“How many workers are on the platform?” Austin asked.
“It’s got accommodations for two hundred thirty.”
“Will they have time to move out of harm’s way?”
“They’re pulling anchors, and the service boats will start towing soon, but the rig is geared to move out of the path of slow-moving bergs that get past the ice patrol. They’re not built to dodge a runaway ship.”
Austin wasn’t so sure of the captain’s use of the term
much
Austin borrowed the crewman’s binoculars and adjusted the focus knob until the profile of a containership came into view. He could make out the tall letters painted on the red hull that identified the ship as belonging to a company called Oceanus Lines. Painted in white letters on the ship’s great flaring bow was the name: OCEAN ADVENTURE.
THE SHIPS moved abreast on a parallel course about a quarter of a mile apart. The
Adventure
The oil rig was coming into view. The platform squatted on the sea like a four-legged water bug. Its most prominent features were a towering oil derrick and a disk-shaped helicopter pad.
“Does the rig have a chopper?” Austin asked the captain.
“On its way back from making a hospital run. Too late to do an air evacuation, anyhow.”
“I wasn’t thinking about evacuation. Maybe the chopper could put someone aboard the ship.”
“There won’t be time. The best it will be able to do is pick up some survivors, if there are any.”
Austin raised the glasses. “Don’t bring out the body bags just yet,” he said. “Maybe there’s still a chance to save the rig.”
“
The platform will sink like a stone when the ship slams into it.”
“Take a look around midships,” Austin said. “Tell me what you see.”
The captain peered through the lenses. “There’s a gangway hanging down almost to the waterline.”
Austin outlined his plan.
“That’s crazy, Kurt. Too dangerous. You and Joe could be killed.”
Austin gave Dawe a tight smile. “No offense, Captain, but if your Newfie jokes didn’t kill us,
“All right,” Dawe said. “I’ll give you everything you need.”
Austin slipped into his foul weather jacket, yanked up the zipper, and headed down to the deck to fill Zavala in. Zavala knew his friend well enough not to be surprised at the audacity or the risk of Austin’s idea.
“Pretty simple scheme when you think about it,” Zavala said. “The odds aren’t the greatest.”
“Slightly better than a snowball’s chance in hell by my reckoning.”
“Can’t get much better than that. The execution could be a little tricky.”
A pained expression came to Austin’s rugged face. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t use the word
“He thinks we’d be crazy.”
Zavala fixed his eyes on the massive containership plowing through the gray seas on a parallel course and his agile mind calculated speed, direction, and water conditions.
“The captain’s right, Kurt,” Zavala said. “We
“The math seems pretty simple. The risk is high but not insurmountable, and we might be able to save more than two hundred lives.”
“That’s the way I look at it,” Austin said. He slipped on a flotation vest and tossed another to Zavala. They sealed the deal with a firm handshake. Austin gave a thumbs-up to the captain, who’d been watching their discussion from the bridge.
UNDER CAPTAIN DAWE’S tight command, the ship came around and stopped at an angle to the wind that would allow Austin and Zavala to launch the bright red, sixteen-foot inflatable boat on the lee side of the ship. The ship cut the full impact of the wind, but the boat still tossed on the mounding seas like a rubber duck in a bathtub.
Austin was fitted out with a pocket radio attached to a hands-free microphone and earpiece. Captain Dawe would keep him up to date on the progress of the oil rig’s anchor-hauling crews. If the platform got all its anchors up in time to move out of the way of the oncoming ship, or if there were any deviation in the ship’s course, he would call Austin, who could then abort his plan. If the ship–platform collision seemed imminent, Austin could go from there.
Austin hung from the ladder with the wave crests splashing at his feet, then stepped off and landed square-footed in the boat. It was like jumping onto a wet trampoline. He would have been bounced out, but he grabbed the safety grips on the pontoons and hung on to the violently pitching boat.
When the inflatable had stabilized under his weight, Austin started the seventy-five-horsepower motor. With the outboard grumbling and snorting in the waves, Austin gripped the ship’s ladder and steadied the boat so Zavala could join him. Zavala stepped into the bouncy inflatable with his usual catlike grace, cast off the bow and stern lines, and shoved the boat away from the ship.
Austin turned the tiller over to Zavala, who goosed the throttle and pointed the blunt bow on a course to intercept the
FROM THE SIX-STORY-HIGHBRIDGE of the
The captain took pride in his Teutonic imperturbability. His stolid character was mirrored in firmly set facial features that almost never changed from their expression of genial self-competence. This was different. His lantern-jawed frown deepened. The helicopters had landed without
two
Pirates operated in far-off places like Sumatra and the China Sea. There had been pirate attacks off the coast of Brazil and West Africa. But he found it inconceivable that sea marauders would operate in a frigid, fogbound area like the Grand Banks.
In his many years of sailing the Europe-to-America route, the captain’s only brush with pirates had been a video produced by an insurance-trade group. The shipping company that owned the ship under his command had distributed the video to its captains with instructions to watch it with their officers. The video showed fierce-eyed Asian pirates attacking a tanker in small, fast boats.
Lange desperately tried to recall the lessons the video tried to instill.
No one warned about pirates dropping from the sky!
. Too late to lock all the doors.
. Not a chance. There was nothing more lethal than flare guns on board. None of the German officers or largely Filipino crew was trained in weapons use.
“I believe the ship is being attacked by pirates,” he said with the same unemotional tone he might have used to announce that a squall was imminent.
