Ghost Ship (The Ghost Files Book 9)

by Chanel Smith

  “I’m not the one that brought up Jovani,” she whispered.

  I was trying to form a response that would lead our conversation away from the hot water that I had just dipped my toe into. In perfect fairness, I hadn’t brought up anything about Medellin, Jovani, ghosts or any other shop talk, but protesting against that fact was not going to help me. I was mercifully saved from the conversation at that moment.

  “I want to talk to the captain!”

  Everyone in the room, including the band, which suddenly went silent on the bandstand, turned toward the figure who had screeched out his demand. It was the same elderly man who had caused a scene as we boarded the ship.

  “I’m the captain,” Benjamin Norris responded, stepping away from the dance floor and addressing the man. “There’s no reason to disrupt. We can go out on the fantail and talk, if you like.”

  Security had burst through the door and were about to take hold of the man, but Captain Norris waved them off.

  “You’ll all hear what I have to say!” he bellowed.

  Captain Norris shrugged. “I’d prefer that we take care of this matter in private.”

  “What I have to talk about isn’t a private matter.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr…”

  “Pharaoh. My name is Pharaoh and I am taking over the command of this ship.”

  I looked down at Ellen during the exchange and watched her fighting some sort of inner battle. I knew that she recognized the evil in him and was trying not to involve herself.

  “Do you intend to hijack this vessel, Mr. Pharaoh?” He glanced around at several people. A singular old man standing alone didn’t seem like he could wield much power when it came to hijacking a vessel the size of the Eucalyptus.

  “I already have,” Pharaoh responded.

  Captain Norris nodded toward the security officers and watched as the two men created an arm bar across the man’s chest and ushered him out the double doors of the ballroom. He turned back toward the silent onlookers. “It appears that the old bloke’s mind has gone on walkabout.”

  There was tittering of tense laughter as everyone in the ballroom returned to what they had been doing, though with a few moments of hesitation. I noticed that someone with a very grave expression on his face entered shortly thereafter and whispered something into Captain Norris’ ear. The captain’s expression was enough to tell me that whatever he’d been told was not good; not good at all.

  Chapter Six

  Captain’s Ballroom, onboard the Eucalyptus, Tuesday after midnight.

  I knew that there was something wrong when I saw Captain Norris hurrying out of the ballroom in a rapid conversation that I couldn’t hear because the band had already started playing again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Ellen. “Shop talk or not, tell me what’s up with that guy. Is he just off his rocker or is there something else?”

  “Monty,” she replied, her face pale, “there’s a really strong force in that man, a paranormal force. Its presence is frightening.”

  “Okay, well, should we tell Captain Norris?” I asked.

  “No!” she said with a little too much force. She changed to a calmer tone. “I’m sorry. I mean, no. He’s too busy to bother with something like that. Besides, I don’t want to get involved. I just want to relax and enjoy a much-deserved vacation.”

  “Right,” I smiled. “The captain looked like he had something pretty urgent to tend to anyway. It looked like something pretty serious if I’m any judge of expressions.”

  “What do you suppose it would be?” Ellen asked. “He turned white as a…”

  I was tempted to insert the word “ghost,” mostly because Ellen’s hesitation was the avoidance of saying the word. “A sheet?” I grinned.

  “If you don’t sweep me back onto the dance floor and keep me going until my feet hurt, I’m going to be extremely disappointed,” she beamed looking up at me. The sparkle that had disappeared for a few moments had quickly returned.

  In spite of the fact that my mind wanted to wander off to whatever concern the captain was tending to, the beautiful lady that I held in my arms as we moved around the dance floor was drawing all of my attention. Throughout the rest of the evening, we enjoyed ourselves, dancing with everyone at the table, drinking plenty of free cocktails—some of which I’d never heard of before—and enjoying a good laugh; things we hadn’t gotten to do in a very long time.

