Plague Ship

by Clive Cussler

  “You look like James Bond with a paunch,” Mike Trono said from across Kevin’s cluttered workroom.

  In his best Sean Connery brogue, Juan shot back, “The janitorial staff is to be seen and not heard.”

  Mike and Jerry Pulaski were wearing uniforms that matched the janitorial staff of the world-renowned Casino de Monte Carlo, having gotten the designs during a brief afternoon reconnoiter. Kevin and his staff kept hundreds of uniforms, everything from a Russian general to a New Delhi traffic cop to a Parisian zookeeper, so it took them only a few minutes to modify a standard jumpsuit to the style they wanted.

  Mike and Jerry carried a heavy-duty trash can on rollers, as well as a rolling mop bucket, and a plastic sign warning SLIPPERY FLOOR.

  The chief steward appeared at the doorway, silent and unobtrusive as always. He wore a crisp white apron over his suit. There was a debate among the crew as to whether he changed aprons before leaving the pantry or simply never spilled anything on himself. The odds favored the latter by a huge margin. He held a sealed plastic container in one hand like it was loaded with live snakes, and his face was cleaved by a deep frown.

  “For Pete’s sake, Maurice,” Juan teased, “it’s not the real stuff.”

  “Captain, I made it, so it is real enough.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Maurice set the container on Kevin’s makeup counter and stepped back, steadfastly refusing to remove the lid. Juan pried it off and quickly turned his head. “Whoa! Did you have to make it so pungent?”

  “You asked me to make you fake vomit. I treated this as I would any dish. So smell is as important as appearance and texture.”

  “Kinda smells like that fish thing you made for Jannike,” Mike quipped, resealing the lid and placing the container in his mop bucket.

  Maurice threw him the look of a school principal dressing down a rowdy pupil. “Mr. Trono, if you want anything other than bread and water for the foreseeable future, I would apologize.”

  “Hey, I liked that dish,” Mike said, backpedaling as fast as he could. No one on the Oregon took Maurice’s threats lightly. “So what’s in it?”

  “The base is pea soup, and the rest of the recipe is a trade secret.”

  Juan looked at him askance. “You’ve done this before?”

  “A prank in my youth against Charles Wright, the captain of a destroyer I was serving on. He made Bligh look like Mother Teresa. The prig prided himself on his iron stomach, so during an inspection we poured some of this concoction in his private head moments before a visiting admiral used it. The nickname Upchuck Chuck dogged the remainder of his career.”

  They all laughed harder than the story warranted, as a means of releasing tension. They always played their emotions close to the vest, especially just before an operation, so any chance to vent was seized on immediately.

  “Will that be all, Captain?”

  “Yes, Maurice. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He bowed out of the room, passing Dr. Huxley as she made her way to the Magic Shop.

  The men gave a chorus of catcalls and whistles. Hux wore a strapless dress in magenta silk that clung to her curves like a second skin. Her hair had been teased from its regular ponytail into an elegant halo of curls and ringlets. Makeup accentuated her eyes and mouth, and gave her skin a healthy glow.

  “Here you go,” she said, and handed Cabrillo a slim leather case. He folded open the top to reveal three hypodermic needles in protective slots. “Inject this in a vein and it’s night-night in about fifteen seconds.”

  “The pills?” Juan asked.

  She pulled a standard plastic pill bottle from her matching clutch purse and shook the two capsules. “If al-Asim has kidney problems, he’s going to end up in the hospital before he needs to use the bathroom.”

  “How long before they take effect?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.”

  “You’re sure he won’t taste them?”

  Hux rolled her eyes. They had already gone over this three times. “Completely undetectable.” She also showed him she had her passport. Because native Monegasques aren’t allowed into the casino, identification is verified at the entrance.

  “Everybody have phones?” Juan asked. Rather than draw attention to themselves with earbud radios and lapel microphones, they would use the walkie-talkie mode of their cell phones for communication. When everyone nodded, he said, “All right, then, let’s get ashore and do this.”

