Dreamboat (38 page)

“Will that work?” Crissy asked, looking up at him.

“It works like a pass key,” Luca said. “I have to have it so that I can enter any room on the ship in case something happens to a passenger or one of the crew.”

He started to swipe the card, but the door, heavy though it was, shifted slightly ajar. “Jesus, it's not locked,” he said. Opening the door all the way, he stepped into the bridge, Crissy's hand firmly held in his.

The huge room, which ran the width of the ship, appeared to be empty. There was no one stationed at any of the control consoles, but when they reached midway across the width of the bridge, they saw that it wasn't deserted. Inside the offices, through the huge windows that looked out to the bridge, they saw three officers. One of them was slumped over his desk, a second one lay on the floor, and the third was in his desk chair, sitting up, his head thrown back over the top of the chair.

The door was open, and they stepped inside the office. Crissy saw blood pooling on the industrial blue and green carpeting. It came from the young officer who lay on the floor, facedown. When she focused on his head, it looked as if a huge bite had been taken out of his skull.

Crissy's stomach lurched, but she took a few deep breaths and looked away. Luca bent down and turned the young man over. There was a single bullet hole in his forehead, small and round and almost bloodless. It was pointless to feel for a pulse. At the desks, the two other officers had been killed the same way: a single shot to the forehead, a small point of entry in each of them, with their brains blown out the back of their heads.

Crissy's mind reeled, and suddenly the stench of coppery blood made her stomach lurch again, and she was certain that she would be sick. She could taste the bile that rose up in her throat, but she fought it down, turning her head away from the sight.

“Is there anything you can do, Luca?” she asked, knowing what the answer was but feeling the need to ask the question nevertheless.

“No, nothing,” he said. “Come on, let's get out of here. We've got to get down to Security and find an officer, somebody who knows how to manually run this ship. I know a lot about this ship, but that's one thing I don't know a damn thing about.”

Crissy's eyes glanced at the control consoles with their computer screens, joysticks, and seemingly countless controls of various sorts. It was hopeless, she thought. Absolutely hopeless. She focused on one screen in the central console, then pointed at it. “Luca, look.”

He followed her gaze to the computer screen. “Jesus,” he said. “We're headed straight for it, whatever it is.”

“A tanker ship,” Crissy said. “Loaded with propane. That's what Valentin said.”

On the radar screen, the position of the
Sea Nymph
was clearly indicated by a moving circle, and directly in front of its path was an unmoving circle, representing another vessel.

“Let's go,” he said, grabbing her hand.

They rushed across the bridge and out the door, then practically ran down the stairs, six decks in all, one deck after another, until they reached the deck where Security was located. Down a long corridor, a left, then a right, down another corridor, then finally the door to Security loomed before them.

Luca shoved on it, but it didn't move. “Damn,” he said. “Locked.”

Crissy didn't see a card-swipe. “What do we do?” she asked. “There's no card-swipe.”

“I've got keys,” Luca said. “I have to be able to get in anywhere, remember?” He smiled, his hand already pulling a key chain out of his trouser pocket. He quickly found the small, thick, round one, the only one of its kind on his key chain. He inserted it in the lock, turned it, then pushed on the heavy door. Something on the other side was blocking it, and Luca put his shoulder against it and pushed hard. It moved another few inches, and he looked in.

“Damn,” he said.

“What is it?” Crissy asked.

“More bodies,” he said. “It looks like the captain and most of the officers.” He put his shoulder to the door again and shoved harder, making a gap wide enough for them to get through.

He stepped inside, and Crissy followed him.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“Wait!” Luca exclaimed. “I smell some kind of gas. Get back out in the corridor.”

Crissy did as she was told without questioning him. In the corridor, she could detect the lingering odor of the gas but could see nothing in the air. She watched as Luca took a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his nose. He stepped over one of the officers and flipped a switch on the wall that turned on a ventilator fan built into the ceiling, then going down on a knee, felt for the captain's pulse. He went from one body to another, repeating the process.

