The Wrecking Crew

CHAPTER 11

Sunset descended over the pirate outpost, an intense paint-streaked display of light filtering through third-world dust and smoke. Two large stone towers guarded the concrete and stone walls of the small harbor, vestiges of a decaying public works project of some long-ago Marxist regime. Much of the stonework and concrete underpinnings of the jetty were gone, as were dreams of a better future for the nearby city. The unnamed patch of settlements were little more than a loose collection of dusty tower blocks and tin shacks.

The guard towers overlooked a sheen of oil, plastic, and sewage coating the harbor water as it lazily seeped into the ocean. As poor as it was for the aesthetics of the harbor, it couldn’t have been better cover for the Scorpion.

Temporarily roused from his medical sedation, Vitaly had done a masterful job of steering the Scorpion into position just outside the harbor. The Russian helmsman set the submarine down on the shallow, sandy seafloor, deep enough to remain undetected. Even the largest pirate ships could pass overhead without colliding. More importantly, they were shallow enough to use the periscope to spy on the harbor.

“Raising periscope,” said Jonah, more to himself than anyone else.

Vitaly was back in his bunk, but he didn’t seem to mind the handcuffs. In fact, he didn’t act like he minded much of anything — except Jonah. He never missed an opportunity to flash Jonah a scowl thick with a millennia of Russian indignation. It was as if he believed receiving two gunshot wounds from point blank range — while unarmed, no less — was a cosmic imbalance in need of eventual rectification.

Earlier, Jonah had tried to ask him why the Scorpion had been deployed against the Fool’s Errand.

“Sometimes goat eat wolf,” was his only reply.

Jonah suspected that particular folk saying may have lost something in the translation. And that was that, as much as anyone could get out of him. Even Alexis took a flirty soft-touch run at him to the Russian’s complete disinterest and total lack of cooperation.

He’d been compliant, but Jonah resolved not to leave his back turned to him, not if it could be prevented. People were funny about revenge, especially Russians coming down from a healthy dosage of opiate painkillers.

Jonah reached down and unlocked the periscope, leaving the device hanging from the ceiling. He felt a sense of satisfaction that the Scorpion had one of the old-school types with actual mirrors and lenses instead of a video screen. An old-school periscope couldn’t fail if the power was ever knocked offline, and no pixel-smoothing algorithm could match a well-trained human eye.

The American started with a full 360-degree swivel to check if the pirates had noticed the periscope pierce through the sheen of oily water to spy on the harbor. For a moment, a small collection of plastic garbage washed by, obscuring his vision. With any luck, even if spotted, the periscope would be mistaken for trash.

He checked on the two stone guard towers first, adjusting the angle upwards to see the bored guards within. In the taller of the two towers, the single guard was dimly illuminated by the screen of his cell phone. In the other tower, two guards played an endless card game by lamplight.

At first, Alexis, Dr. Nassiri, and Jonah had tried to divvy up the spying duties equitably, each taking a few hours at a time. As time wore on, Jonah took up longer and longer shifts until the other two found it best to simply leave him in peace. Jonah kept elaborate notes on the comings and goings of the pirates — shift changes, food delivery, prayers, even visits by girlfriends. In Prison 14, the only timekeeping was the movement of men, and Jonah had developed a seemingly inexhaustible patience for the practice.

Jonah twisted the periscope, allowing his vision to fall on the Horizon. The hijacked racing trimaran yacht gently rocked in protected waters of the harbor. She looked like a long-since broken wild stallion, grime and dust coating her matte-black carbon fiber skin, poorly patched bullet holes across her hull. She’d been at dock nearly four years and looked like every day of it.

I don’t belong here, the yacht whispered. Set me free.

For the seventeenth time that day, Jonah decided he’d rather see this beautiful vessel on the bottom than tied up in a pirate harbor, crumbling away. She was a mechanical work of art, pure function over form. She’d been captured long ago, so long that Jonah had actually remembered a bit about the incident.

It seemed the pirates more or less left the two female occupants of the Horizon to their own devices. They were not free to come or go, but they had reign of the imprisoned ship, spending long periods of time sitting on the rear fantail, sometimes in silence, sometimes in conversation. A guard was always watching from shore. When they eventually went below decks, the pirates did bed checks every four hours, their timing just random enough to make Jonah nervous.

The older of the two women was Fatima, Dr. Nassiri’s mother. She came out less than the other one and spent too much of her time pacing. She’d clearly never been confined for any significant period of time.

“She’s very beautiful,” Alexis remarked when first seeing her two days ago during her shift.

Darkness fell and Jonah switched over to night vision. The Scorpion had a decent third-generation system, capable of taking starlight alone and rendering it into green tones.

