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Clive Cussler’s Condor’s Fury
Clive Cussler was the author and co-author of a great number of international bestsellers, including the famous Dirk Pitt® adventures, such as The Devil’s Sea ; the NUMA ® Files adventures, most recently Dark Vector ; the Oregon Files, such as Fire Strike ; the Fargo Adventures, which began with Spartan Gold ; and the Isaac Bell historical thrillers, which lastly included The Sea Wolves. Cussler passed away in 2020.
Graham Brown is the author of Black Rain and Black Sun, and the co-author with Cussler of Devil’s Gate, The Storm, Zero Hour, Ghost Ship, The Pharaoh’s Secret, Nighthawk, The Rising Sea, Sea of Greed, Journey of the Pharaohs, Fast Ice and Dark Vector. A pilot and an attorney, he lives in Arizona.
TITLES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
DIRK PITT ADVENTURES®
Clive Cussler’s The Devil’s Sea (by Dirk Cussler)
Celtic Empire (with Dirk Cussler)
Odessa Sea (with Dirk Cussler)
Havana Storm (with Dirk Cussler)
Poseidon’s Arrow (with Dirk Cussler)
Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler)
Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler)
Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler)
Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler)
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex!
Night Probe!
Vixen 03
Raise the Titanic!
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
SAM AND REMI FARGO ADVENTURES ®
Wrath of Poseidon (with Robin Burcell)
The Oracle (with Robin Burcell)
The Gray Ghost (with Robin Burcell)
The Romanov Ransom (with Robin Burcell)
Pirate (with Robin Burcell)
The Solomon Curse (with Russell Blake)
The Eye of Heaven (with Russell Blake)
The Mayan Secrets (with Thomas Perry)
The Tombs (with Thomas Perry)
The Kingdom (with Grant Blackwood)
Lost Empire (with Grant Blackwood)
Spartan Gold (with Grant Blackwood)
ISAAC BELL ADVENTURES®
Clive Cussler’s The Sea Wolves (by Jack Du Brul)
The Saboteurs (with Jack Du Brul)
The Titanic Secret (with Jack Du Brul)
The Cutthroat (with Justin Scott)
The Gangster (with Justin Scott)
The Assassin (with Justin Scott)
The Bootlegger (with Justin Scott)
The Striker (with Justin Scott)
The Thief (with Justin Scott)
The Race (with Justin Scott)
The Spy (with Justin Scott)
The Wrecker (with Justin Scott)
The Chase
KURT AUSTIN
ADVENTURES ®
Novels from the NUMA Files®
Clive Cussler’s Condor’s Fury (by Graham Brown)
Clive Cussler’s Dark Vector (by Graham Brown)
Fast Ice (with Graham Brown)
Journey of the Pharaohs (with Graham Brown)
Sea of Greed (with Graham Brown)
The Rising Sea (with Graham Brown)
Nighthawk (with Graham Brown)
The Pharaoh’s Secret (with Graham Brown)
Ghost Ship (with Graham Brown)
Zero Hour (with Graham Brown)
The Storm (with Graham Brown)
Devil’s Gate (with Graham Brown)
Medusa (with Paul Kemprecos)
The Navigator (with Paul Kemprecos)
Polar Shift (with Paul Kemprecos)
Lost City (with Paul Kemprecos)
White Death (with Paul Kemprecos)
Fire Ice (with Paul Kemprecos)
Blue Gold (with Paul Kemprecos)
Serpent (with Paul Kemprecos)
OREGON FILES ®
Clive Cussler’s Fire Strike (by Mike Maden)
Clive Cussler’s Hellburner (by Mike Maden)
Marauder (with Boyd Morrison)
Final Option (with Boyd Morrison)
Shadow Tyrants (with Boyd Morrison)
Typhoon Fury (with Boyd Morrison)
The Emperor’s Revenge (with Boyd Morrison)
Piranha (with Boyd Morrison)
Mirage (with Jack Du Brul)
The Jungle (with Jack Du Brul)
The Silent Sea (with Jack Du Brul)
Corsair (with Jack Du Brul)
Plague Ship (with Jack Du Brul)
Skeleton Coast (with Jack Du Brul)
Dark Watch (with Jack Du Brul)
Sacred Stone (with Craig Dirgo)
Golden Buddha (with Craig Dirgo)
NON -FICTION
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
Built to Thrill: More Classic Automobiles from Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
The Sea Hunters (with Craig Dirgo)
The Sea Hunters II (with Craig Dirgo)
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (with Craig Dirgo)
CHILDREN ’S BOOKS
The Adventures of Vin Fiz
The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy
Clive Cussler’s Condor’s Fury
graham brown
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First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 2023
First published in Great Britain by Penguin Michael Joseph 2023
Published in Penguin Books 2024 001
Copyright © Sandecker, RLLLP, 2023
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Set in 12.5/14.75pt Garamond MT Std Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Book design by Alison Cnockaert
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn : 978–1–405–95626–0 www.greenpenguin.co.uk
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Cast of Characters
National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA)
Kurt Austin Director of Special Projects, salvage expert, and boating enthusiast
Joe Zavala Kurt’s assistant and best friend, helicopter pilot, and mechanical genius
Rudi Gunn Assistant Director of NUMA , graduate of the Naval Academy, runs most of the day-to-day operations at NUMA
Hiram Yaeger NUMA’s Director of Information Technology, expert in the design and function of the most advanced computers
Paul Trout NUMA’s chief geologist, graduate of Scripps Institute, married to Gamay
Gamay Trout NUMA’s leading marine biologist, also graduated from Scripps, married to Paul
Naval Intelligence
Rear Admiral Marcus Wagner Head of Naval Intelligence, old friend of Rudi Gunn’s
Commander Jodi Wells Ranking operative at Naval Intelligence, leader of the Arcos mission
Lieutenant Mason Weir Leader of fire team alpha, Arcos mission
Petty Officer Bosworth Conners Member of fire team alpha, Arcos mission
Petty Officer Diego Marquez Member of fire team alpha, Arcos mission
Ostrom Airship Corporation
Stefano Solari Brazilian aviation visionary, after a successful career as an aeronautical engineer, he launched Ostrom, creating the first international airship line since the days of the zeppelin
Luis Torres Cuban engineer working for Ostrom, loyal to Martin Colon
Captain Miguel Bascombe Senior captain at Ostrom, in charge of test flights, friend of Stefano Solari
Picadors–Cuban Intelligence
Martin Colon Former colonel in Cuban Intelligence, leader of the Picadors, an elite unit tasked with weakening the United States, now a VP at Ostrom Airship Corporation
Rojo Lobo (The Red Wolf) An assassin during his time in Cuban Intelligence, Lobo is now a smuggler of pirated goods
Anton Perez Former colonel in Cuban Intelligence, now chairman of the Ministry of Production, which oversees the production and distribution of Cuban raw materials
Victor Ruiz Former sub commander in Cuban Intelligence, now a member of the Cuban National Assembly and an up-and-coming politician
Lorca Former commander in the Picadors, now a high-ranking member of the Cuban Port Authority in Havana
Yago Ortiz Cuban neuroscientist involved in the Havana Syndrome experiments, later recruited by Colon to the Arcos project
Ernesto Molina Important member of the Central Committee, heads the Counter-Espionage Commission, a sometime ally of Martin Colon
Prologue Cuba
Arcos, Cuba
An old Russian-made SUV sped through the tiny Cuban village of Arcos on a humid afternoon. Dilapidated buildings lined the streets. Telephone poles leaned over at odd angles as if they were about to fall. With the sun dropping low, the SUV raced around a curve near the outskirts of town, narrowly missing a wild dog that had strayed too far from the gutter.
