Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  CHAPTER 35

  Murphy had been finding notes. All of them on index cards, printed in ink. He was wedged into a cubbyhole above the massage rooms, shining his flashlight on the white rectangle, his third note.

  "Beware of booby traps."

  The first one had said, "Congratulations. You're headed the right way." The second one was taped to a bundle of wires ten feet downship of the bridge. "You sure you want to do this?"

  Murphy was sweating hard. Working the flashlight in one hand, squirming into places that weren't meant to be squirmed into. Very hot, pissed off. Having second thoughts about being a hero, pleasing his dad, all that. Chewing on the possibility that maybe it wasn't worth it. All this just to get him to lower the newspaper, say how proud he was. What difference did it really make if the old man said anything or not? He was one cold bastard anyway. He'd just go back to being the way he was. Nothing would change, not really. Nothing ever did.

  Murphy considered starting over at the rudder room, work from stern to bow instead of vice versa. Or maybe begin somewhere around midship, flip a coin, choose one direction or the other. Thinking Butler's notes might be reverse psychology, or reverse reverse psychology. No way to know. Anyway he couldn't start over. He'd begun at the bow and by God he'd just keep working his way back to the stern. That's who he was. Systematic or, like his father said, a grind. Once he started something, he always finished. He was dogged. Yeah, one of those pitbull brains, doesn't know how to back up, start over from a different angle. Yeah, he knew it was his weakness. But hell, it was his strength too.

  He was crawling along a fairly open section next to the air-conditioning duct above the spa. A place he hadn't known existed before. Thinking maybe he'd come back here later when the ship was full of passengers again. From up there he could spy on the naked ladies. Make himself a peephole, watch the locker room, see into the massage cubicles. Spend his free time voyeuring. Or maybe just set up a videocam. But no, no. Blaine wasn't going to risk his career with Fiesta for a few naked bodies. No, he could keep getting by with Playboy.

  With his hands running along the rudder line, eyes focused a foot or so ahead the whole time, Blaine kept moving. Somewhere there was a circuit board, an autopilot unit spliced into that line. There had to be. It was steering the ship to some location Butler had programmed into it. It was just sitting there, the brains of the ship, taking control.

  For most of Murphy's teenage years Kon Tiki had been his favorite book. Until he was eighteen and stumbled on Clancy, he'd been fascinated with the Polynesians, how they navigated their pontoons and big canoes across thousands of miles of unexplored ocean, absolutely certain there was land out there. Little dots of earth, atolls, coral islands. Because a thousand miles away a Polynesian could read the wave shapes, the anatomy of the water. Ripples, flutters, rollers, swells, eddies. They could tell which waves had sliced across a strip of land two weeks ago, the messages still printed in the structure of the water. Like weathermen read the anatomy of clouds. Tatters in the water, rips, small seams, like arrows pointing toward the distant safety of land.

  Not like today. Everything numbered now. You hold up your portable GPS and see where you are, punch in your destination and an LED pointer steers you there, giving you corrections every step of the way. Each inch of earth had its own number. Every tiny quadrant of the globe was mapped and entered into the program, beamed down from satellites. No one needed to read waves anymore. Which was fine by Murphy. He'd graduated to the gadgets of Clancy. Became a techno-nerd like everybody else in this business. Blaine left the Polynesians behind in his boyhood. Another of those skills that was no longer necessary. You could buy a device, see your location on a screen. Simple, anyone could do it. You didn't need ancestors to pass on centuries of knowledge. You didn't need fathers teaching their sons about waves.

  A good thing too. Because what the hell had his father ever taught him? Not shit. Everything Murphy knew about the sea, about finding his way, he'd learned from books, from manuals, or from listening to the captain and his officers talk. It was a damn good thing you could buy a machine to tell you where you were. Damn good thing.

  Blaine figured he was somewhere above the balcony that circled the seven-story atrium because he could see the passage up ahead begin a small curve to the right. He was moving fairly rapidly now, the spaces opening up a little. Several different systems coming together. Plumbing, electrical, hydraulic. At his current rate of movement, he could be at the rudder room in a couple of hours.

