Buried At Sea Page 3

  "Could it be the lass herself who paid you off, matey?" "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "Not her parents?'

  "She did not pay me to go away," Jim shot back. "Don't you get it? She's giving me an out."

  "What kind of out?"

  "Time to reflect on whether I really want to marry her." Or, he wondered silently, time to get over her.

  "Why wouldn't you?"

  "None of your damned business."

  "Sorry. I'm a nosy old coot. It just seems there's a mystery about you two I don't understand." Will started down the companionway again, adding, darkly, "Remember what I told you: if you write her back, leave out our course and position."

  "I'm not going to write her back."

  The first two hours of the three-to-six watch were the longest of the night. Even the heavens seemed to wheel more slowly. The constellations lagged in their tracks and the Milky Way lay across the stars still as a frozen river. It was a time for the mind to swarm with doubts, confusion, and fear. A time to dwell on Will's crazy actions and his intrusive questions.

  Shannon wanted him to have an adventure? Well, she'd succeeded in spades. His ticket home was freaking out and he was well and truly fucked until he figured a way out of this mess. Which allowed Jim even more time to think the unthinkable: Was this whole voyage truly his escape, his chance to opt out of a stunted life with someone he hap-

  pened to love?

  He had promised to think about what it would mean to be married to her. "Really think, Jim," were her parting words. "I don't want to be your job. And I don't want a man who thinks he doesn't deserve more than a wounded bird."

  He had printed her last e-mail before erasing it from Will's files. He unfolded the paper and read it by the rose glow of the compass, though he knew it by heart.

  Your mom drove your dad nuts. And your dad just took it. Sometimes kids from unhappy homes are obsessed to make a better family. I wonder if that's part of what's driving you to marry me. And I wonder if a boy who struggled to make his unhappy mom happy will go way too far trying to make every girl he meets happy. So 1 ask you again: You've worked very

  hard to make a beautiful body. Why shouldn't you demand the same from your wife?

  *I can't walk.*Remember?*I am crippled.*

  Love.

  Shannon

  She loved driving people nuts by insisting on the word crippled. Handicapped didn't do justice to how thoroughly you could shatter bones by skiing into solid steel at fifty miles an hour. After six operations and a year of therapy she could stand, briefly, with crutches. "Golfers," she said, "have handicaps; cripples have multiple compound fractures."

  Crippled was a much better way to describe the young woman whose family had hired him to work up an exercise routine to get the rest of her body back into healthy shape.

  Holed up in her bedroom, hooked on painkillers and weeping with despair, she had rejected every physical therapist they engaged.

  Jim knew that he couldn't take much credit for slipping under her radar. The fact was that they had just plain liked each other from the very first day. And to Jim, at least, that friendship seemed to have grown into a firm basis for a marriage.

  A thin, pale line began to form where the eastern sky met the sea. The stars faded quickly.

  Will came up, coffee mug in hand, eyes on the sails, at five minutes before six. He was humming a tune, which Jim took as a sign that the old man was over his fright and felt back on top. He hummed when he felt happy, and when he was really pumped, he sang out loud.

  Jim went below to delete Shannon's e-mail. Up in the cockpit, Will broke into a blues song, rasping the verse with a high-pitched nasal twang:

  "Standin' on the corner; I didn't mean no harm. Along came a po-lice, Took me by the arm"

  SOARING ON TWIN hulls like a gigantic manta ray, the fast ferry Barcelona raced through the thirteenth hour of her ever-expanding pattern search even as the sun rose on vast and empty waters.

  The huge catamaran—built for high-speed blue water crossings—was manned by an Australian delivery crew, most of whom were shipyard mechanics tending the four brand-new Caterpillar turbo-charged diesels that hurled her along at eighty miles an hour. Trailing wings of mist and spray, she whipped back and forth across a hundred square miles of ocean.

  The Barcelona's glassed-in bridge sat high above the main passenger cabin, which spanned her widely separated hulls. Her pilot station resembled an airbus flight deck, with digital readouts and flat-screen monitors relaying information from the engines, trim monitors, and navigational instruments.

