Crude Carrier (3 page)

When two Chinese wearing dark blue coveralls and oil-stained canvas shoes carried Raiford's suitcases out of the lounge, Lexie followed, still talking. The crewmen led Raiford down the narrow pier to a small launch. Under its bleached canvas awning, an officer in a glaringly white uniform with narrow epaulets welcomed him in basic English: “Mr. Raiford? I am Third Officer Suk Wan Li. You come please, we go ship.” A clatter of Chinese ordered the hands to stow the luggage.

With a quiver of noisy engines, the boat settled its stern as it cut through the still water. The huddled buildings of the landing, the pier, the mottled shore vanished into heat haze as the minutes passed. Raiford stared across the iridescent streaks and boils of passing oil slicks. Gradually, out of the blur of horizon, a long, low streak emerged. At one end of the streak, a gleaming island of white superstructure rose. A single stack, squat and straight, trailed a lazy brown smudge to one side. As the tanker grew nearer, he could make out heavy ropes holding her blunt bow to a large float. Bright orange hoses rose out of the water to stubby booms amidships. Beyond and perched on a low smear, a few small, boxy buildings and a complex of silver-painted pipes and valves were mirrored in the sea. The launch slowed; the massive rust-streaked black-and-red steel wall towered like a cliff. An accommodation ladder, tiny against the gigantic hull, dangled down to a platform just above the water. Although Raiford had a vague understanding of the behemoth's dimensions, he could not help asking, “How big is that thing?”

“Three hundred fifty-four meters in length. Fifty-eight meters at beam. Twenty meters draft. Three hundred twenty-six deadweight tons maximum load—maybe more than two million barrels. Twenty-nine thousand horsepower.” The answers were chanted like a familiar chorus by the white-jacketed officer.

Raiford translated the figures roughly into feet: just over eleven hundred feet long, two hundred feet wide, and—when loaded—sixty plus feet below the water's surface. Another class, the ultra large crude carrier (ULCC), was even bigger­. But at a fifth of a mile long, the
Victorious
was colossal enough, and he understood why his would be the first question of any newcomer.

One of the sailors grappled the platform with a boat hook; the other hopped out to tie the launch to a cleat. High above, up the long spidery-looking ladder, a tiny human stared down, its face shadowed by the white dot of an officer's cap.

“Captain Boggs,” said the third officer. “He waits. You go quick.”

V

Julie's computer displayed “1 New Message.” Time stamped 6:03
A.M.
, it read “R. aboard AV. Mack,” and a FedEx package from the same source arrived just after noon. Julie glanced through the thick file of documents and placed a call to New York. “Have you heard any more from my father?”

“Nothing since his e-mail from the shore facility,” said Mack. “We probably won't hear much. Not until he has something to report and a chance to do it.” His voice warmed a bit. “He's probably lounging around the ship's swimming pool, drinking beer.”

She smiled at that thought. “He said you promised him a vacation cruise.”

“I'm sure that's what it will be.”

She hoped so. Her dad had operated undercover a lot more than she had. On this job, however, he was violating the procedures, as she had reminded him. Granted, they went where the job called, and they both agreed that people shouldn't get into this business unless they were willing to take chances. But
chance
had a matter of degree, and that degree should always be minimized. This time, it had not been.

She focused on the Herberling documents as a means of shoving away nagging thoughts.

The
Golden Dawn
file opened with a black-and-white photo­graph of the ship at sea. Six hatches ran from its stubby bow to the rear island. Outside the hatches and tucked inside the ship's rails were pipes for oil. Three short masts, one at the bow and two behind the third hatch, provided cargo-handling­ booms. A longer pair of booms folded inboard between the sixth hatch and the ship's island. A raked smokestack rose above the topmost bridge—the navigation level—whose open wings protruded as far as the sides of the ship below. An accompanying page described a single-screw, diesel-powered motor ship of 40,377 tons deadweight, built in 1979 to carry ore, bulk freight, or oil; speed rated at 15.5 knots.

