by Rick Chesler
She knew his room was private—a rare luxury at sea—and located not in the hold, but on one of the bridge tower levels. She could get there by traveling through the long hold which ran nearly the length of the ship, which would also keep her a little more out of sight.
She crept past mostly empty, cave-like spaces that were dimly lit and stocked with unopened shipping containers—the kind that occasionally fell overboard and released their precious cargoes of Nike shoes and plasma TVs. She doubted the ones here contained mundane consumer items, though, knowing DeKirk, but right now that wasn't her concern.
Veronica kept moving, sticking to the shadows and staying low between the storage containers when she heard the voices of crew nearby. For the most part, it was easy going and after a while, she reached a circular stairwell leading up. She ascended, adopting an official air about her as soon as she reached the outer deck, as if she was headed somewhere on business and had to get there fast, no time to chat.
She knew there was a corridor of quarters for VIP guests, meaning that other than the captain's quarters, they were the nicest accommodations on the ship, and private rather than spaces crammed with triple bunks. She pounded up more flights of metal stairs, traversed a couple of wire mesh catwalks, and then pulled a door that opened into a short hallway with doors spaced at even intervals on both sides.
Guest quarters. She had taken a look earlier at the room assignment chart and knew Xander's quarters to be one of these, #412. She found the marked door about halfway down the hall on the right. She tried the knob.
Locked. As the shipboard physician, she did have keys to certain areas but the private rooms were not among them. Years of field work as a CIA operative certainly had its benefits though, and so Veronica looked both ways down the hall and then removed a lock pick from the medical bag she carried. She defeated the simple lock within ten seconds, opened the door, and slipped inside. She eased the door softly shut behind her.
Xander's quarters consisted of a single ten-by-ten room with an adjoining closet-sized bathroom, which she checked and found to be empty. In the main room, there was a single bed, a simple desk, and dresser. By the looks of things, Xander travelled light and did little but sleep in here, and probably not even much of that. She searched the dresser drawers—completely empty. She saw a duffel bag at the foot of the bed and rifled through it. Just clothing, nothing in the pockets. She saw a single shallow drawer in the desk and went to it, sliding it open.
A white MacBook Air lay closed inside.
A smile eased its way across Veronica's lips as she set the machine on the desk, flipped it open, and lit the thing up. She was immediately greeted with a password prompt, not unexpected, but she knew some rudimentary CIA hacking tricks, restarting it in safe mode, gaining administrator access, bypassing the security altogether, and accessing the root directories.
Biochemists, she thought with a smirk.
In moments, she was looking at Xander's programs and files. There were the usual office productivity applications, but also some specialized programs as well. Her brow furrowed as she read a few of the names: Matlab, Stata, ChemPro, GenTrack, and SequenceGuru...
What the hell were these programs? She clicked one at random.
The title of one of the panes read, Gene Mutation, and beneath that were twin columns of data with values like, Tac-1, Pep-4, etc. Veronica had heard the shipboard rumors of dinosaurs being pulled from the underground lake, but she figured they were just boring bones. Why would Xander—or anyone—be working with genes already if they didn't have any actual dinosaurs yet? Wishful thinking? Did they find a way to clone them from bones that still had some marrow left?
Suddenly, she felt a vibration in her pocket and pulled out her smartphone, reading the text on screen, a red exclamation point accompanying the message: URGENT: SHIP'S DOCTOR REPORT TO AFT WORK DECK IMMEDIATELY FOR CREW INJURY WITH HEAVY EQUIPMENT!
It was the first such page she'd received since boarding the tanker in South America. Just as she was beginning to think shipboard doctors had it easy...Crap! Who would have thought these at-sea M.D.s actually has to work? Her cover was predicated on the fact that statistically, a few days on board should be incident free, meaning that all she would need to do was fill a few prescriptions from the infirmary. So much for that.
