by Alan May
When she had regained the ability to speak, she filled him in on the strategy that Rob Montgomery had sketched out.
“What about the code word?” she asked when she had finished. “It’s got to be something that won’t call attention to itself when I say it, something that won’t sound suspicious to the hijackers. But it can’t be anything so ordinary that I might say it by accident, either, just in the normal course of conversation. And it has to be something distinctive enough that it couldn’t be easily confused with some other word I might be likely to say.”
“Hmm. Maybe you could say it’s rainin’ cats and dogs in Montréal, just after he tells you what the weather conditions are out here,” Mac said. And then: “Och, no, that’s nae good. If they found out the sun was actually shinin’ brightly there, they’d be on to us in a flash.”
They spent a few minutes bandying about more ideas, rejecting them one by one as too obvious, too silly, too something.
“Got it!” Mac said. “What d’ye think of this one?”
She had to agree it was perfect.
29
Phillip strode to the first-aid room, opened the door without knocking, and announced to Dr. Williams that it was time for him to stop what he was doing and take a break.
As soon as the doctor had put away his dictation and closed the door behind him, Phillip said, “You’re looking better, Stefano. It’s time we made some plans.”
The little bastardo gets cockier every day, Stefano thought. What it’s time for is to remind you who’s the boss here. He looked at the tubes protruding from his arms, hooking him to the upside-down bottles of fluids and medications that flowed through his veins, and knew he was in no shape to drive the lesson home.
“Tell me what it’s like out there,” Stefano said, nodding with his chin to indicate the ship beyond the first-aid room. He struggled to sit upright. Sweat dampened his brow from the effort.
“Pretty much normal. The ship-director broad” —Phillip didn’t mention Anika’s name, or how attractive he found her—“is doing a good job keeping everybody in line. The kids are going to classes and sticking with their work and watch routines. Nobody’s giving us any problem, and there’s no way they could have gotten word out. I’m standing right beside the captain when he calls in his morning report to their headquarters in Canada, and he’s sure not giving anything away. As far as anyone outside knows, it’s business as usual aboard the Good Ship Lollipop.”
“Bueno.”
“But now we’ve got to decide what to do with them,” Philip said.
He was glad Juan wasn’t there. He knew very well what his opinion would be about how to take care of them. He looked over at Stefano, hopeful that he might already have devised a plan—a plan that didn’t involve killing off everyone on the Inspiration. But Stefano’s eyes were closed, his brow wrinkled.
He waited a minute. Stefano said nothing.
“The one thing we know for sure is that the Coincidence and the Inspiration can’t get to Easter Island at the same time,” Philip said.
Stefano’s face remained impassive, but his right hand lifted slightly in a dismissive gesture, which Phillip chose to interpret as agreement with this patently obvious statement.
“So how about if we disable their boat, wipe out all their communications systems, and just let them drift?” Philip said. “It would be days, maybe even a week or two, before anyone found them.”
And, he thought, at least they’d be alive when they were found. Probably.
“In the meantime we’d go to Easter Island, do our thing, and be long gone before the story ever got out. How many days do we actually need?”
The strength and clarity of Stefano’s response took Phillip by surprise. He hadn’t been sure the man had even heard his words, much less comprehended them.
“Once we get to the island, we need four days, minimum,” Stefano said. “Maybe six, depending on what time of day we get there. My contact, Giorgio, he lives in Hanga Roa, on the west coast. He’s got a factory there. Makes these little statues, plastic, of the big statues—Moai, they’re called. He ships these little plastic Moai statues all over the world. Done it for years. It’s all legit.”
Get on with it, Phillip thought. I don’t need to hear all about your amigo’s gewgaw souvenir business. Maybe Stefano wasn’t so clear-headed after all.
“We gonna tie up at a wharf near his place. The first night, we gonna move the bales of coke into his factory. Then it’s gonna take two days to do the conversion.”
“Conversion?”
Stefano and Juan had never been explicit about what was going to happen once they had the cocaine in their possession, figuring what the hired help didn’t know they couldn’t be made to tell. Best to keep them in the dark, letting them in on the plan one step at a time as it became necessary.
A smile flitted across Stefano’s lips.
“What better way to get our load of coke shipped home than to turn it into a thousand cute little Moai statues, identical to the thousands of cute little plastic statues Giorgio been shipping every month for the last twelve years?”
Holy shit, Phillip thought. It was a brilliant plan. Easter Island was about the last place anybody would think of as a source of illegal drugs to begin with, and to convert the white powder into what would look exactly like the same innocuous merchandise that had been coming out of this Giorgio guy’s factory for years—hell, customs wouldn’t even give the shipment a second glance.
Stefano’s eyes were open now, watching Phillip’s reaction with amusement.
“Bueno,” he continued. “One day to tie up and unload. Two to cast the statues, and one more to package them for shipping to the States.”
“So, we’d be flying back on the same plane with the shipment?” Phillip asked.
