An Incident At Bloodtide

might be on the stern section of the ship, but that meant negotiating a very narrow section of deck on either the port or starboard side of the tanker, where I would be completely exposed and vulnerable if anybody should happen to be glancing in that direction. I crouched down next to the pallet loaded with barrels of diesel fuel and looked around, watching and listening. Men shouted to each other in the darkness, and once I heard the captain's voice rise in a bellow of rage, but as far as I could tell all of the voices were coming from the foredeck. The barrels of diesel fuel were fitted with petcocks, and I opened every one I could reach. Oil began to lap out on the deck. Diesel fuel might not burn if you dropped a match in it, but it will certainly explode if the right combination of heat and pressure is applied. At the moment I didn't even know how I was going to start a fire, much less cause an explosion, but I wanted to create as many options for myself as possible.

A crewman appeared at the opposite end of the narrow section of deck to starboard. I lay down flat on the wet, oily, ice-cold deck as he came toward me, then walked past. It was time to make my move. When I could no longer hear the man's footsteps, I got to my feet and sprinted to the stern area, holding the crowbar at the ready in a position to whack anybody who might suddenly appear in front of me. But when I reached the stern section, there was nobody there. And there in front of me, vaguely illuminated by the stern running lights, I saw what I wanted.

The tanker carried two large wooden lifeboats on mechanical hoists. Next to the lifeboat on the starboard side was an inflatable Zodiac dinghy with a wooden rib designed to hold an outboard motor. The motor was secured to the deck beneath the dinghy, and next to the motor, nestled in protective netting to keep them from sliding overboard, were two red plastic five-gallon containers of what had to be gasoline.

Pressing close to the railing so as to avoid the lighted area as much as possible, I inched along the deck. The tanker was designed as an oceangoing vessel, so the relatively puny six-to-seven-foot waves now roiling the Hudson didn't even cause the great ship to roll. However, the noise and spray generated by the waves crashing against the hull were considerable, and the wet deck was treacherously slippery. I reached the containers, stripped off the safety netting. One container was full, too heavy to throw any distance, but the gasoline in the second container sloshed around; I estimated it was about half full, which I thought should be just about right for my purposes. I picked up the container, scampered back along the railing, and ducked into the partial shelter provided by one of the lifeboats on its hoist. I was so cold that for a moment I was tempted to climb up into the boat and cover myself with canvas, but I knew that was too passive; sooner or later somebody was going to look there, and I would be trapped.

Shouts and the sound of running footsteps rose over the furious noise of the storm, and the footsteps were coming right at me. I moved back as far as I could, pressed hard against the railing, and tensed, ready to lash out with the crowbar at the first unlucky soul who stooped down to peer into the shadow under the lifeboat. But the sailor ran past me. I looked out, watched as the man made a quick survey of the stern area, then ran back along the narrow deck on the port side of the superstructure.

My hands had nearly lost all feeling. I set down the crowbar, wrung my hands and slapped them against my thighs until some sensation came back. Then I picked up the bar again and used the sharp, notched end to tear at my right pants leg until it was shredded. I tore off a length of fabric, wrung as much water out of it as I could, then twirled it around to form a kind of wick. Then I unscrewed the top of the container, soaked both ends of the makeshift wick in the gasoline inside. Next, I wadded one end into the top of the container, leaving a two-foot strip hanging out.

I was trucking right along, so far, and now all I needed was to get lucky. There was, to say the least, lots of room for error in what I was about to try; it was possible I was going to succeed only in making a lot of noise, alerting the murderous captain and his crew to my position; or I could be too successful, getting myself real warm in a hurry, only to cool off permanently. However, short of stopping some crew member and asking him for a light, I had no other options.

