The bay lying to the north of the Baltic Sea bears the name Kattegat, a Danish word meaning ‘cat’s throat’. Due to its shallow depth and unpredictable currents, it provides a dangerous passageway between Sweden and Denmark. A public ferry between Halmstad, Sweden, and Grenaa, Denmark, connects the two countries on twice-a-day runs. It is a four-and-a-half-hour trip that is often wave-tossed, cold and uncomfortable.
This public ferry is not the only means of traveling between the two cities. Private boats and planes can be hired. Though at a substantial cost, they provide a service that is used by people who have schedules that don’t mesh with the public ferry’s times. There are also people who want their travel to be more private than can be achieved on a public ferry. Not everyone wants their arrival onto the Jutland peninsula open to anyone who might be monitoring Denmark’s shores.
The latter reason was why Jackson Broke was now standing at the rail of a boat, a considerably smaller boat than the public ferry, three hours into his journey. He was feeling every bounce and jounce of the trip. Shallow waters can mean rough waters. Such was the water in the Kattegat at 4 A.M. on a cold, windy, moonless night.
Jackson was one of six passengers making this voyage. None of the others was a bit sociable with either Jackson or each other. They all stood or sat apart, silent and well into themselves. That was fine with Jackson. He spoke no Swedish, Danish or Dutch, so talking probably wasn’t possible even if he’d wished to do so.
He’d been told to take this boat on this night. His handler in Washington had been specific and given him a sheet of paper to hand to a ship’s captain. Jackson didn’t know specifically what the paper said as it was written in Swedish, though he was aware it was intended to get him passage to Denmark. ‘Ship’s captain’ was a pretentious title for the man he handed the paper to. The man looked to be in his 60s. His heavily lined face was weathered, his gray hair was stringy and his hands were gnarled and knotted. He hadn’t shaved recently, and his dress was slovenly. Additionally, when Jackson met him, he was standing at the bar in a seedy tavern close to the bay and drinking steadily. He was missing several teeth and didn’t speak a word of English, which Jackson knew was the purpose of the paper he handed him.
Jackson had been told where to find the man and at what time. The time was near midnight. The man was where he’d been told he’d be and fit the description he’d been given.
The captain had taken the paper, read it, then spoke to Jackson in what was probably Swedish. Jackson wasn’t sure of that, just like there were many things about the operation he was now engaged in that he had little knowledge of. Jackson had shrugged his shoulders when the man had finished speaking, and he’d responded in English. The man had shrugged, too, but then pointed at his watch, moved the hands to 1 o’clock and pointed to the quay outside the tavern.
Jackson had nodded and was on the quay with the other five men at the appointed hour. They’d be taking the trip as well. The boat had come to the quay, and a young boy had dropped fenders off the boat, leapt off, and tied the boat to cleats on the quay’s rim. Then, not speaking a word, he’d waved at the men to board. After they had, he’d untied the lines and come aboard himself, pulling in the fenders as he did. The boat’s engine had gotten louder, and the boat had moved off the quay and into the channel leading to the bay.
No words had been spoken. Jackson had pulled his coat tighter around him. It had been a black night with the moon obscured by heavy overcast since earlier in the evening, and there was no indication the overcast would lift anytime soon. There’d been a modest wind blowing as he’d boarded, a cold wind, and Jackson’s coat wasn’t thick enough to keep it from penetrating.
The other passengers had found places to sit with their backs against the raised wheelhouse where the captain was at the helm. No passenger accommodations seemed to exist. Jackson hadn’t felt like sitting. He’d been restless and walked the deck, trying to burn off some energy before ending up at the rail near the bow of the boat, looking out at the black waters ahead. Ahead, he could see nothing but darkness.
That had been three hours earlier and nothing had changed. During those hours, he’d stood and walked, stood and walked. Now he was simply standing at the rail, feeling a bit seasick and fighting it.
Then he noticed he was no longer alone. The crew boy he’d seen jumping off and then back on the boat at the quay, who’d been a no-show till then, was standing nearby.
