Plague Ship

by Clive Cussler

  “Two for two,” Cabrillo remarked.

  Jenner stepped out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. In a stage whisper, he said, “Kyle’s coming awake. I think it’s best if you two leave us for a while.” He went to his medical bag and withdrew a cylindrical object about the size of a soup can. “This is a locking device that goes over the suite’s doorknob so it can’t be opened from the inside.”

  “Juan, we have to go,” Eddie said into the phone and cut the connection.

  Max was on his feet. “For how long?”

  “Give me your cell phone number and I will call you. Probably an hour or two. Kyle and I will talk some, and then I will administer a sedative.”

  Max looked at the closed bedroom door and at Jenner, conflicted about what was right.

  “Trust me, Mr. Hanley. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Okay.” Max jotted down his number on a piece of hotel stationery. He let Eddie lead him out of the suite and into the richly paneled elevator vestibule. Eddie could see the concern in Hanley’s face even in the distorted reflection of the polished brass doors. Behind them, they heard Jenner slipping the clamshell lock over the doorknob.

  “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “I think I’m in the mood for Italian,” Max quipped, to show he wasn’t totally out of it.

  “Sorry, mate. Chinese food or nothing.”

  CHAPTER 18

  AS THE OREGON DROVE THROUGH THE DARK WATERS of the Mediterranean at a little over twenty knots, far below her true capabilities because there were dozens of other vessels plying the shipping routes, there was almost no sensation of movement in her tastefully appointed dining room. If not for the background hum of her magnetohydrodynamic engines and her pump jets, Cabrillo felt like he could be sitting at a five-star restaurant on some fashionable boulevard in Paris.

  Juan wore a summer-weight sports jacket over a custom dress shirt open at the collar. His cuff links were tiny compasses and his shoes were Italian leather. Across from him, Linda Ross wore cargo pants and a black T-shirt, and, even without makeup, her skin glowed by the candlelight, highlighting the dusting of freckles across her cheeks and nose.

  Juan twirled the stem of his wineglass and took an appreciative sip. “If Maurice is going to have his staff prepare a special dinner, the least you could do is dress for the occasion.”

  Linda slathered a piece of still-warm bread with unsalted butter. “I had brothers growing up. I learned to eat fast and as often as there was food around. Otherwise, I’d go hungry.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Ever watch one of those nature shows when sharks are in a feeding frenzy or a pack of wolves have taken down a deer? My oldest brother, Tony, would sometimes even growl at us.” She smiled at the memory.

  “My parents insisted on table manners at all times,” Juan said. “I’d get grounded for putting my elbows on the table.”

  “Our only rule was, utensils had to be used on the food and not each other.”

  “Are you sure about tomorrow?” Juan asked, turning the conversation back to work. Even in these sumptuous surroundings, the specter of their chosen profession was never far off.

  “I’ve been cramming all day. I might not be ready to lead a Responsivist revival, but I can more than hold my own in a conversation with one of them. I have to admit that the more I learn about them, the weirder it gets. How anyone can believe that an alien intelligence from a parallel universe can control your life is beyond me.”

  “It takes all kinds, I suppose,” Juan said. He’d always believed that as long as it didn’t hurt others, people’s belief systems were their own individual choice, and he wasn’t one to judge. “You know that after what we did to them, their security is going to be on heightened alert.”

  She nodded. “I know. They may not even let me in, but it’s worth the risk.”

  Juan was about to respond when four people appeared at the dining room’s double-door entrance. Julia Huxley wore her lab coat, as always, while, flanking her, Mark Murphy and Eric Stone had cleaned themselves up. Both sported jackets and ties, although the tails of Mark’s shirt were sticking out. Eric’s naval background had given him a sense of deportment, but he was clearly uncomfortable in his clothes. Or perhaps it was the fourth in their party that made him uneasy.

