Sacred Stone

21

THE VIEW FROM the front window of the helicopter was a field of lights. On Hanley’s orders the crew of the Oregon had lit all the available lights and the ship looked like a Christmas tree against the dark sky. Flying with only instruments was nerve-racking, and Adams was glad they could soon touch down. Lining up behind the stern, he descended and hovered at the rear of the ship then gradually eased forward until the Robinson was over the landing pad.

Then Adams lightly touched down and began the shutdown procedure.

“Hard flight,” Cabrillo said as he waited for the rotor blade to stop spinning.

“It was white knuckle most of the way,” Adams admitted.

“Hell of a job, George,” Cabrillo said.

Before Adams could answer, the Oregon’s medical officer, Julia Huxley, raced over and opened the door just as the rotor stopped and Adams engaged the brake. Right behind her was Franklin Lincoln.

“He’s in back,” Cabrillo said.

Huxley nodded and opened the rear door and quickly checked Ackerman’s vital signs. Then she stood back and Lincoln reached in and lifted the archaeologist, sleeping bag and all, into his arms. Carrying Ackerman in front at waist level, he raced for the sick bay with Huxley following closely. Hanley walked over as Cabrillo was climbing from the helicopter. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries.

“Murph called from the Akbar.”

“He’s compromised?” Cabrillo asked expectantly.

“Nope,” Hanley said as he steered Cabrillo toward the door leading into the interior of the Oregon, “he heard some noises and freed himself. After waiting a safe amount of time, he ventured from the cabin where he was being held and started searching around. The ship was empty and there was no sign where Al-Khalifa and his crew had gone, so he risked a call.”

The men had exited the rear deck and were heading down the passageway to the control room.

“Did he recover the meteorite?” Cabrillo asked.

“It was gone,” Hanley said as he opened the door to the control room. “We’re receiving tracking signals from the bugs you left, but they’re intermittent.”

The men walked into the control room.

“Where are the signals originating from?” Cabrillo asked.

Hanley pointed to a monitor. “There,” he said, “the track was heading north but now it’s heading east in the sea above Iceland.”

“He switched boats,” Cabrillo said, “but why?”

“That’s the question,” Hanley said.

“How far are we from the Akbar?”

Without replying, Stone entered commands into the computer and an image came onto a monitor on the wall. A video camera that was lit by spotlights on the Oregon’s bow was filming.

The Akbar was dead ahead.

THE FREE ENTERPRISE was steaming at full speed through the tossing seas.

“Stop at the Faeroe Islands,” a man said over a secure link. “I’ll have someone at the local airport to pick up the package.”

“Where do you want us after that?” the captain asked.

“Calais,” the man stated, “the rest of the team is there.”

“Very good, sir,” the captain said.

The man added, “One more thing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Explain to the team they each have a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus coming,” he said, “and be sure they know that Hughes’s family will be well compensated for their loss.”

“I’ll do that, sir,” the captain said.

The man disconnected then reached for a folder on his desk. He removed the sale document for the British textile firm as well as the authorization for payment. He signed both, then fed them into a fax machine and awaited receipt.

Once he received the confirmation, he stood back for a moment.

The first part of his plan was now in place. Soon it would be time for the payback.

AT THE SAME time the fax was traveling to England over the telephone line, the cargo ship Larissa was rounding Cabo de Finisterre. The captain set a course for Brest, which was located on the point of France that led into the English Channel. The night air was cool and the skies overhead were clear with a blanket of billions of stars.

He watched as a comet streaked across the sky.

Nodding in approval, he lit a cigarette, sipped from a silver flask containing ouzo, and then scratched the itch on his arm. A thin trickle of blood oozed to the surface and he dabbed at it with a rag.

In two more days they’d reach London and then he’d have the rash examined.

USING THE COMPUTER-CONTROLLED thrusters, Hanley placed the Oregon directly alongside the Akbar. Cabrillo was the first across, followed by Seng, Jones, Meadows and Linda Ross. Murphy was waiting on the deck. Pieces of his vinyl mask were still visible near his hairline. As soon as Cabrillo was on deck, Murphy motioned to the open door.

“Tell me what you heard and what happened afterward,” Cabrillo said as he followed Murphy into the main salon.

Murphy explained the light popping sounds and the masked man entering his cabin.

“It was all over in five minutes,” he said as the rest of the team finished filing into the salon. “I waited another ten minutes before venturing out.”

“Search every compartment,” Cabrillo ordered. “I want some answers.”

The team split up and fanned out through the vessel. Rifles and handguns were strewn about the staterooms, as well as clothing, personal items and suitcases. The beds were rumpled and some had the covers pulled back. Copies of the Koran were in every cabin and shoes were still sitting by the beds on the floor.

It was as if a UFO had come down and snatched the men into the heavens.

ON BOARD THE Oregon, Hanley made sure the thrusters were adjusted properly then turned to Stone. “Take the helm,” he said, “I’m going across.”

Stone slid into Hanley’s seat and began to adjust the cameras on deck so he could watch what was happening.

Hanley stepped across to the Akbar and made his way into the main salon. Meadows was waving a Geiger counter around the long dining table.

