Facing the Storm (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 1) Read online

  FACING

  THE STORM

  A BRICE BANNON SEACOAST ADVENTURE

  DAVID DELEE

  COPYRIGHT

  FACING THE STORM

  Published by Dark Road Publishing

  www.darkroadpub.com

  Any Means Necessary, Copyright © 2016 by David DeLee

  What Meets the Eye, Copyright © 2016 by David DeLee

  Blood in the Water, Copyright © 2016 by David DeLee

  Blue Charlie Foxtrot, Copyright © 2017 by David DeLee

  Excerpt from The Oceanic Princess, Copyright © 2018 by David DeLee

  Cover art copyright © 2018 © ByLove | Depositphotos.com

  Book and cover design copyright © 2018 by Dark Road Publishing

  Facing the Storm and all works contained within are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities or resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is wholly coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner or form whatsoever without written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violations of the author’s rights. For information, contact us at www.darkroadpub.com.

  All Rights Reserved

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  Thank you for purchasing this book, we hope you enjoy it.

  Dedicated to the brave men and women who serve in the U.S. Coast Guard,

  past and present, thank you for your service

  Semper Paratus

  “Always Ready”

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ANY MEANS NECESSARY

  WHAT MEETS THE EYE

  BLOOD IN THE WATER

  BLUE CHARLIE FOXTROT

  Also by David DeLee

  ANY MEANS NECESSARY

  BRICE BANNON STOOD on the foredeck of the 56-foot Sea Ray sporting yacht and waved his arms over his head—the international nautical call sign for help by inept landlubbers and the idiotic out at sea and in over their heads. The boat rocked gently under his feet. Overhead the searing summer sun beat down and baked his exposed arms and face. A gentle ocean breeze tossed his brown hair. Dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt, goofy Billabong Bermuda shorts, and sandals, Bannon felt ridiculous.

  Without his sidearm, he also felt vulnerable.

  He squinted in spite of the dark Ray-Bans he wore.

  Ahead of the rocking Sea Ray—broadside—cruised a small, bulk carrier cargo ship. It had a 20,000-deadweight tonnage capacity, Bannon knew, traveling in roughly a northwesterly direction. Bulk carriers of this type, which were often geared—fitted with cranes—as this one was, were ideal with their small size and superior maneuverability for getting in and out of smaller ports, especially those that lacked cargo handling systems themselves, and for transporting break bulk cargo, goods not in intermodal containers, but shipped in crates, drums, barrels, or secured on pallets and skids.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the Sea Ray drifted close enough to the cargo ship that Bannon, with his hands cupped over his mouth, could shout to the men now lining the deck of the MV CALEB, the name painted prominently in white on the stern of the black and rust streaked hull.

  Bannon waved again. “Ahoy! Mayday! Mayday!”

  A bearded man in a dark blue shirt and black, shapeless cap pushed his way to the rail. The men around him gave way. He glanced around, as if taking in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. The CALEB and the Sea Ray were the only two ships around as far as the eye could see. In fact, they were the only two things anywhere on the ocean surface for miles.

  The ship’s captain shouted, “How the hell did’ya get all the way out here, son?”

  “We’re adrift,” Bannon called back. “Had some engine trouble.”

  “We?”

  Before Bannon could reply, the crew of the CALEB let loose a series of hoots and hollers and wolf-whistles and started waving their caps in the air.

  Bannon half-turned.

  Tarakesh Sardana had materialized from the yacht’s cabin and climbed out on the foredeck to join him. She wore a pair of skimpy white shorts, a yellow bikini top, and a smile. Her Middle-Eastern skin had been bronzed dark by the sun and she’d tied her jet black hair into a ponytail, yet escaping strands lashed across her face in the breeze. She smelled of coconut suntan oil and fresh apricot shampoo.

  “Are these men here to help us, Brice?” she asked, smiling hopefully.

  “Settle down, you animals,” the captain bellowed over his rowdy men, with only minor success.

  “My companion, Tara Sardana,” Bannon told the captain. “And our skipper…”

  Behind him a walrus of a man also emerged from below deck. He wore blue jeans, a red and white striped shirt, and an Evinrude baseball cap, all smudged with dark grease stains. He removed the cap, wiped his wide forehead with a thick, hairy forearm before squashing the cap back down on his unruly mop of red hair.

  “Jack McMurphy,” Bannon said, concluding the introductions.

  -----

  BANNON REACHED UP and took the captain’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled up off the rescue ladder and onto the MV CALEB, the last to leave the Sea Ray, now lashed to the cargo ship’s stern. Once he was on solid footing, he shook the captain’s hand.

  “Thanks…”

  “Name’s Nichols. Dan Nichols.”

  “A pleasure, Captain Nichols. Appreciate you coming to our rescue.”

  “Code of the sea, son.” Nichols waved his men—who stood in a circled around them gawking at Tara—back to work, tasking two of them with securing the Sea Ray for tow before they got back underway.

  Nichols indicated they should proceed toward the ship’s towering super structure, clasping Bannon on the shoulder. “I am curious, though. How’d you folks get stuck so far out to sea? We’re days away from any port.”

