Ghost Ship

SEVEN

Kurt Austin arrived at the NUMA building in downtown Washington under an impossibly blue sky. He parked in the garage, made his way to the lobby, and took the elevator to the ninth floor. The receptionist was surprised to see him.

“Good morning,” he said to her, smiling and heading down the hall.

He arrived at the bull pen near his office where several others were gathered about, sipping coffee and getting ready to put in a good day’s work.

They caught sight of him and stopped.

“If even one of you claps or says, ‘Welcome back,’ I’ll assign you to McMurdo station in Antarctica for the winter and you won’t see daylight for six months.”

Knowing smiles crept across their faces, and a few nods came his way, but the response was limited to his secretary squeezing his arm and someone else offering him a cup of coffee.

Joe Zavala arrived, filled with energy and smiling as he almost always did. “Hey,” he called out loudly, “look who finally made it back to work.”

He seemed surprised by the limited reaction from the others.

“Good luck, Joe,” someone said. “Dress warm.”

“Don’t pack the sunblock,” another coworker advised.

As they passed him, Joe turned to Kurt. “What was that all about?”

“Long story,” Kurt said, surprised at how good it felt to be surrounded by friends again. “How are you on the geography of Antarctica?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I have to send you there now or lose all credibility with the staff.”

Joe narrowed his gaze. He could guess what that meant. “Considering that you wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t dove into the raging sea to pull you out after your safety cable snapped, I’d say we’re even.”

Kurt was the Director of Special Projects within NUMA. It meant he and his crew could be assigned to anything anytime, anywhere. Joe Zavala was the team’s assistant director, a fantastic engineer and one of the most resourceful people Kurt had ever known. He was also Kurt’s best friend.

“Good point,” Kurt said, unlocking the door to his office and stepping inside. “But, then again, if you hadn’t gotten so antsy and tried to reel me in like a prize marlin, I wouldn’t have cracked my noggin on that steel doorframe and scrambled up all my eggs. Thanks to you, I’ve spent the last months on a shrink’s couch.”

Joe followed Kurt in and closed the door behind him. “I’ve seen the shrink whose couch you’ve been sharing. You can thank me later.”

Kurt nodded. There was plenty of truth to that too. He sat down at his desk. It was piled high with unopened packages and unread reports. The inbox was stacked two feet high.

“Didn’t any work get done around here while I was gone?”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Where do you think all those reports came from?”

Kurt began to leaf through things, most of it dull. Maybe he’d bring those files home in case he had trouble sleeping. They seemed boring enough to put him right out.

He scanned through a stack of memos and other papers requesting his presence at meetings that were long over. Into the circular file they went.

He began to look at the mail. A couple tubes held charts he’d requested months ago. He opened a box, finding a DVD inside.

“What’s this?”

Joe leaned forward. “From the Jayhawk’s camera,” Joe said. “South African reporter turned it into a news story. It shows some of the action.”

Kurt thought about watching the video but decided against it. It couldn’t help him with the questions he had. “Too bad I didn’t have a camera on my shoulder,” he muttered.

He put the DVD aside and went through some more interoffice mail. Finally, he got down to an envelope from the South African Coast Guard. He tore it open to find a report on the storm and the rescue. He scanned it like one might read the sports page, looking only for the highlights. His attention sharpened when he came to something he didn’t know.

He sat up straight, reading the paragraph three times just to be sure.

He looked at Joe. “Brian Westgate was picked up nineteen miles from where the Ethernet went down?”

“The next day,” Joe said. “After the storm passed. He was in an inflatable raft.”

“I was under the impression he was found in a life jacket, bobbing up and down like a fighter pilot who bailed out.”

“The story was kind of spun that way. He dove out of the raft and swam to the helicopter. When they picked him up, the only video they released was of him in the water all alone. Probably a publicity thing.”

Kurt put the report down. “Doesn’t it strike you odd that he was in a raft by himself while his wife and kids were drowning?”

“He said he was trying to get the raft ready while they held fast in the bridge. A surging wave crashed onto the deck and took him and the raft overboard. According to his story, he tried like crazy to paddle back, but it was impossible.”

Kurt flicked on the computer and pulled up the NUMA mapping system, zooming in on the eastern coast of South Africa.

Running his finger beneath the numbers listed in the report, he memorized the latitude and longitude where the Ethernet foundered. He typed it into the computer and tapped the enter key. The computer marked the spot with a bright red triangle.

He did the same for the location of Westgate’s recovery and a green triangle appeared.

“Nineteen miles apart,” Kurt said. “No way.”

“It was almost thirty hours later,” Joe pointed out. “And that was a hell of a storm.”

Kurt knew what Joe was thinking, but it didn’t add up. “Unless he was drifting against the current and through a crosswind, he wound up in the wrong place.”

Kurt turned the monitor around so Joe could see. Little gray arrows denoting the prevailing current ran opposite to the direction Westgate had drifted.

“He should have wound up southwest of the yacht, not northeast.”

Joe studied it dumbfounded. “Maybe the storm caused a temporary shift in the current,” he said. “Or maybe the wind changed as the storm passed.”

“Not this much.”

Joe looked at the map again. He exhaled. “Okay. I’ll bite. What do you think happened?”

“I have no idea,” Kurt said, standing up. “Why don’t we go ask Mr. Billionaire himself? He’s got some dog and pony show going on at the Smithsonian.”

“Uhmmm…”

Kurt glanced at the clock and grabbed his keys. “Come on, we can catch him if we hurry.”

Joe was hesitating. He stood up with all the speed of a tree sloth. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

Kurt was beaming, almost manic. He thought it sounded like a great idea. Especially the part about it being in public.

“It’s fine,” he said, heading for the door. “In fact, my doctor recommended it. It’s all part of my recovery.”

With that, he stepped through the door, hitting the light switch on the way out. He didn’t turn around to see if Joe was following. He didn’t have to, he could hear Joe running to catch up with him in the hall.