“I no want nothing to do with it. Captain doing something illegal? I say fine. Just give me my money and get me off this boat.”
Dingman shook his head and pulled one last lungful of smoke before a wave swept over the bow with a boom and he had to drop the bottle and grab onto the rail of the staircase leading up to their cramped quarters on the Shelterdeck. The stranger clung to the gunwale and barely managed to keep from being ripped from his feet. He appeared to lack even the strength to keep himself upright. Something was definitely wrong with him. He looked like he was more than just seasick. For all any of them knew, he could have one of those crazy African monkey-fucker diseases that eat a man alive from the inside out. Dingman wanted no part of it. Whatever the guy was paying the captain wasn’t enough to justify getting all of them killed, even if he did decide to throw a couple bucks their way. And that was a big if. He couldn’t help but notice that Hargrove avoided the guy like he had the plague, as though he knew something that the rest of them didn’t. Not once had the captain—or any of them for that matter—gone down into the hold where a new padlock had been installed on the smallest of the three freezer units and everything in dry storage had been cleared out for the man, who generally stayed locked inside with whatever the hell he was smuggling, and Dingman was certain that that was exactly what he was doing. He’d heard about everything possible being smuggled out of the former Soviet Union, from arms to drugs to whores. After four months working shoulder-to-shoulder with nothing but hairy, sweaty men reeking of chum and covered with scales and entrails, the prospect of a little bit of Bolshevik tail was more than enticing. Of course, if they were carrying whatever had made that guy so sick…
“You no do nothing stupid,” Ruiz said. His dark eyes locked on Dingman’s beneath the cowl of his slicker. “We almost home now. We get money and we no look back.”
He clapped Dingman on the shoulder and ducked back into the main corridor.
Ruiz was right, no doubt, but Dingman couldn’t bring himself to clamber back up to the cabins or the mess, where the men who weren’t agitated by the liquor were agitated by something else. You could wring the tension from the air. Every man was convinced that his wife or his girlfriend had been cheating on him the whole time he was away, that his children were now calling someone else daddy, that there would be a process server waiting on the dock to serve him with whatever warrant he had initially enlisted to avoid, or any of the millions of piddly-dick concerns that could turn an angry drunk into a violent brute. No way. He wasn’t going back up there anytime soon. Not until the majority of them were passed out in a communal puddle of vomit. Besides, as much as he looked forward to putting back out to sea on this floating deathtrap eight months from now, perhaps there might be an opportunity to score enough cash on the side to make it so that he never had to set foot on this godforsaken vessel ever again.
He glanced at the man puking over the rail from the corner of his eye one last time before ducking into the ship and sliding across the wet floor to the steel stairs leading down into the hold. Whatever was down there, he wanted his rightful share.
Dingman rounded the landing and recoiled from the stench of rotting entrails. It was a scent he would never get used to, no matter how much time he spent down here. And no amount of astringent or scrubbing would ever be able to scour it away.
He passed the processing floor on the left, where tons of fish were dropped through the trapdoor on the bow to be gutted and scaled before being wheeled across the corridor to the packing room on the right where they were bundled and packaged for frozen storage. Both rooms were generally staffed twenty-four hours a day by three shifts of men who could barely be heard shouting over the clanging and grinding of machinery, but as their tour was complete and they were on their way home, the facilities were dark, unmanned, and about as clean as they would ever be.
A row of light bulbs in glass and aluminum cages guided him deeper into the bowels of the ship toward the engine room. He passed the main frozen holds to either side, their doors and temperature gauges rimed with frost as the interiors defrosted, before he reached the smaller unit with its shiny padlock. A quick tug confirmed it was locked. Across the hallway was dry storage, where their initial food supply had dwindled to the point that the cereal and potato flakes and flour and grains could be consolidated onto a few shelves.
He peered down the corridor, to where a forest of pipes pumped oil, fuel, and bilge throughout the vessel and a single engineer undoubtedly dozed at the console. There was no sign of movement. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that no one had followed him down from the main deck. He drew a deep breath and gave the handle a solid twist.
