by Deen Ferrell
Mouse tried to stifle the next cough, muttering to himself as the big man, the one he had called “Gates,” gathered a handful of Willoughby’s jacket, pulling the collar tight. He hefted Willoughby up from the ground with little effort. When he held him level with his scarred face, he spoke again.
“So, you think you be the smart one? I don’t like people who think they be the smart one. We soon see what that will be bringing you.” He forced a grin. “I think you be smart for too long.”
Willoughby wriggled in the man’s grasp, fighting to breathe. He choked, his face turning red, but could find no way to wrench free of the man’s iron grip. “Now,” Gates continued, seeming not to notice Willoughby’s struggle. “I will be putting you down so you can breathe, okay? You be trouble, I will pick you up again. You die if you can’t breathe. That will be unfortunate, it will be, You no make trouble, I think, if you smart one.”
He smiled again and threw Willoughby hard against the stairwell door. Willoughby slid slowly down, gasping for air. The big man barely gave him a second to catch his breath before his boot kicked out. Willoughby was barely able to dodge it. “I’m going,” Willoughby spat as he pushed to his feet. “You don’t have to kick.” He threw a quick glance behind him before heading down the stairs. The big man lumbered just behind him.
“It’s good for you that I am not being hungry,” he grinned. “I think you be a nice, tasty treat.”
He followed the comment with a deep, rumbling laugh. “Yes, tasty I do believe.” He kicked out again, but Willoughby was ready, lunging to the side. The boot still grazed him, causing him to stumble down the last few stairs. Gates gave another laugh and then barked into a headset. “Wolfer, come get this boy. He be wanting a nice sleep. This one, he be special. The Big Man says to keep him alive. Watch for Belzar’s wild brat, the one with the red dot. Let me know if there be trouble.”
“Who is the Big Man?” Willoughby managed as he struggled back onto his feet; “Who is Diablos?” The huge man stepped down onto the final stair and flung out his hand without warning. The back of his plate-sized hand hit Willoughby in the cheek like a slab of concrete. It slammed him into the wall. His face stung and his ear was ringing, but before he could push back away from the man, the brute had grabbed him by the jacket collar and jerked him into the air again. He shoved him against the door for a moment while he reached down with his free hand and flung open the door to a small equipment room. He flicked a light on, and then swung Willoughby inside the room and sent him careening against a wall of instrument dials. He laughed again. “Maybe you not feeling so smart now.” The big man showed his white teeth, and then slammed the door shut.
Willoughby barely had time to push again to his feet before the door flew back open and a short, stocky man in black fatigues stepped into the room. He was pouring a milky liquid onto a filthy rag, a breathing mask over his face.
“Don’t worry,” the man’s muffled voice said, “this don’t hurt. It just takes a few minutes and then all the pain goes away.”
Willoughby desperately searched the room for some place to run. His nose was bleeding from the blows of the man they called Gates. This man was smaller, but still considerably larger and bulkier than himself. A direct attack with nothing but bare fists did not seem a very wise course of action. He tried to think of some other way to defend himself, but there were no windows or doors, and nothing visible in the room to use as a weapon. He shot forward, trying to dodge under the man’s stubby arms. At the same time, he slapped out at the cloth the man was holding and tried to knock the container of milky liquid to the floor. Neither attempt worked. He did not knock the rag or container away, nor did he escape. The man was exceptionally fast and unbelievably strong. He grabbed Willoughby with one arm, and slapped the rag over his mouth and nose. Willoughby fought and struggled, determined not to breathe in the fumes from the rag, but the stocky man would not budge and he had to breathe. He fought the urge, but eventually, he had no choice—he had to breathe! Trying to jerk away from the rag, he sucked in a great gasp of air. The rag’s noxious fumes burned his throat and lungs. He coughed, kicking and punching, but he could feel his strength ebbing, ebbing...
