Zero Hour

  “Perhaps,” Yevchenko agreed. “But, either way, they must be stopped. And the technology destroyed once and for all.”

  Gregorovich paused, wondering who might be perpetrating this hoax. “As I recall, there was a woman, an Australian. She was a colleague of Thero’s, a friend of his son and daughter. She denounced the work as a waste of time, and remained in Australia when Thero and his team went to Japan.”

  Yevchenko nodded. “We put tabs on her already, she’s not the cause. But she’s a danger to us nonetheless, especially now that she’s working with the Americans.”

  “How did they get involved in your little mess?”

  “There was an incident in Australia,” Yevchenko said. “The woman you spoke of was rescued by an American from their National Underwater and Marine Agency. We believe they’re also looking for Thero. Two of their ships have just been diverted toward Perth, a third toward Sydney.”

  Gregorovich had heard of NUMA. Though their work was civilian in nature and their staff mostly scientists and environmental do-gooders, some in Russia were convinced that it was an offshoot of the NSA. Gregorovich doubted this. But even he had to admit they ended up in more scrapes than the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “Why NUMA?”

  Yevchenko shrugged. “No one knows. But, most likely, they intend to steal whatever they discover and develop it for America. As I’m sure you can understand, such an outcome is completely and categorically unacceptable.”

  Perhaps this was what Yevchenko and the party leaders feared the most. “You should have listened to me the first time,” Gregorovich said. “I would have brought Thero and the other scientists to you. This would have been your prize to exploit.”

  “All we want is the status quo,” Yevchenko explained. “It was your job to ensure that. As far as the party is concerned, it still is.”

  Yevchenko’s gaze was harsh, his voice firm and bitter. Apparently, there was a little fire left in his soul after all, at least on this subject.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You must find Thero or this imposter and destroy him. You must erase from existence all record of their research, all evidence of their efforts. And you must not leave any loose strings to haunt us this time.”

  He understood the context. This was not a request. “I did not fail.”

  “Something slipped through your grasp.”

  Gregorovich fumed at the insinuation. There had to be another explanation. It seemed he would have to find that explanation himself. “If you want to stop Thero, you’ll have to locate him first. The woman is the key. That’s undoubtedly why the Americans and Australians are using her.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “You have men watching her?”

  Yevchenko nodded.

  “Have them capture her and bring her to whatever command post you’re setting up for me,” Gregorovich suggested.

  “We have a ship awaiting your arrival. A team of commandos were flown to it yesterday. They have no knowledge of the situation but will follow your orders.”

  “I’d rather hire my own,” Gregorovich said.

  “No,” Yevchenko said.

  Gregorovich turned away, noticing movement in the long grass ahead of him. The pigeon he’d wounded was there, trying desperately to drag its damaged body through the pasture. For a moment, he thought of blasting it with the shotgun. But it no longer mattered to him. He had a new quarry to hunt now.

  Yevchenko saw it as well, stepping forward.

  “Leave it,” Gregorovich said. “Let it suffer.”

  Yevchenko stepped away. He seemed half pleased and half apprehensive. “You’re a very cold man, Anton Gregorovich. This is why we choose you. Do not fail us again or the suffering will be yours.”

  Jakarta, Indonesia, 0540 hours

  The sun rose over Tanjung Priok Harbor shrouded in a blanket of haze. It lit up a thicket of cranes and booms sprouting from an endless line of ships and the lengthy concrete piers. Only seven degrees south of the equator, and a recipient of constant humidity from the Java Sea, the harbor was a sweatbox even at this hour of the morning.

  At least that’s how it felt to sixty-five-year-old Patrick Devlin, as he meandered along in the early morning sun.

  After forty years at sea, Devlin was approaching retirement. That looming thought, and a long night of drinking, had left him in a reflective mood. What exactly was he retiring to? He had no family, no real friends aside from those he crewed or drank with.

  “Can’t believe this is the last time I’ll see this stinking place,” he said, speaking to an equally exhausted drinking companion, another Irishman named Keane.

  “If it was your last night here,” Keane said, “then you did it up right, Padi. In true Irish fashion . . . you drank everyone under the table. And left them with the tab.”

  Despite Indonesia’s Muslim status, there were plenty of places to drink in the city of Jakarta. A good thing too, because the harbor had become so busy that ships often anchored for days waiting their turn to load and unload. Traffic in the port had doubled threefold in the past decade. Despite frantic levels of construction, the harbor could not keep up.

  “Think about it,” Keane added. “Back home, you’ll never wake with dust caking your throat and sweat dripping from your face.” Keane almost tripped but regained his balance. “And none of these damned blaring speakers, waking the dead in the morning like air-raid sirens.”

  The call of the muezzins from the mosques in Jakarta was known to be exceedingly loud and to ring out at an exceedingly early hour. Only recently had the time for their song been moved from three a.m. to the somewhat more reasonable hour of four thirty.

  Still too damned early, Devlin thought. But, in some ways, he’d miss even that, such was the lure of exotic lands.

  “Always thought I’d make captain,” he said.

  “And give up all this?” Keane asked, slurring every word.