Martin Colon glanced in the rearview mirror. The stray dog had spun around and darted away just in time. It was now cowering in the weeds beside an old building beneath faded images of the Cuban and Soviet flags.
‘How far to the lab?’ a voice said beside him.
Colon looked over at the man in the passenger seat.
Ernesto Molina was a politician and a member of the Central Committee in Havana. He was something of a roughneck, willing to throw his weight around and bluster. He was also an influential force, heading up the Counter-Espionage Commission, a group charged with finding traitors and spies. Colon had gone to great lengths to keep him as an ally, but the relationship was fraying.
‘Three miles from here,’ Colon said.
Molina tugged at the collar of his wrinkled, olive-drab
field jacket. Like many in the Cuban government, Molina chose to wear a military uniform, hoping to be seen as a leader of the revolution. Colon was the opposite. He wore only civilian clothes, despite being a full colonel in the Cuban Intelligence Directorate and a former pilot in the air force.
‘And you’re sure the Americans are coming?’ Molina asked.
Colon was certain. ‘My sources tell me a raid will happen any day now.’
Molina didn’t like this. The specter of American soldiers on Cuban soil was both terrifying and infuriating. He blamed Colon for the danger. ‘I warned you about this project. The committee has always been wary of it, but I backed you. In return you’ve taken things too far. Kidnapping an American scientist. Running experiments on human subjects. What madness is this?’
‘The American came willingly,’ Colon explained, offering a half-truth. ‘The test subjects were political prisoners. Traitors. Your committee would have ordered at least half of them to face a firing squad if I hadn’t taken them off your hands.’
‘You’ve been reckless,’ Molina snapped. ‘And now you have to face the consequences.’
Colon remained calm and in control. He was far less worried than his political passenger. And he’d been anything but reckless. ‘And just what consequences are you talking about?’
‘You’ve run out of rope,’ Molina said. ‘We’re shutting you down. The materials and research will be moved to a military base where they’ll be properly guarded, if not destroyed.’
‘Destroyed?’
‘Yes,’ Molina replied. ‘Some members of the committee consider your work an abomination. Others consider it a threat. And now they alone will decide what to do with it.’
Colon’s jaw tightened, but it was all for show. His informants had told him of the growing unease in the committee long ago. He was prepared for the news. He was prepared for everything.
He glanced to the west. The sun was about to dip behind the mountains. If he was right, a squad of commandos from the US Navy would arrive sometime after dark.
‘It’s a good thing the Americans are coming,’ he said.
Molina looked at him as if he’d misheard. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I need the world to blame them for what I’m about to do.’
With a jerk of the steering wheel, Colon whipped the vehicle to the left. Molina, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was thrown against a door that hadn’t closed securely for years. The door flew open with the impact. Molina went sailing through it and out onto the dirt road. He tumbled more than slid, arms and legs windmilling until he came to rest in a thicket of weeds that had grown up around a wooden fence.
Colon slammed on the brakes and brought the Lada to a stop. Grabbing a pistol, he got out of the car and walked back to Molina. He found him bent and broken, but not yet dead.
‘Why?’ Molina wheezed, looking up at him. ‘Why?’
‘Because you and the rest of the old men in Havana
would waste what we’ve done on silly mind games or even turn it against our own people. I won’t allow that to happen.’
‘But . . . the Americans?’ Molina managed.
‘Don’t worry,’ Colon said. ‘They won’t get it either.’
As Colon spoke, he could see Molina sliding a bloodied hand with broken fingers toward a holster on his belt. He didn’t wait for Molina to reach it. He straightened his wrist and fired one shot into Molina’s chest and then a second into his skull. The echoes of the gunfire rang out across an unnaturally quiet landscape. Colon doubted anyone would hear them or come to investigate if they did. This was the zona de muerte, a field surrounding the testing facility populated by dead animals left to rot in the sun. It formed a very effective shield. No one came here if they didn’t have to.
Holstering the weapon and climbing back in the SUV, Colon reached over to close the passenger door and then put the car back in gear. As he sped off, he glanced into the distance. He could just see the outline of a radio tower silhouetted against the gathering dusk. It wouldn’t be long now.
Lieutenant Mason Weir crawled through an overgrown field thick with tall grass as pinpoints of starlight appeared in a darkening sky above him. A special operative in Naval Intelligence, Weir was leading a three-man team toward a small building in the distance. Moving slowly and sticking to the thickest parts of the tall grass, Weir was halfway across the field when he came across a dead horse with no eyes lying in the dirt. He stopped beside
the animal, waiting for the two enlisted members of his team to catch up.
The first to arrive was a petty officer named Bosworth Conners. Everyone called him Bosco. ‘Damn shame to treat an animal like this,’ he said, studying the eyeless horse.
Weir had seen another dead horse over by the tree line, along with a couple of dead goats and at least one bull. He knew from satellite images that the fields surrounding the small building were littered with carcasses. This one looked the freshest. ‘Brass wants to know what killed it,’ he said to Bosco. ‘Take some blood.’
As Bosco got out his medical kit, the third member of the team moved up beside them. ‘I’ll tell you what killed it,’ Diego Marquez promised. ‘Radio death ray.’
He pointed ahead to a tower rising up behind the flatroofed building. It was a classic transmission tower made up of intersecting metal rods. Halfway up, a trio of crescent-shaped dishes pointed in different directions, while a red beacon blinked on and off at the top. ‘Havana Syndrome,’ he added. ‘The latest way to melt your brain.’
