Sabotage (39 page)

Austin thought for a moment. “I hadn't told her yet, and I suppose there's no harm in sharing now. The night Baldr was stolen, I was there in Dr. Clare's office. Inside one of his cabinets was the transcript of a strange distress call sent by radio from an unknown ship. The distress call was never sent; the mysterious vessel never existed. The transmission was a simple code Professor Clare would use to jog his memory should he forget Baldr's key.”

“Ichiro figured it out?” Victoria said.

“Actually, my friend Rachel solved it. But to give due credit, she said Ichiro offered exceptional moral support.”

“How did the code work?”

“Ever heard of INTERCO?”

“My dad's mentioned it. International Code of Signals?”

“That's right. Merchant and naval vessels need a way to communicate with each other despite language barriers. Blinker lights, Morse code, semaphore, and radio calls all fall under INTERCO. Sir Home Riggs Popham, a British admiral during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, developed a signaling flag system to encode numeric messages for the Royal Navy, which famously used his cipher during the Battle of Trafalgar. After generations of use, the code has undergone extensive modification. Presently the International Maritime Organization, manager of INTERCO, admits a single set of universal flags and ascribes to each a special meaning. Each of the phrases in the radio transmission corresponds to a specific, internationally recognized maritime pennant.”

“So the distress call references nautical flags,” Victoria said. “What do they mean?”

“Each flag conveys not only a message, but a letter. The phrase ‘the way is off my ship' corresponds to a flag depicting a red square with a yellow cross—and also the letter
R
. A yellow flag with a black dot in the center means, ‘I am altering my course to port,' while also indicating the letter
I
. Strung together, the flags in your dad's radio transmission spell the password:
Rio de Janeiro.
”

“The place he met my mother,” Victoria said.

Austin focused his attention on the minister, who had taken on a jaundiced hue. “As for you, Mr. Deeb, it's time for you to inform your pilots of a change in flight plan. You won't be seeing your al-Nar buddies for a while.”

“I am not al-Nar.”

“But you're a benefactor, and that puts you under the ‘terrorist' category in my book. Funny, you don't seem to like having your own plane hijacked.”

“It's going to be a long ride home for you, Mr. Deeb,” Victoria said. “I'd prepare your statements. Defense authorities will have plenty of questions to ask you about your murderous associates.”

“They won't hear anything from me.”

“You must have a penchant for prison food.”

Deeb grimaced. “Your father mated a pit viper,” he blurted. “A camel spider.”

“Tell your pilots to bear northwest toward Iceland,” she said dismissively, “our layover destination before returning to the States.” She called up a text message on her phone. “My dad is alive and well, and onboard the
Pearl Enchantress,
along with thousands of other passengers who've been sitting ducks for days. The coordinates are 37°25'40.48” North, 122°10'11.66” West.”

“We'll find a seaplane in Keflavik,” Austin said.

Begrudgingly Deeb walked to the cockpit and spoke with his pilots. The wings began to slope, and before leveling, the Gulfstream banked into a turnabout.

 

FORTY-ONE

Without the drawl of working turbines, the engine room was eerily lifeless. Clare struck a match from a packet he'd found in Ragnar's desk. A glow illuminated his path inside and revealed a plaque on the wall that read,
Safety First.

A network of interweaving ducts and conduits reminded him of his old desktop screensaver, in which multicolored pipelines zoomed across the screen in three dimensions. Whereas the diameter of the screensaver's pipes remained fairly uniform, these in the engine room varied in size. Some were large enough for him to swim through. Others could hardly accommodate a tennis ball. Pressure gauges and round handles, some requiring multiple sturdy arms to rotate, surrounded shoulder-height vats and yellow cylinders cased in steel. A white metal staircase reached to the bottom floor of the two-story room.

“Safety first,” he muttered to himself, clutching a new Uzi he'd claimed from a cargo box aboard the corsair. He'd made sure this one had ammo. Rove had covered him as they'd boarded the
Pearl Enchantress
and descended to the lower decks. They'd parted ways on deck four and agreed to reconvene. Clare relished the feeling of walking on two legs again. Amid outliving his own airplane, drifting in a raft for days, and sitting in a cramped cell with scant space for four limbs, he'd nearly forgotten what it was like to tread on firm ground.

