Running Dark

15

SUMNER WHISTLED. BLOCK WAS AT HIS SIDE FIVE MINUTES LATER.

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

The cigarette boat engine roar grew louder.

“Here they come.” Block unsnapped the Taser from its holster and removed the safety.

Sumner pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt. Depressed the button. “We have visitors. Coming from the port side. Douse the lights.”

Twenty seconds later the entire ship went dark. Sumner heard the babble of voices in the distance. The passengers in the dining rooms were responding to the blackout.

From the right came the dancing beam of a small LED flashlight. As it drew closer, Sumner could just make out Janklow’s form, followed by a member of the ship’s crew.

Janklow walked up to Block and Sumner. “How far?” he whispered.

“Listen,” Sumner said. But the sound of the engine was gone.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Me neither, not anymore,” Block said.

“Listen for the sound of oars.”

“They’d still have to see us,” Janklow said.

“They could have night-vision goggles.”

Janklow moved closer to the railing and looked along the ship’s side. “That’s way too sophisticated equipment for these guys. They’re Somali fishermen, for God’s sake.”

“They had RPGs, a cigarette boat worth over eighty thousand dollars, and at least one AK-47. Night-vision goggles would be the least expensive piece of hardware from that list,” Sumner said. The roar of the cigarette engine began again. He estimated it was over a mile away.

“We’ll find out soon enough.” Block sounded grim.

Sumner knew that the ship stocked a couple of Tasers, but no other type of weapon save the flare guns. Everyone, including Sumner, was dressed in dark, plain clothes per Captain Wainwright’s orders. Sumner recognized the crew member accompanying Janklow as a man all the crew members called Clutch. Sumner thought Clutch had a mean streak. He was a bouncer and sometime bodyguard who walked around in a state of repressed anger. Sumner didn’t know his story, but it couldn’t have been a happy one. Clutch had a flare gun attached to his belt.

Something about the engine noise bothered Sumner. It was too obvious. The pirates had to know that the entire crew of the Kaiser Franz would be prepared for their return. Over two hundred employees on a large cruise ship carrying at least three hundred passengers. How did four skinny men expect to prevail against them? Sumner shifted his thinking to address the problem from their perspective. Thought about what he’d do given the same odds.

“I hope you’re ready to shoot, Sumner. Because your gun is the only one that’s got the range to kill them before they reach us,” Janklow said.

The cigarette boat fell silent again. Sumner set his jaw and strained to hear. He disliked the silence. The quiet stretched on for five, then ten minutes. Clutch sauntered over, wearing an attitude as if the situation caused him no concern whatsoever, which was idiotic, as his title was head of security.

“They figured out that they’re crazy to take us on. We outnumber them by so much that they’d have to be insane to even attempt this. That’s why they stopped.” Clutch spoke softly, but even so his voice held a note of arrogance that Sumner found annoying.

“Maybe,” Janklow said. “Sumner, what do you think?”

Sumner hated to rain on the ‘we’re superior to them’ parade, but he didn’t agree at all.

“I think they’re going to stay a safe distance away and blast the hell out of the ship with their grenades. They’ll kill two-thirds of us, then they’ll radio back to a larger ship that’s floating nearby, and that one will proceed to board us.”

Sumner couldn’t see anyone’s face, but he could have sworn that the silence that met him held a thread of stunned disbelief.

Block’s voice came out of the darkness. “He’s all sweetness and light, ain’t he?”