“It was here,” he said as Hanley passed through the room.

Just up the passageway Ross was holding a spray bottle containing blue liquid. She sprayed the walls then slipped on a pair of goggles as Hanley passed behind her. Hanley continued down to a stairway.

“If they transferred to another ship,” Cabrillo was saying to Murphy just as Hanley opened the door to the cabin, “why didn’t they take their personal belongings?”

“Maybe they didn’t want anything with them that might be traced back to here,” Hanley said.

“Doesn’t make any sense,” Cabrillo noted. “They go through the trouble to kidnap who they think is the emir of Qatar, then they leave him, as well as a multimillion-dollar yacht, unattended?”

“They must be planning on returning,” Murphy offered.

Right then Seng popped his head inside the cabin. “Mr. Chairman, Ross has something she wants to show you,” he said.

The four men filed down the passageway to where Ross was standing. On the wall were areas outlined with barriers of sprayed foam. The walls inside the barriers were tinted blue. Ross slid off the goggles and handed them to Cabrillo silently.

Cabrillo slid the goggles over his head and stared at the areas. The fluorescent glow of blood splatters looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. He slid off the goggles and handed them to Hanley.

“They tried to clean it off,” Ross said, “but it was a fast and dirty job.”

Just at that instant Stone’s voice came out of a radio clipped to Cabrillo’s belt.

“Mr. Cabrillo, Mr. Hanley,” he said, “there’s something you need to see.”

The two men walked down the hallway out through the main salon, then onto the rear deck and across to the Oregon. They quickly walked down the hall to the control room.

Cabrillo opened the door. Stone pointed to a monitor on the wall.

“I thought it was a dead baby whale,” he said, “until it flipped over and I saw a face.”

Just then another body surfaced.

“Have Reyes and Kasim fish them out,” Cabrillo said to Hanley, “I’m going back across.”

Cabrillo left the control room and stepped across to the Akbar. Seng was in the main salon when Cabrillo entered. “Meadows thinks that the object was only in here,” Seng said. “He’s looking through the rest of the ship, but so far it’s clean of radiation.”

Cabrillo nodded.

“Ross has found blood in the pilothouse and staterooms as well as in and around the main salon and passageways. The captain was on duty, the posted guards and the rest were sleeping. That would be my guess.”

Cabrillo nodded again.

“Whoever hit them, boss,” Seng said, “came in hard and fast.”

“I’m going to the pilothouse,” Cabrillo said, walking away.

Once there he examined the ship’s log. The last entry was only two hours old and it stated nothing out of the ordinary. Whoever the visitors were, they’d come unannounced.

After leaving the pilothouse, Cabrillo was walking down the hall when his radio was called.

“Mr. Cabrillo,” Huxley’s voice said, “come to the sick bay at once.”

Cabrillo made his way through the Akbar and back across to the Oregon once again.

Reyes and Kasim were out on the deck with boat hooks in their hands. They were pushing a body toward a lowered net hung from a cable attached to a derrick. Cabrillo made his way inside and headed down the passageway to the sick bay and opened the door.

Ackerman was lying on an exam table covered by electric warming blankets.

“He’s been trying to talk,” Huxley said. “I wrote it all down, but it was mostly gibberish until a few minutes ago.”

“What then?” Cabrillo asked, staring down at Ackerman, whose eyes had started to flutter. One eye cracked open just a touch.

“He started talking about the ghost,” she said, “not a ghost, the Ghost, as if it were a nickname.”

Just then Ackerman spoke again. “I should have never trusted the Ghost,” he said in a voice growing weaker by the word. “He bought and paid for the un…ivers…ity.”

Ackerman started convulsing. His body began to shake like a dog exiting the water.

“Mom,” he said weakly.

And then he died.

No matter how much Huxley shocked him, his heart would not start again. It was just after midnight when she pronounced him dead. Cabrillo carefully reached up and closed Ackerman’s eyes, then covered him with a blanket.

“You did the best you could,” he said to Huxley.

Then he left the sick bay and walked down the Oregon’s passageway.

Ackerman’s words were still ringing in his head.

Walking onto the stern of the ship, he found Hanley staring over a trio of bodies. Hanley was holding an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch computer picture in his hand.

“I enhanced the photograph with a computer to distort the face in order to account for the swelling,” he said as soon as Cabrillo walked closer.

Cabrillo took the photograph from Hanley, bent down next to the body, and held it to the face. He stared at the face of the corpse and then the photograph.

“Al-Khalifa,” he said slowly.

“He must have been weighed down and tossed overboard,” Hanley noted. “The only thing was that the killers didn’t know that the bottom of the ocean around here is littered with geothermal vents. The hot water caused the bodies to quickly bloat and overcome the weight. If it weren’t for that, we’d have never found them.”

“Have you ID’d the others?” Cabrillo asked.

“I haven’t found any records yet,” Hanley said, “plus there are more surfacing as we speak. Probably just Al-Khalifa’s minions.”

“Not minions,” Cabrillo said, “madmen.”

“Now the question is…” Hanley said.

“Who is crazy enough,” Cabrillo said, “to steal from other crazies.”