Dangerous Waters-Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas by John Burnett

Author:John Burnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: non-fiction, terrorism, pirates, sea
ISBN: 0452284139
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2003-09-30T20:57:36+00:00

12

Where Are the Americans?

Papa Zulu Four

A two-tiered rack of rifles stands sentinel and ready for instant use within inches of the door to the deck outside; it is an impressive and intimidating display of firepower. I don’t know much about military weapons; I once worked in Somalia for the United Nations as an aide worker and there I found that nearly every male over eight years old had his own AK-47 Kalashnikov, the distinctive assault rifle with the curved magazine. These guns are smooth, hard, and mean looking. Like a kid I’m fascinated. There is a gun that looks like it shoots grenades. There is a row of black steel automatic rifles, some with folding wire stocks, others with stocks of black plastic. Peering closer: Heckler & Koch 9mm. The row of guns on the lower rack looks uncomfortably familiar. A young officer walks up the stairs and sees me staring at the rifles—I straighten, I’m a little embarrassed, gawking at these things. What kind? I ask him, pointing to the lower rack. “M16. American,” he says, then bids me good-night. Now it comes to me—it is the same kind that the punk kid used when he clubbed me over the head on my boat near Horsburgh Reef.

I wander down to the officer’s mess for a cup of coffee; there is an hour to kill before the SWAT teams arrive for their assignments. Curious, that a boat this small should have a mess for officers and a separate mess for ratings. I might expect it on the Montrose but Papa Zulu Four is minuscule compared to the VLCC and yet there are just as many people aboard—where do they fit them all?

There always seems to be a pot of sweet milky coffee ready. As I pour, I notice movement in the corner of my eye. Something resembling half an orange remains on the sideboard, smothered by a few dozen German browns, large cockroaches with wings, digging in. Not surprising; in the tropics and on most boats, ships, and yachts in the world there is an infestation to one degree or another. They are brought on board with vegetables and especially in cardboard boxes. They lay their eggs among the voids in the paper and eat the glue that binds the boxes. German browns also fly, crawl, and even swim from boat to boat, from shore to boat. Cockroaches are not necessarily a reflection on the housekeeping, but the swarm on this orange does seem to indicate something else.

Food is always at hand on the Papa Zulu Four, but that is true on most ships at sea. There are a lot of overweight seafarers throughout the world, but if the food were not so plentiful, you’d find a lot of unhappy crews; it is one of the basic lessons learned by every navy the hard way—you don’t skimp on food or you will have a recipe for a collective anger that feeds a mutiny. It is nearly 2200 hours and the

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