Free The Last Airship by Christopher Cartwright Page A

of your payload and the catastrophic repercussions of its
possible spill in these waters. It will be the worst terrorist attacks in
history!”
    “Are
you kidding me?” The captain laughed. “Our payload is going to go straight to
the bottom. The only harm it will do is to any fish who are unfortunate enough
to be swimming underneath us when we sink. Nothing else will come of it.”
    “But,
I was told you were carrying a load of uranium?”
    “What,
through the Torres Straits? Are you nuts? Jim Reilly would never allow it – not
that he’d complain about the environmental risk, but if he were caught carrying
uranium, the EPA would fine him so much that even he would never afford to sail
a ship in these waters again.”
    “Then
what are you carrying?” Tom asked.
    “Coal.”
    “Just
coal? Anything else? Why would James Reilly request all this support and risk
all of our lives if you’re only carrying coal? What else would someone be
after?”
    The
captain opened a special shipping manifest and noted an entry dated two weeks
ago. “Jim Reilly was aboard just before we left Japan. He accessed his private
vault.”
    “He
has a private vault?”
    “Sure
does. It’s rumored that he has a private suite on all of his supertankers, but
this is the only one with a private vault.”
    “Really?”
Tom couldn’t imagine why James Reilly would need that. “What does he keep in
it?”
    “I
have no idea, I’ve never known. I do know that it’s not drugs – I know that
much for sure. We’ve had many drug-sniffing dogs come on board at some of the
ports we dock at, and I’ve never seen a single one of them stop and alert at
his vault.”
    “How
often does he access his vault?”
    “Not
very often, perhaps a couple of times a year.” The Captain’s eyes widened.
“Whatever it is, we can safely assume that it’s quiet valuable.”
    “Why
do you say that?”
    “It
generally comes to us via a number of a private security vans. You know, the
kind they use to transport gold and money around for banks. Only, Jimmy’s
different, he likes to use a number of them. Each one is armored to the hilt.
They all crisscross their routes, so that any would-be pursuers are at a loss
as to which van holds his valuables. In the end, there are usually three
vehicles that enter the hull. When this happens, the old man is always on site.
He says that he doesn’t trust anyone, and he has used that specific team for
years. He then locks it away and he may or may not retrieve it for months or
even years later.”
    “And
you’ve never found out what it was?”
    “No,
never. What Jimmy doesn’t want you to know, you simply don’t ask.”
    “So
then, once he locks whatever it is in his safe, who keeps it secure?”
    “No
one. Like I said, ‘It’s secured in his private vault.”’
    “What’s
to stop someone from boarding the ship and breaking into it?”
    “The
vault can only be accessed from the outside, along the waterline when the ship
is empty. Then, when the ship is loaded, the entrance is well below the
waterline, making it next to impossible to access when the ship is moving.”
    “What
about a submarine or divers?” Tom asked.
    “Impossible.”
    “Why?”
    “The
Hayward Bulk is a 500,000 ton super tanker. Do you have any idea what sort of pressure
is created near the hull of this ship when it’s moving?”
    Tom
nodded his head. He had a fair idea where the Captain was going with this.
    “Anything
that comes close to the ship would be pulled into her wake and destroyed in a
matter of seconds.”
    “I
get it.”
    He
really didn’t, though. Tom had known James Reilly for years and other than
being well past suffering with megalomania, the man had always seemed quite pragmatic.
    Why
would he transfer something so valuable this way? He could easily afford to
transport it by plane, or some other secure method. If it was illegal, what
could possibly be so rewarding that he would risk everything he already