  He was scooting along, paying attention, shining his light ahead of him. Looking for the next note, the autopilot. Or maybe just a single narrow wire leading away from the rudder line off to some less obvious location. He knew Butler was smart. But this was one of those areas with only a few possibilities. Like chess. The board was a fixed space. The moves and countermoves were limited. The number was very high but it was finite. Butler could only do so many things to keep the ship operating like it was. He was limited to a set range of physical alternatives. And Murphy, the pitbull brain, was on his ass. A pawn move, another one. Inching ahead toward victory.

  He followed the circle to the right. Fingers tracing the rudder line, scooting on his knees. Not much worse than working across a cramped attic or the crawlspace beneath a house. He was thinking about those notes. The way the asshole was toying with him. Screwing with his head. His pulse shot up when he'd seen that booby-trap warning. But now he was calm again. Butler was just trying to yank his chain, keep him from thinking straight. Trying to make the pitbull stop, come down from the ceiling, the one guy Butler Jack knew could beat him.

  He was somewhere over the balcony outside the casino when he saw the headset hanging from a bundle of overhead wires. The headset had a small microphone on a stem and two fixed earplugs on the horseshoe clamp headpiece. Another index card was Scotch-taped to it. "Do you dare speak with me?"

  Murphy reached out, yanked it down, and slipped the headset on. Pressed the earplugs into place. He was crouched on all fours, sweating heavily now, knees scuffed up, head scraped in a couple of places. He was looking out at his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. He swung the tiny microphone down so it was an inch in front of his lips.

  "Okay, asshole," Murphy said. "I'm here."

  Murphy heard only the buzz of empty audio line. Nobody out there. Thinking hey, this was something to relay to the others. Something worth opening up the ceiling for, climbing down, going to find Sugarman and Thorn and let them know. About the notes, and now a headset that wasn't working. Which indicated that Butler had abandoned his plan and fled. Must've known Murphy was on his tail.

  Murphy was reaching for the headset to tear it off so he could go alert Sugarman when something sputtered in his ears and he felt a sudden burn against both eardrums. Booby trap, he thought. Checkmate. A few more words sped through his head as two spikes of electricity hissed then jabbed through his inner ears and sought each other, jumping across his brain to do it. Positive seeking negative, two poles trying to join, make a continuous pathway.

  Murphy's body stiffened, flat on his belly, then he felt himself bucking inside the confines of the ceiling crawlspace. A wild convulsion that sent his feet kicking through the ceiling tiles, broke the flooring that supported him. Brain sizzling with pain. He sprawled through the opening, dropped awkwardly, ribs crashing against the atrium balcony rail, body hanging there, the breath knocked from him.

  He wasn't dead. It hurt too much to be dead. At least he'd torn loose from the connection with the earphones. Electrocuted but not dead. If he could just get some feeling in his body again, move his legs, slide down from his perch on the rail. He thought for a second that he was doing just that, but then he felt his head tip forward, leaning precariously over the atrium, his waist a fulcrum. He tried to edge the other way but Murphy was unable to halt the tilt. Gravity had him.

  Blaine Murphy somersaulted forward, felt sudden wind, his body sailing. He opened his eyes and saw through the bl
ur, the lobby floor coming fast, cold white marble, seven stories shrinking to one.

  In open space Blaine did a sit-up, thinking in that half second that somehow all those sit-ups he'd done for years might save him. That's what he had on his side, those sit-ups, thousands and thousands, his abdomen like iron. Maybe that would be enough. Then he had no more time for thinking. No time for anything but a quick yip at the end.

  ***

  It was almost midnight when Thorn saw the chopper's spotlight sweeping left and right across the dense black sea. It was cruising in their direction a few hundred feet above the water, and when the beam rolled toward the front of the craft, Thorn held his binoculars to his eyes and saw the glossy black body and the red lettering on the chopper's side. Lola Live.

  Thirty yards away, down on the dark Sun Deck, Sugarman was stationed in the hot tub with the rollicking trio. The tub was only a few dozen feet from the elevated platform where Sugar had set half a dozen battery-powered lanterns in a circle to indicate the drop zone for the footlocker. A couple of light-years ago as the Eclipse left Miami, that platform had served as a stage for the reggae band.

