The Ghost Ships of Arizona

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

Drake and Alicia finally gained the top of the slope to find themselves inside a churning world of spitting sand and debris. As one they knelt and surveyed what they could of the nightmare scene.

From here, the gaggle of mercenaries could be seen still guarding the area around the cliff edge where the galleon sat below. Together, they huddled, rifles pointed from their dark bulk, a deadly final stand. Bodies littered the area all around them.

Drake saw many prone soldiers, some not moving, others just biding their time. The battle had hit a stalemate, it seemed, as mercenaries blindly carried out their orders to protect the galleon at all costs. Drake and Alicia crawled through the eddying sand dunes until they saw a bulk they recognized.

“Dahl.”

The big Swede turned his head. “Where the hell have you two been?”

“Shagging,” Drake said bluntly. “Why are you pinned down like this?”

“Oh, because we sent out for pizza and it’s bloody late. Why the hell do you think?”

Drake studied the land ahead. It was almost completely flat. “This as close as you can get?”

“Yup.”

Kinimaka shuffled over. “Man, I think there’s a way over to the side. You see the ridge—” he pointed east, where the edge ran away. “We could hug the underside.”

Hayden nodded. “Yorgi agrees. It’s possible.”

Drake allowed the smile to sweep across his face. The team was back. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”

Careful not to bring attention to his aches and pains and the blood that coated his face, he crabbed away from the area and into the sand wall. Dahl was already regarding him weirdly, but that wasn’t exactly unusual. Alicia stayed close. Once the team had moved far enough east they headed back toward the ridge, out of sight of the mercenaries. Yorgi stepped ahead and paused at the brink of the valley.

They came up to stand all around him, gazing down. “That’s a bitch of a long way down,” Smyth growled softly. “One misstep and you’re rolling forever.”

“Not forever,” Alicia said. “Believe me.”

Drake sent his questing gaze to the right where the galleon still jutted from the cliff face. The deck was dusted now with several deposits of sand and the mercenaries defending it all looked bored. Most of them weren’t even staring up anymore, for their own good, they simply sat on the deck. The fury of the storm could not reach them but flurries of sand still rained down.

Yorgi indicated the bit of ridge that curled underneath the top part, a narrow horizontal mound, incomplete in three areas. It had been formed by piles of sand drifting over the top and collecting underneath, dangerous but for the most part offering some nice concealment.

Kinimaka grunted. “Not as big as it looks.”

Hayden nudged him. “You can always stay behind.”

“Mahalo, but that ain’t happening and you know it.”

Drake watched Yorgi fall to his knees and curl into the narrow channel before following suit. Alicia and then the others dropped inside. Slowly, the team crawled under the ridge toward the band of mercenaries, sheltered from the storm and prying eyes, clinging to the malleable side wall and hoping the sand didn’t collapse beneath them.

“Well, if we go,” Hayden said. “We all go together.”

“I can live with that,” Dahl said.

“Depends on who lands on top of you,” Alicia shot back. “I’m baggsying Yorgi — the boy/girl/man.”

“It is disrespectful.” Yorgi stopped, turned and faced her. “To call me such.”

“And baggsying?” Dahl asked. “What is that?”

“Keep going,” Drake said. “Alicia’s sorry, Yorgi. She can’t help herself and thinks you can easily pass for all three. Dahl, baggsying means to unofficially reserve something for yourself.”

In short order the crowd of mercenaries became visible and all talk ceased. Pot shots were being taken by the military but the stalemate was still in force. Walls of sand still howled from horizon to horizon. Yorgi slowed to less than a crawl.

Close enough, Drake signaled. Ready?

They were and action was called for. Drake and Alicia rose as one, hulking ghosts in the center of the storm, surrounded by roiling sand spouts, and threw grenades into the mercenary mass. Men reared away from the apparition, shocked into self-preservation. Dahl towered behind them and Kinimaka behind him, and more grenades were tossed.

Then the ghosts threw themselves flat on the floor.