  The Hills and the Cranes turned out to be a lot of fun, especially once everyone was loosened up. Jill Hill was an excellent dancer, I discovered, and something of a clown, much like her husband, but in a more subtle way than he. Phoebe Crane was a quiet, well-mannered sort who was obviously born to a higher social class and her husband, Walt, was a quiet, serious man, though, as the night went on, he started in chatting with me about various horticultural phenomena that were unique to the Australian continent. Believe it or not, though he was talking about plants, it was interesting.

  The highlight of the night, however, had to be my own raving beauty, who not only held me completely captive in her curve-hugging satin gown, but kept all four of the others on the edge of their seats throughout the evening.

  “Captain Norris never returned,” Walt Crane observed. It was well past midnight and we had expected to see him return throughout the evening. “Whatever called him away must have been serious.”

  “The bloke was as white as a ghost after the young officer called him away,” Jill Hill added. “I do hope there isn’t a serious problem.”

  “I doubt we’ve hit an iceberg or anything like that,” Bernie chuckled.

  “I’m sure it’s only some issue with the crew or perhaps with Pharaoh,” Phoebe Crane said, waving off any talk of some serious problem. “Have you ever seen such a daft character in all of your life?”

  “More than a few,” Ellen responded. There was a grave tone to her voice and the sparkle had gone from her eyes. She’d fought a gallant fight, but she was being dragged back into thinking about the presence in the man in spite of it.

  “I think that’s my cue to get my lovely sheila back out on the dance floor,” I broke in, attempting my best Australian accent for the entertainment of the group.

  “Not bad, mate. We’ll make a fair, dinkum Brizzy of you before we quit this tub,” Bernie called after me as I whirled Ellen out onto the dance floor.

  “You were getting a bit serious again,” I reminded her.

  “We certainly can’t be having that,” she smiled.

  “Not after you made me promise not to talk shop,” I replied.

  “I guess we’ll have to keep each other honest,” she replied.

  I was about to respond when the lights suddenly snapped off and the music stopped. Normal conversation ceased as well and a collective, audible gasp went up from those who were surrounding us on the dance floor. Ellen and I, just like everyone else, paused a few moments, expecting power to return any second. During those moments, soft conversations began again and cell phones began to provide a soft glow to the room as they were taken out and turned on in order to provide some light.

  “I guess the party is over,” I said, fishing my cell phone out of my pocket and using its light.

  “It’s okay. We don’t need light for what I have planned for us for the rest of the evening,” Ellen whispered. In the faint light of my cell phone, I could see that the sparkle in her eyes had a sort of devilish twist to it.

  “In that case,” I answered, “time’s a-wasting. Let’s quit this place and get back to our little slice of heaven on earth; sea, actually.”

  Though a few waited a little longer than Ellen and me, hoping that power would be restored, most of those who had enjoyed dinner earlier and dancing since had already started navigating their way out of the ballroom and back to their cabins using the light of their cell phones to guide them.

  There were some emergency lights in various places, which helped us along. Emergency lights ran on batteries, so the ship’s power outage did not affe
ct those, but it did affect the elevators. We had to navigate a half-dozen flights of stairs before we reached the ninth deck and started down the hall toward our cabin.

  “The keypad is electronic,” Ellen pointed out as we were starting down the hall. “We might be locked out of our room.”

  “I’m pretty sure those run on batteries,” I replied. “At least I hope they do.”

  I was right. The keypad functioned just fine. I punched in the code, which was the four-digit month and year of Ellen and my anniversary and was happy to hear the sound of the bolt sliding free. I opened the door and we went in.

  “Oh look at those stars!” Ellen exclaimed as she walked across the living room and peered out the window. “There are so many lights on this ship that we couldn’t see them before.”