  Julia untied the scarf from around Jannike Dahl’s eyes that had kept her from seeing any part of the ship, other than medical, and now the mess. Juan had relented, giving her a temporary reprieve from the infirmary, but had insisted on the blindfold. Janni wore a borrowed dress from Kevin Nixon’s Magic Shop, and, despite her weakened condition, Juan could understand how young Masters Stone and Murphy could be so vexed. She was a lovely, delicate woman who could leave even the most cynical player tongue-tied. Now that she had lost her pallor from being ill for so long, her normally dusky complexion had returned. Her hair was an obsidian wave that swept off her head and across one bare shoulder.

  He instinctively got to his feet as they approached. “Miss Dahl, you look beautiful.”

  “Thank you, Captain Cabrillo,” she replied, still trying to get her bearings in the room.

  “I apologize for having you blindfolded, but there are sensitive parts of this ship I couldn’t have you seeing.” He smiled to himself, while Eric and Mark were in a pushing match to be the one to pull out Jannike’s chair.

  “You and your crew saved my life, Captain. I would never question your wishes.” Her voice and accent had a charming lilt that captivated all three men. “I am just grateful to be out of bed for a little while.”

  “How are you feeling?” Linda asked.

  “Much better. Thank you. Dr. Huxley is able to control my asthma, so I have not had any more attacks.”

  Eric won the honor, so he got to sit to her left. Mark glared as he circled the table to take a chair next to Linda.

  “Unfortunately, there was a mix-up in communications with the cooking staff.” As the words left Cabrillo’s mouth, waiters, led by Maurice, marched out from the kitchen bearing trays. The Oregon’s chief steward blamed Juan for the gaffe. “Somehow,” Juan continued, pointedly eyeing Maurice, “they were under the impression you were from Denmark rather than Norway. They had wanted to make some of your native dishes, but we have a traditional Danish meal instead.”

  “That is very thoughtful of you all,” Janni said, smiling. “And the two are so close that I won’t even notice.”

  “Hear that, Maurice?”

  “I did not.”

  “I believe we’re having herring,” Juan said, “which is the traditional start to any meal, followed by fiskeboller, which I understand to be fish dumplings. Then there is roast pork loin with red cabbage and browned potatoes, followed by your choice of pandekager pancakes with ice cream and chocolate or ris à la mande.”

  At this, Janni’s smile widened. “That is a rice dessert,” she explained to the others, “With cherry sauce. It is my favorite in the world. We have it, too.”

  “Are you from Oslo?” Linda asked as the first dishes were laid on the linen tablecloth.

  “I moved there when my parents died, but I was born in the far north, in a small fishing village called Honningsvad.”

  That explained her darker complexion, Juan thought. The native Lapps, like the Inuit of Alaska or the indigenous people of Greenland, had evolved darker skin as protection from the relentless glare of sunlight off the ice and snow. She must have some native blood.

  Before he could ask a question, he spotted Hali Kasim framed in the dining-room entrance. His hair stuck up in tufts at the side of his head, and even at a distance Juan could see the plum-colored circles under his eyes and the fatigue that made his flesh look like it was slipping off the bone. Juan stood. “Would you all please excuse me?”

  He strode across to his communications specialist. “You’ve looked better.”

  “I’ve felt better, too,” Hali agreed. “You said you wanted the results of my work cutting through the static
jamming our bug as soon as I finished. Well, here it is.” He handed a single sheet of paper to the Chairman. “I even used the sound-mixing board Mark has in his cabin. This is the best I could do. Sorry. The numbers in parentheses are the elapsed time between words.” I DON’T . . . (1:23) YES . . . (3:57) ’BOUT DONNA SKY . . . (1:17) (ACT)IVATE THE EEL LEF . . . (:24) KEY . . . (1:12) TOMORR(OW) . . . (3:38) THAT WON’T BE . . . (:43) A MIN(UTE) . . . (6:50) BYE.(1:12)

  “That’s it, huh?” Juan struggled to not show his disappointment.

  “That’s it. There are a few unidentifiable sounds that the computer wouldn’t give more than a ten percent certainty of their meaning. Heck, it gave Donna Sky’s name only a forty percent chance of being right, but I’m pretty sure it is.”

  “How long was Martell’s conversation with Severance from the time he turned on the scrambler to when he said good-bye?”

