Piranha

7

The Dolos had reached the mouth of the harbor by the time Manuel Lozada and his men had surrounded the lumbering ship in their four powerboats. The ship hadn’t responded to his radio call to return to the dock, so Lozada had gathered Gao and fifteen other men to take the freighter by force, if he had to. He still didn’t believe the rust bucket was armed with anything more dangerous than a kitchen knife, but he was going to follow the admiral’s instructions no matter how ridiculous they seemed.

He raised the bullhorn and stood atop the launch.

“Captain Holland and Dolos,” he called out in English. “You are required to return to your berth in La Guanta Harbor immediately. Your authorization to depart the harbor has been temporarily revoked because of safety precautions.”

He waited, but there was no response. The dim light on the bridge revealed no occupants. Lozada wasn’t surprised considering how grimy the windows were. The Dolos continued to plod out to sea. He repeated the call with the same result.

“You’re going to have to go aboard to stop her,” Gao said.

“It’s looking that way.” Admiral Ruiz had told him to rely on Gao’s experience with the ship and Lozada wasn’t going to argue. His expertise was in sailing ships, not assaulting them. “What do you suggest?”

“I suggest you attack the ship with all four boats simultaneously. Two at the bow and two at the stern. Overwhelming force is the most likely tactic for victory.”

Lozada agreed and radioed the other boats the plan. Each was equipped with a boarding ladder, and every man had been armed with an assault rifle. They weren’t special tactics policemen, but they were able to handle the weapons well enough to capture a straggly crew.

“I would like to request a pistol to take with me,” Gao said.

“Take with you where?” Lozada asked in confusion.

“I must go on board and guide your men. I know the hidden areas you have not seen. We may be ambushed unless we can find all of the crew.”

“Why are you willing to risk your life for us?”

“Not for you. I must avenge the comrades from my own ship. These spies will be revealed for who they truly are.”

Lozada considered the request. If the Dolos were nothing more than it seemed, letting Gao on board wouldn’t be a problem. If it were a spy ship as Admiral Ruiz and Gao believed, Lozada would want Gao on board to help his men navigate through the ship. Either way, Lozada could justify himself to the admiral.

He nodded for one of his men to surrender his sidearm to Gao. “Use that only if fired upon. If you injure or kill a crewman who turns out to be innocent, you will spend a very long time in one of my country’s prisons.”

Gao took the pistol, checked the chamber, and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. “I understand. You will see soon enough.”

They readied their ladder. Lozada signaled for all the boats to make their boarding attempt.

The harbormaster’s launch pulled along the port side near the stern. One of his men latched the ladder’s hooks over the deck scupper.

Before he could give the order, Gao leaped onto the ladder and began climbing. As soon as it was clear, the next man went after him. Lozada would go last, just to make sure the deck was secure.

He looked forward and saw that the boat at the bow was taking more time getting its ladder hooked on. Gao was nearly to the railing. He would be the first man on the ship.

He was about to call up and tell Gao to wait when a blast of water played across the launch, knocking Lozada and the rest of his men off their feet. The man on the ladder fell back under the pressure of the water, landing on the launch with a loud thump. Gao was high enough that he was above the aim of the fire hose trained on them.

The boat at the bow was hit at the same time and swung away. Lozada didn’t have to tell his boat’s driver to do the same. The launch swerved sideways, leaving Gao stranded on the ladder.

The fire hoses were often used by freighters to ward off pirates attempting hijacks. But there were always gaps. Lozada instructed his men to try again, keeping an eye on where the nozzles were located.

Gao leaped over the railing and drew his pistol. He motioned that he was going to try to disable the water jets.

He knelt over a valve and spun the wheel. The water flow lessened. In another few seconds he’d have it shut off and Lozada would be able to approach unimpeded.

The bridge door banged open and an Arab emerged carrying an assault rifle. Gao, who saw what was about to happen, rushed the gunman, but before he could reach him his rifle stitched bullets across Gao’s torso. Blood spattered the deck, and Gao’s momentum sent him tumbling into the gunman, his deadweight carrying them both back into the bridge.

Out of nowhere, crewmen aboard the Dolos popped up and fired rifles at the Lozada’s boats. Tiny splashes erupted around them. They took cover and were about to return fire when the Arab returned and aimed a rocket-propelled grenade at them.

Lozada ran forward and threw the throttle to its stops. The launch lurched forward as the rocket fired. It overflew the launch and exploded only fifty feet behind them.

“Fall back!” Lozada yelled to the driver, and repeated the command on the radio to the other boats, which were also under attack from RPGs.

The mortally wounded Gao had been right about the spy ship. The putrid vessel’s deception wasn’t to conceal advanced weaponry. It was about hiding a crew of spies armed with handheld weapons aboard a ship so disgusting that it wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Still, Lozada wasn’t about to attack again. Although he didn’t know if the ship had torpedoes and missiles and lasers, the Dolos with its assault rifles and RPGs was more than a match for his men.

Admiral Ruiz would now have proof that the ship was worthy of being hunted down. Even if she were still thirty miles away, Lozada was quite sure her frigate would easily catch the slow freighter before it escaped.