Skimming rapidly through one of the other panes on the screen, she saw a table of electron micrographs depicting the inner workings of various microbes, none of which meant anything to her, as well as what looked like an X-ray with the caption, Cross-section of Cerebellum Post-injection. A block of dense, jargon-laced text with terms like, weaponized , Mesozoic viral load, reptilian host, cross-species vector...Realizing she had no time to take all this in now, she used her smartphone to snap a picture of the screen.
Veronica hurriedly closed the app and shut down Xander's Macbook. She put it back in the desk and stepped back to look at the entire area to make sure everything looked as it had before she got here. Check.
She put her ear to the door, listening for a moment to make certain no one was coming down the hall. Clear. Then she opened the door and slipped into the hallway, closing the door softly behind her.
She checked the handle to make sure it was locked and then proceeded down the hall, holding her phone out in front of her as though she were a busy doctor just receiving an alert.
11.
Aboard Oil Tanker Hammond-1, Erebus, Antarctica
Marcus looked up from embracing his son to see the crewman who'd acted as his jailer return from the adjacent part of the hold, staring at them, hoping for a good argument that could entertain him, as he whiled away the rest of his shift at the shabby little desk. Marcus pointed toward the end of the hold where the crate was.
“Let's go to my quarters where we might find a little privacy.” He glared at the guard, and then he and Alex walked out of the brig and into the section where the crate had been delivered. It was busy with workers now wrestling a huge, adult dinosaur body onto a specially constructed wheeled platform where it could be laid out in all its frozen glory.
Alex stopped walking as soon as he got a glimpse of the incredible sight. “I still can’t believe that’s a...”
“Tyrannosaurus rex? Believe it.”
Marcus waved his son onward and they walked up close to the spectacle. Xander was standing nearby, pointing toward the makeshift large-scale laboratory, a worker then trundling a cart laden with electronic equipment in that direction.
Xander looked over at Marcus when he saw him approach and gave him a dose of stink-eye before looking away. Marcus couldn't help but hear a couple of crewmen talking about a serious injury out on the work deck.
“Dad, we should be careful around this thing.” Alex sounded genuinely nervous, not simply trying to make a scene for the sake of attention.
“Calm down. It's remarkably well preserved from the below-freezing temperatures of the freshwater lake—but it's dead as a doornail, a stiff for millions of years.”
Alex rubbed his forehead. “Why do I feel like we’re in a horror movie and no one fucking believes me?” A crewman put his bare hand on the animal's tail and attempted to drag it onto the platform where it flopped back onto the floor. It proved too heavy and stiff for one man, though, and another came to his assistance, the two of them together wrangling the wayward appendage fully onto the platform.
Marcus put a hand on his son's shoulder. “Alex. We need to finish our conversation. My quarters.” He pointed to the opposite side of the hold, about the width of a football field, where his divided-off area was. “Now!”
Alex shuffled off toward his father's room. When they got there, Marcus indicated for him to walk around the divider and take a seat on the military-style cot that served as his bed. He also had a folding card table for a desk and a single chair, a small transistor radio, along with a few books on Antarctica, and assorted field guides about flora and fauna.
“Nice place you got here,” Alex joked, flopping on
to the cot and crossing his arms behind his head as he stared up at the high ceiling.
“Sit up please.”
Alex grunted with the effort of pulling himself to a sitting position. “C'mon, Dad.”
“Alex,” Marcus thought about his next words, but couldn’t stop himself, “shut up and listen for once in your life!”
His son's eyes widened a little at his sharp tone. He remained silent.
“This time you've gotten yourself into one hell of a situation. Maybe more than you bargained for.” He saw Alex about to reply and put his arm up, palm facing out.
“Don't talk. Listen. Don't think for a second that just because you're out of that cage for the time being, it means your troubles are over.”
“Aren't they? Thanks a lot for getting me out of there, Dad. I'm sorry for what it cost you. I know it was a cool job, working with dinosaurs and all, and that's what you love...”
