"Murph called from the Akbar."
"He's compromised?" Cabrillo asked expectantly.
"Nope," Hanley said as he steered Cabrillo toward the door leading into the interior of the Oregon, "he heard some noises and freed himself. After waiting a safe amount of time, he ventured from the cabin where he was being held and started searching around. The ship was empty and there was no sign where Al-Khalifa and his crew had gone, so he risked a call."
The men had exited the rear deck and were heading down the passageway to the control room.
"Did he recover the meteorite?" Cabrillo asked.
"It was gone," Hanley said as he opened the door to the control room. "We're receiving tracking signals from the bugs you left, but they're intermittent."
The men walked into the control room.
"Where are the signals originating from?" Cabrillo asked.
Hanley pointed to a monitor. "There," he said, "the track was heading north but now it's heading east in the sea above Iceland."
"He switched boats," Cabrillo said, "but why?"
"That's the question," Hanley said.
"How far are we from the Akbar?"
Without replying, Stone entered commands into the computer and an image came onto a monitor on the wall. A video camera that was lit by spotlights on the Oregon's bow was filming.
The Akbar was dead ahead.
THE FREE ENTERPRISE was steaming at full speed through the tossing seas.
"Stop at the Faeroe Islands," a man said over a secure link. "I'll have someone at the local airport to pick up the package."
"Where do you want us after that?" the captain asked.
"Calais," the man stated, "the rest of the team is there."
"Very good, sir," the captain said.
The man added, "One more thing."
"Yes, sir."
"Explain to the team they each have a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus coming," he said, "and be sure they know that Hughes's family will be well compensated for their loss."
"I'll do that, sir," the captain said.
The man disconnected then reached for a folder on his desk. He removed the sale document for the British textile firm as well as the authorization for payment. He signed both, then fed them into a fax machine and awaited receipt.
Once he received the confirmation, he stood back for a moment.
The first part of his plan was now in place. Soon it would be time for the payback.
AT THE SAME time the fax was traveling to England over the telephone line, the cargo ship Larissa was rounding Cabo de Finisterre. The captain set a course for Brest, which was located on the point of France that led into the English Channel. The night air was cool and the skies overhead were clear with a blanket of billions of stars.
He watched as a comet streaked across the sky.
Nodding in approval, he lit a cigarette, sipped from a silver flask containing ouzo, and then scratched the itch on his arm. A thin trickle of blood oozed to the surface and he dabbed at it with a rag.
In two more days they'd reach London and then he'd have the rash examined.
USING THE COMPUTER-CONTROLLED thrusters, Hanley placed the Oregon directly alongside the Akbar. Cabrillo was the first across, followed by Seng, Jones, Meadows and Linda Ross. Murphy was waiting on the deck. Pieces of his vinyl mask were still visible near his hairline. As soon as Cabrillo was on deck, Murphy motioned to the open door.
"Tell me what you heard and what happened afterward," Cabrillo said as he followed Murphy into the main salon.
Murphy explained the light popping sounds and the masked man entering his cabin.
"It was all over in five minutes," he said as the rest of the team finished filing into the salon. "I waited another ten minutes before venturing out."
"Search every compartment," Cabrillo ordered. "I want some answers."
The team split up and fanned out through the vessel. Rifles and handguns were strewn about the staterooms, as well as clothing, personal items and suitcases. The beds were rumpled and some had the covers pulled back. Copies of the Koran were in every cabin and shoes were still sitting by the beds on the floor.
It was as if a UFO had come down and snatched the men into the heavens.
ON BOARD THE Oregon, Hanley made sure the thrusters were adjusted properly then turned to Stone. "Take the helm," he said, "I'm going across."
Stone slid into Hanley's seat and began to adjust the cameras on deck so he could watch what was happening.
Hanley stepped across to the Akbar and made his way into the main salon. Meadows was waving a Geiger counter around the long dining table.
"It was here," he said as Hanley passed through the room.
