Salvage

by Chris Howard

  “Perfect.” Andreden, trying not to appear to be in too much of a hurry, stuck out his hand, and Rick shook it. He started up one of the engines, played with the wheel and throttle for a few seconds, and said. “I think I got it from here.”

  Andreden left Rick on the dock, waving him off as he eased out of the berth, heading north, following the boat channel around a small chunk of land stacked atop a big forested piece of Upper Matecumbe Key. That would bring him back toward the key and then under the Route 1 bridge into the Atlantic side.

  He kept the Rolinga under twenty knots, maneuvering through the wide channels, but once out in the ocean, he pushed the cat, got the bow up, shooting toward the horizon. Rick had told him the cat could easily do forty-five knots, and even higher on smooth seas. A quick boat.

  Two miles out, Andreden anchored, set up the beacon for Theo, and waited, going through the diving gear: four different-sized shorty wetsuits and a box of masks and snorkels. That was it.

  His radio chirped, Theo returning a ping with some location data, fifteen minutes away at moderate speed. Andreden smiled at the “Glad you made it out here” greeting from the machine, something new in the data. That was the one—and only—place where Laeina didn’t seem to be ahead of him: the Personifex engine, the perception and intelligence core around which Theo and a few other Knowledgenix autonomous projects were constructed. Andreden had created it, and Rebekah Kahley, along with Martin, had contributed so much—although Martin’s specialization was more in the sensory technology itself, the motion hardware, and the protective submersible skin.

  Waiting for Theo, Andreden opened his notebook and zoomed into the AIS—Automatic Identification System—traffic along coastal Florida. AIS regulations required all ocean-going vessels over a certain size to contain radio gear that broadcast and relayed vessel information and location data.

  Andreden looked up from the screen toward the horizon. The Katren wasn’t in sight, but it was out there, over the horizon, under way at about four knots. The info said it was heading for Key West, with an image showing a blue-hulled offshore service vessel. It was classified as “Military Ops,” which could mean anything from transporting edible supplies to secret weapons.

  He wondered if Martin and Rebekah were aboard.

  Theo pulled alongside the Rolinga, made one circuit around the cat, and then latched on to the swim platform at the stern with its long arms. “Hello, Jon. Are you aware of the approaching craft? A boat larger than this one is headed directly for us out of the northeast, and it’s traveling at a reasonably high speed.”

  Andreden got up and came around the portside, lifting the binoculars to his eyes. It looked like a big powerboat that just happened to be heading toward him: a sleek white hull, blacked-out mid deck, and a couple of people on the flybridge. It was coming at him quickly, and he felt a surge of panic.

  The white van pulling into the Jurney’s parking lot just as he was leaving. “How the hell are they following me?” He looked down at his clothes, and the thought that he had changed them before renting the boat snapped at his thoughts.

  He kicked off his shoes, glared at them as if they were full of radio homing devices, and then Theo made some chirping noises behind him.

  Andreden shut the computer’s lid, tossed the binoculars to the deck, and was already out of his jeans and shirt when he came through the cabin doors, ripping the wetsuits off their hangers until he found one about his size. Rummaging through the box on the closet’s floor, he pulled out a decent-looking mask with an attached snorkel.

  Theo called from the water. “What are you going to do, Jon?”

  Looking over his shoulder at the boat, still on its intercept course, he said, “I don’t know. I can’t outrun that. I’m guessing if they’re here to shoot me I won’t be as clear a target in the water. How fast can you move?”

  “Not as fast as that vessel if I am carrying you.” Theo seemed to be scanning Andreden. Theo’s “face,” a pair of cameras surrounded by an array of other sensors, moved over him, head to feet. “You are broadcasting an encrypted signal, Jon, just above 410 MHz.”

  “What?” Andreden stepped off the swim platform at the Rolinga’s stern, and his question was almost lost in the rush of water.

  Hearing in the water wasn’t a problem for Theo. “It’s a small burst of data every two hundred seconds. I am unable to read it, though.”