After exploring the upper perimeter of the engine room, he descended the staircase to the first level, where he found several generators. Where the devil did they keep their oil? He doubted he'd find stray barrels here.

The match flame reached his finger and nicked him. Startled, he dropped the match, leaving himself in darkness. He stepped backward and caught his heel on a protruding bolt, losing his footing and falling on his rear. He bounced down a few steps, causing a clatter. When he reached the bottom, he stood upright and brushed himself off, too distracted to hear the foreign footsteps.

The bottom level was no less sterile than the top. It reminded him of the underground in the sci-fi classic
Metropolis,
the chamber stripped of luxury, packed full of machines sustaining the privileged elite above. There were no plush carpets in the engine room, only hard floors. There were no chandeliers, only utility lights. No wall sconces, only boiler temperature dials. The lower decks of the ship were a different realm, a realm few passengers would ever see or comprehend—a realm Clare found much more fascinating than the lavish upper decks. Though austere, this was the engineers' world. It provided function, and therefore it was a modern Cave of Wonders.

He lit another match.

Sparks showered over him, accompanied by the rattling of an automatic weapon. Clare dove for cover. The match continued to burn on the floor.

The rifle fired through a thirty-round banana clip. Metal clanked on metal when the clip dropped. Clare heard the solid click of a reload.

He clung spread-eagle to the side of a cylindrical piece of machinery, finding it impossible to see the intruder or distinguish human movement from flickering shadow. He heard the footsteps now and tried to pinpoint the source. They were slow and purposeful, probably a patrolman's. The intruder's boots landed on a thin, steel grate. He wondered if he could shoot up through the grate. If he were going to take a chance, now wasn't the time. He'd have to wait until the footsteps came closer.

The flame died. He could smell the smoke. He dared not light another.

The intruder expended another third of his clip. The barrage had no particular direction, but in an environment like this one, with plenty of metallic surfaces for ricochet, aim didn't matter much. Fired in volleys, the rounds had a good chance of striking a target.

He'd missed the professor, but the intruder seemed unfazed and continued his walkabout at a leisurely pace, scouring the perimeter of level two in pitch black.

“Hello, Dr. Clare,” said the intruder. “Recognize my voice?”

Rove's torturer, Clare realized.

The footsteps were almost directly above him. Clare didn't make a sound. The other man's unhurried strides suggested that he enjoyed a little sport.

“It's me, Gunnar Brun,” the man continued. “After jumping ship, I swam to another corsair and boarded the
Pearl Enchantress.
When you and Jake came aboard, I followed you here. This time, I brought a weapon.”

He punctuated his last sentence with two quick shots into the black void that was the engine room. The rounds clinked onto the floor. A pipeline broke. From the fissure trickled a small course of water. A few wisps of hot steam escaped, built up over days of unreleased pressure.

“You know what I like about you, Dr. Clare? You're crafty. Foxes make for interesting hunts.”

Clare paid no attention to the words themselves—only to where they were coming from. In pin-drop silence he crawled to the wall on his hands and knees. He found an open utility closet, reached inside, and felt a small paint can, which he lobbed to the other side of the room. It clanged against a boiler. Brun zeroed in on the noise and fired another burst. He'd emptied two clips now. How many magazines did the man carry? Clare tossed a few more objects across the room: a spray-paint lid, a mallet, a duster. His hand reached into the darkness and clasped something new, a heavier can. While Brun fired, he unscrewed the lid and whiffed the contents. He recognized the smell of paint thinner.

He tiptoed to the foot of the metal stairs and spilled most of the liquid. The remainder he poured in a thin trail leading back to his hiding spot. All he needed was bait. He took aim with his own Uzi and blazed the steel grate above him. When he stopped, Brun spoke.

“And here I thought you were skulking around the north end of the room.”