  DESIGNED BY CHARLES GARNIER, the architect of the fabled Paris Opera House, the Casino de Monte Carlo is nothing less than a cathedral dedicated to gambling. It was built in the sumptuous Napoleon III style that Garnier created, with beautiful fountains at its entrance, two distinctive towers, and an aged copper roof. The elegant atrium was lined with twenty-eight onyx columns, and marble and stained glass abounded in every room. When Juan arrived, there were three Ferraris and a pair of Bentleys lined up under the porte cochere. The clientele streaming inside were the crème of society. The men were uniformly dressed in tuxedos, while the women looked like jewels in their gowns and dresses.

  He shot his cuff to check the time. Kerikov and al-Asim never arrived before ten, so he was a half hour early. More than enough time to find an unobtrusive place to pass the time. It wouldn’t do for al-Asim to meet his doppelgänger across the roulette wheel.

  His phone chirped.

  “Chairman, Ski and I are in position,” Mike Trono reported.

  “Any problems?”

  “Dressed like janitors, we’re practically invisible.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Just off the loading dock. We’re keeping ourselves busy cleaning up a few jugs of cooking oil that Ski accidentally spilled on purpose.”

  “Okay, hang tight, and wait for my signal.”

  Cabrillo flashed his passport and paid his entrance fee. The crowds were all moving to the right, toward the elegant gaming rooms, so Juan followed the throng. He ambled his way upstairs to a bar, got himself a martini he had no intention of drinking but thought appropriate considering his surroundings, and found a dark corner to wait.

  Hux called in moments later to announce she had also arrived and was in the Salon de l’Europe, the casino’s principal gambling hall.

  While he waited, Juan put his mind to how he was going to rescue Max before they leveled Eos Island with the Orbital Ballistic Projectile. There was no question in his mind that he would follow through with the island’s destruction if they couldn’t get Max. The stakes were too high, and even Max would agree.

  He wished there was a way to communicate back to Hanley using the ELF equipment, but it was a transmitter, not a receiver. Juan went through a dozen ideas, worked them in his mind, and ultimately rejected every one as being ill-conceived.

  “They’re here,” Julia said over the phone, after he’d been at the bar for twenty minutes. “They’re heading for a chemin de fer table.”

  “Let them get settled and have a few drinks first.”

  Down in the casino, Julia Huxley divided her attention between the roulette wheel and their target. Her pile of chips ebbed and flowed as time wore on, while, across the room, Ibn al-Asim was on his third drink.

  She thought it ironic that he was willing to finance arms for fundamentalist Muslim terror groups and yet flout one of the best-known Muslim laws by drinking alcohol. She suspected he thought of himself as a takfir, a true believer in Islam who ignored its tenets in order to infiltrate Western society. Of course, he accomplished this merely by eschewing traditional robes and not sporting a heavy beard. The drinking and the womanizing weren’t necessary. They were simply activities he obviously enjoyed.

  “I think it’s time, Juan,” she said into her phone, pretending to check a text message.

  “Okay. Do it. Mike, get ready for Operation V.”

  Julia waited until the roulette ball dropped into the number six slot and the dealer raked the losing chips, hers included, from the table before tossi
ng him a tip and collecting her remaining stack. She pulled the two pills from her purse and started across the room. A few men eyed her as she passed, but most everybody was concentrating on his or her game.

  There were no empty seats at the table where Kerikov and al-Asim were playing, so Julia hung back, waiting for her opportunity. When the Russian won a particularly large hand, Julia leaned close to him and whispered “Congratulations” in his ear. He was startled at first, then smiled when he saw how Hux looked.

  She did it again when another player hit it big, and, suddenly, her presence here wasn’t that of a stranger but part of the gaming circle. She then placed a small wager on top of this second player’s stack, so that if he won so would she.

  When he didn’t win, he apologized, but Julia only shrugged, as if to say it was no big deal.

