“We’ll try to jump it,” the one still on Shah’s boat said, adding, “You should be more prepared before coming out here. You are a fisherman?” He cast his eyes about the deck, examining the piles of netting, buoys and traps.
Shah nodded. “I know it.”
The operator in the Zodiac tossed one end of a pair of jumper cables to his associate in Shah’s boat. He clipped them to the battery.
“Try it now.”
Shah tensed. This was it. He knew the motor wouldn’t start with the missing spark plug in his pocket. When it didn’t, they would double-check the connections, and then once they saw they were good or noticed the missing plug, they would become suspicious.
“Okay, turning the key now.” He looked back at the motor, both of the Hofstad men also staring at it.
Shah turned the key.
“Did you try it?” the one in his boat asked, looking at him.
“Yes. Let me try again.” Shah turned it again, shaking his head when nothing happened as though he couldn’t believe it.
“Check the cables on your end,” the man in Shah’s boat called to his colleague in the Zodiac, who had connected the cable to his outboard motor. That man bent to the task while the one a few feet away from Shah did the same on Shah’s battery.
Shah didn’t hesitate. He snatched his Browning Hi Power 9mm pistol from his waistband and took aim at the man in his boat, who was on his knees, peering into the battery compartment. Shah took aim at the back of his neck.
He pulled the trigger, wishing it was sound suppressed but ready to act out a chain of events he’d already gone over in his mind. His target was lifeless before the sound of the report reached Hofstad’s boat. The terror-fighter on the Zodiac recoiled sharply at the sound of the shot, arm reaching beneath his sweatshirt.
Shah aimed for his chest but a wave caused the boat to move at the instant he fired and the round hit the man in the shoulder. He was pitched backward by the impact of the slug until he tripped over a coil of rope and fell hard onto the deck. Shah saw the man’s firearm fly from his hand and splash into the water. He might have a back-up weapon, though. Shah wasn’t going to give him the chance to get at it if he did have one. He jumped across to the other boat, landing crazily on the man. He slammed his head once into the deck, hard, to stun him into submission, then pulled his arms behind his back.
Picking up the rope the man had tripped over, Shah used it to bound the terrorist’s arms tightly behind his back. He patted him down but found no additional weapons. He did find a wallet, though, with an ID — a Dutch driver license. He took the license without letting the Hofstad man see he that took it and then returned the wallet to his pocket.
He considered whether to take the Zodiac but then looked at the little fuel can and wasn’t sure it would be able to make it all the way back to shore. So he dragged the bound man back into his boat and set him down on the deck next to the steering console where he’d be able to keep an eye on him.
“Just lay there and don’t cause any trouble, and I won’t have to kill you.” Shah pulled the spark plug from his pocket and showed it to his captor, who scowled upon seeing it.
“Maybe mechanic isn’t your calling,” Shah taunted, and then moved back to the motor and popped the plug back in. He didn’t bother putting the motor cover back on, just left it open and jumped back to the console.
He started the motor and picked up the radio.
THIRTY-THREE
Dante Alvarez topped over the metal ladder onto the oil rig’s upper deck. He examined the superstructure before him while he waited for Jasmijn to clamor over. Already two stories above the first level, this edifice rose two more. He moved to a steel door set into the bottom of the structure in front of them. Tried the knob.
Locked.
He felt in his pants pocket and removed a lock pick tool that had not been uncovered in the frisking Hofstad had given him. He applied it to the lock, which was of higher quality than most. Still, he heard it click into place after about a minute. He opened the door.
Inside, it was shadowy, lights off. He felt along the wall for a switch and found it, thinking they had probably left the power off and it wouldn’t work, but a bank of overhead fluorescents flickered on. A battered metal desk occupied one wall, a corkboard above that covered in occupational safety warnings and tattered shift schedules. A computer occupied the desk but its screen was dark, no LEDs on anywhere. Dante tried turning it on but nothing happened. There was no phone that he could see. Jasmijn rifled through drawers and filing cabinets, finding nothing useful.
There was another door at the rear of the office and they took it into a narrow hallway lit by a single caged bulb into a larger work area. This space was enclosed but filled with machinery of some kind — pipework, metal ducts, various gauges and dials. A workbench occupied the left wall of the roughly rectangular room, backed by a pegboard containing a full assortment of tools. Dante grabbed a small hammer off its peg and handed it to Jasmijn along with a screwdriver.
“Here, carry one, put the other in your pocket.”
She cast a doubtful stare at the implements. “I don’t know if I…”
“Just do it. If nothing else I might be able to use them. I’ll be carrying these.” He hefted a pipe wrench from the wall and slapped it into a palm. Then he selected a Phillips head screwdriver as a serviceable shank and put that in his back pocket. He scanned around the rest of the area but saw no communications equipment.
“Let’s keep going. There’s got to be an electronics room somewhere.”
They moved on through the work room until they reached a door on its far end. It opened into a stairwell leading up only. They took it up two flights, traversing back and forth in a tight space to make the short vertical distance. At the top of the stairs they emerged on an open-air metal landing platform.
Dante pointed skyward. “Look at all those antennas. There’s got to be a radio room somewhere.”
Jasmijn walked across the landing and looked down. “Ladder goes down here.”
“Let’s go.” Dante looked out over the water while he waited for Jasmijn to start climbing down. The Hofstad boat was still there, as was the boat Shah was in, although now a Zodiac was pulled up next to it.
When Jasmijn was down a few rungs, Dante followed down the ladder. It ended in a metal enclosure with a five-foot drop to a metal deck. Jasmijn hung from the bottom of the ladder until she could step off. Dante let himself drop from a few feet.
They were situated on a square metal balcony of sorts with no other ladders leading down, and only one door set into the wall. He tried the door handle. To his surprise, it opened into a small, dimly lit room. There was no one inside. Racks of radio equipment lined workbenches on either side of the room. Much of the equipment was unfamiliar to Dante, although some he recognized as HAM radio gear — shortwave radio sets capable of transmitting over long distances. But right now they just needed to talk to the boat. His eyes scanned the shelves with the aid of his dive light until he found what he was looking for: a VHF marine radio.
He walked up to the unit and turned it on, breathing a sigh of relief when its backlit display lit up orange.
“Whatcha got?” Jasmijn watched Dante start to press buttons and turn knobs.
“Should be able to monitor the boat communications with this. See if we can reach Stephen…”
A burst of static emanated from the speaker and he adjusted the squelch. Still nothing intelligible. He wasn’t sure which one was designated as the emergency channel in this part of the world, so he set the radio to auto-scan through the stations until a strong signal came though. After a few seconds, he was rewarded with a clear voice on one of the channels.