the moment, the Tangs were probably the most unsuccessful pirate gang on the planet.
This was the situation when the leaky freighter reached the Indischer Bank. This place was known for two things: its brutally thick fog banks and for being a massive spawning ground for the Indonesian short fin eel, considered a delicacy throughout Asia. It was also situated directly over one of the deepest parts of any ocean, anywhere: the 25,000-foot Java Trench.
Desperate, the Tangs had come up with a somewhat workable plan. They wanted to enter the Indischer Bank at its foggiest, find a good-size fishing ship there, hijack it and then quickly flee the area. This way they could not only get a clean vessel to escape on, they might possibly find its cargo hold full of something they could eat.
Their porous coastal freighter had only the most rudimentary sea surface radar, something bought at a RadioShack. Still, the Tangs had it working at full power as they approached the Indischer around 0300 hours. As expected, there was an enormous fog bank this morning. Pointing the radar into the mist, they were hoping to find at least a dozen fishing boats working the misty waters.
What they found instead was a U.S. Navy warship.
* * *
IT WAS THE USS Messia.
Six hundred feet long, with a crew of 350, it was, at least officially, an Aegis cruiser. But it had satellite dishes and VRL transmitters poking out of many places where one might expect to find naval guns, and its bridge and superstructure were covered with antennas of all types and shapes and sizes.
The best description of the USS Messia was probably “armed intelligence-gathering vessel,” because while the ship did carry tons of eavesdropping gear, it was also equipped with surface-to-surface missiles, antiaircraft weapons and even a naval cannon or two.
Essentially, it was a spy ship—and whenever any kind of covert operation involving the United States was happening anywhere in the waters of Asia, the Messia could usually be found lurking close by, taking it all in.
That’s what it was doing here this night, moving very slowly on the edges of the Indischer fog bank.
* * *
IT WAS TOO late to change course by the time the Tang pirates spotted the warship.
And it was their bad luck that they were heading right for it, because they knew there was a good chance their leaky rust bucket would be recognized as a pirate vessel. But they also knew turning around would be such suspicious behavior, they might as well had just run a skull and crossbones up the main mast. They had no choice but sail right past the Navy ship and hope for the best.
They were within a thousand feet of the warship when they blew their foghorn twice. A few seconds passed, then they heard the warship blast its own mighty horn twice in return. A short radio conversation ensued, discussing the distance between their two ships. The pirates blew their foghorn again at five hundred feet away from the warship, and received two more blasts in response.
Not a minute later, the pirate vessel sailed past the Navy ship, a hundred feet off its port side. The pirates blew their foghorn again, and the warship replied in kind. Moving much faster than the almost stationary warship, the pirates disappeared back into the mist thirty seconds later unmolested.
The Tangs couldn’t believe it. They’d risked certain capture and had gotten away with it.
* * *
DEEP IN THE heart of the fog bank five minutes later, the pirates came upon another ship. Its name was the Pacific Star and, though old and rusty, it was the answer to their prayers. It was a hybrid cargo vessel and fishing boat, 250 feet long, with a deck covered with huge eel traps. It was moving very slowly to the east and sending out an SOS, asking for help.
Why the U.S. warship had not come to its aid, the Tangs did not know. But they couldn’t resist. They contacted the ailing vessel, told them they would come alongside and render any assistance they needed. The captain of the stricken ship quickly agreed.
The Tangs tied up to the ailing vessel minutes later and swarmed aboard. They were met by a crew of ten sailors, all of them Vietnamese.
The captain came forward to greet the Tang gang leader warmly. But on noticing the Tangs were armed, the captain said in broken English, “I was told real guns were not part of the plan.”