Deadly Coast by R. E. McDermott

pain in the ass.
    Arabian Sea
120 miles from the coast of Oman
    The Yemini fishing boat bobbed in the gentle swell as it chugged along at six knots, one of the scores of fishing boats ubiquitous to the area, a threat to no one. That was an image Mukhtar very much wanted to project, and he’d strolled the crowded wharf in Aden until he found just the right vessel.
    The grateful captain hadn’t asked questions when Mukhtar offered to charter his boat for several times the going rate, implying with a wink and a nod there may be a bit of smuggling involved. The poor man realized his mistake five miles outside the breakwater, when fast boats converged on his vessel and he was overrun by pirates. He’d little time to regret his action before Mukhtar shot him and his three-man crew and dumped their bodies over the side.
    Mukhtar had no qualms about his actions. The fishing-boat captain was not one of the Faithful, or he wouldn’t have accepted such an exorbitant sum nor been so eager to participate in illegal activity. And the crewmen were equally guilty, for what man would serve such a corrupt master if he weren’t corrupt himself?
    He raised the binoculars and studied the vessel in the distance. The tower of the drillship pointed to the heavens, like a great skeletal finger, and faint sounds of machinery and the ring of steel on steel carried across the water. Mukhtar forced himself to be patient.
    Drillship Ocean Goliath
Arabian Sea
120 miles from the coast of Oman
    The tool pusher stood on the centerline of the ship, staring down through the moon pool into the clear water, straining to catch a glimpse of the huge hydraulic grab. He cursed under his breath as the ascent of the drill pipe slowed, then stopped, and he heard the clang of steel on steel on the drill floor above. In his mind’s eye, he envisioned the slips being placed and the tongs at work, unthreading a long stand of pipe to be moved aside so another could be lifted to bring the grab that much closer to the surface.
    A roundtrip to the bottom—over eight thousand feet below—and back took hours. A pity the weight of the treasure and limited carrying capacity of the ROV forced them into this time-consuming process. But the remotely operated vehicle had proven its worth in other ways. Steering the little submersible to depths beyond the capacity of any human, the operator on the drillship had expertly placed explosive charges around the hull of the SS John Barry , ripping the old Liberty ship open and exposing her treasure for the first time in over sixty years.
    The tool pusher fidgeted and shot a squirt of tobacco juice into the clear waters below. Exposed was still over eight thousand feet from recovered . He glanced at the immobile pipe. It was ingenious, really, the idea of turning a drillship into a giant version of the coin-operated claw arcade game. Of course, they expected their claw to pull up a hell of a lot more than a stuffed bunny.
    He flinched at a sudden sound, then realized it was the massive thrusters kicking in, directed by the dynamic positioning system to keep the drillship precisely located over her target. He glanced once more at the unmoving pipe, checked his watch, and turned to head up to the drill floor to chew somebody’s ass, just as there was a clank and a groan, and the pipe resumed its measured ascent.
    When the massive hydraulic grab broke the surface an hour later, the moon pool was surrounded by crewmen and the excitement was palpable. Next to the tool pusher stood Sheik Mustafa and his American partners and the documentary film crew with their cameras at the ready. A hush fell over the crowd as the grab reached deck level and was maneuvered to its resting place. A hush broken by the tool pusher’s gravelly voice.
    “All right, all right! Get your thumbs out of your asses, and let’s get her open.”
    At his command, crewman jumped to hit the releases, and hydraulic cylinders groaned as they jacked open massive jaws to