Explosions louder than the blasting storm rocked the area, making the ground shake beneath their bodies. Screams started up a split second later. Drake was up and running from a standing start like a sprinter, hitting two surviving mercs before they knew what was happening. One fell with a broken neck, the other struggled and then went down with a shot to the face. Dahl passed him and then the others, all engaging the mercenary mass in close combat battle. Alicia grappled with one man on the very edge of the cliff, the pair locking fingers and swaying from side to side. Both tried to use the other’s weight against them, both tried judo throws, but to no avail. Drake saw Alicia wilt a little — the battles today had taken so much out of her — and ran over to help, but by the time he arrived Alicia had broken her opponent’s grip and booted him down the slope. They watched as he bounced twice and then struck the deck of the ship, splintering wooden planks.

“Shiver me timbers,” Drake said.

“Don’t be a knob.” Alicia shook her head, spun and engaged the next opponent.

Another grenade went off toward the back of the group. Bodies spun and flew away, some disappearing down the slope, others falling to the piled sand. Even rocks flew through the air, and the remains of stunted trees, the debris striking indiscriminately. Kinimaka lurched as he was hit by the remains of a bush, the prickly stalk latching onto the side of his head.

“Shit!”

Hayden pulled it away, wincing. Blood leaked from half a dozen small wounds. The Hawaiian forgot about it and returned to battle. Hayden emptied her Glock and then reloaded, happy to see their own soldiers joining the fray. Flurries of sand sprayed her face. Indeterminate piles made a hazard of her footing, and even they remained in motion, always drifting. Sunshine pierced the murk intermittently and often — a startling kaleidoscope of color that confused the brain. Hayden saw a soldier go down, and moved on the merc who’d clashed with him. He batted her away with a metal plated arm which she felt all the way to her toes. Both the fallen soldier and Hayden fired on the guy at the same time, sending him spinning off the cliff, then helped each other up.

They nodded, comrades in arms.

Drake faced a huge brute with a loaded RPG resting across one shoulder. In the blink of an eye he tackled the man around the waist, but the grenade went off as they fell, shooting straight up into the sky. Drake panicked. Straight up, straight down! He rolled off, ready to shout a warning, but the rocket fell and detonated off to the south, a conflagration that sent flames, sand and chunks of bark and rock flashing around the battleground. More than one man went down. Drake’s own world was then blotted out by the panoramic vision that rose before it.

That’s gonna hurt. Again.

The massive merc dropped down onto his chest, knees first, clearly enjoying himself by the split-lipped grin that marred his otherwise ugly face. Drake bore it, experiencing hurt upon hurt and bruise upon bruise and wondering just how many weeks or months it might take him to recover. The merc enjoyed himself too much, grinding with his knees and leaving the rest of his body wide open. Drake sat straight up, chopped to the throat, nose and eye sockets, leaving him choking and blinded. A hammer-like fist swung at Drake’s head, which he caught between his thighs as he rose, twisted and broke. The merc groaned into the sand.

All around the enemy was devastated, giving up. Dahl stood at the edge of the valley as, quite suddenly, the storm began to abate. Sunlight shone through the sand and the wind levels took a slight drop. The Swede stared down at the waiting galleon with hungry eyes — an alpha predator eyeing up its next happy meal.

Drake joined him. “The count?”

“On deck? No more than eight. Below deck — no idea.”

“So what the hell are we waiting for?”

Drake played to the Swede’s mad side even as Hayden shouted at them to wait, to be prudent.

“Oh, I see.” Dahl’s grin was infectious as he understood. “It’s that time again.”

“Be careful!” Hayden cried. “No!”

Dahl threw himself over the edge feet first, Drake a split second after. Alicia shouted, “For Kevin Bacon!” and launched herself after them. Kinimaka stepped up eagerly but Hayden whacked him back. Smyth would have none of it, ignoring her frown and leaping into mid-air, his face breaking out into a rare grin.