Havana Syndrome was the name given to a raft of neurological symptoms occurring among US embassy staff in Cuba. Each case was different, but most involved a sudden ringing in the ears, pain in various joints, and a feeling of intense heat that seemed to be coming from the inside. More severe problems such as vertigo, confusion, and seizures sometimes followed. Several people had been hospitalized, one with trauma that resembled radiation burns.
The CIA thought the whole thing was nonsense. NSA
was undecided and waiting for more data. Only Naval Intelligence considered the issue to be a legitimate threat. And only because they’d linked it to a rogue American scientist named Wyatt Campbell, who had experience with directed energy weapons.
They’d tracked him to Havana. And then to Arcos. And when satellite images revealed a pasture littered with dead animals and a small building giving off excessive amounts of heat, they’d decided to act. Sending Weir and his team to investigate.
Depending on how it ultimately turned out, they were either there to rescue Campbell or to capture him and drag him back to the States in chains.
While Bosco drew the horse’s blood, Marquez used a high-tech machine to sample the air. He reported all clear.
Weir nodded and got on the radio. ‘Mongoose, this is Strike Team,’ he said. ‘We’re about to enter the snake pit. Building is quiet but not dark. Four vehicles parked outside. No sign of activity. Air samples clear of chemicals and biologics. Confirm we’re still a go?’
A female voice came over the speaker in his ear. It belonged to the mission leader, call sign Mongoose.
‘You’re cleared to enter the pit,’ she replied. ‘No sign of military units in the area. We’re ready to cut the power and start jamming. We’ll stand by to provide backup once you’ve breached the door.’
Weir acknowledged that and turned back to his men. ‘Bosco, you done yet?’
Bosco had just pulled the needle out. He packed the sample away. ‘Stored and saved.’
‘All right, let’s go.’
Weir led them to the edge of the brush. The building was only sixty feet away. A scan of the structure showed no heat signatures on the outside, which told them there were no guards on patrol or snipers on the roof. It also detected minimal heat coming from within, the opposite of what the satellites had picked up. Aside from a strange hum coming from the radio tower, the area was deathly quiet.
They crossed to the wall, crouching around a door. They still hadn’t seen any activity or faced any form of resistance.
‘You sure we’re in the right place?’ Marquez asked.
Weir was sure. He sent a signal to Mongoose and the lights around the building went dark. The interior glow coming from the high mounted windows dimmed as well, but never went totally black. The hum from the radio tower continued.
Looking up, Weir saw the red light still glowing.
‘The tower must have its own generator,’ Marquez said. ‘Want me to go find it and shut it down? I wouldn’t want to get fried when we egress back across that field.’
Weir nodded. ‘Knock it out,’ he said before turning to Conners. ‘Bosco, you’re with me.’
As Marquez looped around the building toward the radio tower, Weir and Bosco pushed through the door with their MP 5 submachine guns at the ready.
The hall was empty, but its appearance surprised them. What looked like an old storage facility from afar was decidedly modern on the inside. The floor was polished concrete, the walls made of sterile, high-gloss plastic. Glancing down the hall, Weir spied security doors with
coded locks. All of it partially illuminated by a set of emergency lights at the far end.
‘Definitely the right place,’ Weir said, studying the laboratory-like setup.
They moved down the hall, coming to the first room and pushing the door open. Despite the heavy bolt and the numerical keypad connected to it, the door swung open with ease.
‘Top-notch security,’ Bosco said.
Weir glanced around. The room was vacant. Not a scrap of furniture or a stray box. It struck him as odd. Before he could say anything, the sound of gunfire rang out. Three quick bursts followed by silence and then two more.
Weir hit the deck with Bosco scrambling to the door.
‘See anything?’ Weir asked.
‘Clear,’ Bosco replied.
With nothing around them suggesting they were being shot at, Weir pressed the talk switch on his radio. ‘Quez, you taking fire?’
The reply came instantly. ‘Not me, boss. All quiet out here.’
Another round of shooting erupted. This time accompanied by an anguished scream and then a final, silencing shot.
‘It’s coming from down the hall,’ Bosco said.
Weir didn’t like any of this. It wasn’t far-fetched to think the Cubans might execute Campbell or even silence their own people if a raid occurred, but at this point, for all they knew, it was just a power failure. A common occurrence in Cuba, especially in the heat of summer.
Weir moved to the door and then ducked across the hall into the next room. They found overturned file cabinets and trash cans filled with paper that had been set on fire. The smoke was billowing, and the flames grew hotter as the open door let new oxygen in. All they could do was close the door and move on.
Across the hall, they discovered a bank of computers smashed to bits. Lying on the ground nearby were two men in lab coats, each of them bloodstained from multiple gunshot wounds.
‘Hamza and Min Cho,’ Weir said, comparing their faces to images he’d seen in the briefing before the mission. ‘The Iranian and North Korean scientists who the brass thought might be in on this. At least they were right about something.’
Bosco grimaced at the bad news. ‘Someone’s cleaning this place out. If these guys are dead, Campbell won’t be around for long.’
Weir agreed. ‘Get what you can from the computers and check these guys for pocket litter. I’m going to find Campbell.’
Weir was breaking protocol by spreading his men out like this, but he needed to move fast. Otherwise, the whole mission would be for nothing. Leaving Bosco, he continued down the hall. Smoke was now clinging to the ceiling and dampening the glow of the emergency lights. A spate of chatter from the backup team told him they were on their way, but he was too focused on the hunt for the scientist to join in.
He searched the next room and found nothing. A few steps away he reached a large door. Like all the others it
was unlocked. Kicking the door wide, he cleared the room with the MP 5 at his shoulder. He saw no sign of danger and stepped inside.
This must have been the main laboratory, he decided. It had shelves filled with equipment and supplies, and worktables loaded down with microscopes, centrifuges, and other high-tech machines. He moved deeper into the room, checking the shadows and the space behind each workbench. Near the back end of the room, he found another body lying face down. He rolled the man over, noticed the scruffy beard and the long nose. ‘Campbell,’ he said to himself. ‘Damn.’
Before he could do anything else, the radio squawked in his ear.
‘Chief, this is Quez. Something odd out here. This tower isn’t hooked up to the main grid at all. Nothing here but broken and frayed cables left over from the sixties.’
‘You find a generator?’ Weir asked.
‘Yeah, but it’s the size of a dollhouse. Might be putting out three hundred watts. Just enough to light up that red beacon on top.’
As Weir struggled to put some meaning to that discovery, Bosco chimed in on the radio call.
‘Hate to say it, but there’s nothing worthwhile in the lab. I forced my way back into the room with the burning trash cans and pulled out some of the papers. It’s just empty notebooks and blank sheets.’
