The water here was cold and necessarily dark. The sounds of the harbor were many and varied. Engines chugged, propellers whirred, somewhere in the harbor a man was hammering on a steel plate; the resulting blows turned the hull into a huge bell, making the whole harbor ring. Slade got a new appreciation for just how difficult submariners had it when forced to run silent. At one point they passed beneath an anchored ship and Slade swore he could hear singing, very bad singing.
The water changed as they approached the inner harbor. Slicks and globules of oil choked the water. The bottom rose up, strewn with garbage and debris: chains, boots, rags, barrels, anything and everything you might find in a harbor and all slick with sludge and oil. Motoring just over the bottom Slade stuck out a hand. He dragged it across the surface, curious, and came up with a sticky black goo. The harbor waters of Bandar Abbas were disgusting.
“There it is,” Killer said through his helmet. The keel of a freighter appeared on the screen behind Killer’s sled. The Delta Force steered toward the rear of the ship. Their first goal was the rudder.
Reaching it, Killer searched the large piece of steel for the registration number. It was the quickest way to confirm the identity of the ship. Checking the number against his database confirmed that they’d found the Champion Galaxus.
Moving along the hull to a point amidships, the Deltas ditched the sleds on the bottom, mooring them with a simple cable and stake shoved into the goo of the seabed.
Swimming up to just under the surface, Slade and four of the Deltas hung there in the darkness while Killer found the ladder. When he did, he came back and led them to it.
“Secure fins!”
Slade took his fins off and secured them to his vest. Then he swung he KRISS around front and unplugging the barrel. He checked that the silencer was secure and then prepared to follow Killer up the ladder. Killer went first while Slade covered him from below, turning on the reticulated sight, a dim red circle with a glowing dot in the center.
As Killer climbed the welded rebar rungs, Slade scanned the ship’s rail, looking for anyone to pop their head over the side.
Pausing at the top, Killer waited before slipping over the side. “All clear, come on up!”
Slade slung the KRISS on his back again, swiftly climbing the ladder. The ladder was not meant for ease of climbing. The rungs were rather too close to the hull, making it easy to rap your knuckles on the steel side. It was sixty feet up the side for Slade, a much longer climb than it would have been ten years ago. He got to the top. The climb warmed him up. Now, peering over the side, he saw Killer crouched in the shadows of a hatch.
The top deck was well illuminated. The dockyard lights shone with a harsh white light. However, this also created sharp shadows of stygian night. Slade rolled over the steel bulwark and into the shadow of the massive hatch next to Killer.
The deck was a busy place. There were four big hatches on the freighter. Only one was open. It was between Slade and the bridge. A crane lowered a railroad car sized container into the hold. Several men were on the deck watching, and beyond them on the elevated bridge Slade saw the captain overseeing the operation. He was a large man, probably six-five or so. It could only be Eva’s husband Christian Fletcher.
Jake was about to call up the next Delta Force when there was a commotion on deck. The crane operator was either inexperienced or lazy. He started the container down before having it over the hatch and as a result the container started to swing.
The captain was furious, yelling orders in English. The Iranians on deck yelled back in Farsi and the crane operator stopped the descent of the container suddenly. It jerked around, spinning now, threatening to foul the chain. The captain yelled to the man closest to them, who turned out to be the first mate, directing him to go relieve the crane operator.
The mate ran toward Slade and Killer. They ducked into the shadow around the corner, out of sight. Whether by sight, sound or feel the mate sensed something wrong. They could hear him stop and walk back toward them.
“Johnny!” yelled the captain. “What the Hell are you waiting for?”
The mate stopped and looked quickly around the corner. There was nothing to see except black wetsuits and black equipment enveloped by black night. Slade saw the man’s expression, he wasn’t ten feet away, but they were invisible.
“Nothing,” he yelled back. “I’ll be there in a minute!”
Both Slade and Killer breathed a sigh of relief. When the first mate was gone all attention on deck shifted to the hung up container. In less than a minute the other four Deltas were topside.
Leaving the two teams below to secure the deck if need be, Killer and Slade made their way aft to the bridge. With all the attention paid to the wayward container and the sensitive swap of crane operators — the Iranians weren’t happy and they voiced it — it was another fifteen minutes before loading could resume. By then Slade and Killer were secreted in the darkness on the roof of the bridge.
Slade leaned over the edge of the steel roof and put a small microphone in the corner of the bridge’s port window. Dialing in the frequency of the bug gave them a hollow sounding but clear transmission. The captain was on the phone with someone and he wasn’t happy.
“The Iranians are the ones who fouled things up. I’m fixing what they’ve screwed up; I told them I wanted to use my man but now they’ve got their panties in a wad!”
He waited, while the person on the other end of the line commented. Whatever was said, it didn’t placate him.
“Well I don’t like that one bit,” he said hotly. “These military guys are all fanatics and they’re incompetent to boot. Don’t worry. I’ll get things back on schedule, just tell them to let me do my job! The sooner we’re out of here the better I’ll like it.”
There was another pause while he listened impatiently.
“I won’t breathe easy until we are,” he admitted. “Really, all this for a shitload of sand, are you kidding? I think Soekarno’s cracked — no offense intended. I mean, I like the wages I make under him, but what I don’t like is putting my ship and crew in danger — I don’t care how important this is to him — screw his legacy!”
There was a longer than usual pause. When he spoke again, the captain’s voice while still incredulous was more controlled.
“Don’t listen to me. I’m just torqued because I have to deal with these Iranians — they’re like the Nazis for crying out loud — just as arrogant but nowhere half as competent! That and I was just sitting down to watch the replay of the Vikes-Titans game. Now dear, I know it’s preseason!”
That reminded Slade of his evening plans. “Damn it, I was looking forward to watching that on the Enterprise as well; it’ll be over by the time we get back!”
“You two would get along just fine!” Killer whispered incredulously.
The captain continued more gently than he would in any conversation with another man. “Hey honey, don’t worry about it; I may not understand it, but if it’s important to you it’s important to me. I’ll make sure the old man gets his special Iranian sand.” The captain laughed. “I’m just wondering, why Iranian sand? He wasn’t born in Iran; he’s Indonesian. What is it about sand from Iran? Well, Okay, I suppose he’s rich enough to be eccentric. Hey honey, I got to go. We’ve got to get these containers loaded.”
He said good bye to the woman they guessed to be his wife, and he immediately returned to his walkie talkie, coordinating with his first mate, who had commandeered the crane much to the displeasure of the Iranian dockworkers.