The Weapon (29 page)

Oberg rubbed his beard. “You don't want to check first?”

“Check what?”

“That it's there.”

Dan's turn to rub his face. Yeah. He was both sick to death of it and violently eager to run his hands over it, this deadly Grail that had gotten them bombed, shot at, and nearly drowned. “Okay. I'll hold the fort here. Go check it out. But hurry. We've got a lot to do, before we set fire to this tub.”

 

Just like old times, Obie thought, wiping his palms on his pants and gazing up. He'd done so fucking much of this, busting seals off containers, holding weapons on angry crews as they stewed in the sun. At least he wasn't eating gritty sand, the red fucking powder that got in everything. He'd had his own climbing gloves then, his own beeners and chocks and slings . . . He slung the AK and started climbing.

The stack was five containers high. So U 8789035 from RUS for Rus sia, should be third up, second from the top. He spotted it. It looked gray, not green, but in this light, maybe that was what green looked like.

The trouble was, it was butted solid against the ones fore and aft and above and below. He didn't see any way inside until they were cleared away, and they weren't going to do that without the crane on the T-AGS. He hung there, feeling the burn in his thighs and calves. He wasn't in climbing shape, the way he'd been in the Gulf. “Crap,” he muttered. He searched for the next handhold, wondering if he should've set a grapnel up top, and pulled himself up another couple of yards.

Which put him level with the stenciling on the container. Not only did it still not look green, the number in front of his face wasnot 8789035 but 4589040, and the alpha ISO wasn't RUS U but FTC U. Who knew where it was from, but it wasn't what they were looking for.

Two possibilities, he thought, hanging by one hand while he got his knife out. One: it was the right container, but disguised. This didn't seem likely. You might not think weapons, ammunition, got shipped in containers like this, but he'd seen it, in the Gulf. Containers full of RPGs, artillery rounds, one even of the military-grade Czech plastic explosive called Semtex—that had made the ensign shit his drawers. But the papers had been valid for Iran, for “industrial uses,” and they'd had to let it through. If you put something in a container marked as something else, you ran the risk of losing track of it, ending up with a box of cacao beans or plastic doll heads instead of a high-speed rocket torpedo.

The second possibility was that it wasn't where intel said it was, one slot down on the port side, but five down in the middle. Or anywhere else, just not
here.
On a 900 TEU ship, that meant it could be 899 other places. He grimaced, envisioning trying to check nine hundred containers looking for the right one. Even just all the green ones, it'd take a full day. Which they didn't have.

The third possibility was that it wasn't here at all. He spidered down, hung, and dropped. Then jogged back toward the deck house, circling as he went to sweep the horizon. No lights. Good.

But he didn't think Lenson was going to like what he was about to tell him.

 

Dan felt like clutching his head and screaming, but a naval officer did neither. At least, not in front of his team. He allowed himself a tight smile. “That figures. Not there . . . okay, first thing, we need to blow that safe.”

“Sumo's on that. But it's not going to be in the safe.”

“I know that, Obie. I'm talking about our cover. See how Sumo's doing. I'll talk to the captain.”

Teddy hesitated. “Want me to take that, sir?”

“You can sit in if you want. The safe?”

Just then a thud below told him it was probably done. He told Oberg, “Break him out of the nav shack and bring him down. And if he arrives in a cooperative frame of mind, that's a plus.”

The door to the captain's cabin was open. An ammonaical haze of explosive fumes was eddying out into the passageway. The porthole was open, air was blowing in. The big Hawaiian was ransacking the space, throwing pictures to the deck, smashing a table lamp. The safe was still smoking, and still closed. The charge had punched out the locking mechanism. Dan turned the handle and it swung open and more smoke whiffed out. “Good job, Sumo. I'm gonna need this cabin. Can you take the bridge? Yell if there's any closing contacts, or anybody calls us on twelve.”

Oberg pushed the Italian in. Blood ran down the side of his head. Dan frowned past him at the SEAL, but let it go. The captain froze as he saw the open safe. Dan waved the heavy envelopes of money. He'd used the time waiting in camp and in Singapore to brush up on his Italian, memorize the sentences he thought he'd need. Unfortunately his use of it now was probably not going to make him savor the memory.

