They flew beyond the barrier islands, and soon the smog gave way to clear air. The sun cast a dazzling silver strip across the waves as it rose higher into the sky behind them.
More ships were streaming toward the port or were outbound laden with goods. Their wakes were like white scars. One ship directly ahead of them showed no wake.
By modern standards, she was just midsized at over five hundred and sixty feet. The containership passing off her port side was over twice as long. Their target was also of an outdated design. Built prior to the industry switchover to standardized containers, she was designed to carry her cargo in five deep holds, each secured with a hatch and serviced by a quintet of spindly derricks. Her superstructure was placed just aft of amidships and was topped by a single funnel. Bridge wings and catwalks hung off it like wrought-iron fire escapes. She carried two lifeboats in davits above the main deck. Her bow was like an axhead while her fantail had a little of that champagne-glass elegance.
All this could be seen from a distance. It wasn’t until the chopper was much closer that details emerged. The ship was a rust bucket, a scow that should have been chopped into scrap years ago. Paint peeled in patches all over her hull and decking as if she were infected with some sort of maritime eczema. The paint scheme itself was a patchwork of mismatched colors daubed over one another with no eye at all for aesthetics. Rust formed in pools on the deck, oozed from scuppers and the hawsehole, and streaked the sides of the superstructure like reddish brown guano.
The deck was a tangled jumble of broken machinery, oil drums, and various other junk, including, inexplicably, a washing machine and a massive tire from a tractor.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” MacD muttered when the true nature of the ship was revealed. “Is this some sort of con?”
“She may not be pretty,” Gomez Adams said, “but she sure is ugly.”
“Trust me when I tell you that it’s not what it seems,” Juan assured him. “For the time being we’re not going to let you in on any of her secrets, but secrets she has.”
“What, that she was Teddy Roosevelt’s troopship when he went to Cuba?”
Juan laughed.
Linc added, “No. The Oregon was Noah’s first attempt at the Ark.”
“I’d believe that one too.”
Gomez swooped around to the aft of the ship, where there was a helipad marked out on the rearmost cargo hatch. A crewman stood by in case the pilot needed help landing, but Adams didn’t need any directions. He flared the chopper directly over the big faded letter H and settled it in the exact center. He killed the engine, and its persistent whine died down to silence and the rotor blades emerged from their shimmering mirage of motion as they slowed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the MV Oregon,” Adams said. “The current temperature is sixty-eight degrees. The local time is eleven eighteen. Please be aware that items in the overhead may have shifted during our flight. Thank you for flying with us today, and we hope you will use us in the future.”
“Forget it,” Linda told him as she opened the rear door. “Your rewards program sucks, and my peanuts were stale.”
Juan once again marveled at the team he had assembled. Less than twelve hours earlier they had been rolling down the side of a mountain with a Hellfire missile boring in on them and now they were joking as if they didn’t have a care in the world. He reminded himself that he shouldn’t be too surprised. This was the kind of life they had chosen for themselves. If they couldn’t joke about it afterward, they wouldn’t last five minutes.
Max Hanley approached from the safety of the superstructure. In deference to the sun, he had a battered Dodgers cap covering what little remained of his ginger hair. Hanley was a little above average in height and was starting to show his age around his middle and in the wrinkles spiderwebbing from the corners of his eyes, but he moved well, and with his anvil-sized hands he could take care of himself with no problem. He wore a pair of tan coveralls that showed a spot of grease on one elbow, meaning he had just come up from the Oregon’s revolutionary engine room. With him was Dr. Julia Huxley. A Navy-trained physician, Hux wore a customary white coat over her lush 1950s pinup curves, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. Brisk, almost brusque, when she was working on a patient, she was easygoing the rest of the time. She’d been Juan’s doctor when he had part of his leg blown off by a Chinese gunboat years earlier when the Corporation was on a mission for NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency.
She’d overseen his rehab, staying by him as he went from a man who couldn’t walk to one who could run for miles without a trace of a limp. She and Max were also the only two people in the world who knew that Cabrillo’s missing foot and ankle ached every minute of every day.
