Sabotage (34 page)

Tomorrow at noon I'll be standing in the center of the marketplace. Please meet me there so we can talk.

Sincerely,

Victoria Clare

 

THIRTY-TWO

There's only one thing worse than hitting a roadblock going forward, Ichiro thought, and that's hitting a roadblock going backward. Elbows outstretched, he clenched his fingers around his hair and wrenched at the roots with a deepening sense of frustration. He stared at the paper and once again read the transmission aloud.

“‘The way is off my ship. I am altering course to port. Man overboard. Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty. I am now altering course to starboard. My ship is on fire, and I have dangerous cargo onboard—a naval mine shipment. Keep well clear. I have a diver down to assess propeller damage. Keep well clear at low speed.… Negative! I am altering my course to starboard. I already tried altering course to port. I repeat, the way is off my ship. You may feel your way past me. Man overboard.'”

He shook his head, his mind in a trench. “You're not the only one who's gone overboard,” he muttered to himself, shading his words with self-pity. “What else does he want me to do? Austin, you jerk. I love you, but you're a jerk. I'll never slave for you again.”

He wasn't fooling himself. He sighed, knowing full well the only thing angering him was his own failure.

Feeling useless, he uncapped his pen one final time and began shuffling letters in search of anagrams. Nothing worked. Hours of fiddling had turned his brain to mush.

He tapped in a number on his phone.

“Rachel, I'm bamboozled,” he said. “Burnt, befuddled, and blatantly buffaloed.”

“How terrible coming from a soon-to-be math Ph.D.,” Rachel gibed. “Don't tell me someone asked you to solve a crossword puzzle or …
gasp
 … interpret a poem?”

“I'm beginning to think this is worse.”

“Shocking. Add rhymes, and you were starting to sound like Dr. Seuss.”

“Believe me, any more dead ends, and you'll hear me spouting Seussisms till I turn gray.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“It's this thing Austin gave me before he left. It's on the cutting edge of weird.”

“The radio transmission you told me about?”

“Yep. I've reached an impasse. Austin told me it's urgent, but I'm hopeless. Would you be kind enough to stop by the oh-so-hopping Club 102 so I can plumb the depths of your knowledge?”

“Sure, I can swing by Escondido Village.”

“Thanks, Rach.”

“See you in a few.”

She arrived wearing a short, drape-sleeve Juicy Couture mini dress, but Ichiro hardly turned his head to greet her. She found him hunched over a Scrabble board, playing with combinations of phonemes, more interested in the blocks than her strawberry print.

“I think I'm on to something,” he said, divulging more skepticism than he cared to admit.

“Oh?”

“So I started looking for historical context, right? It made sense to search for books that might have a full transcript of the message. It might also help to know what ship sent the message, and to whom. Then I realized, maybe it's a code. So I've studied the text, run algorithms, consulted cryptology books, looking for embedded language or ciphers. Then I thought, maybe that's too complicated. Now I'm looking for anagrams. And look what I found.”

Rachel read through his self-doubt and braced herself for the sub-enlightening.

“What did you find?”

“If you take the first letter of every complete clause, you get the words
tiki
and
miki
mixed in. There may be some sort of Polynesian code.
Tiki
refers to large wood or stone carvings made by Pacific island cultures.”

“And the relevance…”

“Working on it. What do you think?”

“I'd say that train of thought has derailed.”

“Pretty craptastic, I know. At least the prospect raised my spirits from a one to a two.”

Rachel read the transmission to herself. “Mind if I use your computer, Itchy?”

“As long as you never call me that again.”

“Don't count on it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's cute that you hate it.” She turned to the computer. “Let me try a little research before reading any deeper. As they say, proper prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance.”

“Never heard that one.”

“Add it to your alliteration repertoire.”

She typed something on his keyboard and stared into the monitor. Not sixty seconds passed before she felt an irresistible urge to flash him a mocking grin.

“You're awfully dense for a brainiac,” she said, jotting something on paper.

He gave her a deadpan look. “You got it? Seriously, that fast?”

“Seriously, that fast.”

She handed him the paper. He took it, glancing between the computer screen and her markings.

“Oh, my God…”

“Didn't you ever read
The Purloined Letter
?”

“Some time ago.”

“The simple answer eludes you only because you have forgotten to do the obvious. When you first looked at the transmission, you saw a puzzle in the letters and words, but not in the sentences—obviously not the best way to
flag
it.”

She winked, her golden curls now framing a smile Ichiro found so delicious he pulled her in and landed a wet smooch half on her lips, half on her cheek.

“Itchy, you've got to work on your aim.”

 

THIRTY-THREE

“It's no longer gourmet, but at least it will fill you up,” Rove said as he handed over the bag of food he'd collected in the galley. “There's even some butter for the rye.”

Clare inhaled the bread and water before moving to fruits. “Can't thank you enough, Jake. Just be glad the bars aren't wide enough to squeeze out this chamber pot, or I'd ask you to empty it and spare me the stench.”

“Don't let it ruin your appetite. Eat up.”

“What's that in your pocket?”

“Celestial diagrams in a Bowditch almanac. To help determine our location.”

“That's nice. I don't have a clue where we are.”

“Nor I. A vague idea, but then we don't need total precision for someone to find us. Using the trail of dots on Stahl's map, I should be able to pinpoint us to within a couple miles.”

“When you send the coordinates to my daughter, have her forward them to Glitnir.”

“I will.”

“Thanks for the food,” Clare said. “Until next time.”

“Stay warm,” Rove said as he left the brig.

