Virus (7 page)

He shook his head; it didn’t matter now, did it? Richie and Squeak were heading in to join the others, and Steve followed, still hoping somehow that their call for help would be answered and still struggling to accept that it was highly fuckin’ unlikely.

Foster stared down at the radar screen blankly, listening to Woods’s growing frustration with the VHF radio. The bridge was tense, the crew standing around silently, mulling over their predicament while the helmsman SOS’d into dead air. She wondered if anyone had told Everton about the situation, not that it would make a difference. At least she wasn’t alone in her dislike for the man anymore; everyone in the room knew what had happened . . .

The radar still worked, for what it was worth. All the receiver had to say was that they were surrounded by a typhoon, at least in the range that the CW was set for. Foster tapped at the keys in front of her, widening the scope; she hadn’t thoroughly checked out the eye for a few hours; maybe there was something new to see.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday—fucking VHF fifty-mile-range piece of
shit—”

Blip.
Foster felt her heart stop, then speed up violently. It wasn’t her imagination, it was a solid return. “Wait a minute! I’m picking up a contact, could be a ship in the eye with us . . .”

She could feel the change, feel everyone’s sudden attention turn to her as she double-clicked the cursor on the pulse-generated object and read the coordinates.

“Distance twelve miles bearing zero four eight degrees. Speed—zero knots, appears to be dead in the water. And it’s big.”

She looked up, studied the intent and hopeful faces of the men on the bridge, and felt like laughing. “Really big,” she said.

“Hail ’em,” said Steve, and she grabbed the mike, flooded with a relief so great that she could hardly breathe. She saw Woods cast a guilty look around the bridge and then walk out quickly, probably to tell Everton. Fuck him, she was too excited to care.

“Ahoy vessel at latitude twenty-nine degrees forty-eight minutes south, longitude one seven nine degrees twenty-four minutes east, this is
Sea Star;
we are twelve miles northwest of your position, come back!”

They weren’t going to die. The tug might sink, but they now had somewhere to go.

The whiskey was gone; it was time.

Sarah smiled up at him from atop the pile of papers, just as perfect and beautiful as he remembered. He hoped that she’d be there, waiting for him in whatever came next. Or maybe he’d just be dead; either way, he’d be free from having to face a dismal future, any chance of peace he could have had lost to him now.

Everton slowly picked up the loaded .45 caliber revolver and pointed it to the right of his forehead, afraid but ready. He could feel trickles of sweat slide through his hair, gray hair on his old, tired head. Old and tired and drunk, that was Captain Robert Everton. He didn’t think there would be time to feel pain; just a burst of sound and he could escape from this cruel and merciless life . . .

He closed his eyes and there was a knock on his door.

“Captain. Captain!”

Woods.
Christ, what timing!

“I’m busy,” he said, and waited for the helmsman to leave, the cool barrel still pressed to his skin. Insult to injury. Even this last privacy was denied to him, a parting shot from Whomever ran this show.

“There’s a ship with us in the eye! Twelve miles out, dead in the water!”

Big fucking deal, some other poor bastard caught in the storm, like I’m gonna give a rat’s ass when my life is—

Dead in the water.
Everton blinked.

A ship that wasn’t moving. Perhaps because the crew had bailed out or been taken by the typhoon, leaving their vessel behind . . .

Everton lowered the weapon and tried to focus his bleary thoughts on what this meant, what it
could
mean.

Salvage, reward money, navigational equipment. Expensive equipment. A ship . . .

“Dead in the water? I—I’ll be there in a moment,” he said, and he heard his helmsman’s footsteps scurry away.

He stood up too quickly, felt the cabin wobble and then reestablish itself. He holstered the side-arm and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then hastily pushed the stack of papers and photos into a desk drawer.

He ducked into his private head and splashed water across his face and into his mouth, blotting his skin with a hand towel. The polished steel mirror reflected back a presentable visage—tired-looking, ragged around the edges maybe, but it would do.

Everton didn’t even bother locking the door behind him, too eager to get to the bridge. He heard and felt the engine fire, a low hum beneath the sagging deck of his ship as the crew prepared it to move; it was a sound he had almost given up, that he’d been seconds from giving up forever, and now he knew that it hadn’t all been for no reason. It was like—a test, a crucible that he had almost failed. He felt himself sobering with each step, felt his shoulders fall back and his vision clear as he walked through the tight corridor and out onto the top deck.

A second chance, it’s a sign, another moment and it all would’ve been over—it has to mean that it’s
not
over for me. I can feel it.

He strode towards the bridge, feeling strong and reasonably steady by the time he reached the door, propped open in the thick humidity of the typhoon’s eye. The entire crew was assembled, and he decided that it would be best to reassume command as though nothing had happened. Yes, that was best; he had made a mistake or two, he was only human, they’d understand. Hard feelings would be overlooked, they were all adults, grown men—well, and Foster, but one female voice wouldn’t influence opinion, especially when she’d proved herself to be such a poor navigator. They’d probably be thankful to have a leader again, someone to take control.