It was called phantom pain, a common experience for amputees. To Juan there was nothing phantom about it. Just because he couldn’t see his foot, or touch it, didn’t mean the damned thing didn’t hurt all the time.
“I confirmed the wire transfer from Bahar’s account to ours,” Max said by way of greeting.
“We’re all fine,” Juan countered. “Thanks for asking.”
“Don’t be such a wuss,” Max said flatly. “I talked to you an hour ago. I know you’re fine. Besides, money is more important to me than your health.”
“You’re all heart, buddy.” Juan waved MacD forward. “Max Hanley, Julia Huxley, this is MacD Lawless. MacD, this is my second-in-command and the ship’s sawbones. And I mean that literally.” They all shook hands. “Let’s get MacD up to my office so Hux can give him the once-over.”
The interior of the ship was just as bad as her scabrous hide. Chipped linoleum floors, weak lighting, and dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds. Lead paint and asbestos appeared to be the decorator’s preferred mediums.
“Jesus,” MacD cried. “This ship is like a toxic waste dump. Should I even breathe in here?”
“Sure,” Linc replied, his barrel chest expanding as he filled his lungs. “Real shallow-like.” He then slapped the back of his hand against Lawless’s taut belly. “Relax, man. It ain’t what you think. The Chairman will show you. Go off with the Doc and then you’ll see.”
Huxley invited MacD into one of the cabins behind the bridge and set her bag down on the dresser in preparation for her exam. Linc, Juan, and Max continued on to the bridge itself. Linda begged out of the meeting, saying she needed a two-hour soak in the spa tub in her cabin.
There were no officers of the deck or watch standers on the bridge. They would only bother with such a formality if there were shipping close by or a harbor pilot or customs official were aboard. Otherwise the wheelhouse remained empty.
The room was broad, with wood-and-glass doors on either end to access the flying bridges. The wheel was a big old-fashioned spoked affair with handholds made smooth by countless years of wear. The windows were frosted with salt rime and barely translucent. The equipment was generations out of date. The radio looked like something Marconi himself had assembled. The brightwork, like the stand-alone engine controls, hadn’t seen polish since it was installed. The wooden chart cabinets were chipped and their tops stained by greasy food and spilled coffee. To all outward appearances, it was perhaps the sorriest excuse for a pilothouse afloat.
Just seconds after they entered the bridge, an elderly gentleman dressed in black slacks and a crisp white shirt with an unblemished apron around his waist materialized as though from thin air. His hair was as white as his starched shirt, his face both gaunt and wrinkled. He carried a sterling silver tray with a dewy pitcher of some tropical-looking concoction and crystal glasses.
“The sun’s over the yardarm someplace,” he said in a crisp British accent.
“What’s this, Maurice?” Juan asked as the ship’s steward handed out glasses and began to pour. Linc looked at his drink sourly and then brightened when the steward produced a bottle of Heineken from his apron. Linc popped the top by ramming it against the chart table.
“A little juice, a little gr
og. This and that. I figured you could use something after the mission.”
Cabrillo took a sip, and announced, “Nectar of the gods, my friend. Absolute nectar of the gods.”
Maurice didn’t acknowledge the compliment. He already knew how good the drink was and didn’t need to be told. He set the platter aside. Under it was a rosewood cigar box that usually sat on Cabrillo’s desk in his cabin. Max demurred, pulling a pipe and a leather pouch from the back pocket of his coveralls. In moments, the air was as thick as an Amazonian forest fire. The steward left the bridge as silently as he’d arrived, his polished shoes somehow not making a noise on the filthy linoleum deck covering.
“Okay, so tell me about this new op,” Cabrillo invited, blowing a plume of smoke toward the ceiling while Max opened one of the wing doors for a little ventilation.
