The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  If one of them is faking it, they’re doing a really good job at it.

  “Who do you want to start with?” Tom asked.

  “This one.” Veyron reached for the handles behind the one closest to the end of the rows of chairs and began moving it.

  “Why?”

  Veyron heaved as he pushed the heavy man on the recliner. “No reason. He’s closest to me, that’s all. Besides, just look at him – he’s the biggest out of the lot. We’re going to have to make a separate trip for each one. No reason to risk it now. If we get sloppy and take one each we’re more likely to get attacked, but with the odds two against one, whoever we’re looking for will have no choice but to wait.”

  “Until what?”

  “A better chance to escape – and our job is to make sure that never happens.”

  “Just stop a minute, will you?” Tom said.

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “You just reminded me.” Tom held his Remington shotgun to the person’s head.

  “Everything okay?”

  Tom smiled reassuringly. “Fine. We should search each person before we move them. If they’re faking it, they probably have a weapon.”

  “Good thinking.” Veyron padded the man down in front of him. Starting at the guy’s head he worked all the way down to his feet. He checked the clothing and removed the guy’s shoes. He used zip ties to secure both ankles together and one to tie each wrist to the chair. Veyron checked his work. “I’d say that’d make it pretty hard for him to escape. Feel better?”

  “Much.”

  “Good. Because we’ve got another nineteen of these to go.”

  Tom pressed the up button on the elevator. The door opened and he stepped inside with Veyron and their patient. He started at the man, his eyes darting between the man’s wrists and face.

  Veyron looked at him. “What?”

  “I don’t know. Something about this whole thing gives me the creeps. It’s like we’re waiting for one of these zombies to lash out at us.”

  “Which is why we've made it so they can’t.”

  The elevator stopped on the sixth deck and the doors opened. Veyron heaved to push the recliner with his sleeping giant out. “Where do you want to line them up, Elise?”

  “Over here.” Elise pointed to the end of the dining room where the tables and chairs had all been removed to make a clearing. She stopped when she saw the sleeping giant of a man. “Whoa, who’s the big guy?”

  “No idea. His shirt has the name Mitchel stitched into it. Of course, the clothes look tight, they might not even be his.”

  “Christ, I hope he’s not our troublemaker,” Elise said. “We’d need the rocket launcher just to stop the bastard.”

  Veyron patted the man on his shoulders. “He’s big, but he’ll go down with a bullet same as anyone else.”

  Tom looked at Elise. “Any chance your computer system has missed something?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a person running around, secretly avoiding every security camera?”

  “No. There was one event where something blocked a few of the cameras while you were down stairs, but I’m confident my system is working.”

  “So then… how did these people get like this?”

  “You mean, where did the person go who did this to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Antarctic Solace has been searched. There are twenty-three people aboard. You, Veyron and I – and those twenty people there in front of us.” She took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled. “One of those people is responsible for abducting all the missing people on board, drugging the rest of them, and for leaving me a teddy bear in the elevator.”

  “But why would he or she drug themselves?” Tom asked.

  “To avoid getting caught,” she replied. “Once they discovered we had the upper hand and were approaching, he or she quickly joined the rest of the drug affected zombies to cover their tracks.”

  “But they were all drugged.”

  Elise shrugged. “It’s a pretty good alibi, isn’t it?”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we have to work out which one wants to play.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Elise tested that the man’s massive arms and legs were well tied and then read the additive label for the bag of saline. She picked up her phone and made a call to a Doctor who was the head of Intensive Care at St. George Hospital, London. She went through the doses and checked the maximum amount possible without killing a person. She then thanked the man and hung up.

  Elise opened the intravenous clamp and increased the drip rate of the sedative. She looked up and saw Tom’s face. “So long as these people remain sedated I can look after them on my own until the cavalry joins us.”

  “I thought you wanted to find out who was faking it?” Tom asked.

  “I do. But no reason to have them conscious for that.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “I’ve spoken to a friend of mine.” Elise put medical gloves on and attached a tourniquet to the guy’s other arm. “He tells me most cruise ships carry the facilities to test blood for drugs and alcohol. Date rape and illicit drug use while partying can be a problem. Most ships are well equipped with the facilities to test blood.”

  Tom nodded, glad he’d never gone through that sort of party scene when he was younger. He watched as Elise picked up a needle from the drawer of a small medical cart and felt for a vein. She waited until it swelled with the backflow of venous blood and then anchored it with her thumb. A moment later she inserted the needle. Blood flushed into the little chamber of the needle. He stared vacantly at the blood. He’d never had a problem with blood, but the sight of it being drained from a person who was tied and unconscious seemed wrong.

  Elise looked up at him. “Can you pass me that black vacutainer, please?”

  “Sure, what is it?” Tom asked.

  “It’s that little sample tube with a black lid sitting on the top of the medical cart. It has an additive that will stop this blood from clotting until I can take it down to the ship’s medical center, and test it for drugs and alcohol.”

