Ghost Ship

THIRTY

As the Condor continued to drift, dusk gave way to darkness and the lonely feeling of isolation. The ship, normally a hub of activity, was quiet as the crew prepared to fight if necessary. But the feared borders never materialized, and Paul began to wonder if they’d read suspicious intentions into a harmless situation.

“Any change?” he asked the radar operator as he stepped onto the bridge.

“No, sir,” the crewman replied. “Whoever they are, they’ve drifted along with us for the past three hours.”

Sensing the danger had passed, especially with the tug only an hour away, Paul had a new idea. “We have a high-speed launch on this boat, don’t we?”

“An FRC,” the crewman replied. “Fast rescue craft.”

“Good,” Paul said. “Have it readied. I’m going to take it out and investigate our mystery contact.”

“Not without me, you won’t,” a voice insisted from behind him.

Paul turned to see Gamay in the doorway. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “In fact, I think we should make it a double date. Bring Duke and Elena.”

Shortly thereafter, the four of them were aboard the quickest of Condor’s motorized launches, a sleek machine constructed by the Dutch Special Marine Group. In design, the thirty-foot boat looked like a police river cruiser on steroids, with a high bow, an open deck, and a centralized control console and navigation mast. Powered by a throaty Volvo water jet, it raced across the waves at forty knots.

Paul stood at the bow with Gamay while Duke handled the controls and Elena prepared a raft of weapons obtained from the Condor’s arms locker just in case they were needed.

Navigating from dead reckoning, Duke offered an update. “We should be close enough to see the target in a few minutes,” he said, “assuming she has any sort of running lights on.”

Peering through the darkness, Paul nodded. He saw nothing yet.

“What’s our plan when we arrive?” Gamay asked.

“Plan?” Paul asked.

“Plan,” Gamay repeated. “You know, that thing you come up with in advance so you can throw it out the window when everything goes haywire.”

“Oh yeah,” Paul said. “I figure we encircle the target and, should it be a threat, talk the captain into surrendering.”

Gamay sighed. “Yep,” she said, “that will go right out the window.”

Paul chuckled at his wife’s concern. “I don’t think we’re dealing with anything hostile,” he said. “I think we’re going to find another ship in distress like our own.”

“Then why do we all have weapons?” Elena asked. She held a pistol. Two AR-15s rested on the deck. Paul and Gamay would carry the rifles.

“For the inevitable moment when my guess turns out to be wrong,” Paul deadpanned.

As the FRC raced on through the darkness, the radio squawked with a barely audible signal as the chief called them.

“FRC, this is Condor. You’ve gone off the scope. We’re not reading your signature anymore. Based on course and speed, you should be rounding third and heading for home.”

The transmission was coded in simple terms in case anyone was listening. “Rounding third” told Paul they were about three miles from the target. He grabbed the microphone. “Are you holding us up or waving us on?”

“No sign of outfielders ready to throw home,” the chief replied. “Keep on running.”

“Wilco,” Paul said. He put the radio down. “Coast is clear,” he told the others.

“So thought the mouse, as she raced for the cheese,” said Gamay.

Paul returned to the bow, watching and waiting.

“She must be running dark,” Gamay said, “or we’d see her lights by now.”

“Have to agree with that,” Paul said. He looked up. The waxing moon was three-quarters full and casting a fair amount of light on this cloudless night. Even if the target was running dark, they should have been able to see it.

“Duke, what’s our heading?”

“Zero nine five,” Duke replied.

“It should be right in front of us.”

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Elena suggested.

“A ghost?” Paul said.

Elena rolled her eyes. “On the radar. You know, a false return.”

Paul had to consider that a possibility and began to wonder if they’d made the trip for nothing. He pulled on a set of night vision goggles and stared until he finally saw an outline growing on the horizon. It was low and long and just barely jutting above the calm sea.

“Dead ahead,” he said. “At last.”

The gray bulk of the target began to grow larger, though it was hard to calculate distance in the dark.

“Cut our speed,” Paul said. “Give us ten knots.”

The roar of the engine dropped down to a heavy purr, and the wind noise lessened as the FRC slowed appreciably. It didn’t appear they were dealing with a threat.

Paul glanced at Gamay. “So much for a trap,” he said.

“Famous last words.”

They moved in closer, and the black hulk in the darkness began blocking out the horizon to either side of them. Paul estimated the target to be nearly five hundred feet from stem to stern. There were no smokestacks or antennas, no defined areas of superstructure, that he could see. And though some sections were higher than others, there was a rounded effect to them, more like a river barge piled high with coal or some other bulk commodity.

“Looks like a barge,” Paul said.

“What’s a barge doing all the way out here?” Elena asked.

No one ventured a guess.

“Take us around to port,” Paul said.

Duke cut the wheel, and the FRC turned right and traveled down one side of the vessel. As they passed the end of the derelict, Duke took them up along the other side.

“Rounded end,” Paul said. “This is the stern.”

“It’s not a barge,” Gamay added, “it’s a ship.”

“A dark, dead ship,” Elena said.

“A ghost ship,” Gamay replied.

Even Paul had to admit there was something ominous about the vessel, something the grainy gangrene-tinted view through the night vision goggles only added to. Mist shrouding the ship, backlit by the stars and the sliver moon, gave it a spectral aura.

“Ghost ship,” Gamay whispered.

Paul had seen enough. He pulled off the goggles and went to the FRC’s small mast. As a rescue boat, the FRC was equipped with a row of powerful lights. Paul switched the main flood on and turned it toward the target’s hull.

The garish light spread across heavy steel plate, rusted and corroded as if the ship had been drifting for years. The ship’s portholes appeared to be sealed shut and were opaque with a tawny scale. A line of them ran just above the waterline.

As Paul panned the light, it revealed tangled lines running across the hull, strands of brown and green. It took a moment for any of them to realize what they were looking at.

Gamay was first. “Vines,” she said.

Duke brought the throttle back to idle, and Paul angled the spotlight, tracking a tangled group of the vines that ran up the side of the hull past what should have been the sharp edge of the main deck but what was, in fact, an eroding slope of tancolored sediment.

“What in the world…”

Up on top, the vines ran everywhere like ivy draping an old stone wall. Dying grasses, weeds, and tangled scrub brush grew where the superstructure should have been.

Duke shook his head at the sight. “I’ve found some strange things floating out at sea before, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

They passed the bow without sighting any markings, and Duke brought them back amidships.

“I think we should go back to the Condor,” Gamay said abruptly.

Paul turned. “Aren’t you curious about what we’ve found here?”

“Of course,” she said, “I’m as intrigued as you are. But we came here to see if the target was a threat or a vessel in need of our help. It’s obviously neither. With that established, we should get back home before anything strange occurs.”

Paul studied his wife. “Not like you to be the voice of reason,” he said. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“On the nightstand back home with my car keys,” she said.

He laughed. “We’ve come this far. Might as well go aboard.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” she asked.

Paul looked at her as if it was obvious. “Tarzan style of course,” he said, pointing to the vines.