Free The Rybinsk Deception by Colin D. Peel Page B

throbbing of its diesel began to ease.
    Pleased that things were going well, Hari had temporarily stopped smoking. He spent one or two minutes talking over the radio to hismen then, after making contact with the Selina and unlashing one of the boarding ladders, put a fresh clip into his M16.
    ‘Are you going up first?’ Coburn asked.
    ‘Always I am an example to my men.’ The Frenchman grinned. ‘But tonight only because I am sure there will be no surprises for us. Even so, I think it prudent for you to stay here until we can be certain.’
    Of the nineteen villagers Hari had brought with him, two men in each launch would remain behind, one at the helm, the other to act as an armed backup and to operate a halogen light in the event of an emergency.
    The eight men that formed the boarding party had a more dangerous job. Calm though the sea was, Coburn knew how difficult it could be to scale a moving ladder in the dark – an acquired skill requiring a combination of balance and physical strength.
    To simplify his own job he’d been making his own plans, trying to think of an excuse that would allow him to conduct his search of the Pishan without attracting too much attention.
    The best opportunity would come while the lighter was being offloaded by the freighter’s crane, he decided, maybe the only real chance he’d have, unless there was going to be trouble in which case he’d be lucky to get on board at all.
    There was no trouble.
    Ten minutes after the last of the men had vacated the launches, Coburn received the all clear on his radio.
    ‘You may join us aboard,’ Hari said. ‘Captain Celestino tells me it is not possible for lighters to be unloaded from a moving ship, so he must first cut his engine. If you wait until the Pishan is drifting in the current you will find your transfer from the boat to be straightforward.’
    Coburn wasn’t in the mood for waiting. He spoke briefly to the launch’s helmsman, asking him to narrow the gap between the two vessels, then as soon as the boarding ladder was within reach, made a grab for it, hauling himself up until he was able to secure a foothold on a lower rung.
    The rest of the climb was easy, made easier by the lack of swell and because by now the freighter had lost what little forward speed it had.
    On deck, under the guard of Hari’s men, the crew of the Pishan weregrouped outside the aft superstructure – the only part of the ship not taken up by the parked crane and its cargo of flat-topped lighters.
    It wasn’t hard for Coburn to see how anxious the captain was. Unlike the members of his crew who were keeping together and avoiding eye contact with anyone in the boarding party, the Pishan ’s captain was standing in a pool of moonlight by himself. He was a taller man than Hari, perhaps a Brazilian or a Colombian but, in the absence of a single gun to back him up, a less imposing figure and someone who knew when he was at a disadvantage.
    While arrangements to operate the crane were being finalized, Coburn had a look around, realizing he’d misjudged the size of the lighters. Although on a vastly smaller scale than the cavernous oil tanks of the Rybinsk , they were equally inaccessible without the right equipment, and unlikely places for anyone to conceal a consignment of fuel rods or nuclear waste.
    In which case his job was going to be much easier, he thought. If indeed his detector was going to pick up radiation, it probably wouldn’t be coming from the lighters, but from inside the superstructure below the bridge.
    He began walking over to the deckhouse hatch, but had taken only a few steps when something stopped him in his tracks.
    Had the Pishan ’s crew not been blocking his way, he wouldn’t have given them a second glance, and if he hadn’t given them a second glance he’d never have recognized one of the men.
    It was the truck driver who’d pulled up behind him on the road to Fauzdarhat, the man who later on the same day had run down the