Dugan watched as Petty Officer First Class Doug Broussard US Navy, returned the Dutch captain’s nod with a wave.
“Captain Flip-Flop reached the bridge,” Broussard said. “So much for his participation.”
Dugan and the third man in his party, Chief Petty Officer Ricardo “Ricky” Vega, USN, laughed.
“Probably just as well,” Vega said, nodding to a small man in coveralls talking to a crewman nearby. “The chief mate there seems to be running the show.”
Broussard nodded. “Yeah, he seems OK. But I wish his English was better.” He leaned closer. “But what about the ship?”
Vega shrugged and turned to Dugan.
“What about it, Mr. Dugan?” Vega asked. “You’re the expert.”
Dugan shook his head and looked around. “She’s not quite in the crapper yet, but she’s on the way down. Give Flip-Flop up there a few years and you’ll be wearing snowshoes to keep from crashing through the frigging deck.” He paused. “Tell me again why we’re inspecting this greyhound of the seas.”
Vega grimaced. “Mainly because we got no choice. We got a SEACAT exercise scheduled off Phang-Nga, and our boats and gear got off-loaded here in Singapore by mistake, instead of up in Thailand. If we don’t pre-position the boats so the Royal Thai Navy guys get some hands-on with us prior to the exercise, it’s gonna be a cluster fuck. We can’t run up under our own power, ’cause the Malaysians and Indonesians have a hard-on about unescorted foreign gunboats in territorial waters.” Vega paused. “Alicia here is all that’s available that can meet our time frame.”
Vega looked around the cargo hold again and shook his head. “Thing is,” he continued, “she falls outside our normal chartering criteria. That’s why MSC wanted a third party to give her a clean bill of health before we take her.”
“So basically,” Dugan said, “the MSC chartering pukes want someone to blame if the fucking thing sinks.”
Vega grinned. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Dugan sighed and looked pensive. “OK, look,” he said, “her inspections are current, and the firefighting equipment was serviced last month. We’re talking a two-day run in good weather and sheltered water, never out of sight of land, with a dozen ports of refuge. She’s not the Queen Mary, but I guess she’ll do.”
Dugan finished as Sheibani, the chief mate, approached. “You like ship, yes? You want us fix something? You tell me, no problem.”
“We’ll need some pad eyes welded to the deck for securing gear. You have chalk we could use to mark the locations?” Dugan pantomimed marking.
“You wait,” Sheibani said, palms outward in the universal sign for “wait” as he shouted up to a crewman on main deck who scurried away.
As they waited, Broussard pointed at the booms. “Those look way too small, Chief.”
Vega turned to Sheibani. “Your booms. How many tons?”
“Three tons,” Sheibani said. “Both booms same. Three tons.”
Vega nodded. “The boats with cradles weigh twenty tons. We’ll need shore cranes at both ends.”
“No problem here in Singapore,” Broussard said. “I’ll get on the horn to Phang-Nga.”
Sheibani looked up at a shout and stretched with easy grace to catch a piece of chalk sailing down from main deck. He turned. “You show. I mark.”
Dugan unfolded a sketch, and they started through the hold.
Chief Mate Ali Sheibani, AKA Major Ali Sheibani, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, seconded to Qods Brigade for the work of Allah, praised be His Name, in Southeast Asia, watched the infidels’ launch depart as he attempted to ignore the nervous captain beside him.
“This is too risky, Sheibani,” DeVries repeated.
Sheibani sneered. “A bit late to develop an interest,” he said in perfect English.
DeVries bristled. “I’m the captain and owner. I’ll cancel the charter.”
“Try, DeVries, and both your captaincy and your ownership will come to an unpleasant end.” Sheibani glanced at nearby seamen. “You might, with a little help, fall into the hold. A tragic, but not infrequent, occurrence. Go now. Go play your music and smoke your dope.”
He turned his back, and Captain DeVries, master after God of M/V Alicia, slunk away.
Dugan stood on Alicia’s main deck and glanced at his watch. Balancing two clients simultaneously was always a challenge, but he had a bit of time before Alex’s ship was high and dry and the shipyard was only five minutes away. He looked down into the hold through the open hatch, watching as the second boat landed beside her already-secured twin. Longshoremen swarmed, unshackling the slings and securing the boat. Dugan nodded approval as Broussard supervised the process.
“Sweet boats, Chief,” Dugan said to Chief Petty Officer Vega, who stood beside him. He pointed to a steel container secured aft of the boats. “Firepower in the container?”
“Can’t have a gunboat without guns,” Vega said.
“Isn’t that risky?” Dugan asked. “I mean, with all these people involved.”
Vega shook his head. “We couldn’t keep this quiet, anyway. We figure to let everyone see her leave with our guys riding shotgun. The raggedy-ass pirates in the strait like softer targets. We’ve hidden tracking transponders in each of the boats with a backup on the ship, and Broussard will report in every six hours.”
Dugan nodded and extended his hand. “OK. It looks like everything’s in hand here. I have one of Phoenix Shipping’s tankers going on drydock this morning, and she should be almost dry, so I’ll head back to the yard. When will Alicia sail?”
Vega took Dugan’s hand. “At this rate, they’ll finish by midnight and sail at first light.” He grinned. “Presuming they can drag Captain Flip-Flop out of whatever whorehouse he’s in.”
Dugan laughed. “OK. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning and see she gets off all right. It’s on my way to the yard, anyway.”
“See you then,” Vega said.
Neither noticed a crewman squatting behind a winch, pretending to grease it.
Third Mate Ronald Carlito Medina of the Phoenix Shipping tanker M/T Asian Trader pushed his way down the narrow gangway, ignoring the protests of oncoming workers as he squeezed past. He paused on the wing wall of the drydock, captivated by the controlled chaos unfolding far below. Mist filled the air as workers blasted the hull with high-pressure water, and he watched the American Dugan race into the bottom of the dry dock, the shipyard repair manager in tow. Dugan stopped and pointed up at the hull as his voice cut through the din of machinery, demanding more manpower. The yardman responded with that patient Asian nod indicating not agreement but “Yes, I see your lips moving.” Medina smiled as he turned to move down the stairs to sea level and dry land beyond.
Dodging bicycles, trucks, and forklifts, he made his way to the main gate and a cab for the Sembawang MRT station, and minutes later sat in a train car, backpack between his feet as he leaned back and dozed. He could have been a student or civil servant on his day off — anything but a Jihadist intent on Paradise. But then little was as it seemed.
He was born to a Christian father and Muslim mother, and official records listed him as Roman Catholic but orphaned in his infancy, he was adopted by his Muslim grandparents. A fiercely proud man, his grandfather called him Saful Islam, or Sword of Islam, and set about bringing the boy up properly, intent on erasing the stain on the family name left by his daughter’s marriage to an infidel.