Dark Hunt: A Ryan Weller Thriller

by Evan Graver

  “Are you kidding me?” Travis exclaimed. “I can’t sleep with rats running around. Plus, we’ll have to drag all these bags up three decks again. I’m sick of moving them.”

  “Last time, I promise,” Ryan said. He shouldered three of the bags and let Gary and Travis carry two each so they would only have to make one trip. The bags were heavy, and the canned goods slammed into his back with every step, but he kept going just to get it over with.

  When they reached the aft observation platform on the captain’s deck, they set their gear down under the overhang. Travis lay down on top of a picnic table, and Gary sacked out in the deflated rubber boat. Ryan leaned against the rail and drank a bottle of water. He didn’t think he could sleep, either. The thought of having rats racing across his body was revolting, and now he wished he had a cigarette.

  “Come on, Greg, get here fast,” Ryan muttered. “I don’t know if we can do this for five days.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mercy Hospital

  Miami, Florida

  It was eight-thirty in the evening when Emily parked her car in the parking garage at Mercy Hospital. Sitting right on Biscayne Bay, the old building had the most picturesque setting for any hospital she’d ever been to, and in the evening dusk, the lights of the houses on Virginia Key and Key Biscayne glowed against the dark sky and blue water.

  She got out of the car and shouldered her purse before crossing the street to the hospital. At the reception desk, she asked for Darrell Smith’s room number and got into the elevator with an elderly couple. The old man was leaning on a walker, and his wife held his arm as if helping to support his weight.

  Emily stared straight ahead at the doors as they closed, and the car rose upward. After leaving Kyle Ward’s office, she had told Mr. Spataro that she would help him. They had caught the last non-stop flight of the day to Miami and she’d rented a car at the airport. She kept a travel bag packed with extra clothes and essentials in her Jeep just in case she ever needed to head out at a moment’s notice, as she had today. She could have gone home and packed, but she wanted to get away from the office and concentrate on something other than Ryan Weller and Kyle Ward, but the whole time she’d been on the plane, all she could think about was going to Bluefields to check the breakers for Spataro’s ship, and maybe bumping into her ex.

  She had originally blown Ryan off because he had put her life in jeopardy twice. It had angered her then, but the more she thought about it and the more she pursued criminals through her own line of work, she slowly came to realize that their lives weren’t all that different, after all. Both of them liked the excitement and danger of confronting lawbreakers, but hers seemed to require more paperwork and less gunplay.

  The elevator stopped on the floor she needed, and she stepped off. She walked down the hall, smelling antiseptic and heavy-duty cleaners. She found Smith’s room and poked her head in the door. The man in the bed closest to the door looked at her expectantly.

  “Are you Darrell Smith?”

  “He’s over there.” The man nodded his head toward the bed on the other side of the curtain.

  Emily walked to the curtain and peered around it. A lean man with blond hair lay in the bed. His skin was pale, and his eyes were sunken. Beside him, an IV machine dripped fluids from multiple bags into clear tubes which snaked over the bedrail and into the man’s arm. “Mr. Smith?”

  He gazed at her for a long moment before he said, “Yeah.”

  Her voice was just above a whisper when she spoke. “Hi, I’m Emily Hunt. Can I come in for a few minutes?”

  Smith nodded.

  She slipped around the curtain and sat in the chair beside his bed. “I represent Ward and Young, Mr. Spataro’s insurance agency. I spoke to him this morning and he told me what happened.”

  “Can you get me some water?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She rose and picked up the pitcher, but it was empty. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Emily went to the nurses’ station and asked where the water and ice dispenser was located. The nurse pointed down the hall to a small alcove. Emily filled the pitcher half-full of ice and topped it with water. The actions reminded her of being in the hospital with her father before he had passed away. He’d gotten bladder cancer after years of smoking, and he’d drank a lot of water before he’d … She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push the thoughts from her mind, but the smell of disinfectant reminded her of those unhappy days.