Jackson glanced at him. He appeared quite young, like 12 or 13. Jackson guessed he was slight of stature but couldn’t be sure; the boy was wearing a wool coat. He obviously was acclimated to the weather; he hadn’t even bothered to button the coat. He had on a large knit sweater under the coat and had a dark watch cap over his head, pulled down almost over his eyes. Between the hat and the coat, the boy himself was barely visible. Only a glimpse of his face could be seen.
The boy was looking out over the water as was Jackson. Jackson watched him for a moment, then moved a few inches closer. The boy didn’t seem to notice.
Another few feet brought Jackson close enough to talk and be heard over the rumble of the engine. “Do you speak English?” Jackson asked softly. Somehow, speaking softly seemed appropriate, even though the wind blew his words away as soon as they left his lips.
The boy turned to look at him. He didn’t speak for a moment, then said, his voice youthful, “English, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and German.” While the voice was youthful, it was also severe and stoic. The tone of his voice didn’t invite more conversation.
Jackson wasn’t oblivious to that, but he did feel the urge for something to take his mind off his queasy stomach. Conversation might suffice. “Is it always this rough?” he asked the boy.
That got an unexpected response: the boy grinned. “This? It’s calm tonight. Sometime the waves are up over the rails and the bilge pumps can barely keep up.”
Jackson was surprised; the boy’s British English was almost accent free. But a sudden increase in Jackson’s nausea was enough to take away even the least bit of his desire for more conversation. He tried to sink deeper into his wool coat, wondering if he was going to vomit. Seasick and freezing. And still an hour or so to go.
The boy disappeared up into the wheelhouse without another word, and Jackson was left with the overcast night sky and the steady sounds of the throbbing engine and the waves tattooing the sides of the ship. He was the only passenger not sitting. He took a glance at his watch and frowned. He was not a happy traveler. There was still almost an hour to endure.
He’d have liked to go below but wasn’t sure there was a below for passengers to visit. As well as he could see, there was no way to get out of the wind. He wondered if he should look for a hatch leading to a lower deck, down where the engine was, but it seemed probable that the air wouldn’t be this clean. Also, it had to be noisy in the engine compartment; the engine was noisy where he was up on the main deck.
Still, he wondered. He was that cold. He hadn’t seen any way to get below. Though it wasn’t a tall boat, there had to be a below-deck area as where else would an engine be located? Besides, the boy had mentioned bilge pumps. Perhaps access to the lower regions of the boat was through the wheelhouse. In the tavern, the captain hadn’t appeared to be a very sociable man, and of course there was the language barrier.
Jackson had no reason to think he’d be welcomed into the wheelhouse. Also, the rocking and heaving had to be worse the higher he went, and the wheelhouse stood higher than the deck he was on.
He was still thinking about this as he saw a light in the distance, and, watching it, he could see it getting brighter. Another boat, coming their way, he decided.
The boy appeared again and came to stand next to him. “That’s odd,” he said, almost like he was musing to himself and not Jackson. “I’ve never seen another boat out here at this time of night.”
The light was moving toward them quickly, and soon they saw it was a searchlight from a boat that was taller than theirs. From the light splash from the searchlight, they could see the boat was metal rather than wood, built for speed rather than freight or passengers, and was entirely black. It was kicking up a sizeable wake behind it.
“I don’t like this. Why is it closing on us so fast?” the boy muttered, and he turned away from the rail, moving quickly toward the short ladder leading to the wheelhouse.
Jackson watched the other boat get closer, and he felt the same trepidations the boy had. Something about the boat and what appeared to be its aggressive way of steaming directly at them seemed threatening.
Jackson moved away from the rail. The boat was near enough now that he could see it clearly. It was approaching and would pass them on the side he was standing on. He didn’t want to be there. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, and it wasn’t because of the cold. He crossed the deck, moved past the men sitting against the raised wheelhouse, and moved to the port side of the boat.
The boat began rocking as the wash from the black boat caught up to it. The black boat was practically alongside now; Jackson peeked out from behind the wheelhouse, wondering why he found the boat so frightening.
