I kept telling myself that last part. The Stream was calm out there, not too far away, just on the other side of this squall. But I had been in a cocoon of rain for the last fifteen minutes. The storm had swept across the flat empty water at me just as the sun went down. Just when I was almost out of hope and thinking things couldn’t be any worse. And of course, they could. They always could, especially lately. And now they were.
I had been scanning the horizon so hard my eyes hurt, glaring at the fuel gauge and trying to make it stop moving towards the big red E at the left side. And suddenly I was inside rain so thick I had to turn my head to the side to breathe. The sunset vanished. The ocean was gone. I was all alone. I might as well have been in a very wet closet.
As my world shrank to a couple of inches around me, I throttled back and started thinking. I pushed the ugly unwelcome thoughts away but they kept coming back.
I remembered a girl I had found once, a few years back when I was still a working cop. She was fifteen. An outlaw motorcycle gang had her for six days. By the time they threw her out there was no one left inside. She had been doped and raped almost non-stop for the whole six days. She couldn’t identify a single one of her attackers. She couldn’t even identify herself.
I had to find Anna. I had to find Patrice and his Black Freighter. They were out here with me, had to be.
But I couldn’t find them. I had been running on a zigzag course through the corridor where they had to be, and they weren’t there. It was the Caribbean counterpart of a big game trail, the route all the freighters took between Florida and Haiti. It was a narrow band of water, only a few miles wide. There was no other way to go. They had to be in it somewhere.
But they weren’t. I had passed plenty of traffic, each time running Rick’s fine fast boat up to the stern to read the name, each time dropping back again, disappointed.
Now I was running low on fuel, time and hope.
Hopeless. It had been a stupid idea to begin with, but the only idea I could come up with. From the start it had depended on speed, close figuring, and luck. The squall took away the speed, the close figuring could easily be wrong, and the only luck I’d had was that so far I hadn’t rammed anything in the rain.
Maybe this guy, this Patrice du Sinueux, really was a sorcerer. Maybe he could make his ship invisible.
Or maybe he was making me blind. If so, he was doing it to the radar, too. The screen was backlit and if I bent over I could just make it out. It had showed nothing for the last forty-five minutes and now, in the middle of the squall—
I blinked and tried to wipe the rain from my eyes. Then I wiped the radar screen and looked at it again.
Something was there.
It was about the right size and shape for a freighter and, if I was reading the radar right, it was about five miles away.
A gust of rain hit my face, driving harder than the storm around it. That must mean it was blowing out. Any moment now I was going to come out of it, I was sure, but until I did there was nothing I could do but throttle back and watch the radar.
Then the squall went up another notch and the rain was so thick I couldn’t see the bow of the boat and the wind drove the rain into my face hard enough that it felt like gravel. I hunkered down and squinted. It seemed to blow even harder, and go on for several minutes, and then it stopped.
Just like that, like turning off a switch, the rain stopped. There was one last sigh of wind and the boat ran out into a clear, moonlit night on the gulf stream. Ahead of me, just in the line of sight, were the lights of a freighter moving south.
I pushed the throttle forward. The boat jumped ahead, rattling my spine. I aimed for a spot well behind the lights. I wanted to come up in its wake. The water was calmer there, but more important, if it was the Black Freighter—or any freighter—they wouldn’t be watching backwards. The watch would be scanning the horizon forward. And from what I knew about freighters, they wouldn’t be doing that very carefully.
Rick’s boat ate up the distance. It was the fastest boat I’d ever been on and the feeling of speed and power was almost dream-like. It took less than five minutes to hit the wake of the freighter, about a half mile back. I turned the boat south, moving even faster in the smoother water where the freighter had just pushed through, and sped up to the ship’s stern.
I throttled back. The turbulence increased close to the ship. I moved as close as I could, making constant small adjustments on the throttle and the wheel. I could just see the lettering on the stern, but couldn’t make out what it said. I moved my boat to the side, hoping some gleam off the water would light it up; no luck.
I moved close again. I couldn’t risk shining a light on it. Somebody on board might see it and there would go my surprise. So I got in as close as I could get without losing control of the boat. The constant whirlpool of backwash from the prop made it tough to control the boat without smacking the freighter’s steel hull. I tried to look up at the lettering and down at the water at the same time. I was getting a neck cramp, but not much more.
I had to risk a small light. There was no other way. In a clamp beside the wheel Rick had mounted a spotlight, the kind that can pick out rock formations on the moon. There were no smaller flashlights on board as far as I knew. I looked to the bow of the boat, trying to gauge the backwash, and I had an idea.
I pointed the boat directly at the freighter’s stern. I eased up as close as I could get and flicked the bow running lights on and off as quickly as I could.
The light made an eerie red glow that ran up the ship’s stern. It was just enough to read the letters.
Petit Fleur.
This was it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Securing a small boat to a moving ship at sea is not easy. I didn’t have time to do it right—any moment now somebody might lean out over the stern to spit and see me. But I was hoping to sneak Anna away without too much noise, and the boat was my only escape route, even if it was almost out of gas.
But there was no way to tie it off at the freighter’s waterline. I would have to tie it from on deck. That increased the angle dangerously, but that’s all there was.