  Andreden surfaced, angry at being duped into attracting his killers, and Laeina had been shot,badly, because these fucks knew where he was at any given time. Theo spun up its thrusters and turned sideways to Andreden, holding out one arm for him to hold on.

  “Some sort of sub-dermal thing? Can you find it, Theo? How the fuck did it get on me?” Andreden twisted in the water, and the machine pulled away, going just under the surface to have a look; then it spun up its props and pulled Andreden through the water.

  “The boat is almost here, Jon. You should go under the water. I will do what I can to help you get away.”

  They were barely a hundred feet from the Rolinga. Andreden slid under the waves and kicked hard, angling back toward the shore—miles away. It just seemed useless. The water was clear, he had a mask and snorkel, but he really couldn’t stay under for very long, and even when he did, they could see him. It just wasn’t deep enough, and he didn’t have tanks and air. What he’d need was some sort of diving gear with a rebreather that wouldn’t leave a trail of bubbles everywhere he went.

  He kicked harder. With a fucking mask and snorkel, he was tied to the surface.

  The powerboat raced right over the point where Theo had submerged, two divers rolling off the stern into the wake. Andreden caught their entry as he came up for air, kicking hard, his arms pulling with all his strength through the water. These guys were pros, coordinated. Military training. Had to be.

  The boat was coming around in a tight circle to meet up with him at some point. Then it stalled, a sharp ripping noise that stopped it in the water. Andreden didn’t spend more than a second on what was happening, but assumed Theo had done something to the propellers—hoping his smart machine hadn’t just run into them, letting the blades rip it apart.

  The two divers caught up to him. One—almost casually—grabbed one of his legs, and wrestled him onto his back. The other reaching out to punch away his mask. A rush of seawater against his face, eyes closed, and all he could do was return the effort, reaching out, fingers clawed to snag hoses and masks, knocking them free. Someone got a mouth full of water, because he felt the hard cap of a regulator hit him in the jaw. He was blinking against the seawater, blurred shapes of the divers surrounding him.

  Theo swept in from below and used its big grippers to pull one of the diver’s hands free, squeezing with machine strength. There were several bone-snapping sounds—someone’s fingers, maybe a radius or the carpals in the hand. Underwater screaming and exaggerated kicking motion.

  Andreden cleared his sight. An air line had been cut. There were bubbles roaring all around them. A shadowy shape came at him, one of the divers swinging his elbow in. It caught Andreden in the face; blood ran from his nose and lip where it sliced open along his teeth. He waved the dark cloud away, spinning upside down so he could use his feet to kick. He caught a diver in the chest, shoved him a few feet back into Theo’s machine hug. The second diver flipped on his back, away from Andreden, circled, and came back in for Theo. He pulled out a short metal stick with a bulbous head. It looked like some gas-eject shark deterrent. Andreden kicked around to go after him, still twenty feet away when the diver jammed the stick into Theo’s core of components and detonated it. A ring of gas and pressure ripped through Theo’s left side and tore into the arm’s drives and components.

  Andreden opened his eyes, floating to the surface, stunned after the explosion. His head was foggy, but he rolled forward into the water to see what he could do to help. Theo was spinning gently, his limbs on one side swinging loose, thrusters frozen, sinking, caught in the currents and dri
fting into the deep.

  Coming up for air, Andreden banged his head into the side of an inflatable boat’s flexible hull. The powerboat, still disabled, had sent out a chase boat, and it had cruised right to him. Andreden looked up into blinding sun and guns pointed down at him, along with an open hand. “Mr. Andreden, I’d like to welcome you aboard.” The man half shrugged, still holding out a helping hand. “Or we could shoot you in the water and leave you for the sharks.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Missing

  Wilraven woke with his arm and leg hurting like fuck.

  Aching all over, slashing pain at every tiny movement of his leg, and hampered by the multiple injuries—shoulder and now the leg-- he crawled out of his bunk and dressed. He peeled out a couple of painkillers from the foil pack the doc had given him, dry-swallowing them.

  “I need some damn coffee,” was all he said. His voice sounded dry and weary.

