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On the Libyan freighter ‘Sea Sultan’ docked in the port city of Batumi, on the Black Sea, Abdula Nassir’s men are lying around and relaxing with three of the crewmen. The Captain and the rest of the crew are in town carousing on their last night in port before they ship out in the morning.
“Smells good,” One of the crewmen said as he put his nose near the crates, “What do you have in there, grapefruit or oranges?”
“Grapefruit,” said Karim, one of Mustaf’s men.
“Is it okay if I sample one?” asked the crewman, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a grapefruit.”
“Keep the hell away from the crates,” Mustaf said, “If you want some fruit go down to the market and by yourself some.”
The persistent crewman kept after Mustaf and said, “I don’t have any money, we don’t get paid for another week, but I do have a crowbar right here, I’ll only take one apiece for each of us.”
“Get the hell away from there those crates are sealed,” Karim said.
“Come on,” the seaman said, “I have the tools right here, I’ll seal it up good when I’m done.”
“Tired of the nagging, Mustaf said, “Hurry the hell up and just take three, and if you don’t seal it up good, I’ll have the captain fire your ass.”
The crewman smiled as he slid the blade of the crowbar under the lid of the wooden crate. As the crewman got ready to pry the lid off, the large knife of Tafar Rasulon sliced through the air and stuck in the wall of the freighter’s cabin with a loud thud, just missing the crewman by inches.
Tafar had a menacing look on his face as he walked ominously across the deck toward the crewman who still held the crowbar in his hands. Mustaf and his men stood up unsure of what the large uniformed man would do next. Tafar walked over to the crates and pulled his knife from the wall. He looked down at the squat but muscular crewman and said, “If you touch these crates again, I will cut off your hands.”
The crewman slowly backed away from Tafar and twirled the crowbar like it was made of balsa wood.
“All I want is some grapefruit for me and my mates.”
“When you get to Port of Sudan, you can have all the grapefruit that you want,” Tafar said as he stared across the deck at the crewman, “Until then, I’d better not see you anywhere near these crates.”
The crewman sized up Tafar and thought that he may have a better than even chance of taking the big man in a fight.
“I’m kind of hungry, I don’t think I could wait that long,” he said as he stopped twirling the crowbar and pointed it menacingly at Tafar.
“If you get past me, it’s all yours,” Tafar said as he held his knife by his side with one hand and gestures for the crewman to come and attack him with the other hand.
The crewman lunged at Tafar who easily grabbed the crowbar with one hand and twisted it out of the squat man’s hand. Tafar faked swinging the crowbar back at the man and instead he quickly threw his knife down into the crewman’s foot right through his shoe and foot, pinning him painfully to the deck. Tafar threw the crowbar across the deck and grabbed the man by the shirt with both hands before the seaman could fall to the ground and pull out the knife. Tafar reached down with his left hand and pulled out his handgun and stuck the barrel of the gun in the crewman’s mouth.
“Are you still hungry,” Tafar said with a laugh as he pulled the hammer back on the pistol.
The crewman shook his head negatively and the chattering of his teeth on the gun barrel is audible across the deck of the ship.
Tafar kept his eyes focused on the tearful eyes of the crewman as he let go of the man’s shirt and said, “You don’t want to move, I have a very nervous trigger finger.”
Tafar slowly bent down still holding the gun in the man’s mouth and with his free hand, he grabbed the handle of his knife that was in the man’s foot.
“Careful now, you don’t want to startle me, something really bad could happen,” Tafar said with a laugh.
“Steady now.”
With a quick yank, Tafar pulled the knife out of the man’s foot and pushed him against the wall of the cabin where he collapsed to the deck in anguish holding his bloodied foot.
Tafar walked over to another crewman and wiped the bloody knife off on his shirt as if to entice him into a fight, but the crewman was silent as he wanted no part of it.
“You’d better take care of your friend’s wound,” Tafar said with a trace of compassion in his voice that was pathologically obscene.
Tafar then walked over to Mustaf and his two men and said, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if anything happens to this cargo, I will hold you and Abdula personally responsible.”
“We were going to stop right before you showed up,” Mustaf said hoping that Tafar would buy his lie.
“Shut up, you fool, I hope that you and Abdula understand that there’s no place that you could ever hide from me.”
Tafar then turned around angrily and threw his knife across the deck and directly into the head of the wounded crewman, pinning his head to the cabin wall. The other crewman, who was bandaging the man’s foot, rolled away from the dead man in horror as Tafar walked over to retrieve his knife.
Tafar looked at the other crewmen and said, “He wasn’t going to be much help on this trip with that bad foot. Tell the Captain that you’re short one man.”
Tafar smiled as he pulled the knife from the dead man’s head and wiped it clean on his shirt. He then walked back to Mustaf and his men and slid his knife in the shiny black leather sheath on his belt.
“I’ll be back in the morning before they set sail, make sure that this crew understands that we don’t want anyone near these crates.”
Tafar then bent down in front of Mustaf and his two men and said, “When the rest of the crew gets back here, all you have to do is tell them that if anything happens to my cargo, I’ll kill everyone of them. It’s a fairly simple assignment, do you think you could do that?”
The three nervous men nodded their heads in unison.
“If I didn’t have to get back to Tbilisi, I’d do it myself,” Tafar said as he walked over to the loading ramp to exit the ship. He stopped one last time and pointed back at Mustaf and said, “I’m holding you and Abdula responsible,” he continued pointing and staring coldly at Mustaf as he walked off the ramp and down to the docks.
After he was out of sight, the three men and the rest of the crew breathe a sigh of relief.
In the warehouse down the waterfront, Henry Carr and his team were reviewing their plan to raid the freighter later that night. As they went over the plan and coordinated their responsibilities for the raid, one of the agents was relegated to keeping an eye on the crates on the freighter.
“Holy Christ, Henry you may want to take a look at this,” the agent said as he watched the freighter through his binoculars.
“What is it?” Henry said.
“Two guys were fighting and one of them just threw a knife right into the other man’s skull.”
“One less thug to worry about,” Henry said as he walked over to the agent, “I don’t care if they all kill each other as long as they don’t mess with the crates.”
“The crates are okay, but that was really weird, this guy was wearing some kind of uniform. Here take a look, he’s going down the ramp.”
Before Henry could focus his binoculars in, Tafar Rasulon had left the freighter and disappeared in the shadows of the dock area.
“I couldn’t get a good look at him,” Henry said, “Maybe the freighter Captain came back and caught one of his guys jerking around.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the agent said.
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