Hell Ship (9 page)

“
A student? Back up. I thought you said you had an ROV for rent?”

“That’s right.” She stuck out a hand.
“Gabrielle Sandoval. Call me Gabby; everyone does.”

Her proffered hand disappeared inside Bones’ massive paw, but he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze.
“I’m Bones. Call me Bones, everyone does. So, how did you recognize me?”

“You kind of stand out in a crowd, Bones.
Literally.”

He accepted that with a nod. “
Tell me about your ROV.”

“I call her ‘
Baby
;’ built her from a Sea Perch platform. She’s good to three hundred meters, with a five hundred meter tether which will allow for plenty of maneuverability. She’s a workhorse. I built her for my research, but sometimes we rent out for odd jobs. I designed her to be a multi-purpose instrument platform; plug and play, as it were. Speaking of which, what kind of instrument package are we talking about here?”

“Metal detector.”

“Ah.” Gabby’s smile
was
both knowing and accusatory. “So you’re a treasure hunter.”

“No.
I—”

“Hey, I don’t judge.
As long as you pay up front and don’t ask me to do anything illegal, I’m your girl.”

“Nothing like that
,” Bones assured her. “And I’m not a treasure hunter. I just don’t want to call a lot of attention to what I’m looking for.”

“It’
s your money. Besides, treasure hunting sounds like a lot of fun. When do we start?”

“We?”

“
Baby
and I are a package deal. She’s the Remotely Operated Vehicle, and I’m the remote operator.”

Bones frowned.
He didn’t want to involve a civilian, especially not when there was a good chance of another attack from the mercenary thugs, but time was of the essence. They needed to get back on the site, ASAP. “This won’t exactly be a pleasure cruise. Rough accommodations. Lousy food. And the company won’t be so great; me and one other guy, and I’m the better looking one.”

She gazed up at him, the devious twinkle in her eyes undiminished.
“Well, you’re not too hard on the eyes. I like tall guys.”

Bones let that pass.
“Listen, I’ve used ROVs before. You don’t need to come along.”

She shrugged. “I want to.”

He drummed his fingers on the bar. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”

“Hey, why so serious
?” She scooped up the bottle again and emptied it in a long guzzle. She set it down on its side and gave a whoop of triumph. “The night is young. Let’s have some fun, and tomorrow we’ll go treasure hunting!”

Bones placed a hand over hers.
“Let’s save the celebration for after we find it.”

She smiled again.
“Is that a promise, Bones?”

“You have my word on it.”

England—30 miles north of London,

Alex stepped down
off the bus into Baldock, a small town near the edge of Hertfordshire, and as close to her destination as public transportation would take her. Over the past five days, she had used planes, buses, and trains to get from the District of Columbia to London and ultimately to this place. The actual cumulative travel time was only about fourteen hours, but with a killer on her tail, she was traveling cautiously. It had taken her two days just to establish a false identity for getting out of the United States. She had spent another full day walking around London checking to make sure that she wasn’t being shadowed, eventually crashing in a youth hostel near Piccadilly Circus for the night.

She was now, at last, satisfied that no one was following her, but if her suspicions were correct, she might very well be walking into the lion’s den.
A few miles up the road lay the manor house where Trevor Lord Hancock had lived until, at age twenty-six, war had taken him away forever. That much, at least, she had been able to learn from her initial Internet searches in Washington, searches which had, she now realized, led the killer right to her. But if Hancock was as important as she believed him to be, his ancestral home would be a likely target for surveillance. Instead of the killer finding her, she might very well find him or his accomplices.

Or she might find nothing at all.
All of her suppositions were predicated on the belief that everything that had happened—Don’s murder and the attempt on her life at the hotel—was a response to that one specific piece of information. If she had deduced wrong, then this trip would be a colossal waste of time.

Using her tourist map, she oriented on the road which would lead her to her destination, and struck out on foot.
She considered trying to hitch a ride, but doing so might attract unwanted attention. Instead, she set a brisk pace walking along the roadside, careful to stay well clear of the lanes, particularly when the occasional vehicle sped by. She took this latter precaution partly to avoid being hit but mostly so that she could bolt for cover or make a hasty overland escape if trouble found her.

Trouble did not find her though.
Two and half hours after leaving Baldock behind, she reached an unpaved road that led off into the countryside. Forty-five more minutes, in which she saw no cars and very little evidence of human habitation, she reached the gated entry to the Hancock property. The gate was unlocked and she slipped through, continuing down the gravel road toward a small manor house that had perhaps once been elegant but now looked almost run down.

She lingered there for several minutes, studying the unkempt grounds for some hint of watchful eyes or a menacing presence, but if anyone was there, they were well hidden.
As she drew near the house, she could hear music—something classical—punctuated occasionally by a sharp clicking noise. The sounds seemed to originate from behind the house, so she circled the perimeter and found herself on the edge of an expansive English-style garden, gone mostly to seed.

The source of the music was a battered old boom box which rested on a well-weathered wrought iron patio table.
Despite its age, the portable stereo player was the only piece of modern technology in evidence. The clicking noise came from a pair of pruning shears, wielded by an older man—she guessed him to be in his early seventies—who was humming along with the music as he snipped runners from a rose bush, in an effort to bring the landscape under a semblance of control. Judging from his doddering pace, it was a Sisyphean labor. She paused about twenty yards from him and called out. If her greeting startled the old man, he gave no indication. He merely looked up and waved her over as if he had been expecting such a visit.

