Plague Ship

by Clive Cussler

  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded harshly of Nixon. Her trademark voice was frayed because of an apparent hangover. Then she paused, studied him, and finally recognized him. “You’re Kevin Nixon, aren’t you? You did my makeup on Family Jewels.”

  “That was your big break, as I recall,” Kevin said, standing.

  “It would have come eventually,” Donna said, filled with self-importance. She took the chair Kevin had vacated and looked over her shoulder at Gwen, “Get rid of these bags under my eyes, will you? I don’t shoot for a couple of hours, but I can’t stand looking this way.”

  Kevin felt like saying that she shouldn’t have gone club hopping the night before but held his tongue.

  Gwen shot Kevin a knowing look and said, “Sure thing, honey. Anything for you.”

  “Are you working on this movie now?” Donna asked Nixon as Gwen got to work with her brushes and eyeliner.

  “Actually, no. I’m here to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”

  She let out a bored sigh, and then said, “What the hell. What do you want to talk to me about?”

  Kevin glanced at Gwen. She got the hint. “Donna, honey, why don’t you let Kevin do your makeup so you can chat in private?”

  “Fine.”

  Nixon mouthed the words Thank you to Gwen as she stepped away, handing him a brush. He waited until she’d left the trailer before getting to work. “I’d like to talk about Thom Severance and the Responsivist movement.”

  Donna Sky instantly tensed. “Sorry, but that subject is closed.”

  “It’s important. Lives may be at stake.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, all right? You want to talk about my career or my social life, fine. But I don’t discuss Responsivism with anyone anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t!”

  Kevin tried to recall everything Linda had taught him about interrogation over the past twenty-four hours. “About a week ago, a ship chartered by the Responsivists sank in the Indian Ocean.”

  “I know. I saw it on the news. They say it was hit by a wave. They had a special name for it.”

  “Rogue wave,” Kevin offered. “They’re called rogue waves.”

  “That’s right. The ship was hit by a rogue wave.”

  Kevin pulled a sleek laptop out of the backpack he’d brought with him and set it on the counter, pushing aside Gwen’s clutter of junk. It took him a few seconds to find the file he wanted.

  The quality of the video was poor because there was so little light for the camera Mark Murphy had used aboard the Golden Dawn, but it was still clear enough to see the horrified expressions of the dead bridge crew and the gallons of blood that was splashed across the deck. He let it play for about five minutes.

  “What was that? A movie you’re working on?”

  “That was taken aboard the Golden Dawn. Every passenger and crewman on board had been murdered, poisoned with something so toxic that no one even had time to use the radio.” He found another piece of stored video. This was taken from the Oregon’s mast-mounted camera and showed the ship sinking. Her name was clearly visible when the searchlight swept the bows.

  Donna Sky was clearly confused. “Who took those pictures and why wasn’t this reported to the media?”

  “I can’t tell you who shot the footage, but it’s not being reported yet because this was a terrorist attack and the authorities don’t want the terrorists to know what we know.”

  He gave her credit. She caught his use of the possessive. “Are you, like . . . I mean, do you work for . . .?”

  “I can’t answer that question directly, but my having possession of this video should tell you enough.”

  “Why are you showing this to me? I don’t know anything about terrorism.”

  “Your name came up prominently during the investigation, and evidence points to this attack being carried out by elements within the Responsivist movement.” He said it as gently as he could, and either she would believe him or she would call security and have him thrown off the lot.

  Her reflection in the mirror stared at him fixedly. Kevin had built his career covering faces, not reading them. He had no idea what she was thinking. He wondered how he would react if someone told him his minister was a terrorist.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said at length. “I think you created that footage to discredit Thom and Heidi.”

  At least she hasn’t tossed me out on my ear, Kevin thought. He asked, “Why would I do that? What possible motive would I have to fabricate those videos and travel halfway around the world to show them to you?”

  “How should I know what you think?” Donna snapped.