The second woman stepped onto the fantail. Jonah found himself breathing a little faster. She was young; maybe mid-twenties, but the youth he assumed could have been just her utilitarian pixie haircut. Like Fatima, she had dark hair and a small stature. Unlike the scientist, her skin was pale and fair.

Dr. Nassiri sat down next to Jonah and set a plate of food on his lap. The incredible richness of the smell pushed Jonah from his prisoner’s concentration, forcing him to take notice. It smelled so good he could have almost cried, it smelled better than he remembered food could ever smell.

“De Laa lamb,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Grilled chops with dates, mint, and orange sauce.”

Jonah dug in with his hands and shoveled it into his mouth. Amazingly, it tasted even better than it smelled.

“The larder is surprisingly well stocked with Moroccan staples,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Thanks. Are all Moroccan surgeons this good at cooking?”

“I certainly hope not,” said Dr. Nassiri. “This was always my secret weapon when courting a woman.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you seduce me,” said Jonah. “But this is still crazy good.”

Alexis walked into the command compartment holding her own plate of food.

“I hate to be a bother,” said Alexis, “but we’re going to have to deal with this eventually. The bodies in the forward compartment? They’ve been in there for, like, three days.”

Dr. Nassiri sighed. “I can do it,” he said. “I imagine I’ve dealt with worse in the past. The deceased hold little mystery to me.”

“No,” said Jonah, his mouth full of food. “Don’t worry about it, I’m already on it.”

“On it?” asked Alexis. “That door hasn’t budged in three days! I wake up thinking I can hear them in there! Seriously, it just… freaks me out.”

“No worries,” said Jonah, still chewing. “I reconnected the HVAC system and hacked the environmental controls. I’ve been blowing 110-degree humidity-free air in there for the last thirty-six hours.”

Dr. Nassiri considered this, and seemed a little taken aback. “That’s actually a very clever idea.”

“I don’t understand,” said Alexis.

“Let me put this into Texan,” said Jonah. “I’m making beef jerky. That should make the whole clean-up process a lot less of a hassle.”

“Oh God,” said Alexis, holding her stomach and turning a distinct shade of green. She slammed the plate of food onto the nearest console and ran out of the room towards the bathroom.

“Must you play the psychopath?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

“Hey, free food,” said Jonah, taking Alexis’s plate and scooping the contents onto his own with his fingers. “You know what would go really well with this?”

“A piss-flavored American beer?” volunteered a thoroughly unimpressed Dr. Nassiri, scowling at him for both the treatment of Alexis and the meal.

“I was going to say a nice mint tea, would really compliment the lamb. I’m not a total barbarian.”

“I prefer a glass of Sangiovese myself,” said Dr. Nassiri, getting up from his seat.

“Is that a red or a white?”

Dr. Nassiri rolled his eyes, not rising to Jonah’s obvious bait.

“Hold up, Doc,” said Jonah. “Tonight’s the night.”

“You believe so?”

“Yeah, I do.” Jonah licked his fingers. “Come with me.”

Dr. Nassiri followed Jonah up the boarding ladder and into the claustrophobic interior of the conning tower. Jonah twisted the large wheel of a hatch built into the side of the vertical passageway. The hatch released, opening into a tight chamber where Jonah had stacked diving gear from the Scorpion’s ample armory.

“It’s a diver’s lockout chamber,” said Jonah. “We don’t even have to surface. We flood this chamber, I swim out, get your mother, bring her back here.”

“What’s this?” asked Dr. Nassiri, picking up a large pack with straps on it. It looked almost like a backpack with a hard skin, albeit with two regulators and an inflatable buoyancy-control vest.

“Don’t touch that,” said Jonah. “That’s a rebreather. Very finicky, dangerous as hell. You can just be swimming along, tra-la-la-la-la, one moment you take a breath and everything is groovy, the next moment you take a breath and die. It’s the CO2 mix… the body doesn’t have a mechanism to tell you that the air mixture is off besides passing out and dying. Incredibly, incredibly dangerous.”

“Then why use it? Why not use a traditional scuba tank? I know there must be some back there—”

“The rebreather system doesn’t leave any bubbles. Recycles every breath, very stealthy. And who knows? Maybe the technology has improved over the past few years.”

“You think so?”

“Probably not. Engineers have been working on it for more than a hundred years.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Nassiri.

It wasn’t Jonah’s intention, but he could tell he made the doctor feel a little foolish. Foolish and worried, to be exact.

“Let Alexis know tonight’s the night and then meet me back here in a half hour. I’m going to need your help getting all this shit on.”