Weir knew there could only be one reason for this. ‘This whole thing is a setup,’ he said. ‘Get out. Get out now.’
A loud squeal hit his ears, telling him his transmission
had been stepped on. A second try resulted in the same thing. It meant someone was jamming them.
Weir turned for the door, only to see it slamming shut. He lunged for the handle, but grabbed a second too late. He heard the bolt slide home and saw the coded lock engage. Two hard pulls were enough to tell him it wasn’t budging.
As he looked for another way out, the ventilation system kicked on. Streamers attached to the grates in the ceiling fluttered like ribbons as the air began to flow. A nasty scent like an electrical fire quickly filled the room, as if the air conditioner were melting down.
Weir didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he knew he needed to get out of there. He swung his MP 5 around and blasted away at the glass window in the center of the door. A tight pattern of impact strikes clustered in a circle, but they left only mushroom-shaped dents in what was obviously a bulletproof panel.
‘Don’t waste your ammunition,’ a voice said from behind him.
Weir spun and saw only the glowing screen of a laptop propped up on one of the desks. The image of a face appeared on the screen.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Weir said. ‘What is all this fun house nonsense?’
Weir was surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth. It was not his style to engage a target in conversation. He felt as if the peculiar situation had thrown him off.
‘It’s anything but nonsense,’ the image told him. ‘In fact, I’m about to reveal a truth you’ll find hard to believe.’
Weir edged around the first worktable, wary of being
attacked while he focused on the computer. He felt a tone in his ears, followed by an odd ringing. ‘And what truth is that?’
‘You’ve been set up to fail. Your government sent you here. Your Bravo team stayed close enough to observe, but too far away to render any real assistance. Your fire-team members split off one by one, allowing you to come here . . . to this room . . . alone.’
Weir found himself getting angry. The smell in the air was bothering his eyes and burning his nostrils. It was worse than the smoke in the hall. He felt like smashing the computer screen but instead found himself answering once again. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘Because you’re the final test subject. The last experiment. The human guinea pig. They’ve known what we were doing here all along. But rather than blow this place off the map they sent you here to be infected. To bring the dust home. Even if you get out alive, they’ll prod you and poke you and eventually dissect your brain in a petri dish in hopes of figuring out how we’ve accomplished the impossible.’
Weir tried to reason through the noise in his head. He thought back to the demand for samples. Air, soil, water. Blood from the dead horse. He didn’t want to believe it, but there was something familiar in what the voice was telling him. As if he’d already been thinking it himself.
‘Someone had to be sacrificed to find out the truth,’ the voice continued. ‘They . . . chose . . . you.’
With each new word, Weir’s struggle to process them became more serious. He found himself thinking about Havana Syndrome and then realizing this was something more. But what?
The harder he tried to think, the louder the noise in his head became. He found it difficult to hold a thought.
Even more difficult to refute what the voice was suggesting. The noise became pain, and the pain a blinding wall of resistance, impenetrable to any notion other than those coming from the speaker.
Weir fell to his knees. He no longer sensed the metallic smell in the air, nor felt the weapon in his hand or the ground beneath him. His vision began failing. His world shrank, until all that existed was the wave of pain and the voice that cut through it.
‘You have only one choice,’ the voice said. ‘Kill them. Kill them all.’
As Weir considered this thought, the wall of pain vanished, falling away like a plate-glass window shattered into a thousand pieces. The truth was suddenly clear. All he had to do was act.
His senses returned in a rush. Feeling flooded back into his hands and feet. Sight to his eyes. He saw the computer screen go dark. Heard the air handler kick off. Watched the fluttering streamers fall slack.
With his strength returning, Weir stood, watching as the bullet-scarred door opened. He heard footsteps in the hall and saw Bosco appear through the smoke.
Bosco cocked his head, looking at him strangely. ‘You all right, Chief?’
Weir didn’t smile or speak. He just swung his weapon into place and opened fire. Bosco fell in a hail of bullets with rounds through both legs and one arm. He remained alive only because the body armor he wore had protected his chest.
Bosco cursed in agony and brought his own weapon around.
Weir fired again. This time holding the trigger down until the magazine was empty and the walls were covered in blood.
With the shooting finished, Weir entered the corridor. He stepped over the body of his dead friend and turned down the hall, pulling and discarding the empty magazine and jamming a full one in its place. He moved slowly and methodically, a single thought playing on an endless loop in his mind.
Kill them. Kill them all.
A hundred miles northeast of Nassau
Present day
Captain E. F. Handley stood on the bridge wing of the MV Heron, squinting into the distance behind the ship. His dark eyes focused on the line running from the Heron ’s stern to the dilapidated fishing trawler she was towing.
He grunted a note of displeasure. ‘We’ve got a situation brewing.’
Handley was a lifelong sailor in his early sixties and the captain of the midsized freighter that made runs between the Bahamas and various American ports. His face was a weathered mix of sun-damaged skin and a bristly beard. It was deeply tanned with a hint of carmine red in the palette. His hair was wild and unruly, a nest of coarse grays that stuck out from beneath an old ball cap, which he repeatedly removed and repositioned in hopes of corralling the bushy mess.
‘What kind of situation?’ a taller, more kempt individual asked.
Handley looked over at the man in khaki pants and a blue windbreaker. Gerald Walker was not a member of the crew but had chartered the voyage and come along to supervise, taking them to a random spot in the eastern Atlantic, where they’d found the damaged trawler and taken it under tow.
Walker claimed he wanted to take it back to Nassau, but he would allow no radio calls or other forms of transmission, and Handley expected he had another destination in mind.
As a pretense, Walker pretended to work for a big insurance company, but Handley knew an American Navy man when he met one. Walker was too squared away to be a civilian. Too tight-lipped to be telling the whole story. Besides, the trawler was of negligible financial value, cheaper to sink than to save. And then, of course, there were the bodies . . .
‘See our towline?’ Handley said. ‘It should be dipping into the water halfway between us and the trawler, but it’s pulling up. The sag has gone out of it. The strain on the line is growing.’
‘Current or wind?’ Walker asked, showing he knew a thing or two about towing a derelict.
‘Neither,’ Handley said. ‘She’s taking on water. She’s sinking. We’re gonna have to go back on board, set up pumps, and see if we can find the leak.’
‘I can’t allow that,’ Walker said with a firm but polite tone.
The captain propped the ball cap higher on his head. ‘Something you don’t want us to see on that ship, Mr Walker? Something other than a bunch of dead Chinamen?’
‘Dead Chinese,’ Walker corrected. ‘And I don’t know what you’re referring to. That ship was abandoned when we found it.’
