Ghost Ship

SEVENTEEN

“Toss the gun over there,” Kurt said.

He pointed toward a thick rug near the bathroom door. With a shrug she flipped the gun gently in the general direction. It landed with no more than a soft bump.

Kurt motioned toward one of the chairs across from Acosta’s desk. “Have a seat.”

She hesitated for just a second and then moved toward the chair, sliding onto it with effortless grace. Kurt noticed a decided lack of nervousness in her posture. She looked comfortable. She leaned back and crossed her legs as if awaiting a cocktail at sundown.

Keeping the Beretta aimed at her, Kurt moved behind the desk and tapped the computer keyboard. The screen lit up. Back to the password.

“You’ve already broken into this once,” he said. “Care to tell me how?”

“Who are you?” she asked. There was no fear in her voice, only a subtle curiosity. Like someone who’d discovered a new plaything.

“Password,” Kurt said, ignoring her.

“Are you a thief? A mole of some kind?”

“Password.”

“Calista,” she told him, “with a C. As if you could spell it any other way.”

He typed the name, alternating glances between her and the keyboard.

The lock screen dissolved and a spreadsheet appeared. The white background was so bright it caused his pupils to constrict, making it difficult to see beyond the screen. He tapped the key to lower the screen’s brilliance until it was as dim as he could make it.

The woman hadn’t moved, though she was now leaning forward, studying him.

“You’re not part of the crew,” she said calmly. “And you’re a little too scruffy to be one of the guests.”

“My invite got lost in the mail,” Kurt said. “Now, what were you looking for? And who were you talking to?”

Her eyebrows went up. “How badly do you want to know?”

“Badly enough to put a bullet in you if you don’t tell me.”

She laughed. “You’re not going to shoot me. For one, it would make too much noise.”

“I have a silencer.”

“I’m no good to you dead,” she said, standing up.

Kurt met her gaze. “Who said I was going to kill you? A knee shot would do the trick.”

“And while I scream in pain,” she said, slinking forward, “will I be able to talk clearly?”

Kurt didn’t reply, and the woman climbed on the far edge of the desk, stretching out on all fours like a cat. She reached for the computer, walked her fingers onto the keyboard, and pressed F1 and F4 at the same time.

She looked up at him, licking her lips. “Do I get anything for cooperating?”

Kurt felt as if he’d landed in the Twilight Zone. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guessed this woman was propositioning him. “A gold star,” Kurt said.

He glanced at the screen. The spreadsheet had vanished and a darker screen opened up. It showed a pair of columns made up of boxes. Each box had a photograph of something inside, a sparkling new Learjet in one, a small cache of what appeared to be diamonds in the second box. A caption underneath it read “400 carats total, all stones VS or VVS.” A third box indicated the racehorse he’d seen, Desert Rose. Numbers underneath each box indicated supplemental money contributions. Apparently, the business wasn’t as cash-free as El Din suspected.

Kurt assumed these boxes contained bids for whatever it was Acosta was selling. Kurt followed the lines across the screen to the second column of images. Each of these seemed to be a work of art.

Kurt noticed a variety of artistic styles: cubist, classical, and even some old masters.

“Roll the cursor over the paintings,” the woman said. “You’ll get a description and a better understanding.”

With one eye on his strangely helpful friend and the other on the computer, Kurt did as she said.

The descriptions were odd. Kurt quickly understood why.

“ ‘Weapons expert, known to have worked with the Syrian government on chemical dispersants,’” Kurt read aloud.

The next “painting” was captioned “Guidance system engineer, familiar with Soviet and American designs.”

The third had nothing but a group of odd words: “ZSumG,” “Montresor,” “Xeno9X9.”

“Those are hacker names,” she said. “Handles. That’s what — or whom — he’s selling.”

Kurt thought about what she’d said on the phone. He scrolled down. There were a dozen more boxes labeled with works of art. He checked every box but found no sign of Sienna Westgate.

He looked up just in time to see the woman lunge for his gun.

