As Joe settled in, he noticed a dead crewman on the deck ahead of them. “That makes five,” he said to Kurt.
Kurt had seen the man. It did indeed make five. All shot in the back. “Ahab and the other smugglers are trying to cover their tracks. Eliminating anyone who can identify them.”
“He’s nothing if not ruthless,” Joe said.
They’d been looking for the man who called himself Ahab for months, since information revealed that Ahab was taking toxic waste off the hands of unprincipled companies and dumping it in the sea for a hefty price, but one that was much lower than the true cost of dealing with such materials. The Chinese government had become involved when they learned he was smuggling weapons and siphoning radioactive material out of the waste he trafficked in for use in a “dirty bomb.” A bomb he would almost certainly sell to the highest bidder.
It had been a good collaboration, but each time they got close, Ahab slipped away. Informants turned up dead. An Interpol agent had gone missing, and several members of the Chinese federal policehad been blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade when they stopped a truck believed to be carrying one of Ahab’s shipments. If the man left this ship in anything but chains or a coffin, plenty of other deaths would certainly follow.
“They have to be up near the bow,” Kurt said. “They started these fires in the stern for a reason.”
“Why set them at all?” Joe asked.
“To slow us and the Chinese down,” Kurt said. “To cover their tracks. They might even think the fires and smoke will help them escape.”
“They may have abandoned ship already,” Joe suggested as a counterpoint. “I would have.”
Kurt probably would have left by now as well, but he wasn’t a smuggler trying to salvage a large payday. “The Chinese would have seen them if they’d taken a boat out,” he said. “Ahab’s waiting for something. Help, maybe. Or just hoping to hold out until the Chinese helicopter has to go back to the coast. It can’t loiter for too long.”
Joe was a pilot. He knew the numbers better than Kurt. “Twenty minutes tops. Less if they had to fight a headwind coming out.”
“That’s when Ahab will go,” Kurt said. “We need to find him and stop him before the timer runs out.”
“What about Major Gushan?”
“He’s either being held hostage or he’s dead. If he’s alive, he’ll be with Ahab.”
Joe looked around at the smoke. “If the safe place is ahead of us—and they still want to bring some of their cache with them—then there’s only one spot left to hide. The forward cargo hold.”
Kurt agreed. The forward hold was smaller and could be sealed off from the rest of the ship. That kept the smoke and fire at bay while the smugglers waited for their chance to escape. It also hadside hatches down close to the waterline for taking on provisions in port. They would make it easy for Ahab and his men to get off the ship and onto a boat.
“That means we have to go inside,” Kurt said.
Joe nodded. From their packs they pulled small hoods that went over their heads and shoulders. The hoods had acrylic lenses and filters that would remove the smoke and particulates, allowing them to breathe. The hoods wouldn’t protect them from an inferno, but they’d make it possible to run through a corridor or two. That was all they needed.
—
In the forward hold, nine men waited nervously, while one man bravely faced his death. The ship was burning. The smoke had begun drifting through the ventilation system. The bulkheads themselves were growing warm to the touch. The sound of a helicopter thundering past every minute or so added to the tension.
They had a boat prepared. Stacks of weapons and metal drums carrying the radioactive materials lay strapped into place. The boat itself sat on a conveyor belt designed to move cargo in and out of the hold. The belt ended beside a roller-equipped ramp that would be deployed and extended to the water once the side door was opened. This was their path to freedom. But with the helicopter outside they couldn’t risk a move.
“You can’t get away now,” a battered and beaten Chinese man said. “You’re trapped.”
Gushan was down on his knees, his hands tied behind his back. His face was bruised from kicks and punches. A gash just beneath his right eye streamed blood like red war paint.
“They will run out of fuel and crash before I have to make any move at all,” an entirely average-looking man said. About the onlything that stood out on Ahab was a jutting jaw, hidden now by a grimy beard.
“They won’t come alone,” Gushan said. He wore a crewman’s overalls, having infiltrated the ship to search for the radioactive materials that Ahab intended to use in the dirty bomb.
“Alone is exactly what they are,” Ahab insisted. “The other helicopter never left Shanghai. My associates saw to that. There won’t be any rescue. They cannot possibly land on the burning deck. And by the time your ships get here I will be long gone, this freighter will be on the bottom, and your body will be food for the crabs and fish of the South China Sea. But before that happens you will tell me how you learned that I was aboard this ship.”
Major Gushan stared up at the man who’d been beating him. “The high command has a source in your organization,” he said.
“Who?” Ahab demanded.
Gushan shrugged. “They don’t share the name of a source with someone like me.”
Ahab grew irritated. He knew it was a lie. Just a way to put doubt into his mind. But he was tired and angry. His face was itchy from the salt and the heat. His eyes had begun to sting from the traces of smoke.