  Chapter Seven

  Bridge of the RAN Melbourne, Tuesday after midnight

  “What do you mean it just disappeared?” Commander Arthur Samuels asked. The tone of his voice was a low growl due to having been dragged from his stateroom to the bridge of the RAN Melbourne at thirty minutes after midnight. “Tell me, Lieutenant Commander Coventry, how do you lose a fully loaded cruise ship that weighs upwards of 50,000 tons and is as long as two Aussie football fields?”

  “It just vanished, XO,” LC Coventry responded. “One moment, it was there and the next, it was gone.”

  “Have you made contact with them?” Commander Samuels asked. He was certain that he was only called after the LC and his subordinates had gone through all of the procedures, but it was his tendency, as well as his duty, to be thorough.

  “We did and are still attempting to make radio contact with Captain Norris, but as yet, we have received no response, sir,” Coventry responded crisply. He anticipated the commander’s next question. “We went through radar testing and reset procedures and all systems are functioning properly. The vessel is the Eucalyptus operated by Koala-Kiwi Cruise Lines. There were no distress calls or reports of any malfunctions before it went black.”

  “There has to be a glitch somewhere, LC, and you’ve got to find it,” Samuels snapped. He had been sleeping soundly after having completed his shift at ten o’clock and settling into his rack. He wasn’t in the mood for a problem, especially a serious enough one which would cause him to have to wake the captain. As the XO, Commander Samuels essentially had command of the ship and its operations, except in the event that Captain Ellington either chose to or had to take command. The first was always the much better option than the second. “In the meantime, we need to get a bird up and on its way to the LKC,” he said, referring to the ship’s last known coordinates. “If we can establish visual contact, we might be able to figure out the glitch.”

  “Aye, sir,” LC Coventry replied. It was the order that he expected and was the reason that he’d awakened the XO. Without his approval, Coventry couldn’t launch a helicopter to fly over the Eucalyptus. He picked up the radio mike and called his lieutenant who was waiting for the launch order. “XO has approved the launch. It’s a go.”

  Samuels put out his hand for the mike and Coventry passed it over to him.

  “Lieutenant,” he began. “Once you find the Eucalyptus, remain on station and keep us informed until you are bingo or we communication has been restored, copy?”

  “Copy, XO,” the lieutenant responded.

  It was rare for both radar and com to be malfunctioning at the same time. Com, of course, could be a problem on the Eucalyptus’ end of the line. Probably was, since no communications with the other ships in the group—or the fleet for that matter—had been compromised. It was just a stroke of bad luck that the com problem happened at the same time as the radar problem. He considered his options for a few moments before running through the questions again.

  “Have you communicated with the other vessels in the group to see if they have lost radar contact as well?” It was an obvious procedure, which was a part of the checklist that Coventry had gone through before calling him to the bridge.

  “No one else has the Eucalyptus on radar either, XO,” Coventry responded.

  “And no one else is in communication with them either?”

  “No, XO.”

  For one ship to lose radar contact with a vessel might happen occasionally and the radar reset procedures would rectify the problem, but for all of the vessels in the battle group to lose radar contact was a much larger issue. There was the possibility of a very rare anomaly that might knock out all of the radars simultaneously, but it was highly unlikely.

  In order to order another vessel in the group to investigate the LKC of the Eucalyptus, he’d need Captain Ellington’s approval. Getting that approval meant waking him up. Coventry voiced his next question for him.

  “Do we want to scramble a vessel to the LKC, XO?” Coventry asked.

  “Let’s see what the helo finds first. It should only take them about ten minutes to be on station.”

  As if on cue, the lieutenant reported that they had launched. “Feet wet and ten minutes to LKC, LC.”

  “Copy,” Coventry responded shortly.

  “Could someone get me a cup of coffee?” Samuels called out as he moved to his seat on the bridge, listening to the radar reset checks coming in from the other ships in the group.

  “Right behind you, XO,” Petty Officer Burns said, handing him the steaming mug.

  “You’re a good mate, Petty Officer,” he grumbled, taking his first sip of the strong, fresh brew.