  “Twenty-two minutes six seconds.”

  Cabrillo read through it again. “The four things that stick out are Donna Sky, a key of some kind, and the word fragments eel and lef. What’s the computer probability on the accuracy of those last ones?”

  Having spent countless hours poring over the data, Hali didn’t need to refer to his notes. “Sixty-one percent. Key was ninety-two.”

  “Eel, lef, and the key came within forty-five seconds of one another, so it’s a fair bet they’re related. And coming a minute seventeen seconds after mentioning Donna Sky, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think she’s somehow connected, too.”

  Hali gaped at him. “I stared at this piece of paper for hours before noticing that.”

  “That’s because you were trying to deduce meaning from the words rather than the pauses.”

  “I do have one more thing.” Kasim slipped a microcassette recorder from his pant pocket and hit PLAY. Juan heard the same static as before, and then it suddenly stopped. “End transmission,” a voice said clearly.

  “Who the hell was that?”

  “I ran it through the computer. English isn’t that guy’s native language. Best it could come up with is Middle European, and it put his age between thirty and fifty.”

  “Ah,” Juan said, remembering the snippets of conversation they had managed to record before the jammer was activated. “I bet this is Zelimir Kovac. Come on.”

  They returned to the table, where Mark Murphy was stammering his way through a joke that wasn’t going well. He seemed relieved when Juan interrupted. “Eric, did you manage to find anything on Zelimir Kovac this afternoon?”

  “Nada, zip, and zilch.”

  “I think I know this man,” Jannike said. “He was on the Golden Dawn. He is an important person with the Responsivists.”

  “He never showed up on any of their websites, payroll, or anyplace else,” Eric responded, as if she’d insulted his research abilities.

  “But he was there, I tell you,” Janni said defiantly. “People never talked to him but always about him. I think he is close to the group’s leader.”

  Cabrillo wasn’t concerned that Kovac hadn’t come up on their radar. He was thinking about how he had been aboard the ill-fated cruise liner and now shows up in Athens. Then he remembered that one of the Dawn’s lifeboats had been missing from its davits when the Oregon found the ghostship. “He killed them.”

  “What did you say?” Julia asked with her fork poised halfway to her mouth.

  “Kovac was on the Golden Dawn and now he’s at the Responsivist retreat in Greece. He escaped the ship on one of her lifeboats, and the only reason he would have done that is if he knew all those people were going to die. Ergo, he killed them.” He turned to Janni. “Could you describe him?”

  “He was very tall. Almost two meters.” That put him at six foot five. Big dude, Juan thought. “He looked very strong and serious. I only saw him a few times, and he never smiled. In truth, I was a little frightened of him.”

  “Would you sit down with Eric and Mark and try to create a picture of him?”

  “I can’t draw.”

  “We have a computer that will do that for you. All you have to do is describe him and they will do the rest.”

  “I will do anything you ask if it means he gets punished for what he did.” She started sobbing as the memories of that horrible night welled up. Eric put his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him. Juan gave him credit for not beaming at Mark Murphy.

  Julia Huxley dropped her fork and tossed her napkin on the table as she stood. She was at Janni’s side in an instant. “That’s enough excitement for one night. Let’s get you back down to medical.” She helped the stricken young woman to her feet.

  Mark and Eric looked like they were going to help.

  “Gentlemen,” Juan said in a warning tone, and they both sank back into their seats, dejected. “There is a time and place. This is neither.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison, like contrite children. Had Juan not been occupied by all the information he’d gotten in the last couple of minutes, he might have smiled at their display.

  He sat, turning his attention to Linda Ross. “Your mission’s scrubbed.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I won’t let you go into that compound unarmed knowing Kovac is there.”

  She flared. “I can handle myself.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion,” Juan said, his voice flinty sharp. “If I’m right, then Kovac is a mass murderer on an unimaginable scale. You aren’t going in there. Period. Hali scrubbed our recording further, and Donna Sky’s name featured prominently in Martell’s conversation with Thomas Severance. We know she’s a notable Responsivist and may have information on what’s going on. That’ll be our conduit into their plans.”