  She carried the pitcher back to Smith’s room and filled his cup. He took long gulps just as her father had done. Her skin crawled and she wanted to run away; to get out of the hospital and to breathe fresh air again.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, reaching into her purse for her phone so she could record the conversation.

  Smith cleared his throat. “We were in Miragoâne. I had the late watch, and we planned to sail at first light.” He gave her a blow-by-blow description of the events of that day, from unloading the rice to him being shot in the back. He’d made it to the beach, but he couldn’t remember much after that.

  “Can you describe the pirate leader?”

  The captain took another long drink of water, and Emily refilled his cup again. He stared up at an old game show on the television. Emily saw Steve Harvey guffawing at a contestant’s answer.

  “He was a white guy with black hair,” Smith said. “The only time I got a decent look at him was right before he led me out on deck.”

  “Is there anything else that you can tell me about him?”

  Smith laid his head back on the pillow after another drink. He stared at the television for such a long time that Emily didn’t know if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open or if he was thinking.

  Finally, he said, “They spoke English, but, right before they shot us, two of them were muttering in a foreign language. I heard one of them say, ‘Inshallah,’ and the one who did the shooting cried, ‘Allahu Akbar.’”

  The insurance investigator sat in stunned silence. After a moment, she said in a low voice, “You’re telling me the men were Arabic?”

  “I don’t know who they were; just that they killed my men and stole my ship.”

  “I’d like to send a sketch artist by to talk to you. Are you up for that?”

  “Sure, I’ll try.”

  “Good. I’ll arrange it for in the morning. Get some rest, Mr. Smith. Tomorrow, we’ll get a look at your pirate.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Galina Jovovich

  Compass Reef, Nicaragua

  Morning dawned with spectacular reds in the gap between the ocean and the thick clouds stacked above it. Ryan sleepily recited the sailor’s ditty, “Red in the morning, sailors take warning. Red at night, sailor’s delight.”

  “Let me guess—the storm’s heading our way,” Gary said, joining Ryan at the rail.

  Ryan drew his sat phone from his chest rig and opened an Internet browser. He scrolled to the weather app and checked the storm’s track. “It’s turned toward us.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Ryan admitted. He dialed Greg Olsen’s number. When the owner of DWR came on the line, Ryan said, “When’re you gonna get here? The storm is coming, and this piece-of-shit boat is infested with rats.”

  “We’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Good. We’ll see you then. Have the beer on ice.”

  “Roger that.”

  Ryan ended the call and glanced at the eastern horizon. A cloud bank now blanketed the sun. Even the ocean was restless, rolling in deep blue waves to slam against the ship or burst apart on the coral reef, flinging spray high into the air.

  “I don’t like this,” Travis said. “The ship is moving too much. I’m afraid she’ll slide off the reef.”

  “We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Ryan replied.

  They lit the stove and ate more canned stew for breakfast, chasing it down with hot coffee while fending off the starving rats.


  Greg arrived as promised and stood off to the west, letting the Galina and the coral protect his Hatteras GT63 sportfisher, Dark Water, from the harshest waves. Rick and Shelly slung the rigid-hull Zodiac off the bigger boat’s long nose, and Rick ran it across to the Galina, coming in on the protected stern.

  When Ryan glanced down at the reef, he saw the ship had changed position. He slid down the rope to the Zodiac and had Rick take him to the cruise ship’s bow. The bulbous nose had left a deep groove in the coral where she had slid onto the reef and then shifted with the waves.

  Rick weaved their way through the coral heads back to Dark Water. Erica Opsal, one of DWR’s pilots, stood in the cockpit, wearing khaki shorts and a red bikini top. She smiled as Ryan tossed her the Zodiac’s painter. She was several inches taller than Rick’s five-feet-six and kissed him when he and Ryan came aboard Dark Water. Ryan could see why the ladies would like the short fellow, even if his shaved head reminded Ryan of television police detective Kojak.

  Ryan climbed the ladder to the bridge, expecting Greg to be at the helm, but Shelly Hughes, Dark Water Research’s chief operations officer and Greg’s girlfriend, sat behind the wheel instead. She wore a blue one-piece swimsuit over her curvy five-feet-five frame. Her brunette hair was in the normal ponytail, and Costa del Mar sunglasses shielded her brown eyes.