She moved quickly, but Kurt had been expecting it sooner or later. He snapped his arm out of reach, grabbed her with his other hand, and threw her off the desk. She came up swinging a four-inch dagger. Kurt stepped out of range and knocked over a metallic sculpture that looked vaguely human. It crashed to the floor as the woman lunged forward again.

With his free hand, Kurt caught her by the wrist and twisted her arm until she let go of the knife. He swung her toward the wall and slammed her into it and held her there.

She struggled for a second. To make her stop squirming, he brought the silenced pistol up once again.

“I’m not interested in killing you, but I will shoot you if you put me in danger.”

Her dark hair had fallen in front of her face. Her lip was gashed and bleeding. She stared at him, her eyes wide. There was something in that look, Kurt thought. It was recognition.

“I know you,” she said breathlessly. “White knight… Fearless… I must say, I’m surprised to see you here. You’re a bit early, I’m afraid.”

Kurt kept the pressure on her. He wasn’t falling for the distraction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“I didn’t say you had.”

“Who were you speaking to on the phone?”

She didn’t reply, but she ran her tongue across the bleeding lip, seeming to enjoy the taste of her own blood like some kind of vampire princess.

“I asked you a question.”

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

Kurt didn’t reply.

“Either kiss me or shoot me,” she said, “but I will scream if you don’t do one or the other.”

“You’re not about to scream,” Kurt said. “You want to be discovered here about as much as I do.”

Kurt hadn’t even finished his statement when she tilted her head back and shrieked at the top of her lungs.

“Damn!” Kurt shouted, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Between the screaming and the commotion, he figured it was time to shove off. He reached into her pocket, grabbed the satellite phone she’d used, and tucked it into a pocket in his coveralls.

Before he could do anything else, the door flew open and a group of Acosta’s men came piling in. They tackled Kurt and knocked the gun from his hand. He managed to throw one of them off and then slammed the second guy onto the desk, but the third guy caught him in the chin with a knee.

Kurt was knocked backward for an instant, just long enough to allow the others back into the fight. Punches landed from all sides. Unable to break free, Kurt was quickly subdued.

The men lifted him to his feet and slammed him into the same wall he’d held the strange woman against.

She was behind them now with Kurt’s pistol in hand. “Three against one,” she said. “That’s hardly fair.”

Without hesitation, she began firing, drilling holes in the men who restrained Kurt. They dropped to the ground all around him. And she kept firing, making certain they were dead. With the three men lying still on the floor, she tossed the pistol to Kurt.

“Better run,” she said quickly. “There’s plenty more where they came from.”

Kurt had no time to consider the madness. He’d landed in the middle of something strange. Damned strange.

He looked out into the hall. Men with guns were running his way. He shut the door and ducked back into the room.

“You should have kissed me,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Maybe next time.”

He turned and blasted three holes in the window and then dove through it, shattering the weakened plate glass and landing on the deck outside.

He got up quickly and sprinted for the stern as an alarm began to blare overhead. Gunshots followed, coming from above and behind, and bullets ricocheted off the deck all around him.

Taking cover, Kurt pressed himself against the superstructure, changed out the spent magazine, fired a few shots, and then scrambled beneath the steel beams supporting the helipad. He gazed up, looking jealously at the shiny helicopter. Realizing it could be a problem for him later, he aimed for the cockpit and reeled off a half dozen shots, shattering the side window, drilling a few holes in the instrument panel and a few more in the sheet metal where the fuel tank was located. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit anything vital, but any pilot would have to think twice before taking the helicopter for a spin.

Ducking back into the shadows, Kurt checked the clip in his Beretta. Four shells left. “Time to abandon ship,” he muttered.

The sound of booted feet pounding the stairway from above only reinforced his decision.

He fired two shots toward the approaching crewmen and took off for the railing. At the same instant, one of Acosta’s men came racing around the corner. They collided like two cars at an intersection.

Kurt hit the deck and rolled over, looking for the Beretta, turned back the other way and came face-to-face with a Colt .45 aimed at his chest. The man holding it had wispy blond hair, pale eyes, and a hollow face that looked almost skeletal in the dim light.

“Hands up,” he said, inching toward Kurt until the weapon was no more than eight inches from his nose.

