PROLOGUE
I
moved to the bow of the Valhalla and inhaled a deep breath of sea air. The weather was mild with no rain and good visibility. Shore lights shimmered on the dark water and there was a gentle swell, but it wasn’t bad. I had been on boats a lot during my time in the Marine Corps but never on a shrimping trawler trying to smuggle seven tons of weapons and ammunition across the wide Atlantic in hurricane season. An initial taste of what might lie ahead occurred when we left the harbour mouth and ploughed into the first of the wild Atlantic swells. They were moderate, but the boat shuddered like a car going too fast over a speed bump. I braced myself and stood for a while longer at the bow. The lights from the American east coast receded behind us as the ocean before us grew blacker. In fourteen days or so, if everything went to plan, we would land the weapons and ammunition in Ireland. I had left Ireland some months earlier with £9,000 and instructions to build an arms network from scratch. I was returning with a quarter of a million dollars-worth of equipment and a boat and crew prepared to take it all the way. I had also acquired contacts and resources that would prove invaluable in the future. The first few days at sea were routine and uneventful, but then we lost our autopilot. With the autopilot functioning, the
