Ghost Ship

FOUR

A flash of blue lightning forked across the horizon. For a second or two it lit up the gray darkness where sea and storm met. Kurt Austin stared into that darkness from the rear section of a Sikorsky Jayhawk as the big helicopter shouldered its way through bands of pouring rain. Turbulence shook the craft, and thirty-foot swells rolled beneath them, their tops blown off by the howling wind.

As the lightning faded, Kurt saw his reflection on the glass. Roughly forty, with silver-gray hair, Kurt was handsome in the right kind of light. A strong jawline and piercing blue eyes saw to that. But like a truck that spent its days on the worksite instead of in the garage, his face carried the miles in plain view.

The lines around his eyes were etched a little deeper than most. A collection of faded scars from fistfights, car crashes, and other incidents marked his brow and jaw. It was the face of a man who seemed ready for anything, determined and unyielding, even as the helicopter neared the limits of its range.

He pressed the intercom switch and looked ahead to where his friend Joe Zavala sat in the copilot’s seat. “Anything?”

“Nothing,” Joe called back.

Kurt and Joe worked for NUMA, the National Underwater Marine Agency, a branch of the American government dedicated to the study and preservation of the sea. But, at the moment, they were part of a makeshift rescue team called on to assist a group of floundering vessels that had been caught in a debilitating storm.

As they flew on, the radio crackled with static and rapid-fire conversations between the South African Coast Guard and the small group of rescue craft.

“Sapphire Two, what’s your position?”

“Sapphire Two has contact with the Endless Road. She appears to be drifting but watertight. Four crew are visible. Maneuvering into position for basket rescue.”

“Roger that, Sapphire Two. Sapphire Three, what’s your status?”

“Inbound with rescues. Two appear to have hypothermia, third is stable.”

The storm had come barreling in from the southeast, gaining intensity as it approached the Cape of Good Hope. It swept up several freighters, including a thousand-foot containership, and then swung north and set its sights on a group of yachts and other pleasure craft involved in a friendly race from Durban to Australia.

The fury of the storm and its sudden arrival had taxed the South African Coast Guard to the limit. They’d called for any able assistance, enlisting the help of a Royal Navy frigate, two American supply ships, and the NUMA research vessel Condor.

Seventy miles east of the Condor, Kurt, Joe, and the pilot of the Jayhawk were nearing the GPS coordinates they’d been given. But they’d yet to spot a thing.

“We should be almost on top of her,” Kurt said.

“She might have gone down,” the pilot replied.

Kurt didn’t want to consider that. By a strange twist of fate, he knew the family on the yacht they were attempting to assist. At least he knew one of them.

“How much fuel?”

“We’re Bingo in ten minutes.”

At that point, they’d have only enough fuel to make it back to the Condor and would have to turn around or risk splashing down short of home and needing rescue themselves.

“Stretch it,” Kurt said.

“The headwinds are killing us.”

“There’ll be tailwinds on the way home,” Kurt insisted. “Keep going.”

The pilot clammed up, and Kurt turned his eyes back to the sea.

“I have something,” Joe shouted, holding a hand to his headset. “It’s weak, but I think it’s their emergency beacon. Turn right to zero seven zero.”

The helicopter banked into the turn, and several minutes later Kurt spied the hull of a hundred-sixty-foot yacht listing to one side. She was still afloat but down at the bow, and all but awash in the waves.

“Take us in,” Kurt ordered.

He yanked open the cargo door, sliding it back and locking it in place. Wind and rain whipped into the cabin.

A winch system and four hundred feet of cable would allow them to lift survivors on board, but they had no basket, so Kurt would have to go down and grab them himself. He clicked the cable to the harness he’d pulled on previously and slid himself to the edge, feet dangling over the side.

“I see no one,” the pilot said.

“They could be clinging to the side,” Kurt replied. “Take us around.”

Kurt could feel adrenaline surging through his body, much as it had been since the details of the damaged craft came in from the South African Coast Guard station.

“Vessel Ethernet reports heavy flooding,” the South African controller had informed them. “NUMA Jayhawk, please assist. You are only rescue in range.”

“Confirm vessel ID?” Kurt had asked, hardly believing what he’d heard.

“Ethernet,” the controller advised. “Out of San Francisco. Seven persons known to be aboard. Including Brian Westgate, his wife, and two children.”

Brian Westgate was an Internet billionaire. His wife, Sienna, was an old friend of Kurt’s. Years earlier, she’d been the love of his life.

The message had stunned Kurt in a way few things ever did, but he was the type to recover quickly. He blocked out any thoughts of the past or fears of not reaching the yacht in time and focused on the task at hand.

