Butler Did It! (25 page)

Once Doc was finished patching him up,
Trask and Butler climbed up to the chart room behind the bridge for
a conference with Captain Z and Tommy.

Tommy jumpstarted the conversation
eagerly. “We’re going after Levasseur, right?” The adrenalin and
testosterone overload radiating off the four men was
palpable.

From Butler’s point of view, his ship
had been attacked, and his people threatened.
Hell yes! I want
to get back at that bastard, Levasseur
. He thought.

Anger told him that nothing would feel
better than to charge in and blast the man responsible. Matthew
forced himself to take a deep breath and considered the
consequences. “As much as I would like to, I can’t.” He answered,
sighing. “What we really need to do is stop that gun
deal.”

“If we assume that we’re still being
watched, I propose a ruse,” Trask suggested. “I recommend that we
up anchor and depart the Seychelles.” Trask continued. “Then we
sail east until we’re out of sight of land, swing north, and sneak
back to a spot northeast of Levasseur’s exchange site.”

“Hey, just like the Japanese at Pearl
Harbor. They hid their entire fleet northeast of Hawaii.” Tommy
said, offering a useless bit of trivia.

The three rational men in the chart
room looked at the fourth as if he were a four-year old.

“Well, they did!” Tommy muttered in
defense of four-year olds everywhere.

“You know, Mr. Trask, your ruse isn’t a
bad idea,” Captain Z returned, dismissing both Tommy and the entire
Japanese Navy. “The move might make Levasseur feel more secure
about going through with the gun deal, especially if he thinks
we’re running away.”

“Anyway, after that raid this morning,
I’m sure everyone would rather be moving than sitting around
waiting for whatever comes next,” Matthew added. “With the
Pelican’s Loran rig, we can still monitor the rendezvous location
from a safe distance.”

Captain Z slipped a map of the area
onto the chart table. “A three hour circle would get the Pelican
far enough north to sail south past the rendezvous site so that if
they did see us on their radar, they would think we are just some
steamer heading for Mahe.”

“How close?” Butler asked, suddenly
very serious. “The Dolphin has a range of only 10
miles.”

“If we launch the Dolphin while under
way, I think we could get as close as two miles.” Captain Z
concluded. “Any closer might make them suspicious.”

“Now, what do we do about weapons?”
Butler asked, directing the conversation onto another topic.
“Tommy, do you have a plan for that thermite grenade you and I
talked about the other day?”

“Buddy, I have a fantastic
plan.”

<<>>

Morning dragged into late afternoon as
the Pelican made the ‘great circle’ as the crew called it. Tommy
and Matthew went over the Dolphin, making adjustments and minor
repairs, until there was nothing else they could find to do. After
hanging around the bridge for a while, Matthew wandered down to the
mess hall for an early dinner with Katharine.

“It looks like you’re going to stay
aboard for a while,” he said. “I promise we’ll get you back to
Victoria as soon as this is over. Until then I just don’t think
you’re safe anywhere but here.”

“I’d rather be here than anywhere
else,” She answered affectionately, but a fleeting look crossed her
face, “but I am worried.”

Butler completely misread the question
on her mind.

“You’ll be safe aboard, I
promise.”

“No,” she countered, “I’m worried about
you, you big dummy.”

“Oh, don’t you worry ‘bout me.” He
laughed. “I’ve always led a charmed life. A voodoo woman in New
Orleans once told me that I would die at the hands of a jealous
woman on my 98th birthday. So, you can see that I’ve got a whole
lot of time left.”

<<>>

The rest of the crew was also trying to
find a way to deal with the waiting.

“We should have a movie day,” suggested
Salvador. Movies were his second love, after women that he was too
young to chase.

“Good idea!” Butler said. “Katharine,
as guest of honor, you choose the first one.”

Katharine was astonished as he opened a
panel on the wall, revealing a huge collection of DVDs. After some
perusing, she picked the first one that she had not yet seen, ‘Miss
Congeniality,’ with Sandra Bullock. Hoping that it was not too much
of a chick flick for the guys, she passed it over to Salvador to
load into the machine. Matthew slid aside another panel on the
wall, revealing a huge flat screen television.

As they watched the film, she was
astonished to find everyone chiming in on the best lines, and
throwing popcorn at the screen when the villains appeared. There
also seemed to be an unofficial contest for the best William
Shatner impersonation. As soon as Sandra Bullock’s portion of the
talent contest came on the screen, most of the room stood and
shouted with her, “SING! Solar Plexus! Instep! Nose! Groin!” This
irreverent participatory way of watching a movie was new to
Katharine. Much to her surprise, it turned out to be a lot of fun,
and took some of the tension out of the waiting.

In the late afternoon, the call
everyone was waiting for finally came through.

“
Captain, I have two strong
contacts on the radar.”

Tommy and Butler hustled to the bridge
to check it out. As everyone on the bridge watched, the two blips
slowly merged into one.

“The chickens are in the coop,” Tommy
quipped. “Its time for the foxes.”

The Captain pulled the pair aside and
explained his plans regarding the drop off and subsequent pick
up.

“Your target is about five nautical
miles southwest of us.” He pointed at the horizon to a cluster of
bright lights. “On this heading, we will get within two nautical
miles at the closest approach. The Pelican will pass them on the
starboard side, so you will exit the Pelican from the port boarding
ladder. We will continue steaming along until we are in the shadow
of North Island. At that time, we will drop anchor and go
dark.”

“When we’re all done,” Butler
continued, “we’ll contact you, and you can come get us.”

“Before you go, I want you to take a
look at that,” Captain Z said, as he pointed at a dark horizon to
the east. “That’s a tropical storm and it’s headed this way. It’s
going to be here in about five hours. I would suggest that you be
back aboard before it arrives.”

