Dead or Alive

They picked their way through the rows of containers to the edge of the parking lot. Two hundred feet away were the docks, three of them extending into the harbor, with a ship berthed on each side, for a total of six.

“A lot of open ground between here and there. And a lot of damned lights. Looks like a stadium. Which ship?”

“Just a hunch, but I’d say the one that’s not unloaded yet.” He pointed at a box ship berthed on the far right. Bulktainers crowded the foredeck. “Can you make out the name?”

Jack squinted. “Losan.”

Three hundred yards away, Citra and Purnoma Salim were pulling their boat alongside the pier beneath the stern of the Losan. “You’re sure this is the one?” Citra whispered.

“I’m sure. Here.” She took the backpack and donned it.

Purnoma reached out, grabbed the steel maintenance ladder, and knotted the bow line to upright. He steadied the boat, and his sister started up the ladder. When she reached the top rung, she extended her arms above her head, snagged the bowline, then swung her feet up and hooked her ankles in place. Once she was halfway across, Purnoma followed. They were on deck a minute later.

“There should be no more than two crew members aboard. You take them, and I’ll head for the tanks. When you’re done, let me know and I’ll start.”

Remember, act like you belong and you do,” Clark said, then stood up and walked into the parking lot. Jack followed. A trio of men smoking outside one of the Quonset huts were watching them. Clark raised his arm. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

“Okay. You?”

Clark gave an exaggerated shrug. “Another day, another buck-fifty.”

The men laughed.

Clark and Jack kept walking, leaving the parking lot and walking down an alley of tractor trailers. They emerged on the wharf and turned right, passing the ships. They reached Losan’s pier.

“Can’t be this easy,” Jack muttered.

“Don’t jinx it, boy.”

They turned left down the pier. Fifty yards away, they could see that the Losan’s accommodation ladder was down, the base resting a few feet off the pier.

“They gonna have a guard?” Jack wondered.

“Watch, Jack. In the maritime world, we call them ‘watches.’ We’re about to find out.”

They started upward, their feet softly pinging on the steel treads. At the top, the rail gate was open but blocked by a length of cable. Clark unclipped one end, and they stepped through. To their right, forward, an arch led to the foredeck; to the left, the weather deck stretched to the stern. The bulkhead was broken up by three hatches. Clark drew his gun. Jack did the same. They headed for the first hatch, quietly undogged it, then swung it open. From belowdecks came what sounded like two Ping-Pong paddles being slapped together. Clark mimed a gun with his hand, and Jack nodded.

A second shot.

Then, from the foredeck, the soft beep-squelch of a radio or a push-to-talk cell phone.

Clark pointed at himself, then pointed down the ladder, then pointed at Jack and pointed to the foredeck. Jack nodded, and Clark disappeared inside.

Jack took two steps down the deck, then stopped. His heart was pounding. He took a calming breath. Switched his gun to his left hand and wiped his palm on his pant leg. Easy, Jack. Breathe. Just like Hogan’s Alley. Of course, it wasn’t just like that, and he knew it, but he did his best to push the thought to the back of his mind. John will be fine; don’t worry about John. Focus on what’s in front of you… He kept walking, one careful pace at a time, his gun up in a two-handed grip, leading him down the deck, scanning the superstructure above his head. He reached the foredeck arch. Stopped. Corners were hell, Dominic and Brian had told him. No cop likes corners. Never jump a corner, Jack reminded himself. Take a peek, get a picture, then pull back.

He did that now, peeked and pulled back. To his left was a wall of steel forty or fifty feet tall. These were the bulktainers, Jack realized. Four to a stack and twelve abeam. Their front edges abutted the raised lip of the forward cargo hold. Jack peeked again, this time scanning the deck forward of the hold. He was about to pull back when he saw a figure dash from behind the other side of the bulktainer stack and kneel atop the hold hatch. The figure started undogging hatches. Once done, he cranked the hatch open a foot or two, then sprinted out of sight again.

From the starboard side, there came the squeal of a hatch opening, then closing. Footsteps clicked on the deck. Now murmured voices. Jack stepped out and slid down the bulkhead to the bottom bulktainer. He crept to its front, peeked around the corner. Nothing.

Then a ping, and another, then another. It took Jack a moment to place the sound: feet on steel ladder rungs. Jack looked up. A few feet above his head was a ladder rung. What’re you up to, pal? One way to find out. He reholstered his gun, then grabbed the bottom rung and started climbing. At the top, the next bulktainer’s ladder was offset by a foot and a half, so Jack had to reach sideways, grab the next rung, and let his feet swing free.

He heard something below him and looked down. Though the deck was too dark to see her face, Jack recognized Citra Salim’s long black hair. She raised her gun. Jack let go of the rung with his right hand and went for his gun. Off balance, he swung sideways even more. Citra’s muzzle flashed orange. Jack felt something white-hot rake along his jawline then thunk into the steel beside his head.

From the other side of the bulktainer, a man’s voice: “Citra?”

Jack tried for his gun again, but knew, even as his fingers touched the butt, it was too late.

Dumb to go this way, he thought.

Behind Citra, a figure stepped through the arch. John Clark took one quick stride, raised his gun, and shot Citra in the back of the head. She pitched forward to the deck.

“Citra! Are you there?”

Jack pointed to the port side. Clark nodded and started moving that way. Jack pressed his hand to his cheek; his fingers came away bloody. No gushing, he thought, which was good. He started climbing again, moving from the second level to the third.

Halfway up the side of the uppermost container, he stopped, drew his gun, and kept going. At the top he paused. To his left, the pilothouse windows and eaves overhang were three feet above his head. He peeked over the lip of the container.

Four cylindrical propane tanks, stark white in the darkness, sat side by side, two each fore and aft. Five containers away, Jack saw a dull silver object sail through the air and clatter into his container. Jack craned his neck, trying to locate the object, when he saw a sputtering yellow glow beneath the forward edge of one of the tanks.

“John!”

“Here!”

“He’s got something, a bomb, a grenade… something.”

Another object arced up into the air. This time Jack got a better look at it. Pipe bomb. Jack boosted himself up onto the lip of the container, then sidestepped to the front and began edging across the containers, heel to toe. On the starboard side, he saw Clark’s head appear above the container’s rim.

Balanced on the front rim, Jack peered into each container, gun tracking for movement. Another pipe bomb arced through the air and clattered into a tank. Then another.

He leaped to the next tank, teetered, then regained his balance and leaped again. His foot slipped, and he slammed chest-first into the fourth container’s rim. On the starboard side, Clark was up on the rim and coming to meet him.

“Fuses are going, John,” Jack called.