  “LC told me you’d be wanting some sludge when he sent Patterson to wake you, XO,” Burns responded with humility.

  He liked Burns. He rarely took credit for something he’d done, especially when he’d been following someone else’s order. He cracked half a smile and nodded to the petty officer to dismiss him.

  “I’ll keep it full until you tell me to stop, XO.”

  “You’d better break out some antis and pray that you don’t have to brew a potta.” Captain Ellington wouldn’t touch coffee, but guzzled tea at nearly the same rate as those who preferred sludge. He’d gotten the acid in his stomach settled down enough to get to sleep, but he was pretty sure that swilling sludge and worrying over whatever was going on with the Eucalyptus was going to bring it right back.

  Ten minutes passed at an agonizing pace. Samuels rubbed the sleep from his eyes and with one hand while he kept the mug in the other. When the radio call from the helo finally came in, he stood up.

  “We’re at LKC, LC,” Lieutenant Tattingham’s voice broke over the radio. “No lights.”

  “Copy,” LC Coventry responded. “Remain on station and await orders.”

  Cruise ships were typically lit up like Christmas trees, especially at thirty minutes after midnight, when the ballrooms and their parties were still in full swing. Tattingham’s call of no lights was not what he wanted to hear.

  LC Coventry held the mike and stared directly at his XO, waiting for an order to be given. Samuel’s merely nodded and then let out a heavy sigh.

  “Remain on station until bingo and spiral downstream on LKH (Last Known Heading),” LC Coventry ordered.

  “Copy,” Tattingham replied.

  “Petty Officer,” Samuels called out. “You best start on that potta and send someone to wake the old man.” He was going to have to scramble the nearest ship. “LC, which vessel is closest to LKC?”

  Chapter Eight

  On board the Eucalyptus, early Tuesday morning

  Ellen slid the door to the balcony open and I followed her out to the rail where we’d been before we’d gone to dinner. The deep, black background upon which the stars were pasted in twinkling relief only added to its splendor.

  “And I thought the sunset was spectacular,” I breathed.

  “The Alborrada in Medellin had nothing on this,” Ellen whispered.

  Ellen and I had witnessed the Alborrada from the garden of El Castillo. At midnight as November 30th turned into December 1st, the sky lit up with fireworks in a display that went well beyond any 4th o
f July celebration either of them had ever witnessed. It was spectacular, but the brilliance of the stars upon the blackness that surrounded them, especially with the way that the water reflected the heavens and transformed the twinkles into shimmers upon its surface.

  As I stood there and looked out upon the display before us, I was well aware of the complete silence that surrounded us. It was an eerie silence; disturbingly so. Hoping to push aside that feeling, I moved over behind Ellen and wrapped my arms around her just like I had when we were standing on the balcony of the Imperial back in Brisbane.

  “So,” I murmured into the top of her head, “what was it that you were going to show me that didn’t require light?”

  “I don’t think I have to spell it out for you, do I?” she asked, turning around and looking up at me.

  “We could make love right out here on the balcony,” I suggested. “With the lights all off, no one would see us.”

  “Yeah, right,” she laughed. “What would happen if the lights suddenly came back on?”

  “Chicken,” I laughed.

  I leaned toward her for a kiss, hoping that I might, at least, get her wound up, even if we didn’t stay out on the balcony. Just as my lips started to touch hers, however, I felt her entire body tense up.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Something is wrong,” she replied. “Something is really wrong.”

  “Hey, we’ve been married a good long time and I was just kidding about making love on the balcony,” I responded.

  “It’s not that, Mon,” she whispered. “I’ve been fighting it back all evening, but I’ve sensed it all evening since Pharaoh came into the ballroom.”

  “You’re a good actor,” I said. “I thought you were having a good time.”

  “I was, but that’s only because there was so much going on that I was able to keep my mind off of it. Here, alone, I can’t fight it off anymore. The presence is really strong.”