by Mack Maloney
“And that means?” Nolan asked.
“It means someone else knows about this island,” Stevenson said. “And they probably know that something extremely valuable is buried there.”
“Which means someone else might be trying to get to the treasure?” Batman asked.
Stevenson nodded solemnly. “Precisely.”
Nolan looked at the others and shrugged.
“Nothing like adding a little excitement,” he said.
THEY’D BARELY BEEN able to resupply the DUS-7 when they set sail again.
The Senegals were still onboard. So, too, was the field gun Kilos had provided them for the Vidynut recovery. They put the artillery piece on a one-foot-high elevated platform with heavy-duty springs underneath and side railings usually employed as loading assists. The odd arrangement was designed to reduce the big gun’s recoil, keep its aim true, and avoid tearing up the deck—as they discovered it did during the re-taking of the Vidynut.
The cannonade machine was disassembled, with two of the 50-calibers put onto swivel mounts, one on either side of the work copter’s open bay, and the three others put on the DUS-7’s bridge. The ship’s helipad was reinforced and enlarged to handle helicopters even bigger than the work copter.
More ammunition was loaded aboard—finally—along with more fuel. The gas turbine was recalibrated, and the entire communication suite was updated with better GPS and worldwide sat-phone coverage.
All this was done in just one day by Kilos engineers working at the Port of Aden facility.
THEY SET SAIL at midnight.
Slipping out among the fleets of container ships moving about the watery crossroads of the Middle East with their weapons hidden, they looked like just another coastal freighter, battered, dented and badly in need of a paint job.
Once they were under way, Nolan made the mistake of climbing up to the bridge and joining the Senegals for a drink. He was off the clock, and after what had happened in the past two weeks, he needed a break any time he could get one.
But drinking with the Senegals wasn’t like taking a shot of vodka or downing a few beers. It meant tossing back a concoction known as mooch, a brew of fermented apples, hops, grain alcohol and pulverized qat, the slightly hallucinogenic stimulant plant many people in North Africa chewed on a daily basis.
The first few gulps of mooch were like nirvana. The sea was calm, the sky was brilliant with stars, and the DUS-7 was moving along at almost forty knots—which was exhilarating in itself. As one of the Senegals steered the ship and stayed sober—the designated driver—Nolan and the other African sailors toasted each other and exchanged war stories. Gradually, Nolan started to relax.
Things began to go wrong about an hour into the drunk-fest. The Senegals were funny guys, with many stories about their exploits fighting as mercenaries in Africa. Nolan thought he might have laughed too hard, something that had never happened to him before. He got dizzy, found himself gulping for air, his face became flushed and his stomach was suddenly aching. Just about this time, the sea started rolling. The wind came up and the waves began to build. Within fifteen minutes, they found themselves in the middle of a storm not unlike the one that had preceded the battle for the Vidynut.
And very quickly, Nolan found himself seasick. Another first.
He managed to stagger down to his cabin and collapse on his bunk. He rocked and rolled with the ship, tossing and turning, the nonsense he’d written on his walls seeming to revolve around him, suspended in air. He prayed for the ability to hurl, yet was unable to.
This was not like him. He was embarrassed enough that the Senegals saw him turn white; he would be horrified if the other Whiskey members witnessed him in this condition.
Though it was his stomach that was twisted, it was really his head that didn’t feel screwed on right. Not a year ago, he was going mad in the hellhole in Kuwait, digging his way out not just to escape, but to walk across Iraq, Iran and Af ghan i-stan into Pakistan to continue his pursuit for Target Number 1. Yes—less than a year ago. But it seemed more like just a few weeks.
Now he was almost a millionaire, out on the open sea, far from that windowless rat hole of a prison cell. He was eating well, living well, fighting well, and developing a reputation that could bring him millions of dollars more.
Yet it just didn’t seem right.
There were things missing. Things he’d left behind, back in his old life. People and things.