Max Hanley was pleased to see that Lozada had gotten the message and was retreating. He recalled the gundogs and shut down the remotely aimed water cannons.

Max was watching the huge flat-panel front display from his engineering station in the Oregon’s Operations Center, a high-tech room the harbormaster couldn’t possibly have guessed was in the middle of the ship he thought was called Dolos. The op center was awash in blue from the innumerable computer screens, and antistatic rubber deadened footfalls on the floor. The entire room was colored charcoal, making the space a darkened analog of the bridge on the starship Enterprise.

Every aspect of Oregon’s operation could be controlled and monitored from this low-ceilinged nerve center, from weapons systems and helm control at the two front seats, to communications, engineering, radar, sonar, and damage control at the stations ringing the room’s perimeter. The chair in the center was currently unoccupied. Dubbed the Kirk Chair, Juan Cabrillo’s well-padded seat gave him an unobstructed view of the entire room, and he could control every function of the ship from its armrest, if necessary.

Max had to figure out a way to get the Chairman back in his proper place. He had protested mightily when Juan had told him to cast off, but the strange request for an Abrams tank manual made him believe Juan had something up his sleeve.

The door to the op center whisked open and Hali Kasim entered, grinning. The communications officer may have looked like an Arab, but the third-generation Lebanese American didn’t speak a lick of the language. He took a seat at the comm panel.

“That was fun,” Hali said. “I don’t normally like leaving my comfy chair, but I’ll make an exception when I get to shoot him.” He pointed at the door and the man Lozada knew as Gao Wangshu walked through without a scratch on him. Everyone on the Oregon knew him as Eddie Seng, director of shore operations.

He had already changed out of his bullet-riddled shirt, which had actually been perforated by squibs designed by Kevin Nixon. Like the fake gunshot wounds Hollywood stuntmen used in action scenes, Eddie’s were controlled by a tiny detonator hidden in his sleeve. He was supposed to have “died” during a gun battle while the Oregon was still tied to the dock, but Juan and Linc’s blown cover necessitated a change of plan. When Hali had come out of the bridge firing blanks, Eddie had set off the charges in his shirt, providing a convincing death for Mr. Gao. Harbormaster Manuel Lozada would never know that he’d been duped.

Raised in Brooklyn by Mandarin-speaking parents, Eddie had been recruited by the CIA as a field agent. His specialty had been long-term infiltration of the Chinese government, so he was well practiced at assuming a false identity in covert operations. It had been his idea to insert himself as the final witness to Oregon’s true nature, convincing the Venezuelans that it was the ship Admiral Ruiz had been searching for. For months now, word had gotten back to the Corporation that their cover as a tramp steamer was starting to crumble, given the number of battles they’d fought over the last few years. The Chairman had decided to do something about it, to get their anonymity back, and implying that they were no better equipped than Somali pirates was part of the plan.

Eddie’s part in the mission was to keep tabs on what the Venezuelans were planning and to make sure they discovered the Oregon’s arrival at the proper time. Lozada and Admiral Ruiz were convinced Gao had run into the Oregon before because a Chinese destroyer called the Chengdo had been sunk under mysterious circumstances. In fact, the Oregon had been responsible. It was during that battle that Juan lost his leg to enemy fire. A lie was much more believable if most of it was the truth.

“You look well for a dead man,” Max said.

“It didn’t hurt a bit,” Eddie replied. “I’m just happy Hali is such a good shot.”

“You taught me well,” Hali said with a laugh. After an operation in Libya that resulted in Hali getting hit, he had asked Eddie for more combat training. Eddie held black belts in numerous martial arts and was one of the elite sharpshooters on the Oregon, so Hali had learned from the best.

“How are the Chairman and Linc doing?” Eddie asked.

“He’s on to Plan C,” Max said, knowing Eddie would understand that things had not gone as expected for them. He turned to Hali. “See if you can get Juan back on the line.”

A hiss came over the op center audio system, followed by a click and a roaring background noise.

“Frank’s Tanks here,” Juan answered. “How’s the ship?”

“Not a flake of rust out of place,” Max said.

“And Eddie?”

“Good to be back, Chairman,” Eddie said.

“Great. Now we just have the matter of getting me and Linc onto the Oregon.”

“I wouldn’t recommend commandeering a boat,” Max said. “The harbor is full of angry Venezuelans with itchy trigger fingers. They’re holding off from the Oregon, but you’d eat lead trying to get past them.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ve picked out a nice spot on the peninsula between Puerto La Cruz and La Guanta where we can meet you.”

Max checked his satellite map for that location. “Are you thinking of swimming? Because those rocks look pretty jagged. The waves would beat you to a pulp against the shoreline.”

“I don’t plan to get my feet wet. Bring the Oregon to three hundred yards offshore at the northernmost point.”

“That won’t be a problem. Why?”

“Remember when we tugged that containership off that reef in the Azores?”

“Yup. We couldn’t get anywhere near it because of the gale.”

“But we could get a line to it.”

Max snapped his fingers. “The Comet.”

“Eddie’s the best shot. Get a disguise for him and get him up on deck. We need him to throw us a lifeline.”

“On my way,” Eddie said, and hustled out of the room.

Max shook his head. In this case, the expression “throw us a lifeline” was going to be the literal truth.