“Not a fan of rats, Linc?” Juan said, deliberately avoiding the implication that the former Navy SEAL was scared of them. If the massive Franklin Lincoln was afraid of anything, Juan sure never wanted to meet up with whatever that was.
Linc smirked. “Are you kidding? Back in Detroit, we’d call one this size a mouse. Ours were nearly as big as raccoons.”
“They sound like they’d make great pets.”
“Where do you think I got the name Charlie for this one?”
Juan laughed, and checked his watch. “We’re scheduled to sail as soon as our cargo of fertilizer is unloaded in three hours,” he said, leading them down the corridor, where he stopped at a tiny utility closet crammed with mops and cleaning supplies that had never been used. “What’s our equipment status?”
“Everything is prepped and ready to go.”
“Good. I’ll check in with Max and then meet you at the moon pool.”
“You got it, Chairman.” He continued down the corridor, humming Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” as he walked.
Juan spun the handles on the faucet of the nonworking sink in a specific pattern. With a sharp click, the back wall opened wide, revealing a hallway that would have been at home on the finest cruise ship. Recessed lighting glowed softly above mahogany walls and sumptuous carpeting, a far cry from the rust and grime the harbormaster had seen. He walked through the opening and down the corridor toward his cabin.
Juan always enjoyed the transition from the deceptively decrepit topside to the sleek and elegant world belowdecks. It symbolized everything he loved about the ship. Although her fantail currently bore the name Dolos, down here he never referred to her as anything but her original name—Oregon.
The Oregon was Juan’s creation. As Chairman, he had conceived a ship that would not only avoid attention but would actually repel it. Few knew about the technological marvels hidden within the Oregon’s apparently crumbling hull. That trickery made her virtually invisible in the Third World ports that she plied. In reality, she was a fourth-generation, state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering vessel. She could travel where no U.S. Navy warship could go, enter ports closed to most commercial shipping, and transport highly secret cargo without arousing suspicion.
Juan entered his cabin, which was the antithesis of the fake one he’d shown to Lozada. Like all the members of his crew, he had a generous allowance to decorate it to his taste since the space served as his home. It was currently fashioned as an homage to Rick’s Café Américain from the movie Casablanca.
Juan shucked his costume and removed the artificial leg that was strapped below his right knee, a disability he’d acquired courtesy of shell fire from a Chinese destroyer called the Chengdo. He rubbed the stump, but as usual the phantom pain wouldn’t go away. He hopped over to his closet and placed the prosthesis at the end of a neat line of them that all had different purposes, some cosmetic, some practical. The one he’d taken off mimicked the look of a real leg, down to toenails and hair.
He picked up the one he’d dubbed the “combat leg” and put it on. The unique titanium prosthesis was packed with backup weapons, including a classic .45 ACP Colt Defender with a Crimson Trace laser sight—an accurate and reliable upgrade from his old Kel-Tec .380—a package of plastic explosives no bigger than a deck of cards, and a ceramic throwing knife. The heel concealed a short-barreled shotgun loaded with a single .44 caliber slug.
With the leg attached, he pulled on a pair of swim trunks, a breathable swim shirt, and fin boots for comfort.
He walked into his office and opened the nineteenth-century railroad safe, where he kept his personal armory. Most of the small arms aboard the Oregon were stored in a central armory adjacent to the ship’s shooting range, but Juan preferred his own cache. Rifles, submachine guns, and pistols shared space with cash from multiple countries, gold coins totaling over a hundred thousand U.S. dollars, and several small pouches of diamonds.
Juan chose his favorite pistol, a Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN double-action automatic, loaded with 5.7mm cartridges that allowed the grip to hold twenty rounds plus one in the chamber. Despite their small size, the bullets were designed to drill through most ballistic armor but tumble once they reached their target to prevent overpenetration. Heavier weaponry wouldn’t work for this operation, much as he wanted to bring some along.
