The Ghost Ships of Arizona

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Drake ruminated as they crawled northeast across the desert, occasionally passing within a few miles of small towns or asphalted roads but ignoring them and keeping to Jenny’s take-it-or-leave-it style instructions. Drake took it, but with every bouncing, juddering mile he regretted it that little bit more.

Even more so with Smyth’s growling tracery of complaints trickling through the two-way. “Even my ass-crack has sand in it. This air-con’s too friggin’ cold. Whoa, was that a roadrunner?”

Eventually even Lauren had reached her limit. “Shut the hell up. My ass-crack has sand in it but you don’t hear me complaining like a six-year-old on a road trip!”

“It does?” Smyth said into the radio. “Want me to get that for you?”

“Gross!”

“Ha, says you. The New York—”

“The New York what?” Lauren’s voice dipped dangerously.

“Umm, shit, hey these radios are open. Fuck.” Smyth turned back to his irascible ways.

Drake watched as Yorgi drove. Truth be told the sighting of a distant town or twisting back road was the only brief variation to their constant monotony. So far though, there had been no sign of gun-toting mercenaries — a sign Drake took as entirely positive.

Whilst partly feigning a toilet break he wandered off into the desert during a short halt and made a phone call. His contact was an old friend, stretching all the way back to the days of Wells and Crouch, Sam and Jo. The world had seemed quieter, more innocent then. But all that was mostly down to youth and inexperience and the lack of a properly functioning Internet.

“Fort Bragg.”

“Could I speak to Colonel Rudd please?”

“On what business?”

“Tell him it’s Matt Drake and it’s personal.”

“Hold.”

The minutes ticked by. Drake shaded his eyes from the heat.

“Drake?” An American twang focused his meandering thoughts. “Is that really you? Shit, man, I heard all about your exploits. Thought you’d forgot about lil’ old me.”

“Course you did, Colonel. It must truly suck to be you.”

“You have no idea. But I’m sure you understand it’s not all pancakes and maple syrup at the top.”

“Oh, I do.”

“And Matt,” the Colonel’s voice lowered, “I was sorry to hear about Sam and Jo. And even Wells.”

Drake nodded to the desert. “Thank you.”

“But Crouch is still out there. One of the good old boys, that one. A stalwart. Called in a favor only a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure he owes me now but I would never tell him so.”

Drake was silent, contemplating all that had gone before. It was odd how the quiet and stillness of a desert panorama brought forth his inner thinker. He was still musing when Rudd spoke up.

“Drake? You still there?”

“Aye, I mean yes. I was just lost in all that has already slipped by.”

“Don’t even think about that scary shit. Now, what can I do for you?”

Drake responded to the change in tone as Rudd knew he would, the brusque tenor catching his attention. “Well, I have a strange request.”

And he launched into Karin’s story, telling as much as was relevant and ending with her request and his own promise to help. Rudd listened carefully without interruption and when Drake was done probed him with some hard questions as to her mental and physical health and prowess. Drake heard a shout — Jenny’s raucous summons — and realized time was short.

“Can you help her?”

“Matt, this is a fully functioning, hard-learning military base. If she does come here there can be no special favors.”

“That’s exactly the point.”

“And she has some idea what to expect?”

“Karin has been around soldiers for years now. Acted positively in some of our worst situations. I will vouch for her.”

“Well, what can I say to that? I don’t like it but I’m not gonna refuse you. Try again, but if you can’t change her mind send her here immediately, but once she’s in — she’s in. Get me?”

“Affirmative. I’ll explain it to her.”

“Be clear. This ain’t the fuckin’ World Championships and she ain’t that Ennis chick, Drake.”

“I understand, I think.”

Rudd sighed long and hard. “As if I ain’t got enough shit to contend with. If this fucks up, Drake, if she fucks up in any way, I’ll come looking for you.”

Drake knew it was no idle threat. “I appreciate this, mate, more than you will ever know.”

“All right, no need to bring out the English-isms. That friggin’ language of yours is hard enough to get your head around with referring to me as your ‘mate’. Shit, I’m military. Talk to your friend, Drake, and if she still wants in — send her.”

Drake signed off. The small convoy sat beyond hearing distance, now clearly waiting for him. What he would have liked right now were many moments of contemplation. An hour of examining morals and needs and plain old gut instinct. What he actually had was no time at all — not even a minute. Brushing himself off he rose and jogged back to the cars, climbed in and made ready. The two-way crackled into life and Jenny’s raucous tones lit up the air.

“We all good now?”

“We’re good. Let’s kick this mother into action.”

