Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

“What about the rest of the ship? I know the bridge was shot up pretty badly.”

“Yeah, it was. The radar system is a complete write-off; I’ll never be able to fix it. And the tank pressure sensors were taken out too. She wants those sensors back on-line ASAP. In fact, she’s got the ship’s electrician scavenging parts from other systems to get them running again. The helm controls still work fine, but changing engine speeds must be done manually in the engine room.”

“They don’t have throttle control, yet they leave the engine room on UMS status?” Hauser was shocked by the negligence. UMS, or Unmanned Ship, is the automatic system that controls the power plant during the engineering staff’s off-duty time. In normal conditions, a tanker is run under UMS only at night and in calm seas.

“I’m not issuing the orders. I’m just following them.”

“I wonder why tank control is so important to them. It shouldn’t be prioritized above regaining remote throttle control.” Hauser spoke almost rhetorically. Neither he nor Patroni could second-guess the motivations of the force that had taken their ship. “Do you know anything about the terrorists?”

“Only that the leader is named Wolf, and even he takes orders from JoAnn Riggs.”

“What’s your take on all of this? You’ve sailed with Riggs.”

“I don’t know, Captain. I’ve sailed with her, yes, but only twice before. I’m almost as new to this tub as you are. All I know is that she was pretty chummy with the former captain, Harris Albrecht.”

“Do you think Albrecht was involved with this?” Hauser asked, putting two and two together but still coming up with three.

“I’m sure of it.”

“Do you know what happened to him and why the ship was late getting into Valdez?”

“Albrecht confined most of the crew to their quarters while we wallowed in the Gulf of Alaska. Nobody was allowed topside except him and Riggs. And it wasn’t the first time we stopped out there, but it was the longest. I don’t know what happened to Albrecht’s arm. But I do know that they never recovered the limb, if you know what I mean.”

“What are you saying?”

Patroni looked at Hauser for a second as if he couldn’t believe that the captain didn’t catch his meaning. “Hey, this ship is big and dangerous too, but if you lost an arm, you would damn well find it real fast and hopefully have a doctor sew it back on. Captain Albrecht never got his arm back, and the medevac helicopter was here only twenty minutes after the accident. What happened to the severed limb?”

“Overboard?”

“What was he doing at the rail that could take his hand off?”

Hauser had no reply.

“I’ve been talking to the guys who’d been sailing with Riggs and Albrecht for a while. They’ve been doing this for a few months, stopping in the middle of nowhere and confining the crew belowdecks. They were paid a small bonus for the inconvenience, so no one complained.”

“Petromax never said anything about these delays?”

Patroni shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”

Hauser looked at his watch. “You’d better get going before they wonder where you are. I’m holed up in the aft life raft. I need you to pass me any information you can get.”

“Yes, sir. I want these bastards off my boat as bad as you do.”

“Listen…” Hauser hadn’t been in command long enough to know the names of his officers.

“George,” Patroni offered.

“Listen, George, it may be necessary for me to leave the ship. The emergency radio in the life raft doesn’t have much range and we have to tell the outside world what’s happened. I want you to think of a way of launching the life raft without arousing suspicion. I don’t want my escape causing problems for the crew.”

“I understand,” Patroni replied. “I can arrange a short on the master control panel that will kill the indicator lights when the raft goes up on her davits. Don’t forget, the aft boat can be self-launched, but the timing has to be perfect.”

“It won’t happen for a while,” Hauser said as he prepared to heave himself back onto the roof of the elevator. “But be prepared. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

Once on the top of the elevator, he turned and looked back through the open hatch. “George, take care of the crew. No matter what happens, they come first.”

“I will, sir. You can count on it.” A moment later the elevator lurched upward as Patroni disengaged the manual arrest button.

Khalid Al-Khuddari didn’t mean to slam the antechamber door of his office suite when he entered, but his pent-up frustration got the best of him and the nine-foot door crashed against its jamb with the concussion of a rifle shot. Siri Patal, Khuddari’s personal assistant, looked up with startled doe eyes, her fine features showing concern as Khalid stood by the door trying to calm himself.

“Sorry,” Khalid said with a guilty smile. “It’s already a rotten day and it’s not yet noon.”

Siri regarded him with barely hidden adoration. Since she’d started working for him, she thought of little else than being with him, but circumstance and tradition ensured that that would never come to pass. She was Indian, the second daughter of a successful merchant who’d moved his family to the Gulf during the boom years of the 1960s, and Khuddari was an Arab. He was a Muslim while she was Hindu. The divides were uncrossable.

She thrust her own confused emotions aside and smiled brightly. “That bad?”

“Yes, that bad.” His handsome face couldn’t hide his disappointment.

Khalid had just returned from a meeting with the Crown Prince. The meeting had originally been scheduled for the day before, but the ruler of the UAE had canceled at the last minute. Instead, they had met for a late breakfast, which in itself was not a good sign. Because the Prince was in his late seventies, most important meetings occurred in the mid-afternoon, after his postluncheon nap. The Prince’s age did not affect his ability to rule, but as the years wound onward, he was forced to make concessions to his body. Khalid had arrived dutifully at ten and reported his findings to the droopy-eyed ruler, dispassionately laying out his suspicions of Hasaan bin-Rufti. He also told the Prince about his cross-border excursion with Bigelow.

The Prince had listened quietly, his expression hidden behind a wispy gray beard that was so withered it resembled the loose feathers of an old chicken. His dark eyes, still sharp and quick, gave away nothing as Khalid spoke. It was impossible to tell if the Prince had been fascinated or bored.

When Khalid had finished with his briefing, he’d eased back against the Regency dining room chair, cocking one arm over the walnut back in a relaxed gesture that he hoped would hide his agitation. The Prince poured another cup of coffee for each of them, his hands shaking slightly as the Turkish coffee dribbled into the demitasse cups. His voice was almost as frail as the rest of his body, but age didn’t diminish the strength of his words.

“Not since Allah’s prophet Muhammad has a world leader not faced a direct confrontation of his authority. You might say it is an occupational hazard.” He spoke in a style better suited to an earlier century, proper and formal.

“Now you come to me with the love of a son in your heart and my best interests in your mind and tell me of another attempt to wrest power from me. I thank you for your dutiful application to your work, Khalid. However, you have overstepped your province. You are not a policeman. You are Petroleum Minister, in charge of the safekeeping of our greatest natural resource. You should not have done what you did. Overflying Ajman airspace without authorization is a very serious act. I don’t believe you realize the position I would have been in had you and your band been caught. You are as much aware as I that my authority on the Supreme Federal Council is at the weakest it’s ever been. Your incursion could have dealt me a severe blow.”