Chapter 14

Algoa Bay, Union of South Africa

Clara was thinking. “Always a dangerous thing, Antonin would say,” she mused. And she’d reply, “Never hurt Winnie the Pooh.” She mentally sighed. Would she ever see him again?

The men from the Easy Tyme, were jury-rigging a ramp to get the contents of the wooden crates to the mostly submerged rock-bar. The contents were heavy: one a lead-lined crate, filled of course with the fissile material and another with some explosives, to make the fissile material into a bomb, if her homework on the ‘net was right. So, she’d have to act while they were busy. There was nowhere to hide ... except in the water.

She found a rock on the bottom, and waited her chance. The Easy Tyme was anchored fore and aft to the rock-bar and they’d hauled it almost out of the water, so it was sideways to the rocks, tilted over heavily toward the “shore.” When they were off-loading one of the boxes, she pried one of the boards on the bottom of the boat loose. On the next “heave ho,” when all the men were distracted, she bent the board back and shoved the rock into the opening. Water was now flooding the bilge, making the boat unusable. Well, it was usable as kindling. She found another rock and slithered back into the deeper water.

Part way through the off-loading, the bilge alarm went off. This was an electronic device that sensed a higher than normal water level in the area between the deck and the boat’s bottom. The alarm caused the off-loading to cease, and the men to gather back onboard. One of them, obviously the “captain,” lifted a hatch and peered into the bilge. After some discussion, in Arabic, two men exited onto the rocks; one going forward, one going to the back. The boat was tilted up on its side, and the men were wearing only boots. They seemed to have an aversion to getting their feet wet. The “captain” shouted. The two men walked into the water, a hand on the boat.

The man forward, shouted something and looked at the board, the opening, and the rock that was shoved into it. He struggled with it for a moment and then fell backward into the water. He shouted something, then disappeared into the water. It was as if he was dragged backwards into deeper water. He fumbled a second but sea water filled his lungs quickly. In another few seconds, he fell quiet, mostly due to a thump on the head from Clara’s rock. When she was sure he was safely dead, she pushed his body back toward the boat.

There was a great commotion as you might expect among the men. They were rushing off the boat and toward the prow where the sailor disappeared and subsequently died. The sole exception was the man at the back of the boat, who now “slipped” on a rock – with a hand around his ankle. He, too, gave a shout of surprise and fell into the water. No one could even see him, as they were on the other side of the boat. He was hit on the head by Clara’s rock, and left to float, face down, in the water.

That left the “captain” and one man alive. There was shouting between the two of them, and they hauled the two dead men onboard the damaged Easy Tyme, as Clara drifted back into deeper water. They seemed to argue for a moment, then the “captain” won the discussion. They went back to opening the crate on deck and opening the lead-lined package within. They carried the fissile material to the shore – such as it was, and Clara knew she had to do something. She hefted the rock as she stood up, near the boat’s stern, took aim and fired a fastball toward the “captain’s” head. The fist-sized rock plonked the man on the temple and he keeled over.

This is great, she thought. I spent six months learning how to handle every kind of weapon, and I’m using a rock.

The “captain’s” compatriot dropped his load of enriched uranium, and turned. For the first time, Clara was seen by one of the terrorists. He shouted a curse and pulled a knife from a sheaf at his belt. Clara fell back into the water, and he jumped after her. The knife connected with her left arm and her right went around his back, pulling him into the water, which was about half a meter deep at this point. She kicked violently up, her knee connecting with his groin and he doubled over. He didn’t release the knife, but she used the moment to get around behind him. He stabbed reflexively at her right forearm, but she kept on kicking, this time at the rocky bottom. She connected with the rocks and they floated backwards into deeper water and she pulled him under. Her right arm slid up to his throat and the left pulled at his eyes. He struggled for air and managed another stab at her right arm. Then he took a gulp of what he thought was air – it was sea water instead, and he coughed. He expelled the water he’d inhaled, but when he went to get more air, he got more sea water instead. He spluttered another few times and then was quiet.

She found the bottom and clocked him with a handy rock. Not being sure of the “captain’s” status, Clara hurried to the shore, dripping blood from both arms. The man was down but still breathing. Not for long. Three blows to the head finished him off.

Clara took one look at the fissile material and headed back to the ocean. She found the dead man still floating, and tore the shirt from him with her diving knife. Taking shelter on the side of the boat where the water was deeper, she stripped the wet suit down her arms, painfully, and she bound her wounded arms clumsily, with the dead man’s clothing. Then she dragged the men in the water up onto the boat.

Now what? The SEALs, who were probably on the SSN950. That was the main chance.

She struggled to retrieve her fins and backpack from the rock where she’d tethered them. She pushed the memory button on her wrist GPS to fix this site in memory, and then started to swim. She normally swam with her arms ahead of her, but found that position too painful. Still, with her arms crossed over her chest, she didn’t lose much in terms of speed, and the bleeding was mostly contained between the bandages and the wetsuit. “Glad that damn shark isn’t around any more,” she mused.

She headed inland toward the GPS position of the SSN950. She undulated in her dolphin style, moving at close to her maximum speed. While she swam, she did the calculations. It was about 25 km. – about 15.5 miles. Fifteen 5-minute segments. At least an hour and a quarter. Dark was approaching and she didn’t think the terrorist cell would send other investigators at night. So that was in her favor.

She stopped for food just above the sub’s position. When she’d finished her repast – just an apple and some cheese – she took a couple of deep breaths and dove for the sub. When she got there, she found a rock on the bottom and pounded an SOS on the hatch just forward of the tower in Morse Code. She repeated it after thirty seconds. It was answered with GA – go ahead.

Slowly she tapped out a message: N U K E A T (and she gave the GPS coordinates) L I V E M A T L B U T N O B O M B. C O P Y? One letter at a time, took a while, and her arm hurt.