“No. We’ll already be there. As soon as we get the statues packed, we gonna be on the next plane out. Giorgio’s gonna wait a coupla days, then send our pretty little statues to his distribution warehouse, consigned to me. All we gotta do is pick them up at the warehouse and then …”
Stefano smiled again and shrugged. And then. Then they would be home free, divvying up their riches. As long as they could pull off the next few days.
“Okay,” Phillip said. “So we’ll say four to five days on the island. Plus the time it takes to get there. If we left tomorrow morning, that’d be about four days.”
His mind was racing now. Eight or nine days was the very least amount of time they would require. Could they count on the Inspiration to go undicovered for that long? Damn, it was risky.
Stefano was easing himself into a sitting position, pulling himself up by the bed railing. He drew his breath in sharply, grimacing, but when he spoke, his voice was steady and decisive.
“Right. This is what we gonna do. You knock out the engine of this boat and make sure there’s no way they can call for help. No satellite phone, no radio, no nothing. Tell Polo and Severo to get the Coincidence ready to go. Tell my brother to come here. And get the doctor and that girl—the director—in here, too, and the captain. We’re not going alone.”
Phillip stared at Stefano.
“The sooner we cut them loose, the better,” Stefano went on. “Too close to the island and a boat or a plane could spot them. We gotta do it now, pronto. And the doctor and the girl are gonna be our insurance.
“You tell the captain: Nine days. He don’t make a move for nine days, or the doctor and the girl are dead.”
30
“Whatever happens,” Melissa said, so softly that Pierre had to lean even closer to hear her, “whatever happens, I want …”
“You want …?” he asked.
He himself wanted only to take her in his arms and tell her about his rendezvous with Mac, tell her that now there was contact with the outside world, that now rescue might be on its way.
But he could not. He had vowed not to let anyone else know. No matter how much he wanted to alleviate Melissa’s anguish, no matter how
much he trusted her, he knew that sharing the news, even with no one but her, could put that rescue in jeopardy.
And, of course, even with the encouraging breakthrough in communication, there was no guarantee of their survival. No guarantee at all, just a thin sliver of hope piercing despair.
Following the temporary distraction of the coffee night, the mood aboard the Inspiration had gone back to bleak and wary. As the hours dragged on, the waiting itself had begun to seem unbearably heavy; almost worse, Pierre had begun to think, than whatever fate might be in store for them all. What good was it to continue to survive, if survival meant only constant dread of what loomed ahead?
Then suddenly the mood had shifted again and the dull anxiety turned to acute fear. Pierre couldn’t put his finger on exactly when this alteration had occurred, or what had caused it. There had been no announcement, no obvious sign of an imminent culmination to their situation. Yet he felt a distinct undercurrent of building tension, a profound sense that something was just about to happen.
Pierre had seen unease in the faces of Anika, the doctor, and the captain as they had emerged from the first-aid room with Phillip earlier in the day. The three had walked right past him with hardly a glance. Anika was ashen and shaky, Dr. Williams was stony-faced, and the captain was standing more erect than usual. Phillip had looked almost as grim and glowering as that other drug guy, the one they called Juan.
Drugs. It was all about drugs—cocaine, according to Mac.
He thought about how many guys at Caneff had been involved with drugs. Most of them just had experimented with pot, but a few were into more serious drugs, and a couple had even been dealing. It would have taken very little, so very little, the way he’d been drifting, for him to have crossed that line himself. He had never been that interested in the drug scene. He regarded it as a waste of time and money, but still … had he stayed at Caneff, or gotten out and continued to hang out with that crowd, would he have been strong enough to turn down the easy thrill of drugs, to resist their mind-numbing, stress-relieving allure, to risk the scorn of his companions by saying no?
It made him sick to think that he might have helped fuel the demand for illegal drugs—demand that in turn spurred people like Juan to profit from weakness. Or even worse, might he have become one of the people like Juan, a user-turned-pusher-turned-drug runner.
He might have become someone who endangered the lives of all of the people he cared about aboard the Inspiration—mon dieu, the life of Melissa, for whom he would gladly give his own life. Non, it wasn’t possible, surely could not be possible—and yet …
It was too horrible to think about.
“Pierre?”
Melissa’s soft voice brought him back to reality.
“Melissa,” he replied, taking her chin in his hands, searching her face.
“Whatever happens,” Melissa said, “I want you to know how much I love you.”
“It could never be as much as I love you,” he whispered.
He drew her close so she wouldn’t see the tears welling up in his eyes.
31
“Oh, excuse me, Captain, I seem to have the hiccups,” Kathleen said.
This is it, then, Captain Marzynski thought. He’d been expecting the code word, listening for it, ever since Dave had relayed it from Mac, but it still registered as a shock now she’d said it. Hiccups. He gave no indication of its significance.
“Try bending over and drinking a glass of water from the far side of the glass,” he said. “Always works for me.”
Marzynski continued with his report on the Inspiration’s coordinates and the weather and noted they were still having some minor problems with the electronic systems.