Handley laughed. ‘You play all the games you want, Mr Walker. Meanwhile, that ship is getting heavier and lower in the water. She’s dragging us like an anchor, which means
we have to slow down or the line will snap. Reducing speed means Nassau is another half a day’s sailing. The slower we go, the longer it takes. The longer it takes, the more water that trawler takes on. Forcing us to slow down even more. See where I’m going with this?’
Walker understood the predicament. ‘You’re saying the trawler will be on the bottom before we reach the Bahamas.’
‘She’ll be un-towable long before that.’
As Walker pondered the options, Handley took another look behind them. Out beyond the trawler, something new caught his eye. An odd arc of light had appeared in the sky. It looked like the sunrise, but it was nearly dusk, and the sun was going down in the other direction.
At first, he thought it must be a reflection or a mirage. But the shimmering arc of light was moving closer. ‘What the devil is that?’
The apparition seemed to be approaching in silence – or perhaps just so quietly that any sound was drowned out by the wind and the waves – but as it crossed above the trawler, a humming sound became audible.
An instant later, the arc of light split into four separate orbs. Two of them branched off to the port side, while the others went to starboard. Before long they were circling the Heron like a pack of wolves.
‘Captain?’ one of the crewmen said nervously.
‘What is this?’ Handley snapped, looking at Walker. ‘A message from your dead Chinese friends?’
Walker was turning from point to point, trying to keep his eyes on the slowly circling balls of light. They were growing brighter with each pass, leaving streaks
on his retina as they flared into spheres of gold and orange.
Walker used his hand as a shield against the light, trying desperately to block the glare. Try as he might, he saw nothing that suggested machinery or equipment behind the light. No wings, nor propellers or rotors, just glowing balls of light slowly circling the ship.
Watching them turn, his heart began to race. He knew things. Things that Captain Handley and his crew didn’t. This knowledge chilled him to the bone.
The humming noise grew louder and deeper, becoming a haunting tone, like some aboriginal instrument echoing through the canyons. Walker found his skin itching and throat going dry. He stepped back against the bulkhead, his face now shaded, but lit in oscillating waves from the artificial suns dancing around them.
He scratched at his arm, casually at first and then uncontrollably, soon he was digging his nails into the skin, raking them until he drew blood. His eyes darted around, following the globes. Across and back, across and back. It was dizzying and mesmerizing all at once.
A pair of rough hands slammed him into the bulkhead, snapping him out of the trance.
‘What the hell are these things?’ Handley demanded.
Walker tried to answer but a shield had gone up in his mind. He tried to force the words through, but the harder he pushed, the tighter his throat cinched.
Realizing Walker had become useless, Handley shoved him aside. He ducked through the hatch onto the bridge, noticing that the lights overhead were throbbing in concert with each passing disk.
A migraine erupted in his head. A tight feeling spread across his chest. ‘Get off a distress call,’ he ordered. ‘Tell them we’re under attack.’
One of the crewmen was already fiddling with the radio, switching frequencies and trying to get a message out. He was getting feedback and interference on every channel. The noise got worse until a high-pitched squeal and burst of static blew out the speaker and the unit went dark.
The radioman stared at the ruined unit, which was mounted overhead. The microphone slipped out of his hand and dropped, swinging wildly on the looped cord that connected it to the transmitter.
Several lights blew out in sharp pops, like the flashbulbs of older days. The helmsman went still, his face catatonic, his eyes staring into the distance.
Handley pushed past his immobilized crewmen and pulled open a locker. As the door swung wide, his chest tightened again – much like it had during a heart attack he’d suffered three years earlier.
A damned bad time to be having a second one, he thought.
He pushed his thumb into his sternum to fight the pain while reaching into the locker. The first thing he grabbed was an emergency VHF radio. After lifting a plastic shield from its face, he pressed and held the distress button.
A tone confirmed he was transmitting. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,’ he said loudly. ‘This is the MV Heron out of Nassau. We’re under attack and request immediate assistance.’
He let go of the transmit button and heard only a loud electronic squeal.
He turned the squelch down and tried again. ‘I repeat, this is MV Heron, we’re under attack. Our location is –’
A wave of feedback erupted from the speaker as the unit flared hot in his hand. The little LEDs that told him it was generating power. It blazed for an instant and then went dark.
‘Damned useless thing.’
Handley tossed the radio aside and reached deeper into the locker, grasping for a different piece of emergency equipment. He pulled out a Browning ten-gauge shotgun and ripped off the plastic trigger guard.
Flicking off the safety, Handley moved out onto the bridge wing. The balls of light continued to circle, buzzing past the ship no more than fifty feet away.
Tracking them left Handley feeling dizzy, so he braced himself and waited for another one to come around. As the next sphere appeared from behind the funnel, he raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
The first shot either missed or had no effect, so Handley pumped the forestock, reloaded, and fired again as the next orb appeared. A third orb followed the second, and Handley emptied the weapon in its direction. Bang . . . bang . . . bang. The spent shells kicked out from beneath the shotgun, the steel pellets blasting their way across the sky.
With the shotgun empty, Handley dropped to one knee. As far as he could tell, he’d accomplished nothing. Worse yet, the pain in his chest had become unbearable. He grabbed at his sternum as the shotgun fell from his hand. As the next orb raced by, he slumped to the deck and lay there.
Standing in the shadows, Gerald Walker had watched the scene play out. The swirling lights continued to orbit the ship, moving so fast they appeared like streaks in the darkening sky.
The oscillating hum continued to haunt him, while slowly resolving into a sound like whispered speech. Confusing at first, like an announcement echoing through a large stadium, the words eventually became clear.
Cut . . . cut . . . cut . . . Loose . . . loose . . . loose . . .
With every sound and syllable the pressure in his head grew worse. His eyes began to sting. Sweat dripped down his forehead. He continued to dig at the skin on his arm.
Cut . . . cut . . . cut . . . Loose . . . loose . . . loose . . .
Stepping back onto the bridge, he found the helmsman unconscious and the radioman digging at his ear, blood running through his fingers. Without warning, the radioman shouted something, ran out onto the bridge, and vaulted over the rail. No life jacket, no hesitation, just a desperate leap into the unknown.
Walker considered following him. The veins on his forehead bulged. Tunnel vision set in. His mind spinning with the circling demons.
Cut . . . cut . . . cut . . . Loose . . . loose . . . loose . . .
It made no sense to him. None at all. And then he thought about the trawler they were dragging to Nassau. He turned to the stern and focused on the Chinese ship. Without a conscious thought, he began walking toward it.