It turned easily in his hand.
He leaned his shoulder against the door and tried to slow his pounding heartbeat as he checked the hallway one last time, then ducked inside and silently closed the door behind him. The room was pitch-black. There were no porthole windows. The humid air was stale and reeked of sweat, sickness, and excrement. He involuntarily gagged and clapped his hand over his mouth. The smell was far worse than anything the processing floor had to offer under its worst conditions, and there had been times when he was knee-deep in guts. By the time he found the light switch on the wall, he wasn’t certain he wanted to see what was in there anymore. He heard a shuffling sound, a metallic clang, and what he could have sworn was wet, heavy breathing.
There was someone in here with him.
For the briefest of moments, his nerves got the better of him and he debated just slipping back out into the corridor and making a break for it, but after several slow breaths, he mustered his courage and flipped the switch.
A lone bulb bloomed from the ceiling, casting a brass glare over the room, creating more shadows than it exposed. The wire racks along the wall to the left and against the port hull had been stripped bare, save for the haphazard mounds of the man’s belongings: soiled clothes, an unzipped rucksack, a soft briefcase overflowing with printouts, a laptop computer connected to some sort of satellite communications setup, jugs of water, and empty packets of freeze dried rations. A rumpled arctic sleeping bag had been kicked to the side. A mop bucket sat in the corner, its sides spattered with dried blood and vomit. The mop was crusted in a congealed puddle beside it.
“Jesus Christ,” Dingman whispered. What in the name of God was wrong with this guy?
At the sound of his voice, chaos erupted around the corner to his right, where the crates of food had once been stacked floor-to-ceiling and unloaded five units at a time. Banging, clanging, thrashing. He held his breath and waited, mentally preparing himself for whatever was back there to come charging right at him. He could positively feel the germs and diseases crawling on his skin. Whatever the man was paying the captain definitely wasn’t worth this. He could keep the money and shove it straight up his ass for all Dingman cared. Right now, all he wanted was to get the hell out of there and pray he hadn’t been infected by whatever sickness—
A whimpering sound from around the corner.
It sounded like… No, it couldn’t be… Could it?
He was just about to turn around and head for the door when the whimpering metamorphosed into the sound of someone softly crying.
He stepped forward to the edge of the wall and peeked around the corner. There was an iron cage against the back wall, bracketed to the hull with shiny new bolts. It couldn’t have been more than three feet tall, four feet wide, and roughly half that deep, like the kind of cage they used to transport tranquilized wild animals. A shape was slumped in the corner under a tattered blanket. Beside it rested a dented tin food tray smeared with blood. There were piles of feces in the opposite corner. The ammonia from the copious amounts of dried urine on the walls and the floor of the cage made his eyes water.
The shape shifted and he caught twin circular reflections from a pair of eyes.
The crying grew louder and more desperate. In one swift motion, the blanket was cast aside and the occupant of the cage hurled itse
lf forward against the bars. Its small hands curled around the rusted iron. The skin was so pale it was almost translucent. He could see the veins in the wrists, leading up the slender arms to where the form leaned forward from the shadows and into the wan light. Its face was bruised and crusted with blood, and its pinkish irises positively shivered in terror. It released a sob that hit him in the pit of his stomach. It had been stripped, shaved, and caged like a beast. Smuggling drugs or weapons or whores was one thing, but this… The depths of human depravity knew no bounds.
Screw this! He was getting it out of there and he was going straight to the captain. If that son of a bitch knew what he was transporting down here, then he was going to have to answer to all of his men. This crew might have been comprised of individuals of questionable moral character, arguably more criminal than not, but none of them, to a man, would stand by and allow this kind of thing to happen right under their noses.
Its eyes locked on his and he felt sorrow beyond anything he had ever experienced.
Damn the consequences. This ended right here and now.
The cage door was secured by a keyed latch. He spun around and searched the shelves. He shook the contents of the backpack and the briefcase onto the floor, but the key wasn’t there either.
