Deadly Straits (A Tom Dugan Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Alicia . The boats alone will be much easier to hide and move through the mangrove swamps.”
    “There’s your answer,” Dugan said.
    Ward looked confused, and Dugan continued. “ Alicia ’s gear can’t handle the boats. They need a crane. And shore cranes need strong docks, and big floating cranes are few and far between.”
    Two Days Earlier
M/V Alicia
Indonesian Coast
    Sheibani moved from bridge wing to bridge wing as he calmly issued helm orders, conning Alicia up the shallow, twisting passage through the mangrove swamp in the moonlight and on a rising tide. He had his best man on the helm, and he’d lightened Alicia to seven feet. The rest of the crew manned the rails with powerful handheld lights and called warnings of obstacles.
    With the propeller and rudder only partially submerged, the ship handled poorly, but each time he grounded in the soft mud, he waited for the tide to lift her, then backed off to continue his cautious transit. He regretted no one would know of Alicia ’s final resting place and appreciate his skill, but duping the infidels was satisfaction enough.
    As the sky lightened in the east, he spotted his objective ahead in the predawn: a crumbling concrete dock by a pool of still water. Trees rose from gaping cracks in the dock, some a foot in diameter with tops higher than Alicia ’s deckhouse, and thick limbs spread over the water. Sheibani shouted a warning, and the crew scurried into the deckhouse as he retreated to the wheelhouse and increased speed. He pushed the helmsman aside and took the wheel himself to slam Alicia ’s port side toward the dock, her momentum forcing her superstructure, booms, and masts through the foliage. Stout limbs snapped like cannon shots and fell across the deck as the little ship slowed abruptly. Alicia listed slightly to starboard as she fought her way through the obstacle, then Sheibani heard the screech of steel on concrete. He killed the engine and Alicia shuddered to a stop.
    Seconds later, Sheibani stood on the starboard bridge wing, watching as his crew boiled from the deckhouse and went about their prearranged tasks. Some climbed to the dock and began passing mooring lines, while others fired up chain saws and began clearing the deck of broken limbs, tossing the debris over the offshore side of the ship. In minutes, the ship was secured, overhanging limbs shielding most of the vessel. The camouflage netting would do the rest.
    He’d first come to this place on a dirt bike, guided by an old man who’d worked here long ago. All that remained was a crumbling dock and dilapidated Quonset hut, its rusted sides covered in vines, the open end a black cave in the greenery. Convincing the International Development Fund to finance a port miles from deep water must have been difficult, even years ago, but the developers had been well connected. They slapped down a dock and dredged a thirty-five-foot-deep hole along it to collect a hefty progress payment. Months later, when a survey party found the site abandoned and overgrown and the deepwater channel into the dock to exist only on paper, the government feigned outrage, the IDF shrugged, and everyone forgot the site until Allah guided Sheibani to it thirty years later. He’d used the site as a smuggling depot for three years, anchoring Alicia in deep water miles away and approaching by Zodiac. Both the ship and this place had served his needs well, but it was time to move on.
    M/V Alicia
25 May
    Sheibani nodded to himself as he moved through the hold, pleased at the progress. He watched as men swarmed the boats, removing the securing straps and lashing heavy vinyl tarps over the cockpit openings before sealing the boats completely with industrial stretch wrap. Soon they would be as buoyant and unsinkable as corks.
    In the aft end of the hold, men emptied the weapons container, hoisting its contents over the main deck to the crumbling concrete dock, while forward, the chief engineer squatted on the deck,