The history of the ship's last voyage listed its owners—Hercules Maritime—and flag—Cyprus. Departed Fremantle, Australia, 17:00 (GMT) 6 November, last year; cargo, bauxite; destination, Abu Dhabi, Arab Emirates. Master, Capt. Kenneth Minkey. She dropped her pilot at 17:56 off Rottnest Island. Made routine Telex reports to the Hercules home office at noon (local time) over the following eight days. Average sailing speed: 14 knots. At 11:53 (GMT) 15 November, she reported that she was in heavy seas and her cargo had shifted. At 14:40 a severe list to starboard brought water through number three hatch. At 17:54 water entered the fuel bunkers. The engines failed at 18:17. That was the last transmission. At 06:00 (GMT) 16 November, Hercules Maritime notified Marine Carriers Worldwide underwriters and asked all ships in that area of the Indian Ocean to report any sighting­ of the MV
Golden Dawn
. At 12:00 (GMT) Hercules­ Maritime called for a search. No contact with vessel or survivors. Assumed lost with all hands. Location of last transmission: Long. 83' 21" east, Lat. 9'14" south. Claim for lost vessel and cargo filed Friday, 23 November.

Last was an abstract of the underwriter's report. The ship's documents as well as harbor and port authorities had noted several problems with the vessel: the condition of the ship's pumps (low p.s.i.), the thickness of the plating on the starboard bow encompassing holds one and two (corroded and pitted sections), and the presence of hairline cracks in the forward collision bulkhead. She underwent repairs at the Malacca Dry-dock and Shipyards, Singapore. An invoice and diagrams detailed the hull samples and repairs, and a stamped document from a certified marine inspector in Singapore verified the repairs. A Marine Carriers Worldwide agent, Dorothy Fleenor, declared the vessel insurable on February 10, and coverage was issued beginning 00:01 (GMT) 11 February, last year. A final page in differing type noted that the bodies­ of two oriental males wearing life vests bearing the name
Golden Dawn
had been picked up at sea on 21 December by the MV
Dirk Pitt
at longitude 97'08" east, latitude 11'22" south. No identification. Buried at sea.

Julie placed a call to Marine Carriers Worldwide and asked for Mrs. Fleenor.

“Yes, I was the agent on that transaction.” Her voice was cautious.

Julie explained her connection to Herberling and the Rossi case.

“I don't understand what that death has to do with the
Golden Dawn
claim.”

“It's hypothetical,” Julie admitted. “But Mr. Herberling was asking about the Rossi incident just before he was killed, and I'm picking up the pieces of his investigation. Can you tell me what kind of insurance the
Golden Dawn
had?”

“Let me pull it up.” It took a minute or two, then the woman's voice came back to tell Julie that the cargo insurance­ was for one voyage, which wasn't too unusual because single-­voyage­ was the cheapest policy. However, and this was aberrant­, the hull was insured against total loss.

“Why is that unusual?”

“Most owners limit the liability to a partial value of the hull to lower costs. Since this policy had no deduction from the hull's value, its rate was appreciably higher.” In fact, Mrs. Fleenor admitted, the coverage came to nine hundred US dollars a day. “But the
Golden Dawn
had recent dry-dock repairs and passed her safety survey, or we wouldn't have insured her.”

“Then why pay for full coverage?”

A brief silence. “It does seem contradictory.”

A contradiction like that would raise questions in Herberling's mind just as it did in Julie's. And should have in Mrs. Fleenor's.

The ship also had coverage on its anticipated freight. “If, for any reason, the cargo was not ready on time for shipping,” Mrs. Fleenor explained, “or could not be shipped in that vessel, the owners could file claim for the loss of that piece of business.”

“How much?”

“Seven hundred thousand US dollars.”

“They'll collect?”

“The ship was unavailable, so, yes, that claim should be honored.”

“Unless Mr. Herberling found evidence of insurance fraud?”

“That would negate any and all payments, of course. But as far as I know, nothing like that has been found.”

“But the owners could earn a great deal of money if their ship sank.”

Her reply was less an answer than a slightly defensive explanation. “One of the challenges of maritime insurance is to balance sufficient coverage against making a loss enticing for an owner.” Her voice dropped. “It's possible that balance may have been missed on this one.”

Julie did not ask who was first in line for blame if that were so. “Has Hercules Maritime made other claims for lost ships?”

“Not with us. Their insurance record in general is satisfactory. It's one of the principal factors we consider before issuing a policy.”