  Big windows offered a bird's-eye view of the sea and there was ample room for the Barcelona's Australian delivery captain, his first officer, and the helmsman, as well as the American who had chartered her and his bodyguards. Three big blokes—quiet as mountain shadows—two white, one

  black. Ex–U.S. Navy SEALs, the Barcelona's captain guessed, judging by their swimmers' shoulders and barrel chests.

  "Mr. Nickels," the captain said, "we're running out of time."

  At well under six feet, Nickels was not as tall as his bodyguards, but as lean in the gut and big in the shoulders, and immensely powerful. The captain rated him Special Forces, what with the buzz cut, the high-top black Adidas, and the anvil build. His men looked the sort you might have a pint with, but there was a cold, bloodless emptiness in Nickels'

  s eyes that warned he was one vicious piece of work.

  It had been a long, long night and the captain, a hard-bitten, hard-drinking former salvage master, was fed up. What had looked like easy money back at the Panama Canal had turned into a royal pain in the butt.

  "I said we're running out of time, Mr. Nickels."

  The near silence on the bridge was broken only by the distant whine of the engines and the maddening on-again, off-again ping of the elusive homing signal. Finally, Andy Nickels looked up from the receiver and said to the Australian, "Shut your fucking mouth."

  "You've no call to talk that way, mate. I delivered. I've been tracking that bloody bug for three days."

  Nickels spoke to one of his shadows, who strode swiftly from the bridge. The captain watched the security cameras trace his route into the elevator, then down below to the main deck to the galley. Another camera picked him up as he flung open the door of the walk-in refrigerator and disappeared inside. Puzzled, the captain stole a glance at his first officer; Hoskins shot back a disgusted look that conveyed the message, Not my idea to accept an illicit off-the-books charter.

  "You know as well as I do that your ruddy bug has gone down. We've been running circles all night. I'm due in Spain. I told you from the get go, you paid for two extra days.

  You've had three and a half—that's it."

  Nickels said, "Stop the ship!"

  The captain hesitated. Nickels's other shadows stepped forward like Rotweilers.

  "Stop engines," he ordered. The helmsman gathered the throttle clutches—port in his left hand, starboard in his right—and hauled back. The big cat slowed rapidly as her hulls settled into the water.

  Nickels stood up and tucked the pinging monitor under his arm.

  "What do you say we catch some air, Captain?"

  The bodyguards crowded in behind the captain, and he started reluctantly after Nickels, who moved as lightly as a swordfish dancing on its tail.

  "Bring the mate:' Nickels called over his shoulder. "Leave the helmsman."

  Captain Moser nodded for Hoskins to come, too, and they followed Nickels through the main cabin, past rows and rows of reclining airline seats, then downstairs to the lobby on the embarkation deck and through an insulated door out to the fantail, an abbreviated stem deck fifteen feet above the water.

  Greg, the man Nickels had sent to the galley, was waiting with a five-gallon bucket of hamburger meat. At a nod from Nickels, he dipped into the bucket and flung a bloody handful into the water.

  The morning heat was in thick contrast to the air-conditioning. The cat was pitc
hing a little as it drifted on the swell.

  "Dump it all!" snapped Nickels.

  Greg upended the bucket. He watched the meat splash red in the water and a moment later he said, "Sharks!"

  A long, dark shape cruised beneath the waves. Rolling sideways, it revealed a flash of white underbelly. When it straightened up, its fin cut the surface. A second shot through the bloodied water like a sinuous torpedo, then a third, accelerating with effortless strokes of its scythe-shaped tail.

  "Throw the mate," Nickels ordered.

  Two men grabbed Hoskins. And while Greg blocked the catamaran's captain, they dragged the Australian to the rail.

  The captain could not believe that they would actually throw the man to the sharks. But they were lifting him over

  the rail now. The captain yelled for them to stop. Hoskins's terror gave him the strength to fight back. Nickels's men were taller and broader, with slablike hands and arms as big as a woman's waist. But the mate broke loose and tried to run.

  They surrounded him in a flash and buckled him over with body punches. He went down, gasping for air, then shrieked in pain as the bodyguards kicked him repeatedly.

  "Stop them," the captain yelled. "I'll do what you want."

