Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode by Keith Douglass Page A

came alongside and hailed them. The crew put down a rope ladder and a man swung off the small boat, grabbed the ladder between swells, and climbed on board. The visitor was short and tough looking. A Micronesian with soft brown skin, black hair, and piercing dark eyes. He wore shorts and no shirt.
    “You were supposed to be gone from here. You’re not, so the plans have been changed. We’ll take one package now. Get it over the side and into our boat. I’ll have a briefcase roped up as soon as the package is on board.”
    “You know how heavy this package is?”
    “I’ve heard. Two hundred pounds of plutonium inside a lead tank that weighs over a thousand pounds. Yes, my boat can handle it. A crane also will move it at the destination.”
    The two men watched the onboard crane move the hatch covers, then lower its cables into the hold. A few moments later the hooks had been attached to the ringson the sturdy box surrounding the plutonium.
    One of Shigahara’s men ran the crane. He was an expert. They didn’t want the package dropped into the ocean or dumped on deck and the lead tank smashed open. Shigahara felt sweat beading his forehead as the large wooden crate came out of the hold, swung over the side, and began to descend into the ship bobbing on the waves below. Two men on the ship guided the box into a cushion of Styrofoam that flattened as the full weight came on it. They had a moment when the case almost tilted the wrong way, then it swung into place on the open deck of the ship and was quickly lashed down with cables and heavy ropes.
    Shigahara had one of his men let down a quarter-inch line and below one man tied the rope to a briefcase and signaled. The deckhand pulled up the briefcase and gave it to Shigahara.
    “Look inside,” the native man said. “No misunderstandings, no problems. There it is—three million in cash, all one-hundred-dollar bills. As soon as we are safely away from the island, we’ll radio that we have made the transfer and your people will receive the electronic transfer of twelve million dollars. Agreed?”
    The short man held out his hand. Shigahara shook it and watched the native ease over the rail and go down the rope ladder like it was a walk in the park. At the bottom he waited for the swell to bring the boat within two feet of the side of the freighter, then he dropped three feet to the deck and let go of the rope ladder. At once the boat turned and worked its way past the big ship and around the coral. It didn’t return to the small lagoon, rather it headed away from it. From here it could go anywhere. Shigahara guessed that this one would go to Majuro. The airport there was large enough to land a transport needed to lift the heavy package into the air. Shigahara touched the hundred-dollar bills, then grabbed a handful. This was his first partial payment. He was a fucking millionaire. A huge smile flooded over his face and he closed the briefcase and hurried back to the bridge.He had to find a good hiding place for it. He was certain that any one of his four fellow hijackers would kill him for the money if he thought he could get away from the boat and back to civilization. Shigahara wouldn’t give them the chance.
    On board the
Carl Vinson CVN 70
    Captain Olenowski took the message from the Hawkeye and closed his eyes for a minute. Then he called Murdock.
    “Better come down to CIC right away. We’ve had a breakout. A small boat has just taken a package off the
Willowwind
and is heading south, the Hawkeye tells us. Might be going to Majuro. Bring Don Stroh with you. We’ve got new problems.”
    Murdock and Jaybird came into the CIC four minutes later. Don Stroh wasn’t in his cabin, but two sailors tracked him down and he came in puffing.
    “I’m getting too old for all this fun,” he said. “I hear we have a breakout of one of the packages?”
    “We can’t be sure, but the small boat was alongside the freighter for about twenty minutes,” the CAG said. “The