  “If she’s a hard core believer, then she won’t talk to us,” Linda said.

  “She’s an actress, not a trained agent. Five minutes with her and she’ll tell you everything you want to know. We just have to find her and get to her.”

  “She’s arrived in Germany to film a movie recently.” Cabrillo was surprised Linda had that kind of information at her fingertips. He arched an eyebrow.

  His vice president of operations blushed under her freckles. “What can I say—I’m addicted to Hollywood gossip.”

  Eric Stone leaned forward in his seat. “As for getting to her, I have an idea. Kevin Nixon worked in Hollywood for years before coming to us. I’m sure he knows someone who knows someone.”

  Nixon had been an award-winning effects and makeup artist for one of the big studios. He’d turned his back on that part of his life when his sister was killed during the 9/11 attacks. He had offered his unique talents to the CIA when Cabrillo poached him from the Agency.

  “Good thinking. If he can get access to her on the set, maybe we can finally get a handle on what the hell’s going on.”

  “Just playing devil’s advocate here, but what if she doesn’t know anything?”

  “Pray that she does, Linda, because I’m not sending anyone into their retreat.”

  “Speaking of sending people places, did you want me to go with you to the Philippines?”

  “No, Mark. Thanks for the offer, but I’m taking Linc.”

  “Spreading us kind of thin, aren’t you, boss?” Eric remarked.

  Cabrillo didn’t disagree. “Of course Max is tied up for as long as he needs, but Eddie will be back from Rome the day after we reach Monaco. That will give us four of the senior staff including Julia. Linda, you won’t be gone for more than a day or two, and Linc and I will be back within three. Besides, the surveillance job is straightforward and passive for the most part, so I’m not concerned. Now, let’s enjoy our traditional Danish meal.”

  Juan said this loud enough for Maurice, hovering by the kitchen door, to hear.

  The steward scowled.

  CHAPTER 19

  EDDIE WAS LEANING AGAINST THE ELEVATOR’S REAR wall when the car reached the lobby. Max was to his right. When the doors opened, he pushed himself off the wall as two strangers in suits charg
ed inside.

  Eddie thought nothing of this lapse in elevator etiquette as the men brushed against him. Then he felt one of them reach a hand into his coat pocket and start to lift the Beretta hanging in his shoulder holster. He turned to react, and a gun fitted with a silencer was pressed between his eyes. Max was just as quickly disarmed. It took all of two seconds.

  “Either of you move and you’re dead,” the larger of the two men said. His English was accented.

  The close quarters negated most of Seng’s power martial arts moves, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to put up a fight. He tensed fractionally, and the gunman somehow sensed it. The pistol was rammed into Max’s gut, expelling his breath in an explosive whoosh.

  “That is your last warning.”

  The doors whispered closed and the elevator began to rise.

  As Max struggled to reinflate his lungs, thoughts swirled through Eddie’s mind. He wondered how they had been tracked so easily and quickly, and if he should reveal that he suspected this was Zelimir Kovac, the man mentioned on the bug Juan had planted at the retreat. He also wondered why Kyle Hanley was so important to the Responsivists that they would take a chance like this to get him back. It didn’t make sense.

  “You’re going to have to kill me,” Max was finally able to say. “You’re not getting your hands on my son again, Kovac.”

  The Serb appeared surprised that Max knew his name, but the look quickly faded. He must have deduced they had heard the tape from the bug. Despite Kovac’s thuggish appearance, Eddie realized he wasn’t a stupid man.

  “That is the most likely outcome,” Kovac agreed.

  Not until you know who we are, Eddie said to himself, and how much we’ve already learned.

  As bargaining chips went, it wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. If he was in Kovac’s shoes, he would need to know how deeply the Responsivists’ security had been penetrated. How much time that would buy them depended on how they were interrogated. And what they could do with that time was a whole separate issue. He and Max were on their own. There would be no rescue, and the hotel staff had already been informed that their guests in the top-floor suite weren’t to be disturbed for any reason.