  Nickels's face hardened. His expression changed from cold fury to even colder contempt as they lifted the whimpering mate and hoisted his helpless body over the railing.

  The mate stared bug-eyed at the sharks roving beneath the stem. He was struggling to breathe, gasping. With no wind to scream, no strength to fight, he could only utter his terror in a rattling moan.

  The sharks broke the surface, wheeling in tight circles. It seemed, the captain thought, as if they were inflamed by weakness. The biggest was as long as a car and nearly as thick around.

  "I'll do anything you want," the captain yelled. He shoved past Greg. But Greg staggered him with a sharp blow to the head. He fell back, clasping his eye, reeling. Grunting with effort, Nickels's men lifted the mate shoulder high.

  Suddenly, the homing receiver pinged rapidly—a high-pitched ping-ping-ping-ping-ping that brought Nickels's head up in a flash. He shoved past the struggling men, leaned far out over the railing, and stared at the sea. "What do you see?"

  They scanned the sea, searching for a sail. Nothing. The sea was still empty, their ship alone. But the receiver was pinging away, as persistent as a car alarm. The rhythm grew faster. It sounded as if Will Spark's sailboat was less than a hundred feet away.

  "There!"

  Nickels pointed. The sun flashed on a shiny ball, which the wind was bouncing across the waves. "Captain!" he yelled. "Launch a boat. Get that! You"—he pointed at his bodyguards—"go with him! Keep your eye on that. Don't lose it."

  They dropped the mate on the deck, grabbed the captain, who was still holding his eye, and marched him below. A pilot hatch opened in the back of the starboard hull and a rubber boat skidded down a ramp into the water. The sharks arrowed to it, the biggest passing so close it lifted the boat on its back.

  "Go!" Nickels yelled. "Go now!"

  One bodyguard shoved the captain into the boat. Greg took out a pistol and sprayed the water with automatic fire. But the sharks kept circling until the captain yanked the outboard starter. The motor roared. The boat sped from the catamaran, the captain looking back to steer by Nickels's hand signals. The wind had blown the ball hundreds of yards before they caught up and lifted it from the sea.

  "What is it?" Nickels snapped into his two-way.

  Greg directed the captain back to the catamaran before he radioed back, carefully, "I don'

  t know, Andy. It's something in a bag."

  When he saw the contents for himself, Nickels ripped open the plastic. He slammed the heart-rate monitor to the deck and ground it beneath his boot. The tracker receiver kept pinging and pinging and pinging. Andy Nickels stomped the chest sensor and the noise stopped.

  "We wasted all fucking night!" he shouted. "All night on a wild-goose chase. We gave them all night to run—Cap-

  "Yes, sir." The captain was watching him warily. "How far can he have gotten, Captain?"

  Captain Moser rubbed his aching eye, concealing his glee at the American's misfortune. "

  Assume the yacht's making six-seven knots."

  Nickels turned to Greg. "Is that right?"

  "No. If he's sailing the boat we think, it's fast but he's an old guy. And the kid is a novice.

  Besides, the wind was light all night. They made five knots if they were lucky, maybe six, depending on their heading."

  Nickels nodded for the captain to continue.

  "All right, make it six knots," said Captain Moser. "We know he must have spotted us before dark. After dark he wouldn't have seen us with no lights and we never picked up his radar. So at six knots he'd make seventy-two nautical miles in the past twelve hours.

  East, west, north, or south."

  Again Nickels looked at Greg, who shook his head. "The wind veered east in the night. I doubt he beat to the east."

  "Could have used his engine," the captain countered. "At any rate, he's somewhere in a circle 144 miles in diameter. That's 450 miles around. And that's an area of sixteen thousand square miles, mate—one big patch of ocean. And getting bigger every minute, assuming the bloke hasn't stopped, which don't seem likely with you lot after him."

  "East!" said Nickels. "He would drop his sails to make a smaller target and motor east.

  Find him!"

  "Now, hold on, Mr. Nickels."

  Nickels turned beet red. "Hold on?" he roared. "Hold on? Greg! Take everybody up to the bridge."

  "You okay here?"

  "I'll be up in a minute."

  The heavy door sighed shut behind them.