He sat up straight in his bunk, desperate to shake these thoughts. He’d worked on conquering his demons after getting out of Kuwait, and at the moment vastly appreciated the mall-cop job for easing the transition. He’d won a major internal victory by flying the work copter that night over the Talua Tangs—with a little help from Twitch’s magic air. They had stomped Zeek. They had stomped the Somali pirates. They had prevented a bunch of very rich gangsters from being poisoned to death. And more millions would soon be theirs.
But still, he was feeling empty. Why?
Showing physical weakness was one thing—displaying any further mental issues would be hard to come back from.
He had to get back up on deck.
Climbing the ladder was rough. The ship seemed to be going one way every time he started going the other. At one point, it felt as if the Dustboat was turning completely over, that the sea would come rushing in and that would be the end of him. But he blinked his eyes, and everything became more or less level again.
Somehow he made it to the main deck and was able to look out on the raging waters of the Indian Ocean. The waves were so high, their spray looked like tsunamis. There was so much water going back and forth, it was like the lights around him were melting and flowing into one. It was almost psychedelic. He was immediately soaked to the skin.
But then something caught his eye. Not on the deck, but on the water, beyond the hellish waves. First, it was just a yellow light. Then he saw a green one, than a red one. They were all dull, barely visible, maybe 1,000 feet off the port side.
It was another vessel—a container ship, heading north, painted mostly black with a white bridge. It looked weirdly empty for some reason, like no one was steering it. Like it was devoid of any human life or control.
Could it be?
Suddenly, Nolan felt 100-percent sober. He ran up to the bridge, bursting in and surprising the still-jovial Senegals. He retrieved the bridge’s pair of powerful nightscope binoculars and ran back out to the railing.
He pointed the spyglasses at the ship and studied it up and down, bow to stern, with his good eye.
Could it be?
He ran to the back of the DUS-7 and focused on the container ship’s stern as it disappeared into the night. He had to see its name.
It seemed like it took forever, trying to focus the scope for his one eye, looking through the water and spray and the waves. He finally got the binoculars to focus, though, and he was stunned by what he saw. The ship’s name was the Dutch Cloud.
The ghost ship Bebe had told him about.
He ran back up to the bridge, his heart on fire. He asked the Senegals if they’d also seen the name of the ship.
As one, all of them replied: “What ship?”
19
NOLAN SPENT THE rest of the night up on the bridge, scanning the sea-surface radar, hoping the phantom ship would reappear. Five hours of searching produced nothing, though. He monitored the radio all night, too, trying to pick up any stray transmissions. Again, he came up empty.
He finally fell asleep on a cot on the bridge and was awakened by the rays of the morning sun streaming in the window. The bad weather had passed, and Gunner was standing over him with a pot of coffee.
“Breakfast of champions,” Gunner said, pouring him a cup.
Nolan got to his feet. His head was pounding, but at least it wasn’t spinning anymore. The Senegals offered their apologies for causing his condition, but he waved them away.
“Ma faute,” he told them in their native French. “My fault.”
His thoughts went back to the craziness on the deck just a few hours before. It didn’t seem real to him now; it was more like a dream. Had the storm been that big—or had it just been a squall? Had the fermented apples gotten to him—or was it the qat? Had he just fallen asleep here on the bridge and imagined the whole thing?
He rubbed the fog from his eye and checked their position on the control panel. Despite having passed through the storm, they were still making good time. They were already 500 miles out from Aden and just a little more than a day’s sail from the spot where the mystery island was supposed to be.
Their course was taking them right through waters most frequented by Somali pirates, but Gunner and the Senegals were already joking about it.
“Let them try to attack us,” Gunner was saying, just itching to use the artillery piece again. “They’ll wish they stuck to chasing zebras.”
THEY SAILED ALL that day and into the night with no problems. The seas stayed calm and the steady wind helped push them closer and closer to their destination.
The team spent most of their time in the galley, playing endless rounds of poker and drinking coffee, sleeping only in two-or three-hour shifts.