“Get the spotlight on, Joe!”

As the helicopter circled the floundering vessel and dropped toward it, Kurt could see waves sweeping over the hull. The only saving grace was that the forward superstructure was being sheltered by the aft section of the ship.

Joe turned on the spotlight, and the rain became a field of slashing lines. The effect was blinding for a moment, but once Joe got the angle right, Kurt could see the hull more clearly. He caught a glimpse of orange.

“There! Near the bridge.”

The pilot saw it too. He maneuvered the helicopter closer, as Joe unlatched himself and came back to operate the winch.

“This cable isn’t designed to hoist people,” he reminded Kurt.

“It tows a sonar array,” Kurt said.

“The fish only weighs ninety pounds.”

“It’ll do the job,” Kurt said. “Now, release the tension.”

Joe hesitated, and once Kurt had looked down and gauged their position, he reached up and punched the tensioner himself. Before Joe could stop him, he’d dropped from the edge of the helicopter.

Holding a mask to his face and pointing his feet straight down, Kurt hit the water at the top of a swell and plunged through it. For a long moment, he was bathed in the strange muted silence of the sea. It was calming and peaceful.

And then he surfaced into the maelstrom.

The swells were like rolling mountains, and droplets from the torrential downpour danced on the surface in every direction.

Turning to the floundering yacht, Kurt began kicking hard toward it.

Reaching the vessel amidships, he stretched for the rail. Before he could get a firm grip, a trough rolled by, and he dropped down along the side of the hull. He fought to stay in position, until the next swell arrived. It carried him upward until he was even with the deck. This time he quickly grabbed the rail and pulled himself aboard. He clambered across the deck, scarcely avoiding being washed overboard by another wave.

He reached the bridge, where he found the windows smashed in. The orange flash he’d assumed to be a life vest was nowhere to be seen.

“Sienna!” he shouted. It was useless against the wind.

He peered inside. Several feet of water sloshed around. For a second he thought he saw a body, but the power was out, and in the darkness it could have been anything. He grabbed the hatchway door and yanked it open, forcing his way in.

The vessel groaned ominously as it wallowed in the storm. Everything around Kurt seemed to be moving. He raised his arm and switched on a waterproof flashlight that was strapped to it.

The beam played on the water and flared as it reflected off a wall of glass behind the bridge. In some corner of his mind, Kurt remembered reading about the yacht’s design. Every wall in the upper deck was acrylic. It was supposed to make the inside of the vessel seem more spacious. If privacy was needed, they could be darkened with the flick of a switch.

Another wave hit the ship and she rolled a little farther. Kurt found himself sliding toward that glass wall as green seawater began pouring in through the open hatch.

Furniture, charts, life vests, and other kinds of detritus sloshed around him. Kurt stood and steadied himself. His arm came out of the water, and the light played off the glass once again. For a moment, it flared, blinding him, but as he adjusted his aim he saw a face on the other side. A woman’s face framed in wet blond hair. A child floated beside her, a towheaded blond girl, no more than six or perhaps seven. Her eyes were open but unresponsive.

Kurt lunged toward them only to crash into a glass partition.

“Sienna!” he shouted.

There was no response.

The water was rising more rapidly now. It swirled up around Kurt’s chest as he slammed his fist against the glass and then tried to smash it with a chair he found floating beside him. The partition held against two solid blows. And as Kurt reared back for a third swing, the ship rolled farther and the water reached his neck.

The yacht was going over. He could feel it.

Without warning, the harness snapped tight around him, and Kurt felt himself being dragged backward.

“No!” he shouted, only to swallow a mouthful of water.

He was being pulled backward against a great current flooding into the bridge. It was like being dragged upward through a waterfall. For a brief instant, he saw the faces again, and then his mask was ripped off and the world went blurry and green. The cable jerked once more, pulling him hard and slamming his head against the doorframe in the process.

Dazed and barely conscious, Kurt sensed he’d been pulled free. But his progress was slowing. Some part of him knew the reason: Joe and the pilot must have maneuvered the helicopter to drag him out of the sinking vessel. They’d managed to yank him clear, but the cable must have snapped, perhaps when he hit the bulkhead.

He tried to swim, kicking feebly, but his mind was cloudy and his muscles were mostly unresponsive. Instead of rising, he was being pulled deeper, drawn down by the suction of the sinking yacht. He saw it beneath him, a gray blur retreating from the beam of his light.

Thinking only of survival, he turned his gaze upward. Above him, Kurt saw a ring of silvery light. And then, feeling only simple fascination, he watched it close like the pupil of a vast discerning eye.