Running Dark (24 page)

“Don’t die out there.”

Rickell slammed the door and walked away.

BANNER’S PHONE RANG TEN MINUTES AFTER HE LANDED IN BERBERA,
Somalia. He glanced at the readout. The number listed was unfamiliar. He punched the green button.

“Banner here.”

“It is Giovanni Roducci.”

Banner snapped to attention. Roducci wouldn’t call him if he’d had an opportunity to speak to Stromeyer. Something was up. “Yes?”

“I have just learned that both you and Major Stromeyer may be targeted for death.”

Banner did his best not to let his mouth drop open. “Who’s targeting us?”

“A man called the Vulture. He is a corporate raider from Europe. Lots of money that he spreads around. No one really knows his true identity, because he operates out of a tangled mass of offshore shell corporations, but it is believed his influence reaches into the highest levels of society. Unfortunately, he uses the influence to harm those who get in his way.”

“How have I gotten in his way?”

“You haven’t. You got in the way of a Somali warlord. This warlord cut a deal that included wiping Darkview off the planet.”

“What does the Vulture get in return for killing me?”

“He gets the warlord to capture a cruise ship that carries several dealers waiting to bid for the formula for a new drug. Once the warlord captures the ship, he takes the dealers hostage and gives the
Vulture the cargo. The Vulture wipes out his competition in one clean sweep, and no one will suspect he’s behind the attack. After all, pirate attacks have become quite common in the past few years, so it will be considered just another act of piracy.”

“Is Major Stromeyer aware of this?”

“She is. I contacted her first, of course.”

“Of course,” Banner said. He was surprised Roducci even bothered to let him know. Sometimes he thought Roducci would like nothing better than to see Banner out of
his
way.

“What did Stromeyer say?”

“She told me that you had already placed bodyguards around her in response to some recent threats. Then she asked me to warn you. She would have done it herself, but she was concerned about a wiretap.”

A man in military clothing stepped up to Banner. “Your helicopter to the
Redoubtable
is ready,” he whispered at Banner. Banner acknowledged him with a nod.

“Thank you, Mr. Roducci.”

“Anytime, Signor Banner.”

TARRANT SAT OUTSIDE STROMEYER’S HOUSE.
He’d had no opportunity to hit her with the pen all day. The two bodyguards never left her side. He checked his watch. He’d been sitting in the car for over three hours. He needed to do something soon. Take some action. He reached into the glove compartment, extracted two more pills, his last, and downed them with a whiskey chaser. His nerves were uncommonly jittery. A knock on the driver’s-side window startled him. He saw only dark knuckles and antelope cuff links. It was the African. Tarrant lowered the window.

“I thought you would never get here. I’m out,” Tarrant said.

“Yes, you are,” the African said. He pointed a gun with a silencer at Tarrant’s head and shot him. He walked calmly away, flipping open a phone as he did. “It’s finished,” he said.

“And the woman?”

“Alive.”

“Good.”

The African was confused. He thought the woman was supposed to be targeted for elimination.

“Why don’t you want her dead?”

“She received a confidential communication from an arms trader, mentioning my involvement. She started digging, looking for my identity. She is quite adept at obtaining information. She notified the DOD that if she or Banner is injured or killed, they are to activate an investigation.”

The African felt a stab of fear. “Does she know us?”

“Not yet, but it is best that we subside for some time.”

“And Mungabe?”

“I’ll deal with Mungabe.”

The Vulture hung up.

EMMA WATCHED THE CROWD OF MEN STAMPEDE. THEY TURNED
as a group toward Sumner and Block. The two men moved to the side to let the panicked passengers run past them in their rush to the casino. Emma sprinted to the bridge, Cindy close at her heels, and pounded on the door. The captain’s second officer opened it. Emma, Cindy, Sumner, and Block pushed into the room, which was already filled with Wainwright, Janklow, Herr Schullmann, Marina, and several ship employees. They all stared at a radar screen set into the
Kaiser Franz
’s control panel.

“You fixed the radar,” Sumner said.