He stepped into Ragnar's quarters and traced the corsairs' dotted course on his world map, moving his finger south from the Norwegian fjords across the Arctic Circle. He extended the path, then unfurled his own map of the cruise ship. The rear of the map charted their itinerary via smooth, curved lines connecting the continents. Using a ruler to match scale, he superimposed the intended circuit onto Ragnar's extrapolated plot and marked the intersection. Then he stepped onto the weather deck to compare the sky with the almanac's diagrams. Using tools on Ragnar's desk, he measured the declination of three stars, accounting for the month and hemisphere, and used the angles as a basis for an ellipse he sketched on the map. Its perimeter contained an area of uncertainty, while the major and minor axes intersected at a magic point. Crosschecking his two data points, he took their average and updated his estimations with a mark 350 nautical miles southwest of Iceland.

Rove heard a sound like someone rummaging through a toolbox. He tightened his grip on the AK-47. His apprehension didn't last. It was probably the ship's creaking, combined with days of repressed paranoia.

He turned on Ragnar's smartphone and checked the inbox. He read Victoria's email and absorbed the new information. So the hijackers had a name: the Black Marauders. He continued to scroll down, honing in on the meaning of both tattoos. He glanced back in Malcolm Clare's direction, thinking about the professor sitting in that miserable cell, and he started to piece together the relevance of
Firecat.

Rove closed the email and composed a new one to Victoria. He sent his estimation of their coordinates along with her father's request that they be forwarded to Glitnir. Then he placed the phone back in his pocket, making sure it was on silence. He was almost smiling. It felt good to have made contact with someone on land. He began to ponder over how he would track down the chief Marauder. Outside, he took a moment to pan the constellations, hoping the twinkling lights would lead to an epiphany. None came soon enough. Blunt pain blasted down the back of his neck and spread throughout his skull. He spun around, spotting the glimmer of a wrench before his head landed on the gunwale. A new, starless sky dominated his vision.

*   *   *

The Viking's message was unequivocal, politely stated. “Your turn.”

“Shut up and let me think!” Chatham said.

“Your competitor would be glad to know he's caused you to stall.”

“Fine. Raise him another increment.”

The line went dead.

Kate Dirgo looked at him sideways, as she would a man with no backbone.

“Have you totally lost it?” she asked. “Have you gone completely insane?”

“Getting there fast.”

“We're up to three
billion
dollars.”

“Would you prefer riding a bike to work and lighting your house with candles?” he retorted. “Not to mention a national meltdown? I'm buying us time, entertaining this shyster while you find Baldr. Unless you can do my part better.”

Why did he always have to go there? Since she'd become operations director, he'd been constantly paranoid she would hijack the Glitnir presidency.

“Working on it,” she said.

“Progress?”

“Our electrical engineers and physicists think Baldr's deviation took it into a circumpolar orbit. They believe it passed over the North Pole yesterday. But it's just an unconfirmed guess. It could be drifting over Kansas City for all we know.”

“Not specific enough, Kate.”

“That's all I can say.”

“Any update on Malcolm?”

“Good news on that end. This morning your secretary found an email from his daughter. Victoria said she has a source onboard the cruise ship who has verified their location with pretty good accuracy and informed her that Malcolm is on the vessel.”

“He's alive?”

“Alive and onboard the
Pearl Enchantress
of Pearl Voyages.”

“Where's the ship?”

“A couple hundred miles from Iceland.”

“We need him. Have someone ready a jet to Reykjavik. From there we'll go by helicopter.”

“Are you sure you wouldn't like me to forward the coordinates to the Pentagon for a naval dispatch?”

“No can do.” She sensed the hesitation of a man looking for a justification. “He threatened to blow the ship apart, remember? He may be bluffing, but I sure as hell won't be the one to call him out on it. Just have a plane ready to take us over. And grab me some Cafergot for this migraine.”

She left Chatham scratching his head and returned to her office, shutting the blinds as she always did. This time she also locked the door.

She ran a search online and clicked through a website to find the right page and telephone number. She dialed, and as the phone rang, she realized she wasn't sure if she'd have the breath to speak when someone picked up. Few things made her as nervous as this did.

“You've reached the Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Trading and Markets,” a middle-aged woman answered.

Dirgo threw a glance at the blinds even though she'd just closed them. She clicked her pen on her desk several times and began twirling it in her fingers.

“Yes, this is Kathryn Dirgo calling with a special request. I'm hoping you can direct me to the right person. An expert on trading violations.”

 

THIRTY-FOUR

It was five to noon, and Austin hurried down a mobbed street to his rendezvous. He was passing under a medieval pennant when he felt Victoria's phone vibrate at his hip.

“Hey, Itchy,” he said, remaining vigilant as he stepped through the crowd.

Austin knew his roommate inside out—every virtue, every defect. He expected cockiness, and he got it.

“Once upon a time, I was recited an ancient, mystical Hardyism,” said Ichiro. “That he who explains radio transmission shall feast on rib-eye.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar,” Austin said, playing along. “Why, do you have something to explain?”

“Perhaps.”

“You solved our riddle, huh?”

“Piece of cake.”

“That easy?”

“That's what I said.”

“Nothing ever gets by that stunning cerebrum of yours.”

“I can just taste it melting in my mouth,” Ichiro said. “The finest steak dinner I'll ever have.”

“And who's going to treat you?”

“You, of course.”

“Dream on,” Austin said.

Ichiro bristled. “Sounds like this sacred word was delivered by a false prophet.”

“Merely an omniscient one, who chooses his words carefully.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“The rule was, ‘He who
first
explains radio transmission shall feast on rib-eye.' You weren't the first.”

“But—”

“You may be smart, kiddo, but you'll have to work a little harder to make Mensa. Rachel, on the other hand, is probably preparing for her induction into their hall of fame.”

“How did you…”

“We spoke this morning,” Austin said with deliberate nonchalance.

“But she's a vegetarian.”

“Then it's a bust.”