold tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The rest of the containers are filled with computer parts to be recycled in China. I saw the bill of lading. But the cargo master told me we are picking up only one container in Malta. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No more strange than being sent to the Mediterranean in the first place.”

“That’s another thing!” Visser went on excitedly. “We’ve been shuttling back and forth between Rotterdam, Oslo, and Bergen for the last three months, and then, out of nowhere, we’re going a thousand miles in the other direction to pick up a single container?”

“So?”

“Well, it’s weird. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Not really,” Bodeker said.

Visser ignored him. “I think we’re on a classified mission for the Dutch government. We’re picking up cargo that they don’t want anyone to know about.”

Bodeker rolled his eyes. “You would think that. Don’t you ever get tired of all these conspiracy theories?”

“And I suppose you think the government tells us about everything they do.”

“I didn’t say that. But don’t you think it’s more reasonable that the company has some time-sensitive cargo to bring back to Rotterdam and we’re simply the only ship that was available?”

“Come on, Bodeker,” Visser said. “That’s just failure of imagination. And boring.”

“Your pestering is getting boring. Let’s finish this job and get back inside.”

Visser waved his hand in disgust. He stretched and looked out to sea, surprised to see a bone-white ship passing by in the other direction no more than a mile off the port bow. He’d never seen a design like it.

He tapped Bodeker on the shoulder. “What do you think that is? It can’t be a navy ship.”

Bodeker straightened in annoyance and then looked curiously at the vessel. “I’d say it’s a yacht.”

“You’re kidding. That thing is huge!” The sleek vessel had to be 400 feet long, a hundred feet longer than their own cargo ship. “It’s got to be a cruise ship, although I’ve never seen one that had a twin-hull configuration. It’s too far away to make out the name.”

“It doesn’t have enough portals or balconies for a cruise ship.”

Before they realized it, she was even with the Narwhal, racing past as if she were a cigarette boat.

Bodeker furrowed his brow. “How is that possible?”

“What do you mean?” Visser asked.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was doing fifty knots.”

Visser squinted at the odd ship. Without a reference point, it was difficult for him to tell speed at sea.

“Are you sure it’s not just an optical illusion?”

Bodeker blinked twice. “Must be,” he muttered.

The yacht turned smartly and sped away on a perpendicular course.

Bodeker shrugged. “You’ll soon learn that you see all kinds of strange things on the ocean, Visser.”

He went back to work, and Visser followed him as they moved toward the bow, but the younger man couldn’t take his eyes off the bizarre vessel until it was no more than a dot disappearing into the gathering storm clouds.

Then a bright light flashed above the yacht.

“Looks like it got hit by lightning,” Visser said.

“Then let’s get out of the weather as quick as we can,” Bodeker replied.

Visser nodded, his eyes on the aft superstructure, where the dry and warm crew quarters were. He spotted the captain on the top-level bridge, watching the approaching storm with his binoculars. “Okay, but when we eat lunch, I’m going to ask the captain what—”

His next words were drowned out by a massive explosion on the Narwhal’s bridge. The windows burst outward, and a section of the roof panel, along with the antennas, flew into the air. Fire and smoke belched from the remains. Bodeker and Visser were thrown to the deck.

“What the hell happened?” Bodeker yelled.

Visser felt himself shaking uncontrollably. “It just blew up.”

A moment later, an enormous boom nearly deafened them, like a gigantic thunderclap from a lightning strike right next to them.

“Heaven help us!” Visser screamed, terror gripping him.

Bodeker could only shake his head, the whites of his eyes huge.

Then another explosion took out the lower part of the superstructure. Every crewman inside had to be dead. The blast was followed a few seconds later by a second thunderclap.

A third explosion in front of the superstructure blasted six of the forty-foot containers off the starboard side of the ship like they were aluminum cans. The explosion after that impacted the hull at the waterline, throwing a geyser into the air.

Visser and Bodeker watched the carnage in silent awe, frozen in place. It was clear that they were under attack, but from where? Sabotage was the first thought that came to Visser’s mind. Someone had planted explosives all over the ship.

Explosions and thunderclaps came in rapid succession, each getting closer to the bow where they were standing.

Visser and Bodeker looked at each other. They realized there was no choice. The lifeboats were destroyed, and they didn’t even have time to find life jackets.

By unspoken agreement, they both leaped overboard.

Visser surfaced and panicked when he didn’t spot his crewmate in the churning waves. He swiveled around until he saw Bodeker twenty feet away, swimming for his life. Visser didn’t need to be told to do the same.

Visser lost count of the explosions and didn’t stop to turn around. Bodeker was the first to halt, and he treaded water while he looked back.

Visser was almost more terrified by Bodeker’s stricken look than by the prospect of seeing the damage. He forced himself to turn and face what had become of the Narwhal.

He gagged when he saw the remains of his home at sea. The tidy ship had been reduced to a ruin, the Narwhal’s red and black hull transformed into battered metal. Its stern was already underwater. They watched without a word as the ship’s bow pointed straight up into the sky and then slipped beneath the waves. The refrigerated containers bobbed on the surface until they drifted from view.

Visser cried, the tears stinging even more than the salt water. Bodeker linked arms with him, and they helped each other keep their heads above the waves, but with a storm coming their chances were slim. The cold water sapped their strength with each passing minute.

An hour later, Visser was exhausted and about to give up in despair despite Bodeker’s staunch faith that they could make it. But when he saw an approaching ship in the distance, he began to believe.

They both shouted for joy and waved their arms as the ship neared. It was another container vessel about the same size and shape as their own sunken ship. It even had the same red and black livery.

As it got closer, the similarities became even more apparent, down to the same types of cargo containers Visser had watched being loaded in Rotterdam.

Then an icy hand gripped his stomach when he read the name on the bow.

“No,” he said, sputtering salt water. “No, it can’t be!”

The white lettering said Narwhal.

It was as if his own ship had never sunk.

Visser assumed he was hallucinating, but the look on Bodeker’s face made it clear that he saw the same thing. Although they couldn’t make sense of the vision, they desperately screamed and waved their hands as much as they could without going under themselves.

The ship got within five hundred feet of them, but it showed no signs of slowing, and Visser couldn’t see a single face in the bridge windows. It sailed on, implacable. The crew were either ignorant or uncaring, leaving him and Bodeker alone in the mounting waves without another ship on the horizon.