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.
The sky was lightening as Sheibani stood with the crew on the dock. Alicia was below the dock now, and a short, steep gangway led down to main deck. The camouflage netting was gone and the hatch open to the sky as the chief engineer climbed the gangway.
“It is done, Major,” he said. “She’s down past her marks with the bow a bit deeper. I’ve started flooding the cargo hold through the broached ballast tanks. The water will run to the forward end and speed the sinking of the bow. The engine space aft will flood last. By the time the water shorts out the pumps, she will be free-flooding.” He paused. “God willing, she will settle straight down.”
Sheibani nodded and watched. Water rose in the hold, and the boats floated free, rising as the ship sank beneath them. Then Alicia’s deck went under, and water poured over the hatch coaming, cascading down on the boats from all sides like a waterfall. The boats bounced and bobbed under the torrents, and within seconds Alicia fell out from under them with a great bubbling swirl. A relieved grin split the chief engineer’s face as the boats bobbed to the surface unharmed, and a spontaneous shout of “Allahu Akbar” rose from the throats of Alicia’s former crewmen.
The tile was cool on DeVries’s cheek as he lay trussed hand and foot. His head throbbed from the beating, and he felt the deck tilt beneath him as the hull moaned under unfamiliar stresses. The lights winked out and he closed his eyes and wished for an end to the bad dream, opening them as water wet his cheek. He flopped about in the deepening flood, cursing ships and the sea and his stiff-necked family. In the end, his grave was marked by a section of the bridge deck and the tops of the masts and king posts, rusted brown and blending with the surrounding jungle, the only sign that Captain Jan Pieter DeVries, master after God of the good ship Alicia, had gone down with his vessel.
Chapter Five
Dugan sat in the same conference room, waiting. When Ward appeared, Dugan raised his eyebrows. “Where’s the Boy Wonder?”
“Gardner flew back to Langley this morning,” Ward said. “Management conference.”
Dugan snorted, then continued. “Any news on Alicia?”
Ward shook his head. “Negative. The Indonesians are being their usual noncooperative selves, but we have our own assets on the ground tracking down every available crane. And we’ve tasked the satellites to collect imagery of every dock capable of supporting a large crane and every anchorage deep enough to support a floating crane. We still got bubkes.”
“Crap.”
Ward shrugged. “It’s still our best lead. Obviously they’ve found a hiding spot, but, sooner or later, they’ll have to come to a crane or a crane has to come to them. Intelligence is a game of patience, Tom.”
Ward changed the subject. “You call Kairouz yet?”
“Since you’re bugging my calls, you know the answer to that.”
“Make the call.”
“So,” Dugan asked, “what happened to ‘intelligence is a game of patience’?”
Ward scowled.
“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar. My relief arrived last night, and I showed him around Asian Trader and gave him my turnover this morning. Alex will be expecting a call. I was just waiting until it seemed natural.”
“No time like the present,” Ward said.
Dugan sighed and pulled out his cell phone.
Alex’s stomach boiled from too much coffee, even at this early hour, and he was tense and irritable from lack of sleep. Nothing had been the same since Braun’s arrival with his thug Farley. He eyed his overflowing in-box. His productivity had suffered as well, and he’d instructed Mrs. Coutts to hold all calls while he attempted to clear the backlog.
He looked over, annoyed, as the intercom buzzed.
“Yes, Mrs. Coutts?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but Mr. Dugan is on line one.”
He smiled despite the tension. Trust Dugan to charm his way past Mrs. Coutts. He mashed the flashing button.
“Thomas. How are you? Did Guido arrive?”
“I’m fine, Alex,” Dugan said. “I picked him up at Changi airport last night, and we walked the ship together this morning. She’s off the dry dock now and should shift to the ExxonMobil refinery to load sometime next week. Guido’s got it.”
“Excellent, Thomas, and thank you for helping me out in a bind.”
“No problem, Alex, but there’s something else I want to discuss. I think I’m ready to take you up on your offer and come to work for you full-time.”
Alex sat stunned. Thomas couldn’t come. Not now. If he sensed something wrong and went to the authorities —
“Alex, are you there?”
“Yes, yes, Thomas. I’m just … surprised. Why the change of heart after all these years? Are you serious? What about your consulting practice?”
“Serious as a heart attack,” Dugan said. “As to why, I guess you’ve finally convinced me I should spend more time behind a desk. And since you’re seventy percent of my billings anyway, I’m not concerned about the practice. If it doesn’t pan out, we’ll just go back to the way it was. You know money’s not an issue for me anyway, thanks to Katy’s financial wizardry.”
“What about Katy?” Alex asked. “Won’t she be upset if you move to London?”
Dugan laughed. “Let’s face it, Alex, I’m traveling most of the time anyway, and just because my kid sister lets me crash in her pool house between trips, doesn’t mean I’ll be missed that much. I’ll still get back home for holidays, which is about as much as they see me now, anyway.” Dugan paused. “But what’s with all the objections? You trying to talk me out of something you’ve spent ten years talking me into?”
“No, no, not at all. It’s just unexpected, and the timing is a bit … awkward. You see, I just hired a fellow as director of operations,” Alex lied on the fly, “with the understanding that he’ll eventually move into a newly created general-manager slot. I had no idea you’d reconsider, but if I bring you on now as general manager, he’ll take it as bad faith.”
“I see your problem, Alex. How about this? I don’t mind competing for the GM spot, so why don’t you hire me for a trial period as this guy’s equal, say director of engineering. Then after a while, you decide who’s the best fit. If I later decide to leave, you have this new guy in place. If we decide I should continue, you’ll have a choice. It will be no hardship for me to resign later if necessary.”