Neptune's Queen

Neptune’s Queen

by Hal Williams

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, locations, and situations—other than public entities identified by their real names and documented historical events—are products of the author's imagination and are not intended to portray actual persons or events.

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Copyright © 2018 by Hal Williams

ISBN 9780463965047

Smashwords Edition

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In respectful memory, Captain Frank Rodes Casssilly, USN, 1927-2015

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ONE

REFLECTIONS off Caribbean wave tops made Rico Cruz squint. We need to get closer.

I know that, the Cuban at the wheel snapped, but we must reduce the distance slowly so that they do not grow suspicious and veer away.

Rico resented the man’s tone and deplored his unreasonable caution. If we alter course now, we can be alongside in ten minutes.

And if they turn away from us, it could take two hours or more.

Not that long, Cruz insisted. We hold the advantage of speed.

Even if we are faster, our real advantage is in surprise, Rico. We must remain on this course until we are close enough that they cannot outmaneuver us.

Nothing that size will outmaneuver us, Cruz said, a hint of disgust in his tone. He watched Felix Ortega’s puffy face and knew the man evaluated his options. He saw him look at the instruments, then at the quarry.

Go tell the men to get ready, Ortega said. Put up the Jamaican flag. We turn in two minutes.

Cruz left the wheelhouse pleased that he could influence the man nominally in charge of the operation. Ortega was a mouse, too often afraid to take chances. His position of authority only amounted to a masquerade. Cruz had agreed that hijacking a cruise ship and holding its passengers for ransom would be both safer and more lucrative than delivering drugs from Venezuela to the Florida Keys. It seemed that every law enforcement agency in los estados unidos had its own fleet of interdiction vessels—the FBI, the DEA, the Navy, the Coast Guard, even the Wildlife Management officers and Park Rangers. Here, south of Cuba, no one would mess with them. Certainly not Raul Castro. The Jamaicans might try, but Rico did not fear them. He could blow apart their puny boats and keep right on going.

On the enclosed bridge of MV Neptune’s Queen, second officer Max Ayers studied one of the ship’s several navigational screens, then reported to the captain. That vessel north of us is getting nearer, he said. Looks to me as though it’s on a shallow convergent course.

Travis Wheeler glanced at the radar repeater. Keep an eye on it, he told the younger man, then turned to the Swedish navigation officer on duty. Plot their track and give me a time estimate.

Already done, she said. At present headings and speeds, our courses should intersect in twenty minutes. Stefania Ahlin was a stereotypically attractive blue-eyed Scandinavian blonde. Far from being mere eye candy, however, she remained strictly business both on and off the bridge. If any of the ship’s young officers made an amorous approach, she quickly set them straight. She also kept Neptune‘s Queen on course and on time.

What’s the separation now?

Four miles, she said.

We can see them, so obviously they can see us. Wheeler placed his captain’s cap over sparse red hair and took binoculars to the starboard bridge wing. The approaching craft looked to be about seventy feet in length, possibly a bit more. Unlike most pleasure vessels, however, the hull and superstructure carried a dull, mottled gray finish. He saw no running lights, no flag. The impression he got was that of a World War II PT boat.

Contact has changed course toward us, Captain, Ahlin said. Closing rate is increasing.

Wheeler observed the same thing through his glasses. The craft now flew a Jamaican flag at her masthead as she pounded across the rolling blue-gray Caribbean. What speed are they making?

Estimate twenty-two knots, Captain. Intersect is now eight minutes and decreasing rapidly, the navigator said.

No radio contact?

No, sir. No transponder signal, either.

If that’s a Jamaican Coast Guard vessel, they ought to be ringing our phone. Navigator, plot a course directly away from them, Wheeler ordered.

New heading should be one-nine-five, she told him.

Come to one-nine-five, Wheeler instructed. Standard turn rate. Then increase speed to twenty knots. Raise Grand Cayman and advise them of the changes. Also Miami.

It would take more than a minute to reach the new course and speed. Neptune’s Queen, an 820-foot cruise ship, lacked the agility of a cabin cruiser, but she could change heading more quickly if pressed. Concern for the comfort of more than two thousand passengers precluded using maximum capability. Many would be enjoying the breakfast buffet, not expecting to have their scrambled eggs and orange juice dumped onto the deck or into their laps by a sudden radical turn.

Second Officer Ayers, a recently minted Merchant Marine officer at age twenty-four, set the new course and pressed a button. The computerized ship management system responded, and Queen began a gentle, leisurely turn to port.

Multiple computers automatically recorded and time-stamped a log of operating parameters: Position by GPS, radar and sonar data, speed, course, shaft RPM, rudder angle, and attitudes of roll, pitch, and yaw. Nevertheless, Wheeler went to his open ledger book and wrote down the changes and the reason for them. It was a habit he had developed over a thirty-four-year career at sea, the last eleven of them in command of a vessel. He read his entry again.

0705 local. 19-33-43N. 82-47-18W. New cs/sp=195/20. Possible pirate vessel closing from stbd.

Hey, check this out, Seth Ward told his wife. Now that would be the way to cruise the Caribbean.

Looks ugly, Sandra Ward responded.

Well, the color’s ugly, but her shape is fantastic.

Are you talking about that boat out there or the babe with purple hair and big boobs two tables over?

He had noticed the buxom girl earlier but glanced in her direction anyway. Yeah, her shape’s pretty fantastic, too.

Sandra swatted his shoulder, smiling as she did it.

Wrong answer?

You know it, she said in a teasing scold.

He ate another rasher of bacon, then looked out the glass wall. Hmm. Now it’s coming toward us. Wonder what that’s all about.

Maybe they just want to get a better look at our ship.

They’d better hurry, Seth said. We’re starting to make a turn, too.

Sunlight slowly crept into the buffet seating area as the Queen settled on a south-southwest heading. No one on the port side had seen the approaching motor yacht, but all realized that their ship had altered course.

Dan Burke noted the difference. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, he said to his wife. We just changed direction and speed.

Trust you to worry about something like that, she said. Maybe you need to go up there and tell the captain what he’s doing wrong.

Even if close-cropped iron gray hair had not marked Burke as ex-military, his Coast Guard Veteran ball cap did. A retired chief boatswain’s mate, he always felt attuned to the sea and those who traveled on her. He had grown accustomed to Emily’s sarcasm. She had not been so vexatious before his retirement, but now she seemed to take issue with everything he said and belittle him for saying it.

His days of Coast Guard service had taken them to almost every part of the United States. Each promotion he earned seemed to bring with it a new assignment. He’d had shore duty and shipboard billets on the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. During all that time and through all those relocations, Emily had been the ideal military wife. She made new friends easily and kept in touch with old ones. When he retired, they decided on a small town in the Florida Panhandle as a place to live.

He had read that retiree couples often found themselves getting on each other’s nerves. That defined their current relationship reasonably well.

I’m going to the head, he said, sotto voce. Be back in a few minutes.

Doors from the buffet opened onto a foyer and the pool deck beyond, and Burke walked rapidly past the swimming pool and hot tubs, then around the aft superstructure and up a ladder. He found himself alone on the physical activity deck high above the fantail. The early morning sun cast a shimmering glare on the water, and he used both hands to