Kurt raised his arms slowly. The man relaxed a bit and used his free hand to depress a small radio attached to his collar. “This is Caleb,” the man said. “I have the intruder. Do you want to interrogate him?”

A second of static preceded the reply. “No,” a man Kurt assumed was Acosta said. “Just shoot him and bring me his body.”

As the words came from Acosta’s mouth, Kurt hit the thumb switch on his left wrist guard. The powerful magnet came on instantly. It drew the heavy metal gun to the side just as Caleb pulled the trigger. Fire exploded from the barrel, and the bullet hit six inches to the left, punching a hole in the teak deck instead of Kurt’s skull.

Caleb stared in disbelief as the Colt stuck to the magnet on Kurt’s left arm. He never saw Kurt’s right hand balled into a fist and flying toward his jaw. The blow knocked him sideways and sent him sprawling onto the deck.

Kurt sprang to his feet and dashed for the rail without looking back. At a full run, he put his hands on the rail and hurtled over it. He swung through the air — holding the rail for a split second longer than necessary — and then he vanished into the dark.

On the bridge of the Massif, Rene Acosta waited to hear that the intruder was dead. To his surprise, Caleb’s voice came over the radio sounding angry and somewhat panicked.

“The intruder has gone overboard,” he shouted. “I repeat, the intruder has escaped and gone over the rail.”

Acosta lifted a radio to his mouth. “I told you to shoot him!”

“I did,” Caleb said.

“Then, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “But I’m sure I hit him!”

Acosta burned with indignation, half at Caleb for such stupidity, half at the intruder for having the insolence to crash his party.

He glanced over at the yacht’s captain and made a twirling motion with his hand. “Turn us around. We’re going to have a hunting party.”

At that moment Kovack came in, waving for Acosta’s attention with his bandaged, handless arm. As Acosta looked his way, Kovack slung Calista onto the deck. She landed at Acosta’s feet.

“She was found in your cabin.”

“My cabin?”

Calista spoke up with a snarl. “The intruder broke into my cabin first,” she insisted. “He put a gun to my head and dragged me out the window while your inept fools snoozed outside my door.”

Acosta glared at her. Another lie. There was always another lie waiting on her lips.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” he boomed. “You’re dressed differently than you were before. Perhaps we’re seeing your true colors.”

“Look at me,” she said. Her face was bruised, the split lip swollen and wet with blood. “Does it look like I went to your cabin of my own accord?”

Acosta turned to Kovack. “Did you or your men hit her?”

“No,” Kovack insisted.

“Tell them how you found us,” Calista prodded.

Kovack hesitated.

“Well?”

“Her screams alerted us to his presence,” Kovack said. “If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have known he was there.”

By now Acosta could feel the ship leaning into the turn. He had bigger issues to deal with. “Lock her back in her cabin and post a guard outside her window,” he ordered. “And then join me on deck with rifles and a spotlight.”

“The guests are concerned,” another one of Acosta’s people mentioned.

“Tell them we’re going to have a bit of sport,” he replied. “The intruder is in the water. I’ll give ten thousand dollars to whoever gets off the killing shot.”

Five miles behind the Massif, Joe Zavala stood at the bow of the small fishing boat, trying to keep the speeding yacht in sight. At this point he could track the warm glow from the ship’s interior lights. But if she went dark, they would have a problem.

He turned to El Din, who stood at the helm. “We’re still falling back. Can’t you goose any more speed out of this lobster boat?”

“Patience,” El Din said. “Remember, patience may be bitter, but its result is sweet.”

Joe cut his eyes at El Din. “I’m not interested in learning patience. Just keeping that yacht in sight.”

Without warning, the tracking scanner began to chirp. “It’s the beacon. He’s in the water.”

“Thank Allah,” El Din said. He shoved the throttles full on to the stops, hoping for more speed than the boat possessed.

“What happened to all that ‘patience’?” Joe asked.

“I was never very good at it,” El Din said. “Besides, the time for patience is over. Now is the time for action.”

Joe could not agree more. Kurt had been aboard the Massif for just under an hour, but it felt like half the night. He placed the scanner down and raised the spotter’s scope up to his eye. Almost immediately he saw something he didn’t like.

