[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel by Richard Marcinko

Author:Richard Marcinko [Marcinko, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: rt
ISBN: 9780765332943
Publisher: Forge Books
Published: 2014-01-07T06:00:00+00:00

(III)

I’m sure the sailors were every bit as unhappy about their assignment as I was. But that wasn’t of much comfort.

I slipped through the open space between the container rows to the other side of the ship. Two men were coming along that side as well, and in fact had made a little better progress.

Retreating, I joined Shotgun halfway up the container stack. He’d curled his arm around a metal pipe and looked a bit like a gorilla—not least of all because he had pulled a banana out of his backpack and was munching it.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“We have sailors coming to inspect the containers,” I told him. “How the hell can you eat?”

He just shrugged.

We could avoid the sailors by climbing to the very top of the containers, but that would expose us to anyone on the bridge. As bad as the lighting was, we’d still be pretty obvious up there. And hiding on the deck wasn’t much safer. We could go over the side, but even then we’d be risking a chance of being seen.

“We’ll hide in one of the containers,” I told him. “You have the picks, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

He reached into his fanny pack and pulled out the small kit. I’m much better at picking locks than he is. Larceny is in my blood; his is filled with cholesterol.

I scanned the nearby containers to see which would be the easiest to get into. There are some very high-tech locks out there these days, with fancy electronic gizmos that alert the owners when they’ve been tampered with. Even the less sophisticated models can be tricky to get around, at least if you’re in a hurry. The two nearest containers had what looked like Enforcer locks, electromagnetic models that would be a pain to tamper with. I skipped them, clambering up to a more battered model that had an old-fashioned steel wire loop and key lock. The steel would have given the wire cutters we had with us a hard time, but the lock itself was easy to pick.

Or would have been, if I could have done it without hanging off the container in the rain while the ship started rolling at an unhealthy rate.

I fumbled badly with the tools, my hands getting colder and wetter by the second. Shotgun came over and leaned over me, providing a little shelter. Finally, the pins gave, and I slipped the lock apart. The whole process might have taken only a dozen seconds, but it seemed as if it had lasted a full hour. What happened next was nearly instantaneous: I undid the latch, and Shotgun pulled the right door open.

And swung out on the pipe as the ship lurched. The door was wide open, easily visible. Murphy was having his little tease. Just as I reached to grab the door back, the ship bucked and the panel came flying toward me. As I ducked, it reversed course, smacking Shotgun against the front of the next container.

Better him than me.

He kicked himself away from the container, reaching his hand toward me as he swung in.

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