  From Sugar's position it was only a two-second sprint to the little stage. Thorn was maybe thirty seconds away. Their strategy was simple. When the inevitable diversion came, a scream, a gunshot, a small fire, whatever it was that Lola had arranged, Thorn would make a show of running off in that direction while Sugar kept his place. Not much of a plan. But that's where they were, down to the basics. Thorn pretends to go one way, Sugar stays put. Then Thorn circles back, a pincer movement.

  What he wanted to know at that moment was how the hell the helicopter had located them so far out at sea. Under way since early afternoon, traveling at fifteen knots, they must have been across the Gulf Stream already. Maybe Murphy could explain that when he got back. Who was guiding the chopper to their small lightless part of the ocean and how the hell did they manage it when all the navigational equipment was malfunctioning? No one could relay Loran coordinates or GPS reading because there were none.

  Thorn set the binoculars on the deck. Now the chopper hovered a hundred feet above the deck, its spotlight scanning back and forth, washing over Thorn, holding a moment, then moving on to the hot tub, the gang waving up at the savage noise. Four giddy drunks. Then the powerful beam found the lighted circle and held. Sampson stood at the rim of light, shielding his eyes, staggering a little in the violent wind.

  A few moments later the footlocker, green and shiny, came down inside a rescue net. It wavered in the air about ten feet above the circle, then settled onto the deck. A smooth, easy, direct hit as if this were part of the chopper pilot's normal training, delivering extortion money.

  Sampson dragged the locker free of the net, stepped to the side, gave a wide wave, and the helicopter banked away, whupped off into the blackness. Sampson opened the lid of the trunk, looked inside for several seconds, then closed it up, snapped the clamps.

  "Okay," Sampson called out into the dark. "It's here."

  "Well, let's fucking well spend some of it," one of the Brits called out. "Let's divvy it up."

  Carrying a drink, Sampson walked past the hot tub, came up the short stairway, and sat down next to Thorn. "Now what?"

  "Now we wait," Thorn said. "Enjoy the beautiful night."

  "You think that boy's just going to come waltzing up, hoist up that footlocker, and carry it away? You think he doesn't know we're sitting here waiting for him?"

  "I don't know what the fuckhead thinks, but from what I've seen so far, that sounds exactly like the kind of game he'd enjoy. How to get the money out from under our noses."

  Sampson had a pull on his drink, then settled it into his lap. They watched the helicopter's lights shrink in the south.

  "A trunk full of hundred-dollar bills," Thorn said. "What fun."

  Sampson grunted. "That's my life sitting out there. That's everything I am."

  "Now there's a pitiful thought."

  "I've had some bad days," Sampson said. "I lost a wife, lost my only child, lost a ton of money. But never a day this miserable."

  "You're not alone."

  Thorn was focused on the footlocker glittering in the circle of lights. "Where's the wife?"

  "Lola? She's in her cabin. This has been very hard on her as well."

  "Yeah, sure it has."

  Sampson swung around to Thorn. "Watch yourself, young man."

  Thorn kept his eyes on the footlocker.

  Sampson filled his lungs. The ice in his drink rattled. "You don't think Lola has feelings? You don't think she's agonized these last few days? Is that what you believe, just because she's outwardly composed?"

  "Hey," Thorn said. "A half-dozen decent people got massacred because of Lola and you. Your fucking games. If the two of you had any feelings, you would've held hands and jumped overboard by now, fed yourself to the minnows. But no, you had to keep the illusion going. You're both week-old dogshit as far as I'm concerned. And as soon as we dock, if nobody else wants the honors, I'm on the phone to Brandy Wong and her buddies. This isn't going to get swept away. The fiesta's over, Morty. I have a strong feeling this is your last fucking cruise for a while."

  Thorn lifted the binoculars and focused on the footlocker as Sampson got to his feet, stood for a moment beside Thorn's chair. Then he turned and marched away into the flawless dark, the ice in his drink tinkling loudly like a skeleton that has suddenly come unglued and collapsed to the floor in a pile.