“Mrs. Fleenor, did Mr. Herberling have grounds for suspicion?”

When the woman finally answered, it was with resignation. “Yes. Looking at the configuration of that policy now, I'm afraid so.”

“But at the time, you recommended insuring the vessel.”

“I … yes. It was a bad time for me personally. … Perhaps I wasn't … Yes.”

Julie waited, but the woman added no more. “How might I find out who insured the crew?”

“Mr. Joseph Wood at Hercules Maritime. You could ask him.”

“I've tried to reach him. I haven't had any luck.”

Another pause. “Maybe he's too busy to reply. They have a small office and staff. Most tramp companies do.” Then, “You might try their broker in London—Braithwaite, I think. He might know who they used as recruiters for the
Golden Dawn
, and certainly the recruiter's contract would detail any insurance for crew members.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fleenor.”

Julie had her doubts about the sincerity of the woman's “You're welcome.” She had dumped a lot of worry on a person whose only consolation seemed to be that she wasn't the first insurance agent to make a bad call.

The final section of Mack's package was Herberling's case notes. Scraps of paper had been photocopied onto a single sheet. They showed a quick, nervous scrawl in half-completed phrases that indicated Herberling's thoughts. One heavily wrinkled fold of envelope listed five names and addresses headed by the initials “A.V.” The first name was familiar: Boggs. Four more names—Bowman, Pierce, Shockley­, and Pressler—and accompanying addresses followed. The addresses were all in England. Pierce was the man her father was replacing. Assuming the other names were still aboard the
Aurora Victorious
, Julie could ask Mack who they were.

Circles around the first three names could mean either a completed inquiry or a need for more detail. Another scrawl threw some light on a possible reason for Herberling's interest: “crew certification??” Under that was Raiford's name and telephone number and the phrase, “Rossi death—
Aurora Victorious
??” But nothing showed a clear connection between any of the names and the lost
Golden Dawn
.

Other notes indicated other directions the dead man was considering. “Herc. Record safety violations/safety histories,” “financial history—current status,” “crew interviews.” Julie figured that Herberling had been hunting what any detective looked for first: the money. It was also apparent that he had not settled on a single direction, unless some papers were missing.

Following in Herberling's footsteps depressed Julie. The notes gave a glimpse into the dead man's mind, and his investigative procedure was not all that different from her own. She could step in with little adjustment. But it brought the murdered man as close as an old, and now lost, acquaintance, and reminded her where her father was.

Reformatting the information into her computer, she outlined possible approaches. She also added two headings not in the original file: “Fake Detective Kirby” and “Herberling's murder.”

VI

Boat
wasn't the word for the
Aurora Victorious
. Even
ship
seemed too small. Raiford had read the figures describing the vessel, but he had not fully imagined it.

There were no cramped passageways filled with conduits, banks of control wheels, gauges, and some maniac screaming “Dive! Dive! Dive!” Instead, the ship's corridors were wide with carpeting laid down to prevent sparks and covered with a temporary canvas runner for protection against oil stains during loading. All was eerily silent. A plastic plate on the wall at the base of a stairway, also wide and carpeted, told Raiford that he was on the middle bridge deck. The door of his quarters opened to a short entry that led past a shower and toilet on one side and folding closet doors on the other to arrive at his so-called cabin. It was like a hotel that charged too much and used decor to make you think you were getting your money's worth: fully carpeted, windows framed in drapes, air-conditioned, furnished with wood-laminated pieces showing wear from a lot of predecessors and constant cleaning.

A small writing desk with two brass lamps, a worktable hinged to the wall, a couple of dull yellow sofa chairs with a veneer coffee table between them, and—below the square plateglass windows—a sofa bed. King size, he had been told, because officers, spending all but thirty days a year at sea, sometimes brought their wives along for part of a voyage.

Even the two windows were not the little claustrophobic circles he had assumed they would be. They looked out over the broad deck that stretched ahead for a thousand feet. The wide surface—painted a dull, dark green—held the low bulges of hatches and inspection plates, spurs of upright stand pipes, port and starboard hose and cargo derricks, and, halfway down the deck, a cluster of pipes, valves, loading arms, and short ladders that made up the loading and discharge manifold. That was where the oil lading hoses were connected. The manifold crossed from port to starboard over steel tubes that ran like a spine from the ship's island to the bow. In the distance, the vast flukes of an anchor and spare screw shimmered brassily. Almost out of sight near the distant number one fire hydrant platform, a couple of bicycles used by crewmen to traverse the deck lay on the sun-scorched steel. Beyond that, the curved black line of the vessel's bow lifted into the band of silver heat-haze that masked the horizon.

