Thomas Harris - Black Sunday

They saw the smoke first, a smudge on the horizon to the east. Then two dots under the smoke as the freighter’s superstructure showed. Soon she was hull up, steaming slowly. The sun was low in the southwest, behind Lander as he ran toward the ship. It was as he had planned. He would come out of the sun to look her over, and any gunman on the ship with a telescopic sight would be dazzled by the light.

Throttled back, the sportfisherman eased toward the scabby freighter, Lander studying her through his binoculars. As he watched, two signal flags shot up the outboard halyards on the port side. He could make out a white X on a blue field and, below it, a red diamond on a white field.

“M.F.,” Lander read.

“That’s it. Muhammad Fasil.”

Forty minutes of sunlight remained. Lander decided to take advantage of it. With no other vessels in sight, it was better to risk the transfer in daylight than to take a chance on mischief from the freighter in the dark. While there was light, he and Dahlia could keep the rail of the freighter covered.

Dahlia broke out the Delta pennant. Closer and closer the boat crept, its exhaust burbling. Dahlia and Lander pulled on stocking masks.

“Big shotgun,” Lander said.

She put it in his hand. He opened the windshield in front of him and laid the shotgun on the instrument panel, muzzle out on the foredeck. It was a Remington 12-gauge automatic with a long barrel and full choke, and it was loaded with double-aught buckshot. Lander knew it would be impossible to fire a rifle accurately from the moving boat. He and Dahlia had gone over it many times. If Fasil had lost control of the ship and they were fired on, Lander would shoot back, blast the stern around, and run into the sun while Dahlia emptied the other long shotgun at the freighter. She would switch to the rifle when the range increased.

“Don’t worry about trying to hit somebody with the boat pitching,” he had told her. “Rattle enough lead around their ears and you’ll suppress their fire.” Then he remembered that she had more experience of small arms than he.

The freighter turned slowly and hove to with the seas nearly abeam. From three hundred yards, Lander could see only three men on her deck and a single lookout high on the bridge. One of the men ran to the signal halyard and dipped the flags once, acknowledging the Delta Lander was flying. It would have been easier to use radio, but Fasil could not be on deck and in the radio shack at the same time.

“That’s him, that’s Fasil in the blue cap,” Dahlia said, lowering her binoculars.

When Lander was within one hundred yards, Fasil spoke to the two men beside him. They swung a lifeboat davit out over the side, then stood with their hands in sight on the rail.

Lander idled his engines and scrambled aft to rig a fender board on the starboard side, then mounted to the flying bridge carrying the short shotgun.

Fasil appeared to be in control of the ship. Lander could see a revolver in his belt. He must have ordered the deck cleared except for the mate and one crewman. The rust streaks on the freighter’s side glowed orange in the lowering sun as Lander brought the boat under her lee and Dahlia threw a line to the crewman. The sailor started to make it fast to a deck cleat, but Dahlia shook her head and beckoned. Then he understood and passed the line around the cleat and threw the end back.

She and Lander had rehearsed this carefully, and she quickly rigged a doubled after bowspring—a connection that could be cast off instantly from the smaller craft. With the rudder hard over, the engines held the boat’s stern against the ship.

Fasil had repacked the plastic explosive in twenty-five-pound bags. Forty-eight of them were piled on the deck beside him. The fender board scraped against the side of the freighter as the boat rose and fell on the muted seas in the lee of the ship. A ladder was flung over the Leticia’s side.

Fasil called down to Lander, “The mate is coming down. He is not armed. He can help stow the bags.”

Lander nodded and the man scrambled down the side. He obviously was trying not to look at Dahlia or Lander, sinister in their masks. Using the lifeboat davit as a miniature cargo crane, Fasil and the sailor lowered a cargo net containing the first six bags and the automatic weapons in a canvas-wrapped bundle. It was a tricky business in the lively boat to time exactly the moment to release the load from the hook, and once Lander and the mate went sprawling.

With twelve bags in the cockpit, the loading operation paused while the three in the boat passed the bags forward, stowing them in the cabin in the bow. It was all Lander could do to keep himself from ripping open a bag and looking at the stuff. It felt electric in his hands. Then came the next twelve bags and the next. The three working in the boat were wet with sweat despite the cold.

The hail from the lookout on the bridge was nearly carried away by the wind. Fasil spun around and cupped his hands behind his ears. The man was waving his arms and pointing. Fasil leaned over the rail and yelled down, “Something’s coming, from that way—east. I’m going to look.”

In less than fifteen seconds he was on the bridge, snatching the binoculars from the frightened lookout. He was back on the deck in an instant, wrestling with the cargo net, yelling over the side.

“It’s white with a stripe near the bow.”

“Coast Guard,” Lander said. “What’s the range—how far away?”

“About eight kilometers, he’s coming fast.”

“Swing it down. Goddamn it.”

Fasil slapped the face of the crewman beside him and put the man’s hands on the lifting tackle. The cargo net bulging with the last twelve bags of plastic swayed over the sea and dropped quickly, ropes squealing in the blocks. It dropped into the cockpit with a heavy thump and was quickly lashed down.

On the freighter deck, Muhammad Fasil turned to the sweating crewman. “Stand at the rail with your hands in sight.” The man fixed his eyes on the horizon and appeared to be holding his breath as Fasil went over the side.

The mate standing in the cockpit could not take his eyes off Fasil. The Arab handed the man a roll of bills and pulled out his revolver, touching the muzzle to the man’s upper lip. “You have done well. Silence and health are one. Do you understand me?”

The man wanted to nod, but was prevented by the pistol under his nose.

“Go in peace.”

The man went up the ladder as rapidly as an ape. Dahlia was casting off the bowspring.

While this was going on, Lander looked almost pensive. He had demanded from his mind a projection of possibilities based on all he knew.

The patrol boat, approaching from the other side of the ship, could not see him yet. Probably the sight of the freighter hove to had aroused the Coast Guard’s curiosity, unless they had been tipped off. Patrol boat. Six in these waters, all eighty-two feet, twin diesels, one thousand six hundred shaft horsepower, good for twenty knots. Sperry-Rand SPB-5 radar, crew of eight. One .50 caliber machine gun and an 81-mm mortar. In a flash Lander considered setting fire to the freighter, forcing the cutter to stop and render aid. No, the first mate would scream piracy and the hue and cry would go up. Search planes would come, some of them with infrared equipment that would pick up the heat of his engines. Darkness coming. No moon for five hours. Better a chase.

Lander snapped back to the present. His deliberations had taken five seconds.

“Dahlia, rig the reflector.” He slammed the throttles open and heeled the big boat over in a foaming curve away from the freighter. He headed toward the land, forty miles away, the engines roaring at full throttle and spray flying back as they smashed through moderate seas. Even heavily laden, the powerful boat was doing close to nineteen knots. The cutter had a slight edge in speed. He would keep the freighter between them as long as he could. He yelled down to Fasil in the cockpit. “Monitor 2182 kilocycles.” This was the International Radio-Telephone Distress frequency and a “calling frequency” used in initial contacts between vessels.