The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 14





CMA CGN Valnea

Gulf of Aden

LB lowered himself by a series of levels and ladders. Surrounded by steel, he became conscious of every noise he made, boots on the rungs, Bojan’s jangling gun, his breathing. His combat sense told him to sneak down until he knew what he was headed into.

Reaching the bottom of the hold, he gazed into a vast honeycomb. The size and complexity of the ship belowdecks stunned LB. The diffuse glow from his flashlight did not reach its limits. But only strides away from the bottom of his ladder, on the canyon floor, two rows of railroad cars looked puny and alone.

Here were the first of the Valnea’s secrets.

When Major Torres sent him on this mission, she hadn’t counted on pirates, gunplay, a saboteur. If LB’s life and the safety of others were at risk, he needed to find out everything he could about the terrain, the players, and the stakes.

Time for curiosity. If he got in trouble for it later, that’d be good news. He’d be alive for it.

The first line of nine railcars supported long, rounded cargos covered by tied-down tarpaulins. The nine beds in the second row held rectangular loads, also hidden by tarps. LB crept to the nearest car. When he was standing close, the shipment no longer appeared small. It dwarfed him.

He sliced his knife across the tarp, cutting a slash big enough to stick in his head and flashlight.

“Holy…” LB clamped his teeth, or he might shout.

He trained his flashlight along the frost-colored fuselage of an unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone’s long wings lay bound to its sides. Inert and dismantled, the thing still looked deadly and blindly robotic. He’d seen plenty of UAVs on runways in Afghanistan. Always they gave him the same chill, knowing and disliking what they were, drone hunter-killers, the faceless future of warfare.

He scanned the colossal length of the plane, not recognizing the shape. This was no Predator or Reaper. It wasn’t American.

On one wing, close to the root, his light passed over a label. LB withdrew his head, shielding the flashlight. He moved to cut another slit in the tarp.

He aimed the light to read the label. IAI. Israeli Aircraft Industry.

LB sliced into the eight other tarps in line. He found identical UAVs.

Why were Israeli drones being shipped to Lebanon?

He cut through the tarps on all the railcars in the second row. The first four held CCS mobile bunkers. These were hardened nerve centers, C4I stations for command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence. The last five cars were packed with ground radar arrays, aerostat dirigibles, remote video terminals—every persistent surveillance sensor an army needed for detection, identification, and targeting.

Like the drones, all of it was Israeli.

This didn’t add up. Israel shared a border with Lebanon. If all this heavy hardware was bound for Beirut, why not ship it overland a hundred miles instead of loading it onto a freighter in one of the remotest reaches of the world, Vladivostok?

As he stared at the radar arrays under his flashlight, a few bits and pieces of this mystery ship began to fit for LB.

Why did the Valnea run empty, except for these railcars, for ten thousand miles?

Simple. She was calling into only one port. This wasn’t a commercial voyage but a charter, meant to ferry the drones and electronics straight to Beirut.

Then why load up so far out of the way in a far corner of Russia? And why protect the drones with Bojan?

The obvious reason was secrecy. This shipment wasn’t just sensitive. It was probably illegal. The customer was bound to be on a UN watch list. Russia couldn’t ship military technology this advanced to just anybody. In the Middle East, that list of banned parties was long, and it included Lebanon. The Valnea’s cranes would let her unload the drones anywhere along the Lebanese coast, self-sufficient and secretive.

To pull it off, the ship needed a captain who wouldn’t pry. Drozdov was perfect, an experienced but retread officer who would shut his mouth and click his heels to get back on his feet. The rest of the crew would follow his orders. Drozdov seemed angry with himself, and his ship, for it.

The size and expense of the operation were considerable. Drones, C4I stations, and battlefield radars would easily top several billion dollars. Major Torres had been real clear that LB should keep his nose out of exactly where he’d stuck it. This indicated pressure from above. That spelled government—LB’s government.

So Russia, the United States, and Israel were in bed together. That put a lot of horsepower in play. Who else?

Who was getting the shipment? Too soon to know. Chances were, the stuff wasn’t destined for poor Lebanon, not for $5 billion anyway. Because it was being delivered in secret, the customer was somebody who could afford it but couldn’t get military hardware like this above the table.

No surprise. Prisoners, technology, weapons, information; this sort of back-door, black-op swap was done all the time between nations who were at each other’s throats in public, in each other’s pockets under the table.

What was at stake this time? What was being traded for drones and radar? Surely more than just money.

Also too soon to know.

Just as vital to LB’s survival: Who on board the Valnea was trying to stop it? Who had the know-how, motive, access, and sheer stones?

If the saboteur’s purpose was to keep the ship from reaching Beirut, why foul just one piston? Why not pull a bunch of fuses and shut down the whole engine?

LB clicked off the flashlight, closing the flap he’d cut into the last tarp. He scratched his ear, mulling all this over.

What if the intent wasn’t to stop the ship? What if the saboteur wanted only to slow her?

Why? To delay arrival in Beirut?

But if the point was to get to Lebanon later, the sabotage could have been done anytime over the past two weeks. Why wait ten thousand miles to do it here, in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, pirate central?

Drozdov said someone had slowed the ship so she could be hijacked. Someone on this ship was working with the pirates. If this was true, incredible. Again, why? Who?

Too many open-ended questions. LB centered on the one thing he could be sure of. Drozdov was dead on. Very powerful interests had a lot to lose here. If the Valnea got hijacked and her secrets hauled into the light of day by a bunch of ragtag Somalis waving AK-47s, heads would roll in Tel Aviv, Washington, and Moscow.

Drozdov had sent the signal that the ship was under attack. Now that pirates were aboard, someone, somewhere, was sure to come gunning to get the Valnea back. Maybe if Drozdov and his crew made it to the engine room, that American warship could drop a marine assault team on board. To keep that from happening, the pirates would have to get their hands on a hostage. They needed Iris Cherlina. As soon as they checked the ship’s manifest, they’d know she was on board and at large.

What role did she play in all this? Iris claimed to be an electrophysicist. She likely hadn’t been lying—who picks that for a fake career? But how did that figure in with several billion dollars’ worth of illegally transported military electronics? Iris, the drones, and the radar were all bound for Beirut. How was she linked to the big undercover deal in the belly of this ship?

He hoped she had nothing to do with any of it, and in the same moment cut that wish loose as foolish. Iris Cherlina was plenty good-looking. She’d played up to him to chump him. Drozdov called her a liar. Plainly the captain was right. If there were vast amounts of money involved, as she claimed, Iris was likely in this mess up to her pretty ears. Along with who else on board?

In the middle of all this uncertainty, one fact stood rock solid. If the Valnea wasn’t freed by someone in the next several hours, she’d be anchored off the Somali coast by sunup. After that, no one would get her back, not before the pirates stamped her secrets all over the world’s front page.

If LB wanted answers, and he did, he needed to find Iris Cherlina. He was going to ask her one more time what she was doing on this ship.

He headed for the bow and the muffled light.