A double-tap knock came at the door, and Max Hanley walked in without waiting for a response. The Oregon’s chief engineer had been Juan’s first hire for the Corporation and Juan relied on his old friend’s judgment more than anyone else aboard. Auburn hair fringed Max’s otherwise bald head, and a paunch was the only other clue that the solidly built president of the Corporation was into his sixties, having served two tours of duty in Vietnam.
“Lozada seemed to fall for the whole thing,” Max said with a frown. He had seen and heard the entire exchange via the hidden cameras and microphones generously apportioned throughout the upper decks.
“You don’t look happy about it,” Juan said.
“It’s not Lozada. I just don’t like us being spread thin like this.”
“Even though most of the plan was your crazy idea?”
“It was your crazy idea. I just came up with how to make it work.”
The CIA suspected the Venezuelans of supplying arms to North Korea, defying a United Nations embargo of the pariah state. The U.S. didn’t know how the weapons were being smuggled, but the shipments did correlate with known deliveries of diesel from Puerto La Cruz to Wonsan. Electronic eavesdropping pinpointed a warehouse along the dock of the oil terminal, which was less than a half mile across a mountainous peninsula from La Guanta Harbor, as a probable coordination point for the shipments. The Corporation’s mission was to obtain evidence of the arms shipments while simultaneously dealing a blow to the fuel delivery that was critical to running the tanks and armored personnel carriers of the North Korean Army. Juan and Linc would be getting the evidence—documents, computer files, photos, anything they could find.
“And your plan is brilliant,” Juan said. “So let’s go put it in motion.” He led Max out of the cabin and walked side by side toward the center of the ship, passing artwork that would have befit any of the world’s great museums. Juan walked without a limp, the result of years of practice perfecting his gait with the artificial limb.
“Are we on schedule?” Juan asked.
“Everyone has checked in and is ready to go.”
“See?” Juan said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I get the heebie-jeebies when you say that.”
“It’s good luck, like saying ‘break a leg’ to an actor.” Juan looked down at his own metal replacement. “Well, maybe the wrong choice of words.”
“At least I know you won’t break my ship, since I’ll be in command while you’re gone.”
“Since she’ll be tied to the dock, you shouldn’t have any problems, either.”
“Just be back on time,” Max said like a worried mother hen.
“Johnny-on-the-spot as always.”
“Unless you put one of your infamous Plan C’s into effect.” Max turned and headed back to the op center, where he could coordinate all of the mission activities.
Juan called after him, “You should only worry when I get to Plan D.” A dismissive wave of Max’s hand was the only response.
After a ride on an elevator down three decks, Juan reached a cavernous space amidships. A submersible was suspended by a gantry crane over a swimming-pool-sized depression that was filled with water at a level even with the waterline outside the ship. The sixty-five-foot Nomad 1000 could dive to a thousand feet with six people aboard, including the pilot and copilot. Its smaller sister, the Discovery 1000, was missing from its cradle, away on another part of the mission.
The moon pool allowed either sub to be launched undetected through huge doors below
the pool that swung downward. The port was too shallow to allow the doors to be fully opened, so the Discovery 1000 had been launched before they entered La Guanta Harbor. Juan wouldn’t need the Nomad for this mission, so it would stay in its cradle.
Linc was already donning his black neoprene wetsuit. Their scuba equipment lay next to him. Juan put his pistol inside Linc’s waterproof weapons bag and slipped into his wetsuit. The water in the tropical harbor didn’t require the suits, but the black color would render them invisible to any casual observers on the dock.
They both checked over their Draeger rebreathing units. Regular scuba rigs released the exhalations as bubbles that would rise to the surface, leaving a trail that would be easily followed. The Draeger consisted of carbon dioxide scrubbers in a closed-loop system that eliminated bubbles. Although the unit was dangerous to use below thirty feet, the restriction wouldn’t be a problem in this case because Juan and Linc were using the gear only to exit the Oregon undetected.
Juan knew that the harbormaster would have the ship staked out and would follow anyone who left the dock area. He and Linc needed to get to their rendezvous without a tail, so underwater was the only option.