“Are they alive?” Crissy asked.

Luca nodded. “They're all alive,” he said, “but they may be out for awhile, depending on what kind of gas it was. I'm going to pull them
away from the door so we can open it all the way and let some air in here.”

“Luca,” she asked, “who else knows about running the ship?”

“I don't know of anyone,” he replied, struggling with Anasthasia's heft. His eyes were tearing and his face was flushed. “I'm going to have to go down to the engine room and hope that somebody there knows something about it. The problem is, most of those guys don't know anything about any job other than their own. They know engines, but they don't know computers.”

He cleared the entrance enough that Crissy could push the door all the way open. The high-speed ventilator was already doing its job, pulling fresh air into the room while sucking out the air that was there. “Okay,” he said. “I can't do much more for them now.” His eyes searched the office for something to use to keep the door from swinging closed, and he grabbed an office chair and propped it under the door handle, making certain it would stay in place.

He looked at Crissy. “He must've used something like Mace. They'll be all right, but it's going to take time. Now, if we just
had
the time. . . .” He stepped out into the corridor and took Crissy's hand. “Let's go,” he said. “Our best chance is the engine room now. Maybe one of the Philippine men has some kind of bridge experience.”

They started down the corridor at a run when Crissy abruptly stopped. “What're you doing?” he asked, pulling on her hand.

“Luca, where's the brig?” she asked.

“In Security,” he replied impatiently. “Come on, Crissy. We don't have time—”

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “Mark is locked up there, and he knows everything about the ship. He told me he could run it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” she said. “He said he could sail everything from a tiny sailboat to this ship.”

“It's worth a try,” he said.

He turned, already fishing in his trouser pocket for his key chain with his free hand. They went through the office to another door, and Luca inserted the same short, barrel-shaped key into its lock. When he heard the lock click, he pushed on the door, and they hurried down another short corridor. To their right was yet another door, this one with a bulletproof-glass panel set in it.

On the other side of the glass, Crissy saw Mark look up at them with a surprised expression from the narrow bunk where he lay reading, dressed in an orange jumpsuit that Crissy knew must be issued by the ship. Looking at him through the glass, she felt a knot form in her stomach, and the memory of his attack rushed back, sweeping through her mind in vivid detail. She tried to push it aside, but as hard as she tried, it wouldn't go away.

Luca inserted his key in the door and swung it open.

“What the hell do you want?” Mark asked, looking at them defiantly.

“We need your help,” Luca said.

Mark's haughty smiled replaced the look of defiance. “My help? You must be joking.”

“Look,” Luca said, “we're on a collision course with a tanker loaded with propane. The ship's on automatic pilot, and there's nobody to operate it manually.”

Mark's expression immediately changed. “But the captain,” he said. “All the officers—”

“They're all either dead or have been gassed,” Crissy cried. “You've got to help us.”

Mark shot to his feet. “What the hell's going on?”

“We'll tell you on the way,” Luca said. “Let's go.”

The three of them ran down the corridor and into the office, where Mark stumbled on one of the officers. “Jesus,” he exclaimed, stopping.

“We don't have time,” Luca said, dashing out the office door with Crissy.

Mark hurried to catch up.

When they reached the stairwell, they started up the steps, taking them two at a time, not stopping to catch their breath. On the top deck, a group of people leaving the disco for their cabins shrank back from the sight of them running, and one of the women screamed, whether at Mark's jumpsuit or their wild faces, Crissy didn't know. Ignoring the passengers, they ran down the corridor, Mark ahead of them now, running in his bare feet to the bridge. Tripping as they turned a corner, he went sprawling onto the carpet, but heaved himself up by his hands and kept going.

They reached the door to the bridge, and Luca pushed through it without stopping, Crissy right behind him and Mark behind her. Mark passed them then and dashed to the center console, gasping for air.

“Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “We're nearly on top of them, whoever
they are.” He started tapping the keyboard furiously. “Goddamn it,” he swore as his fingers missed keys.

