safe? Did the pirates follow you?”
“They don’t know I’m down here. Last I saw, Drozdov and the crew were headed to the engine room to lock themselves in. I’m not sure if they made it. If they didn’t, the pirates are going to check the manifest and find out you’re missing. They might come looking. They’ll need a hostage.”
“And if they do?”
“If they come down here, they’re gonna find your Israeli hardware and whatever you got behind door number three over there.”
“What will you do?”
“Me? Haven’t got a clue. You’re gonna help me figure that out.”
“How can I do that, Sergeant?”
LB shouldered the big Zastava. He flicked on his own flashlight to spotlight a circle of the bare steel floor.
“Iris, sit.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to talk.”
“I can’t tell you anything. It’s all classified.”
LB firmed his tone. “Lady, do you understand what I do for a living? Everything I do is classified. I shit classified.”
“Not like this.”
“Sit.”
Iris folded her legs onto the carpet of light. With less grace, LB settled beside her. He laid the Zastava across his lap. While he spoke, he kept one ear trained into the darkness. If he could find Iris, the pirates could.
“Listen to me. I just looked at a few billion dollars’ worth of Israeli surveillance gear that I’m told is headed to Beirut. That makes no sense. I’m going to look under the tarp of that last railcar there, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to make no sense either. I find you standing in the middle of it all. I need to know what’s going on, and you’re gonna tell me.”
“Why should I do that?”
LB kept a rein on his voice, though he wanted to shout.
“Because it’s all been hijacked.”
Still, his volume made echoes, a chorus to tell him to quiet down. Barking at Iris wouldn’t help.
“Look at me. I’m a soldier. My country’s involved in this somehow. I need to know what I should do here. I’m operating way outside my orders. I have to decide whether or not to defend these railcars or just save my own ass and yours. So give it to me quick. And make it easy to understand.” LB pointed. “What’s under that tarp?”
“I’m sorry. That information is secret.”
“I’m looking at it, so it ain’t a secret anymore.”
Iris mulled this over too long. LB rose off the deck.
“Fine.”
He strode away from her voice calling for him to stop. Iris did not follow, which was smart.
LB cut a long slash in the tarp to make the point that he was aggravated. He stuffed his upper body in with the flashlight, blocked by the solid side of a wooden crate. He played the light over the labels spray-painted there in Cyrillic. This cargo wasn’t Israeli, but Russian.
He pulled himself farther inside the tarp, hopped up to climb above the wall, and sliced more tarp to give himself room. Outside the stuffy confines, Iris had come alongside to shout for him to stop. She would tell him what was inside. LB ignored her, figuring he’d have a stronger chance of getting the truth out of Iris if he saw firsthand what was inside.
With one more long zip of the blade through the roof of the tarp, he clambered over the side, to balance on a wooden cross-beam. Beneath his boots, packed tight, padded by foam, lay what looked like a thirty-foot-long engine block.
The thing was rectangular, gray steel, four feet high by three feet wide. The sides were solid plate, but the top featured twin rows of fist-size black bolts clamping it down like the head on a motor, maybe a hundred of them.
“Come down.” Iris hit him with her flashlight beam while he stood to consider what he was looking at. He kept his place above the machine.
The thing was bound to have a military application, judging by the drones and radar that accompanied it. It was long, straight, and seriously held together.
“It’s a gun,” he guessed.
“Yes.” Iris Cherlina cast her beam to the deck to light the way for him to climb down. “It’s a gun. Now get off it.”
LB eased down from the crate. He sat on the deck, setting his back against the railroad wheels to face the dark expanse of the hold. He patted the floor for Iris to join him; she folded neatly down, laying her flashlight inside the ring of her crossed legs so she glowed as if beside a campfire. LB rested the Zastava across his knees.
“Tell me. Plain terms. What is that?