  Devlin laughed. He’d longed to be a captain and ship’s master for most of his life, but an event several years back had made him wonder if he wanted the responsibility. It had also set his drinking on a dangerous course. Captains didn’t tie one on with their crews, they drank alone in their cabins. And they were often forced to make harsh decisions, the kind that haunted Devlin as it was.

  “Not on your life,” Devlin said with false bravado. He threw an arm around Keane’s neck in a move that was half headlock and half hug.

  The two men were laughing as they reached the motor launch they’d brought from their ship: a freighter loaded with rolls of copper, anchored offshore in the never-ending queue.

  As they climbed into the small runabout, Devlin stepped to the controls. Keane, on the other hand, found himself a comfortable spot to lie down, stretching out across a trio of seats and pulling an orange life vest under his head for use as a pillow. Before Devlin had even cleared the bowlines, Keane was passed out and snoring loudly.

  “That’s right,” Devlin mumbled, “you sleep. I’ll do all the work as usual.”

  He cast off the bowlines and then fired up the small boat’s engine. A moment later, he was picking his way across the crowded harbor.

  Small boats moved here and there. A pair of tugs worked to drag a monstrous bulk carrier out into the channel, while crewmen, painting and scraping and fighting the endless battle against rust and corrosion, scampered over other vessels like crabs on the rocks.

  Devlin guided the launch past all this and out into the anchorage. He kept a fair course, moving slowly past the waiting ships, until a particular vessel caught his eye.

  Slowing the launch just a bit, Devlin stared at a black-hulled vessel with a dark gray superstructure. It looked vaguely familiar, like a small cruise liner, though the dark paint was neither festive nor striking. The more he studied the ship, the odder her appearance was to him. She d
idn’t seem to carry any lifeboats, radar masts, or even antennas. In fact, she carried none of the normal appendages that sprout from modern ships.

  In his inebriated state, Devlin struggled to make sense of it. He saw no one on deck and no sign of activity. The ship itself reminded him of a derelict, stripped for parts. Her black-gray color was like that of charred steal, but the coating wasn’t soot, she’d been deliberately tinted that way.

  Subconsciously, Devlin angled the launch toward her, moving closer and then coming around the bow. There he spotted something new, something unmistakable.

  “It can’t be,” he said out loud.

  In front of him lay the overlapped plating of a hasty repair job. Plates of different thickness and consistency had been welded and riveted into place to cover a breach in the hull. The heavy black paint covered it all, but the jagged, H-like shape of the repair was unmistakable.

  He shouted to Keane. “Wake up,” he said, “you have to see this.”

  Keane grunted something and rolled over.

  “Keane?!”

  No response. Devlin gave up on him and turned back to the ship. He was wide awake now.

  “You’re a bloody ghost,” he whispered, edging closer to the black hulk. “A bloody ghost or a bloody trick.”

  He was still muttering various curses of disbelief when the launch bumped up against the ship. He reached out and touched her. There was an odd, almost rubbery feel to the paint. But the ship itself was real enough.

  A sense of uncontrollable anger began to well up inside Devlin, a dark Irish rage. Years of guilt and self-hatred fueled it. Someone was tricking him, or had tricked him years ago.

  He passed around the bow and headed for the stern. A gangway sat in the lowered position, resting diagonally across the aft end of the ship. Its bottom step was eight feet above the harbor’s oily waters. Devlin pulled up next to it.

  He cut the throttle and lazily tied a line to the sloping stairs. He didn’t bother with Keane and instead climbed onto the launch’s roof. From there, he clambered awkwardly up onto the gangway.

  It shook with his weight and banged against the hull, but it held. Despite the racket, no one appeared to welcome him aboard or shoo him away.

  Devlin began to climb. He moved slowly at first on shaky legs, and then faster as he became more certain of the truth. “I saw you go down!” he shouted at the ship. “I saw you bloody well go down!”

  He stumbled as he neared the top and sprawled out on the last few steps, breathless and almost weeping. He could see raised letters on the stern. They were hidden beneath the rubbery black paint, but they hadn’t been scraped off before the new paint was slapped over the top.

  He ran his hand across the letters he could reach. They were real, just like the ship itself.

  Pacific Voyager.

  Like a man caught in the surf, Devlin was bowled over by waves of emotion. Confusion, sadness, and elation hit him almost simultaneously, one after another. How could the ship be here? Had someone salvaged her? Last he knew, the wreck hadn’t even been located.

  He sat there, sobbing like a child and hoping he wasn’t in the middle of a dream, until the sound of footsteps came from above. The squeak of a gate followed as a section of the rail was pulled back where the gangway met the main deck.

  Devlin looked up as a man appeared. The face was bearded now but familiar to him. An odd moment passed as two sets of eyes tried to connect what they saw to distant, faded memories.

  The bearded man won the race. A sad smile crept over him. “Hello, Padi,” he said in a kind and melancholy way.

  “Janko?” Devlin said. “You’re alive? But you went down with this ship.”

  The bearded man offered a hand and helped Devlin to his feet, bringing him aboard and steadying the inebriated old sailor as he stood on the main deck.