  She then gestured to al-Asim, wordlessly asking permission to place chips with him. He nodded, and, when she reached across the table, she set her hand next to his drink to balance herself. When she straightened, she almost knocked the glass over. She grabbed it just before it spilled, dropped the two pills in it, and set it back on its coaster.

  The pills were a homeopathic compound that addicts on probation use to flush their bodies of drugs prior to testing, as a way of avoiding more jail time. Julia had studied the compounds and found they didn’t really work, but they had a side effect of making a person need to urinate. Doping al-Asim with it was their way of getting him to the casino’s restroom on their schedule rather than on his.

  Al-Asim didn’t suspect a thing. He played his hand and won, grinning wolfishly when he handed Julia her winnings.

  “Merci, monsieur,” she said. She played one more time with a different player, lost, and drifted away from the table. When she stepped out of the gambling hall and back into the towering atrium, she called Cabrillo to tell him it was done.

  “Okay, find a place to watch him, and let us know when he’s headed for the bathroom and then get yourself back to the marina,” Juan ordered as he headed down to the lavatory closest to the Salon de l’Europe. “Mike, you and Ski move into position.”

  “On our way.”

  There was a doorway a short distance from the restroom that led to the building’s service corridors, so the guests didn’t need to be bothered with seeing things like the janitors or the waitstaff who fetched patrons’ drinks. Juan loitered next to the door for just a moment before it opened slightly and Mike handed him the bottle of fake vomit. Juan let a few more minutes trickle by, to give the drug time to work, before entering the restroom.

  Like everything else about the casino, the restroom was all marble and gilt. There was a man washing his hands when Cabrillo entered, but he left before Juan could even reach the stalls. With no one to hear his performance, he didn’t have to act out being ill. He just poured the noisome concoction on the floor and retreated to a stall.

  It took only one patron entering the bathroom for a casino employee to be summoned. Juan didn’t understand much French, but the attendant’s assuring tone meant that the janitorial staff would be notified immediately. He could picture the attendant making for the nearest service entrance to notify housekeeping only to discover two janitors in the hallway already, as if they had been told of the mess.

  The bathroom door opened again, and Juan heard the big trash barrel’s wheel squeaking as they pushed it in.

  “Howdy, boys,” he said, and stepped from the stall.

  “Why do we always get the glamor jobs?” Mike asked with heavy sarcasm.

  “Because you know how to make a floor shine.”

  The door opened again. Ski was there to shoo the patron away with an apologetic nod toward the filth being mopped from the floor.

  “He just got up from the table,” Julia informed Cabrillo. “He’s going to be the next guy coming into the bathroom.”

  “Roger that. See you later.” Juan retreated back into the stall.

  When the door opened, Ski let al-Asim enter the restroom. The Arab made a face at the smell, but his need was greater than his revulsion and he practically sprinted to a urinal.

  Cabrillo waited for him to finish before stepping silently behind him. Al-Asim felt his presence at the last moment and turned. His eyes widened at seeing his identical twin, but, before he could understand what was happening, Juan jammed the hypodermic needle into his neck and depressed the plunger. Al-Asim made to cry out, so Juan clamped a hand over his mouth and held him until he slipped into unconsciousness.

  Ski had to refuse entry to another patron as Juan and Trono dumped the terrorist financier into the large trash can. Juan replaced his own watch with the slim Movado al-Asim wore and slipped al-Asim’s large ring on a finger.

  “I should be finished with Kerikov before he comes to,” Juan said, checking himself in the mirror. “Just leave him where he won’t be found for a few hours and get yourselves back to the Oregon with Julia.”

  “There’s a utility closet near the loading dock. At this hour, no one will be using it.” Mike finished restoring the floor to its glossy shine and tossed the mop in the bucket.

  “See you boys later.”

  Juan made his way back to the chemin de fer table where Kerikov was dealing from the shoe.

  “Are you all right, my friend?” the Russian asked in English, the only language he shared with the Arab.

  “A little stomach trouble, Ivan. Nothing to worry about.” Cabrillo had listened to several hours of taped conversation between the two men and knew how they spoke to one another. The arms dealer hadn’t given his appearance a second glance. The disguise worked perfectly.