“Capitano. Parlate italiano?”

“Sì. Sì, sono italiano. Chi sono voi?”

“Non faccia le domande. Obbedisca appena e velocemente. Che cosa è il vostro nome?”

“Il mio nome? Siniscalchi. Alberto Siniscalchi. Provengo da Palermo. Conoscete Palermo? La Sicilia. Non desiderate nuoc.”

Dan was only getting part of this.
“Dove è la vostra polizza di carico, Capitano? Mostrilo me. Immediatamente.”

Whatever Oberg had done—busted the guy's ear, it looked like—it had made an impression. The middle-aged man was shaking. He hesitated, then turned and collided with Oberg. He wheeled back to Dan, white-faced.
“È nell'ufficio del purser. Posso andare là?”

Dan wasn't sure, but he made that to be that the document he wanted was in the purser's office. He scowled, motioning for Oberg to accompany them.

Siniscalchi led them to another cabin off the same passageway. He fumbled in his pocket for keys and let them in. Then fumbled some more and unlocked a drawer. Held out a sheaf of computer-generated print.
“Ciò è la polizza di carico. Sto cooperando, signore. Che cosa progettate fare con la mia squadra?”

Dan caught “cooperate” and that sounded good, but the rest went past him. He tugged up the black scarf and turned the light on over the desk and started flipping pages. He'd gotten familiar with commercial documentation in the Red Sea aboard
Horn.
So it didn't take long before he reached an unpleasant conclusion. He led them back to the captain's cabin, then jerked his head at the door. “
Soggiorno qui,
” he told the captain. “
Sia calmo. Non si muova.
” The man nodded quickly and groped his way to a chair.

Oberg followed Dan out and eased the door closed behind them. He muttered, “It's not there?”

“It's on the list. Along with two other containers with the RUS prefix.”

“Great,” Oberg muttered, looking as enthusiastic as Dan felt. “Has he got a stowage chart in there?”

They paged through the sheaf and didn't find one. Dan checked his watch, biting his lip, feeling time peeling away as he tried to think this through. So far, the captain and crew thought they were bandits. The ragtag looters that hit random ships in these waters and farther south. That's why they'd blown the safe, taken wallets and watches: mimicking their MO. But if he started asking about specific containers . . . Oberg must have reasoned along the same line because he said, “We don't have time to look at every fucking one of nine hundred containers. We've got to get these guys in the boats before we join up with
McDonnell.
”

“I know that. What I was thinking, our intel's not serving us well here.”

“No shit, Commander.”

“Their location's wrong, where the container's supposed to be. And they said there'd be empty ones around the one with the weapon. That'd mean seven containers prefixed RUS, not three.” Dan rubbed his face. His palm came away wet. “Okay . . . I hope Alberto's got some answers.”

The man looked terrified when they let themselves back in. He hunched forward, breathing with stertorous rasps. His gaze was nailed to the floor. When Dan followed it he saw the broken frame, the shattered glass, the family picture. He squatted next to him and made his voice menacing.
“Capitano. Vi farò questo problema una volta. Come possiamo individuare un contenitore, se conosciamo il relativo numero?”

“Che numero desiderate?”
Siniscalchi started to reach for the binder, but of course, his hands were bound. He smiled pleadingly. Dan glanced at Oberg. The knife he always carried came out, gleamed. Siniscalchi rubbed his wrists, glancing at the blade, then smiling again at Dan. He flipped through the binder, hands shaking.
“Che numero desiderate?”

“Contenitore numero, uh, otto, sette, otto, nove, uh, zero, tre, cinque. È russo.”

Siniscalchi blinked. He carefully did not meet their eyes. He wet his fingers and leafed through the pages. Found the number Dan had found and cross-referenced it to another section farther back. Then looked up.
“È stato tolto.”

“Che cosa?”

Siniscalchi made a cupping motion, then fluttered his hands away.
“È stato tolto; ha scaricato il giorno prima che navigassimo. Quell'unità non è a bordo.”