Thirty minutes later, Dr. Nassiri watched with a surgeon’s impassive face as Jonah stripped down to his skin. Next came the wetsuit, the same one Jonah had worn when the Fool’s Errand came under attack. Jonah had patched the worst of the holes with silicone, giving the pricy wetsuit a ragged, secondhand look.

“I assume you’re taking more than a knife,” said the doctor, nodding at the blade stuck in Jonah’s belt.

Jonah held up a plastic dry bag with a polymer pistol. “Sixteen rounds, one in the chamber, and a spare mag.”

“Of course,” the doctor murmured. “I’m sure the pirates only outnumber your bullets three or four to one.”

“Maybe they’ll come at me in single file.”

“One can only hope they won’t come at you at all.”

“OK, I’m all set. Close the hatch behind you,” Jonah said, waving the doctor away and busying himself with the dive computer. On paper, this was going to be the simplest dive he’d done since his Basic Open Water certification at the age of fourteen. In real life… well, it was Somalia. Anything could happen.

“Jonah?” asked the doctor before closing the hatch. Jonah turned around, a little annoyed that the Moroccan hadn’t left yet.

“What?”

“Thank you,” said Dr. Nassiri, his arms open, a strange mixture of irritation and earnestness written all over his face. “You’re an arrogant, insufferable bastard… but thank you.”

Jonah smiled a sly kind of half smile. It took a lot to get that kind of acknowledgement out of the uptight doctor.

Dr. Nassiri exited the dive chamber, clanging the massive steel door shut behind him.

Here goes nothin’. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Besides being spit-roasted by pirates or dying of a faulty rebreather, of course.

Jonah pulled the lever, flooding the dive chamber. Cold water swirled around his ankles as he pulled the dive fins on, and in moments, the water was up to his waist, then chest.

Remember to breathe, he thought to himself as he cleared his ears. The first breath was always the hardest. A diver had to fight the small primal voice in his own mind that told him he was about to drown.

The seawater wasn’t as cold as he’d been expecting. A lowering tide had pulled beach-warmed water away from the shores, making the experience not altogether unpleasant. A rush of intense memories hit him almost at once. Floating through the ghostly halls of the Costa Concordia. Hiding from sharks in the massive steel pillars of an offshore oil platform. Seeing the first glint of silver buried deep within the ancient wreckage of Roman caravel. He’d never realized how much he loved diving, he’d never allowed himself to think about it during his time in prison.

Jonah opened the outer door to the chamber and floated out, adjusting his buoyancy to gently float on the bottom of the sea floor, the massive bulky form of the Scorpion protecting him from the current.

Navigation was going to prove a challenge. The sunlight was fading quickly and the Scorpion disappeared from sight after just three strong kicks as he entered the dark waters of the harbor. No matter, blackout conditions were no mystery to him. Hands stretched in front of him, Jonah drifted forwards under the inertia of the kicks for just a moment. Contact — he’d found the jetty wall. Jonah cracked and dropped a chem-light, watching it as it tumbled down and landed on the sea floor. When he returned, he’d know just where to push off from the jetty to find the submarine. Now it was just a matter of following the jetty into the harbor.

Seconds turned into minutes and the minutes into more than an hour. Finally, Jonah found his target — a long, dark trimaran shape in the water above him, a streamlined racing hull saddled with a large pontoon on either side. Jonah pushed up from the sea floor and allowed himself to slowly rise to the surface. He emerged from the water between the main body and the starboard pontoon, just as he’d intended. Stashing the flippers, he pulled himself and the lightweight rebreather apparatus up a small boarding ladder on the side of the racing yacht.

Stepping onto the moonlit deck, Jonah found a dark corner and drew his pistol. It was a last-ditch option at best, possibly only buying seconds when considering the kind of ordnance the pirates had at their disposal. For instance, the long tubular weapon mounted to one of the nearer Toyotas looked like anti-tank artillery. Christ.

Jonah pulled the small radio from his vest and pulled it out of the plastic bag.

“On board,” he whispered, no louder than he dared. As far as he could tell, the pirates only stopped by once an hour or so, but it wouldn’t have been terribly difficult to spot him from the nearby dock.

Shit. The radio was ruined. Seawater had seeped inside, destroying the sensitive electronics. Triple-bagging the device and wrapping it all up with duct tape hadn’t been enough. The screw up, minor as it was, made him feel rusty, off his game.

Jonah ducked through the main entranceway to the cabin of the yacht and crept inside. As beautiful as the ship was from the outside, it was ugly on the inside. Just a few bunks, an open galley and a marine toilet with a curtain for the door. Everything smelled strongly of paint, salt and disinfectant. At least the cockpit was something to brag about, twin lightweight seats facing consoles that would have been at home in a fighter jet. The controls were all inert, with a thin layer of dust covering them. The Horizon hadn’t sailed an inch since first arriving in the harbor as a pirate trophy.