  The last thing he remembered of the day before was leaving the med station with his leg wrapped, ankle to mid-thigh, in some weird military-issue chemically infused fabric that had stiffened over fifteen minutes into a thin shell almost as rigid as any cast, but without the accompanying weight or bulk, and jointed at the knee to allow some bending motion. “Navy issue,” Dr. Kozcera has said. “Deutsche Marine. Bendable. Waterproof.” The Doc had even laughed, “You can even dive in it.” Royce had returned just before that with a makeshift crutch the Irabarren’s welders had put together—still wearing his weird fucking smile.

  Everything after that was a blur, the drugs working through his system to lock out the pain.

  The sun was just coming up as the captain hobbled down to the Marcene’s main deck, stopping into the kitchen on the way to grab a mug of coffee. Oladosu gave him an angry smirk. “Captain. You going to do something about those damn gulls? Shitting all over the place. Maybe those soldiers are feeding them?”

  Wilraven nodded back, starting to grin before he shut it down.

  “See what I can do, Olad.”

  Using the crutch awkwardly, he made his way down to the gangway off Marcene. A new day. Sure, a fresh batch of painkillers was sloshing around in his system, but he was back in business and still in one piece.

  Unfortunately, everything else seemed to be falling apart around him.

  He spotted his first, Angelo, talking with Andres and some of the ROV team on the far side of Irabarren’s wide deck.

  All of them stopped, angry gestures frozen, turning around as Wilraven hobbled down the gangway and across the deck toward them.

  Angelo turned, a solemn look on his face. “Hey, Cap.”

  That was all he said, glancing from Andres and to Inda, who had an intense mission-time look in her eyes. She looked over at the captain once, blue eyes cold, and then turned slowly, looking over what she could see of the Irabarren from there, and then back to take in the Marcene, slow scans of the railings and gangway.

  “First. What is it?” Even as Wilraven said it, he noticed the beat-up orange hard hat in Angelo’s hands. It was DuFour’s hat, which he rarely took off on the job, and never left anywhere for someone else to pick up. “Where’s Adam?”

  Andres shook his head. Inda’s gaze shot back to him. “We haven’t seen him, but Angelo found the hard hat upside down on the deck just in from starboard ROV loading.”

  “Upside down?”

  Angelo nodded. “Bowl on the deck. Like it had fallen off. Not set down on the deck for some reason.”

  Wilraven looked over Angelo toward the parked ROVs. “And no sign of him? He wouldn’t just drop his hat.”

  Andres added in an angry whisper, “And if he did, he would fucking pick it up.”

  Inda shared a glance with Angelo. “It’s worse. Wendolyn is damaged. Buoyancy system punctured: looks like someone just hacked at the cables running to the stern thrusters. Knife-work maybe.”

  Looking over his shoulder toward the Marcene, Wilraven caught Levesgue coming down the gangway to Irabarren.

  “Did you ask him?”

  Angelo shook his head. “Thought we’d put the word out quietly first. Has to be a real serious reason for Adam to forget this.” The first officer lifted the hard hat and waved it. “He wouldn’t leave it behind.”

  Wilraven’s voice went hard. “No, he wouldn’t.” With a few awkward steps and some crutchwork, the captain spun around to face Levesgue. He took one menacing step forward, his free hand swinging up into a fist.

  “Where the fuck is Captain DuFour?”

  The soldier seemed distracted, stopping to scowl at the four of them but not really seeing them. “You tell me. He’s not my responsibility.” Levesgue stopped just inside conversation range, the expression on his face shifting to an angry anxiety as he looked up into the crane rigging, and then back toward the sheds at Irabarren’s stern.

  Without another word, he set off toward the welding station. He had given them all one more quick look, but apparently hadn’t found what he was looking for.

  Wilraven frowned down at his leg, and then nodded to Angelo. “First. Can you go see what he’s up to?”

  The first officer took DuFour’s hat with him and left the others standing on Irabarren’s deck.

  Not for long. Wilraven was working his way around to face west, the painkillers doing their job, when what appeared to be a floating village slipped over the horizon. He stopped to stare at it, bristling on the edge of the world. He shaded his eyes and leaned over the crutch, trying to reel in a wide, low, uneven shape, almost like a floating island, when Paulina’s voice came over the address system. “Captain, we got some culture headed our way. Looks like Drino, except maybe he’s picked up another few families since we saw him last.”