That frightened her a little, but there was no turning back now.
The old man had a kindly expression and she couldn’t picture him harming anything but the dandelions. She hiked the rest of the way and stuck out her hand. “Hello, sir. I’m trying to find the Hancock place. Is this it?”

“It is indeed.”
His smiled only seemed to deepen. “Though not for much longer I suppose, seeing as I’m the last of my name.”

“Then you must be Lord Hancock.”
She extended her hand. “I’m Alex.”

“
Please, just call me Edward. The title is rubbish and I squandered the last of my inheritance long ago. Can’t even afford a proper gardener now.” He bowed, pressing her hand to his lips in a gesture that seemed more quaint than debonair. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Alex. You’re a Yank if my ears do not deceive?”

“That’
s right, Lord…Edward. I’m a historian. That’s why I’m here.”

He cocked his head sideways and the smile seemed to slip a little.
“Not much history here, I’m afraid. I’ve done rather a good job of staying out history’s way.”

“I…uh…”
Alex realized that she had been so focused on surviving the journey that she’d given little thought to what she wanted to accomplish upon arriving. “Actually, I’m looking for information about one of your relatives. At least I think he was. Trevor Hancock?”

The smile vanished completely, replaced by a sad wistful look.
“Trevor was my brother. I was just a boy when he…well, went off to war.” He returned his gaze to her. “I’m not sure I can be of much help to you, Miss. It was a long time ago, and he died before I ever really got to know him.”

“I understand.
If I could just ask a few questions?”

“You can ask.”
He walked over to the table and shut off the music. “If you don’t mind waiting a little longer for my woefully inadequate answers, I’ll put on a kettle and we can have a spot of tea.”

She nodded, and while Hancock headed into the house, she set about brush
ing moss from the chairs. He returned a few minutes later and set down a tray, upon which sat a silver tea service, along with a plate of scones, a dish of butter, and a small jar of marmalade. Alex was famished after the long walk, but thought it best to ask her questions before digging into the snack.

“Your brother served in Asia, right?”

Hancock decanted hot water into a pair of delicate china teacups on matching saucers. “Among other places. He was captured in Burma and died there as a prisoner of war.”

“I came across his name on t
he manifest of a ship that was transporting POWs.” She chose her words carefully so as not to upset her host. “Does that sound right?”

He shrugged.
“Perhaps. As I told you, it was long ago and I was only a boy when the letter came. The War Ministry wasn’t exactly forthcoming; not like today where we always have to know every last bloody detail.” He blushed suddenly. “Ah, forgive me. I should have better manners. Truthfully though, all I know is that he went away and that was the last we ever saw. There’s an empty coffin beneath his gravestone.”

Alex
sensed that she wouldn’t get anything more from Hancock without revealing the whole truth about her search. She reached into her backpack and brought out the file containing all the information about the hell ships.

“I found a
message in a file relating to the sinking of the
Nagata Maru
, a Japanese liner sunk in the South China Sea.” She shuffled out the paper and passed it to him.

He studied it for a moment then handed it back with a perplexed expression.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how this sheds any new light on my brother’s fate. Nor, I might add, how it rates the attention of an historian.”

“This is a message from the Pacific Command of Allied Forces.”
She shook the paper emphatically. “It’s an order to sink the ship that was carrying your brother…to sink it
because
it was carrying your brother. Don’t you see? ‘Prevent LT Hancock Trevor RA from reaching Cabanatuan by any means necessary.’ They wanted him dead.”

Ed
ward Hancock shuddered but quickly regained his implacable demeanor. “It was war, and in a war, tough decisions must be made. Perhaps dear Trevor was keeping some bit of information vital to the war effort, and the Allies couldn’t allow the Nips to get their hands on it. Who can know why the order was given? You’d do better to ask your own government, though I can’t imagine anyone will remember the answer fifty years later.”

“Edward…Lord Hancock, listen to me.
This isn’t just old dusty history. Someone is willing to kill for this information.”

The old man’s eyes widened.
“Kill? And you’ve come here? Led these killers to my doorstep?” His clipped precise accent made the words sound even more accusatory, and Alex felt her face go hot with embarrassment. “Who exactly is after you?”

“I don’t know.
And until I can figure out why, I can’t trust anyone. Not even the government. I have to know why your brother was specifically targeted.” She could see in his eyes that she was finally getting through to him, and sensed that he might know something after all. “Do you know why?” she pressed.

Hancock reached across the table.
“May I see those papers, all of them?”

She gave them up.
“All the files relating to the sinking of the
Nagata Maru
are on the top. The rest are about other ships.”

“Thank you.”
Hancock commenced scanning the papers, flipping each one over after a few moments of scrutiny. His eyes no longer had the watery look of advanced years, but moved back and forth with laser-like intensity. “There’s a discrepancy here,” he said. “This page gives a different latitude and longitude for the sinking.”

“Let me see.”
Alex was surprised that she had missed that in her own review of the documents but Hancock was correct. The first page, the official report on sinking of the
Nagata Maru
did indeed have a different set of coordinates than the second—an excerpt from the log of the
USS Stingray
, the submarine that had torpedoed the hell ship. The latter document, she noticed, had only been recently declassified. It was very likely that she and Hancock were the first persons to read the sub skipper’s words in five decades. “You’re right. They must have changed the official report.”