To Paul, the discovery of the ship was a bolt of adrenaline. He wanted to know what ship it was and where it had come from. He stepped to the edge and shouted down to Duke. “Throw up the paddles. I think we can use them.”
Duke pulled the FRC’s emergency paddles from a locker and tossed them up one at a time. Paul caught them, handing one to Gamay and keeping one for himself.
“What are we supposed to do with these,” Gamay asked, “row this ship back to civilization?”
“That is not a paddle,” Paul explained, “it’s a shovel. And we are not going to row, we’re going to dig. If this ship is watertight, that suggests all the muck is on the outside, leaving the interior intact. We’re going to find a hatch and go inside.”
“And I can’t get you to rake the leaves at home,” Gamay said.
“Not as much fun.”
“I like it,” Elena said.
“See?” Paul said.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Gamay told Elena. “Girl power, remember?”
“Sorry,” Elena said. “This beats sitting around on the Condor in the dark and doing nothing.”
With a smile of satisfaction, Gamay handed Elena the paddle. “Then you can help him dig.”
Paul chuckled and called down to Duke once more. “Stay close. We’re going on a nature walk.”
“Will do,” Duke replied.
With his sense of curiosity near an all-time high, Paul led the party through the foliage toward the highest point of the mounding, an area completely entombed in the thickest of vines. If he was right, the main part of the ship’s superstructure was hidden beneath it.
Pushing between a pair of wild bushes, he stopped. “Look at this,” he said, aiming his flashlight into a tangle of leaves.
A huge spider, the size of a child’s hand, sat in the middle of an ornate web. It had a yellow color to its body and was hardshelled, as opposed to soft and furry like a tarantula. Nearby, a second spider of similar size and color rested on an even larger web. They found three more in a ten-foot radius.
“Ewww,” Elena said quietly. “They’re absolutely disgusting.”
“Did you have to point them out?” Gamay asked. “Now I feel like they’re all over me.” She was turning awkwardly, trying to see if anything was on her back.
Paul had to laugh. He’d always found spiders interesting, though even he had to admit he wouldn’t want the ones they were looking at sneaking into his sleeping bag.
“Come on,” Paul said. He continued forward, careful to avoid the spiders and the thicker parts of the scrub, and they soon arrived at a spot just below the peak of the mound and near the center of the ship’s beam.
With Gamay providing the illumination, Paul and Elena began pulling out the vines and excavating the clumpy soil. The paddles proved to be fairly effective as shovels, and they were soon tunneling at a forty-five-degree angle, gouging a channel deep into the soil, when Gamay put a hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“Stop.”
He looked back at her.
“I thought I heard something.”
“You mean besides my grunting at having to do all the work?”
“I’m serious.”
Paul gripped the shovel. He and Elena still carried sidearms, Ruger SR9s, made in Prescott, Arizona, but no one seriously thought they’d be needed once they discovered the radar target was an abandoned ship.
Gamay used the beam of her light to scan the area. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
“Maybe it’s a giant spider,” Paul whispered. “Momma spider to all those little babies we found.”
Gamay gave him a light smack on the shoulder. “I’m serious. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Beside them, Elena unlatched the holster strap on her sidearm and put her hand on the grip of the pistol like a gunfighter getting ready to draw.
A light breeze rustled the leaves around them and faded away. As it did, Paul heard something too. It was low and raspy, like the sound of labored breathing. It lasted for no more than a few seconds and then ceased. He looked around in the growth but saw nothing.
“You heard it too,” Gamay said. “Didn’t you?”
More like their minds were playing tricks on them, Paul thought. “You two and your ghost ship,” he said. “Let’s not get all jumpy.”
Elena nodded and took her hand off the pistol grip.
“I’m going to keep an eye out for disembodied spirits,” Gamay said.
Paul nodded, returning to the work at hand. “Especially any that might be interested in digging.”
With renewed vigor, he continued the excavation. Soon enough, the paddle struck something hard. Brushing the debris away, he spotted the rusted steel plate. “We’ve hit the wall,” he said. “Literally.”
They widened out the channel and came upon a hatch. Attempting to pry it open was useless, but they continued to dig and uncovered a half-shattered window. Clearing the remaining glass away, Paul looked inside.
“What do you see?”
“It’s like a cave,” Paul said. “The silt has filled most of the room, but farther in it seems to lessen.”
“I’m surprised it isn’t filled to the top,” Elena said.
Paul wondered about that. “Maybe the foliage on the outside became matted at some point. After that, it might have acted like a shell. Although it seems to have let moisture in. The sediment looks smooth and wet, packed down like sand on the beach after the tide recedes.”
As he panned the beam of the flashlight around, the light seemed to be swallowed up. They were certainly looking into a voluminous space.
He stepped back. “Who wants the honor?”
Elena shook her head. Gamay did the same, gesturing to the opening. “This was your idea.”
Being as large as he was, Paul did not enjoy cramped spaces. It wasn’t true claustrophobia, just a practical sense that tight spaces were not suited for someone his size. But Gamay was right, it was his idea.
Stepping back to the opening, he made sure there were no residual shards of glass in the sill, then climbed up and over. “Once more into the breach,” he said, to groans from his audience.