Just up the passageway Ross was holding a spray bottle containing blue liquid. She sprayed the walls then slipped on a pair of goggles as Hanley passed behind her. Hanley continued down to a stairway.
"If they transferred to another ship," Cabrillo was saying to Murphy just as Hanley opened the door to the cabin, "why didn't they take their personal belongings?"
"Maybe they didn't want anything with them that might be traced back to here," Hanley said.
"Doesn't make any sense," Cabrillo noted. "They go through the trouble to kidnap who they think is the emir of Qatar, then they leave him, as well as a multimillion-dollar yacht, unattended?"
"They must be planning on returning," Murphy offered.
Right then Seng popped his head inside the cabin. "Mr. Chairman, Ross has something she wants to show you," he said.
The four men filed down the passageway to where Ross was standing. On the wall were areas outlined with barriers of sprayed foam. The walls inside the barriers were tinted blue. Ross slid off the goggles and handed them to Cabrillo silently.
Cabrillo slid the goggles over his head and stared at the areas. The fluorescent glow of blood splatters looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. He slid off the goggles and handed them to Hanley.
"They tried to clean it off," Ross said, "but it was a fast and dirty job."
Just at that instant Stone's voice came out of a radio clipped to Cabrillo's belt.
"Mr. Cabrillo, Mr. Hanley," he said, "there's something you need to see."
The two men walked down the hallway out through the main salon, then onto the rear deck and across to the Oregon. They quickly walked down the hall to the control room.
Cabrillo opened the door. Stone pointed to a monitor on the wall.
"I thought it was a dead baby whale," he said, "until it flipped over and I saw a face."
Just then another body surfaced.
"Have Reyes and Kasim fish them out," Cabrillo said to Hanley, "I'm going back across."
Cabrillo left the control room and stepped across to the Akbar. Seng was in the main salon when Cabrillo entered. "Meadows thinks that the object was only in here," Seng said. "He's looking through the rest of the ship, but so far it's clean of radiation."
Cabrillo nodded.
"Ross has found blood in the pilothouse and staterooms as well as in and around the main salon and passageways. The captain was on duty, the posted guards and the rest were sleeping. That would be my guess."
Cabrillo nodded again.
"Whoever hit them, boss," Seng said, "came in hard and fast."
"I'm going to the pilothouse," Cabrillo said, walking away.
Once there he examined the ship's log. The last entry was only two hours old and it stated nothing out of the ordinary. Whoever the visitors were, they'd come unannounced.
After leaving the pilothouse, Cabrillo was walking down the hall when his radio was called.
"Mr. Cabrillo," Huxley's voice said, "come to the sick bay at once."
Cabrillo made his way through the Akbar and back across to the Oregon once again.
Reyes and Kasim were out on the deck with boat hooks in their hands. They were pushing a body toward a lowered net hung from a cable attached to a derrick. Cabrillo made his way inside and headed down the passageway to the s
ick bay and opened the door.
Ackerman was lying on an exam table covered by electric warming blankets.
"He's been trying to talk," Huxley said. "I wrote it all down, but it was mostly gibberish until a few minutes ago."
"What then?" Cabrillo asked, staring down at Ackerman, whose eyes had started to flutter. One eye cracked open just a touch.
"He started talking about the ghost," she said, "not a ghost, the Ghost, as if it were a nickname."
Just then Ackerman spoke again. "I should have never trusted the Ghost," he said in a voice growing weaker by the word. "He bought and paid for the un … ivers … ity."
Ackerman started convulsing. His body began to shake like a dog exiting the water.
"Mom," he said weakly.
And then he died.
No matter how much Huxley shocked him, his heart would not start again. It was just after midnight when she pronounced him dead. Cabrillo carefully reached up and closed Ackerman's eyes, then covered him with a blanket.
"You did the best you could," he said to Huxley.
Then he left the sick bay and walked down the Oregon's passageway.
Ackerman's words were still ringing in his head.
