could not see the chopper because it was coming up from the southeast and was soon hovering over the stern. He motioned to Winters that he wanted to see from the bridge wing. The old gunny nodded.
Cabrillo stepped out into an artificial gale kicked up by a Sikorsky S-70, the civilian version of the Black Hawk helicopter. The chopper’s side door was already open, and as soon as the craft was stabilized over the fantail, a pair of thick ropes tumbled down to the deck. Two men followed them even before they had been fully deployed, dropping like stones until braking just before they smashed into the steel. Another pair followed a second behind them.
And then the chopper veered off and began thundering back south. The men were dressed in black combat fatigues and were loaded with gear and weapons. They had fast-roped with the precision of Special Forces, which was precisely what they had been.
“Your crew will remain inside the ship at all times,” Winters said from where he crouched. “I don’t care where just so long as they remain out of sight. If they venture too close to a doorway or window, they will be shot.”
“Hali,” Juan called.
“I am here, Captain. What was that noise?”
“Four more soldiers have boarded the ship. Pass the word that I want all crew members to go to the mess and wait there. No one is to go near the deck at any time. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Captain. We will wait in the mess hall until you come for us.”
Juan wondered whether he and his crew were meant to survive this ordeal or if Winters and his masters would eliminate them as potential witnesses. He suspected the latter. Not only was the crew witness to this hijacking, scuttling the ship would actually cover the theft from the crime bosses. A judicious SOS call, and a search and rescue that discovers the ship already well down at the head and beyond salvage, and, voila, a billion dollars, free and clear, from your partners.
The empty container hit the water with a tremendous splash and bobbed like a red cube of ice in a drink. Eddie clutched the wire sling after detaching it from the container and was swung back on board.
Winters cursed when he shot a glance out the wing window. He no longer feared a sniper since his men controlled the deck. “I forgot to tell you to open the door so the containers sink.”
“I will pass that along.” There was an old bullhorn in a cabinet under the chart table.
“Go outside, Captain, and my men will kill you before you take two steps. Do either of your guys out there speak English?”
“Yes.”
The former Marine took the bullhorn and strode out onto the bridge wing. “Hold fast. It’s Winters.” His amplified voice boomed and echoed while down below two of his guards swung their guns up and took aim before relaxing once again. “You two, working on the crane. From now on, open the container’s doors so they sink. Raise your arm if you understand.” The Asian crewman who’d met with them on the dock back in Umm Qasr raised a hand in a nervous wave. Winters returned to the bridge. Though he’d spoken to the men outside, he’d never once taken his eyes, or the aim of his pistol, off the Chairman.
It took three hours to unload all the empty containers. By the time Eddie and Linc had finished, a boat had approached. It looked like a typical oil field tender with a boxy superstructure hunched over the bows and a long open rear deck. On the deck sat the Sikorsky helicopter that had dropped off Winters’s men, as well as an enormous crane on crawler tracks. Between the two was ample room for The Container.
Cabrillo understood at once why they had brought their own crane. When the mission to steal The Container was laid out, Winters and his American partners didn’t know if the ship chosen to smuggle the money out of Iraq had its own derricks to transfer cargo. Prudently, they had assumed it did not and brought their own crane with them on this high seas rendezvous.
“In case you are wondering, we are not going to kill you,” Winters said conversationally as he watched his partners steaming closer.
“I am not reassured,” Juan said.
“No. It’s true. The way we figure it, there’s no way you can show up in Jakarta with tales of us betraying the others. They might believe you, they might not, but they surely will make you pay for losing their money. Your only chance of staying alive is to sell this ship in some backwater port and vanish.”
Cabrillo said nothing.
“I’ve had a bellyful of killing,” Winters went on. “Those three down below—” His voice suddenly cut off as a new sound enveloped the ship, the banshee scream of one of her 20mm Gatling guns opening up on the approaching tender. The rounds tore into her stern like a predatory cat rakes the haunches of its prey. Steel was shredded as easily as paper. The tender’s rudder was shot completely off, and rounds destroyed the stuffing box where the single driveshaft passed out of the hull and into the sea. The shaft itself snapped under the onslaught, and her bronze propeller popped free like a rotten tooth.
Water began flooding her engine room in such volumes that the crew down below never stood a chance. The fusillade lasted just seconds, but it was enough to doom the ship to a fast-approaching death.
Juan had been expecting the blast from the Gatling. It had all been preplanned days ago as they gamed various boarding scenarios. Had a helicopter approached the
If it was all in hundred-dollar bills, it would still weigh eleven tons. Twenty-two thousand pounds of money. It would be more if smaller denominations were thrown into the mix.
The distraction of the tender’s destruction gave Juan no advantage. Gunny Winters nearly shot him in the face when Cabrillo charged. The old Marine had the reflexes of an Olympic fencer and the concentration of a Zen master. Even as the Gatling continued its dreadful wail, Winters was ready for a fight. Juan had barely pushed Winters’s arm aside when the gunny cycled through four snap shots, the noise exploding in Cabrillo’s ear. They crashed, chest to chest, and Juan felt like he’d run into a cement-block wall. Winters was about Juan’s height, but under his loose shirt his body was thick with muscle. Winters smashed forward with his head like a striking cobra and would have crushed Cabrillo’s nose had the Chairman not whirled back, maintaining his grip on Winters’s gun hand. A lightning kick aimed for his groin came next, and Juan twisted his leg to take the massive blow on his thigh. His leg felt weak down to his toe.
Most fighters armed with a pistol would concentrate on using the weapon and ignoring everything else. Not this man. He came after Juan with everything he had. It was as if the pistol clutched in his right hand was meaningless. Meanwhile, Cabrillo opened himself up to punches and kicks as he was forced to maintain his grip on the gun hand.
The Gatling finally went silent, and smoke poured from the hundreds of holes shot into the tender’s hull. The fight in the wheelhouse was in its seventh second when Cabrillo realized he was more than likely going to lose. And that set him off — the idea of defeat. He slammed Winters’s hand into a window frame again and again until the pistol fell to the deck.
He released the hand, knowing it would be useless to Winters, and threw a combination of punches that the gunny expertly parried. Juan just had to buy a few more seconds. The plan called for his people to overwhelm the guards on deck and retake the bridge. Max would be storming through the door any second with Linc and MacD on his heels.
Winters’s right hand should be worthless and yet he managed to unsheathe a fighting knife he carried strapped inside his shirt. Cabrillo fought the natural urge to get away from the blade. Instead, he stepped closer, limiting Winters’s ability to swing the knife. Winters flipped the blade and started to plunge it into Juan’s shoulder. Juan grabbed at his wrist, but the former Marine had the better position and superior leverage, and the knife sliced into the meat of Cabrillo’s trapezius muscle. Winters was angling the blade so it would eventually find the major arteries feeding the brain.
Hot blood poured from the wound and down his chest. Cabrillo roared as he tried to keep the knife from digging deeper while Winters tried just as hard to ram the blade all the way home.
It went in an inch. The deeper it was driven, the less Juan could check its remorseless plunge. He could sense his opponent gathering himself for one last effort, one last thrust, that would kill him.
He felt the spray of blood on his face before he heard the shot. Winters collapsed, lifeless, the knife ripping