Marcus shook his head vigorously. “No, you still don't get it, Alex! Look around you. At this ship...” He waved an arm at the rust-streaked metal walls soaring high above them where racks of fluorescent lighting kept the space from being in the dark. “...Outside is Antarctica, Alex, one of the most forbidding places on the planet. We are far from civilization. My point is that you have absolutely nowhere to go from here. You're entirely at the mercy of DeKirk's people. I got them to release you from the brig for now, but they know you can't really go anywhere! At any moment, they could change their mind, decide they need a favor from the Russians, and turn you over to them. You got people killed, Alex, do you understand that? We're at their mercy now, and let me tell you, after working for them—that's not a good position to be in.”
Alex held his head in his hands. “I know I screwed up, but you have to admit, the conditions here were pretty freakin’ unbelievable. I mean, who knew—”
“Even coming down here at all was a ridiculously stupid stunt, much less what you did after you got here. The question now, is what are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I just plan to lay low until they drop us off in Chile, I guess, and then…”
“No, Alex. I mean with your life. What are you going to do to make sure this kind of thing never, ever happens again? Because this might be Antarctica, but you pull something like this back in the States, and there won't be anything I can do to help you, Alex. Do you understand that? You thought it was bad standing over there for a few hours? You want to go to prison for the rest of your life?” He raised his voice. “Because that's where you're headed, damn it!”
Alex looked down at the floor. Marcus, seeing that he had finally managed to make an impact, pressed on.
“What else can you direct your energy toward besides activism? Because nobody's going to pay you inadvertently to kill people and destroy property, I don't care how pure your motives are. I understand where you're coming from. I really do. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've been out in the field on a dig in some remote, beautiful place, and find all kinds of trash left behind by careless campers, or even worse, industrial waste dumped by companies who can't be troubled to dispose of it properly. It disgusts me, but I don't blow up their campers or poison their food. I just do my job in the hopes that the more I can tell people about the amazing history of life on our planet, the more respect for the environment they'll have.”
Alex wiped his eyes and looked up at his father. Marcus was certain he saw something there he'd never seen before. Was that respect?
“Um…I can fly.”
Marcus wondered, is he high on drugs? “What?”
“Flying lessons. Summer three years ago. I didn’t tell you, but mom knew. She paid for them.”
“She did? Great, I guess I know why she kept that quiet. Yet another summer break spent goofing off while the rest of the world worked.”
Alex took a deep breath, as if pushing back a reply he might regret with a blast of incoming cold air. “Okay. Not going to argue, but what I was saying is that I finally finished. I actually saved enough money on my own to go back and finish the lessons. I just got my prop plane license in the mail from the FAA two weeks ago.”
Marcus studied his son's expression. “That's great, Alex. Congratulations, but honestly, I don't see what that's got to do with your situation right now.”
Alex held his hands up. “Dad. I can be a pilot! I can take people on eco-tours in small planes. My instructor told me he can hook me up with a guy who certifies for float planes, and then I'd be able to…”
“Alex! Really—”
He cut himself off as they heard the sound of the tanker's humungous anchor being winched back into the ship.
“What?”
“I just don't think—” Again, Marcus stopped himself short. Now is not the time to talk about being realistic, he told himself. It wasn't realistic to be stuck on an oil tanker in Antarctica with a frozen dinosaur after you've just been shit-canned from the most rewarding job a paleontologist could ever hope to find, either, yet...here he was. Let it go.
“Never mind. We'll discuss it further when we get back home.”
Alex shrugged. “Okay. Well, it would make Mom proud, don't you think?”
Marcus looked at his son. Yet another uncomfortable subject between them. “All your mother wants from you, Alex, is simply to hear from you now and then. She's dying of cancer and you haven't seen her in over a year.”
“I thought it was in remission?”
“It was. For a while. It came back about six months ago.”
“I sent her an email.”