Squeezing through the gap, Paul made it onto the damp sediment. The soil was compacted and damp.
“Any spiders?” Gamay called out.
“Not that I can see.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
With that established, Gamay crawled in after him.
To Paul’s surprise, Elena came next. “You’re not leaving me out there on my own,” she said.
At first, they could only crawl. The sediment in the room had piled up so high that the ceiling was only three or four feet above their heads. As they moved away from the window, the space spread out and the sediment sloped downward. In one section, small ridges protruded. Paul made his way over to them and started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Gamay asked.
“Remember that candlelight dinner you wanted?” “The one I never got?”
“Well, here’s your chance,” Paul said. He worked the object out of the silt. It was a rotting chair. “I think we’re in the ship’s dining room.”
Gamay chuckled. “Somehow, I was hoping for a little more ambience.”
They moved deeper into the room, traveling down the slope of the invasive sediment until it was no more than a thin layer on the floor. As Paul stood, he found it to be packed down hard and no more than six inches deep.
Gamay stood up and wiped her palms on the front of her jeans. “Not gonna need a mud bath next time I go to the spa,” she said. “What next, O fearless leader?”
Paul looked around. “Let’s see if we can figure out what ship this is and where she came from.”
They moved deeper into the hull, soon finding the kitchen and a storeroom.
“Look at these ovens,” Gamay said. “They’re ancient.”
“How old?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know,” Gamay
replied. “Old. Like the stove my grandmother had forever.”
Paul took a look at the stoves and some of the other equipment. The designs belonged to another era. He began to feel as if he’d stepped back in time.
He pulled open a cabinet and it was stacked with serving plates. He picked one up and began scraping off the blackened mold. When he’d cleared enough of it, a logo became visible in the center, a stylized anchor with barbed flukes, resting sideways. It looked familiar.
He showed it to Gamay, who shrugged and shook her head.
“The storerooms are empty,” Elena said, popping into the kitchen. “Not a can of beans left behind.”
Paul put the serving plate back. “Let’s find the bridge.”
He took a step toward the door and stopped. The harsh breathing sound had returned. It was a deep sound, guttural and menacing. This time they all heard it.
Paul aimed his light for the doorway as something shot forward. A roar of some kind echoed through the dark as all three of them dove in different directions.
Paul grabbed Gamay and pulled her to safety as a shape spun toward them and what felt like a log slammed Paul in the ribs. He tumbled and sprawled in the mud. His flashlight flew from his hand, and the roaring continued.
“Run!” he shouted.
Elena clambered up onto the stoves as Gamay helped Paul up.
Something slammed against the old, cast-iron stoves, and the impact sent the serving plates Paul had discovered smashing to the ground. A burst of gunfire rang out, bathing the room in staccato flashes as Elena fired her Ruger at the attacker.
By now Paul and Gamay were scrambling out the door and into the dining room. In their haste Gamay slipped in the muck and pulled Paul down with her. They tumbled to a stop against the far wall.
Paul’s light was gone, but Gamay found hers and aimed it back at the door to the kitchen. A monster emerged, charging toward them. A twelve-foot crocodile with ragged teeth and an ugly bumpy snout. It lunged just as Paul pulled his gun and fired, blasting several shots straight into the creature’s gaping mouth.
Gamay screamed in Paul’s ear, but the gunshots drowned her out as the shells went through the upper jaw of the animal, into the brain, and out the other side. The creature slammed into Paul, crashing onto his abdomen and knocking the wind out of him like a sack of concrete tossed from the back of a truck. But it didn’t bite or thrash, it just collapsed on him, twitching and then lying there.
The long snout and what remained of the head lay right on Paul’s chest. The stubby forearms and claws continued gripping Paul’s legs until the muscles died. Of all things, Paul noticed how badly its breath stank.
Realizing it was dead and that they were alive, Paul kicked out from under the beast and pushed it away with his boot. Its powerful tail twitched once more before going permanently still.
It was only now that Paul realized he was leaning against Gamay. She was behind him, one arm wrapped around him tight, the other holding the flashlight and aiming it at the dead creature.
“Elena?” Paul shouted. “Are you okay?”
She came out of the kitchen, hobbling and holding her weapon up. “I’m okay. Twisted my knee, but I can walk.”
Paul slid off of Gamay and moved to the side, leaning against the wall as she was. “Good work with the flashlight,” he said. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “And strangely enough, I’m no longer afraid of spiders.”
Paul laughed. Among all her other wonderful attributes, Gamay’s spirit and humor were two that he could never resist. “I love you,” he said. He reached over and kissed her, muddy and all.
“I suppose we’re having crocodile for dinner,” she said.
“No,” Paul replied. “But on the bright side, he’s not having us either.”
“He would make a nice pair of boots,” Elena said. “And a matching handbag.”
They all laughed at that.
“Where did he come from?” Paul wondered. “He couldn’t have been in here.”
Gamay pointed the flashlight back toward the entrance. Telltale claw marks and a sliding trail from the creature’s body were easy to see in the muck. “It must have been living on the ship,” she said. “Looks like it followed us in.”