Looking over his shoulder at the radar computer screen, Crissy and Luca could see the circle representing the
Sea Nymph
closing in on the tanker's circle. In a matter of minutes, the vessels would collide. And then what? If what Valentin said was true, then the
Sea Nymph
and everyone on it would be blown up. Crissy ran to the huge wraparound windows that looked out on the foredeck and the sea in front of it.

“I can't see anything out there,” she said. “No lights. Nothing.”

“It's there all right,” Mark said, “and it's dead ahead.”

Just as he said the words, Crissy could suddenly make out the ghostly outline of a tanker. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Luca went to her side and slipped an arm across around her back. “Mark, it can't be much more than three hundred feet away,” he said.

Mark tapped a last key, waited a moment, then grabbed the joystick directly in front of him on the console. “Hang on,” he cried.

Chapter Twenty

I
n the motorboat, Valentin fought against the rope and duct tape that bound his hands and feet. As strong as he was, Luca had knotted in the rope in such a way that made it virtually impossible to escape. The duct tape made it even worse. But he had managed to loosen the length of rope that hog-tied his feet to his hands, frantically running it up and down against one of the metal struts in the motorboat. He didn't know whether he'd sawed through it or if Luca had failed to knot it properly. It didn't matter. Now at least he could stretch out lengthwise and sit up, though his hands and feet were still bound. Sitting up, the canvas cover that Luca had draped over the boat lay on top of his head and added to the sense of suffocation he already felt. He found the strut behind him again, and began rubbing his hands against it as rapidly as possible in small up and down movements, but he quickly realized that he wasn't having as much luck as he'd had with the rope. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and he searched under the canvas for his gym bag, finally realizing that it was near his bound feet. In the darkness, he managed to shove it toward his hands, using both of his feet, then using both hands, since he had no alternative. He scrabbled around inside the bag, forcing himself to slow down and use his fingers to feel for what he was looking for.

There. He touched it. Unmistakably. Its smooth plastic was cool to the touch. It looked like any normal cell phone, in fact it was a near replica of the one he used to communicate with Vilos in London and Athens and the men he'd hired to position the
Lucky Dragon
at the correct coordinates. They would be off the tanker by now, and were probably already drinking in Belém or somewhere along an Amazonian tributary close by, their
Zodiac inflatable tied up at one of the rickety docks that dotted the waterways like the palm trees ashore.

He managed to get his hands around the cell phone, an easy enough task even if he couldn't see it behind his back. Now all he had to do was depress one button. One little button, he thought, and the tanker and its thousands of gallons of propane gas would blow sky-high. He hadn't planned on using the transmitter—it was part of Plan B—because when the
Sea Nymph
hit the
Lucky Dragon,
the impact would set off an explosion that would destroy both vessels.

Now, however, because of the interfering Crissy Fitzgerald and her doctor boyfriend, he had no choice. They might conceivably rouse the captain or one of the officers in time to avert the collision.
I should have murdered all of them,
he thought with chagrin,
instead of relying on the gas. When I had the guy in Security call the captain to come down and bring the officers with him, I should have killed them all then. I shouldn't have listened to old Vilos. He was a fool.
The old man had been unnecessarily cautious, uneasy about maritime inspectors possibly finding the bodies of the captain or other officers with bullet holes or other wounds.
As if there would have been anything left in the wreckage to inspect,
Valentin thought.

He didn't know precisely how much time had passed since the doctor had knocked him out, but the ship was still going full speed ahead. If he felt the ship slow, he would know to depress the button, because that would be a signal that somebody had taken manual control of the
Sea Nymph.
That was easy. He could feel all of the buttons with his fingers, so no matter what had happened since he'd been out, he could still set off the explosion. Old man Vilos could still collect a fortune in insurance on the loss of the
Lucky Dragon
and its propane, and there would probably be enough collateral damage to the
Sea Nymph
to collect another few million on it. Hopefully, whoever was in the bridge would be engulfed in a fireball that would leave nothing but ashes. As for himself? He was certain that in the confusion after the blast he would somehow manage to loosen his hands and feet, then get overboard and away from the ship. It was a chance that he was willing to take, because if he wasn't killed in the explosion, he was sure to face multiple murder charges and life in prison.