It continued to weep, its tears shimmering on its pale cheeks.
“Where’s the key?” Dingman snapped.
It cringed at the sound of his voice and scurried into the back corner of the cage. It buried itself in the blanket and continued to sob.
“Damn it!” He spun in a circle, searching the room for any sign of the key. “Where the hell—?”
He froze when he heard the hollow echo of footsteps in the hallway, one louder than the other, a staggering gait. Whoever was out there walked with a pronounced limp, as though he were injured…or sick.
Dingman instinctively dashed for the entryway and killed the light. The door opened outward, so there was no way of hiding behind it. If he waited until the approaching footsteps halted on the other side, he could throw his shoulder into it, stun the man on the other side, and make a break for it. He could probably make it to one of the stairwells in the engine room and disappear into the ship, but he risked the possibility that the man would be able to identify him, or worse, put a bullet between his shoulder blades while he ran. Neither option helped the occupant of the cage. His decision was made for him when the footsteps stopped a mere foot away and the handle of the door rattled.
He ducked back around the corner and pressed his back to the wall. The man wouldn’t be able to see him until he was all the way in the storage room and within striking distance.
The cage rocked back and forth to his right, raising a deafening ruckus, as its prisoner repeatedly hurled itself against the bars.
A wash of light flooded across the floor when the hallway door opened.
Dingman held his breath and balled his hands into fists.
A shadow crossed through the light a heartbeat before the overhead bulb came on.
There was a shriek from the cage and the man slammed the door shut before anyone outside might hear.
“Enough!” the man shouted. “Someone’s going to hear you, and then what are we supposed to—?”
Dingman lunged at the man the moment he stepped around the corner. He caught a glimpse of blood on the man’s face, running from his nose and from the corners of his mouth, draining from the crimson sclera and the corners of his eyes. He squared his shoulder to the man’s chest and drove him backward against the shelves. The aluminum rack broke away from the wall and the laptop careened to the floor with a crash. He felt warmth drip onto the back of his neck and trickle under his collar. The man grunted and rained blows down on Dingman’s back as he tried to slip out of his grasp. The efforts were weak and uncoordinated. Dingman pivoted and lifted, cleaving the man from his feet and swinging him to the side. He slammed the man to the floor with a shoulder to the gut that knocked the wind out of him, and leapt up to his knees before the man could catch his breath. Two quick blows to the man’s jaw and he was out cold.
The shadow in the cage ceased screaming and crawled closer to the bars. Its eyes were so wide that Dingman was reminded of a Precious Moments figurine, so innocent, so helpless.
He tried not the think about the potentially infected blood on his knuckles and spattered on his face as he rifled through the man’s pockets, first in his wet jacket, then in his pants, where he found a ring of keys. One was offset from the others on a smaller ring of its own. He scrabbled across the floor and jammed the key into the lock. It slid into place with a click.
The man moaned behind him. He was coming around faster than Dingman expected.
He looked into those wide eyes as he turned the key in the lock. There was a flash of comprehension in its face and the corners of its lips curled into the ghost of a smile.
“What are you…doing?” the man sputtered through a mouthful of blood. “Don’t—”
The lock disengaged with a resounding snick and the small gate sprung outward.
“No!” the man yelled.
Something changed in those innocent eyes. Gone were the fear and the innocence, replaced by something frightening, something feral, something almost…predatory. Its lips peeled back to reveal sharp teeth and a pair of fangs so long they nearly pierced the lower gums.
“Oh, shit.”
“What have you done?” the man shouted. “Hurry! Close it! For Christ’s sake, close the goddamn cage!”
The barred door flew open and struck Dingman in the face, knocking him backward.
It was upon him before he could even draw the breath to scream.