Unlike the navigation officers, Raiford was not assigned a watch. The most junior navigation officer, Suk Wan Li, had the third watch, the eight to twelve, which finished at noon and at midnight. It gave the Chinese officer his choice of either sleeping through breakfast and being hungry while on his first watch, or rushing through it before going on duty. Next senior, Second Officer Norman Shockley, had the four to eight, with a late breakfast and a warmed-over but leisurely dinner. First Officer Pressler took the first watch—the twelve to four and midnight to four—with all his meals properly served. Captain Boggs did not have an assigned watch; he appeared on the bridge periodically to check his junior officers when they were at sea, and he worked twenty-four to forty-eight hours at a stretch when the ship was loading or passing through dangerous waters. Otherwise, as Raiford discovered, the captain was seldom seen except occasionally at coffee in the wardroom after supper. Pressler, as first mate, ran the ship's routine navigation operations.

Raiford's official duty schedule, his contract said, was from eight
A.M.
to five
P.M.
, five days a week. It was the same schedule as the four engineering officers who relied on the automatic controls to run the ship at nights and during weekends. Except for the fact that the underwriters demanded a full complement of engineering officers for a vessel to be insurable, the turbines probably could have run on automatic for the rest of the time as well. That fact wasn't lost on the younger engineering officers, the second and third mates, who viewed Raiford and his computers as their replacement in some not-too-distant future. They did not welcome that idea or the man who represented it.

A phrase in Raiford's contract stated that the supernumerary would be on call twenty-four hours a day while the vessel was under way. Captain Boggs, who interviewed Raiford in the ship's office underneath the ship's flag and drinking coffee from a ship's mug, asked if Raiford clearly understood what those ship's words,
on call
, meant.

“It means I can't go anywhere off the boat, right?”

Boggs leaned back in the squeaking desk chair and stared hard at the big man. “You bloody well don't know much about seafaring, do you, Mr. Raiford?”

He answered cheerfully. “Not much, Captain. My job's the electronics, and they're the same ashore or asea.”

“Yah—computers!” Boggs poured himself another mug of coffee from the glass bulb steaming on its small hot plate at the corner of his desk. “This is a ship, not a boat.” In the metal ceiling over his head, a slotted vent fluttered a small strip of cloth to show that the ventilation system was working, and a faint pattern of grime fanning away from the grill showed that it seldom stopped. The odor of oil tainted the cooled air. “Well, electronics is your job and your only job. You stick to your work and keep the hell out of the way of the ship's company—officers and ratings both. Hear me?”

“Suits me.” And it was pretty clear that it made no difference to the captain if it did or did not suit Raiford. “Care to point me toward the operations guides and manuals? I'd like to get checked out in the programs and hardware.”

The bloodshot and slightly bulging eyes stared from beneath a single ledge of wiry gray eyebrows. “The first mate'll show you around. Mr. Pressler. He's up on the bridge deck. Follow me—we'll see what he makes of you.”

Despite his rounded shoulders, the captain was almost as tall as Raiford, but only half the weight. With a roll that swung his torso from side to side, he led up the central flight of stairs covered by a temporary canvas runner scuffed with oil stains. At the top of the stairway, he pushed through the polished brass of a wide door onto the navigation bridge. The enclosed wheelhouse, also air-conditioned but smelling more strongly of oil, ran the full width of the island and, at each end, heavy weather doors led to open wings that protruded out over the sea almost a hundred feet below. In the center of the bridge, unmanned, a tall ship's wheel stood before the dome of a compass. But that was almost the only nautical touch. The rest of the decor consisted of banks of monitoring lights for the engine room and loading control room; control stations for various machines and their readouts; indicator panels for collision avoidance, navigation, and the sea depth measured port and starboard as well as fore and aft. Other panels monitored and controlled docking and maneuvering, on- and off-ship communications, and even personnel administration. Raiford had a glimpse of what his daily routine would consist of: checking and rechecking the reliability of the hundreds of sensors and connections and the miles of wiring that fed information to the processor units on the bridge and to the loading and engine control rooms below. Each major panel had its own Teletype machine for a written record of activity by the computers; and a variety of toggle switches, buttons, and dials allowed operators to interrupt the programs in case of emergency. It could have been the control console of a large and complex airliner.

