“What about me?” she probed. “Do I sail with the satellite too?”
“For a way,” he said, studying his empty plate. “There will be another rendezvous with another ship. You will be taken to another place, an island. You will stay there for a time, until certain events have taken place. You will have every comfort. You will lack for nothing. Anything you wish will be provided. When I can, I will come for you.”
“I see.”
There is a certain finality to an island prison. Saint Helena, Alcatraz, Devil’s Island — all proved the point. Glenda, I think I’m ready to go home to Kansas, Amanda thought feverishly. Elliot, Chris, Stone, Ken, somebody! Get me the hell out of here!
With breakfast completed, the cargo handling commenced. Even with nightfall and her departure hours away, the Harconan Flores was stirring, coming awake from her dockside slumber. Engine-testing stirred the waters of the ship pen, and work lights blazed on her weather and vehicle decks.
Harconan went forward to the forepeak of the LSM’s bow. Accompanied by Sonoo and equipped with a civilian shipmaster’s Handie-Talkie, he personally intended to supervise the INDASAT loading operation. He offered no objection and in fact seemed rather pleased when Amanda asked to accompany him. She merely noted that her old friend, the guard from the pinisi, was back, a living shadow following at her heels.
On the forecastle she found yet another impressive example of Harconan’s forethought waiting for her. The inflatable clean room had been collapsed and withdrawn from around INDASAT 06. The access hatches had all been reclosed in its hull, and the massive space platform had been sealed within multiple layers of plastic, neatly packaged for shipment.
A second trailer had been rolled out of the vehicle deck of the Flores and parked directly behind the one that cradled the INDASAT. This trailer, a squat industrial lowboy, carried a huge stainless-steel tank. Slightly larger than the satellite in all dimensions, its end cap was missing. Hazmat warnings in several languages and the international chemical hazard symbol were painted on its silver sides.
As Amanda looked on in grudging admiration, the INDASAT was jackassed slowly back into the empty tank over a set of transfer tracks.
“The consummate smuggler,” she said. “I am impressed, Makara. You’re leaving nothing to chance.”
“Chance is a poor ally, Amanda. I rarely depend on her. Should the Flores be intercepted at sea and boarded, the boarders will find her transporting a shipment of toxic waste from a chemical company in the Philippines to an industrial incinerator operation in Malaya. Her captain will have full and legal documentation for the cargo and sworn testimony available at the source and destination to back up the documentation. Should anyone want to open an inspection hatch or a test cock, they will find a rather nasty acid compound that no one in their right mind would want to fool with excessively.”
“The old rum in the double-headed vinegar cask ploy.”
Harconan chuckled. “For all of the world’s technological sophistication, the old ploys still work best.” Lifting the Handie-Talkie to his lips, the taipan gave a sharp command in Bahasa.
“I have to ask, Makara: How much?”
“All total?” He scratched the underside of his chin with the Handie Talkie antenna. “Oh, I’d daresay the gross is about forty-one million U.S. dollars. After expenses, we’ll clear about thirty million in profit.” He glanced at her. “A share of it, ten per cent, is yours to do with as you will.”
“I won’t count it yet, Makara. Elliot MacIntyre knows all the old ploys too.”
“Ah, but then that’s another advantage of transporting toxic waste. This particular compound is very volatile — just the kind of thing that might burst into flames at an inopportune moment, say, as an American man-of war looms over the horizon. The crew abandons ship, there is a terrific explosion, and the ship sinks, taking its cargo into the deeps with it.”
Amanda lifted an eyebrow. “And since the Flores was transporting hazmat, you naturally took out extensive insurance on the ship?”
“Naturally.”
“But the satellite, Mr. Harconan,” Sonoo bleated. “Should this happen, what of the money my company has paid for this technology? We were promised delivery!”
Harconan leaned on the rail, as content as a lolling tiger. “Refer to your contract, Professor, the ‘Acts of Man and God’ clause. No refunds, so sorry.”
Amanda couldn’t stop her smile, nor could she stop her hand from lightly touching that broad back. Could there be more than one such corsair left in the world?
“Mr. Harconan!”
There was urgency in the call over the low-powered hand radio. It was Captain Onderdank’s voice, and the Dutch officer sounded perturbed.
“What is it, Captain?” Harconan demanded, straightening.
“I am here at the fantail lookout. The surface sentries have reported an Indonesian patrol frigate standing in close to the cape. It looks like a routine coastal sweep, but the latest set of deployment updates from Admiral Lukisan’s headquarters indicates that there shouldn’t be any major Indonesian fleet units in this area. The closest frigate should be the one shadowing the American task force, and its last position report puts it four hundred miles to the southwest.”
Harconan’s first instinct was to look toward Amanda. She held her face immobile, suppressing all emotion.
“Captain, get down to the bow and expedite the loading!” Harconan barked into the radio. “Get the satellite aboard the ship now! Sonoo, you stay with me, and you, too, Amanda!”
Harconan hastened aft, snapping out additional commands in Indonesian, both into the radio and in shouts down to the pier side. Sonoo and Amanda were herded along behind him. Amanda wondered if Sonoo had noted that “her” guard had suddenly become “their” guard.
The camouflage curtain across the mouth of the cavern just barely cleared the fantail of the moored LSM. A lookout point had been established there with an observation slit cut through the heavy plasticized nylon. By leaning outboard and releasing the industrial Velcro closing strips, the flap covering the slit could be dropped, permitting a view down the inlet from the ship’s deck.
A Parchim-class patrol frigate could indeed be seen emerging from behind the left-hand cliffside, the ship running perhaps a mile off the tip of the cape. Harconan snatched a pair of binoculars out of a rack on the rear bulkhead of the superstructure, leveling them at the passing vessel.
There was a second set of binoculars in the rack. The guard took no action when Amanda lifted them to her own eyes.
There was no doubt that it was an Indonesian Parchim, and yes, those were the hull numbers of her old friend the Sutanto. She was riding light, though, very light, with a broad strip of red lead showing along her waterline. There wasn’t a soul on deck, either.
Amanda lowered the glasses and dared to wonder.
Bridge of the Frigate Sutanto
1 Mile off Crab’s Claw Cape
0800 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008
Elliot MacIntyre lowered his binoculars as well, his eyes narrowing. Remarkable. He could see right down the gut of the inlet, and there wasn’t a sign of anything in the way of an exterior dock gate or passage at its far end. If this all turned out to be some kind of staggering miscalculation, he mused, he was on the verge of earning himself a very unique slot in American naval history.
He lifted a hand to the touchpad of his Leprechaun transceiver. “Lost Prize to Black Beard. We are at Station Privateer. I say again, we are at Station Privateer. Report commitment status on all Freebooter elements.”