50
PITT FELT LIKE HE WAS IN A CHAMBER OF HIS OWN, only his was a chamber of horrors.
By the hour, the dank prison he shared on the Adelaide felt more and more claustrophobic. A daily rise in the outside temperature had turned the bay into a stifling-hot oven. Making matters worse, the heat intensified the foul odors generated by the confined men and two dead bodies.
Pitt felt constant hunger, but was thankful they were given plenty of drinking water. Periodically the hatch door would be thrown open, and two armed men would toss in boxes of bread and other dried stores from the galley. The prisoners valued the brief gusts of fresh air nearly as much as the food.
Pitt and the SWAT team had tried formulating an escape plan, but their options were nonexistent. The storage bay had been stripped of any tools or equipment to force another exit. The locked hatch, they found, was guarded around the clock. Multiple attempts at testing the handle or hinges were instantly met by a rapping from a gun barrel on the opposite side. Whenever the hatch was opened to deliver food and water, at least two men stood ready with assault rifles.
Noticing the stale rolls they had been given to eat had hardened to the consistency of granite, Giordino suggested using those to attack the guards.
Pitt’s friend rebounded swiftly from his wound, which somehow showed no signs of infection. After sleeping nearly three straight days, Giordino had awoken with an irritable vigor, and he quickly regained his strength despite the sparse diet.
While most of the men grew resigned to their captivity, a few began losing control. Fights broke out among the crew of the Adelaide, while another man gave in to fits of hysterical yelling. Pitt felt an uneasy gratitude when he noticed a reduction in the ship’s engine revolutions, signaling their arrival in protected waters.
Pitt had counted the number of hours passed since he was thrown into confinement. Traveling at sixteen knots, he calculated the Adelaide could have covered almost four thousand miles, placing them anywhere between Alaska and Peru. But the warm temperatures suggested something equatorial. If the ship had held its southeasterly heading, Pitt figured they could be somewhere off southern Mexico or Central America.
Confirmation came soon, after the ship had stopped and started several times, accompanied by the sound of dock activity. The ship got under way and sailed another three hours before stopping for good. A short time later, the prisoners were roused from their compartment.
The men stepped from the hot and humid storage bay to an equally hot and humid deck. The ship was berthed at a dock, stern first, surrounded on three sides by dense jungle. Only a small patch of blue off the bow showed they had sailed from a larger body of water and backed into a narrow inlet barely large enough for the freighter to fit.
The brightness of early morning stung their eyes, yet Pitt noted the sun was nowhere in sight.
Someone really likes their jungle around here,” Giordino said, pointing a finger skyward.
Shading his eyes, Pitt saw a jungle canopy overhead. It took him several seconds to realize it was a huge swath of camouflage netting that was strung over the entire dock complex.
Maybe just privacy nuts,” Pitt said. He looked at the Adelaide, confirming his suspicions. The ship’s name had been repainted Labrador, while the funnel and deck railing had been painted new colors. The hijackers were well versed at theft and concealment on a grand scale.
The prisoners were herded to a gangway and marched off the ship, where they were greeted by a line of armed men in fatigues, several of them partnered with guard dogs. The captives were left standing along the dock for several minutes, which allowed time for Pitt and Giordino to study the facilities. The dock operation was modest, consisting of two small cranes and a conveyor system. Behind it were several large concrete pads, dusted with gray sediment—transfer stations for the raw ore and processed rare earth elements that were transferred in and out of the facility. Beyond the dock area, several low-slung buildings poked through the foliage. Pitt suspected they were separation-and-extraction plants, used to refine the stolen rare earth ores.
The putt-putt of a small motor preceded the appearance of a golf cart bearing a muscular blond man wearing a fitted uniform with a holstered pistol on his hip. A coiled bullwhip dangled from a belt hook on the opposite side. Pitt noticed the guards tense at his arrival.
Looks like a lion tamer,” Giordino whispered.
For a circus I want no part of,” Pitt said.
The overseer, Johansson, crossed the dock and spoke to Gomez, who had followed the prisoners off the ship. The Swede examined the freighter with a satisfied gleam.
She’s carrying a full load of crushed monazite,” Gomez said. “Testing confirmed high concentrates of neodymium, cerium, and dysprosium.”
Excellent. The extraction facilities have been waiting for new material. We will engage the new prisoners in off-loading the ore.”
What about the ship?”
She would make a nice addition to the fleet. Determine what reconfigurations are required to erase her identity, and we’ll discuss it with Bolcke after she’s unloaded.”
Johansson turned his back on Gomez to examine the new captives. He reviewed the men with a caustic eye, paying particular attention to the SWAT team.
Welcome to Puertas del Infierno,” he said, “the Gates of Hell. You now belong to me.”
He waved his arm across the dock toward the buildings beyond. “This is an ore-refining center. We take raw ore and process it into various minerals of high value. You will be workers in the process. If you work hard, you will live. If you do not complain, you will live. And if you do not attempt escape, you will live.” He stared down the line of weakened men. “Are there any questions?”
A crewman from the Adelaide, one who’d had a difficult time in captivity, cleared his throat. “When will we be released?” he asked.
Johansson approached the man and smiled at him. Then he casually pulled his sidearm and shot the man in the forehead. A swarm of nearby jungle birds screeched at the sound as the man tumbled backward, falling into the water dead.
The other assembled captives gaped in stunned silence.
Johansson grinned. “Are there any more questions?”
Met by barely a heartbeat, he holstered his weapon. “Good. Again, I welcome you to Puerta del Infierno. Now, let’s get to work.”