The ship suddenly heaved in the water, first throwing him fore then aft, against the metal strut, and he lost his grip on the cell phone.

Damn,
he thought.
Now's the time to press the button.
His fingers
scrabbled around the bottom of the motorboat, and he felt it.
Yes,
he thought, his lips parting in an evil smile.
I can still do it.

The ship suddenly slowed, throwing Crissy and Luca to the floor. Luca reached over toward her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, already struggling to her feet. Grabbing the railing running along under the window frame, she pulled herself up, and Luca scrambled up beside her, grasping at the rail for support. Out the window, they could see the tanker looming just ahead in the lights from the
Sea Nymph
. Mark had turned on a foredeck searchlight, aiming it directly at the behemoth. On the rust-riddled black hull they could clearly see
LUCKY DRAGON
spelled out in white lettering.

“Jesus,” Luca breathed. “It looks like we're going to hit it any second now.” The ship abruptly heaved sharply to the right, and Crissy was thrown against Luca, knocking him down to the floor again, with her atop him. He struggled out from under her and sat up on his haunches, holding onto the rail for support. “Okay?”

She nodded. “You?”

“All right.” Extending a hand to her, he helped her up, and they looked through the window. In the searchlight, they could see the tanker on the port side, pitching and rolling in the huge waves created by the
Sea Nymph
's sudden drop in speed and dramatic turn.

“We've still got about a hundred feet aft to clear,” Luca said, watching wide-eyed as the
Sea Nymph
escaped crashing into the foredeck hull of the huge tanker by a matter of feet. “The wash could shove us into her.”

No sooner had he said the words than Mark turned the
Sea Nymph
again, this time sharply to the left. Crissy and Luca held on tightly to keep from being thrown again, and saw the tanker begin pitching and rolling wildly again from the tempest the
Sea Nymph
had created.

Mark slowly righted the ship, adjusting the searchlight as he did so. Now, on the port side, they watched as they sailed slowly by the tanker, which was still tossing ominously, waves crashing over its deck, looking as if its entire superstructure—bridge, davits,
everything
—was going to collapse under the pressure of the heaving sea at any moment.

“We're almost clear,” Mark called to them.

As the
Sea Nymph
sailed on, Mark gradually increased her speed, steering her slightly to the right, manually carrying her farther away from
the
Lucky Dragon
. Crissy and Luca let go of the railing and crossed to the central console, where Mark sat in the big captain's chair, the joystick in his hand, his focus on the computer screens in front of him.

“You've done something heroic tonight,” Luca said.

“I did what anyone who could run the ship would have done under the circumstances,” Mark replied. “Now I'm wondering who set this up.”

“I know that Valentin Petrov had something to do with it,” Crissy said. “I saw him trying to get off the ship earlier, but Luca stopped him.”

“Maybe we can get it out of him,” Luca said.

“Where is he?” Mark asked.

“Tied up in one of the motorboats on the deck where the tenders are,” Crissy said.

“I'm going to have to readjust the coordinates,” Mark said, “and put us back on course, then an automatic pilot again.”

“Let's go see about the captain and the other officers,” Luca said. “They should be coming around soon.”

Luca took her hand, and they hurried toward the door. In the corridor just outside it, Captain Papadapolis and two officers were coming toward them in a rush.

“Are you all right?” Luca asked.

“Yes, I think so,” the captain said. “Who's running the ship, and what the hell is going on?”

Luca briefed him as quickly as possible.

When he was finished, Captain Papadapolis turned to one of the officers, “Thrassos, you and Malinakis get Petrov and take him to the brig at once. There will still be people leaving the disco, so do it as discreetly as possible. When you're finished there, come back up to the bridge immediately. You'll have to escort Mark Vilos back down. After that, bring three body bags up from the hospital. I want our mates taken down to the morgue as soon as possible, so there's little chance of passengers seeing anything.”