  “Please, think this through very logically. If my goal was to discredit Responsivism, wouldn’t I take this to CNN or Fox?” When she didn’t say anything, Kevin asked for her honest answer.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Since I haven’t, then my goal must be something else, right?”

  “Maybe,” she conceded.

  “Then why can’t I be telling the truth?”

  “Responsivists don’t believe in violence. There is no way members of our group did this. It was probably a bunch of radical antiabortionists or something.”

  “Miss Sky, believe me when I tell you that we have checked every known group in the world looking for those responsible. It keeps coming back to Responsivists. And I’m not talking about the rank and file.” Kevin was on a roll now and the lies kept coming. “We believe there is a splinter group that perpetrated this atrocity, and may have other such attacks in the works.

  “You and I both know that some people take their faith to the extreme. That’s what we think we’re dealing with here: extremists within your organization. If you truly want to help your friends, you have to tell me everything you know.”

  “Okay,” she said meekly.

  They spoke for almost an hour before Gwen returned. She had several of the movie’s extras with her that needed makeup for upcoming scenes. In the end, Kevin was convinced that Donna Sky knew absolutely nothing about what the Corporation had stumbled upon. He also felt that she was a sad, lonely young woman who had become imprisoned by her own success, and that the leadership of the Responsivist movement had singled her out for recruitment for that very fact. He could only hope that someday she would find an inner source of strength that would allow her to stand on her own. He doubted it would happen, but he could hope.

  “Thank you very much for talking to me,” Kevin said as he packed up his laptop.

  “I don’t think I was that helpful.”

  “No. You were great. Thanks.”

  She was regarding her face in the mirror. She again had the allure that so captivated movie audiences. Gone were the ravages of last night’s excess. Kevin had restored her face’s artful mix of innocence and sex appeal. The sadness in her eyes was hers alone.

  CHAPTER 22

  FLYING TO THE PHILIPPINES HAD TAKEN CABRILLO and Franklin Lincoln a little over fourteen hours. Getting from the capital, Manila, to Tubigon, on Bohol Island, in the center of the seven-thousand-plus-island archipelago, had taken almost as long, although the distance was a little more than three hundred miles as the crow flies. Juan knew from experience that the proverbial crow rarely flew in third world nations.

  Because ground transportation couldn’t be guaranteed on Bohol, they had been forced to first fly to nearby Cebu Island and rent a sturdy, if aged, jeep and wait for the ferry to take them across the Bohol Strait. Linc had remarked that the ferry was so old, the tires slung over her rusted sides should have been white-walls. The boat had a pronounced list to starboard, despite being loaded intentionally heavy on the port side. Any thought of sleep during the crossing was nixed by the tractor trailer lashed next to their jeep loaded with pigs that suffered mal de mer even in these sheltered waters. The smell and their squeals were enough to wake the dead.

  Twice during the crossing, the engines inexplicably we
nt silent. The first time was for only a few minutes. The second lasted nearly an hour, as crewmen under the eye of a snarling engineer tinkered with the machinery.

  Worrying about surviving the trip was a welcome distraction for Cabrillo. It allowed him to stop dwelling on Max’s fate for a while. But when the engines belched to life again, his thoughts immediately returned to his friend. The irony wasn’t lost on him that Hanley’s own father had died in the Philippines defending Corregidor Island in the opening months of the Second World War.

  Juan knew that Max would do whatever it took to protect both his son and the Corporation. The man had a sense of loyalty that would make a Saint Bernard proud. He could only hope that they would find the leverage needed to ensure Max’s freedom. He had no illusions about the methods Zelimir Kovac would use to extract information. And if Max couldn’t hold out, once he started talking his life was forfeit.

  That thought ran like a loop of tape through Cabrillo’s mind.

  As the lights of Tubigon finally resolved themselves, Juan’s satellite phone chimed. “Cabrillo.”

  “Hi, Juan, it’s Linda.”

  “Any word yet?”

  “Nothing from Severance, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Damn. Yes, it was.”