The American pulled back the curtain of the nearest bunk. A single beam of starlight fell on the pale face of the young woman he’d seen through the periscope. She wasn’t conventionally attractive, not with the boyish haircut and small frame, but something about her struck Jonah deeply. Pity he couldn’t help a second hostage escape.

He carefully replaced the curtain and went to the next bunk. Pulling back it’s curtain, he saw the sleeping form of Professor Fatima Nassiri. Though easily over sixty years in age, she still retained the features of an exceptionally beautiful woman, black hair, dark skin, but the facial lines of someone who laughed too little. She wore a loose button shirt and shorts, revealing endless rows of cuts and bruises. She’d been through hell.

Before waking her, Jonah produced her son’s passport from a plastic baggie. With one hand, he held it out in front of him, opened to the doctor’s picture. With the other, he firmly placed his hand over Fatima’s mouth.

The doctor awoke suddenly, struggling and clawing at his wet, neoprene-clad arms, her eyes flashing. She caught sight of the passport photo and her eyes locked on the image of her son. She froze, unable to tear herself away from the photo. Jonah slowly loosened the pressure of her mouth. Once satisfied she wouldn’t scream, he removed his hand.

“Do not speak,” said Jonah. “Do you recognize this picture?”

Fatima nodded.

“Good. Your son sent me to get you out of here. I came in using SCUBA gear. We will leave using SCUBA gear. You will cling to my back and use my spare regulator. You will not open your eyes. It took me an hour to infiltrate the harbor; it could take twice that leaving. You must mentally prepare yourself for what’s to come.”

Fatima nodded again, but with a hint of defiance this time. The more she gained her faculties back, the more Jonah could see that she had her own ideas about how this would go down.

“You’re an experienced diver, right?”

Fatima shook her head. “Once only,” she whispered. “At a resort.”

“Seriously? I thought you were an oceanographer or some shit — look, nevermind. Just hold on, control your breathing and keep your eyes closed. We have a sub — I mean a ship waiting just outside the harbor.”

“How many men are with you?” asked Fatima.

“No time for questions,” said Jonah, turning around. “Let’s get moving.”

“But what about Klea?” demanded Fatima, dangerously loud.

“Jesus! Lower your voice!” said Jonah. “She’s not my problem. I have one spare regulator, and it’s yours. Time to go.”

“I will not leave without Klea,” insisted Fatima. She rose to her feet. Though a foot shorter than Jonah, the professor stood toe to toe with him as if she were a titan facing a mere mortal. Un-fucking-believable.

“Fatima, it is theoretically possible to evacuate you unconscious,” threatened Jonah.

“We’re watched during the night,” she hissed.

“We don’t have time!” Jonah said. Then hearing footsteps behind him, he whipped around, pistol in hand, only to see the bright glint of the steel blade flash just below his chin, millimeters from his exposed throat.

The young woman from the first bunk stood before him, chef’s knife in hand. Jonah’s hand instinctively went to protect his throat, his fingertips brushing the tangled, severed lines of his regulator tubes. She’d slashed them in half, both his main and his spare. Air rushed out unimpeded with a hoarse roar, expending the reserve oxygen tank in seconds. Repairing them wouldn’t do a goddamn thing; the entire system was useless without the reserves.

Rage rushed through him like a flash flood in a bottleneck canyon. Reaching forward with his left hand, he grabbed Klea around her neck, his massive hand constricting her airflow as the other hand tightened his grip on his pistol.

She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t beg for her life. She just looked at him. His surveillance from the submarine hadn’t done her justice, not her smooth, pale skin or dark Audrey Hepburn eyes, glassy under the moonlit sky.

“What in the actual fuck?!” demanded Jonah, shaking her.

Still she didn’t react, didn’t even fucking blink. Through his grip, Jonah felt the slightest muscle movement, the faintest twitch. He looked down to see her adjusting her grip on the weapon. His prison instincts told him she was intently considering stabbing him. With a knife that size and her obvious commitment, she had a good chance of grievously injuring him before he ended things. Not a good situation for either of them — she’d be dead and he’d be gutted.

He loosened his grip. Klea didn’t need another sign; she wriggled herself loose and stepped back. Fatima stood frozen, looking at both as they faced each other down, Jonah with pistol drawn, Klea with her fierce, dark eyes and sharpened blade.

“Talk,” said Jonah.

“I have a plan to get us out of here,” she said, her voice hoarse from his grip. “All of us. So drop the frogman gear and come with me.”