Drake and Dahl raced down the sandy slope, picking up speed as they went. Sand furrowed from either side of their boots as they slid. The slope was sharp enough so that they caught air-time, bouncing back to earth with groans. The landscape flashed past at inconceivable speed. Drake concentrated as much on edging out Dahl as where he was going. The galleon’s deck grew large beneath them, a wide, unstable landing pad. An overhang sent them several feet into the air, eliciting cheers and allowing Dahl an extra moment to calmly extract his handgun from its holster. They crashed back down and were then hitting the ship’s deck and its pliant timbers, rolling to lose momentum. Drake slammed right into the ship’s far railing, heart stuck firmly in mouth. Dahl snagged a mercenary and used him as a piton. Alicia bowled them both over.

Smyth landed perfectly, feet first, and shot two mercs on impact. Another drew a bead on him. There was no time, not even to duck. Then the merc shot backward, hit by a bullet fired from above and Smyth thanked his lucky stars for the unknown backup.

Alicia hammered at the merc Dahl had used to stay his fall, but in the end Dahl simply rose, picked him up and threw him over the rail. Drake fired at the four remaining mercs, forcing them into hiding. One of them came sprinting around a bulkhead and launched his body straight at Alicia. She held the force of his momentum though, fighting back. Together, atop the ship’s deck and close to the rails they traded blows, two warriors battling over a drop that could send them two hundred feet straight down. On the edge they punched and blocked and stepped. Alicia caught a kick on her thigh, deflected a heavy blow, and stepped inside. Her opponent stumbled, swung again. She evaded it and then hit as hard as she could, his solar plexus taking the brunt. Her blows were so hard, so packed with force and power that he flew straight against the rails and then crashed right through, screaming as he tumbled to his death.

Beneath them the ship’s deck groaned, the entire side trembling. It was entirely possible that this buried ship could split in half and take them all with it. But this was no time to dwell on the mind-blowing discovery they had made nor its final incredible location. Drake saw a head pop up from below and gave it a side-vent. There were other routes down to the lower decks. Dahl crept around a bulkhead whilst Smyth stole in the other direction. Bullets slammed off molded woodwork close to their heads.

“Careful!” Drake shouted. “Don’t want to upset the ghosts now, do we?”

A man rose, bellowing back. Alicia’s bullet took him down. Drake kept a careful eye, but then it happened. The moment that beggared belief.

Looping up from the galleon’s stern, high and proud, came a black hand grenade, its thrower chuckling even as he lobbed it. A true madman then, a courter of death. Drake dropped his gun as the grenade came down, trusting Alicia to cover his sudden desperate sprint out into the open, then flung himself headlong, hand outstretched in imitation of a fielder trying to catch a ball. The grenade came down, spinning, about to strike deck when Drake’s hand slid underneath it, closed around it and then flung it over the nearest rail. Even then it exploded almost immediately, the force of its blast taking a chunk out of the cliff side and sending shattered wood spinning around like spears. Dahl and Smyth stormed the stern as Drake lay breathing hard, his energy spent for a moment.

Alicia crawled over. “You okay? Nice fielding, Ian.”

“Ian?”

“Botham.”

“Ian Botham was a bowler and a batter.” Drake knew little about the game of cricket. “I think a goalkeeping reference would be more appropriate.”

“Bollocks to your sports and, for that matter, your cars. I have no time for either of them.”

“Yeah, and that’s gonna have to change too.”

Alicia’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, is it?”

“Yep. Taking you and Dahl on a track day as soon as we’ve brushed this bloody battle off and showered.”

Alicia looked prepared to argue, but Dahl and Smyth came rushing up. “Job done,” Smyth said. “What’s next?”

Drake gazed around. “Below decks,” he said. “Where the real ghosts of this entire adventure lie.”

“Gold,” Smyth said. “You mean gold.”

“Do I?”

Smyth and Dahl watched two entrances to the galleon’s innards as Drake and Alicia searched for another. The obvious ones were probably on the side buried into the cliff wall, but Alicia soon found a third. By that time those above had unfurled a rope ladder that almost touched the deck. Soon, Kinimaka stepped gingerly down as if expecting his clumsiness to fatally dislodge the ship from its ancient resting place.