Clare fired a few more rounds, each one a grasp at faith, as he truly had no idea what he was shooting at.

“Are you going to keep taking cheap shots from up there?” Clare said. “Or are you going to come down to my level and end this the right way?”

He played a dangerous game with his next move, unleashing a hailstorm of submachine-gun fire, bullets pinging off the steel-encased machinery until no ammunition remained. The notorious click at the end of his salvo rang out. He had no spare clips. More than anything, he wanted Brun to hear the sound of his empty chamber.

It worked. Brun quickened his step and began descending the staircase.

“Okay, Professor. I'll play.”

Clare waited. He'd have to time this well. The treads came closer. Brun had nearly reached the bottom. This man had an irritating flair for the dramatic, Clare thought. Why couldn't he get the hell down there before the vapors spread?

Clare counted the steps. It was almost time.

Finally Brun emerged from the stairway. Fingers trembling, Clare struck his match and dropped it at the head of his liquid fuse. A trail of light erupted from the darkness, whizzing toward its target like an arrow and summoning a ball-shaped inferno upon reaching its mark. Engulfed in the explosion, Brun shrieked, his screams echoing with the initial blast. He tried to bolt, but slipped and fell, soaking his clothes in more solvent. His flailing goaded the fire. Funneling spires leapt around him, searing his flesh, the flames blinding against a plain black backdrop. Clare watched from a safe distance as the conflagration died.

When the flames had subsided, he retrieved Brun's rifle and fired one merciful shot through his temple. The quivering body stilled.

No oil barrels here, Clare thought, but paint thinner would work.

He returned to the closet and gathered as many cans as he could carry.

*   *   *

“Deck fifteen is clear,” Rove told Fawkes back in his suite. “Plenty of Marauders are still roaming the lower decks, but we can start here. Help me round up as many passengers as you can. Go door to door. Convince them the way is safe. Lead them back to my penthouse. Have them wait inside. When the time's right, we'll shepherd them into lifeboats.”

The bespectacled steward looked hesitant. “If we don't have power, neither will the lifeboats, mate. Besides that, if they discover you're leading an evacuation, they'll shoot every passenger and probably do worse to you.”

“I'm confident this will work, Lachlan.”

Fawkes chewed over the likelihood. His face toughened, his words turning brittle. “Why the constant hankering to create a disturbance? Don't you realize the hazard? You're gambling with lives.”

“Murder is the only safe bet, and that's if we do nothing. These passengers have had almost no water, no nourishment. People will soon start leaving their staterooms by necessity. They'll wander and be shot.”

“What do you expect to accomplish by putting them on lifeboats?”

“At least they'll have emergency supplies. They have a right to try to reach land, however slim the chances. Some may opt not to go.”

“But without electricity—”

“They'll have oars.”

“We could be hundreds of miles from land.”

“We are. Along the way, maybe they'll find us a rescue boat and send help.”

Fawkes softened. “It's a last resort, and you may only manage to save dozens among thousands. But if that's the best you can do, I suppose it's still worth the risk.”

“Those dozens may capture the attention of a merchant vessel, who might in turn alert the closest frigates. I'll give our passengers guns. They'll be equipped to defend themselves if a corsair follows them. They'll also have food and water.”

“From where?”

“I'll transfer provisions from Ragnar's flagship, which has a special reserve for his own crew.” He looked sternly at Fawkes. “Even if they do reach land but we never hear from them…”

Fawkes no longer appeared skeptical. “Jake, you have an unnatural ability to persuade, however foolhardy your little schemes. I could always stay here like a drongo and drink with flies”—his favorite dictum—“but not today. Count me in.”

Fawkes spent the next hour knocking on doors, marshaling passengers into the suite. “Walk lightly,” he told them all. “Remember, this is entirely elective. No obligations. I'm sure you're all aware of the risks involved. You're in good hands. The man was a military hero, for heaven's sake.” Apparently mistrustful at first, many of the passengers stayed behind, but as more and more migrated to Rove's cabin, it seemed even the uncertain felt emboldened.