“Damn.”

“What is it?”

“The yacht’s turning broadside,” Joe said. “They’re coming back around.”

The Massif turned in a wide arc, shedding velocity as it went. By the time its rudder was back on center, the huge vessel was making no more than five knots.

Standing on the bridge, Acosta marked a spot on the GPS map where the stowaway had gone overboard.

“Hold this speed and keep the ship stable,” he ordered. “I want you to make slow passes back and forth through this area until we spot and kill the intruder.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said. He didn’t bat an eye at the brutal order.

With that done, Acosta stepped out on the deck. Caleb waited there holding a bolt-action hunter’s rifle. “Give me that,” Acosta said. “You might miss again.”

Caleb scowled and handed the rifle to his master.

In addition to his own hand, Acosta had stationed teams of armed men at various spots on the main deck. Two groups stood amidships, one on each side. Two more men waited at the stern.

“Lights to full,” Acosta ordered.

Around them exterior lights lit up the waters of the Persian Gulf in a swath two hundred feet wide and five hundred feet long. Two spotlights above the bridge came on and were aimed ahead and outward at forty-five-degree angles in order to cover the most water possible.

“This won’t take long,” Acosta promised, wrapping the rifle’s strap around his forearm.

“Target off the starboard beam,” someone shouted.

Acosta was on the port side. He strode back through the bridge and pushed out through the starboard door just as his men opened fire. Ribbons of water flew up where the men laced bullets into the fire zone.

Acosta raised his weapon and spotted the target quickly: a flash of white clothing. He fired once — a direct hit. The coveralls jerked as the bullet found its mark, but there was no blood or even the slightest defensive reaction.

As the target drifted closer, Acosta saw why. The stolen coveralls were empty. They floated past in a tangle, sliding gently across the waves.

More shots rang out.

“Hold your fire!” Acosta shouted. “There’s no one there. He must have shed the clothing and left them behind as a decoy.”

The shooting ceased, and Acosta turned his attention back toward the inscrutable waters, looking for any sign of the man who’d come aboard his yacht.

After several minutes with nothing to see, he lost his patience. “Take us back around,” he bellowed. “He has to be out here somewhere.”

In fact, Kurt was much closer than Acosta could have guessed. He was clinging to the side of the ship, twenty feet below the main deck, about six feet from the rushing water.

As he’d hurtled over the railing, he’d held on for a split second longer than necessary, converting his outward and downward motion into a turning arc. The trajectory had slammed him into the side of the yacht just as he’d activated the magnetic pads once again.

It had been an awkward, jarring crash, but the magnets didn’t care. Once again they’d done the trick, locking him to the steel hull and holding him in place.

From there, Kurt had crabbed his way forward and parked himself in a spot below the Massif ’s four-ton anchor.

After tearing off the white coveralls and throwing them into the sea, he waited patiently as the yacht reversed course and slowed to a crawl. Aside from some strain on his arms and legs, Kurt was quite comfortable. Assuming the battery packs held out, he could hang in there for quite some time. And he intended to do just that.

Sooner or later, Acosta would give up, douse the lights, and turn back onto his original course. At that point Kurt would slip off the side and into the darkness, treading water until the yacht was far enough away for Joe and El Din to come get him.

After three runs back and forth, Kurt figured the towel was close to being thrown in. He grinned in the dark at his own tactical brilliance, all but ready to pat himself on the back, when he noticed something he hadn’t expected.

Speeding toward them, just barely visible in the moonlight, was the silhouette of a long-nosed fishing boat.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kurt whispered. “What can they possibly be thinking?”

And then it dawned on him. He glanced at his right arm where the key pocket was. It had been torn open, perhaps in the scuffle with the woman or even with Acosta’s thug.

With nothing to keep it secure, the transmitter had either been caught in the coveralls when Kurt pulled them off or had simply fallen into the sea as he climbed around on the side of the hull. No doubt it was now bobbing in the water somewhere, broadcasting a message to his friends and luring them unwittingly toward the monstrous yacht bristling with gun-toting thugs.