Tom peered inside the door, but he was too late.
The bomb proof door was already wide open and the contents were entirely missing.
Chapter Six
Sam Reilly had slept for nearly twenty four hours straight since leaving Hobart.
He needed it after what he’d endured. Every muscle in his body still hurt. He was in this deep sleep when the AIS alarm began to sound.
AIS stood for Automated Identification System and was used to monitor the proximity and direction of nearby ships.
Sam slowly rolled out of his bunk.
The GPS system, located at the end of his bunk, indicated that he was now positioned off the coast of Shoal Haven. His eyes tentatively made note of the fact that he was approximately 2 nautical miles offshore. The depth reader next to the GPS indicated that he was sitting in the relatively shallow waters at 110 feet. The electronic compass showed him traveling along a course of zero degrees, due north. The wind speed had died down to a leisurely fifteen knots, due east, and his speed over ground was just eight knots. Technically, he was sailing at nine and a half knots, but an offshore current was drifting at one and a half knots.
In the background, he could still hear the gentle warning of the AIS alarm in the cockpit.
Something had entered into close proximity with Second Chance.
Sam stood up and stretched his back, his movement more feline in appearance, than a fatigued sailor.
There was no rush.
He’d set the alarm to go off at one nautical mile from a possible collision. He continued to stretch his back, and then went to the front of the boat to use the head.
He then strolled on to the deck.
His eyes scanned the horizon for any immediate threats, and then, having reassured himself that none were present, he went to his AIS monitor. There was one vessel ahead of him, and that vessel had intentionally blocked its name, size and destination from AIS. Reilly wasn’t worried. This was a common practice for sailing vessels, whose skippers assumed that by hiding such information, people might give it a wider berth, just in case it was a large container ship. Maritime law and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea require AIS to be fitted aboard international voyaging ships with a gross tonnage (GT) of 300 or more, and all passenger ships regardless of size. There was no requirement for smaller privately owned vessels to provide any information, and he assumed that was what was approaching.
Sam took out his binoculars from a compartment built into the helm.
He scanned the distance where the ship approached.
It looked like an icebreaker that had been modified for experiments or scientific research. It was painted dark blue and had a thirty-plus foot high gunwale, presumably made of steel and designed for breaking through ice as if it weren’t there.
Sam couldn’t see anyone on deck.
It was the kind of menacing-looking ship which was run almost entirely by its advanced technology. In fact, it was highly likely that no one was at or even near the helm at the moment, and it was on a collision course directly towards him most probably by sheer coincidence.
The ship was approximately five hundred feet away. It was far too close for the other ship not to have acknowledged that she had been seen.
Although the rules of the sea state that a vessel under motor must give way to a vessel under sail, the law was irrelevant when you’re on a little sail boat that is about to be sunk by an icebreaker. Sam loosened the main sheet and turned forty five degrees to starboard so that he would pass the approaching vessel port side to port side.
It was both a common courtesy and maritime law that two ships must avoid a collision at all costs, and if in doubt, both should steer starboard.
He made the simple maneuver with a quick and efficient sequence, since it was a maneuver he had performed many times before on Second Chance.
His new course now left plenty of room for the massive motor yacht to pass to his port side without any effort on its skipper’s part.
To his dismay, the other ship immediately altered its course to collide.
He sounded three sudden loud bursts with his fog horn.
It was loud enough to wake the dead, the living, and anything in-between.
And still no response!
Sam turned on his engine and increased speed. There was no time to try to reverse his way out of the imminent collision. His only hope was to somehow pass in front of the other vessel’s bow by making a ninety degree tack to starboard.
He heard the screech of his 150 horse power Yanmar Diesel engine exceed its maximum RPMs. He then gently pushed the throttle past its highest point and held it there with his hand against its will.
He would have liked to get out a Mayday signal before the collision took place, but there was no time to do so.
One hundred feet, turned into fifty.
Still no change.
Then fifty feet became twenty five.
His bow and the center cockpit passed the other vessel’s evil wall of steel.
It was going to be close.
Maybe only a matter of a second, whether or not the other ship would clip his transom, the large butt at the end of Second Chance, which housed much of his equipment.
At that moment, he realized there was nothing more he could do. He was going to collide with the larger vessel.
Sam felt nothing but utter dismay at the fact that he was about to be demolished by a stupid rich guy’s toy off the coast of Australia, of all places.
Surely it must be a mistake.
Who’s ever heard of pirates in Australian waters?
Then it happened.
He knew it would, but the sound of metal and plastic colliding made the most sickening sound he had ever heard.
And then it was over as the larger ship continued on.
Innocently, its enormous propellers kept turning after it passed, without any hint that it had recently been in a collision.
Sam’s thoughts were taken to another world.
Accidents like this one never happened in modern times, certainly not with the modern technologies available and required on such large vessels. He struggled to comprehend what had just happened.
At first, he didn’t even notice the enormous hole in the stern of Second Chance, where seawater was now flooding in. Instead, Sam looked up at the huge transom of the other vessel as it was slowly moving away, like the evil machine it was, totally unaware of the carnage it had just inflicted.
It was painted entirely blue, and it bore no registration number or name on the hull. Located on its aft deck was a small helipad and tied down on it, was what Sam recognized as a black Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopter — the kind most commonly used by the U.S. Navy for anti-submarine warfare.
What’s that doing on a civilian vessel?
On the rear of the helicopter, Sam could make out the words, “Wolfgang Corporation.”
His curiosity abated when he noticed how quickly his beautiful ketch was taking on water. The entire transom was missing. “Taking on water” was an understatement. In truth, the seawater was gushing in. He’d heard about ships hit by containers out at sea sinking so quickly that its occupants never even realized what had happened. He was about to see firsthand just how such a catastrophe actually happened.
Although Second Chance held so much safety equipment on board, Sam had no time to reach any of it. He cursed himself for his distraction. His mind simply couldn’t accept the fact that he’d be in a collision just two miles offshore from a holiday town in Australian waters!