  Ten calls to the director of the Responsivists and still nothing. Juan had posed as the head of the security company supposedly hired by Max to rescue his son. He’d spoken to the receptionist enough to know she read romance novels during her lunch break. She had apologized each time he’d called, stating that Severance wasn’t available, and patched him through to voice mail. Juan had offered any reward Severance wanted for Max’s return, and when that didn’t garner a response he’d started threatening. His last call had warned Severance that if Max wasn’t released unharmed, he was going to come after his family.

  It was an empty threat, thanks to Langston Overholt, but Severance didn’t know that. Nor, it seemed, did he care.

  “What’s up?” Cabrillo asked.

  “Kevin just finished up with Donna Sky. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “Is he sure?”

  “They talked for an hour,” Linda said in her pixielike voice. “She’s just an actress who belongs to a loony cult. She’s too high-profile to be directly involved with anything untoward. And, according to the celebrity scandal rags, she’s tied up shooting her new movie for at least the next four months, apparently to the chagrin of her latest paramour who’s in Australia touring with his band, which, by the way, Mark Murphy says sucks.”

  “Then I’d probably like them,” Juan said, digesting this latest piece of information. “If Gil Martell didn’t say her name when he was talking to Severance after we broke into his office, then it has to be something else. Can you ask Hali to go over that tape one more time?”

  “He cursed up a storm when I told him he might be wrong and then volunteered to listen to it all again.”

  “Tell him he gets an extra ration of grog. Anything else?”

  “Eddie’s back from Rome, and we’re getting good audio on the arms dealer’s yacht but nothing pertinent so far.”

  Cabrillo had completely forgotten about that mission. “Okay. Good. Keep me posted. Linc and I are about three hours from where the Responsivists have their Philippine retreat. We’ll keep you posted.”

  “Roger that, Chairman, and good hunting. Oregon out.”

  Juan clicked off the phone.

  “The whole Donna Sky thing’s a bust?” Linc asked in the darkened confines of the jeep. Wearing all black, Linc was just a large shadow sitting next to Cabrillo.

  “Yeah. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “It was a long shot anyway. Woman like that can’t take her dog for a walk without the paparazzi following her.”

  “Linda said about the same thing,” Juan said moodily. “I should have realized that.”

  “Chairman, we’ve been grasping at straws since the beginning. No need to get all morose on me now. We go with the intel we have and see where it takes us. Dead end or not, we have to check it all.”

  “I know,” Juan agreed. “It’s just—”

  “—that Max’s butt is on the line this time,” Linc finished for him “And you’re concerned.”

  Cabrillo forced a tired smile. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Listen, man, this is our best lead yet. There were four hundred Responsivists here for God knows how long and now they’re all dead, most likely so they’ll never talk about what they were doing. We’ll find what we need and get Max and his son back.”

  Juan appreciated the pep talk, but it did little to make him feel better. That would come only when Max was back aboard the Oregon, and Thom Severance and Zelimir Kovac were nailed to the most convenient outhouse door.

  The ferry staggered into the harbor, slamming into the wooded pilings in one of the worst displays of seamanship Cabrillo had ever seen. Ten minutes later, with the boat secured to the dock and the ramp lowered, Linc fired the jeep’s engines, and they eased onto the quay. They immediately opened the windows to dissipate the pig smell that had permeated the vehicle.

  “Good a time as any,” Juan said, and put his foot up on the dashboard.

  He rolled up his pant leg. The prosthesis he wore was a bulbous, ugly limb of flesh-toned plastic. He pulled the leg free, and unlaced his boot, pulling it and his sock free. There was a tiny hole in the bottom of the prosthetic foot. He plucked a small Allen wrench from his pocket, inserted it in the hole, and turned it counterclockwise. This released a mechanism built into the leg that allowed him to split open the calf like an old-fashioned lunch box. Cached inside what he called his smuggler’s leg were two Kel-Tek pistols.