“Say what?”

“Let’s go.”

The cars rolled out. Drake immediately turned to Karin and relayed the conversation he’d just had with Rudd. The expression of relief that took residence in her face said it all — she needed this more than anything in her whole life. From far too young an age Karin had been losing the people most dear to her. The simple fact was that by taking control and earning confidence and training to win she saw the way to becoming the manager of her own destiny.

“First chance,” he promised. “You’re out of here.”

Yorgi piloted the car, saying nothing. Jenny broke in over the radio at random intervals, explaining their route, crossing an actual road to continue into the wilderness and avoiding human contact at all turns. The satnav told Drake they were heading in an unwieldy direction for the large body of water known as the Salton Sea, what used to be a much larger inland sea at the time of the American Indians. What even might once have been connected to the Gulf of California. The area around there was as connected with lost desert ships as much as anywhere in the world.

Karin spoke up. “An interesting thing about Thomas Cavendish, the man who attacked the Manila galleon and divided her treasure between the Content and Desire, is that he limped back into London a year later, obviously minus the Content which was never heard from again, sporting new blue sails of pure damask — he was a huge success financially and by all other means, and at twenty eight faster than Sir Francis Drake, and then knighted by the Queen—”

Drake wondered for a moment where she was getting all this information. No laptop sat open on Karin’s knee. Then he remembered. “It’s so odd knowing someone with an eidetic memory.”

Karin ignored him. “And then being dead three years later.”

“Three years?”

“Yes, buoyed by his overwhelming success Cavendish set off on a second voyage of circumnavigation and died. Unknown causes. Unknown place. His name lost through time, remembered only by a brand of pipe tobacco.”

“That is thing about time,” Yorgi said. “It erases everything.”

Drake nodded wistfully. “Eventually, even heroes turn to dust.” He spoke before his brain caught up, then kicked himself. “Bollocks.”

Karin laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right.”

Drake, embarrassed, fished out his cellphone and distracted himself with a call to Hayden. The unofficial boss of SPEAR told him that in addition to their attempting to stave off a third mercenary assault she was in touch with a local facility that was studying ground penetrating radar images of the entire Arizona/California area in question, seriously searching for anything out of the ordinary, but had so far come up blank.

“You don’t realize the size of the area you have to cover,” Hayden said.

Drake grimaced at the windshield of the car. “Y’know, I think I do.”

“The old fashioned way not so good?”

“There’s a reason it’s called ‘old fashioned’.”

“Fighting for the US government has turned you marshmallow soft,” Dahl chimed in.

Drake laughed. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

“Not that you Brits ever get far past soft, given the limits of your training.”

“Don’t even go there, pal.”

Dahl’s laugh drifting away told them he’d won that particular head-to-head, easily getting a rise out of Drake. Hayden returned and Drake explained what was going to happen to Karin. Hayden’s questioning eventually came back around to the subject of the ghost ships.

“So nothing’s jumped out at you yet?”

“Nothing that’s been buried in sand for five hundred years anyway.”

“Maybe it’s all a hoax designed to split us up.” Hayden sounded disappointed.

“And on that subject I think we should rejoin. We’re stretched. Alicia’s on the way, but still…”

“As soon as we’re done at Sierra Nevada we will rendezvous.”

“Good. Then you can take the ghost watch after midnight.”

“Sounds spooky.”

Drake was about to say, “It can be,” then heard Dahl mimicking a moaning ghost in the background. “Maybe you leave the Swedish chef behind? Do us all a favor.”

Jenny called a halt over the two-way as a glistening body of water came into view off to the left. The perimeter alone stretched further than the eye could see and there were stories that most of these reportedly lost ships were now underneath this actual sea, buried in its darkest depths. Drake suddenly felt a little overwhelmed.

“There has to be an easier way than this.”

Jenny clucked at him. “What? Ya don’t trust me now?”

“There’s one last thing,” Hayden said quietly. “We do have reinforcements on the way, but the sheer weight of enemy numbers tells us the Pythians have no concerns over that and no thought about the welfare of their men. We feel exactly the opposite. I have the ISN — the Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies — on board. They’re based at MIT but have been tasked to supply us with their latest awesome invention — nanofoam body armor.”

Drake had heard the rumors. “It exists?”

“Of course it exists. We only hear about these things when they’re old news and the military experts have moved on. Yes, they’re still being tested but we might be able to get our hands on some.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to.”

“Trust me, you do. But hey, I’ll let you know.”

Drake ended the call, wondering just how many mercenaries were out there waiting, how big his reinforcement company might be and just what would happen when the showdown began.