Dahl grunted. “Careful there,” he said. “Might have to jump the last two feet.”

“I did try to follow you guys,” Kinimaka moaned.

“You four!” Hayden’s voice rasped through the quieting day. “Did you really think sliding down the hillside on top of your enemies was a great idea?”

Dahl blinked. “I didn’t really think. Besides, Drake made me do it.”

Hayden huffed in exasperation, before getting over it and reviewing the ship’s deck. “And the best way in is…?”

Alicia pointed toward the stern. “There’s a ladder. It’s one person at a time but the mercs haven’t found it.”

“Good. They clearly located this one first and decided to blast it open.” Hayden seemed pleased.

Smyth kept his gun leveled at the shattered trapdoor until more soldiers joined him. Then a deal was offered to those mercenaries still inside. Drake thought it was a pretty sweet deal; after all most of their buddies were already roasting in Hades by now and their boss had betrayed them. Who even knew where Tyler Webb was? To a man, the mercenaries climbed out of the hole, hands above their heads, and cowed. Soldiers rounded them up. Even then, Hayden reminded the team that booby traps and even snipers could have been left behind. The next few minutes weren’t going to be easy.

“Let me go first.” Kinimaka headed for the hole. “You guys did it last time.”

Hayden backed him up, then Drake and Dahl, Alicia and Smyth. Yorgi stayed on the ship’s deck, eyeing the slope above as though he wished he’d ridden it as hard as the SPEAR team rebels.

Drake kept his handgun handy as the team slipped through the hole in the galleon’s deck. As far as he could make out — and exhausting his limited knowledge of old galleons — they were somewhere around where the mizzenmast would have been, in front of the captain’s cabin and officer’s quarters. Most of the stern was still buried in the steep dune’s sandy face and below him he assumed would be the gun deck, supplies and stores and the ballast deck. The opening that he lowered himself through was tight though he heard no complaint from the big Hawaiian, probably because Hayden followed so close. The wooden steps descended at a thirty degree angle and were quite sturdy, though treacherous with sand. Alicia slipped behind him and grabbed his jacket for support, cursing.

“Steady,” Drake said. “I already lost a tooth today.”

“You did? Oh, sweetie. I hope you properly punished the nasty person who did it.”

“Later,” Drake promised. “Later.”

Wide wooden planks formed the floor of the gun deck. Kinimaka and Hayden were the first to break out flashlights, swinging the beams around. Progress was slow due to them having to constantly check for traps, but Drake soon found himself immersed in this lost, long-buried world. Here was a dusty cannon with dull scrapes along its sides and runnels beneath its wheeled undercarriage, sand-filled now but once in deadly, perfect order. Rectangular crates stood in several corners, some destroyed but others intact and awaiting discovery. Drake spied some wooden slats running across a far wall that reminded him of bars and imagined that might be the ship’s brig. Absolute silence filled the area like a spectral shroud as the group stopped and took stock.

“One more level,” Kinimaka said. “Down to the hold, I think. That’s where all the stores are, the biscuit and salted meat, the water, beer, gunpowder, cannonballs and spare sails. It’s also where pirates kept their treasure during a voyage.”

Drake urged him ahead, spinning as a slight sigh reached his ears. Alicia was nowhere near him but he was sure it had been a woman’s sigh. Dahl shot him a testy look.

“What now? Hearing things? One too many knocks on the head?”

Drake frowned. “Just thought I—”

His flashlight beam illuminated a bleached skull that lay on the floor. Eyeless sockets stared back at him. So the dead were watching after all. He shivered. “C’mon.”

Dahl grunted. Alicia moved past both of them. Smyth, bringing up the rear, swore as he stepped on a pile of bones. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I do have respect for the dead.”

Drake stepped after Hayden, then abruptly ran into her back. Kinimaka’s voice drifted from several steps ahead. “Um, guys. There’s a funny noise down here.”