Walking onto the stern of the ship, he found Hanley staring over a trio of bodies. Hanley was holding an eight-and-a-half by eleven-inch computer picture in his hand.
"I enhanced the photograph with a computer to distort the face in order to account for the swelling," he said as soon as Cabrillo walked closer.
Cabrillo took the photograph from Hanley, bent down next to the body, and held it to the face. He stared at the face of the corpse and then the photograph.
"Al-Khalifa," he said slowly.
"He must have been weighed down and tossed overboard," Hanley noted. "The only thing was that the killers didn't know that the bottom of the ocean around here is littered with geothermal vents. The hot water caused the bodies to quickly bloat and overcome the weight. If it weren't for that, we'd have never found them."
"Have you ID'd the others?" Cabrillo asked.
"I haven't found any records yet," Hanley said, "plus there are more surfacing as we speak. Probably just Al-Khalifa's minions."
"Not minions," Cabrillo said, "madmen."
"Now the question is …" Hanley said.
"Who is crazy enough," Cabrillo said, "to steal from other crazies."
Chapter 22
LANGSTON OVERHOLT IV was sitting in his office, bouncing a red rubber ball off a wooden paddle. The telephone receiver was cradled to his ear. The time was barely 8 a.m. but he'd already been at work for more than two hours.
"I left a pair of my engineers on board," Cabrillo said to Overholt. "We're claiming salvage rights."
"Nice prize," Overholt said.
"I'm sure we can use it somehow," Cabrillo agreed.
"What's your current location?" Overholt asked.
"We are north of Iceland heading east. We're trying to track the bugs on the meteorite. Whoever killed Al-Khalifa and stole the meteorite must be aboard another ship."
"You're sure the body you recovered is Al-Khalifa?" Overholt asked.
"We're faxing you fingerprints and digital photographs of the corpse," Cabrillo said, "so your people can make a positive identification. But I'm ninety-nine percent sure."
"After you woke me up this morning, I ordered some of my men to try to check out the ID on the passenger aboard the Eurocopter. We got nothing. I'm sending a team to Greenland to recover the bodies, then hopefully we'll know more."
"Sorry about the midnight call, but I thought you should receive the news as soon as possible."
"No problem, I probably got more sleep than you."
"I managed to grab a few hours once we left the Akbar," Cabrillo admitted.
"What's your gut feeling, old friend?" Overholt asked. "If Al-Khalifa is dead, then the threat of the dirty bomb seems diminished. The meteorite is radioactive, but without a catalyst the danger is a lot less."
"True," Cabrillo said slowly, "but the missing Ukrainian nuclear bomb is still out there somewhere, and we don't know that several of Al-Khalifa's own people didn't kill him and will now try to mount the mission themselves."
"That would explain a lot," Overholt said, "like how the killers accessed the Akbar so easily."
"If it wasn't some of Al-Khalifa's own people, then we have another group to contend with. If that's the case, we should be wary. Whoever made the assault on the Akbar were highly trained and as deadly as vipers."
"Another terrorist group?"
"I doubt it," Cabrillo said. "The operation had none of the earmarks of religious fanatics. It was more like a military operation. No emotion or fuss—just a surgical and flawless elimination of the opposition."
"I'll dig around," Overholt said, "and see what I can find out."
"I'd appreciate that."
"Good thing you managed to bug the meteorite," Overholt added.
"The only card up our sleeve," Cabrillo agreed.
"Anything else?"
"Just before he died, the archaeologist started talking about the Ghost," Cabrillo said, "as if he were a man and not a disembodied apparition."
"I'm on it," Overholt said.
"This is turning into an episode of Scooby-Doo," Cabrillo said. "Find out who the Ghost is and we solve the caper."
"I don't seem to remember a Scooby-Doo episode dealing with nuclear weapons," Overholt said.
"Update it for the twenty-first century," Cabrillo said before disconnecting, "it's a much more dangerous world now."