There was also no way to get up the stern without making a certain amount of noise. I would just have to risk it. I’d come prepared with some things from Rick’s shed, including a small folding grappling hook and 100 feet of nylon rope. I had meant it to be a last resort, in case there was no other way up. It would be dangerous and uncertain, and I would be vulnerable for a long minute while I hung from the rope.
I threw the grappling hook up and waited. A small clunk; then, no sound. Nobody yelled “Hey,” or “Oye,” or “mon dieu.” So I slid up the line hand over hand. It was even harder than I’d thought. The freighter was pitching one way at its own speed. Rick’s boat was pitching must faster. With each end of the rope going at a different rate I felt like a yo-yo until I finally pulled myself up to where I could grab the rail of the freighter and ease onto the deck with the bowline of Rick’s boat clamped in my teeth.
As I climbed up onto the deck I lost about two yards of skin on a large, shiny cleat. I decided I could risk a few quiet words, and said them. The bleeding wasn’t too bad, and I rubbed the spot for a moment. What the hell was a cleat doing there, anyway? I tied Rick’s boat off to the cleat and limped into the cover of a packing crate.
I looked along the deck. It was open here, stacked in a few places with crates of deck cargo and tangles of bicycles. There was no sign of anything living.
Far ahead, maybe sixty feet away, the superstructure stuck up, wheelhouse on top. I thought I could see a shape in there behind the glass, but whether it was human I couldn’t say.
I decide to assume it was. That was safer. I moved forward a step and stumbled. I had ducked behind a large chunk of strangely shaped plywood. Whatever it was, the thing had two pontoons on its bottom. I looked it over. It was a jagged, angular shape, ten feet high and maybe twenty feet long. A handful of wires ran down it into a large
waterproof battery case bolted to the top of the pontoons. I ran a finger along one of the wires. It led to a Christmas tree light bulb that poked through the plywood. I crouched beside the thing. A long nylon cable was secured to a ring welded to the pontoons. It was probably supposed to be towed or moored.
I moved on, doing my creepy-crawly along the deck, trying to think like a shadow, sliding from one hiding place to the next. In a few minutes I had worked my way across the deck to the stairs that ran up to the wheelhouse.
Now the fun started. I had to get up the stairs and inside without being seen. If I could do that, I could probably persuade the guy at the wheel to take a nap for a while. Then I could find Anna quickly and quietly and get away.
I thought about making him tell me where Anna was, but decided it was too risky. The best plan was to take him out fast. Then I could move through the ship easily. I didn’t worry about hurting an innocent man or any of that softheaded crap. If he was on board this ship he was not innocent.
I thought about the rest of the crew. At this hour it was slack time on board. The crew would be sleeping, playing cards, relaxing. Not worrying about a flat-fishing guide sneaking around the ship with murder in his heart.
I looked carefully up and down the deck from my hiding place behind a crate. Nothing moved, nobody leaned against the rail.
The stairs were brightly lit, but they ran up the side at a steep enough angle that the man at the wheel couldn’t see them without leaving his place. So all I had to do was glide up the steps and whip open the door—and hope the door wasn’t locked or bolted.
I took a deep breath and used a trick I had learned in the Rangers. I gave myself a mental countdown —5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go!— and I was across the small patch of deck and up the stairs.
I grabbed at the handle and hit the door with my shoulder in one motion and was in the wheelhouse and on top of the guy steering before he could do more than turn a few inches and gape at me.
I slammed the heel of my hand into his temple and he slid to the floor. Perfect. No fuss, no muss, no bother. All according to plan.
Except that I hadn’t planned on the second man behind me.
He had been slouching down on a bench against the back wall, probably just hanging out and shooting the breeze. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him straighten up, then jump to his feet, and he was on my back before the first guy hit the floor.
He was strong as well as quick. He got an arm around my throat and I was seeing stars in just a few seconds.
No matter how much you study martial arts and dirty fighting, there just aren’t that many good counters to a choke hold from the rear. The best one is to keep your opponent from getting behind you.
I had missed that one. He was behind me, and he had a knee in my back and he was pulling hard enough to make my neck creak. I tried to knock him loose with my elbows, but he put enough distance between us and I couldn’t reach.
My throat felt raw and I could hear my heart pounding, even over the sound of the two of us scuffling. I needed air but there was none coming in.
I tried to run him backwards into the wall, but he braced a foot against the bench he’d been sitting on and just pulled back harder.
But to do that he had to take the knee out of my back. I was close enough now and I slammed an elbow in to his kidneys and heard him grunt. But the bastard held on.
The world was getting dim and blurry and seemed far away. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time before he turned my lights out. There was only one thing I hadn’t tried yet.
Moving as quickly as I could, I dropped to one knee. He dropped with me, but he had to bend over from the waist to do it. That gave me enough room and I turned, whipping a leg at his ankles and sweeping him off his feet.
He held on, which was a pretty good trick, but now he was on his back and holding the back of my neck. I took in a deep breath. It sounded like an old man dying and it felt like sandpaper going in but it was the sweetest breath I’d ever taken.
