The Afghan

“Countess of Richmond, this is Queen Mary 2. I read you have an overheat of main bearing in the prop shaft, and you are carrying out repairs at sea. Confirm.” “Aye, that’s reet. ‘Ope to be finished in another hour,” said the voice on the speaker.

“Countess, give your details, please. Port of registry, port of departure, destination, cargo.”

“Queen Moory, we’re registered in Liverpool, eight thousand tons, general cargo freighter, coming from Java with brocades and oriental timber, heading for Baltimore.”

Gundlach ran his eye down the screened information provided by the head office of McKendrick Shipping in Liverpool, brokers Sie-bart and Abercrombie in London and insurers Lloyd’s. All accurate.

“Who am I speaking to, please?” he asked.

“This is Captain McKendrick. ‘Oo are you?”

“First Officer David Gundlach speaking.”

The Monterey, following the exchange with difficulty, came back.

“ Monterey, Queen. Do you want to alter course?” Gundlach consulted the displays. The bridge computer was guiding the Queen along the prepla

Formatting on the Queen, the Monferey would be less than that, but there was still ample room. High above, the Hawkeye and the EA-6B sca

It had all been heard on the bridge of the Countess. Ibrahim nodded that they should leave him. The radio engineer and the youth scuttled down the ladder to the speedboat, and all six in the inflatable waited for the Afghan. Still convinced that the crazed Jordanian would reengage the engine and attempt to ram one of the oncoming vessels, Martin knew he could not leave the Countess of Richmond. His only hope was to take her over after killing the crew. He went down the rope ladder backward. In the thwarts, Suleiman was setting up his digital photography equipment. A rope trailed from the rail of the Countess; one of the Indonesians stood near the speedboat’s bow, gripping the rope and holding her against the flow of the current ru

Leaning farther out, Martin slashed at the retaining rope. He missed, but cut open the forearm of the Indonesian. Then the men reacted. But the Indonesian released his grip, and the sea took them.

There were vengeful hands reaching out at him, but the sinking speedboat dropped astern. The weight of the great outboard pulled down the rear end, and more salt water rushed in. The wreckage cleared the stern of the freighter and went away into the blackness of the Atlantic night. Somewhere downcurrent, it simply sank, dragged down by the outboard. In the gleam of the ship’s stern light, Martin saw waving hands in the water, and then they, too, were gone. No one can swim against four knots. He went back up the ladder. At that moment, Ibrahim jerked one of the three controls the explosives expert had left him. As Martin climbed, there was a series of sharp cracks as tiny charges went off.

When Mr. Wei had built the gallery masquerading as six sea containers along the deck of the Java Star from bridge to bow, he had created the roof, or “lid,” over the empty space beneath using a single sheet of steel held down by four strongpoints.

To these, the explosives man had fitted shaped charges, and linked all four to wires, taking power from the ship’s engines. When they blew, the sheet metal lid of the cavern beneath lifted upward several feet. The power of the charges was asymmetric, so one side of the sheet rose higher than the other. Martin was at the top of the rope ladder, knife clenched in teeth, when the charges blew. He crouched there as the huge sheet of steel slid sideways into the sea. He put the knife away, and entered the bridge. The Al Qaeda killer was standing at the wheel, staring ahead through the glass. On the horizon, bearing down at twenty-five knots, was a floating city, seventeen decks and 150,000 tons of lights, steel and people. Right beneath the bridge, the gallery was open to the stars. For the first time, Martin realized its purpose. Not to contain something; to hide something. The clouds moved away from the half-moon, and the entire fore-deck of the onetime Java Star gleamed in its light. For the first time, Martin realized this was not a general freighter containing explosives; it was a tanker. Ru

Evenly spaced down the deck toward the forepeak were six circular steel disks-the venting hatches-above each of the cargo tanks beneath the deck. “You should have stayed on the boat, Afghan,” said Ibrahim. “There was no room, my brother. Suleiman almost fell overboard. I stayed on the ladder. Then they were gone. Now I will die here with you, inshallah.” Ibrahim seemed appeased. He glanced at the ship’s clock, and pulled his second lever. The flexes ran from the control down to the ship’s batteries, took their power and went forward into the gallery where the explosives man, entering through the secret door, had worked during his month at sea. Six more charges detonated. The six hatches blew away from above the tanks. What followed was invisible to the naked eye. Had it been possible to see, six vertical columns rose like volcanoes from the domes as the cargo began to vent. The rising vapor cloud reached a hundred feet, lost its impetus, and gravity took over. The unseen cloud, mixing furiously with the night air, fell back to the sea and began to roll outward, away from the source, in all directions. Martin had lost, and he knew it. He was too late, and he knew that, too. He knew enough to realize what a floating bomb he had been riding since the Philippines, and that what was pouring out of the six missing hatches was invisible death that could not now be controlled.

He had always presumed the Countess of Richmond, now become again the Java Star, was going to drive herself into some i

He had presumed she was going to ram something of value as she blew herself up. For thirty days, he had waited in vain for a chance to kill seven men and take over her command. No such chance had appeared.

Now, too late, he realized the Java Star was not going to deliver a bomb; she was the bomb. And with her cargo venting fast, she did not need to move an inch. The oncoming liner had to pass only within three kilometers of her to be consumed.

He had heard the interchange on the bridge between the Pakistani boy and the deck officer of the Queen Mary 2. He knew too late the Java Star would not engage engines. The escorting cruisers would never allow that, but she did not need to.

There was a third control by Ibrahim’s right hand, a button to be hammered downward. Martin followed the flexes to a Very pistol, a flare gun, mounted just forward of the bridge windows. One flare, one single spark… Through the windows, the city of lights was over the horizon. Fifteen miles, thirty minutes cruising, optimum time for maximum fuel-air mixture. Martin’s glance flicked to the radio speaker on the console. A last chance to shout a warning. His right hand slid down toward the slit in his robe, inside which was his knife strapped to his thigh.