“The financier’s name is Roland Croissard, from Basel. His daughter is Soleil, aged thirty. She’s got a reputation for being something of a daredevil. She’s already got her spot bought and paid for when Virgin Galactic starts up their suborbital flights. She’s climbed the highest mountains on six of the seven continents. She’s been beaten back by Everest twice. She raced as a pay-for-play GP2 driver for a season. For those that don’t know, that’s one tier below Formula One racing. She’s also a scratch golfer, was a world-ranked tennis player in her teens, and just missed the cut for the Swiss Olympic fencing team.”
“Accomplished woman,” Juan remarked.
“Quite,” Max agreed. “I’d show you a picture, but you’d start drooling on the spot. Anyway, she and a friend went backpacking in Bangladesh. Judging by the GPS logs her father sent, she made a beeline for the border with Myanmar and kept on hiking.”
“Sounds deliberate to me,” Linc said, finishing his beer. The twelve-ouncer looked like a Tabasco bottle in his hand. “Does he know what she was up to?”
“No idea. He said that she rarely kept him informed of what she was doing. I get the impression there’s a little bad blood between them. When I ran the background check on him, it showed there was a divorce when Soleil was seventeen, and he subsequently remarried a few months later.”
“Where’s the mother?” Juan asked, nonchalantly tapping ash onto the already-grimy floor.
“Died of pancreatic cancer five years ago. Before that she lived in Zurich, which is now Soleil’s home.”
“And what’s the father’s story?”
“Works for one of those Swiss banks shady people like us keep our money in. Murph and Stone didn’t turn up anything through regular and not-so-regular financial channels. Croissard is legit, as far as we can tell.”
“Did you ask Langston? For all we know he’s Bin Laden’s personal banker.”
“Actually, he’s helped the Agency track funds heading to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group.”
“Could this be payback?” Cabrillo wondered aloud. “Maybe they snatched her.”
“Anything’s possible at this point,” Max replied. “It could be that, or local drug lords, or it could be her phone’s on the fritz and she’s hiking out as we speak.”
“How long ago did she go dark?” Linc asked.
“She’d been checking in once a week. Missed her regular call four days ago. Croissard let it go a day before he got edgy. He made some calls, first to his contact at Langley over the money-laundering thing, and eventually he tracked down L’Enfant.”
“Was the phone transmitting her GPS coordinates the whole time?”
“No,” Max said. “She only turned it on when she was calling in.”
Juan tapped ash from his cigar. “So, at the outside, she could have been snatched twelve days ago.”
“Yes,” Max agreed glumly.
“And all we have to go on is her last-known location, which again is eleven days old.”
This time Hanley merely nodded.
“This won’t be easy. We’re talking minor needle, major haystack.”
“Five million bucks to make the attempt,” Max added. “Another two if we bring her out.”
They were interrupted by Julia Huxley. She entered the bridge from the corridor that linked the six cabins on that deck—all of which were as shabby as the wheelhouse itself.
“What’s the word?” Juan asked.
“Physically, he’s fine. He’s got some pretty deep contusions across his abdomen and lower chest, his upper arms, thighs, and his cuteas-a-button buttocks. Nothing is sprained, as far as I can tell, but he says his knees and ankles hurt like heck. Give him a week and he’ll be good as new. I’ve still got to run some samples back in my lab, but from what he told me he’s as healthy as a horse. I have no reason to doubt that.”
“Send him out to us, and thanks.”
“No. Thank you.”
A moment later, Lawless stepped onto the bridge, tucking a clean T-shirt into his combat pants. He looked around a moment, and said, “Y’all don’t pay your maid enough.”
“It’s been her week off since 2002,” Cabrillo deadpanned. “Well, the doc says you check out, and her word’s good enough for me. What do you say?”
“I’ve got to be honest with you, Chairman Cabrillo,” MacD replied. “Since coming aboard your ship I’m having second thoughts. You say you make money hand over fist, but living on this scow isn’t exactly my cup of joe.”
“What if I were to tell you that under all this rust and grime is a ship that has more luxury appointments than the finest yacht you’ve ever seen.”
