Silent Running

Spellman signed his dinner check with his room number and stood. He was pulling Mary’s chair back when he spotted a man in black heading down the passageway. He was carrying a submachine gun. A second later another gunman appeared. The ship had a small security force, but he’d not seen them wearing black combat suits nor packing automatic weapons. And the way these two men were moving told him that these guys weren’t friendly.

“Come on,” he told her quietly. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”

“What is it?” She frowned and turned toward the door.

He took her chin and turned her head back toward him. “Don’t look,” he said, “but something odd’s going on. I just saw a couple of armed men in black SWAT suits in the hallway. Let’s look for a back door out of this place until we can figure out what the hell’s going on.”

Hamilton was a decisive woman, but she was out of her element here and didn’t mind him taking the lead.

The cook staff looked up from their chores when the two Americans walked into the kitchen. “Is there a back way out of here?” Spellman asked in English, nodding toward his companion. “Her husband is coming.”

Keeping a straight face, Hamilton translated his question into flawless Spanish.

One of the cooks left his soup pot and showed them to a passageway behind the kitchen.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” Spellman said.

“You never asked.”

“What else do you know that might come in handy right about now?”

She shook her head. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Keep thinking.”

When the cook stopped in front of a door and said something in Spanish, Hamilton translated. “He says that if we need to hide from my husband, we can stay in here. There’s a lock on the inside of the door.”

“Gracias,” Spellman said.

The cook grinned.

The storeroom behind the door was quite large and the door had been fitted with a pair of sliding bolts on the inside. A thick pile of blankets on the floor showed that this was a common trysting place for the staff seeking an afternoon delight.

“Just what we need.” Mary chuckled.

“Complete with enough food and drink to last us for a couple of weeks.” Spellman’s eyes made a quick inventory of the shelves.

“Do you think someone’s trying to hijack the ship?”

“I don’t know, but we should be okay if we stay in here.”

There was a porthole at the end of the compartment, but he couldn’t see anything through it beyond the jungle lining the canal.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” he replied. “But if we hear any shooting we’ll be safe, at least until we reach a port somewhere.”

She glanced down at the pile of blankets. “I’m sure we can stay busy till then.”

Seeing the look in her eyes, so was he.

“This would’ve been better in my cabin.” She smiled. “More comfortable.”

He grinned. “I think we’ll be able to manage okay here.”

THE SPRAWLING PEMEX facility at Vera Cruz Llave was one of the Western Hemisphere’s largest oil refinery complexes. Crude oil from dozens of Caribbean and South Atlantic offshore, deep-sea oil platforms was pumped in to be processed into everything from bunker fuel to Avgas. Because of the never-ending court battles being waged to terminate such industrial activities as refining in the United States, more and more American oil companies were sending their crude to Mexico for processing. This arrangement was a boon to the Mexican economy and got the environmentalists and their vulture lawyers off the backs of American “big oil.”

Pemex wasn’t unaware that their refineries were prime potential terrorist targets. Even with the successes of the ongoing war on terrorism in the Middle and Far East, Latin American terrorism was still a common fact of life. Here, though, it wasn’t Islamic radicals causing trouble, but the home-grown whackos. There were still a few Marxists who still dreamed of dusty socialist glories to be won by the gun. But Native Indian separatists and would-be socialist land-grabbers were more likely to use terror tactics as were some of the drug cartels and out-of-office opposition parties.

As was common in all of Latin America, Mexico had more private security forces than it did police, and Pemex had the largest single security force establishment in the country. Sharp uniforms and modern weapons made the company cops look good, but the relatively low pay and almost complete lack of training made them little more than paper tigers. They would be no match for the forces Paco Domingo was moving into place against them.

Domingo was publicly known as the fiery leader of a militant oil field workers’ union. To Diego Garcia, though, he was one of a number of deep-cover Cuban Matador agents who had been placed in Mexico years earlier. Some of these men had been undercover for more than ten years, but all of that waiting was over now. One of the main Matador targets this night was Mexico’s petroleum industry, but other critical infrastructure systems would be taken over, as well. The electrical power generation facilities were high on that list as were the ports and the air traffic control system. And, of course, the presidential palace in Mexico City.

Come morning, Mexico would finally belong to the people. The rule of the powerful old families and corrupt business elites would be ended, and the people would be presided over by their “chosen” representatives—Paco Domingo and his deep-cover associates.

That thought sustained him when he drove up to the main gate of the Pemex complex. This was an impressive security hard point complete with razor wire, a remote-controlled traffic barrier, security cameras and half a dozen armed guards behind bulletproof glass. It looked formidable, but it was mostly show because the checkpoint was manned by idiots.

Domingo stopped his SUV in front of the barrier and honked. The security officer who came out of the booth recognized him and walked up to the open driver’s-side window. “You’ve been banned from this place, Domingo. Move on before I have to shoot you.”

“I have to talk to the company officer in charge tonight,” he replied. “I’ve learned information about a threat to your plant and I have to tell him about it.”

The guard laughed. “That’s a new one coming from a union bastard like you. You’d be happy to see this place burn down to the ground.”

“You idiot,” Domingo gritted. “My people need their jobs here so they can feed their families. They’re not crazy enough to destroy their own jobs. This is a foreign threat to the plant, and it’s serious.”

“Okay.” The guard reluctantly reached for his radio. “But if this is some kind of a trick, Domingo, you’re going to pay for it.” He pointed to the video camera. “This is all on tape, you know.”

“Just let me talk to the man in charge.”

A few minutes later a BMW drove up, the barrier was opened and a man in a suit and tie walked through. “I’m Valdez,” he said. “What’s this about a threat here?”

“It’s no threat,” Domingo said as he pulled out a silenced pistol and shot the guard in the forehead. The company man got two rounds in the back as he turned and fled for his car.

Four black-clad gunmen stormed out of the darkness and rushed the guardhouse. A few shots later it was over. With the main gate secured, Domingo radioed for the rest of his assault force to move in. Twenty more armed, black-clad men emerged from outside the cone of light, slipped through the perimeter and fanned out, weapons ready.

The Pemex refinery was about to become the property of the people of Mexico.

A HALF AN HOUR later the leader of the strike team reported to Domingo. “The entire complex is in Union hands, boss.”

“Good.”

As with any successful revolutionary, Domingo never let the right hand know what the left was doing. His militant Union brothers might have been a little apprehensive had they known that he was working more in the name of the Cuban DGI than he was in theirs. It would turn out the same in the end, though, and that’s what really counted.

“Comrade Engineers,” he said, turning to the dozen or so grim-faced men standing around a van sporting caution markings, “it is time for you to do your part.”

“Yes, Comrade.” The explosives engineer smiled. When he and his men were done with their work, all it would take would be a single push on a button and the largest oil refinery in Mexico would go up in flames. And, until the rightful demands of the union workers were met, not a single drop of gas would leave the place.

Domingo reached into his SUV for the radio to make his report.