Linc nodded that he was ready. With his gear in place, Juan climbed down the collapsible stairs into the moon pool. He put on his fins, clamped his teeth over the rebreather’s mouthpiece, and lowered his mask. He drifted out into the center, and Linc came behind him. Juan gave the A-OK, and the technician in charge of the moon pool dimmed the lights to a faint smolder so that nobody on the dock would notice anything unusual going on beneath the ship.
Juan felt a slight eddy tug at him as the doors below cranked open with a muffled thrum. After a few seconds, the sound stopped. The technician waved a flashlight, signaling that the crack in the doors was now wide enough for their departure.
They released air from their buoyancy compensators and descended until they were floating below the keel. Juan clicked on a wrist flashlight, just bright enough to see the ship’s metal hull in the murky harbor water. He and Linc swam to the stern, where he shut off the flashlight and referred to the waterproof compass on his other wrist to guide them.
Fifteen minutes later, he grabbed Linc’s arm and gave him a thumbs-up. He slowly kicked upward until his mask broached the surface with the barest of ripples. He silently patted himself on the back. They were only twenty yards from the ancient shed that the Corporation had rented for the month.
Juan scanned the perimeter and confirmed that they were alone. No boats were nearby, and the road along the shore was empty. They had chosen this part of the harbor because it was the least traveled.
Juan and Linc removed their fins and crept onshore. Sure that there were no oncoming vehicles, they dashed across the road and into the run-down shed.
Instead of a grimy storage place for rusty equipment and fishing supplies, it seemed as if they’d stepped into the dressing room on a movie set. On one side of the shed was a well-lit mirror, a counter spread with makeup and latex prosthetics, and a director’s chair. Next to it stood a metal frame where two Venezuelan Navy working uniforms were hung—one for a master chief petty officer, the other for a captain, both in camo gray.
The other side of the shed was occupied by a hulking Humvee painted in the livery of the Venezuelan military. Leaning against it was a slim man with a thick beard. He threw each of them a towel.
“You’re a minute early,” Kevin Nixon said with a bright smile. “I wish my actresses had been so punctual. Often I was happy if they showed up at all. Sober.”
Kevin had been an award-winning Hollywood makeup artist, but after his sister died in the attacks on 9/11 he felt the need to contribute his skills to the war on terror. He applied to the CIA but went with a much more interesting and challenging offer when he was guided to Juan and the Corporation. In addition to disguising the crew’s faces for operations when needed, Kevin and his team also had racks of uniforms and clothing from every nation and built whatever unusual props and gadgets they needed, occasionally tapping Max’s engineering expertise for the most technical items. Kevin was the person responsible for Juan’s earlier disguise, the stuffed rat, and the combat leg he now wore.
Normally, Juan would have met him on board the Oregon in the Magic Shop, the name they’d given the workshop where Kevin crafted his amazing designs. But since Juan had to swim out of the Oregon, any appliances and makeup would have washed off before he reached shore. So they’d prepositioned Kevin in the abandoned shed with enough battery power to keep him off the grid. Linc had flown in the week before, liberated the Humvee from a naval armory near Caracas, and stashed it in the shed for tonight’s use.
Juan spotted discarded food wrappers in the corner. Food used to be Kevin’s Achilles’ heel. At one point, he weighed almost two hundred and seventy-five pounds, but successful stomach bypass surgery and a special diet prepared by Oregon’s gourmet chef brought his now solid frame down to a slender one eighty-five.
“I hope you’ve been careful with the local cuisine,” Juan said to Kevin. “Nothing like Montezuma’s revenge to make a sea voyage unpleasant.”
“Tell me about it,” Linc said, rubbing his belly. “I hope I never go back to Mozambique.”
“Nothing but bottled water and prepackaged food for me,” Kevin replied. “Now, let’s get you in the chair. We have some work to do.”
