“Coast Guard, have you gotten things straightened out with the local cops?”
“That’s a rog, Navy.”
“Tell them that we believe the target’s objective is the Costanza.”
“Roger that. We’ll have our thirty-two boat stake her out and call in the cops.”
“Don’t let them see you, Coast Guard!”
“Understood, Navy. We can handle that part easy enough. Stand by . . . Navy, be advised that our forty-one boat reports radar contact with you and the target, rounding Bodkin Point. Is this correct? Over.”
“Yes!” called the Quartermaster at the chart table. He was making a precise record of the course tracks from the radar plot.
“That’s affirm, Coast Guard. Tell your boat to take station five hundred yards forward of the target. Acknowledge.”
“Roger, five-zero-zero yards. Okay, let’s see if we can get the cops moving. Stand by.”
“We got ’em,” Ryan thought aloud.
“Uh, Lieutenant, keep your hands still, sir.” It was Breckenridge. He reached into Ryan’s belt and extracted the Browning automatic. Jack was surprised to see that he’d stuck it in there with the hammer back and safety off. Breckenridge lowered the hammer and put the pistol back where it was. “Let’s try to think ‘safe,’ sir, okay? Otherwise you might lose something important.”
Ryan nodded rather sheepishly. “Thanks, Gunny.”
“Somebody has to protect the lieutenants.” Breckenridge turned. “Okay, Marines — let’s stay awake out there!”
“You got a man on the Prince?” Jack asked.
“Even before the Admiral said so.” The Sergeant Major gestured to where a corporal was standing, rifle in hand, three feet from His Highness, with orders to stay between him and the gunfire.
Five minutes later a trio of State Police cars drove without lights to Berth Six of the Dundalk Marine Terminal. The cars were parked under one of the gantry cranes used for transferring cargo containers, and five officers walked quietly to the ship’s accommodation ladder. A crewman stationed there stopped them — or tried to. A language barrier prevented proper communications. He found himself accompanying the troopers, with his hands cuffed behind his back. The senior police officer bounded up three more ladders and arrived at the bridge.
“What is this!”
“And who might you be?” the cop inquired from behind a shotgun.
“I am the master of this ship!” Captain Nikolai Frenza proclaimed.
“Well, Captain, I am Sergeant William Powers of the Maryland State Police, and I have some questions for you.”
“You have no authority on my ship!” Frenza answered. His accent was a mixture of Greek and some other tongue. “I will talk to the Coast Guard and no one else.”
“I want to make this real clear.” Powers walked the fifteen feet to the Captain, his hands tight around the Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun. “That shore you’re tied to is the State of Maryland, and this shotgun says I got all the authority I need. Now we have information that a boatload of terrorists is coming here, and the word is they’ve killed a bunch of people, including three state troopers.” He planted the muzzle against Frenza’s chest. “Captain, if they do come here, or if you fuck with me any more tonight, you are in a whole shitpot full of trouble — do you understand me!”
The man wilted before his eyes. Powers saw. So the information is correct. Good.
“You would be well advised to cooperate, ’cause pretty soon we’re going to have more cops here ‘n you ever saw. You just might need some friends, mister. If you have something to tell me, I want to hear it right now.”
Frenza hesitated, his eyes shifting toward the bow and back. He was in deep trouble, more than his advance payment would ever cover. “There are four of them aboard. They are forward, starboard side, near the bow. We didn’t know –”
“Shut up.” Powers nodded to a corporal, who got on his portable radio. “What about your crew?”
“The crew is below, preparing to take the ship to sea.”
“Sarge, the Coast Guard says they’re three miles off and heading in.”
“All right.” Powers pulled a set of handcuffs from his belt. He and his men took the four men standing bridge watch and secured them to the ship’s wheel and two other fittings. “Captain, if you or your people make any noise at all, I’ll come back here and splatter you all over this ship. I am not kidding.”
Powers took his men down to the main deck and forward on the port side. The Costanza’s superstructure was all aft. Forward of it, the deck was a mass of cargo containers, each the size of a truck-trailer, piled three- and four-high. Between each pile was an artificial alleyway, perhaps three feet wide, which allowed them to approach the bow unobserved. The Sergeant had no SWAT experience, but all of his men had shotguns and he did know something of infantry tactics.
It was like walking alongside a building, except that the street was made of rusty steel. The rain had abated, finally, but it still made noise, clattering on the metal container boxes. They passed the last of these to find that the ship’s forward hold was open and a crane was hanging over the starboard side. Powers peeked around the corner and saw two men standing at the far side of the deck. They appeared to be looking southeast, toward the entrance to the harbor. There was no easy way to approach. He and his men crouched and went straight toward them. They’d gotten halfway when one turned.
“Who are you?”
“State Police!” Powers noted the accent and brought his gun up, but he tripped on a deck fitting and his first shot went into the air. The man on the starboard side came up with a pistol and fired, also missing, then ducked behind the container. The fourth state trooper went forward around the deck hatch and fired at the container edge, covering his comrades. Powers heard a flurry of conversation and the sound of running feet. He took a deep breath and ran to the starboard side.
No one was in sight. The men who’d run aft were nowhere to be seen. There was an accommodation ladder leading from an opening in the rail down to the water, and nothing else but a radio that someone had dropped.
“Oh, shit.” The tactical situation was lousy. He had armed criminals close by but out of sight and a boatload of others on the way. He sent one of his men to the port side to watch that line of approach, and another to train his shotgun down the starboard side. Then he got on the radio and learned that plenty more help was on the way. Powers decided to sit tight and take his chances. He’d known Larry Fontana, helped carry his coffin out of the church, and he was damned if he’d pass up the chance to get the people who’d killed him.
A State Police car had taken the lead. The FBI was now on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, crossing over Baltimore Harbor. The next trick was to get from the expressway to the marine terminal. A trooper said he knew a shortcut, and he led the procession of three cars. A twenty-foot boat was going under the bridge at that very moment.
“Target coming right, appears to be heading towards a ship tied to the quay, bearing three-five-two,” His Highness reported.
“That’s it,” Ryan said. “We got ’em.”
“Chief, let’s close up some,” Jackson ordered.
“They might spot us, sir — the rain’s slacking off. If they’re heading to the north, I can close up on their port side. They’re heading for that ship — you want us to hit them right when they get there?” Chief Znamirowski asked.
“That’s right.”
“Okay. I’ll get somebody on the searchlight. Captain Peters, you’ll want to get your Marines on the starboard side. Looks like surface action starboard,” Chief Z noted. Navy regulations prohibited her from serving on a combatant ship, but she’d beaten the game after all!
“Right.” Peters gave the order and Breckenridge got the Marines in place. Ryan left the pilothouse and went to the main deck aft. He had already come to his decision. Sean Miller was out there.
“I hear a boat,” one of the troopers said quietly.
“Yeah.” Powers fed a round into his shotgun. He looked aft. There were people there with guns. He heard footsteps behind him — more police!
“Who’s in charge here?” a corporal asked.
“I am,” Powers replied. “You stay here. You two, move aft. If you see a head come out from behind a container, blow it the hell off.”
“I see it!” So did Powers. A white fiberglass boat appeared a hundred yards off, coming slowly up to the ship’s ladder.
“Jesus.” It seemed full of people, and every one, he’d been told, had an automatic weapon. Unconsciously he felt the steel plating on the ship’s side. He wondered if it would stop a bullet. Most troopers now wore protective body armor, but Powers didn’t. The Sergeant flipped off the safety on his shotgun. It was just about time.