  They played for another forty-five minutes, Juan acting as though his condition was worsening, and it showed on how he played. He bet foolishly and cut al-Asim’s fifty thousand dollars’ worth of chips in half.

  “Ivan, I’m sorry,” he said, holding a hand across his stomach. “I think I need to return to the boat.”

  “Do you need a doctor?”

  “I don’t think it’s that serious. I just need to lie down.” Juan declined the shoe when it was his turn to deal and got unsteadily to his feet. “You keep playing, please.”

  It was a risk to make the offer, but it was something al-Asim definitely would have done.

  Kerikov seemed to give it thought. He was up about thirty thousand dollars since they’d started gambling and he hated to walk away from a winning streak. On the other hand, the way things were going with al-Asim he might become one of his best clients.

  “I have taken enough of their money for one night.” He pushed the six-deck shoe to the Asian man to his left. When he stood, his jacket bunched across his heavy shoulders.

  They handed in their chips and left the money on account with the casino for when they returned the next evening. As they walked through the ornate atrium, Kerikov called his driver on his cell phone so the limousine would be around front when they exited the building.

  The driver pulled up to the entrance but remained behind the wheel. It was Kerikov’s bodyguard who jumped from the front seat and opened the rear door. He was a good four inches taller than Cabrillo, with dark, distrusting eyes. He scanned the crowd, as Kerikov maneuvered himself into the car, and pegged Juan with a hard stare.

  Instinct would have been to look away, and, if Cabrillo had, the guard would have known something was amiss. But Juan had spent a lifetime training to ignore instinct. Instead of lowering his eyes, he stared back just as fiercely, and asked, “Is there something wrong?”

  The bodyguard softened his expression. “Nyet.”

  Juan got into the car and the door was closed behind him. It was a short drive to the marina. Juan played up his intestinal discomfort so he wouldn’t need to talk with the Russian as the limo wound its way down to the waterfront.

  Kerikov had a private launch from his yacht, Matryoshka, waiting for them at the marina. The guard sprang out of the car as soon as it stopped to open the back door.

  “Good thing we didn’t
waste money on any ladies this evening,” Kerikov remarked as they walked to where the gleaming white launch was tied.

  “I don’t feel well enough even to look at a woman right now. In fact, I’m not really eager for this ride out to your boat.”

  Kerikov placed a beefy hand on Cabrillo’s shoulder. “It’s only a short hop, and the harbor is as smooth as glass. You’ll do fine.”

  The bodyguard fired up the launch’s engine while the limo driver helped with the bow and stern lines. Five minutes later, they approached the broad transom of the Matryoshka, where a teak dive platform had been lowered and a flight of stairs gave access to the monster boat’s main deck.

  “I should think you are going straight to your cabin,” Kerikov remarked as they stepped aboard. A servant was waiting at the top of the steps, should the Russian require anything, and Juan saw two guards, one up on the sundeck behind the bridge and other patrolling near the ship’s pool.

  His team had estimated there were at least eighteen crewmen to run the megayacht and a ten-man security detail.

  “Actually,” Juan replied, “I would like to talk to you in your office.”

  “Nothing too sensitive.” Kerikov inquired at once. He knew how easily someone could eavesdrop on his ship so close to shore.

  “No, no, no,” Juan said at once. “Just something that occurred to me tonight.”

  Kerikov led them through the luxurious vessel, passing by a dining room that could seat twenty and a movie theater with double that capacity. The former hard-line communist spy had certainly availed himself of the trappings of capitalism.

  They reached the Russian’s private office, and, as soon as Kerikov closed the door behind them, Juan had his pistol out and pressed to Kerikov’s throat hard enough to tear skin.

  “One sound and you’re dead.” Juan had dropped his phony Arabic accent and spoke in Russian.

  To his credit, Kerikov didn’t move. He had probably been on the giving end of this situation enough to know that if his attacker’s motive was assassination, he would already be dead.