Part of Linc’s time in Venezuela the previous week had been spent observing the suspected warehouse from afar. Covered wide-load trucks went into the facility night and day—presumably with armaments on them—through a razor-wired security fence and a well-guarded gatehouse before disappearing into the building. Sentries walked the perimeter on random schedules, and cameras monitored both the dock and the fence, ruling out stealthy infiltration.
The only other option was to go through the front gate. Twice Linc noticed the same captain going into the facility. The long-lens photos were sent to the CIA, where he was identified as Captain Carlos Ortega. He spent most of his time at the main naval base in Puerto Cabello, where he was now. Although Ortega was similar to Juan in height and build, they looked nothing alike. Whereas Juan was fair-haired and clean-shaven, Ortega was swarthier, with dark hair, bushy eyebrows, brown eyes, a trim mustache, and a nose that looked as if it had been broken.
That’s where Kevin came in. He had several of Linc’s photos of Ortega taped to the mirror. He would transform Juan into the Venezuelan Navy captain.
Juan dried off and sat in the chair while Linc went over the Humvee to make sure it was in good running order. They’d need to depend on it to get back to the Oregon in a hurry once their reconnaissance was complete.
Normally, Kevin would put on laid-back alt-rock music while he worked, but the unusual location demanded quiet so as not to attract attention. With an expert touch, he applied the glue for the latex nose, weaved on a thatchy set of eyebrows, and dusted Juan’s face with makeup. The final touches were the black wig and colored contacts. When Kevin was finished, Juan felt the odd sensation that a stranger was staring back at him from the mirror.
“Excellent work as usual, Kevin,” Juan said. “I can’t recognize myself.”
Linc, who was already in his Navy kit, complete with sidearm and FN FAL assault rifle slung across his shoulder, clapped Kevin on the shoulder. “Wow! I don’t know whether to salute him or recommend a plastic surgeon for that ugly mug.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Kevin said. “You look perfect, if I do say so myself. Try on the uniform.”
Juan put on the tailored outfit, including the cap. When he was fully dressed, Linc and Kevin appraised him.
“I’d say you’re an inch or two taller than Ortega,” Linc said, “but I doubt anyone will notice.”
“Then we’re set,” Juan said. “You’ve outdone yourself again, Kevin.”
“It looks like my work is finished here,” Kevin said, and started
packing up his cosmetic supplies. “I’ll head back to the Oregon as soon as you go.”
He’d leave the less portable items behind and walk to the Oregon. Though the Venezuelans were watching for anyone leaving the ship, they wouldn’t stop Kevin from getting on, especially because he had all the proper documentation to rejoin the crew.
Since Linc was playing the lower-ranking officer, he would act as the driver. They got in the Humvee and Kevin opened the shed doors. Linc started it up and eased out onto the road.
They didn’t have far to go. It was a two-minute drive to the warehouse and dock.
When they reached the gatehouse, a guard armed with an assault rifle similar to Linc’s waved them to a stop behind the lowered bar. A second guard stood behind him. The first guard leaned in and saluted when he saw Juan’s lapel insignia and face.
Juan returned the salute and handed him the ID card that Kevin had forged for him. Although the guard clearly recognized him, the check was required.
The guard handed it back and motioned for the other guard to open the gate.
“Welcome back, Captain,” the first guard said. “If you’re here to see Lieutenant Dominguez, he’s in the security office.” The guard pointed, leaving no doubt as to their destination. It was a door at the corner of the warehouse. The huge garage doors were closed and no light leaked from underneath. Aside from the arc lamps around the compound, the only other lights shone on the deck of the giant oil tanker docked behind the warehouse. Workers swarmed around the front of the ship, where they were connecting pipes to feed the holds from the nearby refinery, one of Venezuela’s largest.
Juan used his Spanish to order the guard not to announce their arrival, and Linc pulled away from the gate.
“So we have a host,” Juan said. “We were hoping for a skeleton crew at this time in the evening.”
“You know what they say,” Linc replied. “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“True, but I’d hoped it would last longer than this. We may have to act more quickly than we expected. Follow my lead, and remember to let me do all the talking.”