Charon's landing

VLCC Southern Cross

According to the tiny constellation of luminous dots on Lyle Hauser’s watch, it was twenty minutes before midnight, twenty minutes until his deadline for Chief Engineer Patroni to shield Hauser’s launching of the lifeboat from the vessel. But that would not happen now. Those twenty minutes would tick by. Midnight would come. Then go.

An hour earlier, he’d heard a rippling stitch of automatic gunfire through the lifeboat’s fiberglass hull. The shots sounded as if they’d come from the bridge, but to Hauser, the sound was as deadly as if he’d been shot himself as he lay cocooned under layers of blankets, the crumbs of iron ration crackers sprinkled around him. The gunfire could only mean that Patroni had been prevented from deactivating the bridge indicators for the three lifeboats. JoAnn Riggs and her terrorist comrades must have discovered Patroni’s actions and killed him, sawing his body in half with lead slugs from their Uzi machine pistols. Hauser couldn’t get the gruesome image out of his mind.

All was lost. Riggs would surely investigate why Patroni wanted to disable the indicator panel, and trapped as he was, there was nothing Hauser could do. There were no weapons in the craft, only an orange flare pistol, its great muzzle over twice the size of a ten-gauge shotgun. But to fire it within the life raft was tantamount to suicide. The phosphorus flare would ignite the boat, its toxic fumes overcoming anyone trapped within, leaving them incapacitated as liquefied plastic and fiberglass poured onto their inert bodies as the craft melted around them.

Ten minutes till midnight.

Patroni was dead, but maybe Riggs didn’t know what he had been attempting, Hauser hoped. Maybe he could hide in the hyperbaric lifeboat for a few more hours and then decide what was best, not only for himself but for the rest of the crew. If he launched now, the panel on the bridge would light up, sounding a number of alarms. Riggs would have plenty of time to send a soldier to investigate long before Hauser could motor away from the tanker. A machine gun from the stern rail would make his the shortest escape in history.

He began working on a new plan. It was obvious that he couldn’t get off the Southern Cross undetected. Riggs and her followers had the ship locked up too tight. His only hope lay in sabotaging the vessel again and making sure that she didn’t reach a continental port. Hauser remembered hearing how important it was to Riggs that the tanker reach Seattle. According to his dead reckoning, they were still a day away from Washington’s port city.

Suddenly a nearby voice called into the night, “Checking aft lifeboat now.”

Hauser reacted instantly, thrusting aside the blankets, bringing the flare gun to bear on the boat’s hatch. Outside, hands fumbled with the double closure of the craft.

This was it. Of all the fear Hauser had faced, nothing could compare to this. His throat was dry, his hands trembling as they gripped the flare pistol. Sweat slicked his face, burning his eyes as he watched the inner door of the life raft rotate to the unlocked position. A few more ounces of pressure and the terrorist would swing the hatch inward and discover Hauser’s secret hiding place.

No matter what, he would fire. Riggs knew about him through Patroni’s actions, and it had been only a matter of time before he was ferreted out and summarily shot. It was better that he discharge the flare at the terrorist as he peered into the life raft. Hauser would die, but he would take one of the bastards with him.

The inner hatch finally released, a slight hiss escaping as the circular door was pushed against its internal stops. Lyle Hauser had tucked himself back under the blankets so only the open mouth of the flare gun gave away his presence. It wasn’t until the outer door was opened that he became aware of how stale the air in the lifeboat had become. The cold, tangy breeze that enveloped the terrorist as he leaned into the lifeboat was like a moist caress, intimate and loving and just as fleeting.

The guard was dressed in black, an Uzi draped around his broad shoulders and a Colt.45 automatic pistol gripped in one fist. He pushed himself halfway through the boat’s tight entrance. His flashlight, a mini Maglite, was clamped between his teeth like a cigar. In its erratic glow, Hauser was nothing more than a dark lump. The terrorist held a walkie-talkie in his left hand, his thumb resting lightly on the transmit button. Hauser didn’t know that the guard hadn’t recognized him as a person until he unintentionally shifted on the tough rubber floor mats, the blankets on his body moving like a wave.