I set down the container at the very edge of the deck, draped the end of my gasoline-soaked wick over the bottom rung of the railing, then hauled back with the crowbar and struck a glancing blow at the steel, just in front of the fabric. What I managed to produce in the partially enclosed space was a loud, melodious bong worthy of the percussion section of the New York Philharmonic, and a shower of sparks, but nothing else. I glanced out from beneath the lifeboat when I heard shouts, but nobody appeared on the narrow section of deck. I swung again, with the same result-or lack of it; sparks shot out over the end of the wick, but it didn't catch fire.

Shaking violently, I snatched the twisted rag from the container, used my forearms to raise the container and splash gasoline over the railing. I replaced the wick, once again draped the end over the rail, willed my fingers to close around the crowbar, and once again banged steel against steel. And again.

That did it. There was a different percussive sound, a loud poof as the rag lit, and suddenly I was crouched next to a live bomb, the mother of all Molotov cocktails, and reflecting, quite insanely, on how very good the flame's warmth felt on my gelid flesh.

Now I had to deliver my bomb to the diesel fuel dump, and be damn quick about it. There was no time to waste worrying about who was going to see me doing my Captain Flash number, which would include just about everyone on the foredeck, and I could only hope that the captain with his revolver wasn't too close by. I grabbed the jug of gasoline by its handle, darted out from beneath the lifeboat, and ran as best I could on my cold-numbed legs alongside the superstructure toward the foredeck.

A crewman suddenly appeared out of the darkness, running toward me, but when he saw the flaming package in my hand he promptly skidded to a halt on the slippery deck, his arms windmilling, managed to get himself turned around and running in the opposite direction.

When I came to the end of the superstructure, I slowed, then used what was left of my momentum to spin around twice, holding the handle of the blazing gasoline container with both hands, and then released the container like a hammer thrower, letting it fly up and away into the darkness in the general direction of the pallet of diesel fuel where I had opened the barrels' pet-cocks. The missile created a flaming arc, cutting through the cloak of night, descending.

There was the sharp report of a gun, and a bullet thwacked into the wooden frame of the superstructure, just above my head. The captain's aim was improving. There was a disappointingly small explosion off in the direction of where I had thrown the container. I turned around, began stumbling back toward the stern. I had gone only a few steps when there was a second, thoroughly satisfying, very large and loud explosion that made the deck beneath my feet shudder.

Now that, I thought, should manage to get somebody's attention. My only remaining job was to stay alive and out of sight, virtually the same thing, long enough to be able to enthusiastically greet the first visitors. In the meantime, I assumed the little conflagration I had started would keep the crew, if not the captain, occupied for the time being.

But the fact remained that I was trapped on the open stern deck, and that did not seem a good place to be. There was only one direction left in which to go, and that was up-so up I would go. I ran back to the lifeboat, retrieved the crowbar, then went to the door at the rear of the superstructure that I hoped opened on stairs leading up to the wheelhouse. I opened the door, saw stairs-but they suddenly looked very steep, and they only led to another closed door at the top. If that door was locked, and the captain made an appearance soon, he was going to find killing me as easy as shooting a dwarf in a stairwell.

But there was no place else to go. I stepped inside, closed the door behind me. There was no lock. I stumbled on the first step, pulled myself to my feet, started up. But now my vision was blurring, and I was having a great deal of difficulty making my trembling legs and knocking knees work properly. I'd climbed mountains-but none that seemed so steep and insurmountable as these steps seemed to me at the moment. I could no longer breathe properly, and the constant trembling of my body was starting to cause my muscles to spasm and seize up. I wanted nothing more than to curl up where I was and go to sleep. But I had to get up the stairs.

Using the crowbar as a kind of staff, levering myself up step by step, I struggled toward the top of the stairs. Twice I thought I was going to pass out, and I paused, leaning back against a wall and taking deep, shuddering breaths until my vision cleared.

And then, finally, I was at the top. I turned the knob, pushed the door open. There was a crewman standing at a large control panel, legs spread wide apart, leaning forward as he tried to see out through a wraparound window that was smeared with oil. The noise of the inferno below rose above the insistent tattoo of the driving rain.