Thirty miles away, a two-hundred-and-seventy-foot vessel with a turquoise-painted hull was finishing a hard turn to starboard. The rakish vessel had the name Edison stenciled near the bow, directly below a set of twenty-foot-high letters that spelled NUMA , the acronym for the National Underwater and Marine Agency.
As the ship leaned over in the turn, a half dozen people on the bridge braced their legs against the centrifugal forces while gripping various handholds like riders on an out-of-control subway car.
The Edison was NUMA’s primary training vessel and had graduated well over a thousand officers and crew since coming into service. The inside joke was that crews would stay on the Edison until the lightbulb went on and they were ready for frontline duty on one of the many ships in NUMA’s oceangoing fleet.
This particular group was a mix of first- time officers and crewmen. They were being molded under the capable hands of Captain Steven Marks. Marks was a twenty- year NUMA veteran with eight years in the Coast Guard before that. He was known to be a stern taskmaster and he pushed the recruits to learn more than they thought they could in the shortest time possible.
‘That’s two hundred forty degrees,’ Marks called out to
the helmsman. ‘Rudders to neutral, reduce speed, and be ready for all-stop.’
Marks watched the crew act on his orders and nodded almost imperceptibly with approval. He and his trainee crew were practicing a man-overboard drill. The highspeed turn was known as a Williamson turn, which was designed to bring the ship back over the spot where the passenger or crew member had fallen. Viewed from above, the Williamson turn drew a question mark shape on the surface of the water. And the Edison had come out precisely on the line she was supposed to.
On the right-hand side of the bridge, up near the glass, a pair of observers watched. One was tall and lanky with a rugged face, deep blue eyes, and prematurely silver hair. The other man was shorter, stockier, with a T-shirt stretched over curved muscles of someone who spent plenty of hours in the gym.
The taller man was Kurt Austin. ‘You can let go now,’ he said to the man next to him.
Joe Zavala shook his head. ‘The way these guys drive? Sorry, I’m not taking any chances.’
That brought a slight laugh from Kurt. Truth was, the Edison was a little top-heavy. She rolled into the turns with the pace of a sports car but the lean of an old city bus. Still, Kurt suspected the hard maneuvers were over, especially as the vessel reduced its speed.
‘Lookouts report,’ Captain Marks ordered.
Men stationed on the bridge wings, the bow, and amidships were scanning the waters with binoculars.
‘No joy on Oscar,’ the bridge lookouts reported. Similar reports came over the comms from the other lookouts.
It was nearly dusk, a tough time to spot a man floating on the dark sea, but Marks wasn’t cutting the crew any slack. ‘Open your eyes,’ he snapped. ‘He’s only wearing a bright orange vest.’
The Edison had slowed substantially now. The plot showed them closing in on the exact spot they’d been at when the drill commenced.
Kurt looked forward, squinting as he studied the sea. A veteran of numerous drills and a fair number of live action searches, he was more attuned than the new crew to techniques of spotting a man against the swells. A quick scan told him they were closer than they thought.
Before he could say anything, the radio began to chirp on the emergency frequency. A signal came through garbled and spotty.
Kurt heard the caller shouting out Mayday. He glanced at the captain. ‘Is that part of the drill?’
‘No,’ Marks said, as he looked over at the radio operator. ‘What frequency is that on?’
‘Channel 16,’ the radio man said. ‘Emergency only.’
After a burst of static the Mayday call was repeated and some of the words came through more clearly.
‘. . . under attack . . . request assistance . . .’
Marks looked both aggravated and concerned. They were halfway between Florida and the Bahamas; not the type of waters they expected to hear of someone being attacked. He wondered if it was a prank. He looked at his guests. ‘Either of you responsible for this?’
Both Kurt and Joe were known pranksters. But this wasn’t their doing.
Kurt shook his head firmly and looked over at the radioman. ‘Is there an ID on the call?’
The radio operator glanced at a code appearing on his screen. ‘MV Heron,’ he said. ‘A bulk freighter out of Nassau.’
‘How far off?’
‘I’m getting a locator signal showing her about thirty miles to the south of us.’
The emergency tone ceased, and the radio went quiet. But that didn’t mean the emergency had ended.
‘Captain,’ Kurt said quietly. ‘Unless there’s a closer ship . . .’
Marks nodded. Both of them knew the rescue drill was over. ‘Plot a course and turn toward the source of the signal,’ he ordered. ‘As soon as it’s laid in, take us all ahead flank speed.’
‘What about Oscar?’ another crewman asked, referring to the mannequin they’d thrown overboard at the beginning of the drill.
‘He’ll have to tread water until we get back.’
‘Unlikely,’ Kurt said. ‘Considering we ran him over a half mile back.’
The captain grunted his displeasure, but that’s why they trained until they got it right: so that everyone could learn from their mistakes. He grabbed the microphone and switched the output to ship-wide intercom.
‘This is the captain speaking. The M-O-B drill is over. We’re about to respond to a genuine distress signal. All hands brace for a hard turn and remain at your emergency stations. This time it’s not a drill.’
The Edison cut into another hard turn and began to shudder as it picked up speed.
Thirty miles was a fair distance at sea, but the Edison would cover it in less than an hour.
‘So much for the easy shakedown cruise,’ Joe said, easing up beside Kurt and the captain.
Marks gave both men a grim look. ‘I heard the word “attacked” on the call,’ he said. ‘That’s a different kind of emergency than engine failure, a ship taking on water, or even a fire at sea. Half of this crew are fresh out of the academy and most of the others are new to the ship. I hate to ask this of you, since the two of you are only supposed to be observers here, but if we have to do anything out of the ordinary, I’d appreciate it if you’d take the lead.’
Kurt nodded. If the captain hadn’t asked, he would have suggested it. ‘We’ll be ready to make ourselves useful.’
By the time the Edison came in range of the Heron, night had fallen. Repeated radio calls and semaphore flashes had gone unanswered. Closing in on the ship, Kurt, Joe, and Captain Marks studied the freighter through night vision binoculars, each of them looking for signs of life or trouble.
‘She’s down at the bow,’ Joe said. ‘I can see scrapes and collision damage.’
The freighter was still moving at a pace of ten knots, but the heading had varied considerably as the Edison approached.
‘She’s obviously still under power,’ the captain announced. ‘But she can’t hold true at all. She’s varying five degrees to port, seven or eight back to starboard. Have to believe there’s no one at the helm.’
Kurt studied the pilothouse, but couldn’t see inside. ‘Can’t see if she’s under positive control or not, but there’s no sign of any crew on the deck. No sign of any attackers either.’
Joe lowered his binoculars. ‘Were you expecting pirates flying the Jolly Roger?’
‘No,’ Kurt said, ‘since this isn’t the 1600s. But I was expecting something other than a deserted ship and an empty sea. Is there anything on radar?’