  ***

  David Chan stood before the Juggernaut's impotent control panel and watched the city lights approaching. Maybe if his head weren't whirling he would be able to recognize what city it was. It was the shoreline of America, of that he was fairly certain, for the lights stretched endlessly to the north. One enormous city that ran from the tip of Florida to Maine, populated by a limitless string of millionaires.

  The Juggernaut was sliding forward toward the lights. It was three in the morning according to his wristwatch. Amazing that so many lights would still be burning at this outlandish hour. All that electricity being consumed, the power plants working through the night to light the way for the few who were still seeking amusement.

  Ahead David could make out the white foam of the surf. The phosphorescent glow of the sandy beach. The Juggernaut was going to run aground. That was clear. There was no turning her now, even if the controls were suddenly relinquished to him. They were less than a mile from the lights. So close it would be only a minute or two before the keel scraped bottom.

  The Juggernaut weighed five hundred ninety thousand deadweight tons. State-of-the-art safety engineering, segregated ballast tanks, crude-oil washing facilities, inert gas systems, dedicated clean ballast tanks. One of the three largest ships ever built. Carrying enough crude oil at the moment to supply an entire Caribbean country for a year.

  Inside his dizzy fog, David Chan felt no dread of the approaching crash. At the current speed, he doubted any of the tanks would be ruptured. Of course, fire was always a threat, but this close to shore, even in his weakened condition, David felt sure he could go over the side and survive the short swim to the beach. At the very least, now his crew could get the medical attention they required.

  In anticipation of the crash, he stepped out of the bridge and stood for a moment at the railing, trying to select the spot where he would plant himself for the fateful moment. The lights were growing steadily brighter and he noticed that the hotel buildings were far more slight than was typical of a Florida coastline. Four stories, five. Not the usual monstrosities of glass and cement. And he saw neon, garish reds and blues and greens and yellows. The bright tubes coiled into letters and abstract shapes.

  Beneath his feet, David Chan felt the deck shudder. The Juggernaut must have brushed across brain coral or perhaps a limestone boulder, already leaving its terrible gash in the sand or reefs. There was not even enough time left to select the best place to weather the collision. In seconds the ship would embed itself imposs
ibly deep in the sand.

  From the shore came a panicked scream. A woman must have glanced up and seen the enormous ship's sudden emergence from the dark. David Chan gripped the railing, pressed his back hard against the bulkhead, and stared out at the neon. Automobiles cruised the street in front of the hotels. A traffic jam. The people of the night were wandering aimlessly, searching no doubt for what all young people seek, someone with whom they could perform a sexual act.

  David Chan could warn them about that. For David knew all too well the consequences of excessive fornication. Oh yes, he knew. It was the reason his dream to become a doctor was never realized. And it was that same lack of self-control which led him inextricably to where he was tonight, responsible for one of the world's largest ships running aground onto one of the earth's most expensive beaches.

  CHAPTER 36

  "Murphy's dead." Sampson was panting hard. He hulked beside Thorn's deck chair, a hand pressed to his heaving belly. "His body's in the center of the lobby. A fall."

  Thorn blew out a bitter breath. He looked out at the rising light. It was close to dawn and an electric blue slash showed at the eastern horizon and the dark air was filled with a thickening luminous mist, the first faint traces of daylight. Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving.

  With a sigh, Sampson dropped into the chair beside him. "Aren't you going to do anything?"

  "About what?"

  "Murphy. You heard me. He's dead."

  "What, clean up the mess?"

  "Don't you see what that means? Butler must still be on board. He's here on the ship somewhere."

  "Good," Thorn said. "When you find him, tell him I'd like a word with him."

  The two British men had passed out on the lounge chairs near the hot tub. Sugarman and the Swedish lady were having coffee at a table nearby. She'd brought Thorn a mug a while ago. She said her name was Marie. With a giggle, she showed Thorn her fingertips, deeply wrinkled from being in the water so long. She tried her English on him, but he wasn't feeling chatty.