Chapter 17 part 2 - VISITORS

Margie took a deep breath and held his hand. He looked into her eyes, unnerving her even more. She took another deep breath and swallowed hard.
“Well, I cleaned in the supervisor’s room and everyone that logs on is displayed on the monitor. If he’s already logged on, won’t he appear twice and rouse suspicion?”
“Margie – you are brilliant, no why would that make me angry? You’ve saved us from a major blunder! I’m glad you were the one that went and got the information. You are right, that is exactly what would happen. I’m really glad you told me that before I used his ID and password to log in.”
Margie sighed, she had done the right thing.
“So, what will you do?”
“Let me think……” Tom paced the room for several minutes, scratching his head and rubbing his chin in an effort to solve this new dilemma.

Margie put her hand on his arm. “Listen! I can hear a helicopter, can you?” She moved towards the door, concern in her voice as she swung it open. As the aperture of the door grew wider, they heard two splashes just below them and, on stepping out onto the deck, saw Rafi in the inflatable with two ringed ripples either side of it. Analise and Kurt had dropped into the sea at that moment. Looking up Tom and Margie saw a black helicopter approaching; it was one SMC's gunbuses. Possibly the one they'd experienced the day before. Tom glanced towards the stern. The flag! They had forgotten the flag! He gestured to Margie to stay where she was and dashed towards the aft stowage under the flagpole. He flipped it open and dragged out the large silk flag. It took just a few seconds to unfurl the flag and attach its lanyards to the flagpole cords. Pulling hard on one of the cords he swiftly raised the multi-coloured flag of the Republic of South Africa and stood briefly in a mock salute as it billowed out two metres from the stern.

The gunbus hovered a few metres away from the front of the Sea Witch and about 8 metres up. Tom waved; there was no returned wave. Then he heard the radio crackling and dashed back to the comms room. He turned up the volume slightly as the gunbus began hailing them.
“UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL AT CONDOR ROCK, THIS IS SECURITY PATROL CHARLIE PAPPA OF SWAKOPMUND MINING. IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND STATE YOUR BUSINESS IN OUR WATERS. OVER”

Tom took a breath, reached for the microphone and depressed the key.
“Helicopter Charlie Pappa, this is motor cruiser SeaWitch, we are a marine biological research vessel with sanctioned diving authority granted to Cape Town University by the Republic Central Government. Our purpose here is to study the fauna that inhabits the rock below sea level, in particular the Blue Lobster. We have authority granted also by the Namibian government. We apologise if this has given you any concern and can assure you that we firmly believed that these waters still belong the Republic of South Africa, over”

“SEA WITCH, WE WILL CHECK YOUR AUTHORISATION WITH NAMIBIAN AUTHORITIES. YOU MUST BE AWARE THAT SWAKOPMUND MINING HAS JURISDICTION OVER THESE WATERS OUT TO THE INTERNATIONAL LINE AT THE 20 KILOMETRE MARKER. YOU ARE THEREFORE 17 KILOMETRES INSIDE OUR JURISDICTION. YOU WILL NOT MOVE UNTIL WE HAVE VERIFIED YOUR POSITION, IS THAT UNDERSTOOD, OVER.”

“Charlie Pappa, roger, we have no intention of moving, our divers are currently down. You may have jurisdiction over Namibian territorial waters in this region, but our papers clearly state that Condor Rock and the waters 500 metres in all directions surrounding it is SOUTH AFRICAN. We do not wish for any trouble, and I am sure that you do not wish to escalate an international incident. We will hail the South African Coastguard if you persist in this deliberate act of hostility. Over.”

“SEA WITCH, WE HAVE NO INTENTION OF HOSTILITY; WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO SAFEGUARD OUR INTERESTS. YOUR AUTHORITY IS CONFIRMED. SORRY TO TROUBLE YOU. WE ARE RETURNING TO OUR BASE. OVER AND OUT.”