“It’s jerry-rigged from some old parts we found in storage,” Janklow said. “Although right about now I wish we hadn’t managed it.”

The radar showed thirty green dots massed at a spot not far from the ship.

“What do you think?” Wainwright said to Janklow.

Janklow rubbed a tired hand over his face. “Maybe it’s a meeting?”

Wainwright nodded. “I agree, but what are they meeting about?”

“New tactics being discussed? Sumner?”

“I think they’re getting ready to do this thing right.”

Block groaned.

Sumner ignored him while he pointed at the dot closest to shore. “That’s the mother ship. They’re going to make a concerted attack.”

Emma was appalled. If the dots represented individual pirate boats, then they were soon to be overrun. Her head started pounding. She wasn’t ready to be a hostage, and she wasn’t ready to die. She looked at the men assembled around her. She was as helpless to stop this thing as they were.

The massed dots were moving toward them. Ahead of the entire group, and also moving toward them, was a lone dot. It was nearly upon them. She pointed to it. “Who is that?”

Wainwright handed her a set of binoculars. “Have a look.” He pointed beyond the bridge’s window to the sea. Emma couldn’t make anything out. She put the binoculars to her eyes. A small boat sprang into view. While the driver’s face was unrecognizable because he was behind a water-splattered windshield, the second man’s face was not. It was Richard Stark.

“That’s Hassim and Stark. The two men who helped me get here.”

“Are they friend or foe?” Wainwright asked.

Good question, she thought. Hassim she could vouch for, at least. “The driver is an agent for the Darkview company. The passenger is the CEO of Price Pharmaceuticals.”

Wainwright gave her an incredulous look. “Since when do CEOs of major Fortune 500 companies end up on the high seas being chased by Somali pirates?”

Emma had to agree. Stark was not to be trusted. “Since I don’t know. Some very strange things have been occurring at Price, and he’s in the thick of them.”

“Do we let him board?” Janklow said.

Wainwright nodded. “I’m not leaving the Darkview operative to die out there. We’ll haul them both on deck and sort it out later.” He thought a moment. “Is everyone accounted for?”

Sumner spoke up. “Not Clutch. I haven’t seen him in hours.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right,” Janklow said. “When we’re done here, I’ll go look for him.”

Hassim’s boat made it to the side of the
Kaiser Franz.
Janklow and
two crew members lowered a ladder. Hassim came up first, Stark second, carrying Emma’s duffel.

“Hassim, what happened?”

“We never got far. They’re everywhere.”

Stark climbed over the railing. Emma couldn’t read his face. He looked as tired as she felt.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“To stop it.”

“What are you stopping?”

Stark sighed. “Can we go belowdecks? Speak in private?”

Emma shook her head. “No. There’s no time. In case you weren’t aware, there are thirty boats coming this way. Besides, I’m not going anywhere with you in private. You tell me what you know now, in front of these witnesses. Which one of the vials has ricin in it?”

Janklow and the crew members stayed where they were, listening.

“None. There is no ricin. It was a hoax. It’s the AX 2055.”

Emma thought a moment. “That was an experimental drug Price was testing.”

He nodded. “It’s an investigational drug that had a small effect on those with neuromotor problems. It also increased one’s endurance dramatically, by as much as eighty percent within a few minutes of injection, while acting on the dopamine receptors. Like many dopamine drugs, it had the side effect of increasing addictive behavior. But, unlike others, it worked too well. Rather than taking years for a person to develop that particular side effect, with this drug it happens quickly and with an aggression we’ve rarely seen. And it has a dark side.”

“Other than the fact that it can ruin people’s lives by driving them into destructive acts?”

Emma let her sarcasm show. She was so furious she was having a hard time even looking at him.

“Much worse. On the second application, it kills.”

“How do
I
figure into all this? Why did you hire
me
?”

“I knew several months ago that Cardovin didn’t work. With Cardovin dead in the water, we needed a cash infusion fast. I went to an investor known for his interest in undercapitalized companies. The investor offered to keep us afloat while we tested AX 2055 but insisted that your company be hired in the bargain. The investor was a major contributor to Cooley’s campaign, and he claimed that Cooley wanted you hired to keep an eye on you. I didn’t mind—your reputation was solid, and I’d get the money. The company would survive.”