“I think I’ve found somebody,” the guard shouted into his radio.

In that instant, Hauser was more alive, more perceptive than he’d ever been. The guard’s eyes went wide and white at the sight of the flare pistol, and he barely managed to open his mouth to scream before Hauser pulled the trigger.

The ignition of the flare gun was a concussive thump that sucked all the oxygen from the lifeboat. The molten ball of red phosphorous shot from the gun and hit the guard square in the chest. His heavy parka burst instantly into flames. Hauser saw that the burning body blocked his only escape from the lifeboat and knew his death was not far away.

Joann Riggs was feeling the strain of her new command; it etched her face and darkened the circles under her eyes. She was exhausted, her mind dulled. The brief respite she’d had an hour ago, when Wolf had shown her how to fire one of the Uzis, was all but forgotten. Firing rounds off the flying bridge had delighted her; holding the weapon as it spat fire and shook in her arms was intoxicating. But now she was back on the bridge, ever vigilant, watching her captive crew.

Wolf, the commando leader hired by Ivan Kerikov, whose real name was Wolfgang Schmidt, stood behind her as she sat in the Master’s chair. The flap of his holster was undone and tucked back so that he could reach his automatic in just a fraction of a second. A helmsman held onto the dual controls of the ship’s wheel while a navigation officer stooped over the plotting table, trying hard to ignore the terrorists. George Patroni knelt into an open access panel under the bridge’s main console, his buttocks half exposed like a suburban plumber as he traced a wiring fault. The ship’s electrician was bent down next to him. Another of Wolf’s men watched them closely, his eyes squinting in the vermilion gloom of the vessel’s night lights. His Uzi dangled at his hip.

The Southern Cross’ throttle controls were still out. However, Patroni and his men had been able to jury-rig a tank monitoring system, scavenging components from equipment that Riggs had deemed unimportant. Their work had been nothing short of miraculous considering the time constraints put upon them and the constant threat of death if they failed. Getting the throttles back in order was their last task, and it was one that Patroni was going to take his time completing. With the help of the electrician, he’d already delayed the system’s restoration by several hours, intentionally shorting it out so that a wave of white smoke billowed from under the console. He’d warned a wary Riggs that it might not be repairable, so she was not too concerned by the delays.

Patroni was on the bridge for another, more important reason; to launch Captain Hauser’s lifeboat. But the indicator lights and alarms for the boats were on the other side of the bridge from where he worked. He could fake it for only so long before Riggs became suspicious. She knew just how long Patroni would need to either fix the throttles or determine that the system was a write-off.

“Well, Patroni?” she rasped around a cigarette between her pursed lips.

“I’m sorry, but it may be a total loss. The main power bus is shot to hell, voltmeter’s showing zip through the whole system. This isn’t like the tank control unit that I could patch together; the throttles require specific replacement parts we don’t have.” Patroni stood, massaging his back and resettling his heavy testicles under his overalls in a deliberate taunt to Riggs.

“You will fix it,” Wolf said from the back of the bridge, menace sharpening every word.

George Patroni was reaching his limit with Wolf and Riggs and the rest of the terrorists. “You want this thing fixed?”

As he spoke, Patroni moved along the main console, opening up the cabinet doors to reveal the tangled mass of electronics within. To anyone other than him and the electrician, the wires, circuit boards, and other equipment were just an impenetrable forest without any indication of their function. “Well, come on over here and give it a try yourself. Have at it, you son of a bitch. No? Don’t think you can? Then get off my fucking back.”

Wolf gave no reaction, but the other commando rushed forward, gouging Patroni’s ribs with the barrel of his machine pistol. He looked to be only an instant away from pulling the trigger and tearing Patroni in two.