Plague Ship (57 page)

With the ship at an almost sixty-degree angle, the fantail splashed into the rough water in the wave’s trailing edge, and vanished. The sea climbed over the rearmost cargo hatch, and, had it not been for the thick rubber seals, the helicopter hangar under it would have swamped.

“Come on, girl,” Juan cajoled, watching the water claim more and more of his ship. “You can do it.”

The angle began to flatten out as the bow came off the wave, and
Oregon
’s plunge into the abyss seemed in check. For a long moment, she neither sank nor rose out of the water. The vessel shuddered with the strain of her engines trying to deadlift eleven thousand tons from the sea’s crushing embrace. And slowly, so slowly at first that Juan wasn’t sure he was seeing it right on the monitors, the deck began to clear. The leading edge of the stern hatch appeared as the magnetohydrodynamics thrust her out of what should have been her watery grave.

Cabrillo finally joined the chorus of whistles and cheers when he saw the sodden Iranian flag hanging off her jack staff. He eased off the power and turned control back over to the helmsman.

Max sidled up to his chair. “And I thought you were crazy jumping an ATV off a dock. Any other ship would have turtled on a wave like that.”

“This isn’t any other ship,” Juan said, and patted Max’s arm. “Or any other crew, for that matter.”

“Thank you,” Max said simply.

“I’ve got one of my wayward children home. It’s time to get the other two.”

CHAPTER 39

KOVAC KNEW THERE WAS TROUBLE WHEN HE TRIED TO reach Thom Severance from the
Golden Sky
’s radio room and got no response. He didn’t even get a ring.

With the radios switched off, on Kovac’s orders, it wasn’t until twenty minutes later that word reached the ship from a satellite-news broadcast. A meteor had been spotted streaking across southern Europe. Estimated at weighing a ton, it had hit an island off the coast of Turkey. A tsunami alert had been issued, but there was only one report from a Greek ferry about a wave, and it was said to be only a few feet high and presented no danger.

He knew it was no meteor. It had to have been an atomic bomb. His two prisoners hadn’t been lying at all. The American authorities knew about their plan and had authorized a nuclear strike. The light people had seen streaking southward across Europe must have been from the cruise missile that delivered the warhead.

Kovac hit the MUTE button on the television remote to cut out the anchorwoman’s speculative blather. He had to consider his options. If they had sent operatives to the
Golden Sky
, they must have known he was on the ship. No, that logic wasn’t right. He was here because he suspected they were aboard first. So they didn’t know where he was. His solution, then, was simple: kill his two captives and leave the ship when it made its scheduled call on Iraklion, the Cretan capital.

“But they’ll be waiting,” he muttered.

Whoever sent the two Americans—the CIA, most likely, but what did it matter—would have operatives at the port to meet the ship. He wondered if he could slip through their dragnet. Then he wondered if it was worth the risk. Better to simply stop the cruise ship and escape in one of the lifeboats. There were thousands of islands in the Aegean to hide on until he planned his next move.

That still left the question of the prisoners. Should he kill them or take them as hostages? He wasn’t concerned about controlling the man, who looked like a stoner to Kovac. But there was something about the woman that told him she could be dangerous. Better to kill them both than worry about them trying to get away.

That left one last detail. The virus.

It lived only for a couple of weeks in its sealed canister, so it wouldn’t do him much good after his escape. Releasing it would infect the thousand or so people on the ship, and, with a little luck, they would spread it when they returned to their homes. But he didn’t think there was much chance of that. The ship would be quarantined and the passengers held in isolation until they were no longer infectious.

It was better than nothing.

Kovac got up from his chair and walked onto the bridge. Night had fully descended, and the only illumination came from the consoles and radar repeaters. There were two officers on watch and two helmsmen. Kovac’s assistant, Laird Bergman, was outside on the flying bridge, enjoying a cigarette under the stars.

“I want you to go down to the laundry and release the virus manually,” Kovac told him.

“Did something happen to the transmitter?”

“Nothing that concerns you right now. Just get down to the laundry and do what I say. Then find Rolph and report back up here. We’re getting off this ship.”

“What’s going on?”

“Trust me on this. We’re going to be arrested as soon as we reach Crete. This is the only way.”