About ten-thirty the next morning, Nolan had just won a big hand when one of the Senegals came down to interrupt the never-ending card game. He’d spotted something up ahead.
It was not a phanton container ship. Rather it was a much smaller boat, a half-mile off their port bow. It was about the size of the DUS-7, but of much more modern design. It looked like a research vessel, all white with lots of antennas and satellite dishes poking out of the top. The problem was, it was obviously drifting.
Within five minutes, they had pulled up close to the vessel and the Senegals had caught it with a grappling hook. Nolan and Crash went over and climbed up to the bridge, where they discovered two crewmembers slumped over the controls—both shot in the head.
They went below and made their way through several cabins packed with digging utensils. Shovels. Picks. Buckets. Tarps.
“Maybe an archeology team,” Nolan said, scanning the stuff.
They moved into the galley, and here they found the ship’s passengers. Five white men, steroid-pumped muscles, dressed in black, with empty shoulder holsters—and powdery noses. Each had two bullets in his head.
The galley had been ransacked of food and water. A liquor cabinet in the kitchen was empty. There were no guns on board, but plenty of empty ammunition boxes. Bloody prints on the galley deck showed the murderers had been barefoot. It all led to one conclusion.
“Somali pirates,” Crash said.
Nolan nodded. “No doubt about it. They must have caught these guys with their pants down, snorting their lunch.”
They both tasted a bit of the powder left on the table. It was cocaine.
“I’m guessing these morons were drug runners,” Crash observed. “Drug runners who thought they’d go digging for something maybe?”
“Bingo again,” Nolan replied. “They just picked the wrong time to play Indiana Jones.”
The team had no choice but to move on—recovering the bodies of drug mules wasn’t in their plan. They made a sat-phone call to the International Maritime Hotline in London and reported what they had found and where. Then they hung up before giving any of their own information.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, they came upon another boat drifting in the water.
There was no doubt who this vessel belonged to. It was a long, thin motorboat with dual engines and a small control house. There were ten black gunmen aboard it, all dead. All were barefoot; all had been shot multiple times by a large caliber weapon. The boat itself was riddled with bullet holes and barely afloat.
“And here are our perps,” Nolan said, studying the boat full of bodies from the nose of the DUS-7 and seeing it was filled with food, bags of cocaine, and liquor bottles. “Ten less Somali pirates to worry about.”
But what had happened to them?
Gunner was the weapons expert. He looked at the carnage from stern to bow. It appeared that, just as the pirates had probably surprised the drug runners, someone had probably surprised the pirates. But who?
“From the angle of the bullet holes?” Gunner said, shaking his head. “Hard to say.”
Just then, they heard a low, droning sound. An airplane was coming at them out of the south. It was an updated Grumman Goose, a two-engine, high-wing seaplane usually seen island-hopping in the Caribbean or the Pacific.
It flew right by them, close to their port side, going very fast and disappearing into the darkening clouds to the north.
“Someone out here running pirate-watching trips?” Crash asked dryly.
The droning noise gradually faded away, but then grew loud again. The plane passed them again, this time on their starboard side, flying south, very low.
“Someone on board must have forgotten something,” Gunner said.
“Either that or they’re trying to get a good look at us,” Batman replied.
Now the seaplane turned yet again and came back a third time. This time, Nolan sensed something was wrong.
It was slowing down and passing them on the port side again. It seemed almost like it was going to attempt a landing.
“Maybe they’re in trouble?” Crash wondered. “Maybe they need us to rescue them.”
That idea was shattered by what happened next. As the innocuous plane went by, they could see two of the windows in the fuselage were open. Suddenly bullets were flying all around the bridge. It took the team a few moments to realize the gunfire was coming from the passing airplane.
“What the fuck?” Crash roared. “Whose fucking air force is that?”
Gunner yelled, “Now we know who killed those pirates.”
