“Think they’ll listen, sir?” the Bravo team leader asked.
“Nope,” Stone resealed his mask. “Not even if they can understand what I’m saying. We’ll give ’em five minutes anyway.”
The creeping numbers on Stone’s watch proved him right.
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to go hunting,” Quillain said philosophically after the sixth minute had passed.
“Should we call topside for more riot gas, sir?” the Bravo team leader inquired.
Quillain shook his head. “Nope. This tub’s interior and cargo are not to be contaminated with a gas concentration unless absolutely necessary. Direct orders from the Lady.”
“Christ! What’s she got against doing things easy?”
“Generally, that gal has her reasons. Anyway, there’s still some tricks we can pull.” Stone keyed his throat mike. “All Dragon elements, this is Dragon Six. Stand by to go on night vision. Bravo Lead, you there?”
“Bravo Lead here, Cap’n.”
“You got anything that looks like a master power panel in that engine room?”
“There’s what looks like one over in the auxiliary compartment, sir.”
“Good. Then get over there and start pulling the breakers. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“Aye, aye, sir. On my way.”
Stone lowered his nite-brite visor, switching the unit back on. “Get set, boys,” he murmured to the other four members of the fire team. “Vision up and light ’em.”
Reaching up, he pinched a small gray plastic tube attached to his MOLLE harness. Even the best photomultiplier in the world required some light to function, and in moments the interior of the Piskov would become as dark as the lower levels of Mammoth Cave. However, the special chemical lumesticks the Marines were activating would provide more than enough brightness to permit the AI2 systems to function.
The luminescence involved was also filtered to a portion of the spectrum not visible to the unaided human eye, but readily usable by the nite brite systems. The lumesticks would provide both vision and an instant IFF (identification friend or foe) reference for the Marines, while giving no aid to their enemies.
The freighter’s interior lighting snapped off. To an observer not equipped with night vision, things went totally black, the darkness so dense that the hand literally couldn’t be seen in front of the face. The Marines, however, merely reverted to the familiar green-lit world of night vision.
“Okay, Bravo Lead, that’s got it. Keep those lights out till we give you the word,” Quillain murmured. “Taylor, Smitty, you take the starboard side. You other two boys come with me. Able Team, you ready to go up there?”
“This is Able,” the reply whispered back from the upper vehicle deck. “We’re set.”
“Okay, everybody. Let’s go. Slow and easy now.”
They moved out.
Each step was a miniature military evolution in itself. Scan the environment for hostile activity. Plot movement. Make sure of your footing and verify there would be no random noise-producing contacts with the bulkhead to one side or the trailers on the other. Lift one boot, then ease it down again. Refresh situational awareness. Repeat.
A random current of air would make a greater disturbance in its passage.
One member of each fire team scanned the roof edge of the trailers and the shadowed gap between the trailer tops and the overhead. The other sank into a crouch, sweeping his gun barrels across the space beneath each trailer and between the axle assemblies. Whispered words over the squad link kept the search teams coordinated.
Complicating each foot of movement was the network of steel cable and nylon strap tie-downs that bound the trailers to the decking, a thousand potential trips and falls for the individual who let his focus wander even for a moment.
Slow, slow work, performed with nerves stretched piano-wire taut.
A short distance on toward the bow, Stone and his party picked up signs of the others’ presence. Locks had been broken. Metal-strip customs seals had been twisted off trailer door latches, and the doors themselves stood open. At one point the looting had already begun. Plastic-wrapped bales had been offloaded from one trailer and stood stacked on the deck, ready to be carried topside. Stone’s probing hand disclosed an almost ethereal softness. Siberian sable furs, a small fortune’s worth.
A battered, paper-stuffed clipboard sat atop the bales. Stone collected it. Squinting through his nite-brite visor, he made out the writing on the top sheet. Numbers. Neat computer-printed listings of trailer identification numbers and bill-of-lading cargo codes.
Score! Stone unzipped his interceptor vest and stuffed the papers, clipboard and all, inside. Resecuring his armor, he gestured on.
At the forward end of the vehicle deck, a half-spiral ramp climbed to the level above. Stone ordered a halt at the last trailer tier and the team went to cover, hunkering down behind the big tire trucks.
“Team Able, report your situation,” Stone breathed into his mike
“We’re at the head of the bay. We have the head of the ramp covered. No sign of hostiles.”
Stone scowled inside his mask. “Same here. We got the bottom end of the ramp under observation. We’ve got no contact, either.”
“You think we missed ’em, Cap’n?”
“Christ, I hope not. Stand by, Able. Lieutenant Donovan, you by?”
“Roger that, sir.”
“You got an English-speaking Russian back there?”
“Acknowledged. I have the chief engineer with me.”
“Ask him if there’s any way into the bow from the vehicle decks.”
Impatiently, Stone crouched in the dark, waiting for the answer.
“Negative, sir. There’s a heavy anticollision bulkhead just for’rard of the vehicle decks, separating them from the bow compartments. No personnel hatches. All access to the bow spaces is downward through the forecastle.
“But,” the static spattered voice continued, “he says there is a small storage compartment underneath the vehicle ramp. It’s used as a cable tier for storing the trailer tie-downs.”
Peering around the tire, Stone noted a single man-size hatchway centered in the curved bulkhead beneath the ramp.
“Got it, Donovan, thanks. Able Team, hold position. Charley Team, let’s check this out. Point men, go to port of that hatch on the forward bulkhead. I’ll go to starboard. Cover men, cover us. Go!”
The three Marines rushed silently across the gap to the forward bulk head, going to ground on either side of the hatchway. Stone had just pressed his back against the rust-gritty steel plating when the hatch gapped open and he found himself eye to eye with an Indonesian pirate at a range of barely three feet.
Instinct screamed to whip the SABR up for a snapshot. Discipline froze every muscle in place and seized up Stone’s breathing.
Quillain realized that he and the Bugis raider were living in two different dimensions. Thanks to his night-vision system, Stone’s world was as brightly lit as a summer twilight. The pirate stared out into a pitch darkness as deep as any night could ever be.
Unmoving, unblinking, Stone stared into the face of the Asian, a gaunt, scarred face with high cheekbones and a cruel twist to the thin mouth. Tracking downward, Stone could also make out the short sleeve of a worn cotton shirt, a thin, wire-muscled arm, and a gnarled fist clinched around the grip of a Beretta automatic. The Bugis’s head was tilted, listening intently, responding to some trace of sound.