The gunbus turned and gained height as it headed back towards the coastline.
“Cheeky bastards, they know they can’t come into this area, yet they’ll do so, and threaten us too!”

“Tom, they have millions of diamonds and a vulnerable dredger to watch over, you must expect them to be jumpy. Annie was on the ball in getting us cast-iron cover. It certainly held up against them.”

“Well, yeah ok. Let’s get on, we’ve wasted enough time with them as it is!”
“Right, that little diversion – did it give you any inspiration into logging on to SMC’s workstation?”
“I’m sure there’s a way in, I’m working on it.”
“Well, I’m no expert like you, but, why don’t you try and logon as one of the system administrators? From what I saw there’s a host of them and they logon several times on different servers, you logging in as one of them won’t get noticed.”
“Margie, that’s what I love about you, so simplistic, yet right on the nose! How do you propose I do that then?”
“Well, I cleaned in the SysOps room too and I saw several of them log on, it’s no big deal.”
“It is without an ID and password.”

“I have those.”
“Do I get this right – I’ve been pacing the floor trying to resolve this and you’ve had an ID and password all along? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You seemed to have it all under control, knew what you were doing, and, you never asked.”
“OK, so, you have one, how do I know it’ll work?”
“Because they all use the same one!”
“NO! Do they? Well, come on then, spill the beans, let’s have it!”
“The ID is ‘SYSADMIN’ in capitals, and the password, also in capitals, is ‘MANAGER’. Now you may kiss me.”

Tom quickly typed in the two words and in a few seconds he was looking at a set of windows and menu options. They were in.
“Margie, love of my life, you’re a genius, come here.” He pulled her close to him and kissed her parting lips. “Now we’re in business.”
“Next time you need help in getting into a computer…. Just call me…”
“Cheeky! Don’t push your luck!”
“Or what….?”
Tom was too absorbed in what he could see on the screen to play her game. After going down several blind alleys he found the communications log.
“Now, let’s have a look at this, hmmm, look, here’s the record of the helicopter gunbus visit to us a few minutes ago – but it’s not what I wanted. Now, where’s that dredger in all this….?”

“VICTOR 1, remember?”
“I do – here it is – it called in at 08:00 this morning. Last night it called in at 22:00. There’s a data-logger link, let’s have a look at that. Ah yes, see, she called in on 171.7 Mhz gave the grid references. Now let’s look at the logger for 08:00 today. It’s the same. She hasn’t moved. That means she’s still sitting out there sucking up the diamonds that were discovered when you were there. If she hasn’t been in at all, there must be a hell of a lot of diamonds on board!”
“Good news! So, she’ll call in again at 10:00, 12:00 14:00 16:00 and 18:00 today, so when will we hit her?”

“As soon as she’s made the 18:00 call, it will be just getting dark and we’ll come out of the setting sun to the west of them. The crew won’t see us, nether will their CCTV and they won’t hear us because of the noise of the dredger.”
“Why do they call it a dredger when it’s actually a vacuum cleaner?”
“Force of habit, boats that take stuff off the sea bed are called dredgers.”
“Hmm, ok, call it whatever you like, it makes no odds to me!”
“Well, my sweet, we are definitely ON for tonight!”
“Is that before or after we rob the dredger?” Margie grinned.
“You cheeky little hussy, I was talking about the heist!”

Margie giggled, she really loved Tom. Their love had blossomed so quickly, some might say it wouldn’t last. She hoped it would.

Tom decided to use menu options to enter the security areas. He looked for the surveillance and counter attack reports. SMC’s equipment was monitoring all the vulnerable areas and the radar was constantly sweeping the sea and the sky. Looking at the live radar sweep, he could see five or six ‘blips’ just off shore. One was the ‘Sea Vac’, the large one was Condor Rock, the one near it was them, two moving back and forth would be the gunbuses but the sixth one was not immediately in evidence. He watched the sweep for about a minute and noted that the helicopters had transponders that showed their callsign, their airspeed and direction. That might be useful later.