Drake listened. The Hawaiian stood poised to descend another set of steps down to the next level. With no noise either above or to their sides, the team couldn’t shake a feeling of isolation, of otherworldliness, but set their senses to listen. For a long moment there was nothing.

“You imagined it,” Hayden said.

Then a low whine broke the silence, ascending to a wail as it rose up the stairs. The pitch of the cry set Drake’s nerves on edge and made the hairs on the backs of his arms rise.

“What the hell is that?” Smyth asked.

“Dunno,” Alicia said. “But I ain’t wearing the right kinda protective vest for it.”

“The wind,” Hayden said. “It’s just the wind.”

“Are you sure?” Drake asked. “There are no windows down there.”

“Well what else could it be? You believe in ghosts now?”

“Only when I’m investigating a ghost ship that’s been lost for hundreds of years and still holds the bones of its crew below deck. Maybe the galleon wants a new crew.”

Hayden nodded to the bulging wall that ran to their right. “And see there? Gun ports and countless imperfections in the ship, all leading to the two-hundred-foot deep valley.”

Drake shrugged. “Mano,” he said. “After you.”

The Hawaiian gulped a little, but to his credit barely hesitated. The rest of the new ship’s crew filed after. Slowly, they descended into a deeper darkness. Drake felt the breeze immediately blowing in from the right. The wail became a shriek for several seconds before dying away to a desperate moan. Something tapped him on the shoulder.

“Fuck!” he yelled, making Kinimaka jump in the process.

Dahl coughed innocently. “You okay?”

Smyth also coughed, but in an intentionally grumpy manner. “Hurry it up down there. We just fought and beat hundreds of stone-cold killers and you pussies are scared of a couple of ghosts. Ain’t this the hold?”

Drake swung his flashlight around, seeing that it was. Toward the far end the team’s joined beams illuminated eight sturdy crates, all banded around with heavy metal and constructed of thick planks of wood.

“The treasure of Santa Ana.” Hayden sighed. “We found it. We stopped Webb and hindered the Pythians again. It will be the end for them.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Dahl said.

“Oh, I will,” Hayden returned. “Because now we have Nicholas Bell too and I’m so fucking sick of being stalked and watched in my own bedroom that I’m gonna spend however long it takes to bring Webb to heel. My heel. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I’m not even sure they have any members left,” Drake said lightly as they strolled toward the treasure chests. “Maybe Beauregard would know.”

Alicia stopped in her tracks. “Good point. We don’t even know where he is.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” Hayden managed a smile. “Missing anything in particular?”

Alicia tried desperately not to throw a guilty look toward Drake and succeeded… mostly. “Umm, nah. I’m over that stage now.”

Hayden regarded her closely. “You do look a little different.”

“I do?”

“Maybe. Lighter somehow. Maybe it’s the gloom.”

“Why, thanks.”

Before the eight chests they stopped, questers eyeing well-earned prizes. More skulls and other bone fragments lay scattered about between the chests and Drake even saw what looked like the head of a tomahawk.

“From one battle to another,” he said. “It never ends.”

Kinimaka sat cross-legged before one of the chests. “Well, they ain’t going anywhere,” he said. “And we can’t open them easily. I think it’s time to take a break.”

The team sat around him, flashlights illuminating each other and the darker spaces. Down here, among the riches and the ghosts and the sand they all felt a sense of peace. Only the outside world brought danger.

“From Odin to the ghost ships,” Drake remarked. “It’s been a helluva rough ride.”

“But not without some merriment,” Dahl said.

“And the best camaraderie,” Hayden added.

“The making of the best team in the world,” Smyth said. “And more than a few hard farewells.”

“A new family,” Kinimaka began. “Who—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Alicia hissed. “Are we all gonna kiss now? I’ll tell you one thing that’s gonna be changed tomorrow — me.”

“I knew it.” Hayden smiled.

“But not too much.” Alicia winked. “Still gotta keep you wankers in line.”

“Are we done here?” Smyth asked.

Drake unhooked his backpack and pulled out a bottle of rum. “Y’know,” he said. “The world can wait. I think we’re just getting started.”