Don Brown - The Malacca Conspiracy

“Over here, Skipper!”

A hand snatched his forearm, pulling him under. He popped up and found himself with two of his crew members, Seamen Tommy Grimes and Dennis Basnight. Each hung on the life ring.

“It won’t hold us all, Skipper,” Basnight said, blowing sea water from his nose, “but it helps. Just kick a little. Maybe we can hang on long enough to get out from under this smoke so the chopper can throw us a line.”

Eichenbrenner looked around. They were about fifty yards from the burning, smoking relic of the Altair Voyager. “Forget the smoke!” he said. “We’ve got to get away from the ship or we’ll get sucked down with it. Where are the men? Did they swim aft?”

Basnight bobbed under the water, then bobbed back up. “The situation isn’t good, Skipper.”

“No kidding!”

“No, Skipper. I mean with the men. It’s not good.”

“Skipper! Behind you! Watch out!” Grimes said.

Eichenbrenner looked over his left shoulder.

A dark gray triangular fin cut through the water in a flash. It disappeared. Eichenbrenner groaned.

“Another one!” Basnight said. “Opposite direction! Get your legs up!”

This one was swimming from their right. Eichenbrenner pulled his knees to his chest as the shark bore down on them.

Twenty feet…

Fifteen feet…

Ten feet…

The fin vanished.

“Where’d it go?” blurted Basnight.

“Maybe it’s gone,” Grimes said.

A moment passed.

Something slammed their legs. The jolt knocked the three men away from the life ring.

Eichenbrenner went under and came back up splashing, gasping for air. Grimes and Basnight flailed in the water nearby.

The life ring drifted off to the left, maybe ten feet away. Eichenbrenner started a breast stroke toward it.

“Watch out!”

The fin surfaced again, about fifteen feet to his right. It made quick, violent circles in the water, then disappeared.

Eichenbrenner swam and instinctively prayed that he would reach the ring without being bitten in half.

A few seconds later, his hand reached the flotation device.

The shark resurfaced, maybe twenty-five feet away. It set a course directly for him. Angry white teeth like glistening sharp razors bore straight at him. Its black eyes blazed fury. It swirled in the water, then slowly started a death swim in his direction.

“Dear Jesus!”

Suddenly, the shark jumped. It splashed down to his right, spraying sea water in his face. Eichenbrenner grasped the life ring and looked around.

Gone again. The shark was toying with him before the kill.

“Skipper!” Basnight yelled from about twenty feet away. He and Grimes were floating close to each other. Hooking the raft in one arm, the captain paddled toward them.

“You okay, Skipper?” Grimes asked.

“Fine,” Eichenbrenner lied. Panting and breathless, he pushed the donut toward the men.

“Sir, they got several of our crew members already,” Grimes said.

“They?”

“Skipper, four of our guys tried to swim aft. We saw the fins surface, and they disappeared under the water.”

“Who disappeared?”

“The men, Captain,” Basnight said. “The sharks got ’em!” Terror crossed the man’s face. Almost a delayed reaction.

The shark surfaced again.

This time, fifteen feet to their right.

Making a wide loop, the fin orbited their position in the water, its wet skin reflecting the leaping flames from the ship in the background.

“There’s another one!” Grimes shouted.

Eichenbrenner looked over his left shoulder. A second shark had joined the first.

Basnight swore and pointed. “Another.”

Over his right shoulder, a third fin cut through the water in the circle.

Like bloodthirsty savages circling a defenseless wagon train, the sharks circled their prey slowly, in an inexplicable ritual of cruel, psychological torture.

“I wish they’d get it over with,” Basnight groaned.

“You boys believe in prayer?” Eichenbrenner asked.

“Never believed in it. Not gonna start now,” Basnight said. Cold fear filled his voice.

“If there was a God, why would he put us on a burning ship and then throw us out to the sharks?” Grimes muttered.

“There may or may not be a God,” Eichenbrenner said, “but I’m going to try it.”

“Try what?”

“Prayer. I suggest you do the same.”

USS Boise

The Andaman Sea

3:25 p.m.

Range to target one thousand yards,” the chief of the watch said. “All ahead one-third,” Captain Hardison said.

“All ahead one-third,” came the reply.

“Very well. Up scope!”

“Up scope. Aye, sir!”

The commanding officer moved over to the periscope station as mechanical motors inside the stainless-steel cylinder whined and clanked, raising the top of the scope to a position just a few feet above the level of the surface.

“Scope’s up, Captain,” the chief of the watch announced.

“Very well.” Captain Hardison stepped up to the eyepiece, grabbed the handle bars, and peered through the scope. Nothing but open water and late-afternoon horizon.

Rotating clockwise, he turned slightly to his right.

Still nothing.

He turned a bit more. Orange smoke and black flames billowed into the sky. Below the smoke, the silhouette of a ship lay low in the water. He hit the magnification button, bringing the ship in full view in the viewfinder.

Hardison squinted, meticulously searching for any signs of life still aboard the ship. His eyes quickly swept twice from the smoking bow to the stern area.

Nothing.

He’d seen enough.

“Down scope. Prepare to surface.”

The Andaman Sea

4:05 p.m.

They had drifted another fifty yards away from the burning ship, perhaps just far enough to avoid getting sucked down when the Altair Voyager went under.

But getting sucked down was the least of their worries at the moment.

Like a hangman tightening a noose, the gray fins continued to swirl angrily in a concentric ring about ten yards from the tiny flotation device. They were so close now that the men could see the shadows of the sharks’ bodies swimming by.

Against the chopping roar of helicopter motors, which remained invisible above the black smoke, Eichenbrenner silently prayed.

Basnight and Grimes cursed that they had no effective means of committing suicide.

“Look!” Basnight suddenly pointed outward. “One of them is leaving.”

One of the sharks had left the circle and seemed to be swimming away, toward the direction of the burning ship.

“It’s turning around!” Eichenbrenner warned.

“It’s headed back!” Basnight unleashed a string of profanities.

“It’s coming fast!” Grimes yelled.

“Lord, help us,” Eichenbrenner blurted. The shark slid through the circling perimeter of fins, then disappeared.

A moment passed.

“Aaahhhhh!” Basnight screamed. “My leg! Aaaaahhh!” Basnight’s face contorted. Blood bubbled and gushed up around his neck. He cocked his head to the heavens and released the raft, drifting in his own blood.

The shark surfaced a few feet to Grimes’ left, then submerged again.

A second later, with a violent jerk, Basnight was snatched under the water. More blood pooled on the surface.

Grimes swore. “We’re dead, Captain.”

“Pray.”

Basnight’s blood excited the circle of sharks. They swam faster now, splashing at the surface violently, as if in a war dance.

A second shark broke away and swam toward the burning ship. Like the one that got Basnight, he turned and started swimming toward Eichenbrenner and Grimes.

The fin disappeared. “God have mercy!” Eichenbrenner said.

A second passed.