“Who would buy such a drug?”

Stark took a deep breath. “At first we thought of athletic teams, people weakened with immune disorders, Parkinson’s, or any group that required an endurance or a dopamine boost. We ran mice tests and were preparing for approval to begin human clinical trials, but the mice died on the second stick and precluded that completely. Then it disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

Stark nodded. “The drug and its files were stolen from our lab. We reported the theft, and I considered that to be the end of it. Until you told me that you’d been stuck and what happened after. I knew it was our drug. Before it was stolen, we’d been preparing a trial using endurance athletes. We’d inject them after they’d exercised to exhaustion and see if the drug served to boost performance. Whoever stole it was running their own back-alley clinical testing.”

Emma didn’t believe his claims of complete innocence. “You mean to say that you knew I’d been hit with an illegal, untested substance that kills on the second ingestion, yet you neither warned me nor told anyone else of your suspicions?”

Stark got angry. “I wasn’t sure! It was only after I was kidnapped in Nairobi that I realized the stolen product was out there, ready to be sold on the black market. They wanted to know where they could get the formula and some more product. They were going to hit world leaders. Get them to behave irrationally, then either blackmail them or stick them twice and kill them. I insisted that we didn’t have any.
After it was stolen, we didn’t make any more.” The ship ground to a halt. “What’s going on?”

“We’re out of time,” Sumner said. He looked at Stark. “You’re going to the bridge deck.” He turned to Block, who had walked up a few minutes earlier. “Take him with you. Keep him in your sight at all times.” He pulled the duffel out of Stark’s hands and gave it to Block, who opened it and looked inside.

Block’s face lit up. “Now, ain’t that a beautiful sight? It’s an RPG.”

“Have you ever shot one?” Janklow asked.

Block looked annoyed. “Why do you keep insisting that I don’t know how to shoot?”

“I’ll teach him,” Hassim said.

Block nodded at him. “Thanks. Harry Block here. I’m from Texas.”

Hassim almost smiled. “Hassim. I’m from Kenya.”

“Now that the formalities are over, let’s fire up these babies and blow the bastards away.”

Hassim turned to Janklow and Sumner. “How many boats are coming?”

Sumner grimaced. “Between twenty and thirty.”

If Hassim was frightened, he didn’t show it. Neither did Sumner. Emma thought them both the most unflappable men she had ever met. She turned to look out to sea. The pirates, if they were out there, could not be seen by the naked eye just yet. Then she looked down at the water next to the boat and gasped. Hundreds of jellyfish floated next to them. Huge schools of the gelatinous creatures passed by, their pulsing bodies moving them through the water with their long tentacles flowing out behind.

Sumner came to the railing to stand next to her. “What are you looking at?” he said.

“Jellyfish. Masses of them.”

Sumner gazed at the schools, saying nothing.

A thought occurred to Emma. She turned toward Hassim. “How will the pirates board us?”

“They use grappling hooks to attach themselves to the ship’s side, usually near an existing ladder, but if one is not available, they will place their own after they’re sure the skiff is attached.”

“So we’ll know where they’ll be coming over if they do get that close.”

Hassim nodded. “Affixing the grappling hooks, attaching a ladder, and climbing up all takes a little time, so yes, you can predict where they will appear.”

“Can we collect these jellyfish without killing them? Use a net?”

Hassim strode over to the railing. “Those are box jellyfish. Terribly dangerous. Too many stings—”

“Too many stings and a human will go into a form of anaphylactic shock. It’s perfect.”

Hassim shook his head. “These fish will not help us. The pirates will board directly from the skiff. They won’t go into the water first, so there is no chance that the jellyfish will sting them.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking we collect a bunch of these, put them in shallow pans at the top of each stationary ladder. When the pirates swing a leg over to board, they step on the fish and get stung. I’m not suggesting we wait around for this to work, but it will be quick and easy to set up and we have very little to lose.”

