Richard Johnson - Deadly Cargo - A Chilling Naval Terrorism Thriller

Dan nodded. “We have two kids. A daughter who is 11, and a son who is 17.”

“That is good. I am an old man, and you can see that I am crippled with age. It will go faster if you and your son can help. Why don’t you get him ready for work, and I will go get the barge and come back for you.”

De la Vega struggled to climb over the side into his tug. After a few moments, he started the smoky engine, cast off the dock lines and motored away toward the drifting barge.

Dan let the noisy tug move some distance away before he spoke. “Half now, half later, huh?”

She smiled. “Hey, if we’d given him the whole thousand, what would keep him from chugging away with all the money and then coming back later for the container after we were gone? This way, he’s got some incentive to keep his end of the bargain and get the rest of the money.”

“You’re a smart cookie.” He hugged her.

“Of course, I’m a smart cookie,” she said, “I’m a woman.”

“Your brilliance has never been in doubt,” Dan chuckled. “After all, look who you married.”

“Neither my brilliance, nor my mercy.” She gave him a peck on the cheek. Then she turned quickly and disappeared into the cabin, leaving Dan to ponder that last remark.

Twenty minutes later, the tug was back, pushing the barge before it. Dan and Jacob scrambled aboard and waved goodbye to Nicole and Cadee, as Juan Baptista de la Vega throttled the controls and they chugged north beneath a growing black cloud of diesel smoke. In the distance, the dark profile of the container was silhouetted against the horizon, rising and falling with the swell.

“How are we going to do this?” Dan shouted over the noise of the engine.

“It is not easy,” the old man said, “but I have done this before. There is a big looping current that sweeps around these islands.” He waved his arms in a large circle as he spoke. “It reaches all the way from Panama to Nicaragua and far out into the main current that flows up toward the Yucatan Channel. It pulls in things from way out in the Caribbean Sea. Every now and then, something like this container shows up. So I have experience with this.

“That’s good,” Dan said. “But you’ll have to tell us exactly what to do. We’ve never done anything like this before.”

“No problem,” the old man said. “We will pull the barge alongside and tie up to the container using those ropes,” – he pointed to two piles of line, one on each end of the barge – “then you and your son will climb on it and I will hand you some chain that you must hook to the corners. There are hooks on the ends of the chain, and all you have to do is find a good place to attach it at each corner. We are lucky, because this container is floating pretty high and all the corners are there for us.”

“Then what?” Dan shouted the question.

“Then we will bring the middle of each chain together and I will lower the big hook on the crane cable to you.”

Dan nodded. “Okay, I get it. It’ll form a lifting bridle.”

“Si, senor.”

When they were alongside the container, the old man shook his head. “It is upside down.”

“Is that a problem?” Dan asked.

“It is better for us if we turn it over out here on the water. It will roll over easily. Then, when we open it up, whatever is inside will be sitting the way it was loaded.”

“Okay, just tell us what to do.”

The old man directed them, and Dan and Jacob each took a rope and passed it through a tie-down point on the metal walls, then back to cleats on the edge of the barge. With the box secured, Dan boosted his son onto the container, then climbed up behind him. Juan Baptista de la Vega shuffled across the wide platform, dragging a chain in each hand.

“On each of the far corners, you will find a place to attach the hooks,” he told them. “Then I will lift with the crane and the container will roll.”

The job was easier than Dan thought it might be, and half an hour later the old tractor motor was growling and the big cable drum was turning. An inch at a time, the crane started to lift the upright container out of the water. As it came clear of the surface, a steady flow of water ran out from beneath the doors.

“Watch out,” the old man warned them, as he pushed a control lever that started to swing the crane around. “This is how I became crippled twenty-five years ago. You men move back to the tug.”

Dan and Jacob were happy to comply with the skipper’s orders. Under the weight of the container, the barge tilted steeply to one side, but the old man stood his ground at the controls and swung the crane in a wide horizontal arc. The floating platform straightened itself as the crane and its load came across to the center, and de la Vega lowered the freight box.

“Good job,” de la Vega shouted after he shut down the motor. “Now you men tie her down to cleats from each corner, and I will start the tug. I will take you back to your boat, and you can follow me to my home on the island of San Luis Miguel.”

Lunch was ready when the men arrived back at the catamaran, with the barge carrying her load. As they ate in the cockpit, Nicole stared up at the container and suddenly felt dwarfed by its size. “Wow, that thing is bigger than our whole boat”

“Longer, yes,” Dan agreed. “But we’re nearly twice as wide.”

“Yeah, but look how it towers above our cabin roof,” Cadee exclaimed.

“Okay,” – the old man straightened his back as he stood – “I better get started. I will be going slowly, so you will have no trouble following me.” He climbed over the side to the tug and fired up the motor.

“Go ahead and take off,” Dan shouted above the noisy diesel, using the boat hook to push the old boat away. As the tug motored off toward the island, he turned to his family, “Well guys, there’s our treasure chest. Won’t be long now.”

“I hope it’s full of Japanese motorcycles,” Jacob said eagerly.

“Whatever it is,” Nicole said, “I have no idea how we’re going to stash it on this boat.”

“Well, if it’s something really good, maybe we’ll just have to get ourselves a bigger boat,” Dan said. Seeing Nicole’s expression, he changed the subject. “Okay, kids, let’s clear the cockpit of all this stuff. I’ll help mom wash the dishes and you guys straighten up the rest of the boat. We can let the tug get a head start, ’cause we can go a lot faster than he can. I figure in an hour we’ll fire up and follow.”

Everyone jumped to their duties, and in no time, the boat was ready to go. Dan kept an eye on the distant column of black smoke, still showing clearly against the sky, even though the tub and barge had dropped below the horizon.

The hour came and went, and finally it was time. Everyone was anxious to get underway. “Jake, please lower the outdrive.” Dan said. “I’ll get this puppy humming so we can follow the barge.”

For the next nine and a half hours, they tagged along behind the barge, keeping a respectable distance and maneuvering slightly upwind, so the smell of the diesel smoke would blow away from them. Two and a half knots made it seem almost as if they had dropped anchor and were standing still, yet that was all the barge would do. San Luis Miguel was a little over twenty-three miles distant when they started, and appeared to get no nearer, even after hours of progress. At first, only the two highest points of the island were visible over the horizon, and with each passing hour they were able to see a little more of the island’s shape come into view.

Dan pulled out the chart covering the area around San Luis Miguel and studied the hourglass shape of the land formed by two prominent hills, connected by a narrow waist, creating harbors on opposite sides of the island. On the chart was a thin line that ran down the side of one hill, curving out of the jungle and into the deepest part of the harbor on the east side of the island. A river, Dan thought as he studied what was before him.