Black Flag by David Ricciardi

Author:David Ricciardi [Ricciardi, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781984804662
Google: OjTgDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07X28K4SC
Goodreads: 50489850
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2020-05-15T05:00:00+00:00

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NACAY UNROLLED A waterproof map and a paper schematic of the ship atop a large folding table, scrounging rocks from the camp building’s dirt floor to hold down the corners.

Obtaining the plans for the Saudi tanker had not been difficult.

It was one of a series from a South Korean shipyard, and Nacay had asked a contact in the shipping industry to acquire the drawings for one of the sister ships under the pretext of potentially purchasing it. The ship broker had initially demurred, until two days later, when he’d received a dozen photographs of his eight-year-old daughter in the mail. The pictures had been taken at her school while she’d been studying, outside her home while she’d been playing, and from the foot of her bed while she’d been sleeping.

They received the plans the next day.

“Why are we hitting this piece of junk?” the Turk said as he examined the plans. The Saudi ship was about twice the age and half the size of their recent prizes.

Nacay glared at the Turk, and there was no further discussion of the topic.

“The target will be exiting the Persian Gulf in six days,” Nacay continued. “We’ll head east while it heads south, and the intercept point will be here, around 13 north latitude and 72 east longitude, on the core route from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca.”

Nacay drew a red circle on the surface of a map.

“Will we be tracking her on AIS?” asked the Kenyan.

“I doubt she’ll be transmitting,” said Nacay.

A ship’s automatic identification system was meant to improve safety at sea by transmitting a vessel’s name, type, and location to everyone monitoring the system, but participation was voluntary and, not surprisingly, smugglers and pirates were not heavy users. It was another data point that told the men this wouldn’t be a normal takedown.

“We’ll set a picket line across the shipping lane here.” Nacay marked an area just north of the 13th parallel. “The mothership will set up in the middle, Team One will be three miles to the east, and Team Two will be three miles to the west. We’ll move south at three to five knots, each varying speed so it doesn’t look as if we’re traveling together, and wait for the target to pass.”

Yaxaas handed a printout of the ship’s plans to the man with the bandoliers. “Set it up.”

He left the building and began directing the camp workers. Men paced off distances and marked lines in the sand. They placed movable walls around the interior—some no more than bedsheets on wooden frames, while others were plywood panels with makeshift hatches and doors, but they were all placed precisely according to the ship’s plans, so the boarding team would know exactly what to expect from the moment they hauled themselves over the sides of the Amjad and onto her deck.

When the deck level was complete, the workers moved to another section of camp and set up the superstructure, the engine room, and the ship’s control rooms, where the oil was pumped and monitored.

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