"Simple boarding and seizure at sea, then, Chief?" asked Simmons. He looked around the inside of the Bastard at the mounds of carefully netted and tied down gear provided by the shipping container in Paldiski. "It isn't like we lack for materiel." Simmons held up a radio-controlled detonator, by way of illustration.
Thornton shook his head. "I don't know there'll be anything simple about it. And it'll be tough to do without them getting the word out. Though you're right about the materiel."
"They'll be leaving soon, Chief," Simmons said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have brought the extra people aboard yet."
"I still don't think we can hide two men aboard with all those extra fuckers roaming the ship out of boredom."
"If not two, Chief, how about one?" suggested Antoniewicz. "I'm a little dude; I can find a place to hide if you can get me aboard."
Biggus shook his head doubtfully. "Bad form to send a lone man off," he said.
Eeyore stood to his full five feet, four inches, held his arms out invitingly, and answered, "Hell, Chief, I'm not even a full lone man. So if we can't send two, let's send three quarters or a half. Bound to confuse ‘em."
***
The Russian rubber boat made not a sound as its electric motor forced it through the watery gloom. It passed by Galloway's stern, then drove in under the pier. Once under cover, it weaved between the wooden pilings to the bow. There, it passed under the steel wedge and came around the bow to its port side. The boat came to a stop as it bumped up, still soundless, against the hull. The man at the tiller, Bland, dialed down the power to just enough to keep the rubber tight against the target.
Forward in the rubber boat, Simmons was at the bow, followed by Morales, followed by Antoniewicz. All four men in the boat wore Russian night vision goggles strapped to their heads. These were not the best, perhaps, but they were good enough for this. Without a word all three forward stood low and shuffled to the rubber boat's rounded bow. Antoniewicz leaned forward and put both gloved palms against the hull. Simmons and Morales locked arms and bent low to allow the boarder to get one foot up. They then stood, rocking the rubber boat and almost causing Antoniewicz to lose his balance. He pinwheeled his arms a bit, moving his center of mass forward to balance again against the hull.
Eeyore felt his heart beating fast and hard as his balaclava covered head peeped over the side of the ship. There was a container marked "Cosco" just in front of him. He could see the letters clearly enough even in the grainy image of his NVGs.
He felt Morales' hand shift to take a position under his right foot. Simmons did so a moment later with the left. Eeyore's upward motion continued until he was nearly waist high to the top of the hull. His hands, gripping that top, moved downward relative to his torso. A push, the swing of a leg, and the boarder was over the top and easing his feet down to the deck below. It was a tight fit between hull and containers. He waited a moment, listening, then leaned over the side to haul up some ordnance the other two passed to him.
And now to find a place to hide and then scout a bit.
He took from his shoulder holster a Makarov pistol, test and familiarization fired on the voyage from Estonia to Northern Ireland. This pistol had some odd features. It had, for example, an infrared laser aiming device, invisible to the naked eye but quite visible to the Russian-issue NVGs. For another thing, there was a shroud around the barrel. Biggus had said the barrel was drilled to allow gas to escape into the shroud, thus lowering a standard bullet's velocity to something less than the speed of sound. From under his right armpit Antoniewicz removed a cylindrical object, the suppresser, and screwed it to the front of the Makarov. The thing would be silent now, except for the working of the slide. And that, over normal ship and port noise, was nothing.
That was one weapon. Across his back Eeyore had strapped another Russian arm, a Kiparis submachine gun. It, too, was silenced and used the same ammunition as the pistol. Thoughtfully, Victor's cache had provided frangible ammunition for both. Less thoughtfully, while the pistol would be very quiet, due to the reduction in velocity below the speed of sound, rounds fired from the submachine gun would be supersonic, consequently rather noisy.
In addition, by his right side was strapped Eeyore's own, handmade, knife. Lastly, in various pouches and pockets, the former SEAL carried eight RGO defensive grenades, a radio transmitter and beacon, extra batteries, a piece of thin wire with wooden handles on each end, sundry odds and ends (a small drill and a fiberscope, a fiber optic camera, for example), a couple of pounds of smoked meat and some cans with Cyrillic writing and pictures that suggested food.
The boarder looked left. Nothing. Then, pistol and eyes reoriented to the right, he sidled along between containers and hull about a dozen feet. There he came to a space between shipping containers of about two and a half feet, or perhaps a bit less. There he doffed his combat harness, submachine gun, and most of the ancillary gear. He kept his pistol as he kept the NVGs.
Just aft of the bow, the container configuration changed, with the outside edges of the above-hull exterior containers resting on double steel pylons, red with rust. It was that kind of a ship. This also left a more or less covered passageway that shielded Antoniewicz from observation from the windowed bridge that spanned the full beam of the ship.
Getting to the stern-really to the superstructure-was tricky. There almost was no telling when someone might round a corner. Antoniewicz solved the problem by ducking in between a row of containers and listening to be certain there were no footsteps or talking. Then he'd come out again, pad quickly to the next row, duck in, and listen some more. Five times he did this before reaching the penultimate gap. At that point there was only one row of containers between himself and the superstructure. There he waited for perhaps half an hour, accustoming himself to every normal sound the ship might make in this area. Thus, when he heard an other than normal sound, two men, chatting in what sounded like Arabic, their feet ringing on the steel deck, Antoniewicz's heart again began beating fast. He made himself as small as possible in the space, his hand automatically tightening around the pistol. Through his NVGs he caught a brief glimpse of the men as they walked past. They were holding hands. Their other hands were empty.
Doesn't necessarily mean anything, thought the former SEAL. Not if they're Arabs. Not like it would back in the states.
Still, I am stuck here until they go back inside.
It seemed like hours to Eeyore, waiting in the cramped little space, before the two men walked back to the superstructure. When they did, it was on the other side of the ship. It was only slightly later that the deck was flooded with men, casting off and reeling in lines. Shortly thereafter the engines thrummed to life and the ship began moving away from the pier.
The deck stayed pretty active for some time, thereafter. Gradually though, as the banks of the lough disappeared and the Galloway turned west, the sailors went back to their business. Only then could Antoniewicz come out from his hide and go searching for a place to spend the night and for any signs of Adam. In the latter, he was to be completely disappointed.
The little Russian drill was nearly silent. It went through the thin wall of the first container Antoniewicz elected to try in moments. Through the hole, the former SEAL slid the fiber section of the fiberscope along with another small fiber to provide a minimal light.
The scope had a lot of built in distortion, but not so much that Antoniewicz couldn't see the contents of the shipping container. Perfect. Boxes. With his knife he snapped off the inspection seal, opened the container, and removed the first box. This was, like the others, a mid-sized television. He carried the TV to the edge of the bow and dumped it. He watched the progress of the box as the ship moved onward and before it sank, judging, Eighteen knots. The bitch is faster than we thought.