I took just a half second to enjoy it but that was too long. My friend on the floor dropped his arm from my neck and kicked at my face. I didn’t block the kick completely, but I managed to slip it off my face and onto the side of my head.
Good, Billy, I thought as stars exploded in my head. Very good. Protect that handsome profile at all costs.
I managed to shake it off in time to see the second kick coming, and this one I knocked to the side with both hands. Then I lunged over it and grabbed at his throat with my left hand. When he blocked that I brought my right hand around and slammed it into his face.
His muscles went slack for just a second, but it was enough. I hit him again, a text book right to the point of his jaw, and he went completely limp.
I gave him a ten count with my fist cocked. Then I raised his eyelid and looked.
Nobody home. That’s really tough to fake. If somebody touches your eyes and you’re in there, you flinch. You can’t help it.
He didn’t flinch, and his eyes were rolled back into his head. He was out.
I stood up and moved over to check the first body.
He had a pulse, slow and steady, and his eyes were empty.
I looked around the room for something to keep them quiet. There were no coils of rope, no rawhide lanyards—nothing. These guys were barely nautical at all.
I wondered if one of them was Patrice du Sinueux, the voodoo houngan himself. Maybe I should kick them each a couple of times, just to be sure. Nothing major; just break a couple of ribs, loosen a few teeth.
It occurred to me that I could check it easily enough. Nicky had said he had a tattoo of a snake on his arm. I bent down beside first one unconscious man, then the other. No snake tattoo. Not on either one of them. That made it a little easier to leave them lying there, instead of pitching them over the side.
I stood up. I didn’t have a whole lot of time. Sooner or later somebody would find my two friends, and it was safer to bet on sooner. I needed to tie them up quickly and get on with searching the ship.
I gave the room a quick inspection. In a drawer of the chart table I found a roll of electrical tape. It would have to do.
I got both men onto their stomachs with their mouths taped shut. I used the rest of the tape on their wrists, binding them behind their backs, and then taping their ankles together.
I also went through their pockets quickly. They each had a large folding knife on their belts. I took both and threw them out the door and into the water.
The man at the wheel had a small automatic pistol in his pocket. I checked it over quickly. It was a Rossi .380, a respectable weapon. There were rust patches along the barrel and a greasy feeling of too much gun oil on the grips. I wiped it on his shirt and stuck it in my belt.
The rest of the stuff in their pockets was uninteresting: money, cough drops; the man from the bench had a large ring of keys and a blackjack. The wheelman had a few polaroid pictures of naked women, tied up and begging for mercy. I could make out a background with a couple of ringbolts, a mop hanging, and a shelf next to a rusting porthole. It looked like the shots had been taken on board a ship, probably this one.
It was nice to get a reminder of who these guys were and why I was here. These were not simple, honest merchant seamen. They were concentration camp guards, sadistic killers who enjoyed throwing people by the dozens into the ocean to die.
The world has come a long way since the Nazis, we tell ourselves with little pats on the back. Sure. Tell it to the Khmer Rouge. Mention it in Bosnia and wait for the laugh. The fact is, there have always been and always will be plenty of work for the kind of guy who likes to hurt people. Many governments recognize that and quietly round them up for official work. Other people, like these two, prefer to operate in the private sector, where they could torture somebody without a lot of red tape.
The pictures showed that this guy was pretty good at his work. Had spent a lot of time getting it right. Even thought about it in his off time. He’d go far. Maybe I cou
ld help send him there.
I dropped the pictures and wiped my hands on my pants. I felt unclean. I wished I’d hit him harder.
I stood and looked out over the wheel. The squall I had come through was gone without a trace, like it never had been at all. There was a moon now and the reflected light rippled on the water of the Gulf Stream.
According to the compass we were headed south-southeast, straight down the corridor to Haiti. I put the wheel over, just a few points. I wanted the ship to swing back towards Miami—but so slowly that no one on board would feel it swing.
If I managed to get Anna and get away, I would still call the Coast Guard as soon as I was clear of the freighter. The closer the ship was to US coastal waters, the better.
And if things went bad and I didn’t make it, it wouldn’t hurt to have the sweat start when they found themselves off Miami again, instead of Port-au-Prince. I would check through the ship quickly and then come back and re-set the course.
I stood and counted to thirty as the ship turned maybe two degrees east. Good. It would take at least five minutes to turn 180 degrees. That was too slow for anybody to feel it turning. I locked on the auto-steering and moved out the door and onto the stairs.
The deck was quiet in the moonlight. Nothing moved across it and there was no sound except for the slap of the water against the hull, and the hum of the wind in the ropes holding the deck cargo in place. I watched for a moment to be sure, then went down the stairs and to the door leading down into the ship.
I searched the top level quickly and found nothing. The crew areas were deserted. I guessed they must all be down below, leaving only the two men of the watch up in the wheelhouse. Still, it was spooky to find everything deserted.
The last door was locked. It might have been a storeroom—but it also might be where they were keeping Anna. I put an ear to the door. I didn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean much.
I leaned my weight against the door. There was no give to it. Maybe I could bust it open—and maybe I would just break an arm trying. And in any case just trying would make enough noise to bring the entire crew on a dead run.