“What’s a crocodile doing on a ship to begin with?” Elena asked. “Not to mention the hundred-acre woods out there.”
Paul had been considering that ever since they’d found it. “I remember Kurt and Joe telling me about a salvage job they did once. The ship had been aground for several years, beached near a protected wildlife refuge on the coast of Burma. NUMA agreed to help because it was leaking oil into the water. Kurt said the ship had become part of the land by the time they got to it. Covered in weeds and filled with plants and insects. They literally had to dig it free.”
He looked around. “I’m guessing this ship had a similar fate.”
“You wouldn’t know it from the weather we’ve had lately, but there have been big storms down here over the last few months,” Elena said.
“So this ship might have been beached for a while and then gotten pulled out to sea with a storm surge,” Gamay proposed.
“Maybe,” Paul said. “And this poor creature was probably caught on board when it was pulled out to sea.”
“Why didn’t he just drop back into the water and swim to shore?” Elena asked.
“Maybe the storm was too bad,” Paul guessed.
Gamay looked at the dead animal. It was big in comparison to the three humans but didn’t appear overly large for a crocodile. “I know saltwater crocodiles can cross large sections of ocean, but this one looks different to me. Kind of skinny. Maybe he’s a different species.”
Paul nodded. That made as much sense as anything.
He stood up, pulling clear of the muck and helping Gamay to her feet. It was then that he noticed the large picture frame behind them. The canvas inside was black from mold and decay, and nothing could be seen of the artwork hidden beneath, but a brass plate affixed to the lower edge of the frame seemed to offer some type of inscription.
Reaching forward, Paul began to rub the plate with his thumb, scraping years of debris away. Even as he worked, the plate remained tarnished and dark. But before too long the recessed markings of an engraving became visible. He continued scraping until he could just make out the last part of a name. Three letters: T-A-H. Despite rubbing his fingers raw, he couldn’t make out anything else.
“It can’t be,” he whispered.
“Can’t be what?” Gamay asked.
He thought about the advanced age of the kitchen appliances, the dimensions of the vessel as they’d estimated them, and the logo on the serving plate he’d found.
“You may be right,” he said to Gamay. “This might be a ghost ship after all.”
Gamay looked at him suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s get to the bridge,” Paul said. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
It would take another twenty minutes for them to find the bridge. It was eerie, standing there, with mud smashed up against the ship’s windows. It was as if the ship itself had been buried in some gigantic grave.
Paul looked through every drawer and cabinet. “No charts, no logbooks, nothing of value.”
“Just like the storeroom,” Elena said. “Someone cleaned this ship out.”
Finally, Paul found something that was too heavy to carry: a bell the size of a laundry basket, lying on its side. He rolled it over until he found another engraving. This time the carved markings were deeper, and once he’d scraped the corrosion and tarnish away, Paul could see the letters clearly. A name was engraved on the side of the bell, a name he recognized, a name that all those who’d ever studied shipwrecks knew quite well.
“The Waratah,” Paul said out loud. “I can’t believe it. This ship is the Waratah.”
He showed the engraving to Gamay, who seemed as surprised as him.
“Why do I know tha
t name?” Elena asked.
“Because it’s famous,” Paul said. “The SS Waratah, of the Blue Anchor Line, vanished with the crew and passengers in 1909. She was believed to have gone down in a storm somewhere between Durban and Cape Town. No wreckage was ever found. Not so much as a life jacket or a buoy with the name Waratah stenciled on it.”
Elena narrowed her gaze at the two of them. “You’re saying this ship we’re on, covered in mud and wrapped in vines, is actually a hundred-year-old derelict that’s supposed to be sitting on the bottom of the sea?”
Paul nodded. “Sitting on the bottom of the sea a long way from here.”
“I told you those stoves were old,” Gamay said.
Paul laughed and considered the irony. “Everyone who is anyone in undersea exploration has searched for this ship at one time or another. Treasure hunters, naval historians, adventurers. NUMA even took a stab at it with the help of this famous author whose name escapes me at the moment. We thought we’d found it, but the wreck turned out to be a different ship called the Nailsea Meadow.”
“No wonder no one could find it,” Elena said. “It never actually went down.”
“Which begs the question,” Gamay said, “where has she been hiding out all these years? And since she seems to be empty, what happened to her passengers and crew?”
Incheon Airport, South Korea
The passengers of Air France Flight 264 from Paris to Seoul gathered their things in the orderly but eager fashion of those who’d been cooped up in a metal tube for too long, as if the eleven hours on the aircraft were more easily endured than the five minutes it took to unload and escape into the terminal.
An announcement that the Jetway had malfunctioned was met with a universal groan. But the opening of the rear doors allowed fresh air into the cabin, and soon the passengers were streaming down the stairs at the rear of the aircraft.
This odd method of emptying the aircraft meant that the passengers in the rear went first while those in first class had to endure the interminable delay.
In the very first row, in seat 1A, Arturo Solano did little to hide his displeasure. The only solace was a few more minutes staring at the shapely American woman who sat next to him. They’d spoken all too briefly during the flight, but as the other first-class passengers filed out she turned his way.