Hassim frowned in thought. Janklow moved to the railing to check out the jellyfish.

“Jellyfish won’t always sting. There’s a good chance the majority of them will be too shocked themselves to do any harm to anyone else,” Janklow said.

“I would never underestimate the sting of a box jellyfish. People have been stung by fish that have been baking on the sand for hours,” Hassim said.

“And if we pour fresh water on them, it may encourage them,” Emma said. “Nematocysts fire from all sides if they’re hit with water, even dead or dying ones.”

Block marched to the ship’s rail and looked over. “You sure about that?”

Emma shook her head. “Not entirely. But I’m fairly certain that the tentacle will react to the water with a sting of its own.”

Cindy touched Emma’s arm. “Let me work on this. I’ll ask some crew members to help me net them. The kitchen should have bus pans we can use.”

“And could you leave some bottles of water nearby?”

Wainwright emerged from the door that led to the bridge. He looked grim. “They’re massing in formation just on the outer fringes of radar. It’s as if they’re preparing to mount an assault on an aircraft carrier, not on a cruise ship.”

Sumner nodded. “I think we need to arm the passengers.” Wainwright looked about to interrupt, and Sumner put up a hand. “We can tell them to fight only if threatened by an unarmed man. Warn them to surrender to anyone holding a gun.”

Wainwright thought a moment. No one spoke. Stark stood off to the side. Emma noted that he looked as serious as the rest. Wainwright appeared to reach a decision.

“This doesn’t feel like an ad hoc attack, it feels like a planned offensive. Let’s get all the passengers back into the casino. I still won’t arm the passengers, just the cruise-ship employees. I’ll have them guard the casino entrance. The repair crew is working on the oil-pressure problem. With any luck we’ll regain some mobility.”

Emma stared out to sea. Nothing broke the endless blue water except the cresting white tips as the waves undulated. She turned back to analyze the deck, the stairs up to the bridge level, and the control room within. An idea came to her.

“Cindy!”

Cindy stopped and turned, half in, half out of the entrance to the stairs.

“Can you also get me some buckets, a jug of bleach, and a bottle of ammonia?”

Cindy looked perplexed. “Sure, but why?”

“We’re going to make a chemical weapon.”

Sumner gave Emma a considering look. “Mix them?”

Cindy started, her eyes wide. “You can’t mix ammonia and bleach. My mother told me that when I was little. You mix them and you get—”

“Chlorine gas,” Emma replied.

“—dead,” Cindy said.

“You’ll need an enclosed area.” Sumner was looking upward, toward the bridge.

Emma pointed to the stairway. “When they board”—she shook her head—“
if
they board, we retreat up that way. They should follow us. We set the bucket at the top. Is there a second exit?”

Sumner nodded. “At the far end of the bridge room. It leads to the ship’s interior stairwells.”

“Last person in mixes the cleaners, retreats through the stairwell into the bridge, and slams the door behind himself. Or herself.”

Sumner turned to Emma. “I’ll fill everyone in here about the chlorine idea, but where’s Clutch? Could you and Janklow go find him? Maybe do a quick sweep of his room. I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew where he was. I’ll take Block, Hassim, and Stark to the bridge to watch for the pirates’ approach.”

Emma jogged next to Janklow, who moved through the halls with the alacrity of someone familiar with every nook and cranny. They reached Clutch’s door five minutes later. Janklow banged on it, and they waited. They were met with silence. Janklow slid a master pass-key into the electronic door lock and pushed the handle. The door swung open. They stepped inside.

Light streamed through a porthole, illuminating the small crew quarters, accompanied by the sickly sweet smell of decaying flesh. Clutch lay on the bed, one arm flung outward. His eyes were open, his face immobile in death. In his hand was a white EpiPen.

Janklow jerked backward. “Jesus!” he said.

Emma stepped closer. She peered at two puncture holes in Clutch’s arm, right above the wrist. At his feet lay two more open boxes filled with EpiPens. They looked unused.