The bridge's only occupant peered tensely through wide sheets of scratched Plexiglas down at the green deck. Beyond the ship's rails, a level sea looked dwarfed and harmless. As the bridge door clicked shut, the stocky figure muttered, “Ham-handed little barstids! Call themselves goddamn sailors!”

“Mr. Pressler.”

“Sir!” The man did not turn from what he watched. Raiford noted the heavy muscle of a sun-scorched neck that disappeared into a white linen jacket taut and unwrinkled across broad shoulders. A hand seemed to have pressed on a once tall man to mash his body thick and wide.

“Here's Mr. Raiford. He's our supernumerary for Mr. Pierce.”

Irritably, the man turned to look and then rocked back to take in Raiford's height. His expression shifted from irritation to a coldness verging on enmity. Raiford had seen it before in men whose sense of self was suddenly dwarfed by his size.

“Mr. Raiford, is it?”

“Call me James.”

“I'll call you any goddamned thing I please. Is that clear?”

Raiford's eyelids drooped in that sleepy look that masked the flash of anger in his eyes. “Clear.”

The captain gave a little hissing noise that seemed to be a laugh. “Mr. Raiford is new to the sea, Mr. Pressler. A supernumerary, remember. We'll have to make some allowances for his lack of shipboard manners.”

“A goddamned landlubber. Is that the best they can send us now?”

“He's qualified in electronics, our Mr. Raiford is. That's what his papers say, anyway. I leave him in your hands, Mr. Pressler. Acquaint him with the bridge controls.” Another hissing laugh and the door clicked behind the captain's rolling lurch.

“See that!” Pressler's thick finger jabbed toward the deck below. “Bloody sodding slant-eyed yellow barstids can't handle­ a fucking hose coupler without spilling a dozen barrels­ of goddamn crude!”

Raiford leaned toward the Plexiglas that radiated heat from the outside air. Far below at the manifold halfway down the expanse of dull green, three tiny figures in dark overalls wrestled frantically at the stubby boom that lifted a stiffly awkward orange hose more than three feet in diameter over the ship's side. Around their feet and among the lateral pipes that twisted to join the long central spine of tubes spread a widening pool of foamy, chocolate brown liquid. Pressler grabbed a microphone, his voice bouncing back in a metallic echo from a loudspeaker somewhere below, “Hose that goddamn deck right now, you bleeding spastics—get water on that now! Chop chop!”

The speaker popped off and he said as much to himself as to Raiford, “Sand all over the goddamn deck and they start spilling crude. All we need's a fucking explosion.”

“Sand? Out here?”

“Blown aboard from the desert, Mr. Raiford. The desert's made of sand, in case you didn't notice. One spark from a grain of sand in that hot oil on that hot metal deck and you can bend over and kiss your arse good-bye.” He looked quickly at Raiford's feet. “And take off your street shoes, you stupid lubber. Don't you know enough to wear plimsoles when we're loading tanks?”

“Plimsoles?”

“Rubber-soled shoes—sneakers—tennis shoes—whatever the hell you goddamn Yanks call them. Take those off, damn your eyes—we're loading. No leather shoes worn when we're loading! Absolutely no smoking aboard when we're loading. Off—now!”

Under his stocking feet, Raiford felt a quiver in the canvas that temporarily covered the wheelhouse deck. “I suppose the evening barbie's called off too?”

“The—!” Pressler wheeled about to stare up at Raiford for a long moment, jaw slack. Then he threw his head back in a guffaw. “The evening barbie! Haw!” From anger to laughter as if some switch had suddenly changed his mood. “The evening barbie! By God—!” He slammed his palm against the painted steel ledge inside the windows and shouted another laugh at the overhead. “Come along, Mr. Landlubber. I'll have the steward give you the Cook's tour of our floating goddamned barbecue!”