The stricken face of his first officer suggested that the younger man had none of his captain’s composure. “
He picked up the radio microphone but the ship’s radio speaker crackled as he was about to make a distress call.
“Calling the captain of the
The speaker ignored Lange’s question. “We are rounding up your crew. We are monitoring your radio transmissions and advise you not to call a Mayday. Do you understand me, Captain Lange?”
“Good. Wait where you are.”
The captain’s immediate thought was for the welfare of his twenty-man crew. Maybe if he warned his men they could hide. He picked up the ship’s telephone and called the engine room. No answer. He tried the ship’s mess hall. Silence. He fought back a growing sense of panic and tried the officers’ lounge. Again no answer.
Heavy footsteps pounded on the bridge wing. A gang of armed men burst into the cabin. Four men wore identical black uniforms, caps, and masks hiding their faces except for their hard eyes. The fifth man was dressed in jeans and a foul weather jacket, and his face was uncovered. The captain recognized him as a Filipino named Juan who worked in the engine room.
The captain assumed Juan was a captive until he noticed the pistol in the crewman’s hand. The Filipino saw the consternation in the captain’s face, and his mouth widened in a gap-toothed grin. The captain realized that Juan was working with the pirates. That’s how they managed to take control so quickly. That’s how they knew his name. Juan must have guided the attackers directly to the engine room and other parts of the ship.
One man went over to the control panel and pushed the helmsman aside.
“What are you doing?” Captain Lange said.
The man punched coordinates into the ship’s computer, using numbers printed on a piece of paper. The captain saw that he had put the ship on autopilot. The man finished his task and barked a command.
“You and others. Down to the deck.”
Lange stuck his prominent jaw out in defiance, but he did what he was told and ordered the rest of crew to do the same. The cold breeze sweeping the open deck easily penetrated the captain’s light jacket. He would have been chilled in any case by the sight that greeted him. The rest of his crew was being herded along by armed men. A second Filipino crewman, like Juan, seemed to be working with the pirates.
Prodding the crew with their weapons, the pirates marched the frightened group to the aft deck. More pirates were gathered there around an object about as tall as a man. It was wrapped in canvas and was being trussed with several lengths of heavy rope.
Lange’s eyes went to the pirate who was examining the knots in the rope. He was tall, several inches over six feet, dwarfing the other hijackers, and he had arms that seemed too long even for his powerful body. The man turned around and Lange saw that his face was uncovered. He gazed at the captain with angelic eyes.
“You did well to follow my orders, Captain,” the man said. Lange recognized the voice that had warned him against calling a Mayday. The tone was surreal in its jovial warmth.
“Who are you?” the captain said. “Why are you on my ship?”
“Questions, questions,” the man said with a shake of his head. “It would take much longer to explain than we have.”
The captain tried another tack. “I will cooperate with you, only, please, do not harm my crew.”
The mouth that was almost feminine in its softness widened in a smile. “Don’t worry. We intend to leave you and this ship much as we found it.”
Lange was no dummy. The fact that the man had chosen to bare his face meant he wasn’t worried about witnesses identifying him later. At a nod from the gang’s leader, a hijacker jabbed the captain with his gun and told him to lie facedown on the deck with his crewmen. His hands and feet were tightly bound with tape.
“What about the woman?” Juan asked the baby-faced man. “What should we do with her?”
“Whatever you’d like,” the lead hijacker said. “She has caused us a great deal of trouble. Just make it fast.” He seemed to lose interest in the subject and turned his attention back to the canvas-wrapped object.
Juan stroked the handle of a knife hanging from his belt and strode off along the deck on his dark errand. He walked quickly in anticipation of his task. For days, he had watched Carina with lustful eyes, trying to imagine what she looked like under her layers of clothing. He licked his lips as he recalled the soft warmth of the supple female body that he had lifted into the container. He would only have a few minutes, but it would be long enough for her to experience a real man before he killed her.
As he broke into a trot, he glanced out to sea and was startled to see that a vessel had emerged from the fog and was pacing the containership. An inflatable boat with two men in it was bouncing over the waves toward the
He crouched low and made his way along the deck. The boat seemed to be headed to a point amidships. The Filipino got there ahead of it. He drew his knife, flattened himself belly down on the deck like a crocodile waiting for its prey, and watched the boat as it drew nearer.
This was going to be a special day.
THE FLAT-BOTTOMED RUBBER BOAT bounced across the corrugated surface of the sea in a series of teeth-clacking belly flops. Zavala could have cut short the spastic flying fish leaps by reducing speed, but he had to keep the boat moving to stay with the containership.
“This thing feels like it’s got four flat tires,” Austin yelled over the high-pitched whine of the outboard motor.
Zavala’s reply was drowned out by a detached wave top that hit him full in the face. He blinked the water from his eyes and spit out a mouthful. “Damn potholes!”
He expertly steered the boat closer, jogging the tiller to counter the artificial surf stirred up by the huge hull. His steering arm felt as if it was being wrenched from its socket. The boat lost way with each turn. Within minutes, it had dropped back, until it was almost halfway down the length of the ship. But Zavala’s quick hand and steady eye had drastically cut the distance to the vessel.
The containership seemed like the legendary unstoppable force as it plowed through the seas that crashed against the high, flared bow. The flow of water against the hull created a barrier of white water that stood between Austin and his goal: the pilot ladder hanging down from the deck almost to the waterline. The Adventure’s deck was high above the water. The rope ladder was meant to provide access from a harbor pilot’s boat to a fixed gangway that slanted down the ship’s side.