Gale Force

63

Okura hunched behind a bulkhead and listened to the voices reverberate down the hallway. Men’s voices, at least two of them, inside the ship.

They had seen him. Not good. Not good at all.

He’d left the briefcase in the stateroom where he spent his nights. It was hidden, tucked under the tilt of a now useless bed, but its absence still made Okura’s mind race.

The salvage men could find it. They would take the money. His money. He couldn’t let it happen.

Okura slipped the pistol from his waistband. Listened to the men’s voices, the sounds of their feet on the deck, on the walls, as they descended farther into the Lion.

COURT STRUGGLED AHEAD of Ridley down the narrow hallway and wondered why he suddenly felt so ill at ease.

The freighter’s accommodations deck, after all, wasn’t nearly as foreboding as the very bowels of the ship, the dark corridors beneath the cargo decks, the vast inky abyss of the holds. This hallway was relatively well lit; the air was fresher, and the ocean where it was supposed to be—belowdecks.

But this was a ghost ship. A man had died here. And Harrington was sure he’d just seen a face.

What the hell are you doing here, man?

The men reached the midpoint of the ship, the long central corridor interrupted by watertight bulkhead doors. This corridor was darker, the air still, the sounds from above muted in the stillness.

Court gestured left, toward the stern of the ship. “First stateroom on the left,” he said, whispering now. “That’s where I saw him.”

He let go of his rope and stepped into the central corridor, felt his broken ribs protest, the pain inescapable no matter how tight they had bound his chest. Behind him, Ridley followed, neither man speaking, hardly daring to breathe. Court could feel his heart thudding behind those busted ribs, wondered what he would do if there actually was someone else aboard the freighter.

Wet your pants, probably. And scream like a girl.

Then Court thought about McKenna, decided that wasn’t a very good analogy. The skipper of the Gale Force would probably handle a stowaway—or even a ghost—with a little more aplomb.

The men reached the stateroom door. It opened inward on the wall above their heads, a beam of dusty light falling onto the forward wall. Court reached up, took hold of the doorframe, and tried to pull himself up, couldn’t do it. Not without crying, anyway.

He eased back, wincing, forced a smile at Ridley. “Maybe you’d better.”

Ridley nodded. Pulled himself through the doorframe with a grunt. Court watched the engineer’s feet dangle as he surveyed the room. Waited, tensed, for some confrontation.

But nothing happened. “Nothing in here,” Ridley called down, and then he dropped back onto the corridor’s portside wall, kept his balance. “Just another empty stateroom.”

“Huh,” Court said. “Guess I was wrong.”

He looked farther down the corridor, unwilling to believe that his eyes had deceived him. About ten feet down, on the portside of the ship, another door hung open. Harrington maneuvered down the corridor, leaning on the skewed deck and walls to support himself. Stopped above the open doorway and bent over, best as he could, to peer inside.

“Ridley,” he said, his heart racing even faster. “Come have a look at this.”

The stateroom looked lived in. As in, after the wreck. There was a pile of bedding in the corner, a stack of empty Coke cans, some candy bar wrappers.

“This is a nest,” Court told Ridley. “Someone’s been in here.”

“Could have been that dead guy,” Ridley replied. “Or Christer Magnusson’s crew.”

Court considered this. His whole body was tired, his mind, too. His chest ached, his head was kind of swimming, and all he really wanted was to crawl into his bunk.

But still.

“Maybe,” he said. “But then, who’d I see staring out at me just now?” He struggled to stand. “Come on. McKenna’s not back yet. We can keep looking.”

THEY WERE COMING CLOSER.

The men had discovered his sleeping space. Now their curiosity was inflamed. They would know they’d seen a man in that stateroom, and they would want to find him.

They would send him back to Japan. The yakuza would likely kill him. And the salvage crew would find the stolen bonds, earn a nice bonus on top of the salvage award.

Fifty million dollars. Your money.

Okura backed down the corridor, his mind working supersonic. If he were forced to shoot the men, the noise would alert their friends. The Coast Guard would be called. They would bring guns of their own.

Damn it.

But he didn’t have a choice. If the men found him, he would have to shoot them, and hope the noise of the shots died in the still air within the ship. Then he would retrieve the briefcase, and…

And what?

Okura couldn’t afford to waste time on that question, not now. The men were still approaching. He thumbed off the pistol’s safety. Retreated from the bulkhead, searching the darkness for any sign of the men.