Marks glanced back at the radar screen. It had been
clear the whole way in and remained so. ‘Nothing but the freighter. If they were attacked, whoever did it is long gone. And to avoid our radar they would have to be using very small boats. Nothing larger than a ribbed inflatable.’
Small boats remained a possibility, but the ship was eighty miles from the nearest spit of land, a long way out for such small craft to travel.
‘The only way we’re going to learn anything is to get on board,’ Kurt said.
The captain offered a dour look. ‘With the freighter meandering all over the place, it’s not going to be possible to string up a line and shimmy across the gap. Nor would I want to try boarding her from a small boat.’
Kurt agreed. ‘We’ll have to drop in from above. You have an MH -65 Dolphin back on the helipad. I took the liberty of asking your flight crew to stand by.’
‘Have them shuttle you over,’ Marks said. ‘But be sure to keep me posted.’
‘Will do.’ Kurt handed the binoculars to the captain, then followed Joe back through the ship to the helipad at the stern. By the time they got there, the pilot and a crewman who would assist them had already prepped the helicopter for flight.
Under different circumstances, Joe might have flown the aircraft himself, but as he was to go onto the freighter with Kurt, he climbed into the back and took a seat.
Kurt sat next to him, strapping himself in as the helicopter began to power up.
In a few short moments, the roar of the helicopter’s engine grew exponentially. They lifted off the deck,
clearing the Edison to the stern, and then banking toward the freighter.
‘Give us a slow circle,’ Kurt said. ‘I want to see if we missed anything.’
The pilot did as ordered, taking the helicopter along one side of the freighter, around the bow, and then back down the other side. Despite the noise of the helicopter and the sweep of its searchlight, no one appeared on deck to greet them, wave them off, or take a potshot at them.
‘All’s quiet on the Heron front,’ Joe said.
‘Looks that way,’ Kurt said. ‘Anything jump out at you? Besides the utter lack of activity.’
‘Nope,’ Joe said. ‘You?’
‘Nothing, except she’s kind of dark. No deck lights. No portholes glowing.’
‘It was still daylight when we got the distress call,’ Joe said. ‘Maybe no one’s left to turn the night-lights on.’
‘A grim thought,’ Kurt said.
He hit the intercom switch. ‘We need to get on the deck.’
The bulk freighter was equipped with four cranes that rose from the deck, designed to load and unload cargo from her four individual holds. Booms, wires, and cables sprouting from the cranes created a forest of obstacles that made a safe landing on the ship impossible.
‘There’s really nowhere for me to land,’ the pilot said.
‘Just get us up over monkey island,’ Kurt replied. ‘We’ll hop out.’
Monkey island was slang for the very top deck on a ship. Usually, the roof above the pilothouse or bridge. On
a freighter like this it was at the very top of the accommodations block.
As the helicopter approached from the stern, Kurt could see that there were a few obstructions in the vicinity, including a communications mast and the ship’s funnel.
‘Give yourself enough room to clear the mast and then do your best to keep us centered,’ Kurt said.
‘The ship isn’t maintaining a constant course,’ Joe warned the pilot, ‘so you’ll have to fly it manually.’
The MH -65 had an autopilot that could keep the helicopter in a perfect hover, but with the ship moving and wandering off its heading, that system wouldn’t work.
All in all, Kurt would have preferred to have Joe at the controls, but the Edison ’s young pilot did his job well and they were soon hovering directly above the rectangle that made up monkey island.
Joe was already hooked into his rappelling gear and ready to go out the door. He pushed out and dropped eighty feet in a matter of seconds. As Joe landed, Kurt hooked in and stepped to the door, turning around.
Even though the helicopter was rock steady, the ship below was rolling with the swells, which were coming in off the starboard bow. As Kurt glanced downward, the Heron rolled slowly away, its bow dipping into a trough between the swells. It lingered there for a moment and then rose up and back toward the helicopter as it climbed over the next wave.
The swells weren’t large, but then neither was the freighter.
With Joe holding the rope down below, Kurt waited for the Heron to crest the wave before he pushed out from the
helicopter. He allowed the rope to slide through his hands in a controlled fashion, timing his landing just as the deck began to drop away.
Released from the rope, he gave the all-clear signal to the helicopter. The crewman in the back of the aircraft reeled in the line and the helicopter pulled away.
‘Nice landing,’ Joe said.
‘Thanks,’ Kurt said. ‘Still no welcoming committee.’
‘And after we made such an impressive entrance,’ Joe replied.
‘Come on,’ Kurt said. ‘Let’s check out the wheelhouse and see if anyone’s driving this thing.’
Moving to the edge of monkey island they found a ladder down to the starboard bridge wing. Dropping down it, they found their first casualty. An older man, lying face down in the corner.
Kurt kneeled beside the crumpled figure. The man looked to be in his sixties and had the weathered face of an old sea dog. A week’s worth of scruff on his cheeks was matted with sweat and salt.
‘Who is he?’ Joe asked.
‘I think he may be the captain,’ Kurt said.
Rolling the man over, Kurt found that he’d fallen across a pump-action shotgun. He slid the weapon out from under him and clicked on the safety. By the weight he could tell that the magazine was probably empty. A quick inspection proved that to be true, while a whiff of the barrel revealed a strong odor of gunpowder. The weapon had been fired recently.
Kurt glanced around. He found only one spent casing, but the others could have been ejected overboard or rolled
out through the scuppers as the ship rocked back and forth on the waves.
‘Empty,’ he said, handing the weapon to Joe.
Joe studied the size and make of the shotgun. ‘Ten gauge,’ he said. ‘Long barrel. Something tells me he wasn’t shooting at pigeons.’
‘Not unless the pigeons were the size of vultures,’ Kurt said. Few people used ten-gauge shotguns anymore, not unless they were hunting large birds like geese or wild turkeys.
Joe nodded. ‘The real question is, were the vultures firing back?’
It seemed like a distinct possibility, but looking the man over, Kurt found no sign of injury. No bullet holes, no knife wounds, nothing to suggest head trauma or blood loss. He touched the man’s neck and found a rhythmic beat. ‘He’s got a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there.’
‘That’s one member of the ship’s complement,’ Joe said. ‘Based on the size of this freighter there should be another twenty or thirty aboard. We should probably start looking for them. Right after we assess how badly the ship is damaged.’
Kurt agreed. He eased the captain into a more comfortable position and stood up. He noticed that the captain’s eyes were moving underneath his eyelids, darting to and fro almost frantically as if he were caught in some terrible dream. ‘Whatever happened here, they didn’t go down without a fight.’
