Piranha (Oregon Files 10)

The Ciudad Bolívar was the pride of the Cabimas fleet. At 700 feet long and eleven stories high, she could transport up to five thousand cars, primarily serving the growing South American market. Her current load had significantly fewer vehicles because the ceiling of deck 10 had been hoisted to accommodate large construction equipment—graders, backhoes, mobile cranes, dump trucks, bulldozers—all destined for Brazil. The deck below this one was dedicated to cars and SUVs bound for Venezuela and Argentina.

The total value of her shipment was over one hundred and fifty million dollars, and Maria took her responsibility for its care seriously. Her short dark hair and round face made her look younger than her thirty-eight years, and burly new crew members tended to underestimate her when she met them, in her nondescript trousers and unrevealing light sweater. She ran a tight ship, for her first command, driven by the pressure to succeed as the company’s only female captain. With the loss of three Cabimas vessels in the last three months, the crew was edgy, and Maria had spent plenty of restless nights worried about her ship, so she was especially attuned to anything that might pose a hazard.

The construction vehicles stretched out in long rows, parked side by side with inches to spare, maximizing the usable capacity in the cavernous, well-lit interior. Maria was the sole occupant of the hold. Even with the vibration of the ship’s engines and the rumble of the air-handling system, the lack of any other sound in the gigantic space was eerie.

She tested the tie-downs on random vehicles, which had been driven into place on the roll on/roll off ship. She knew her men inspected them on a periodic basis, but she liked to go over their work to ensure that their reports were accurate. If any vehicle came loose in heavy seas, particularly ones like these that weighed upward of fifty tons, it could wreak major damage on the cargo or start a fire.

While the smaller vehicles were secured with canvas straps, those for construction were cinched down with heavy steel chains. Nothing short of a Category 5 hurricane would be able to budge them, and the forecast called for smooth sailing until they reached Puerto Cabello.

Maria finished her assessment and was pleased with the results. She expected a lot from her crew and they never let her down.

She was walking toward the stairs to the bridge when she heard a grinding sound. But it wasn’t coming from the engine. It seemed to be emanating from the hull itself.

Before she could move, the shipwide klaxon shrieked, causing her to instinctively cringe. Instead of short bursts indicating fire, the horn sounded in lengthy peals.

There was a hull breach. The ship was taking on water.

The list would have been imperceptible to anyone not as familiar with the ship as she was, but Maria could feel the slightest tilt to port. She raced to the stairs, pulling the walkie-talkie from her waistband.

“Jorge!” she yelled over the wail of the klaxon echoing in the stairwell. “Report!”

She pressed it to her ear and could tell that Jorge, her executive officer, was responding, but the klaxon drowned out the words.

“All stop!” she shouted, and didn’t listen for an answer.

Maria sprinted up the ten flights and flung the bridge door open, panting from the exertion as she entered. The ship was slowing, the controls set to stop as she’d ordered. Three men were on the bridge: Jorge; the navigator, Miguel; and the helmsman, Roberto. They were moving efficiently, no panic evident, but stress oozed from their pores.

Jorge, a balding man ten years her senior with a potbelly and a goatee, looked at her in utter confusion.

“What did we hit?” Maria asked.

“Nothing, Captain,” he said. “There aren’t any other ships in visual range, and the depth is steady at over two miles. We couldn’t possibly have hit a reef.”

“Rogue storage container?”

“Not likely.”

“How big is the breach?”

“Breaches. We have compartments flooded in eight different locations of the ship.”

“What?”

Jorge showed her the plot of the breaches. They seemed to be concentrated on the port side.

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“A crewman who saw a breach in the bow compartment said it was six inches in diameter and looked as if it had been bored with a drill.”

Maria was astonished. That simply wasn’t possible. A single large gash she could understand. But eight smaller holes opening in a double-hulled vessel was unprecedented.

“Was he able to patch the hole?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. The pressure was too great. He had to seal off the room. I’ve also shut the watertight doors to the engine room. We got major flooding in some of the holds before we were able to seal off the rest of the damaged compartments, but those closed-off areas are still filling with water.”

The ship’s list was at ten degrees and accelerating. Maria was already having to support herself with the console. If they did nothing, the Ciudad Bolívar would reach a literal tipping point. Once it did, it would capsize and sink in minutes.

They couldn’t plug the holes, but they might be able to balance the ship enough to keep it from flipping over. The ballast tanks were already full, so they couldn’t add water to the starboard side to equalize the vessel.