THE FREE ENTERPRISE was steaming through the frigid ocean water on a course toward the Faeroe Islands. The team was starting to relax—after they delivered the meteorite they'd have a break for a while. Once they repositioned the ship to Calais, they would simply wait for a call if needed. The mood aboard the ship was light.
They had no idea a greyhound of the sea disguised as an old cargo ship was following.
Nor did they know that both the Corporation and the might of the U.S. government would soon be aligned against them. They were in ignorant bliss.
"IT'S IMPORTANT," TD Dwyer explained to the receptionist.
"How important?" the receptionist asked. "He's preparing for a White House meeting."
"Very important," Dwyer said.
The receptionist nodded and buzzed Overholt. "There's a Thomas Dwyer here from Theoretical Applications. He claims that he needs to see you immediately."
"Send him in," Overholt said.
The receptionist rose and walked over to Overholt's door and opened it. Overholt was sitting behind his desk. Closing a file, he swiveled around and slid the file into a slot in a safe behind his desk.
"Okay," he said, "come in now."
Dwyer slid past the receptionist and she closed the door behind him.
"I'm TD Dwyer," he said. "I'm the scientist tasked with the analysis of the meteorite."
Overholt walked from behind his desk and shook Dwyer's hand, then motioned him over to a pair of chairs around a seating pit. Once they were both seated, he spoke.
"What have you got?"
Dwyer was less than five minutes into his dissertation when Overholt stopped him.
He walked over to his desk and spoke into the intercom. "Julie, we need to schedule Mr. Dwyer to accompany me to the meeting at the White House."
"Could you ask him his clearance, sir?" Julie asked.
"One-A critical," Dwyer answered.
"Then we can go in the front," Overholt said to Julie, "as planned."
"I'll call over, sir."
Overholt walked back to the chair and sat down. "When it's our turn I want you to deliver your findings without hyperbole. Just lay out the facts as best you know. If you are asked for an opinion—and you probably will be—give it, but qualify it as such."
"Yes, sir," Dwyer said.
"Good," Overholt said. "Now, just between us, lay out the rest of it, harebrained theories and all."
&nb
sp; "The gist of the theory is this: There is a possibility that if the molecular structure of the meteorite is pierced, a virus could be released that might have dire consequences."
"Worst case?"
"The end of all organic life on earth."
"Well," Overholt said, "I can safely state you've ruined my morning."
IN THE OREGON'S control room, Eric Stone was carefully watching a monitor. He would pin down the location of the meteorite, then it would seem to move. Using all the various locations, Stone was trying to vector in on the object. Then he punched in more commands on the computer keyboard and glanced at a different screen. Stone was using space the Corporation rented on a commercial satellite.
The image filled the monitor but the sea was hidden by a heavy cloud cover.
"Boss," he said to Cabrillo, "we need a KH-30 shot. The clouds are too thick."
The KH-30 was the Defense Department's latest supersecret satellite. It could peer through clouds, even into the water itself. Stone had been unable to' hack into the system despite repeated efforts.
"I'll ask Overholt the next time we talk," Cabrillo said. "Maybe he can railroad the National Reconnaissance Office into giving him time. Good try, Stone."
Hanley was staring at the track map on another monitor. The Oregon was flying through the water but the other vessel had a good head start. "We can overtake them before Scotland anyway, if they stay at the current speed."
Cabrillo glanced at the monitor. "It looks to me like they're on a course for the Faeroes."
"If that's the case," Hanley said, "they'll reach port before we can overtake them."
Cabrillo nodded and considered this. "What's the location of our jets?"
Hanley pulled a world map up on the screen. "Dulles, Dubai, Cape Town and Paris."
"Which aircraft is in Paris?"
"Challenger 604," Hanley answered.
"Direct it to Aberdeen, Scotland," Cabrillo said. "The runway at the airport in the Faeroe Islands is not long enough to handle it, and Aberdeen is the next closest city. Have it fueled and ready if we need to use her."