Read Online Plague Ship by Clive Cussler, Jack du Brul - Free Book Online Page B

got four guards upstairs on the observation platform and the two over by the personnel exit door, plus sleeping beauty. Linc, Eddie, the second-floor gang’s all yours. Max, extend that guy’s nap for a while, and I’ll have a go at the pair at the door.” Cabrillo checked his watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. The chance the guards would be relieved before dawn was remote. “We’ve got one hour to be back aboard the Nomad if we are to make our three A.M. deadline, so let’s get a little hustle on, shall we?”
    The men sank back under the water and swam the length of the dry dock, Max stopping approximately where the one guard was sleeping and hovered just below the edge of the concrete dock in the dark shadow cast by the Kilo’s hull. Eddie and Linc swam along the left side of the pier so they would emerge under a set of metal scissor stairs that rose to the second-floor balcony. For his part, Juan pulled himself from the water behind the cover of a stack of crates, a good hundred yards from the well-lit vestibule where a pair of bored guards watched a set of locked doors.
    He silently stripped out of his scuba gear and dry suit. Beneath it, he wore the uniform of a captain in the Syrian Navy, right down to the tie and combat ribbons. The only thing out of place were the rubber dive booties he sported on his feet, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He buckled on his gun belt and set a cap on his head to cover his blond hair. He waited another minute for his men to get in position before boldly stepping around the containers and started marching toward the guards.
    He closed to within twenty feet before one of them became aware of his presence. The man snapped to his feet, looking around in bewilderment for a moment before remembering he’d set his AK-47 on the floor next to the table he was sharing with his partner. Juan kept coming as the man groped for the weapon and came up with it pointed straight at Cabrillo’s chest. He growled a warning, as his teammate gained his feet, his hands clutching an assault rifle of his own, though the sling had tangled around his hands.
    “What is the meaning of this challenge?” Juan asked arrogantly in pitch-perfect Arabic. “I am Captain Hanzi Hourani, of the Syrian Navy, and a guest of your base commander, Admiral Ramazani.”
    The two guards blinked at him before one said in halting Arabic, “You are who?”
    “Captain Hourani,” Cabrillo snapped testily. “For the love of the Prophet, I have been in and out of this building a dozen times in the past week. Surely you know I am here to watch the demonstration of your new miracle weapon, the torpedoes that will drive the Crusaders out of our waters once and for all.”
    Juan knew the Farsi speaker was catching every three or four words of his rapid-fire delivery, but it was the attitude more than the words that were important. He had to get them to believe he belonged here, despite the late hour. There was a walkie-talkie on the table next to an overflowing ashtray, plates of congealed food, and a rumpled heap of newspapers. If they called base security, the jig was up.
    “I lost track of time touring the submarine,” Juan went on, then gave a trace of an embarrassed smile. “That is not true. I fell asleep in the captain’s cabin, dreaming that it would be me to strike the first blow against the American imperialists.”
    There was still wary suspicion in the guard’s eye, but the admission that a superior officer, though from a different navy, could succumb to the same fantasies as they did put the guard slightly at ease. He translated to his partner what Cabrillo had said.
    It didn’t seem to make much of an impression. He barked at the first guard, gesturing with the barrel of his AK. The Arabic speaker asked to see Juan’s identification.
    Juan withdrew a billfold and presented it to the senior of the two. As the guard looked it over, Juan plucked a pack of cigarettes from his breast