One of the officers suddenly shouted, “Where the hell did he come from and what does he think he’s playing? Call the captain up here and sound the collision alarm.” He rushed out to the opposite flying bridge.

“Stay with me,” Kovac said, and he and Bergman jogged after the ship’s officer. A huge freighter was coming straight at the
Golden Sky.
She looked like a ghostship with all her running lamps extinguished, but she was cutting through the water at a good twenty knots.

The officer shouted back to the others on the bridge. “Didn’t you see him on radar?”

“He was ten miles away, last time I checked,” the junior officer replied. “And that was only a few minutes ago, I swear.”

“Hit the alarms.”

The
Golden Sky
’s bellowing horns had no effect. The freighter continued to aim straight for them, as if it intended to slice the cruise ship in half. Just when it seemed there was no avoiding a collision, the freighter’s bow turned sharper than any ship the officer had ever seen, and she came alongside with only a few dozen feet separating them. It was an incredible piece of ship handling, and had the officer not been so angry he would have been impressed.

Kovac recalled that there had been reports of a large ship making an illegal passage of the Corinth Canal the night the Hanley kid had been snatched. He had always known that the two incidents were related, and now a freighter makes an appearance on this of all nights. With the feral instincts of a rat, he knew they were here for him.

He moved back inside and away from the crewmen. Their walkie-talkies didn’t work well around so much steel, but he raised Rolph Strong, the third man who had choppered to the ship with him.

“Rolph, it’s Kovac. I need you to clear everyone out of the engine room and lock yourself inside. No one is to enter, and kill anyone who resists. Do you understand?”

Unlike Bergman, Strong never questioned orders. “Clear the engine room and let no one enter. Copy.”

Kovac pulled his pistol from under his windbreaker and said to Bergman, “Go out and find six or seven women. I don’t care if they’re passengers or crew. Bring them back here as quickly as you can. Also, go to my cabin and bring the rest of our weapons.” Before Bergman could inevitably ask for an explanation, Kovac added: “Thom Severance is dead, the plan is ruined, and the people responsible for it are on that freighter. Go!”

“Yes, sir!”

The Serb locked the bridge door before threading a silencer onto the end of his automatic and dispassionately shooting the two crewmen and one of the bridge officers. The soft reports were drowned out by the blaring air horns, so the second officer didn’t know what was going on until he stepped in off the flying bridge and saw the bodies. He had time to look to Kovac before two crimson blooms appeared on his starched white uniform shirt. His jaw worked silently for a moment, before he collapsed against a bulkhead and slumped to the deck.

Suspecting that the operatives on the freighter were going to throw a line onto the cruise ship to send over a boarding party, Kovac stepped up to the controls. There was a dial to order more or less speed from the ship’s engines and a simple joystick to turn the rudder. Maneuvering such a massive vessel was as easy as steering a fishing smack.

He cranked the throttle to maximum and veered the ship away from the rusted-out freighter. The
Golden Sky
was only a few years old, and, while she was built for luxury more than speed, he was supremely confident he could outrun the derelict.

They started to pull ahead, easily outpacing the freighter, but only for a few moments. It, too, put on a burst of speed, and exactly mirrored his turn. Kovac was dismayed that a ship that looked ready to dissolve into a rust stain could move so swiftly. He checked the throttle control and noticed that if he pulled the dial upward, he could draw what was called EMERGENCY POWER.

He did, and watched their speed continue to increase. Looking across the bridge, he saw the freighter slowly falling back. Kovac grunted with satisfaction. It would take an hour or two to put enough distance between the two ships for them to stop so he could lower a lifeboat, but it didn’t matter.

As if the freighter were toying with him, the big merchantman inexorably accelerated to match his speed and once again positioned itself no more that thirty feet off the
Golden Sky
’s beam. A quick glance confirmed the cruise ship was pounding across the flat sea at thirty-six knots. There was no way the freighter should be able to achieve that speed, let alone maintain it.

Kovac’s frustration quickly morphed into rage. There came a sharp burst of automatic fire from the corridor behind the bridge, followed by a chorus of high-pitched screams. He rushed to the wheelhouse’s sole entrance and threw back the bolt, his pistol at the ready. The ship’s captain lay in a widening pool of blood on the carpeted deck, and four other officers cowered along the passageway. They must have tried to rush Bergman when he returned. Behind them, his assistant had seven women huddled in abject terror.