  Tom handed it to her. “How did you learn all this stuff?”

  She took the vacutainer and said, “Youtube.”

  Tom laughed. “No. Really, how?”

  “Youtube.”

  “You learned how to take someone’s blood from an online video?”

  “What can I say? I’ve always been a quick learner.”

  “You’re a freak, you know that?”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  It took three hours to complete the multiple journeys required to move all twenty sedated persons. Tom, Elise and Veyron stared at them all lined up in four rows of five chairs. They were positioned at the end of the main restaurant facing the computer hub Elise had set up. That way she would be able to watch if any of them tried to move. Any one of them could be the person responsible for the attacks. More frightening was the thought it might not just be one person, there could be multiple people in the group who were responsible.

  Tom tried to see if any of them were fidgeting, blinking, or showing any other signs of having difficulties holding still. “It seems strange to think one of those zombies is still awake, waiting, planning their escape.”

  “A scarier thought is all of them could be responsible,” Elise said.

  Veyron smiled cheerfully. “No, a scarier thought is none of them is responsible and the rat is still loose aboard the Antarctic Solace.”

  “No. There’s no way we have a loose rat.” Elise pointed to her open laptop on the desk beside them. “The cameras would have picked up the movement and my program would have notified me. There are more than two hundred CCTV cameras recording every aspect of this ship.

  “Do we know for certain those bags even contain sedatives?” Tom asked.

  “Yes.” Elise spoke in her usual air of confidence. “One person might be able to fake it, but not twenty.”


  “When will we know about the blood samples?” Tom asked.

  “A couple hours and I’ll have the results on my laptop,” Elise replied. “I also have my computer running a program to see if any of these faces were recognized in the earlier security recordings. It will then cross reference what they were doing before the attacks in order to determine who really works for the Antarctic Solace.”

  Veyron stood up to leave. “All right, now that’s done – I need to get down to the engine room to start the diesels if we’re going to avoid spending the winter trapped in the ice.”

  Elise opened an App in her computer tablet and began scrolling through the schematics of the lower decks. She looked up at Veyron. “Go.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Tom asked.

  “According to the Antarctic Solace’s shore side security team, there’s a redundancy data hub downstairs. I want to go check it out. Maybe it will provide the answers that have been erased on the other security tapes.”

  “You want me to go retrieve it?”

  “No,” Elise said. “You stay here and guard these people, will you? I’ll go and get it. I know what I’m looking for.”

  “You want to go down there on your own?”

  She grinned. “Of course. Why not? The only people on board this ship are now sedated right here in front of us.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Elise descended to the second level where Tom and Veyron had discovered the twenty people lying like drugged out zombies in recliner chairs. The elevator doors opened and she entered the crew and entertainer’s deck. An eerie silence pervaded the dark hall. Elise shined a flashlight along the wall until she found the light switch. It struck her as odd that Veyron and Tom hadn’t bothered to switch the lights on when they moved all the zombies upstairs.

  She followed the hall until about midway, passing the first three side passages before taking the fourth to the right. She reached the first access hatch to a maintenance area which housed much of the electrical wiring and communication conduits. Elise unlocked the hatch with a key the on shore security IT staff informed her could be found in the ship’s main security office on level three. She removed the hatch and then slipped inside. She carefully maneuvered her way through the narrow series of maintenance conduits and passageways which formed the labyrinth between the lower crew and the passenger decks. She lithely shuffled and crawled through the tiny maze of electronics without checking her computer tablet for the schematics. Her memory was photographic; always had been, so she had no need to check that she was taking the right routes.

  At the end of the fourth shaft she reached it – a large, immaculate, stainless steel cabinet. Numerous wires and fiber optic cables streamed into it. Elise took a second key from a small chain and carefully inserted it into the lock. It turned freely and she opened the cabinet door.

  Elise grinned as she stared at the Antarctic Solace’s backup digital storage device. A five terabyte external hard drive capable of housing every image, video and sound recording absorbed by the ship’s two hundred plus security cameras for the past twelve months. Elise unscrewed the device from its alcove and quickly backtracked through the tunnels to the main crew lounge again.

  Tom looked up at her when she walked out of the elevator and on to the sixth deck. “How did it go?”

  She smiled and plugged the five terabyte external hard drive into her laptop. “Good. It’s time to find out what this is all about.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Elise’s powerful laptop worked to process the enormous amount of data it was being fed. She brought up a search query and entered the main passenger entertainment security footage, followed by the time and date range commencing the hour before and after the other CCTV recording had been tampered with.

  The computer then began sieving through millions of hours of data recordings until it downloaded the one she was after. It was taken from a single camera on the port side of level six and looked outwards towards the ocean.

  She pressed play and the digital video started.