  He found Greg in the saloon. The Hatteras always amazed him. It was one of the most beautiful and luxurious boats he’d ever had the privilege of using. Everything was stainless steel, marble, beautiful hardwoods, and expensive fabrics. Greg sat in the settee behind the table with his laptop open before him beside a cold beer. His wheelchair looked strangely empty without him in it.

  The two friends bumped fists before Ryan pulled a Mountain Dew from the fridge and closed his eyes as he took the first long drink. Between the icy drink and the air conditioning, he felt like he was in heaven compared to the primitive conditions on the ghost ship. He gave Greg, Rick, and Erica a situational update before he asked them to go to Bluefields to collect as much rat poison and traps as they could find so they could deal with the Galina’s rat infestation.

  “Shelly and I have a meeting this afternoon with the Nicaraguan Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and Arcadis Nederland, the Dutch company they’ve hired for feasibility studies,” Greg said.

  “Well, have Rick come back with my supplies. Take Gary and Travis with you so they can get started on salvaging the EPC. I’ll stay here with Lady Galina.”

  “By yourself?”

  Ryan shrugged.

  “Are you sure?” Rick asked. “I wouldn’t want to be on that tub when the storm hits.”

  “Just make it fast.”

  Ryan collected a six-pack of Mountain Dew and a case of water before Rick shuttled him back to the Galina. Travis and Gary gratefully traded places with him in the Zodiac. By the time Ryan climbed to the aft observation deck where they’d left their gear, the Hatteras was a speck on the horizon as she raced south at maximum speed.

  He wasn’t worried about being alone, but he should have been.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three hours later, Dark Water was back, with Rick, Erica, and Gary aboard. Gary and Erica launched the Zodiac while Rick idled the Hatteras in the lee of the Galina but well off the coral reef.

  During the time it had taken for the men to run to Bluefields and back, the storm had drawn closer. The wind had freshened and was backing to the southeast and the waves had built to four-foot swells. Ominous black clouds had completely blotted the sky, and, in several places on the horizon, patches of rain fell.

  Gary ran the Zodiac to the Galina and tied off with the line Ryan handed down. In the bow were three cardboard boxes. Ryan lowered another length of rope, and Gary tied on the first box. Ryan hauled it up and read the Spanish lettering on the outside—Rodilon. Rat poison pellets. The second box contained the same and the third held a dozen large rat traps along with a six-pack of Stella Artois.

  “You sure you want to stay?” Gary shouted.

  “Someone has to keep our salvage rights,” Ryan yelled back.

  Gary flashed a thumbs-up and untied the rope. He maneuvered the Zodiac away from the cruise ship and headed back to Dark Water. They struggled to get the Zodiac into the blocks on the Hatteras’s bow. When Rick turned the sportfisher south, he waved from the bridge.

  Ryan walked along the upper deck toward the Galina’s bow, staring over the railing at the frothing sea below. He climbed onto the pulpit. The bulbous bow seemed to have slipped farther down the reef since earlier that morning. A sudden fear took hold, making him feel hollow. It was possible that the ship would slide off this tiny rock and drift again, this time taking him and the rats along with it. He shuddered at the thought and headed back to where he’d left the industrial cartons of poison.

  He tore open a pack of pellets and poured them around the gear bags. Then he stuffed pellet packs into his backpack and spent the rest of the afternoon dumping them throughout the ship, closing and dogging every watertight hatch on his way back to his gear. When he got there, he saw the rats had consumed many of the poisonous pills he’d left for them.

  While heating a can of chicken soup, Ryan read the safety sheet included in the packages of Rodilon. The rats would take three to five days to die after ingesting the poison. He had hoped it would work faster. He hadn’t slept since before he’d gone into the water to cut the rock that had stopped the subsea cable plow, and now he felt utterly exhausted. Just thinking about taking a nap made him yawn. Then he remembered seeing the enclosed cabin of the crane on the bow, mounted on a six-foot-high pedestal.