The stocky man (Wolfer, was it?) yelled out the door to Gates. “Hey, you know Reese is storming mad, right? All this killing and still no treasure…”
Willoughby had to suck in breath again. All this killing? Reese? His mind screamed, trying to hold consciousness just a minute longer. Reese—the man with the tattoos; the man who had been photographing Antonio’s shop—wasn’t he the one in charge? What were these men after? A treasure… A treasure of what?
He was losing the fight. Like sand leaking through his fingers, his thoughts eroded. A booming voice echoed through the void. “Reese? He don’t scare me, with his crawling tattoos and black-ops training. He ain’t much unless Belzar is there holding his leash.” He couldn’t make sense of the words. They floated about like pieces of an incomprehensible puzzle. A laugh sounded, followed by a metallic click, like the sound of a machine rifle being cocked. “When the time is right,” someone said, “I’ll handle it.” The words seemed to echo: “I’ll handle it, I’ll handle it, I’ll handle it…” Willoughby tried to turn his head, to think of who spoke, but all sound was slowly fading as he sank into a place beyond words—a cold place, a dark place, where an infinite abyss opened before him, and he was falling, falling, falling.
20
The Shaft
James Arthur had a throbbing headache and an awful taste in his mouth. Where was he? He sat still, breathing, trying to remember. Strange, he thought, why is breathing such an effort? He felt something tight around his ribs. He glanced down: thick ropes. He could feel cold steel beneath him and at his back. They had propped him into a sitting position, his hands tied to some sort of metal pipe. They? He tried to focus his left eye. Who were they? What had happened? He tried to think.
The room was dark. He raised his head slowly, feeling a wave of dizziness and nausea. His slight moan triggered another sound in the room.
“Amigo,” a voice whispered. “Are you awake?”
Dr. J focused on the voice. He knew it. “Antonio!” he managed to croak through a strained voice and raspy, irregular breath. His head was throbbing and his neck felt swollen. “Where are we?”
He tried again to remember what had happened. He had been on deck, talking with Willoughby. They had to end their conversation because someone was watching them—a crew member, one he had never seen before—a well-muscled black man. Willoughby had headed down the stairs. He had turned back toward the basketball court, a ball tucked under his arm. He passed the huge man. He heard a sound. He turned, and… That’s all he could remember clearly. There was a feeling of choking, and then he remembered seeing a face. The black, scarred face had a half-moon smile. It burned in his mind, seeming to loom at him out of the haze.
“I cannot say for sure,” Antonio’s voice came back, weak and gravelly. “I think we are… in a ventilation chamber… below the engine room.”
“How long,” James Arthur started, then stopped to remoisten his lips. “How long have I been out?”
Antonio seemed to consider this for a long moment. “Many hours—perhaps even as much as a day.” He coughed, speaking slowly, in a whisper. Each sentence seemed a struggle, causing him to slur at least a third of the words.
“You sound bad,” Dr. J said, trying to glance behind him. “How long have you been here?”
Antonio coughed again. “I came upon them the night of the music performance. I noticed unusual crew…I would see them only briefly…always below decks. I think they boarded that night, one or two at a time. I argued with the captain, telling him we had to turn back. He did not believe me. He did agree to trigger a silent alert. I…I left the performance to come down the stairs to the barbershop. H.S. prepared an emergency communications console for me there. I was going to contact him directly,
but I was attacked before I could reach the shop...”
“You think the captain sent the silent alarm?”
“I…don’t know, but I wonder how much it matters now. I saw many of the crew, piled in heaps in this room when they first brought me here. They were all dead. I think they threw them over the rail. I heard them joking…about the night. They called it a ‘midnight feast for the beast,’ referring to the sharks, I think.’”
James Arthur tried to focus his eyes on the heavy bands of hemp that held him to the cold steel pipe. His hands were angled sharply toward his back and lashed tight. He struggled, but could not even wiggle them.