  The captain was digging out a high-powered monocular from his jacket pocket, with Andres and Inda moving up beside him, following his gaze to the west, both of them nodding.

  “Yes, looks like the Errantes,” Inda said softly.

  Rapid motion off on Wilraven’s right, and he turned to see Levesgue jogging up, Angelo right behind him. The soldier’s voice came in a sharp, barked string of words. “You can’t find Adam DuFour?”

  Levesgue seemed genuinely concerned about it suddenly.

  Wilraven gestured to the beat-up hard hat in Angelo’s hands. “Just his hat, which rarely leaves his head and never leaves his side.”

  “And where did you find . . . ” He cut down through the air with an open hand, and Wilraven managed an ungainly step back without the crutch.

  “Find what?”

  Levesgue had one hand up to the comm-piece screwed into one ear. “Hold on.” Then he grabbed a pair of binoculars off his tac vest, gazing fixedly through them toward the west, saying, “You got to be fucking kidding me.”

  It looked like a small city moving on the horizon: towers, windmills, banks of solar panels. It was a culture raft, one of the hundreds of free-roaming floating villages that lived on the oceans, although if this was Drino’s group, it rarely left the Caribbean. Some of the rafts had a thousand or more inhabitants. They operated outside national jurisdictions, roaming the water, living off the sea—some of them had sophisticated aquaculture and agriculture facilities. They traded with any ship or oil platform that would tolerate them. They were usually friendly, but they typically didn’t follow any reasonable law of the sea, which meant they would drift right up to any stationary or anchored operation to see what they could barter for.

  Levesgue was talking into the comm device, his voice coming out cold and sharp. “Ready three. We got company.”

  “Whoa!” Wilraven leaned over as far forward as he could on the crutch, waving in front of Levesgue’s eyes, then gesturing out to sea. “We know these guys. They’ll swing through, see what we can sell or buy, and then they’re gone. Trust me. If we tell them to stay away, it will raise alarms.”

  He was actually hoping he could convince Levesgue not to blow the shit out of Drino’s raft, killing what might be a couple hundred or more men, women,
and children.

  Levesgue gave him a calculating look, then tipped his chin toward the approaching raft. “What kind of communications gear do these things carry?”

  Wilraven looked at Inda, then Angelo. The first officer spoke up. “We used to see them a lot on the rigs; smaller rafts back then, but they were pretty well tech’d up.” He gestured with DuFour’s hat, spreading his hands wide. “Actually, it’s a bit of everything, satellite trans to homing pigeons.”

  Wilraven almost smiled at Levesgue’s sigh, and the brick wall he had suddenly run up against was clear in his expression. Even if the security team could shut down or eavesdrop on satellite and VHF communication at will, there was no way he could stop birds from flying. Not all of them.

  Even now seagulls were wheeling overhead, hundreds of winging streaks of gray and white, squealing and chattering. There were a dozen on each of the crane houses, thick, gluey streaks of bird shit running down the walls to the deck.

  Andres looked up as a gull swooped on them, dropping a nice thick wad of crap along Levesgue’s shoulder. Inda started to laugh, but saw the horror on the faces of the captain and Andres and cut it short.

  Levesgue shifted his gaze to her, angry, breathing hard through his nose. There was every indication that he was about to open fire on the seagulls—his real wish was almost visible—the urge to cut loose with some kind of chain gun spitting a thousand rounds a minute. The urge to clear the sky of anything with wings.

  “Fucking birds. There weren’t this many yesterday.” He gave Wilraven a chilly nod of his head—as if the excessive gathering of crapping, noisy seagulls was his fault. “Okay, let this raft swing in, do some business, but get them out of here as soon as possible. Tell them we have a serious and dangerous operation going, and need to get to it. We’re going to be watching you. Anyone asks, we’re just the security team. Remember.” He pointed an accusing finger at the captain. “You have a job to do. Corkran is going to chat with us in a bit.”