“Then I'd better get down to the hospital,” Luca said. “We're going to have injuries from the maneuvering he had to do back there, and I'll get the morgue ready for the bodies.” He took Crissy's hand. “Why don't you come with me.”

Captain Papadapolis looked at Crissy. “You're the hero, or the heroine, tonight,” he said, “and I don't know how we're ever going to thank you for this.”

“Oh, I've already been rewarded, Captain,” she said, squeezing Luca's hand. They went on down the corridor to the stairwell, but stopped when they heard a terrific explosion. They looked at each other, then immediately turned and ran back to the bridge.

Mark and Captain Papadapolis were on the port side of the ship, their faces glued to the windows. Crissy and Luca rushed over. In the distance, a roaring fireball reached into the sky, and even from their perspective, they could see pieces of the
Lucky Dragon
blown up into the darkness above the light of the huge fire like bits of shrapnel.

“I wonder what triggered it,” Luca said. “Whether it was some kind of timing device or if we did it. We got so close, it was pitching and rolling like it actually might get swamped and go down.”

“We'll soon find out,” the captain said.

Crissy and Luca headed to the hospital. “Think you could maybe help Voula out for awhile?” Luca asked. “I have a feeling she's going to need it.”

“I don't see why not,” she said.

“You'll look very good in a lab coat over your gown,” Luca laughed. He was making an effort to take her mind off what she had just been through. He knew the events of the past hour might have unhinged a normal woman, or man, for that matter.

Crissy had demonstrated an extraordinary degree of fortitude during the entire nightmare, he thought, overcoming any fears and doubts she might have to help see to it that disaster was averted. He also knew that she might suffer from delayed shock. Now that the ship was safe, the dawning realization of what had happened and the potential consequences might very well overwhelm her. He wanted to keep her close by and preoccupied, the best medicine, he thought.

“Do you think I ought to change quickly?” she asked. “I could meet you in the hospital.”

“You're fine,” he said. “You can answer the telephone, book patients in, things like that. Believe me, there's going to be plenty you can help do, even in your evening dress.”

Valentin heard the explosion and even felt heat from the fireball waft past. He had miscalculated, but he couldn't be faulted for that. He didn't care anymore. What was important was to get out of there. He rubbed the duct tape securing his hands behind his back up and down, up and down
against the metal strut on the side of the motorboat, but he knew that he only had minutes and would never break through the tape before someone came for him.

Squatting on his feet, he managed to stand upright by supporting himself with his bound hands against the top rim of the motorboat. Once on his feet, he pulled himself over the side, just far enough to reach the deck-mounted motor that controlled the davits. He hit the button to start the engine, then pushed himself back inside the motor boat. There was a small, fiberglass box in the motorboat that contained a remote. He found it dangling on the small operator's chair, situated aft in the boat, next to the motor. With the press of one button, he raised the boat up off the deck. With the press of another, he swung the motorboat out over the side of the ship, where he dangled on the davits, five whole decks above the sea. The ship was moving at close to normal speed now, and the wind rocked the motorboat on its davits. Pressing a third button, the boat began descending to the water.

He looked down. The sea had yet to settle from the manual maneuvers someone had performed to avoid the collision, much less the explosion moments before. Plus, there was the wake thrown up by the speed of the
Sea Nymph,
but he was certain that if he could get the motorboat on the water, he would easily be able to make it to land, regardless of the duct tape and ropes securing his hands and feet.

Lower, lower, lower, the boat descended, until it hit the water with a loud thud that shook the motorboat from bow to stern. For a moment Valentin thought the boat would split to pieces from the impact. When that didn't happen, he waited for it to be swamped in the sea, but that didn't happen either, although he was taking on water swiftly as it surged over the sides of the boat. He pressed the fourth button, which would release the boat from the davits. He ducked down, knowing that the cables that had held the boat would be whipped about by the wind. One strike to his head could end everything. The cables were made of thickly wound steel and could be lethal.