Joe handed Kurt the empty shotgun. ‘You think anyone stuck around for a rematch?’
‘Only one way to find out.’
They opened the weatherproof door and stepped onto the bridge. The space inside was dimly lit, with only a single emergency light adding any illumination to the glow of the lighted controls and navigation panels. There wasn’t a single crewman in sight. The only thing moving was a dangling microphone that hung from an overhead transmitter. It was swaying like a pendulum as the freighter rolled over the waves.
‘No one home,’ Kurt said.
They found charts on the floor, a coffee mug in a cup holder, and a handheld emergency radio lying on the deck.
As Kurt placed the dangling microphone back on the cradle, he noticed the face of the unit was dark. Several flicks of the power switch did nothing to revive it.
‘Probably why they used this one,’ Joe said, picking up the radio. He toyed with the controls, but found it was as dead as the main radio.
While Joe gathered the charts off the floor, Kurt went to the main panel. It seemed like half the ship’s systems were offline, though a few still had power. And obviously the engines were running.
He soon found the navigation unit that housed the ship’s autopilot. Like everything else on the ship, it was old. He flicked several switches, hoping to set it to seakeeping mode, which would stop the Heron from weaving to port or starboard every time it rode over one of the swells, but it was no use; the navigation screen was burned out like an old TV left on for a decade or two.
‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’ Kurt asked.
‘Some systems are online, some are off. Others have power but look like they’ve been fried from the inside out.’
‘Power surge of some kind,’ Joe suggested. ‘One that tripped most of the circuit breakers, but not all of them.’
Logical, Kurt thought. ‘What about the handheld?’
‘Who knows how long that thing has been waiting to be used,’ Joe said. ‘If it’s half as old as the rest of this equipment, the battery might not hold much of a charge.’
Also logical, but suspicious.
With no way to adjust the navigation system, Kurt found the engine controls and moved the throttle to idle.
A reduction in vibration told him the engines were answering the helm. The Heron would now slow to a stop and wallow side-on, like a piece of driftwood. Better a sitting ship than one wandering all over the sea.
As the ship lost speed, it pitched forward, accentuating the nose-down posture. The slope was worse than Kurt expected. ‘She’s taken on a lot of water.’
‘This might be why,’ Joe said. He’d found the indicator panel for the watertight doors. Within a stylized outline of the ship lay a dozen sets of colored flags. Each set represented the location of a watertight door down below.
Some were green, meaning the doors were shut, but a couple were red and others yellow. Red meant the doors were open when they should have been closed, yellow meant that status was unknown or the door was in transit. The plethora of yellow flags suggested the power failure had interrupted the operation of the doors and they’d either never finished closing or hadn’t sealed properly.
‘Cutting our speed should stop water from ramming into whatever breach they’ve torn in the bow,’ Joe said,
‘but with these doors open and the pumps off, this ship isn’t going to stay afloat for long.’
‘Can you get the doors closed?’
Joe was already in the process of cycling the switches. He moved them from off to standby and then back to on. ‘No luck,’ he said. ‘The doors are either jammed or inoperative.’
Kurt had expected that. ‘We can always do it manually.’
‘Not unless you brought your fins,’ Joe said. ‘Some of these locations are already underwater.’
Kurt wasn’t interested in swimming the corridors of an unfamiliar ship in the dark while it was taking on water. There were risks, and then there were risks. ‘What about the pumps?’
Joe had already tried activating them. ‘The circuit is out. But if we can get to engineering before it floods, I should be able to get them back on.’
‘How much time would that buy us?’
‘It depends whether these doors are wide open or slightly ajar,’ Joe said. ‘Maybe an hour. Maybe three or four.’
That would be enough time to get anyone they found over to the Edison and come back on board with dive gear and a proper salvage team.
Kurt glanced out to the bridge wing, where the captain lay dreaming. ‘He seems stable. Let’s get down to engineering and get those pumps on before we lose this ship from underneath us. We can look for the rest of the crew on our way.’
Switching on a pair of flashlights, Kurt and Joe cleared the rest of the bridge deck, found the ship’s main stairs, and dropped down one level. They were now in the heart
of the accommodations block, the vertical structure at the stern of most cargo ships and tankers that housed the living spaces, offices, storerooms, and everything else that the crew would use.
The compact nature of the accommodations block made it quick and easy to search. With the living spaces and operations rooms all combined into one seven-story apartment block, and the workspaces and engineering decks directly under them, there was no need to wander the length and breadth of the freighter.
Kurt and Joe made quick sweeps of each level, expecting to find others hiding, trapped, or in similar condition to the captain. But after pushing open doors and shining their lights into the dark recesses of the various compartments, they found no one at all.
The communications suite was unoccupied, the rec room was vacant, the cabins in officers’ country were empty, as were the first block of compartments for the regular crew.
‘If this freighter wasn’t such a rust bucket, I’d wonder if someone had automated everything and done away with the crew,’ Joe said.
Kurt’s face was stern. ‘Have a feeling the second part of your statement is going to prove true.’
Descending another level, Joe sniffed at the air. ‘You smell that?’
Merchant ships tended to be filled with mechanical smells and industrial odors. In a freighter like this the engine room was directly below the accommodations block. Oils, solvents, and fuel were stored nearby, their volatile fumes often rising through vents and gaps in the
deck. But Kurt and Joe were used to all of that. The odor Joe detected was different.
Kurt took a deep breath. There was a faint, acrid scent in the air, he could taste it as much as smell it, like a tire burning some distance away. ‘Electrical, maybe. I’m not sure.’
They kept going, with the ship beginning to groan as it wallowed sideways onto the swells.
Reaching the galley and the officers’ mess, they found a half-eaten tray of food on a table, but no one there to cook it or eat it. It was the first sign of life since they’d left the bridge.
Kurt aimed the flashlight at the far wall, moving it slowly in search of a dripping sound. Directly across from them an ice maker was dripping melted water.
‘I’m starting to think this is a Mary Celeste situation,’ Joe said, referring to the famous merchant ship found adrift in the Atlantic in 1872, perfectly seaworthy and under sail, but missing her entire crew.
‘Difference is this ship still has all its lifeboats,’ Kurt said. ‘The Mary Celeste was missing one.’
‘The crew may have jumped,’ Joe said.
The sound of something heavy moving across the floor interrupted him.
‘Or maybe they didn’t,’ Joe said.
‘Hello?’ Kurt called out. ‘We’re here to help you!’
There was no answer.
‘Maybe something fell over,’ Joe suggested.
A dull thud, like a hatchway closing, sounded from the deck below.
‘Or not,’ Joe said. ‘I really need to stop guessing.’