Marcus gave a sage nod. “So you send your dying mother an email on Mother's Day and now you've fulfilled your obligation, is that it?”
“Oh, come on!” Alex stood up from the bed.
“A real Son of the Year. Yeah, that's you.”
“And you’re Husband of the Year? This is why I can't ever talk to you!” Alex got up and ran around the divider, and out into the main cargo hold.
“Where are you going?”
No reply came.
“I'm proud of you for getting your license!” Marcus called out, but he wasn't sure if Alex heard it. He stood from the chair and walked out of his living area. Didn't see Alex, but the crew had cleaned up the last of the crate mess and was now driving the forklift away. There was a cluster of people on the far side of the hold, in the lab area. Alex could not possibly have gotten all the way over there yet. Marcus looked right down the long way through the hold, then left and saw him, almost to the stairs leading to the aft deck.
He started after him and then halted. Let him go. Give him some space. Feeling like he'd gotten his point across for the most part, Marcus' growing curiosity over the dinosaur got the better of him. He started walking over to the lab area as he felt the ship's engines vibrate the hull beneath his feet.
They were underway.
12.
Aboard Oil Tanker Hammond-1, En route to Chile
Alex walked out of the cargo hold onto the aft work deck, not looking for anything in particular other than to be as far away as possible from his father right now. Soon, he came across a small crowd gathered in a tight circle. He heard shouted instructions like, “Put some pressure on it!” and, “Does anyone have a belt?”
Edging up to the gathering so that he might see what was going on without bothering anyone, he got a peek between two bodies of a crewman lying on deck, writhing in agony, clutching his right leg. His rubber overalls had been severed at the knee and copious amounts of blood soaked through. A piece of heavy machinery Alex couldn't identify lay toppled on the deck nearby.
“Where's that damned doctor!” somebody yelled.
“She's been called,” returned another.
Since there was nothing he could do to help, Alex thought it best if he stayed out of the way. He climbed the staircase of the ship's looming bridge tower. When he reached the top, he stepped out onto a perimeter walkway that surrounded the tanker's superstructure. He didn't see or hear anyone up here so he pau
sed at the rail, looking out over the water. The sun was setting over the field of icebergs they were leaving behind. He was numbed to the spectacular view, though, as well as the biting wind that pummeled its way through the slightest opening in his parka. Watching the Antarctic coast recede into the distance, he thought about his friend. Tony’s body was still down there in that horrible place. Because of me, and those Russians...what were they?
He couldn't stand to think of it anymore and turned away from the view of the coastline. Suddenly, he couldn't take being outside where he could see the place where everything had gone so horrifically wrong for him. There was a door in front of him. Didn't know where it went, but he didn't care. He flung it open and stepped into a short hallway—then stopped.
He was surprised to see a person walking toward him down the hall. He was even more taken aback to see that the person was female, and an attractive one at that. Her haircut was a little weird, cropped short but not in a stylish way, and her outfit wasn't much to look at, either, but hey, this was a working tanker ship at Antarctica, not Spring Break in Cabo San Lucas. He judged her to be about thirty. Her sea green eyes were fixed intently on the screen of her smartphone, but he saw them flick upwards at the noise of the opening door. The black medical bag she carried, as well as the Red Cross and Caduceus symbols sewn into the front of her frumpy sweater, told him that she was the ship's doctor.
“Hi, uh...excuse me,” Alex began.
She looked him briefly up and down, probably to see if he needed urgent medical attention, although Alex preferred to think she was checking him out for different reasons. Their eyes met and Alex felt something stir within him beyond the tilting of the ship and the crisp air tingling the flesh on his neck. The sort of spark he had only felt very rarely before, but this wasn't some eco-girl back home that he could comfort after watching Blood Dolphins or Blackfish and see where it led. An older woman, and a physician to boot. Smart and good-looking. Probably out of his league, but then again, so was this entire misguided trip.