Chapter 34

The phone was ringing. I slid from bed to answer it, but all I heard was a dial tone. I punched the button for the second line and said "Hello."

"Morning, Sunshine."

"Uh, I think the appropriate phrase would be, 'Fuck you, John.' "What do you have in mind at, let's see, five forty-five on Thursday morning."

"Get up, get dressed, and fly, drive, or run to Savannah and save their asses. They got into a gun battle with some people from a ship that was suspected of bringing in and taking out contraband. The ship is being held in port so the other side is at a disadvantage. The ship's captain is off the ship and won't go back on until the crew that is shooting is off his ship or pacified."

"How am I supposed to resolve this?"

"How should I know? They called me and I told them to call you but they asked if I would call you for them."

"How fast to I really need to be up there?"

"Yesterday! Get that ship out of the port, preferably with the bad guys in custody, and the cargo loaded. The ship owners will love you forever."

"I'm on my way, John, thanks for the wake up. You know I have to finish this today as I have my flight exam tomorrow."

"I didn't know that, Chuck, but this will get you up there and back faster."

I hung up to see four faces looking at me, wanting to know what was up. As soon as I explained, Wanda was on the phone with the charter people. They told me to get to the airport and they would get me to Savannah quickly.

I did the triple S, and dressed in just casual pants and a knit shirt. I stuffed my vest in a gym bag, grabbed three additional magazines for my Glock, and headed for the car without even taking a cup of coffee.

Thank goodness Burger King has a couple of stores between home and the air park. I bought four sandwiches and two cups of coffee and beat feet to the air park.

At six forty-five, I was getting out of the car when sexy Lisa, the crazy lady pilot, hollered at me to help push the 206 out of the hangar. "This is what's left today. Do you think the economy is really bad, considering we've been a G-5 short all week, and could have used another Lear a couple of times, as well."

I put the sandwiches and coffee in the cockpit and began the preflight inspection card. Lisa came around and said, "Hey, that's mine, I should do that."

"Sorry, Lisa, I've been doing it so much I just thought I was supposed to be doing it."

"Shit, Chuck, I'm not an IP (Instructor Pilot) yet, so I can't sign off your time. You can fly this thing if you want though. You'll just have to do it from the right seat. Let's finish this and get in the air."

We lifted off at seven fifteen, heading north northeast. It isn't that far to Savannah, especially by air. Lisa thanked me for breakfast and coffee, saying she didn't even get a chance to get a thermos for us.

When we got to Savannah, we flew over the port to see if we could identify the ship. It was easy, as there were police cars and military trucks all over the place. I switched to our general service frequency and made contact with the Station Chief. I told him to have someone pick me up at the airport, which he readily agreed to.

I landed us smoothly enough to get congratulated by my pilot. As we were taxiing up to the private aircraft terminal, I told her to tie down nearby and tell everyone you were a Marshal's Service charter.

A deputy came out of the terminal, flashing his badge and waving for me to follow him. I grabbed my bag and went with him to his car. While he was driving to the port, I took my shirt off and put the vest on and slipped my shirt on back over the vest.

He described the troublemakers as possibly being some smugglers that were caught while trying to bring contraband off the boat. No one knew how it happened, but the smugglers must have been surprised and thought they were being attacked.

At the port, I heard the same story several times. I asked the Captain, "What nationality are the crew members in question?"

Captain: "Indian, and maybe one Pakistani."

Me: "Do they speak English?"

Captain: "Most do, they practice all the time."

Me: "What do you think they were trying to get off the boat?"

Captain: "Probably hashish. I know they smoke a lot of it, and it isn't illegal where they come from."

Me: "Are guns legal on board?"

Captain: "We don't encourage them, but many have guns."

I had an idea, so I asked the Station Chief, "How much gun fire was there from the ship?"

"Just one shot from the ship, but the local police and customs probably shot off a couple hundred rounds."

I had to ask, "Why so many?"

The Chief said, "Cowboys. These guys never get involved in anything and they had a chance, so they began shooting."

"Tell them to put their guns down and not to shoot. I'm going aboard to see if we can resolve this."

The Chief exclaimed, "You can't do that, you'll get shot. Those guys will shoot you and then what will we do?"

"Let me try. I'll holler up and tell them I'm coming aboard to talk to them. If they shoot at me, I'll get off and try something else."

I took a bullhorn and walked up to near the gangway and turned on the bullhorn. "My name is Johnson, I'm coming aboard to talk to you. It would be better to let me talk to you than for me to be mad at you. Hold your fire and let's talk."

I put down the bullhorn and began climbing the gangway. A head appeared around the railing and disappeared quickly. The gangway was high and steep as the ship had been unloaded and was riding high in the water ready to be loaded with freight. I finally made it to the top and saw a man hiding around a corner. He was waving for me to come to him.

When I got there, a door was open so I entered and was immediately confronted by five men with guns. They were not pointing them at me though. One said, "If you don't pull out your gun, we will be fine. What do you want to talk about?"

"Look, those guys down there don't know what you were trying to take off the ship, but they think it is probably hashish. The government men get mad if you try to sell that stuff here in the U.S. This is not a good place to do that, and if you get caught you will stay in prison for many years."

One man said, "But it is not illegal for me to have at my home. Many want it here, why can't I sell it?"

"The law here is against using that type of drug or to smoke it. Just like you don't have liquor in many areas, but we do. You can't drink or won't drink, but you will smoke that funny stuff."