  He picked up the box of rat traps and beer before trudging to the bow. The crane cab was small, barely large enough to accommodate a padded seat and the controls, but it was the only place the rats hadn’t entered because they couldn’t climb the slippery, salt-encrusted steel. Ryan set the traps around the outside of the cab, baiting them with scraps of canned ham. He hadn’t even finished laying the traps before he heard the first one snap. Then the second and the third. Each contained a dead rat.

  Instead of emptying the traps, he left them and crawled into the crane cab. He closed the door, locked the latch, and opened a beer. In the box, he discovered a package wrapped in a brown paper sack. Greg had written a note in blue pen on the sack, which read: Because you’re bored.

  Ryan smiled as he opened the wrapper and found a pack of Camel Blues and a lighter. He cracked the vent windows and felt the moisture-laden air swirl through the cabin. He lit a cigarette and breathed deeply. The guilt he’d felt earlier about breaking his streak wafted out the window with the smoke from this cigarette. After he’d smoked it down to the butt, he flicked it out the open window, finished his beer, and slouched in the seat with his arms crossed. It didn’t take long for his chin to droop to his chest as he drifted off to sleep, jerking awake with each snap of a rat trap. Eventually, he fell into REM sleep and dreamed about swirling sharks and beautiful blondes.

  As he slept, the ship broke free from the coral and continued her way north.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Ryan jerked awake, he immediately sensed something was different.

  Besides the rain that streaked down the windows and hammered against the crane cab’s roof, the ship had a different motion. He suspected that she had broken free of the reef and was drifting again.

  He decided to stay in the cab because there wasn’t a damned thing that he could do about the wayward ship. While waiting for Rick to return on Dark Water, he’d moved the gear bags up to the bridge to keep them dry from the approaching storm, figuring he would go there if she broke loose from the reef. While the Galina had no ability to maneuver and no power left in her batteries, she had a large compass and Ryan had a handheld GPS receiver to track their movements. If there was real trouble, he would break into one of the remaining lifeboats and activate the Electronic Positioning Indicator Radio Beacon, or EPIRB, which would send a distress signal to assemble sea
rch and rescue forces.

  After lighting a cigarette, he pulled the sat phone from his pocket to call Greg. Then he decided there was no point, put the phone back in his pocket, and opened another beer.

  While being stuck on the ghost ship wasn’t ideal, it was a vacation compared to the last six weeks of constant activity on the Peggy Lynn, providing diver support to the cable layer. This working lifestyle was tough. He could call it quits, pick up his sailboat in Grenada, and keep chasing the sunset. There was more money in his Cayman Islands bank account than he could spend in a lifetime, so why was he busting his ass? Maybe having those thoughts meant he shouldn’t be out there. Any doubts about his place on Peggy Lynn told Ryan there was truth in Travis and Dennis’s accusations.

  The Galina pitched and rolled beneath him in the heavy seas and high wind, which sang through the crane cables and rigging. The Russians had built the Galina to tour the Arctic, and she’d been to Antarctica as well, surviving the Drake Passage and bulldozing through ice, so Ryan had no doubt she would come through this storm. He smoked and drank warm beer as he looked out the window at the slate gray water covered in spume.

  Then the ship shuddered. Ryan heard a loud screech of metal above the wind, signaling contact between the Galina’s hull and the unforgiving coral. He stayed put, feeling the ship grind along the rocks before breaking free and continuing on her way, caught in the current and the blowing storm.

  He decided he needed to check for leaks and pushed open the cab door. The rain instantly soaked his clothes, chilling him to the bone. On the deck, the rat traps had shifted with the restless movements of the ship, and watery blood stained the places where their cannibalistic brethren had gnawed the dead. Ryan ran past the traps to reach the cover provided by the port promenade deck, an outside passageway enclosed with large vinyl windows. At the open stern, he glanced over the railing at the hull plates. He couldn’t see any damage, so he made his way inside and down the stairs to the lower deck. His flashlight offered a small cone of illumination in the complete darkness.