The team sprung into action. They lowered the blast visor on the bridge and everyone grabbed their M4s. Gunner ran outside to one of the bridge-mounted 50-calibers, newly installed in its movable seat. But there was a problem. The machine guns elevated only 45 degrees—when the Kilos engineers installed them, it had never dawned on them they might be needed to shoot at airborne targets. They were meant strictly for battling pirates and seaborne adversaries. The same was true for the 50-calibers installed near the stern railing.
Now the plane was turning and coming back. And unless it flew really, really low, the team’s best weapons would be useless against it.
Dr. Stevenson and Squire had appeared on the deck by now, attracted by the commotion. They were carrying two high-powered hunting rifles.
The plane went by again, strafing the upper deck, hitting the cargo masts, and perforating the work copter sitting un-shielded on its landing platform. Everyone in Team Whiskey fired back at the attacker with their M4s, but the effort was stymied by lack of range and the airplane’s speed.
The plane turned and strafed them again on the port side, heavily damaging their life boats and snapping their main communications antenna.
This was getting serious. Nolan knew a well-placed barrage from the airplane hitting the bridge or the fuel supply could cripple them at least, and at worst, sink them. Yet there was no way they could fight back against the attacking aircraft.
“Blow smoke and come to all stop!” Nolan told the Senegals suddenly. The others were puzzled by the order, but it soon made sense. The Dustboat quickly slowed to a crawl and smoke began billowing out of its stack, creating a temporary smoke screen. Meanwhile, Nolan borrowed the doctor’s hunting rifles, handing one to Gunner. Together they climbed the two starboard cargo masts.
The plane turned and approached them again on the starboard side. The ship had emerged from the smoke cloud by now, meaning Nolan and Gunner had to act fast. They drew a bead on the airplane with the high-powered rifles. As it went by strafing the deck below, Nolan and Gunner opened up from atop the masts.
They missed the plane’s pilot but shot the two men who were firing at them from the passenger compartment. The plane staggered for a moment. Their bullets had caught
one of its engines, too. It started smoking and dipped a little before regaining its lost altitude. Now the low drone was replaced by the sound of an engine backfiring.
The plane did not turn back toward the DUS-7 this time. It continued flying south, a cloud of oily smoke trailing behind it. It finally disappeared over the horizon.
The doctor quickly checked everyone for injuries. Incredibly, no one had been hit in the strafing attack. But again, the ship’s new communications tower had been shot to pieces, and one of the portside cargo masts had been cut in two. Worst of all, the work copter had taken a dozen rounds to its rotor and tail section. The damage was irreparable; their air asset was out of commission.
Looking at the trail of smoke still visible in the southern sky, Twitch said, “So much for our welcoming committee.”
THEY SPOTTED THE island about a half hour later.
Though the skies were clear and the ocean still calm, their destination, sitting out on the southern horizon, was mostly engulfed in fog.
“No wonder no one can ever find this place,” Crash said, standing on the bridge, scanning the murky place through high-powered binoculars. “It reminds me of our old digs back in Malacca.”
Gunner was right beside him, also studying the mist-enshrouded island. “Isn’t this where King Kong lives?” he asked.
Nolan was looking at the place through his special one-eye scope. He couldn’t disagree with his colleagues. Lots of thick jungle, waves crashing on shore. Even what appeared to be an extinct volcano. It was right out of a ’30s Hollywood movie.
Then he spotted something else. Anchored a few hundred feet off the north end of the island was the seaplane that had shot at them. This was not a big surprise.
“I know the first thing we have to do,” he said.
THEY WERE SOON within a half-mile of the island. Their communications were out, but they still had sea surface radar, and this allowed them to sweep the waters around them in case any other vessels were nearby. They spotted nothing.
They made for the seaplane. Nolan, studying it through his spyglass as it bobbed in the shallow waves off the rocky shore, could see the two open windows he and Gunner had shot at; streams of blood dripped down the fuselage beneath them. The cowling on the plane’s left engine was also up, as if someone had tried to fix the damage the team’s high-powered gunfire had done. Nolan was familiar enough with this kind of plane to know it could still fly on one engine. Which meant it could still be dangerous to them.