He immediately found out. Unbelievable as it seemed, three men appeared on the black boat’s deck, a deck that was the same height as the top of Jackson’s boat’s wheelhouse. They were all dressed in black, and Jackson saw they were armed as they raised their weapons. Then they began shooting. They shot down at the men sitting on the deck, then raised their fire to the wheelhouse. The guns were assault rifles with large-capacity magazines. The shooting went on and on, shredding first the five men, then the wheelhouse.
Jackson’s immediate fear was for the boy who’d just climbed up into the wheelhouse. No one could possibly survive that prolonged barrage of gunfire.
The shooting stopped and the black boat began to maneuver, coming up alongside Jackson’s boat. Jackson, fearing for the boy, quickly climbed the portside wheelhouse ladder to what was left of the cabin. The door on that side was hanging by a single hinge. He pushed it aside and entered, sure of what he’d see.
The first thing to confront him was the captain, or what had been the captain, lying across the wheel. How many times he’d been hit was uncertain, but that he was dead wasn’t open to question. He was covered with blood and hanging on the wheel, lifeless.
Jackson looked for the boy and, shocked, saw him crawling out from under the console that contained the ship’s instruments. He looked frightened, but he wasn’t in shock, and he was moving.
“You’re alive!” Jackson cried. He appeared more affected than the boy.
The boy gave him a quick look, then said, “Hurry!”
Jackson watched the boy shudder as he brushed past the body hanging over the wheel and moved quickly, stepping carefully over the splintered wreckage of the room to near where Jackson was standing. There, he reached down and pulled open a trapdoor Jackson hadn’t realized was there.
“Down here,” the boy said, and rather than climb down the short ladder, he simply dropped into the dark below him. “Fast as you can and shut the trapdoor behind you,” he called back up to Jackson.
There was panic in the boy’s voice which reached Jackson. He quickly climbed down the ladder, reaching up and grabbing the trapdoor as he did. He pulled it closed as he descended.
They were at the bottom of the boat where much of the space was taken up by the engine. It would have been totally black, but the boy had turned on a flashlight he carried. “We have to work fast,” he said. “Help me move this stuff.”
He scuttled past the engine, moving forward. Jackson saw him drop to his knees when he came to some boxes of tools sitting against a curved panel that closed off the bow of the boat from the engine compartment.
“We must move these boxes. Quick! Quick!” The panic in his voice rose.
Jackson bent down in the low space and moved to join the boy who was tugging on one of the boxes. He got on his knees, too, and reached out to grab the box. He found it quite heavy, but with him pulling and the boy pushing, they slid it and one other away from the panel they were sitting against. As they were doing this, they felt the boat rock sideways.
“We’re being boarded!” the boy whispered. “The other boat is alongside. Hurry! We need to slide this open.” He put his hands on the panel that the boxes had been up against. He began trying to slide it toward the starboard side of the boat. It didn’t move, and the boy shot a scared and angry glance at Jackson. “Help me!” he pleaded.
Jackson got the point. He edged over next to the boy, put his hands on the panel and pushed, too. The panel slid about a foot and a half and stopped.
“Inside,” the boy said. “You first; I’ll push you.”
The opening didn’t look wide enough, but Jackson wasn’t going to argue. He stuck his arms out and into the blackness on the other side of the panel, then began wriggling his body forward. He felt the boy’s hands on his hips and bottom and then he was being pushed. Surprisingly, he slid through without getting hung up at all. He was quickly followed by the boy.
“Close the panel now?” Jackson asked.
“No! Pull the boxes back to where they were!”
There wasn’t room for both of them to work through the small opening. Jackson was stronger, and he managed to pull one box back. That was all he could reach.
“Got one. That’s it,” he said, and the boy said, “Now the panel.”
They worked together again on that. It didn’t want to close any more than it had wanted to open, but the two pushing it were running on adrenaline, and they just had it closed when they heard the trapdoor above bang open.