  It began the same as the other ones she’d watched where people casually walked along the promenade and decking. Some of the people walked slowly, talking to friends and family while drinking something alcoholic; others had a brisk pace, as though they had somewhere to be. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary for a cruise ship.

  Then the alarm began its signal. A two minute continuous ringing from the ship’s bell sounded like a fire alarm that should have woken the dead. When it stopped, the calm voice of the Captain was heard over the ship’s loudspeakers.

  “This is an emergency. I regret to inform you the Antarctic Solace has struck an iceberg and is taking on water rapidly. There is no need for concern and you will not need lifejackets because another tourist ship is on its way and will be here within five minutes. I must please ask everyone to move to the sixth level in preparation for departure from this ship. Do not bring your belongings – the Antarctic Solace will reimburse you for your losses.”

  Elise looked at Tom. “Told you there was a perfectly logical explanation why everyone happily jumped ship.”

  “Sure, but where did they go?”

  Elise watched as the deck on the sixth level filled with orderly rows of people preparing to disembark. Minutes later a ship arrived and docked alongside the Antarctic Solace. Elise pressed pause on the video so she could read the name on the side of the vessel. “Frozen magic – that’s what we’re after. Find that ship and we find the missing people.”

  She pressed play again and watched each row of passengers confidently jump over the railing onto a cushioned landing on the deck of the Frozen Magic.

  Elise stopped the tape. “Well that answers it! They slowly removed each staff member until the ship was filled with passengers only. No one to tell them they hadn’t hit an iceberg. Then, they made the simple ruse and convinced everyone to happily leave the ship. At that stage Alexis was still feeling the sedative effect of the antiemetic given to her the day before and consequently slept through the entire event.”

  “Okay,” Tom said. “The question now is where did the Frozen Magic take them, and why?”

  Elise typed the name into her computer and pressed search. It came back with zero tour companies in Antarctica with a ship named Frozen Magic. She opened the search to any ship large enough to accommodate two hundred people within the Antarctic waters. This time the results showed a medium to large icebreaker employed in Antarctica over the past five years. But there were no notes about who employed its services. The vessel was privately owned by a resident of St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

  “That’s interesting,” Elise said.

  “What?”

  “St. Kitts is notorious for selling citizenship at a high price to people who want a second passport as a backup or want to set up a business without the U.S. being involved.”

  “I’m sure it’s perfectly legal.”

  “And I’m sure there’s a reason an icebreaker is owned by a resident of St. Kitts.”

  Tom stared at the vessel. “So where is it now?”

  Elise searched for an IAS international ship tracking beacon. It came up empty. “That’s strange, a vessel that large must be displaying an IAS response under international shipping law.”

  “Can you find it some other way?”

  “Sure. Let’s check some satellite images.” Elise typed several queries into a database of current and recent satellite photographs taken over Antarctica. The search finished within seconds and showed the image of a single ice breaker in McMurdo Sound. Next to it was the Maria Helena. Elise swallowed. “Get me Sam on the radio!”

  Tom looked at her face. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Sam and Alexis are heading straight into a trap!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Sam stopped the hovercraft at the highest point of the Taylor Glacier before descending into East Antarctica. He switched the engines off and climbed out as the machine sank onto hard
ice. He looked ahead where leveled ice and snow drifted as far as he could see until it blurred with the horizon.

  “East Antarctica!” Alexis said. “The most vacant land on earth.”

  “Can we see it from here?”

  “I should be able to.” Alexis scanned the horizon using a pair of military grade binoculars. She stopped after about forty seconds and handed him the binoculars. “Found it – Pegasus.”

  He took them and looked through. Still thirty miles away, the science station looked like no more than a small rabbit mound covered in snow. “You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He picked up the radio. “Maria Helena – we’re approaching the location. There’s no cloud cover. Can we please get satellite confirmation there are no hostiles in the area?”

  No response.

  Sam increased the volume and frequency; then tried again. This time the only response was static and an almost inaudible white noise. He lifted the speaker right to his ear and then grinned. “It’s that fucking song again – Gloomy Sunday!”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “Not much we can,” Sam said. “We have a small window if we’re to rescue them. All we can do is be careful and go quickly.”

  “So we’ll keep going?”

  Sam shrugged. “I didn’t come all this way to stop because the radios are still being jammed by some stupid song.”

  With the decision made to carry on, Sam and Alexis climbed back inside the hovercraft. Within minutes Sam began descending the glacier. It was slow and tedious work, dangerously navigating the labyrinth of glacial fissures, ice troughs, and unstable snow. Seracs, often as tall as fifty feet sometimes overhung their path like giant axes.

  Sam chose his route carefully to minimize the risk, but it was slow work. By midafternoon they reached the ice plains of East Antarctica. Sam opened up the throttle and the main propellers reached their maximum speed, sending the hovercraft gliding across the near perfectly flat ice surface at a rate of eighty miles per hour.