“You were lucky to be unconscious,” Antonio continued. “They tortured me, wanting to know of our mission, something about a, a shining pendant. They wanted to know about H.S...” His voice trailed off. “They beat me,” he coughed, his voice cracking. “They beat me badly, James Arthur.” He panted, as if the very act of speaking were draining what little energy he had. “I am dizzy and sick. I do not know how much longer I can stay conscious.”
“Did they say anything to you—anything that could lead us to who’s behind this? Did you see any tattoos?” Dr. J felt as if his tongue were swollen.
Antonio took a long time answering. “I, I did not have a chance to look in the sunlight and it is dark down here…but who else?” He was silent for a moment. “Why the interest in the mission?” he finally hissed. “Not interest in the technology, but interest in the mission…What has H.S. not told us?”
James Arthur pulled again against the tight cords holding him fast. “I don’t know, but Hathaway Simon seems to be really big on things hidden. He has to know something is wrong here by now. I find it hard to believe that, with all our safeguards, we could have been caught so blind. It shouldn’t be possible. Does this whole thing seem a little fishy to you?”
Antonio grunted. “Yes, it feels as though we are pawns…in some elaborate game of chess.”
“Hey,” James Arthur said, still breathing heavily, “have you heard anything about Willoughby? Do they have him yet? What about Sydney or Dr. O’Grady?”
Antonio sucked in a deep breath and was about to speak again when another voice, much younger, hissed out of the darkness.
“They have about everyone—everyone but me. Not many are still breathing.”
Dr. J. strained to pull his head around to see who had spoken. There was a slight ping of metal, a short jolt, and then the sound of something heavy clinking quietly to the floor. A moment later, he felt the friction of something sharp cutting at his bonds.
“Who are you?”
“They call me T.K.” It was a girl’s voice that whispered back. The voice carried an accent…Australian, or possibly New Zealand. He had heard it before. Suddenly, it came to him—it was the voice of the cabin girl!
”Last I saw, they were holding Willoughby, Sydney, and O’Grady in a cabin on deck four,” she said, cutting faster. “I can guess why the girl is being held there, and they seem to have a special interest in Willoughby, but I don’t understand why O’Grady is there. Why isn’t he down here with you two?”
She paused a moment, but neither Antonio or Dr. J had an answer. She continued; “The big black guy said Willoughby is a prize for some guy called the Big Man. There’s another guy they keep talking about—someone called Belzar. He seems to be looking for some kind of special pendant or something. It’s all pretty confusing. The big black guy seems to be ordering around most of the crew, but he doesn’t dare order around the Belzar guy for some reason. That’s all I’ve been able to get so far.”
“That’s a lot,” Dr. J said as his bonds finally fell away. He jerked his arms around with a grimace and then peered toward the girl’s voice, into the shadows behind another wide pipe. She had already moved to the pipe where Antonio was tied and had begun working on the ropes.
“I’ve a way out, but we’ve got to move fast. Can you both walk?” The cabin girl kept working as she spoke. James Arthur began to untie his feet hurriedly.
“How have you picked up so much and still avoided getting caught?”
When there was no answer, he scanned the room. About four yards away, there was a hole in the wall. A metal grate leaned against the wall to the side of it. He moved quietly to it, back in the shadows behind more piping.
“You’ve been hiding in the ventilation ducts,” he observed. “That’s how you’ve been able to eavesdrop on them.”
T.K. helped Antonio untie his feet, and then helped him stand. She led him silently toward the open shaft and helped him climb in, motioning for Dr. J to get in. James Arthur tried to force a smile but it came off as more of a wince. He motioned for her to go first. “My mama always taught me to be a gentleman.”
T.K. hesitated, waiting for Antonio to get completely into the shaft. Though dazed, Antonio kept moving. He pushed and pulled, wincing slightly as he wedged himself around a narrow bend. T.K. slid gracefully in after him. She whispered back to Dr. J; “Go in feet first so you can pull the grate up. There’s a “T” junction about 8 yards up. You can turn yourself around there.”