NINE
Pacific Ocean
106 km West-Northwest of the Washington Coast
9:49 p.m. PST
Russ Tarver secured the Zodiac to the stern of the Pacific Scourge and scaled the ladder up to the deck. The dark factory ship canted from side to side at the mercy of the waves. Three stories loomed over him, the upper platforms empty, the windows vacant. The pilothouse was capped with a satellite tower nearly the size of an oil derrick. A gust of wind pelted him with a mixture of sleet and raindrops the size of dimes, forcing him to duck his head and close his left eye. His bald head was already soaked beneath his stocking cap and rivulets of ice-water coursed through his thick black brows and beard. He heard footsteps clatter up the ladder behind him even over the scream of the wind and the deluge. Jerry Worrell caught up with him, his slicker seemingly made of fluid. His dark eyes and even darker beard were the only parts of him visible beneath his heavy-weight cowl.
“So what now?” Jerry asked. He had to shout to be heard over the clamor of the storm.
Russ brought his Motorola HT 1000 two-way radio to his chapped lips and called back to the ninety-eight-foot trawler Dragnet, which rose and fell on the rough sea fifty yards off the Scourge’s starboard bow. The lights on its mast and in its wheelhouse were like twinkling stars through the torrent, its frame a skeletal carcass of outrigger booms and hydraulic winches against the seamless horizon. He focused on the dim trapezoidal windows as he spoke.
“We’re on board the Scourge, but there’s no sign of anyone. The whole ship’s quiet as the grave.”
“Just duck your head inside and make sure there’s no one in need of help,” the captain and owner of the trawler, Ron Anders, said through the storm-induced static. “Lord knows we don’t have the time to screw around and the last thing we want is to make someone else’s problems our own.”
“Ain’t that the truth. We’re asking for trouble as it is.”
“I’ll see if I can get close enough to give you some light.”
Russ nodded and shoved the two-way back into his parka.
“What’d he say?” Jerry asked.
“You got ears.”
“I can’t hear a damn thing!”
“He said you better get out your flashlight. You’re going in first.”
“That ain’t what he said.”
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“So it’s what I said. Get moving. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we’re out of here.” He pushed Jerry ahead of him toward the open doorway beside a two-story garage door, behind which he assumed the winch assemblies and the control console for the A-frame above him were housed. Lighting his own beam, he followed Jerry farther onto the craft.
The Dragnet had been on the home stretch back to Seattle when the captain had barely seen the Scourge in time to keep from ramming it. The dark vessel hadn’t been emitting a sound on the sonar. She’d just been drifting through the shipping lane as though dead in the water, her engines silent, not a light on her deck. Several blats from the air horn and repeated attempts to hail her on the radio had fallen on deaf ears, but the unwritten maritime code prevented them from simply leaving her adrift in the Pacific.
All aboard the Dragnet were dog-tired from nearly half a year in the Bering Sea, where they’d been hauling net-loads of flounder and hake and selling them to the Russians for the third straight year. This year’s take had put all of the others to shame. They already had one-point-eight million dollars in cash buried in the refrigerated hold under tons of pollock, mackerel, and Pacific cod, which would bring in another hundred and fifty thousand stateside. That was the money they would report as income to Uncle Sam in an even split between the five of them, while a flat million of the cash would go into Anders’s pocket, leaving two hundred grand, tax-free, for each of the rest of them.
The one thing they could least afford to do was call attention to themselves. Their meager haul didn’t justify five months’ work, which would only arouse suspicion and raise questions they weren’t prepared to answer. And if anyone found out about the cash, not only would it be subject to official scrutiny, but surely the IRS would start digging into their personal finances and find all of the discrepancies that would lead to the hundred grand each of them had squirreled away over the past three years. This here was the big score, the one that would make all of the grueling exertion worthwhile. Working a trawler wasn’t like sitting on some sport boat with a dozen lines in the water. It was dangerous, physically demanding, twenty-four-hours-a-day manual labor: hauling in nets that weighed several tons, dripping with water colder than a witch’s teat; shivering too hard to sleep; taping together broken, clawed fingers, blue from the subzero temperatures. He had earned this money as much as any man on the planet ever had, and no bureaucrat sitting in some cubicle with dry loafers and a seersucker suit was going to steal a dime of it from him.
Predatory Instinct: A Thriller Page 6