“Woods, what the hell are you doin’? Let’s
go."
Baker was trying to give orders, and Everton stepped onto the bridge to relieve the man of the burden. The engineer had a temper, but he’d have cooled off by now; everything had changed.

“Why isn’t this thing moving, Woods?” he asked smoothly.

He could feel the weight of their stares, all of them, but he remained focused on the helm, exuding a calm confidence in his position as captain. They didn’t have to love him to respect his orders; his earlier lapse of reason could be explained, when they were out of danger. He just had to be rational and firm, give them cause to look up to him again.

Captain Everton nodded to Woods, and the helmsman grinned and nodded back.

“Fuckin’ A, Captain,” he said, and turned the wheel, steering them towards salvation. The waterlogged
Sea Star
started to move, picking up speed easily as they made their way through the fog.

Everton walked to the wing bridge, already imagining the possibilities; even a tug the size of the
Sea Star
could make up for a lot . . .

A dead ship, no crew to lay claim—it was the answer to everything.

• 7 •

T
he
Sea Star
chugged heavily along into the thick fog; white-gray clouds of solid mist enveloped the boat as they moved through the eye, curling lithe fingers around the hull, beckoning them deeper. Richie breathed it in, imagining that he could smell the bottom of the sea in the white air. It was a dark and musky, salty odor, like the typhoon had opened the womb of the ocean, forced her to expel secrets from deep inside. It was . . . really interesting.

Richie felt good. He’d been pretty high all morning, and already the whole sinking thing was fading behind him like a bad dream; he’d been able to keep himself kind of Zen, living in the moment—the sun, the water, all that happy-crappy. Still, it had been unnerving, and he was glad to be able to kick back for a while, enjoy things without
that
nasty business looming in front of him. The admiral’s brat had finally done her goddamn job, the captain was back (though he stank like he’d just crawled out of a distillery, no shit), and they were gonna be riding home in style.

He stood at the bow with Hiko and the engineer boys, all of them peering out into the dense fog; Woods and that rich bitch were up on the bridge and the captain was standing on the flying wing, back in the saddle like some whacked-out Ahab; every ship needed a captain, even shit-faced. Besides, who was he to talk? They were gonna survive, that was the thing. All was well and cool with Mrs. Thomas’s boy Richard.

He stood in between Hiko and Squeaky, Steve off to the side. The young engineer caught his gaze and jerked his head towards the Maori.

Oh, right!
Steve had been talking about all that tribal shit earlier and Richie had volunteered to ask about the name; the engineer seemed concerned that he’d offend the guy.

With tatts like that, how could he possibly get offended? Must be bothered all the time, tourists and all . . .

“So, Hiko. Baker says all Maori names mean somethin’. That true?”

Hiko stared into the fog. “Yeah.”

Steve jumped in. “Sooo . . . what does it mean?”

The tall deckhand shrugged, started to say something, and then Foster yelled out from the bridge.

“Dead ahead, three hundred yards!”

“Woods, hail it!” Everton called back.

Voices carried well in the eye, something to do with the pressure change. Richie’s ears had been popping all day. He could hear Woods easily from the bow, their resident bootlicker; guy was an ingratiating little suck-up, always reminded Richie of one of those kids that all the other kids avoided on the playground—

—like “Hey, wait up, guys! Don’t ditch me!”
Richie grinned to himself. That was Woods, all right.

“Unidentified vessel, this is the
Sea Star
approaching you from the northwest, three hundred yards out. Come back.”

They all strained to hear a response; nothing. Everton suddenly screamed down to the four of them like they were a mile away and deaf.

“Dead ahead, three hundred yards!”

No shit,
el capitán; damn.
The man was soused, straight up; probably seeing double, too.

“I don’t see anything,” Hiko said quietly.

The fog was solid, all right, but there was a sloshing off to their left, water against something . . .

A half-sunken lifeboat drifted by, barely visible even a few feet off the deck. It was upside down, floating like a dead man in the shrouded waters.

“That ain’t ours,” Hiko whispered. He sounded nervous, and suddenly Richie felt his high disappear into something less mellow. Something like fear, and he was caught off guard by how hard the emotion hit him.

He could
feel
the ship, hidden just in front of their searching gazes like an unseen ghost. There was a soft creaking that made Richie’s stomach knot, a forlorn and desolate sound in the silence of the eye. Something big, really big, a dead ship cloaked by the jealous mist, a monster waiting to spring . . .

Paranoid much? Chill on that shit, jumpin’ at shadows like some puss—

Richie wanted to laugh at himself, but he suddenly felt like one of those dudes from a horror flick; he had a very bad feeling about this. And for just the barest fraction of a second, even though it would’ve meant certain death for all of them, he wished with all his heart that Foster’s screens had stayed blank.