Throughout the many decades that the two had known each other, there was one certainty: while Richard, sober and straight, had amazing analytical and physical skills, he had never beaten Zak at anything. Thus it was that Richard was losing Call of Duty.
“What’s going on?” asked Zak, overhearing the conversation.
“We’re going into submarine mode here in a couple of hours,” said Kumar. “We will be in that mode for about two days. You will be living in canned air during that time frame. Go upstairs for a bit, to the forward deck. Enjoy some fresh air. Stay low. We’re at fifty-five knots. Don’t get blown off the upper deck.”
Richard and Zak didn’t even get to the upper deck. At fifty-five knots, the Allegro Star was doing sixty-four miles per hour. Even with the semienclosed upper deck and the pod portion of the trimaran completely out of the water, the wind made conversation difficult. What was surprising, though, was the lack of spray and a wake that was almost nonexistent.
“I’m not sure what precisely Kumar and Jimmy have in mind here, but as we get closer to the American coastline, we are going to be visible,” said Zak.
“Not all that visible,” Richard replied, almost yelling to make his voice heard above the near-hurricane wind. “He’s got stealth technology.”
“Maybe not visible on radar, or sonar, but very visible to the naked eye. Anything that’s going at this speed stands out. The contours of this ship will be in the Navy database and they’re looking for us. The closer we get to the mainland, the greater the density of eyes in the sky. We’re definitely visible. There will be some kind of computer-driven search grid. It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”
“My guess is that there are a lot of naked eyes hunting for us out there. But they must have something in mind. They seem confident.”
“It’s Yousseff’s operation,” Zak replied. “The guy is probably the most successful drug dealer in the world. And one smart son of a bitch. And Kumar here supervised the construction of this high-tech marvel that we’re on. He’s an engineering genius.”
“You know, with the smarts that these guys have, they would have made a fortune even if they were completely legit. Why do they need to be into drugs and terrorism anyway? They’re all completely godless, as un-Islamic as you can get. They have nothing in common with Hamas or Hezbollah or the rest of those creeps.”
“Easy, Richard,” Zak replied. “I rode with these guys for almost three years. This is all they know. Yousseff grew up in the middle of an opium farming operation in the foothills of the mountains separating Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rumor has it he was smuggling opium on horseback through mountain trails to Peshawar before he was twelve. He was worth millions before he was nineteen.”
“But what about the terrorism?” Richard asked.
“Yousseff wouldn’t view it that way,” Zak replied. “For him, the whole thing was about money. A stock market play. Yes, what they did was terrorism, but not the ‘Allah is great’ kind.”
They talked for more than an hour. Zak with his pilot’s eyes pointed to a barely visible dot on the southeastern horizon. “That’s got to be it. That’s what Jimmy is heading toward.” At almost the same time, Kumar, speaking over a small PA system, asked them to get back into the pod.
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” he said. “Buckle in. Watch the video.” He pointed to the video screen attached to the wall behind the cockpit.
Slowly the Allegro Star began to dive. She descended about 100 feet and her speed slowed to forty knots with the increased resistance from a fully submerged pod. The huge bulk of the keel of the container ship appeared above and in front of them. Four massive propellers protruded from a region near the stern of the vessel, and an enormous rudder was located at the hull midline.
The Allegro Star began to shudder as it approached the ship. “Wake from the ship,” explained Kumar. “It will get a bit rough.”
Slowly Jimmy began to decrease the depth of his craft until the distance separating the roof of his ship and the underside of the hull of the container ship was less than ten feet. The rocking and trembling of the smaller vessel increased. A coffee cup crashed onto the floor and there was the sound of dishes clattering in the small galley. Jimmy flipped a series of toggle switches and set to work with two joysticks, one on each side of the captain’s chair. Two cameras were turned on and were toggled so that they pointed upward. Slowly, four circular posts with disc-shaped metallic protrusions at their distal ends emerged from the outriggers—one from the bow and one from the stern of each outrigger. The outriggers were wobbling from side to side in the wake produced by the keel of the container ship. The task was not an easy one, and there were several hard smacks when one of the outriggers hit the keel. Beads of sweat appeared on Jimmy’s brow.
“Damn it, Jimmy,” cursed Kumar. “You’re better than that. They can hear that inside the ship if they’re listening. And you can snap those outriggers right off the Allegro Star.” A good five minutes passed before Jimmy flipped four more switches and the four telescoping legs connected with the underside of the ship and, with a slight bump, attached to it. Like a tick on the underbelly of a Saint Bernard, the Allegro Star was firmly connected to the container ship.
“The beauty of magnetism,” said Kumar, his face forming a rare smile. “Holy cow, Kumar,” said Zak. “That solves a lot of problems, doesn’t it?”
“Three problems, actually. Fuel load. Engine wear. Visibility issues.”
Richard was looking at the two video screens in amazement. “I can see now how these guys were smart enough to blow the Glen Canyon Dam. This is damned clever.”
With the mention of the dam, the smile