James Arthur followed the instructions, cramming himself in feet first. He grabbed the grate and carefully pulled it back into place over the end of the shaft. Luckily, there were no bolts holding it in—only the friction of a tight fit. Once it was pulled securely into place, he began carefully sliding backward, hoping that at some point, anxious to get himself turned around. He had backed about five feet into the shaft, angling around a sharp bend when T.K. grabbed his foot, pinning it down with a sense of urgency. He froze.
The darkness was suffocating but he could still see out the grate. He had not slid completely around the sharp bend in the shaft yet, but footsteps and voices were only a few yards away. He didn’t dare chance making a noise as he pushed himself the rest of the way around the bend and out of sight of the grate. Was he far enough into the shaft that he could not be seen? He barely breathed as the door to the small room burst open. Heavy footfalls rushed to the cut ropes in the room just outside the shaft. A short, stocky man came into view. The man was barely visible in the dim light, but almost every inch of his skin was covered in tattoos. The tattoos writhed as his muscles tensed and flexed. The man shot to his feet and did what appeared to be a quick search of the room. There was a sound of cabinet doors being opened and slammed. A huge foot loomed out of the dimness to kick at the metal grate. The stocky man bent down and peered through, into the shaft. James Arthur had flattened himself and shut his eyes tight when the boot had kicked the grate. He could hear his heart pounding. His clothes were dark, his skin was dark—would that be enough? After what seemed an eternity, the man stood again and James Arthur heard him move away.
Venturing a quick peek, he watched the man walk back to the cut ropes. Dr. J silently observed as the man bent and picked up a scrap of rope from the floor. The man lashed out viciously at the metal pipe in front of him.
“Tight!” he screamed to someone evidently just beyond the door. “I said tight, Braiden! Belzar will not be pleased!” The man dug nervously at the snake tattoos running up his arms.
A robust, curly-headed man waddled into the room. He, too, bent to look at the ropes. “I tied them tight!” he spat, picking up a bit of discarded rope. “Somebody’s been in here. See for yourself, Reese! The rope’s been cut!”
Reese grabbed the man by his collar, yanking him upright. “Save your excuses for Belzar. You’re the one who’s going to tell him!”
“Tell him what?” a voice hissed from the shadows. Two more figures stepped quietly into view, keeping a step or two back from Reese and the heavy-set man. One was an older man of slighter build. He walked with a noticeable limp and what looked to be a metal cane. The other was even smaller—a girl with brown skin and a mane of wavy black hair. Reese let go of the heavy-set man, pointing down to the cut ropes.
“So,”
the man said, slowly circling the discarded ropes. Reese stepped back out of sight, as did the girl. The heavy-set man, the one Reese called Braiden, began to perspire. He stammered, “I, I did tie them tight. I, they—”
The man with the cane stopped, sniffing at the air. “Bats in the belfry, have we? Skeletons in the closet, secrets in the stairwell…Really outdone themselves this time, have they? Skipped away to another time? You better hope not, Braiden.”
Braiden opened his mouth to speak, but with lightning quickness, the thin man’s cane swung hard, catching him in his ample midriff. Braiden fell to his knees, grunting from the pain. He spat out blood. The thin man swung the cane again, this time missing the man’s head by only inches. The cane slammed into the piping, leaving a two-inch dent.
Braiden glared up. He spat out another mouthful of blood. “This ain’t the end to it, Belzar! I’d say my prayers if I were you, ‘cause your days are numbered!”
“Possibly,” the man called Belzar agreed, “but that’s not your problem at the moment, is it?” He slammed another dent into the metal pipe. “Incompetence disturbs me, Mr. Braiden. You were left in charge of the prisoners, and yet, where are they? I wonder how your superior will react when he knows you allowed your quarry to escape. I hear he’s…a bit less than forgiving.” A series of ship pumps shuddered to life, as if startled by Belzar’s harsh blows. “Now,” Belzar continued over the sound of the pumps. “I’d say you haven’t much time… I’d say you should tear this ship apart if you have to, but find those hostages!”