"We hear that before, but no believe. What can we do, we shoot in the air to scare off man with badge. How can we leave, the Captain will be mad."

"If I let you guys take your stuff with you, will you promise to put your guns away?"

"We will do that. Can you help us like that?"

"I'm sure the Captain needs you and no one out there really wants to hurt anyone without a gun. Go put your guns away and hide your stuff where you always hide it when you're in port. Promise me you won't try sell it in the U.S., okay?"

The obvious leader said, "We promise." He began telling the men in his language to do something. "I tell men to put away everything and to get other men so we can load freight. You go fix us with the men with badges and the Captain."

I went down the gangway and used the bullhorn. "All non-federal personnel please depart from the port area. All federal personnel meet me right here, without weapons."

I should have said with weapons stowed, as I saw a bunch of men putting their guns on the ground, probably for the better.

The Captain came with the Homeland group and the Marshal Service people. I addressed all of them at once, "Look, there was only one shot fired into the air by the crew. They don't want to do anything, but were scared. They are not going to take anything off the ship, I was guaranteed that."

I looked at the Homeland Security leader and asked, "Can you forget about all the rounds you fired at the ship and get on with business?"

He looked confused, but thought about it, "Yeah, I guess nothing's been harmed really. We already did the INS thing on board and customs has cleared the freight that came off and the freight going back on. I guess we could let it go."

I turned to the Captain, "I'm sure you need the men in question, and you probably don't really know which of the crew it really is do you?"

"No, I don't really know which ones they are, who do anything."

I smiled, "You need all of them though, right?"

"Of course, I need everyone to run the ship."

"See the men up there; they're waiting to load the freight. Go load up and sail with the next tide. You Homeland guys, stay right here and make sure no one gets off the ship."

The Homeland Security Customs lead man asked me, "Are you really just going to let them go, even after shooting at us?"

"They didn't shoot at you. The only infraction so far is they fired a round inside the city limits. Since they fired it into the air, they could have been shooting at big sea gulls that crap on them constantly. Did any of them show their weapons to anyone on the dock?"

The agent started to speak, but stood there thinking about it a minute, then began going from man to man among the group waiting and watching what was going on.

Two huge cranes began picking up the first containers to be loaded onto the boat. Several stevedores on the dock were preparing more large containers to be picked up while customs inspectors were checking bonding tags.

The DEA station chief came up to me with a bag of donuts and a cup of coffee. "How are you doing, Chuck, haven't seen you since you came through a while ago with that hot rod Mustang."

"I'm sorry; I don't remember seeing you then. What was the situation?"

He chuckled, "You wouldn't have. I was with one of my men when you blew by us in North Florida. I recognized you from your picture on the inter-service site. You were with what looked like a big woman heading south. We stayed up with you, but I figured you to be undercover so we didn't stay with you. The Boss you were driving sure looked pristine, do you still have it?"

"I do and I do remember an Expedition running with us for a few miles when we were on the way home. We had been under, but were finished when you saw us."

The agent further explained, "We were in Panama City because we had a tip a boat charter service there was picking up stuff out in the gulf. It turned out to be sour grapes from a competitor. The suspect let us roam his four boats with dogs and check his passenger lists for the past year. If he was running drugs, he wasn't doing it on those boats."

The agent asked, "Do you think those guys have any dope on board?"

"Probably lots of it, mostly for personal use. A lot of the Indian and Pakistani crewmen use some hashish. It's not against the law over there and they are allowed to have it on board. I think a couple of them thought they might pick up some greenbacks selling some of their extra. Since they didn't do any dealing and we don't have any strangers running around down here, they didn't have a meet set up. I would rather chalk this one up to a misunderstanding than to screw up shipping and dock schedules any worse than they already are."

"You're probably right; we've caught a few crewmen on shore leave with hashish on them before, but never with a whole lot. It usually becomes more trouble than it's worth, as the ship's agents get all out of shape and the Captain only wants to get his ship loaded and out of here. He's wasting money with his engines idling while he's waiting to leave."

Almost all of the local sheriff's deputies and the local city police force had left the area. The Bureau had a couple of people there, but was not really involved other than as backup. It took four hours to get the cargo loaded into the holds and on the deck of the ship.

Tugs were idling in the channel, waiting for a harbor pilot, to assist the ship out to sea. When the pilot showed up, he was interviewed to make sure he wasn't a contact for the crewmen on board with the dope. When I watched the lines being loosened and pulled back onto the boat, I relaxed. The situation was effectively over. Now all of the extra people were departing. The local ACE said to me, "Sure glad you came up. This was becoming a pissing contest over who had jurisdiction. The sheriff's department thought it would be cute to start firing on the ship. I don't know what they thought they would accomplish by shooting at six inches of steel. They might have dented it. We were called in by the Homeland Customs guy because he thought he was being fired on. From there, it was a cluster fuck. How did you know those guys weren't going to shoot you when you went on board, you didn't even leave your weapon?"

"Since the ship was flying the Indian flag, I sort of figured out what might be happening. Men from that part of the world carry guns. It's part of their manhood. You're fine as long as you don't try to pull yours on them. They even respect you a little more for showing your weapon. I didn't feel like a stupid siege on a solid steel merchant ship, so a quick compromise seemed the way to go. I'm just happy that it worked out without a scratch."