Dan wasn't a hundred percent sure he got all of that, but what he understood was not good. The gist: It wasn't aboard. It had been taken off the day before “navigassimo” . . . perhaps “sailing” or “sail date.” He started to ask why, then didn't. He'd said too much already. Looking at the slumped, sweating Italian, he realized he'd said far too much.

Siniscalchi seemed to be struggling with himself. Finally he muttered something. “
Che cosa?
” Dan said again.

Siniscalchi's tongue darted, wetting his lips.
“Non parlerò,
” he said again.
“Non so da dove venite o chi lavorate per. Ma non dirò, mai, che avete chiesto notizie su quel contenitore. Giuro sulla tomba della mia madre. Signore.”

Dan said slowly, trying to get this right:
“Capite? Sarete uccisi.”

“Sì, sì, capisco. Sarò per sempre silenzioso come la tomba.”

Dan looked at Oberg and nodded. The SEAL pulled the man backward and pinioned his hands again. Duct tape snarled. Siniscalchi's eyes widened as it went around his ankles, around his chest, taping him to the chair, over his mouth. But he didn't struggle. Just kept his eyes locked to Dan's as the door closed behind them.

 

Teddy waited till they were in the ladderwell back up the bridge. “What was that about? I speak Spanish, I got some of it, but—”

“He says it's not aboard.”

“Does he know why?”

“I didn't ask because I probably wouldn't have understood. But it
was
aboard.”

“It was on the manifest.”

“Correct. And I
think
he was telling us it was here till right before they sailed. The day before, if I understood him. My guess, it was pulled off and sent some other way.”

“By air?”

“I don't know. Maybe somebody thought sending it by ship wasn't secure enough.”

“Or they knew we were planning to hijack it,” Teddy said, watching the commander's eyes.

“Maybe.”

“And what was that at the end?”

Lenson shrugged. “At the end . . . oh, he was saying he wasn't going to talk. Wouldn't tell anyone what we were asking about.
‘Silenzioso come la tomba.'
Silent as the grave.”

“So he knows who we are.”

Lenson gave him another unreadable look. “I don't see how he could. But my guess is, he knows who we're not.”

Teddy started to ask another question, then shut his mouth on it. Lenson turned and resumed his climb.

Kaulukukui was in the pilothouse. Lenson said, “We're terminating the operation and extracting to the boat. We've got to leave everybody here thinking all we were after was the cash and their CD players. Sumo, you blew the captain's safe and the purser's. Where's the payroll?”

“Here.” The SEAL patted a buttpack.

“The crew's wallets and shit?”

“Henrickson's got them in the messroom. He threw them in a gym bag.”

“Great. Donnie, go back to the engine room and shut down. Fire a magazine into the engine controls. Make sure there's lots of brass lying around for them to pick up. Then go to the mess room and help Monty get tape on everybody. Do it fast.

“Then go through the cabins again. Take anything that'd look valuable to a Basiliano pirate. Shoot things up, but make sure nobody's on the other side of the bulkhead. Ten minutes, tops. Then meet me back aft where we came aboard, at time”—he checked his watch—“zero-five.”

They grunted and left. Dan considered the wheel, then spun it. The gyro began ticking over. He waited till it registered 090, then met the rudder. When it was steady on the desired heading he pushed a black button on the console. Released it, and waited. The autopilot held the course. He searched across the console, peering to read the lettering, then punched in zeros and pushed another button. He looked at the radar one last time, then charged his AK. A burst turned it into fizzing sparking junk.

Teddy jumped back. “Watch for ricochets, you do that again, Commander.”

“All right, let's go.”

“Where you want me?”

“Collect the guy in the nav shack and the captain, and
take them down to the mess decks. Make sure everybody's restrained. I put them on a safe heading and Donnie's shutting the engines down. Sooner or later somebody'll work himself free.”

“Aye, sir.”

Lenson headed for the ladderwell. When the door closed behind him Teddy blew out noisily. He looked at the door to the nav shack. Then headed down the other ladder.

He came out in the passageway between the captain and the purser's cabins. Waited a moment, head cocked. He heard Lenson's steps, fading away. Then, just the creak of a ship rolling, no longer under power, picking up the rhythm of the swells.