“Inside! Now!” Kovac snarled, and gestured with his weapon for the women to enter the bridge.

They moved in a tight cluster under Bergman’s watchful eye, tears streaming down their cheeks.

“Stop this at once,” the seniormost officer demanded.

Kovac shot him in the face and closed the bridge’s thick metal door.

He grabbed one of the women, a dark-haired beauty he recognized was a waitress from the dining room, and raced back to the helm. He positioned her between him and the stalking freighter as a human shield, in case they had snipers. He noted that the merchantman had narrowed the gap even more.

“I believe the game is called chicken,” he said to no one in particular, and savagely pushed the rudder control to port.

At this speed, the ship responded nimbly, and her bow came over. It slammed into the side of the freighter with a titanic scream of tearing metal. The impact heeled the ship to starboard, staggering Kovac, who had braced for it. The bow railing was crushed in, and the two ships grated against each other. A dozen balconies for the most expensive cabins were torn away, while, all over the ship, passengers and crew were thrown to the deck. There were injuries throughout the vessel, though nothing more severe than a few broken bones.

Kovac turned the ship away from the scene of impact. The freighter turned with him but kept a much wider separation this time, its captain obviously leery of another collision.

He wasn’t sure what inspired him, but Kovac had a sudden idea to end this quickly. Leaving the helm position, he yanked one of the dead officers from the floor and walked the corpse outside, with one hand on the officer’s belt and the other on the back of his neck so it appeared he was walking on his own. Kovac paused for a second, to make sure the men on the other ship had a chance to see him, before rushing the flying-bridge rail and heaving the body over.

He ducked behind the rail and couldn’t watch the body fall the hundred feet to the sea, but he was certain his opponents had. Kovac knew they wouldn’t let an innocent man drown, and it would take them at least an hour to rescue him. He liked the irony that they would be forced to give up their pursuit for a dead man.

“DAMAGE REPORT,” Juan called, as soon as the two ships pulled apart.

“Crews are on their way,” Max said straightaway.

When they hadn’t been able to raise the cruise ship on the radio, their plan had been to get the crew’s attention and hail them with loudspeakers. The owner of the Golden Line was most likely complicit in Severance’s plot, but it couldn’t involve all of his officers and crew. If they could get a warning to them about Zelimir Kovac’s real reason for being aboard, they could put an end to this once and for all.

Cabrillo had fully expected the shipmaster to turn away, as he had, but never anticipated being intentionally rammed. No captain on earth would jeopardize his ship and crew with a stunt like that.

There was only one logical conclusion. “Kovac’s taken over the
Golden Sky
.”

Max eyed him and nodded imperceptively. “Only thing that makes sense. How do you want to play it?”

“We’ll lay up alongside again and fire over grappling hooks. I don’t know how many men he has, but I think a dozen of us ought to suffice.”

“I like your Captain Blood style.”

“Avast, ye matey.”

“If he tries to turn in to us again, you boys are going to be in a world of hurt.”

“It’s your job to make certain he doesn’t.” Cabrillo was about to call down to Eddie to prepare a boarding party when Hali suddenly shouted, “Someone was just tossed off the wing bridge!”

“What?” Max and Juan said in unison.

“A guy in a dark windbreaker just threw what looked like an officer off the wing bridge!”

“Helm, full reverse,” Juan snapped on the intercom. “Man overboard. Man overboard. This is not a drill. Rescue team to the boat garage. Prepare to launch the RIB.”

“He’s playing dirty,” Max said.

“We can play dirtier. Wepps, aim the gun cameras on the
Golden Sky
’s bridge ASAP and put them up on the main screen.”

A moment later, the images flashed on the monitor. Because the cruise ship was so much taller than the
Oregon
, the best angle came from the camera mounted on the ship’s mast. When the camera was switched to low-light mode, they could clearly see into the bridge. There were women standing at all the portside windows, hostages placed there so a sharpshooter couldn’t get a clean hit. There was a figure crouched at the helm, possibly Kovac, with another woman pressed tightly against him.