Richard Johnson - Deadly Cargo - A Chilling Naval Terrorism Thriller

De la Vega crashed out of the jungle with the club and machete held high and a fierce look in his eyes. The old man charged like an enraged bull, a growl roaring up through his throat, sounding like a rabid beast about to devour its prey.

Confused by the empty dinghy, Dan whirled to face the onrushing pirate, and that was when he heard Nicole’s voice. “Hey mister,” she shouted.

Juan Baptista de la Vega planted his feet and whirled toward the feminine voice. Ten feet away, Nicole stepped out of the shadows. Vega lowered the machete to gut level and sighted down its gleaming blade toward Nicole, then aimed the point at Dan. He swung the club in a circle to his side as he stepped closer to Nicole, an evil grin spreading across his nearly toothless mouth. “I will have her now, senor,” he snarled, “and you will watch. Then I will kill you both.”

Nicole took two steps forward, raised her arm and sighted down the barrel of an orange flare gun. “Don’t ever threaten my family,” she hissed. Then she pulled the trigger and watched the night light up as the brilliant red rocket covered the distance in less than a heartbeat and found its target deep in the old man’s throat.

Under cover of darkness, the Plover family quietly sailed north, away from the horrors of San Luis Miguel. The night wind was steady and with the main and genoa taut in the breeze, the GPS was showing a speed over ground of seven and a half knots. For more than an hour, Dan tried to raise someone on the VHF radio, but it seemed no one was listening. Finally, he hung up the mic and decided to wait until morning.

“Someday, we’ve got to get a single sideband,” he muttered into the night.

Nicole nodded absently, without saying a word, and he wasn’t sure she even heard what he said. She sat at the helm station, but wasn’t really steering. The autopilot was keeping them on course, and she was staring idly at the moon-glimmered seas and occasionally looking up the mast to check sail trim. She couldn’t sleep that night, so she volunteered to take the final watch, to be alone with her thoughts.

Dan stretched out on the cockpit seat behind her, to be nearby if she needed him. The past eight hours had been nothing short of hell on earth, and she had walked deeper into the fire than any of them. She had looked into the face of evil, spit her defiance, and then destroyed it. It was a heavy burden to bear – heavier than anyone should ever have to carry. But it was kill or be killed. The threat was not to her alone, but to her family, and that was unacceptable. She was left with no choice. Right now, there was nothing Dan could say that wouldn’t be an intrusion into her private suffering, but at least he could lie down close by so she didn’t feel totally alone. It would take time, he knew, for her to heal emotionally – maybe forever. But he would wait forever for her, if that’s what it took.

Three hours later, the morning’s red orb balanced on the horizon for only an instant, before breaking free and floating alone in the sky. The hot color of sunrise brought Dan’s eyes open, surprising him with the sudden realization that he had been asleep. He looked toward Nicole. She was still sitting in the double captain’s seat, still staring out across the broad ocean, still quiet. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, stepped to her side and ran his hand across her shoulders then down her spine. He curled his fingers and started a gentle scratch, and she hunched her back and turned to face him.

“Ooh, that feels good,” she whispered. Her eyes were red and swollen.

“How about I give you a massage this morning,” he offered. “Then you can take the rest of the day off. Buzz can steer.” Buzz was their name for the autopilot, because of the low hum the unit made with each steering correction.

“I wish I was tough, like you.” Her eyes returned to the distant horizon.

He rubbed her shoulders. “If I had to do what you did back there, I’d probably be puking my guts out from the trauma. I think you’re plenty tough.”

“He had it coming,” she muttered.

“Yes, he did. I’m only sorry that you’re the one who had to deliver it to him.”

“He would have killed you.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Thank you for saving me.”

She turned to look at the sea again. “Then he would have come after the kids and me.” Her words had a haunted sound. She stared for a long time at the horizon, then turned again to Dan. “But I’ve killed a man.”

He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. “You saved a man. You saved a woman and two children. You saved a family. De la Vega killed himself by what he was trying to do to us.”

She lost herself in thought and Dan said no more, knowing that emotional recovery would be a long and slow process. In the silence of the morning, the only sounds were the wind filling the sails, the watery sluice of the wake, and a periodic hum as Buzz kept them on course. They had crossed thirty-eight miles of ocean, and San Luis Miguel had passed beyond the horizon behind them when she finally spoke again. “I think I’ll sleep,” her voice sounded like an exhausted whisper as she stepped down from the captain’s chair. They embraced, but he knew her heart wasn’t in it, and she quickly stepped into the cabin and disappeared into the forward stateroom.

Dan picked up the mic and switched the radio on. As he turned up the volume, he heard the final words of a message. He listened a moment, but heard nothing else. Then, suddenly, the radio crackled into life again. Whoever he was hearing was close enough for the transmission to come through, but he was hearing only half of the conversation because the other party was too far away. He gave it a minute, then thumbed the mic. “Break, break.”

A moment later, he heard the words, “Come back, breaker.”

“This is Whisper , over.”

“ Whisper ,” a British sounding voice on the radio came back. “This is Borboleta . What can I do for you?”

“Do you have a single sideband or ham radio? I need to relay a message to the Coast Guard in Panama.”

“We’re heading that way ourselves,” the voice said, “but yes, we can relay by radio. What’s your message?”

Dan gave his latitude and longitude, heading, speed and intended destination, then told Borboleta what happened on San Luis Miguel. “Please let the Coast Guard know about this. And for your own safety, give that island a wide berth.”

“Thanks for the warning, Whisper . I’ve read about pirate activity in these islands. Glad you got out of there with all your kit. I’ll transmit this message to Panama as soon as we end this chat,” the man on Borboleta promised.

“I appreciate it,” Dan responded. “Unfortunately, all our kit, as you put it, doesn’t include our cruising kitty. They took it all. But we’re happy just to survive.”

The signal started to break up, as Whisper and Borboleta were heading in opposite directions and VHF line-of-sight signals are good for only about twenty miles from boat to boat. Dan signed off and hung up the mic. He studied the GPS and chart plotter, then walked back to the transom hammock and stared at the wake, running in an undeviating line toward the far horizon. Three shots were fired, he reflected back to the moments after his escape. Ruiz, Pacheco and Carlos were murdered. Then Juan Baptista de la Vega lost the fight on the beach. Four down, out of ten, he thought . I wonder what’s going on now.

Hours earlier, the island had become a place of murder in the chaotic dark hours of morning. Ruiz, Pacheco and Carlos lay dead. Six exhausted men gathered in a clearing and flopped on the ground to rest.