His relief was tempered by the southeastern horizon, which was looking very black. The horizon was backed up by the barometer, which was dropping like a rock.
“The AIS,” Smith said, and Fang found it and disabled it.
“Steer this course,” Smith said, handing him a piece of paper.
Fang looked at it and raised his eyebrows. “North?” he said. He looked up and peered at the horizon. “That’s right into that bay.” He realized something else. “Hey. Where’s Jones? Where are the rest of the men?”
“Steer that course,” Smith said. “Watch him,” he said to one of his men.
“What for?” Fang said. “And where’s the rest of my men?”
Smith left without answering. The man remaining behind kept his rifle pointed in Fang’s general direction.
Fang stood at the wheel for a few moments, getting the feel of the ship. The pitch seemed to him to be heavier than it ought to have been, given the height of the waves. He looked out on deck, over the rows of neatly stacked and lashed containers. The gray dawn revealed the topless container they had ridden in, and Smith and his men pulling back the canvas top of the container next to it.
He looked around for Catalino, one of his own men who had also remained behind. “Find me a cargo manifest.”
Catalino, an Abu Sayyaf guerrilla from the southern Philippines who in a shockingly procapitalist gesture had abandoned the fight for freedom for the acquisition of personal wealth without a backward look when Fang recruited him, was back in less than ten minutes with a clipboard and some new blood spatters down the front of his jacket.
The manifest showed the containers to be filled with drilling equipment bound for the port of Seward, Alaska, and a hold full of Chinese steel bound for Seattle. Fang put the manifest down and looked out the window again. He had a sinking feeling that the container Smith was busy with didn’t have drilling equipment inside it.
He headed for the door to the ladder down and was stopped by Smith’s man.
“Let me by,” Fang said angrily.
The man watched him out of expressionless eyes, said nothing, and didn’t move.
Fang headed for the starboard door and the mercenary was there before him. This time the mercenary deigned to speak. “No,” he said.
Fang had set his rifle next to the wheel, and he eyed it now, wondering if he could get to it, click off the safety, aim, and fire before the mercenary shot him.
“No,” said the mercenary, who was evidently also a mind reader.
“What the hell is going on here?” Fang said. “What’s in that container?”
The mercenary said, “No.” He motioned again with the rifle. Fang looked at Catalino.
Smith’s man fired. Catalino’s weapon clattered to the floor and a second later Catalino’s body followed it.
Smith’s man motioned with the rifle again, and this time Fang returned to the helm.
JANUARY
IN THE INFLATABLE, HUGH was too terrified to be seasick. The walls of water surrounding the small boat were so high he could barely see the sky, and the boarding team was so packed in and so bristling with weapons that even if he was sick he wouldn’t have been able to do anything but puke down the front of his Mustang suit. The coxswain was a square-shouldered young man with a large flat brown mole on his left cheek. He had his teeth bared in what looked more like a snarl than a grin, and his hands on the controls were quick and deft.
Hugh had insisted on going with the boarding team. “I speak Korean,” he had said. Since he was the only person on board who did, it had been impossible to gainsay him, and Sara was the first to back him up. She knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. No way was he letting whatever it was on board the Star of Bali any closer to a populated landmass, especially his populated landmass.
Suddenly the stern of the freighter was looming above them, water smacking against the hull and rebounding to spray them all. Ostlund slapped Ensign Reese’s helmet. “Go!”
Ensign Reese, the best arm on the ship in Ops’ opinion, stood up and braced himself against the steering column. Everyone ducked as he swung a rope with a grapnel on it around his head, once, twice, three times, and let fly.
It missed. He reeled it back in as the coxswain, cursing under his breath, coaxed the small boat back beneath the stern. Another wave smacked the stern of the freighter and rained down on their hapless heads.
Again, Reese started the windup, once, twice, three times, and it flew up, up, and over the stern, and Seaman Lewis grabbed him around the waist as he hauled on the line as hard as he could. Seaman Lewis was six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds and he had been selected for this mission for just that reason. If Hugh was not mistaken he was wearing Seaman Lewis’s pants.
“On belay,” Lewis bellowed.
“Feels solid!” Reese yelled. The coxswain turned the small boat off the stern of the freighter, just enough to keep the line taut, or as taut as possible in these heaving seas.
Seaman Delgado, the size of a monkey and just as agile, stepped up to the rope. He was five-one and wouldn’t tell anyone what he weighed, but he had been observed in the gym bench-pressing one-fifty. He wore no pack and carried only a sidearm.
“Go!” Ostlund shouted, and Delgado went up the rope hand over hand without pause and vanished over the stern. A second later the grapnel came hurtling down, splashing into the water next to the small boat, to be reeled in briskly by Ensign Reese.
The coxswain took that as a sign and opened up the throttle to maneuver the small boat around to the freighter’s starboard side. He dropped off the stern a little, where they endeavored not to be squashed by the freighter’s rise and fall, and waited.
Hugh noticed a sheen of white across Ostlund’s shoulders, and reached out to touch it. Ice. He looked around and noticed that the small boat was adding a layer of ice with every wave they took. He started beating on the sides with his fists, and everyone else woke up from their frozen stupor and started beating. It got rid of most of the ice so long as they kept beating, and it warmed them up a little, too.
“There!” Ostlund said, after what seemed hours and was probably only minutes. Hugh followed his pointing finger and saw a rope ladder rattle down the hull of the freighter. The coxswain goosed the engine until they were alongside, and kept them alongside until Ensign Reese managed to snag it. Hugh looked up and saw Delgado grinning down at them from the gunnel, and his mind numbly remembered the briefing. This would be the pilot’s ladder, the ladder the ship would let down to board the local marine pilot when the ship got close enough to port to need one.
Ostlund was first up.
“Mr. Rincon?” Ensign Reese said.
It was a very small ladder, and the hull of the freighter seemed impossibly high.
“Mr. Rincon?” Ensign Reese said again.
In some small part of his mind that was still functioning Hugh knew he was holding up the line and endangering the mission. He grabbed the side of the inflatable and rose shakily to his feet, losing his balance immediately and pitching forward. He flung up his hands to catch himself and by sheer luck fell into the ladder.
The sea fell away from beneath the inflatable and he was left clinging to the ladder. His feet scrabbled automatically for the narrow slats of wood that formed the steps. The hull of the freighter rolled away from him and he found himself lying face down against it, his knuckles caught between the rope of the ladder and the metal of the hull.
“Go!” Reese shouted. “Go now!”
His feet fumbled for the rungs and he gained a few shaky steps before the hull of the freighter rolled back and he found himself swinging wildly away from the hull, the ladder twisting and twirling. He looked down and saw faces turned up to him. When the ship rolled back he slammed hard against the hull.