Dov chewed at the inside of his cheek for a while, his head occasionally rocking from side to side. "End user certificate? Mmm…maybe not. Done at sea, you say? Or right in South Africa? Or both. And just how big a bribe are you offering? And how much for the name of my contact?"
"That's all negotiable," Victor said. "It will be large enough. Now tell me what is possible in upgrades."
Dov shrugged. "It's a pretty extensive rebuild: New steering-hydraulic, new disc brake system for all four wheels, new diesel engine-a Toyota, and new wiring. We can put in air conditioning . . . day-night fire control . . . laser range finder . . . armor upgrade for standoff protection from HEAT warheads. Non-explosive reactive is also possible. There's also an option to upgrade the gun to the new high velocity 60mm, basically the same thing we did for the Chilean Shermans. Nice gun, by the way, but we have to modify the turret hugely."
A slender, delicate hand with painted but chipped nails grasped one of the unoccupied chairs and pulled it from the table. Into the chair sat an extraordinarily attractive, slender, wave-haired, and olive-skinned woman. She was dressed in mechanic's coveralls that completely succeeded in failing to hide her figure.
"Hello, Lana," Dov said, with a frown. "Victor, let me introduce . . ." Dove stopped speaking for a moment when he realized Victor was simply paying him no mind at all.
"They say of many women," Victor said, as if from very far away, "that her hair ‘cascades.' I think you are the first one I have ever seen of which the compliment is true. I-"
Victor stopped speaking when he realized than a group of Hassidim had begun to pass, except for one of them who was standing by the railing looking directly at him and chiding him with a waving finger. Victor hunched his head down as if in shame until the finger stopped wagging and the genuine Hassid had walked on with his group.
"Forget it, Victor," Dov advised. "Lana's a dyke."
"Not at all," the woman said, adding, matter of factly, "Tried it; didn't much like it. I've just met very few men I thought worth the trouble and Dov here is bitter that he wasn't one of them. Lana Mendes," she announced, offering her hand.
"You're very beautiful, Lana Mendes," Victor said.
"Don't tell her that," Dov advised. "Tell her she's a great armored vehicle optics mechanic. Tell her she's a first class tank gunner. Tell her she's a fine officer. But never, never, never tell Ms. Mendes she's beautiful."
Lana sighed with exasperation. "As a matter of fact, I used to teach tank gunnery, and now I work as an optics mechanic. And I am a first class reserve officer. But try and prove that in a place like this." She looked around in such a way as to indicate the entire country, not just the local environment. "Dov's right, by the way, you should take the upgrade to 60mm high velocity."
"I don't know about the gun," Victor replied. "I just don't have the authority. I'll check, though. And everything else sounds about right. Now, how mobile and accommodating can you be?"
"We can work anywhere." Dov said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting
of man and those who have hunted armed men long
enough and liked it, never really care
for anything else thereafter.
-Ernest Hemingway, "On the Blue Water"
D-108, Londonderry Port, UK
It was already dark when the boat finally entered Lough Foyle, in the only place where the South, the Republic of Ireland, was north, and the north, the Six Counties, was south.
Biggus Dickus appreciated the darkness. It's just as well, he thought. Even a disarmed and civilian painted ELCO eighty-one foot patrol torpedo boat is inherently suspicious. If it hadn't been so fast and so cheap, I'd probably have turned it down.
"Biggus Dickus" had booked a berth for the Bastard at one of the marinas dotting the sides of Lough Foyle. This did not prevent the boat from taking a slow spin around the Lough, through darkened gray-brown waters that were almost without any natural waves.
"There she is," said Eeyore, pointing leftward with his chin. Eeyore laughed softly.
"I see her," agreed Biggus standing at the wheel of the boat. "And what's so funny?"
"I looked it up. George Galloway is a Brit politician. He's probably an atheist, himself, but he latched onto the Islamics there to launch and support his political career. He even married one of them, a really hot Palestinian girl, though I think she divorced him. He is, in any case, a defensive mouthpiece for Islamic terrorism and an offensive, in both senses, speaker for the gradual subordination of Great Britain to Islam. No wonder they named a boat after him. And naming a boat after him suggests very strongly that that is no innocent ship."
"I always presumed that," Biggus said. "Simmons?"
"Here, Chief," answered the former boatswain standing by what once would have been a mount for a .50 caliber machine gun . . . and would soon be again.
"When we berth, you and Morales go ashore. Get a rental and scout out that ship."
"Wilco, Chief."
"And remember to drive on the wrong side of the road."
"Forty-one . . . forty-two . . . forty-three . . . forty-four," Simmons counted aloud as the last group boarded the Galloway. "Your count agree with that, Morales?"
The Puerto Rican former SEAL nodded, then added, "There's no way that ship needs a crew that size. That's twice as many as they need, maybe more."
"Which smells like trouble even if they're perfectly innocent," Simmons agreed. "But where else have you seen young men who looked just like that lot?"
Morales laughed. "Well, besides Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan . . ."
"Exactly. Those aren't sailors and they aren't mostly illegal immigrants. Those are fighters. We need to bring this back to the chief. But first some measurements. I make it as twelve feet from waterline to top of the hull near the bow."
"A little less," Morales corrected. "No more than ten and a half."
"Nah; it's twelve. Look at the containers. In any case, we can two-man-lift a boarder over it. She carries, max, seven hundred TEU."
"Agreed."
Simmons did some mental gymnastics. "I make her as roughly four hundred feet in length and maybe sixty-five in beam."
"About right," Morales said. "She's Antigua registered. Any issues with that?"
Simmons shrugged. "None I can think of. Maybe Oprah Winfrey or Eric Clapton would object to our taking it. But fuck them."
"Not Oprah," Morales said. "I think she's supposed to become Secretary of Cloying Sweetness under the current administration."
"Sweet," said Biggus, though his tone of voice didn't suggest he found anything too sweet in the news. "I'd thought to get two of us aboard, then wait for the Galloway to get out into the sea lanes. Those two could have taken the radio room and bridge, then the rest of us would have intercepted and boarded. With forty-four men aboard, half of them with no likely jobs, the odds of even one man being found are just too good."