“I’d say you’d have to show me.”
“Juan?” Max said in a questioning voice.
“It’s okay,” Cabrillo said. “Just a taste. Nothing more.”
Cabrillo indicated that Lawless should follow him. They made their way down a flight of internal stairs and through a few dingy hallways until they reached a windowless mess hall. Tacky travel posters were taped to the matte-gray walls. Beyond the pass-through was a kitchen that would turn a health inspector’s stomach. Stalactites of congealed grease clung to the hood above the six-burner stove while the flies buzzing around a sink full of dirty dishes rivaled the air traffic pattern over O’Hare.
Juan walked up to one of the posters on the wall opposite the entrance. It depicted a beautiful Tahitian girl in a bikini standing on a beach in front of a grove of palm trees. He bent close and looked to be peering into her navel.
A section of wall clicked open. The door had been so cleverly concealed that Lawless hadn’t seen a thing.
Cabrillo straightened. “Retinal scanner,” he explained, and pulled the door all the way open.
He motioned for MacD to take a look.
He stared, gape-jawed. The carpet on the floor was a rich burgundy and so thick it looked like it could conceal a crouching lion. Polished mahogany wainscoting adorned the walls. Above it was some material that resembled regular residential Sheetrock but couldn’t possibly be because a ship at sea vibrated too much. It was painted a subtle gray, with hints of mauve—very relaxing, very soothing. The lighting was either tasteful sconces hanging on the walls or cut-crystal chandeliers.
Lawless was no art expert, but he was pretty sure the canvases in gilt frames were the real deal, and he recognized one even if he couldn’t name Winslow Homer as its painter.
This wasn’t a passageway on some broken-down old freighter. This belonged to a five-star resort hotel—heck, eight stars, for all he knew.
He looked at the Chairman, confusion written all over his face.
Juan began to answer his unasked question, “What you see topside is all deception. The rust, the dirt, the sorry state of the equipment. It’s all designed to make the Oregon as innocuous as possible. Anonymity is the name of the game. With this ship we can pull into any port in the world and not arouse suspicion. It’s like when you’re on the freeway. You notice the Ferraris and Porsches, but do you give a second’s thought to some mid-nineties Buick Regal?
“The best part,” he went on, “is that we have the ways and means to disguise her silhouette and c
hange her name in about twelve hours. She’s never the same ship from mission to mission. We call her the Oregon, but that is rarely the name painted on her transom.”
“So the rest of the ship ... ?”
“Is like this,” Juan said, pointing down the hallway. “Each crew member has a private cabin—and a decorating allowance, I might add. We have a gym, pool, dojo, sauna. Our head chef and sous-chef both trained at Le Cordon Bleu. You’ve met our onboard doctor, and as you can imagine she demanded, and got, the latest medical equipment available.”
“What about weapons?”
“There’s a full armory, with everything from pistols to shoulderfired antitank missiles.” It wasn’t yet time to tell him that the Oregon herself was a floating arsenal that would rival most navies’ capital ships. That and some of the vessel’s other hidden tricks would remain secret until Lawless completed his probationary period. “Now, what do you say?”
Lawless smiled and thrust out his hand. “Ah’ll call Fortran and give ’em my notice.”
From down the hallway came a whoop from an unseen female crew member. It didn’t sound like Hux or Linda, so word had traveled fast about the Adonis-like newbie.
“It might take some time,” MacD continued, “and Ah’ll probably have to go back to Kabul. Ah’m sure they’re investigating my kidnapping. Plus, Ah’ll need to pick up my passport and personal kit.”
“No problem,” Juan assured him. “We need a few days to get into position for our next job. We’ll issue you one of our encrypted satellite phones and contact numbers. We’ll have to fly you out to meet us.” Juan had a sudden thought. “By the way, how are your tracking skills?”
“Ah’m a redneck at heart. Spent my summers hunting in the bayous. My dad used to boast that he had the dogs carrying the guns and me following the scent.”