Clive Cussler - Corsair

“Why do you think I’m rushing, big man? Kevin?”

Nixon stepped back and looked at his handiwork. He rummaged in a desk drawer and handed Juan and Eddie aviator-style sunglasses. Their skin tone was right, but without latex appliances there wasn’t much he could do about their features. Given enough time, he could make either of them a twin of Didi, but the addition of the shades made him satisfied. He gave a nod, and was going to pronounce his work complete, but Juan was already leading the others out of the room.

“Linda, where is Didi now?” Cabrillo asked over the radio.

“They’re just outside the hold. There are probably twelve men with him. All of them are armed to the teeth. Speaking of which, our pirate leader, Hakeem, is grinning ear to ear.”

“I bet he is,” Juan replied. “But not for long.”

He led Linc and Eddie to an unmarked door on one of the Oregon ’s elegant corridors. He opened a peephole on a two-way mirror, and when he saw the room beyond was dark he swung open the door and the three men stepped through. A pull on an overhead fixture revealed they were in a utility closet, with a mop sink, buckets, and shelves loaded with cleaning supplies. This was one of the many secret passages between the Oregon ’s two sections.

It was only when Juan put his hand on the knob to open the door to the public part of the ship that he thought about the fact he was potentially entering a combat situation. A jolt of adrenaline hit him like a narcotic. The old feelings were there—fear, anxiety, and a dose of excitement, too—but the more times he faced danger, the longer it took to quell those feelings and empty his mind of distraction.

This was the moment none of the Corporation operators ever discussed or acknowledged in any way. He could imagine Linc’s and Eddie’s horror if he turned to them and asked if they were as scared as he was. This was the essence of any good soldier, the ability to admit he is afraid while having the discipline to channel it into something useful in combat.

Juan didn’t pause. He pushed open the door and stepped into the public part of the ship. Two Somali women hustled by carrying rolled-up carpet they must have pulled from one of the cabins. They didn’t give Cabrillo’s party a second glance.

The three men rushed aft until they found a stairwell leading them deeper into the freighter. There was an armed guard stationed at the foot of the stairs, and when Juan tried to pass he grabbed for his arm, saying something in Somali that Cabrillo didn’t understand.

“I need to speak with Lord Didi,” Juan said in Arabic, hoping the man knew the language.

“No. He is not to be disturbed,” the guard replied haltingly.

“Have it your way,” Juan muttered in English, and coldcocked the man with a haymaker that lifted the slightly built Somali off his feet.

Cabrillo shook out his wrist while Linc and Eddie dragged the guard under the metal scissor stairs.

“Make sure we don’t forget that guy when this is over,” Juan said, and started off toward the hold. According to Linda Ross, Mohammad Didi had been in there for three minutes so far and was still inspecting the trucks.

“What’s his mood?”

“Like a kid in a candy store.”

“Okay, I think it’s time. Tell Max to start pumping out the smoke and to get ready on those water cannons. Remember, I want people getting off, not rushing aboard to grab anything else.”

“Roger.”

Perhaps the Oregon ’s single greatest hidden feature was the fact she wasn’t powered by traditional marine diesels. Instead, she employed something called magnetohydrodynamics. Magnets cooled by liquid helium stripped free electrons out of the seawater and gave the ship a near-limitless supply of electricity. This was used to power four jet pumps that shot water through a pair of directional drive tubes deep in the hull. The revolutionary propulsion system could move her eleven thousand tons through the waves at unimaginable speeds. But to maintain the illusion that she was a derelict vessel, she had smudge generators that could belch smoke from her stack to simulate poorly maintained engines.

It was this smoke that Max was redirecting into the ventilation system in the parts of the ship the Somali pirates thought they controlled.

Approaching the open door to the number three cargo hold, Juan noted soot boiling out of the ventilation grilles set into the low ceiling. It would take no more than fifteen minutes to fill the ship with the noxious gas. They could hear voices echoing from inside the hold.

“Ready?” Juan asked. Linc and Eddie nodded.

They rushed into the hold, Juan screaming, “Fire! Fire!”

Didi and his dozen-strong entourage looked over from where they were examining one of the heavy-duty pickups. “What’s all this?”

“There is a fire. Smoke,” Juan said, knowing he spoke Arabic with a Saudi accent that must sound strange to the Somali. “It is coming from everywhere.”

Didi glanced at the drums of ammonium nitrate. Juan wasn’t sure if he was thinking about taking them before flames engulfed the ship or if he was concerned they could detonate. They could smell the smoke now in the unventilated hold. A pall of it hung near the entry door. Juan looked over at Hakeem. The pirate sensed he was being studied and looked back. He had no idea what was going on behind the sunglasses Cabrillo wore, and would have drawn his pistol and fired if he knew the depths of hatred Juan had for pirates.

Linda’s voice came over the headset hidden under his turban. “Just so you know the women and young children are making for the gangplank, but not many of the soldiers seemed concerned.”

“Have you seen the flames yourself?” asked Mohammad Didi.

“Er, no, sir.”

A wary look flashed behind the strongman’s eyes. “I do not know you. What is your name?”

“Farouq, sir.”

“Where are you from?”

Juan couldn’t believe it. There was a potential fire raging on the ship, Didi had seen the smoke, and he wanted a life history.

“Sir, there isn’t time.”

“Oh, all right. Let’s see what has you so spooked. Someone probably just burned food in the galley.”

Juan motioned for Eddie to lead them back down the corridor to the stairwell. Didi walked slowly and stayed in the middle of his group, despite Juan’s urging him to rush. Eddie looked back just before stepping over the coaming of a watertight door. Cabrillo nodded.

The instant Mohammad Didi, preceded by Juan and Linc, stepped over the threshold, a steel panel concealed in the ceiling came down under hydraulic force. It happened so fast that the men trapped on the other side didn’t have time to react. One second the path was open and the next a metal barrier barred them from leaving the corridor.

The trapdoor had cut the number of guards in half, but it was still too many to take on in such close quarters.

“What’s going on?” Didi asked no one in particular.

Hakeem remembered Malik’s and Aziz’s wild story about the mess hall being empty. He looked around with superstitious dread. There was something not right with this ship, and his heightened desire to get off had nothing to do with the possibility of a fire.

Two pirates tried unsuccessfully to lift the slab of steel, while their comrades pounded on the metal from the other side. The smoke was growing thicker.

“Leave them,” Didi shouted, also feeling that things were not what they seemed.

He led the charge up the stairs, not noticing that the guard he had posted earlier wasn’t there. What started as a fast walk turned into a jog and then an outright sprint.

This guy has the instincts of a rat , Juan thought. He slowed his pace so he could talk to the op center without attracting attention. “Linda, are you tracking us?”