“Now then, what’s that blip there?” he asked out loud as he pointed to a fading dot on the screen which brightened up again as the sweep returned. It was moving very slowly, somewhere out about 1900 metres to their stern. “Stay in here and watch these monitors, if anything comes over the radio or any screen lights up, call me back in. I’m going to have a look through the binoculars. On this unit, the multi-frequency scanner, press the scan key every thirty seconds, if there is a transmission, it will lock onto it. Call me.”
Tom stepped out onto the deck once more and made his way back to the stern. He placed the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the sea from left to right. He did this slowly several times. All he saw was the sea. He was about to turn back towards the radio room when he caught just the merest flash of light in the distance. There it was again, almost dead astern and a long way off. The early morning sun was reflecting off something heading their way.

He placed the binoculars to his eyes again and endeavoured to see whatever it was that the light had flashed from. Keeping the glasses focussed on a gently swaying boat was not easy, and he squinted with one eye and tried to lock onto the object. He could just make out a grey shape. After a few more seconds, he could make out grey bows of some sort of boat, hazy in the early morning sun. Without the glasses, he saw nothing.

A few more seconds and he could distinctly see the grey bows of a large vessel headed straight for them. Using the range finder facility on the glasses he determined that it was about 1700 metres away and displacing about 20,000 tonnes. She was big.
“What’s up Tom?” asked Analise as she stood towelling her hair, the top half of her wet suit stripped off and hanging like a discarded snake skin. Her well-rounded large breasts barely contained in the tiny bikini top distracted Tom for several seconds, and then he replied.
“Big ship of some kind coming this way. She’s head on to our stern, displacing about 20K tonnes and doing around 22 knots. She can’t come here, water’s too shallow.”

Analise shaded her eyes and squinted astern. “I can’t see anything, how far away is she?”
“Range finder says over a mile.”
Margie appeared as if a magic wand had been waved and made Tom jump.
“Tom, there has been some radio activity, mostly the lower band, around 150Mhz.”
“Tell us about it then Margie,” Analise asked as she tossed her nearly dry hair.
“OK, the helicopters have been talking to a naval captain on a small corvette. She is steaming in to look after the interests of the SMC. It appears that she will position herself between Condor Rock and the Sea Vac.”

Tom frowned, “A corvette? Well, yes that would match the size of what I saw. Did they talk about why this action has been taken?”
“Only in the context of confirming their instructions.”
“Well, they couldn’t have called them in after they came here, it would take a while to get them this far.”
Analise passed the comb through her hair again and draped the towel around her shoulders. “OK, no need to panic, they’re just getting jittery. Even if we have to postpone and keep diving, it’s no big deal – they’ll get called away again. The government won’t pay for a corvette to stand guard over a civilian vessel unless in a war zone. It would be un-economical for SMC to pay the 500,000 dollars a day it costs to keep a naval ship that size at sea.”

“Annie’s right.” Remarked Kurt as he too joined the others with Rafi close behind. “Did they say anything about us Margie?”
“No Kurt, there was no mention of Condor Rock or any boat near it. However, they were advised to steer a specific course because of the depth of water, they will have to pass Condor to the WEST so expect them to veer to their left soon.”

“Tom, if they come within 1,000 metres of Condor, hail them on their monitored channel and advise them of our presence, the reason why we’re here and remind them that we are a South African vessel in South African waters. Analise and I will go back to the lower deck with Rafi in case we have to go into the water again. It’s nice and warm out there, you should have a swim when it gets really hot, both of you.”
“Maybe I, we, will later.”
“Yes, Tom, and tell them to back off, slow down and turn off the screws or they’ll seriously jeopardise the eggs of the lobsters below.”
“Brilliant Annie, yes I’ll be sure to tell them that.”
Analise smashed her fist into the palm of her hand.
“Shit! Bastards! Well, it isn’t going to change anything! We’re going to have those diamonds!”


© Bob Curby/Steve Goodings 2009