Dugan nodded. “The Alicia, but how’s that relevant?”
“She was hijacked en route to Thailand.”
“Hijacked? No way,” Dugan said. “What about the navy protective detail?”
“Three dead,” Ward said. “The only survivor was the team leader, a young petty officer named Broussard. He managed to get off a warning and was picked up floating in the strait by the Malaysians.”
Dugan grew quiet. “I met him,” he said at last. “Seemed like a nice kid.”
Ward only nodded, and Dugan continued. “But I still don’t see what that has to do with Phoenix … or me.”
“MSC chartered the ship through Willem Van Djik in Rotterdam,” Ward said. “Van Djik was told about the job by a call from someone at Phoenix. He was under surveillance by the Dutch for unrelated smuggling issues. The phone conversation itself was secure, but they heard his side through bugs in his office and traced the source to Phoenix in London. They only put two and two together after the hijacking.
“Thing is,” Ward continued, “MSC chartered Alicia because she was the only available tonnage, and that was no accident. Backtracking it, Van Djik spent a lot of money chartering other suitable tonnage though a variety of fronts just to take the other ships out of play.”
Ward looked Dugan in the eye. “People don’t jack gunboats to water ski, Tom, and you’re tied to this from both ends. There’s your connection to Phoenix and the fact that you inspected the ship before she was hijacked and knew the cargo—”
“Along with about a thousand other people,” Dugan said.
Ward held up his hands. “I’m not saying I think you’re involved, Tom, but it is a coincidence, and folks in my business don’t much like coincidences. I’ve known you a long time, but for someone like Gardner, you look a lot like a suspect. I’m sticking my neck out here bringing you in. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t, except for our long relationship and the fact that, with your relationship with Kairouz, you’re our best shot at getting inside Phoenix quickly.”
“Jesse, I’m not trained for this.”
“Mainly you’ll be helping us place a British agent,” Ward said.
Dugan hesitated, toying with the idea of telling Ward about Alex Kairouz’s recent strange behavior. No, he thought, best leave that for now. “I just don’t feel right spying on Alex,” Dugan said instead.
“What’s better for Kairouz? Having you there or a stranger?”
Dugan grew quiet. “All right, I’ll do it,” he finally said.
“Good. Assuming you accept the possibility Kairouz is guilty.”
“Like you accept the possibility that I’m guilty?” Dugan asked.
Ward changed the subject.
“Tell me what you remember about Alicia.”
Dugan shrugged. “Not much to remember. She’s a little one-hatch coaster owned by her skipper, a Dutch guy who’s running her into the ground. Chief mate’s name is Ali something — Sheboni, I think. He seems to be running the show.”
“Sheibani,” corrected Ward. “According to Broussard, Sheibani orchestrated the hijacking and murdered three of Broussard’s guys in the process. Two at point-blank range in cold blood.”
Dugan’s face hardened. “That little fucking puke. Do you have any leads?”
Ward shook his head.
“We had the strait blanketed by satellite coverage within hours of the news, with no sighting. Alicia couldn’t have cleared the strait by then. We’re assuming she’s on the Indonesian side, and given her last-known position and maximum speed, she could be anywhere along two hundred miles of coastline — a thousand miles, counting islands and inlets. Hundreds of good hiding places.”
Dugan nodded. “I see the problem. You can’t really even rule out too many places due to water depth. As I recall, Alicia draws fourteen feet fully loaded. That’s fifteen hundred tons. Those boats and associated gear totaled less than fifty. She can get pretty light.”
“That’s right,” Ward said. “But the real priority is recovering the boats, and we don’t figure the hijackers will waste any time getting them off Alicia. The boats alone will be much easier to hide and move through the mangrove swamps.”
“There’s your answer,” Dugan said.
Ward looked confused, and Dugan continued. “Alicia’s gear can’t handle the boats. They need a crane. And shore cranes need strong docks, and big floating cranes are few and far between.”
Sheibani moved from bridge wing to bridge wing as he calmly issued helm orders, conning Alicia up the shallow, twisting passage through the mangrove swamp in the moonlight and on a rising tide. He had his best man on the helm, and he’d lightened Alicia to seven feet. The rest of the crew manned the rails with powerful handheld lights and called warnings of obstacles.
With the propeller and rudder only partially submerged, the ship handled poorly, but each time he grounded in the soft mud, he waited for the tide to lift her, then backed off to continue his cautious transit. He regretted no one would know of Alicia’s final resting place and appreciate his skill, but duping the infidels was satisfaction enough.
As the sky lightened in the east, he spotted his objective ahead in the predawn: a crumbling concrete dock by a pool of still water. Trees rose from gaping cracks in the dock, some a foot in diameter with tops higher than Alicia’s deckhouse, and thick limbs spread over the water. Sheibani shouted a warning, and the crew scurried into the deckhouse as he retreated to the wheelhouse and increased speed. He pushed the helmsman aside and took the wheel himself to slam Alicia’s port side toward the dock, her momentum forcing her superstructure, booms, and masts through the foliage. Stout limbs snapped like cannon shots and fell across the deck as the little ship slowed abruptly. Alicia listed slightly to starboard as she fought her way through the obstacle, then Sheibani heard the screech of steel on concrete. He killed the engine and Alicia shuddered to a stop.
Seconds later, Sheibani stood on the starboard bridge wing, watching as his crew boiled from the deckhouse and went about their prearranged tasks. Some climbed to the dock and began passing mooring lines, while others fired up chain saws and began clearing the deck of broken limbs, tossing the debris over the offshore side of the ship. In minutes, the ship was secured, overhanging limbs shielding most of the vessel. The camouflage netting would do the rest.
He’d first come to this place on a dirt bike, guided by an old man who’d worked here long ago. All that remained was a crumbling dock and dilapidated Quonset hut, its rusted sides covered in vines, the open end a black cave in the greenery. Convincing the International Development Fund to finance a port miles from deep water must have been difficult, even years ago, but the developers had been well connected. They slapped down a dock and dredged a thirty-five-foot-deep hole along it to collect a hefty progress payment. Months later, when a survey party found the site abandoned and overgrown and the deepwater channel into the dock to exist only on paper, the government feigned outrage, the IDF shrugged, and everyone forgot the site until Allah guided Sheibani to it thirty years later. He’d used the site as a smuggling depot for three years, anchoring Alicia in deep water miles away and approaching by Zodiac. Both the ship and this place had served his needs well, but it was time to move on.
Sheibani nodded to himself as he moved through the hold, pleased at the progress. He watched as men swarmed the boats, removing the securing straps and lashing heavy vinyl tarps over the cockpit openings before sealing the boats completely with industrial stretch wrap. Soon they would be as buoyant and unsinkable as corks.
In the aft end of the hold, men emptied the weapons container, hoisting its contents over the main deck to the crumbling concrete dock, while forward, the chief engineer squatted on the deck, cutting through plating. The hissing torch changed pitch, and a neat circle of steel tumbled into the water of the ballast tank below, hot edges belching steam. Sheibani glanced up through the hatch at patches of blue sky through overhanging tree limbs and camouflage netting, then moved to the ladder, reviewing preparations as he climbed to the main deck. All that remained was rigging a web of wires around the hold, tight between the pad eyes at the bottom of the hold and the top of the hatch, to corral the boats directly under the open hatch. God willing, he could sink his prison at dawn. He would not miss Alicia or the heat or the Indonesian monkeys.