  By port, Nichols meant Boston Harbor.

  “Maybe for this tub,” McMurphy piped up, using his thumb and forefinger to wipe saltwater spray from his thick, red moustache. “No disrespect intended, Captain, but my baby’d make landfall in a day and a half, easy.”

  Tara interjected. “If the engines did more than cough and spit and pour smelly black smoke into the sky.”

  McMurphy’s ruddy face flushed bright red.

  “Tara and I rented Mr. McMurphy’s yacht to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

  “So we could watch the fireworks from the Harbor,” Tara added. “It was spectacular.”

  “The fourth?” Nichols exclaimed. “That was seven days ago!”

  “And I guess, we all…” Bannon glanced at McMurphy, his eyebrows knotted.

  The yacht owner looked chagrined and began to whistle, innocently.

  “…did a little too much celebrating. When we sobered up we found ourselves adrift. No land for as far as the eye could see.”

  “Must’ve been some party for you all to drift this far out.” Nichols led them along the port gangway then held a hatchway door open for them to proceed. “Would’ve hated to have the hangover went with it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Bannon said, regretfully.

  The interior stairwell was near pitch-black.

  Bannon took off his sunglasses and blinked. That helped. And now he saw pale lights in glass and iron grilled scones along the welded gray bulkheads. For all the good they did. Still, after days of unrelenting sunshine beatin
g down on him, he welcomed the soothing dark and coolness of the interior stairwell. The same did not hold true for the rich oil and diesel fuel stench wafting up the open stairwell from below deck.

  As they climbed the metal steps upward through the midship’s accommodation section, their footfalls rang hollowly in the dark vault-like stairwell. Bannon went on, “When we began to get underway—”

  “Going in the wrong direction,” Tara added.

  “There was some sort of electrical problem—”

  “Of which I am not responsible,” McMurphy said adamantly. “It’s a manufacturer’s malfunction, I’m telling ya! Any refund demands will have to be taken up with them.”

  Tara stopped and turned, wagging her finger in his face. “You’re still trying to tell us that bottle of tequila you spilled all over the control console had NOTHING at all to do with it?”

  “Whatever,” Bannon said, weary, putting a hand on the feisty woman’s arm and urged her to continue up the steps. Clearly this was an argument they’d been having for seven days without resolution. “It fried everything. The entire electrical system went down. The starters, backup generators, even the radio.”

  “Which was why we heard no distress call from you,” Nichols concluded, with a shake of his head and a knowing smile. His expression reflected both his amusement and the clear distain he had for who they were: clueless landlubbers with absolutely no business being out on the water.

  Pleased, Bannon kept up the rouse. “Precisely. We couldn’t even contact the Coast Guard.”

  At the top of the stairs, Nichols held open another door and waved them inside. “We’ll notify the Coast Guard for you, let them know you’re safe with us. In the meantime, you must be hungry.”

  “Starving,” Tara said.

  “In that case, please accompany me to my dayroom for a late lunch.” He smiled broadly. “And perhaps a cocktail or two, if you think you can manage.”

  McMurphy clapped his meaty hand together. “Now you’re talking, Cap’n. Lead the way.”

  The day room on the MV CALEB wasn’t the finest Brice Bannon had ever been in—and he’d been in many—but it was large, bright and cozy, appointed with solid pine furniture with gray fabric cushions, paneled walls and matching gray curtains—open—over two starboard side portals. There was a desk, built-ins, a couch, two overstuffed chairs, and a sleeping alcove with a bed and privacy curtain, a computer, and a flat-panel TV.

  And a bar.

  Two maps were pinned to the wall, both replicas of the seventeenth century North American coastline. Flush overhead florescent bulbs burned bright, hot despite the air-conditioned room. They buzzed like hornets trapped in a jar.

  McMurphy and Tara took seats opposite each other across a coffee table with a compass motif. Bannon paced while Captain Nichols, having taken their meal requests, prepared drinks at the bar.

  “So, Captain,” McMurphy said. “Nichols, that’s what…Russian?”

  Over his shoulder, Nichols said, “Yes. A dozen generations ago. Like my father…and his father before him, I am American. Born on the banks of the Cape Fear River where I began my life-long love affair with the water.”

  He carried a tray over and served Tara coffee in a heavy ceramic mug with a company emblem embossed on it—the same as was on his hat. He handed McMurphy an Irish Whiskey, neat, and Bannon, an ice-cold bottle of Budweiser, and with it, a tall, frosted pilsner glass.

  “After ten years in the U.S. Navy, including combat tours in the most recent Middle East dust ups, I signed on with the Cross-Atlantic Transit Company. Been sailing for them ever since.”

  “CTC’s a British outfit, isn’t it?”

  Nichols knotted his thick brow at the question. “Funny, you might know that.”

  Bannon waved the query away. “My business. I do stock analysis. I’m on the international desk.”

  “Ah,” Nichols said, seemingly satisfied. “We are headquartered in London, sure, but we’ve got operations in Boston, Miami, and Baltimore, as well as Lisbon, Denmark, Rabat, and Dakar.”