  Andy Nickels stalked to the rail. The sharks had gone. But not far. When he reached down to pick up the shattered heart-rate monitor, the bloodied mate flinched. Nickels tossed it into the water and heaved the empty bucket after it. Instantly the gray shapes razored toward the splash.

  To the Barcelona's captain he said, "It's just you and me, babe, and for the rest of your miserable life, whatever I ask, you will always answer yes." He seized the cringing mate by his belt and shirt collar. Muscles and tendons leaping with the strain, he lifted the man clear off the deck and began to spin in a circle, gathering momentum like an athlete throwing the hammer.

  "You can't do that," cried the captain.

  "The hell I can't. We're in international waters—strongman's land."

  He whirled, once, twice, three times, accelerating to maximum power, and threw the screaming mate.

  Captain Moser had already closed his eyes. When

  Hoskins's head crashed into his chest, he staggered and fell hard on his butt. Hoskins landed beside him, curled his arms and legs into a tight ball, and wept.

  "Captain?" said Nickels, looming over them.

  Captain Moser sat with his back pressed to the bulkhead, gasping for air, his eyes raised to the pearly sky. He patted Hoskins's shoulder. "Easy, mate. Easy."

  "Captain?"

  "Yes."

  "Less mess this way. For you. Makes no difference to me. But when you get to Spain they're going to be asking, Where's the mate? You know what I'm saying, mate? It can still go the other way. So what do you say you order full speed east!"

  The captain tugged his handheld off his belt, raised it in a trembling hand, and radioed the helmsman: "Come to zero niner-zero—hook her up!"

  The catamaran squatted on her stern when the helmsman pushed all four engines to full ahead. Then her hulls sprang from the water and she soared east on skirts of spray at eighty miles an hour.

  "Get up to the bridge, both of you."

  Andy Nickels took out his sat phone and punched Redial and Encrypt for a secure line to Lloyd McVay. He hoped Val would answer. Val McVay was no less a ball-buster than her father, but it was the senior McVay whom Nickels owed big-time and dreaded to disappoint. Val answered on the first ring, asking, "Do you have him?"

 
"No, ma'am, I—"

  "Save it for my father."

  -

  Lloyd McVay picked up with a cold `What is it, Andy?" and Nickels knew he was in for a real reaming.

  Usually Mr. McVay spoke in sentences that were long and round and full, smacking his lips over high-class words the way a fat man worked his mouth over a sausage. But today he sounded as cold and tight as the grunt of a silenced Glock.

  "I'm very sorry, Mr. McVay, I don't have him yet. He pulled another fast one on us. . . .

  Yes, sir."

  With his head down and one ear covered against the roar of the ship, Andy Nickels watched his Adidas pace an ever-tightening circle. He had no one but himself to blame.

  Val McVay had arranged the tracking signal. His job had been to follow it. "Yes, sir. . . .

  No, sir. . . . No, sir, I don't underestimate him . . . Oh, I'll get him. . . . Don't you worry, sir, I'll get him."

  Suddenly, Lloyd McVay's tone softened. "Now, Andy .. ."

  Andy Nickels braced for the bayonet in the ribs. How often had he himself delivered McVay's kiss-off: The foundation no longer needs your services.

  "You may recall that I went to some length to emphasize the importance of the Sentinel project to the McVay Foundation."

  "Yes, sir." Shit, he was going to drag it out.

  "Sentinel will change medicine as the world knows it—an advance greater than X rays and antibiotics."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Your uncle—not a man given to hyperbole—said that Sentinel would, and I believe I quote him accurately, 'put the doctors on unemployment and the insurance companies into receivership.' "

  McVay's sentences were getting longer, Andy realized with a glimmer of hope, and his voice was sliding back into the familiar flat, Ivy League, above-it-all drawl.

  "Yes, sir. Uncle Andrew said Sentinel would change the world." Uncle Andrew, chief of security for the McVay Foundation for Humane Science until the day he died, had explained to Andy, during one of their "hitters' conferences," that Sentinel would make the McVays the Microsoft of medical technology.

  Lloyd McVay said, "With the health and happiness of all humanity in the balance, I was counting on an A-plus performance from you." He was stringing out the words, as if he were tasting them on his tongue.