Jackson sat back on his butt, sliding so his back was up against the port sidewall of the boat, his shoulder against the bow, but the boy stayed where he was. In the dim illumination of the flashlight, Jackson saw him reach into his coat and take out a pocketknife. The boy opened it, then worked a blade into the groove the panel had to slide in, pushing it under the panel’s edge so the panel would have to rise to move. As the panel was fitted into a top groove as well as a lower one, it would be almost impossible to slide it now. The boy used the heel of his hand to gently pound the knife and its blade in tighter, then silently slid back and slumped like Jackson against the bow, though he sat against the starboard side.
Jackson opened his mouth, but the boy violently shook his head and put his finger to his lips, then turned off the flashlight. They sat silently in the dark then and simply waited. They heard the boat’s engine shut down, then silence.
The waiting was terrifying. What if someone saw the moved box, realized the panel covered an empty space in the bow, found the panel wouldn’t move, and simply fired their gun through it? Would this be the end, in this tiny space, scared out of their wits?
A voice came, sounding like someone was shouting while standing just outside the panel that was hiding them. The voice was loud and probably directed at someone on the deck above. They could hear a faint answer, very brief. None of the words were in English. After that, they could make out someone climbing out of the engine room, and a few minutes later the boat rocked slightly again. Shortly after, the other boat’s engine roared, and their boat rocked against the wake of the black boat pulling away. Then the rocking of their boat stilled, the noise from the other boat’s engine faded away, and eventually they could hear nothing at all.
Still the boy waited. Jackson finally said, though in a whisper, “They wouldn’t have left anyone here without first making sure the engine would start. Could you understand what they said?”
The boy nodded. “I didn’t think about them starting the engine. That’s smart. And yes, I understood. The man down here asked if they’d found the paper, the answering man said no, he’d stripped and checked all the men.”
Then he grinned. “I think we’re okay. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
As he was working the knife out of the groove, Jackson asked, “Are you British?”
“No. Danish.”
“I’m surprised that when you learned English, you learned that word.”
The boy finally worked the knife out, folded the blade and pocketed it. “Fuck? I spent some time in England. That was one of the first words the English boys taught me.”
The two of them forced the panel open again, this time a little wider, and Jackson was able to slide through it without assistance.
“Uh-oh!”
The boy had crawled out first, then moved away from the opening so Jackson could climb out. Now Jackson moved to join him when he spoke. He had to skirt the engine to walk to the starboard side of the engine room where the boy was standing. When he arrived, he saw what the boy had discovered: a timer with a pale screen and bright green digital numbers counting down. As he watched, they descended from 2:18 to 2:13.
“What are we waiting for?” the boy asked. “They must have set a bomb. We have to stop it!”
“How?!” Jackson sounded as scared as the boy. “I know nothing about bombs.”
“Well, on TV, timers like this are wired to bombs. Stop talking! We need to follow the wires.”
Jackson could see four wires coming from the timer. Two of them went up the hatch. Two ran along the floor where they were standing.
The boy was already following the ones on the floor. “Here!” he shouted. Jackson hurried over and found the wire attached to a small round cap which had been imbedded in a clay-like blob of material.
“Go find the ones above and disable them,” the boy said frantically. “I’ll take care of the two down here!”
“Take care of them how?”
“Like this.” The boy reached down and pulled the cap out of the clayey mass. The cap was attached to a pencil-thin rod about two inches long. “This is a detonator. Hurry. Pull the two out up above before they explode. Keep them away from the clay. RUN!”
Jackson glanced at the timer before going up the ladder. 32, 31.
He climbed quickly, then followed the wires. They both ran to the stern of the boat. There, the explosives had been located over the sides of the boat on a small ledge. They were low enough to blast off a large portion of the stern. Jackson had to lean out over the water to reach them. He figured he had 20 seconds. He didn’t waste them. He yanked both detonators loose. He didn’t take the time to try to fool with the wires. Instead, he put the detonators on the deck well away from the explosive, then moved as far away from them as he could.
A few seconds later, both detonators exploded. Neither of them did more than make a loud noise and blacken the deck where they were lying.
Jackson was concerned with the boy. He raced back to the wheelhouse. There he found the boy emerging through the trapdoor.
Jackson took a huge breath, then hugged the boy, who hugged him back. Both grinned like schoolkids.