  “That sounds so exciting. To travel the world, getting to visit so many exotic ports.” Tara sipped her coffee. “The farthest from the States I’ve ever been is the Caribbean Islands.”

  Nichols gave a stout laugh. “Believe me, young lady, I’d much prefer the Caribbean to the port-of-calls I find myself in. Rougher places you’re not likely to find on any tourist map.”

  Bannon put his beer down, untouched. “Excuse me, Captain, but I’d be grateful if you could direct me to the commode.” He glanced at McMurphy and gave him another disapproving shake of his head. “Our head quit operating three days ago.”

  Nichols pointed behind him, a closed door near the end of his bed.

  Bannon gingerly patted his stomach. “I’ve…um, seemed to have picked up some nasty bug along the way, something I ate. I might be a while…and, um, things might get…” He blushed embarrassingly. “If you catch my drift.”

  Nichols furrowed his brow, and then catching on raised his hand. “Say no more. Use the crew’s head. It’s right outside the door and down the gangway, third door on the right.”

  “Appreciate it.” Bannon left, exaggerating a hurried gait and smiled, hearing McMurphy lay it on thick before the door swung shut behind him.

  “Guy’s been like that for days. Like something crawled up inside of him and died. Stinks to high heaven.”

  -----

  BANNON WALKED STRAIGHT past the crew’s head and with a cautious look around, jogged down a set of metal stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Bannon had spent most of his adult life on or around boats. Boarding them, raiding them, securing them, and even on sad occasions scuttling them. The CALEB was no different than dozens of other cargo ships he’d boarded and searched.

  As if he’d been onboard her a thousand times before he proceeded below deck, using the ‘tween decks ladder, contemplating not where he was going, but his biggest problem since conning his way onboard the CALEB: how to find what it was he was looking for?

  He knew there were two large cargo holds fore and six aft. And he knew his sick stomach act had only bought him ten or twenty minutes at the most—even with McMurphy and Tara keeping Captain Nichols occupied—before someone came looking for him. Not nearly enough time to search the whole ship himself.

  But as luck would have it, he wouldn’t have to.

  A crewman came around the corner and seeing him stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re that stranded fella we picked up.”

  “Guilty as charged.” Bannon put a hand in the air.

  As the crewmen approached, he said. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

  “Yeah, I sort of figured that.” Bannon gave him his best sheepish look. “I was looking for the men’s room. I must have gotten turned around. This is some big boat.”

  The crewmen bristled at his use of the term boat.

  “It is a big ship.” He reached out to take a hold of Bannon’s elbow. “You’ll need to come this way.”

  Bannon grabbed the man’s wrist, spun him around and shoved the crewman into the bulkhead, pressed his face against the hard, gray steel. Bannon pressed his cell phone into the man’s spine, hoping it would feel like the barrel of a gun. “I’m going to ask you a question. If you answer it correctly, you get to live. Ready?”

  The man nodded his squished face.

  “Can you get into the ship’s computer? Call up the cargo manifest?”

  He said he could.

  And five minutes later, he did.

  What Bannon was looking for was in cargo hold three, midship, aisle seven, level one.

  Bannon applied a forearm chokehold across the reluctantly helpful crewman’s throat and when he finally lost consciousness, Bannon dragged his limp body to a supply closet and locked him inside to sleep it off.

  It took Bannon another ten minutes to find the specific crate he was looking for amid a cargo hold of crates, pallets, storage containers and tubs lashed to the bulkheads
on either side of the cavernous cargo space.

  Mindful that the Captain would be looking for him soon—if he wasn’t already—Bannon took a picture of the cargo locator barcode affixed to the end of the crate with his cell phone, uploaded the image, and gave a satisfied grunt when the specially installed software in his phone read the barcode and confirmed he had the right container.

  Considering what the wooden crate contained, Bannon found it to be smaller than he’d expected, about the size of a child-size coffin. With that gruesome thought in mind, Bannon grabbed the rope handles affixed to the crate and yanked it out to the center of the floor. He needed to physically confirm what he suspected was inside. With the crate pulled out into the aisle, Bannon went in search of a crowbar.

  He cursed under his breath. More wasted time.

  Finally finding one, he went to work prying the lid off the crate. The protesting nails squeaked and popped, reluctantly releasing their grip. With the lid shoved aside, he brushed away the straw used as packing material and even though he expected what he found, still he gaped.

  In the crate lay four man-portable, SA-18, Russian manufactured, surface-to-air missile launchers.

  Crouched over the open crate, he knew there were eight more packed into the crate beneath the top layer, along with munitions for each. Procured through legitimate channels, these weapons carried a hefty price tag of about 80,000 USD each.

  On the black market they were worth considerably more. Guess which kind these were.

  “You’ve got some serious explaining to do, mister.” Captain Nichols' voice. Behind him.

  “And it seems so do you, Captain.” Bannon tossed his cell phone into the crate and straightened up. “Do I need to raise my hands?”

  “I would if I was you.”

  Bannon did so and turned.