<<>>

The modified two-man Dolphin danced
across the choppy waves heading north toward the rendezvous site.
Over the last hour, the weather had deteriorated into a sickly
green halo that hung menacingly over the Eastern horizon. Tommy
leaned forward and nudged Butler’s back to get his attention over
the Dolphin’s noisy engine.

“If we were home in Mobile,” he yelled,
“I’d say we’re definitely seeing a hurricane developing off to the
East.” Tommy bellowed in Butler’s ear. “But since we’re on the
opposite side of the world I’d guess it’s a typhoon.”

“Nope!” Butler returned, “It’s a
tropical cyclone!”

“What’s the difference?”

“Hurricanes, typhoons and tropical
cyclones are just different names for the same thing. What we know
as a hurricane is called a typhoon in the Orient, and a cyclone in
the Indian Ocean.” Butler yelled back. “I listened to the marine
weather radio just before we left. We can expect to see Force Eight
winds before midmorning tomorrow with five to eight foot
waves.”

“Are we rated for eight foot
waves?”

“We can always dive if it gets too
rough.”

“And cut our effective range in half.”
Tommy groused.

It wasn’t hard to see that the wave
height had doubled in the last half hour. Already the chop was over
two foot tall. With every trough, the horizon disappeared, giving
them the impression of being caught deep in a bowl with nothing but
waves all around. At every crest, however, they could only see to
the next crest, which, to them, appeared to be even
higher.

“Get on the radio and ask the Pelican
to get me a bearing on our target.” Butler yelled. “I don’t want to
take the chance of missing them in these seas.”

Tommy quickly complied.

Butler was concerned. It would have
been far easier to sneak up on the arms ship, plant a few limpet
mines on the hull and scoot, but his streak of fair play was
causing him trouble. Despite the fact that men associated with the
owner of this ship had tried to physically harm his crew,
colleagues, and friends at least three times already, Butler just
couldn’t sink a ship without proof that it actually had arms
aboard.

Tommy’s plan, like Tommy, was
simplicity itself. The plan required boarding the arms ship, which
was a thousand fold riskier than anything Butler had done in the
past and certainly anything he intended to do in the future. If the
ship proved to be carrying arms, the pair would ignite an oversized
thermite charge either inside the ship or on its main deck. Once
ignited, the homemade charge, nearly the size of a scuba tank,
would melt through everything in its path until it exited out the
bottom of the ship. Almost nothing would put out a thermite charge
until it had consumed itself. Tommy’s little stepchild from Hell,
once lit, would exceed five thousand degrees.

Butler steered the Dolphin erratically
through the troughs, trying to keep the stealth front of the craft
aimed at the arms ship, thus keeping the radar cross-section to a
minimum.

All Butler could hope was that the
craft could withstand the force of the waves long enough to get
them close to the ship. Once within sight, they would dive, making
the final approach from below.

The sun was just beginning to set as
the Dolphin got within a half-mile of the ship. Butler cut back on
his throttle. “Time to dive,” he announced and pulled the plug. The
Dolphin silently disappeared into a wave.

Just before they dove beneath the
waves, Tommy sent the Pelican a final coded message, informing them
that the operation was on.

Running underwater on battery power,
the Dolphin’s streamlined shape flew through the water much like
the dolphins that it had been designed to resemble. Every few
minutes Butler rose from the depths to take a bearing on the arms
ship. With only the top foot of the canopy exposed above the waves
there was very little for anyone from the freighter to see under
such deteriorating conditions. The Dolphin’s unique air exchange
bladder renewed their air automatically every time the valve on the
dolphin’s blowhole rose above the waves, thus saving stored oxygen
for their final approach. As the Dolphin got closer, Butler could
see that a second, smaller ship was tied head to tail alongside the
freighter, aft of the superstructure. He noted that the second ship
was a bunged-up fishing trawler, easily seventy or eighty years
old. It had a wide beam, and a low stern, which made it useful for
loading and unloading trawling nets. For this reason, it was also
capable of carrying a large number of crates. Butler noted that the
trawler was built of wood, making it even older than his original
estimate.

It probably is pre-World War I
.
He thought.
Not my idea of an ideal vessel to have on the open
ocean. Of course, while it is technically a seagoing vessel, with
its wide beam and shallow draft, it was also ideally suited to sail
up rivers
.

In the brief glance between waves,
Butler also noticed that the trawler was loaded with armed men,
overloaded even!

There must be fifty or sixty men on
that old hulk, Butler groaned mentally, and every one of them armed
to the teeth
.

As the Dolphin approached to within
1000 feet of the two ships, they took their last look at the
situation and then dove beneath the waves. Ten minutes later, the
Dolphin broke surface directly under the stern of the freighter,
coming up within five feet of the freighter’s propeller. The ship's
name, AMBIGU, towered above them in faded, rusty letters high
across the stern.

Tommy, unusually quiet over the
previous minutes, piped up. “It's an appropriate name for such a
rust bucket.”

“Yeah!” Butler returned. “But,
sometimes looks are deceiving.”

“What do you mean?” Tommy
asked.

“If you look at the main mast, you’ll
note that your rust bucket has the latest version of Loran, if that
radar dish is any indication.”

“By golly, you're right!” Tommy
exclaimed.

“And, unlike other freighters her age
that have a standard three blade screw, the screw on this ship is a
state-of-the-art anti-cavitation type, which would make her capable
of thirty knots, easily. I'd say that the Ambigu is just what her
name implies. She's a very modern ship hiding behind a layer of
makeup designed to give you the impression that she is a
near-derelict.”

“Wow! You're right. What perfect
cover.” Tommy said, admiringly. “I guess if you want to smuggle
arms, you need good camouflage, and this ship sure has
that.”