The minor problems were going to turn major in just a moment. Phillip stood beside him, with Matt and Sam, the first and second engineers, ready to start removing the wiring harnesses from the electronic equipment as soon as his report was finished. The captain hoped it would be only a matter of removing the harnesses; it all had to be done in under two hours, along with disabling the steering hydraulics and getting the Coincidence ready to sail—with Elliott Williams and Anika aboard, heaven help them. He could well imagine Phillip simply taking a hammer and smashing everything to smithereens in the interest of saving time.
The anxious tedium of the past couple of days had been replaced with urgent preparations—and a complete change of plans. There’d be no chance now for Mac to cut the Coincidence adrift or for the doctor to knock Stefano out. Yesterday afternoon Phillip had appeared at the captain’s office door, demanding that he come to the first-aid room. Anika and Elliott were already there, along with Juan, who had looked even more malevolent than usual. Juan’s scowl had deepened by the minute as Phillip had laid out their scheme of taking off in the Coincidence with the two hostages, leaving the Inspiration in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no power and no communications systems.
But why, Anika had wanted to know, did they need two hostages? Wasn’t one enough “insurance”? Couldn’t they just take her and leave the doctor, in case any of the kids or staff needed medical help? Phillip had vetoed that, pointing out that Stefano, although considerably better, was not yet out of danger. No way were they going to risk anything happening to him.
How like Anika, the captain had thought, to be thinking about the kids and volunteering to put herself in harm’s way to keep them as safe as possible. He had been on the verge of asking why, in that case, they needed to take Anika, why not just the doctor, when Phillip cut him off.
“And you’re coming as, uh, supplemental insurance,” he had said to Anika.
The captain looked up sharply to see Phillip staring at Anika with eyes that were voracious and predatory.
Lukasz Marzynski had never felt so powerless in his life. The eldest of the eight Marzynski siblings, he had always possessed a natural authority that never veered off into harshness or insensitivity but took command of any situation that confronted him. A fifteen-year veteran with Blue Water Academy, twelve as captain of the Inspiration, he’d handled crises of many sorts, always keeping a cool head, earning the respect of students and staff on voyage after voyage.
He had nearly two hundred thousand miles of sailing experience under his belt—about as much as the legendary Captain Cook—but now he felt completely stymied. Anything he did to try to protect Anika would further endanger the students in his care. Yet to allow her to go as a hostage, to leave her in Phillip’s clutches—unthinkable.
She was a strong and resourceful person, true, and Dr. Williams would be with her, which was some comfort. But how could the two of them possibly defend themselves against six criminals? They would have no weapons, other than whatever medications the doctor might have in his bag. And after they had served their purpose as hostages, they would be nothing more than dangerous liabilities to dispense with.
Could Phillip’s obvious desire for Anika possibly override the need for eliminating her? Doubtful. Particularly if she somehow managed to ward off his advances. That would only infuriate him. And even if Phillip were disposed to keep her alive, there were the others—especially Juan. He was without doubt the most chilling man Luke had ever met, a man of no conscience or no humanity. A man who could snuff out the life of another human being as though he was swatting a fly.
Luke’s gaze had fixed on Juan as Phillip had finished outlining the plan, registering the way Juan’s glowering threatened to spill over into violence. There was something there, something in the relationship between the two men …
Phillip had stopped and was looking expectantly at Luke. Luke’s attention had been so focused on Juan he wasn’t sure what Phillip had just said. He’d thought for a moment, then, hoping it was not a complete non sequitur, said, “You’re expecting the Inspiration to get along in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a week—possibly longer—with no power?”
Phillip, sneering, had given a short laugh.
“Oh, come on, Captain. If Captain Bligh could survive in
a twenty-three-foot boat with eighteen men and practically no food for more than six weeks in 1789, I believe you can tough it out on a rig like the Inspiration for a few days.”
“Very well. But at least leave us the house generator, so we can keep our food supply refrigerated and cook it safely.”
“As long as—” Phillip had begun.
“Shut up,” Juan had snarled at Phillip. Then, spinning on his heel to face Luke, his face like a thundercloud, he had hissed: “You are in no position to make demands, Captain.”
Luke had shot a quick glance at Phillip, who was livid with anger. No question about it. Juan and Phillip were locked in a hostile competition to determine who was to be Stefano’s second-in-command. Luke’s eyes met the doctor’s; it was clear they were thinking along the same lines. Somehow there might be a way to exploit the rivalry between Phillip and Juan, to divide and conquer.
Stefano had held up his hand.
“Silencio,” he said. “The generator—it’s only for the kitchen, right? Phillip, you check it out. Make sure it don’t work for communications. If no, okay, they can keep it on, feed the kids. Juanito, I need you here with me.”
Stefano’s voice had been weak, but his words clear. Within two hours of the captain’s morning report—two hours from this minute, Luke thought as he hung up the phone following his report to Kathleen—the Coincidence would be on its way, the two hostages aboard, and the Inspiration would be cut off from the outside world.
And then?
Luke could see only two rays of hope, both improbable at best. The enmity between Phillip and Juan might provide Anika and the doctor enough leverage to survive. And even though the hijackers’ decision to make their escape so soon had knocked the hell out of the original plan, at least he now knew that the Coast Guard cutter was in the area.
Kathleen’s “hiccups” had started not a moment too soon.