  “I wish you hadn’t found us,” Janko said.

  “Us?”

  “I’m sorry, Padi.”

  With that, Janko shoved a handheld device into Devlin’s ribs. The blow stunned the old sailor, but the massive shock that followed did more damage. Devlin convulsed as he fell backward. He was unconscious by the time he hit the deck.

  A watertight hatchway opened behind Janko, and two other men came running out.

  “Is everything all right?” one of them asked.

  Janko nodded and slipped the device back into his pocket. “Check the launch.”

  One of the men raced down the stairs. The other glanced at Devlin, lying still on the deck. “How the hell did he know who you were?”

  “He was the chief on the tug I signed on to,” Janko explained. “The one who cut us loose in the storm. From the look of it, he’s been beating himself up ever since.”

  “What should we do with him?”

  “Take him below,” Janko said. “Bodies bring attention. Disappearance is more easily explained. Especially that of a drunk.”

  A shout came up to them from the launch below. “There’s another man in the boat. He’s passed out cold.”

  “He must have been unconscious when they got here,” Janko thought aloud. “Doubt he’ll remember a thing. Untie the launch and let it drift. By the time he wakes up, he’ll think this one went overboard. Another sad accident at sea.”

  The man below untied the launch and shoved it off before coming back up the stairs.

  “We need to get under way,” Janko said as the two men picked Devlin up and carried him toward the hatch.

  “And then what?” the first crewman asked. “What do we do with him when he wakes up?”

  “We show him what became of the ship he lost,” Janko explained. “And then we toss him in the pit, along with the crew from those Korean freighters. He can dig for Thero’s diamonds like all the rest.”

  Australian outback, just south of Alice Springs

  The Ghan raced through the desert like a great metal snake: twenty shimmering passenger cars pulled by a pair of matching diesels in a brick-red paint scheme.

  Named in reverence to Afghan explorers who helped map Australia’s desolate interior and adorned with a camel logo, the Afghan Express traveled a route that stretched vertically across the continent, from Darwin in the north down to Adelaide on the island’s southern coast, pulling into Alice Springs every few days near the halfway point of its journey in each direction.

  A four-hour whistle-stop allowed passengers to explore the small town, but, as dusk approached, the train began to fill up once again. Kurt and Hayley boarded shortly before departure.

  “Where exactly are we going?” Hayley asked.

  Kurt said nothing. He just kept moving forward until he reached the Platinum Car, in which the train’s most luxurious accoutrements resided. A steward opened the door to their compartment, revealing a compact lounge, complete with a private bathroom and shower, a small table, and a pair of large plush chairs that folded out into beds at night. The space was tight, like a ship’s stateroom, but the modern design and décor made it seem more spacious.

  “Pick a side, any side,” Kurt said, “and then relax and await the gourmet dining to follow.”

  Hayley pointed, and Kurt placed her small carry-on beside the chair.

  “Are you trying to impress me?” she asked.

  “Possibly,” Kurt admitted. “But mostly I figured you could use a little taking care of after all you’ve been through. It’s not every day someone steps out of their regular life and takes on something like this.”

  A soft smile appeared on Hayley’s face. She seemed surprised and reassured all at the same time. “It feels like forever since someone gave a bit of thought to what I might need. Thank you.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” Kurt said, putting his own pack away as the train eased off the stops and began to move.

  An hour later, night was falling. The view through the pictur
e windows of the cabin was that of an indigo sky blending slowly with the matte black of the MacDonnell mountain range. With this for a backdrop, dinner arrived, brought in by a private steward on a rolling cart.

  Kurt paid the steward, included a generous tip, and then acted as a combination sommelier and maître d’, laying a cloth napkin across Hayley’s lap and presenting the wine.

  “A 2008 Penngrove Cabernet Sauvignon.”

  “I love a good cabernet,” Hayley said, her eyes sparkling like a child awaiting a present.

  “I haven’t had this one,” Kurt said. “I’m told it’s very smooth, with a hint of licorice and vanilla.”

  He uncorked the bottle and took her glass, pouring it from about ten inches above. “A good fall helps the wine to aerate,” he said. “It speeds up the breathing process. But we should still give it a few minutes.”

  “Why not?” Hayley replied. “The poor crushed grapes have been in there for years. Be a shame not to give them a few minutes to soak up the fresh air.”

  Kurt poured a glass of his own and set the bottle down.

  Next, he lifted the insulating covers from the plates set up before them. An avocado-green-colored soup with dashes of red was first. “Pea-and-ham soup, with a hint of garlic.”

  “Looks delicious.”

  Pulling the cover off the second scrumptious-looking dish, Kurt continued, “Braised short ribs with silver-beet gratin. And the pièce de résistance . . .” He removed the final lid. “Bread-and-butter pudding, soaked in sweetened custard and brandy.”

  “I might just start with that,” Hayley said. “How on earth did you conjure up such fantastic foods on a train out here in the never-never?”

  “Platinum service,” Kurt said. “And, besides, the chef is a personal friend of mine. At least he has been for the last few hours.”