  Despite its small size, the Kel-Tek fired P-rated .380 caliber bullets. For this particular mission, the armorer aboard the Oregon had hollowed out the seven rounds each pistol held and filled the voids with mercury. When the bullet struck flesh and slowed, the momentum would cause the mercury to explode out of the round and shred tissue the way a shaped explosive cuts through a tank’s armor. A hit anywhere center mass was fatal, and even a glancing shot to the shoulder or hip would sever a limb. Cabrillo handed one of the diminutive pistols to Linc and slipped the other into the small of his back.

  A small block of plastic explosives and two detonator pencils, set at five minutes, were also in the smuggler’s leg. Juan had found over the years that when his prosthesis set off airport metal detectors and he pulled up his cuff to show the limb, he was waved through with an apologetic smile every time. Although they hadn’t encountered any bomb-sniffing dogs on this run, he was ready for that contingency with a small bottle of nitroglycerin pills and an explanation of having a bad heart.

  The road out of town and into the hills hadn’t seen new asphalt in decades. The Responsivists had worked on the opposite side of the island, and it took an hour to reach the area. The sun had crested the horizon during the drive, revealing primal rain forest and jungle that hemmed in the road like a continuous emerald tunnel. The few villages they passed were composed of a couple of crude thatched huts and the odd corrugated-metal lean-to. With the exception of the Japanese occupation during the war, the pace of life in this part of the islands hadn’t changed in millennia.

  When they were five miles from their destination, Linc pulled off the road, easing the jeep into a thicket of underbrush deep enough to hide the vehicle. They had no idea if the Responsivists had left guards at their facility and weren’t going to take unnecessary chances. He and Cabrillo spent a few minutes putting finishing touches on the camouflage and erasing the tracks the jeep had sunk into the soft soil. Even knowing where it was hidden, neither man could see it from the road. Juan built a small cairn of pebbles on the verge to mark the location.

  Shouldering packs stuffed with gear, they stepped into the jungle and started the long walk in. The sun seemed to vanish, replaced by a green-filtered glow that barely penetrated the high canopy of trees. The color reminded Cabrillo of
the Oregon’s moon pool at night when the underhull lights were turned on.

  Despite his size, Lincoln moved through the jungle with the easy grace of a predatory cat, finding the tiniest openings between the dense vegetation so as not to disturb anything. His feet seemed to barely brush the loamy ground. He was so stealthy that the background symphony of insects and bird cries never dropped in volume or rose in alarm.

  Cabrillo walked in his wake, constantly scanning behind them for any sign they were being followed. The air was so humid, it seemed that his lungs were filling with fluid with each breath. Sweat ran freely down his back, and soaked the band of his baseball cap. He could feel it cold and slick where his stump met his artificial leg.

  After two hours of stalking silently through the rain forest, Linc held up a fist, then lowered himself to the ground. Cabrillo followed suit, crawling up next to the big SEAL. They were at the edge of the jungle. Ahead of them was open grassland that stretched for a quarter mile before dropping to the sea in a line of near-vertical slopes and eroded cliffs.

  With the sun behind them, Cabrillo didn’t worry about reflections off his binoculars as he scanned his surroundings. The Responsivists had built a single metal building a short distance from the cliffs. It was as large as a warehouse, with a gently sloped roof to deal with the thirteen and a half feet of annual rainfall. Opaque panels in the roof would let in diffused sunlight, as there were no windows. The sides were bare metal painted with a red oxide anticorrosion paint, and there was just a single door facing a parking lot big enough for fifty or so vehicles.

  About thirty yards from the warehouse were four rows of rectangular concrete pads. Cabrillo counted forty of the empty pads per row.

  Linc tapped him on the shoulder. He drew a rectangle in the dirt and pointed at the warehouse. Then he made a second rectangle and pointed at the field of concrete. Cabrillo was with him so far. Then Linc drew a much larger square around the whole compound and pointed across the open field.

  Juan studied the area through the binoculars and noticed a slight variation in the grass, which ran in a straight line before abruptly turning ninety degrees. He looked at Linc. The Navy vet placed the edge of his hand on the line he’d drawn, indicating he thought there had once been a fence running the perimeter of the field. He then used his fingers to rather crassly raise the corners of his eyes.