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  Kruvalt cocked his chin at Wheelwright and they headed toward the gangplank as his SWAT team members gathered around. He selected four of them and said, “Masks on, gloves on. Don’t touch anything but the hatch handles. James, take the boys below and sweep the crew quarters and the engine room. Me and my advisor here’ll do the bridge and the deck aft of the superstructure. I don’t reckon there’s any ordnance aboard, but watch for trip wires anyhow. Right?”

  With Kruvalt in the lead, the six men walked up the plank, hopped down onto the swaying steel deck, and split up. The vessel looked very clean, almost new, with its cargo containers neatly ordered and the white and orange lifeboats still hanging from the davits. There was none of the detritus you’d find on a deck from high winds or crashing waves, such as broken stays, loose cables, or twisted rails, so there’d been no storm. He and Wheelwright climbed up a set of steel stairs and entered the bridge and the pilothouse. The empty captain’s chair was perched before a semicircular plotting table, with some maps and charts, an open pack of Camels, and a glass ashtray full of butts. The navigator’s and comm guy’s stations looked just as neat and unremarkable.

  “It’s like they just bloody disappeared,” Kruvalt said.

  “Beam me up, Scotty,” Wheelwright remarked.

  The two men walked through the bridge and climbed down another ladder to the stern deck. With the forward decks of the ship crowded with cargo, this was the spot where the crew would relax, take in some sun, play cards, smoke, tell lies about women, and complain. There were a couple of saltwater fishing rods jammed into rail holders and a few beach chairs, but nothing else. The only curious thing was a fire hose, snaking across the deck and still locked to a valve on the superstructure, and the deck was wet, but that could have been from rain.

  Then Wheelwright spotted something and strode across the deck to a large engine exhaust pipe. It was two feet wide, curved like a tuba and jutted up from the engine room below. He peered at a trio of punctures in its metal skin and ran his fingers over them. Kruvalt joined him there.

  “Bullet holes, mate?” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  Kruvalt touched the holes too. “Could be they had weapons aboard, for pirates or sharks. Maybe somebody got drunk and had an A.D.” He meant accidental discharge.

  “With a Chinese AK-47 and restricted PLA ammo?” Wheelwright said. “Possible, I guess.” He pulled a pen from Kruvalt’s tunic pocket, pushed the tip into all three holes, one after the other, then put it back and looked past Kruvalt to the ship’s stern. “That railing’s at thirty meters. Even if fired from there, these punctures would be perfectly round. But they’re not, Rod, they’re oblong.”

  “So?”

  “They passed through something first. Something that made them tumble.”

  Then James popped up from a belowdecks hatch. He was sweating in his SWAT gear and couldn’t bear wearing his mask anymore, so he pulled it down.

  “Whatcha got, Jimmy?” Kruvalt asked him.

  “Nothing in the engine room, boss. And the crew bunks look like they just up and left, without even taking a bloody toothbrush. Books, girlie mags, Nintendos, and all their clothes in the racks. No cell phones. Not one.”

  Kruvalt turned to Wheelwright.

  “What’s your guess, George?”

  Wheelwright thought about that for a moment.

  “Hijack,” he said. “Either they’re all being held for ransom somewhere, and Ocean Africa’s going to have to pay a boatload of money, or it’s something else and they’re all dead.”

  “Not all of them, boss,” James said. He was holding up his radio handset. “You just got a call from the coast guard. An Interceptor picked up a survivor.”

  “No shite, James? Where?”

  “’Bout two hundred nautical miles due east, in open water. And they said you’d better haul ass, ’cause he’s barely alive.”

  Chapter 22

  The Indian Ocean

  The police of the Republic of Mozambique in Maputo didn’t have their own helicopter, and neither did the SWAT team, which had pretty much blown its vehicle budget on the Patriot3 assault truck. But Captain Rod Kruvalt did have friends, many of whom he’d made in Rhodesia or South Africa, the kinds of men with a narrow range of particular skills, little hope of retirement pensions, and unquenchable thirsts for adrenaline.

  A few of those men were currently working for Dyck Advisory Group, a private military company based in South Africa that had a stable of French Gazelle assault helicopters, M134 Miniguns, lots of ammunition and semidemented pilots and crews. They were very busy providing air-to-ground support for Mozambique marines engaged in a fight for their lives against Islamic State warriors way up north in Cabo Delgado. But such men also needed a break once in a while from the killing fields, and one crew was staying, along with their camouflage-painted, no-tail-number Gazelle, at the Radisson Blu Hotel, which happened to have a landing pad on the roof.

  The PRM did have a police launch, but a two-hundred-mile boat trip out to the coast guard’s Interceptor would have taken all day, and Kruvalt was anxious to speak to the Wondhoek’s lone survivor while the man still breathed. So he’d called over to the Radisson and had the pool boys track down pilot Jacob Farley, who was already half in the bag on a lounge chair while he listened to Crystal Axis singing “Killing in the Name” through earbuds—the reason he hadn’t answered his cell phone.

  “Me and my mate need a lift, Jake,” Kruvalt said.

  “Fuck off, Rodney. It’s my down day.”

  “I know this very willing young lady, works at Coconuts Live, has all the attributes you favor, and loves flyboys.”

  “Fucker. Who’s paying the fuel charge, and where to?”

  “I am, from the kitty. And it’s about two hundred nauts, due east. You just drop us off on a coast guard scow and go back to the pool, with Rita’s telephone number.”

  “You know that’s at the far end of my range, right, Rodney?”

  “I know you owe me your ass, Jacob.”

  “Fucker. Meet me on the roof.”

  “Are you sober, mate?”

  Farley laughed. “I haven’t flown sober in years.”

  It was a beautiful day for a low-level flight from Maputo toward Madagascar. The waters below started out teal and gecko green, then darkened to a deeper royal blue, with the occasional white spouts from whales and the silver glints of flying fish wings. Farley flew the Gazelle from the left seat. He was barefoot, still wearing his swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt of psychedelic palms. Kruvalt sat in the right seat, with Wheelwright in the cramped rear, sitting on the bench amid a vibrating mess of spent shell casings, porn magazines, sweat-stinking “sterile” uniform parts, and a pair of Merrell mountain boots that appeared to be caked in dried blood.

  The Aérospatiale Gazelle model SA 342K has a cruising speed of 264 kilometers per hour, so they spotted the coast guard French-made HSI 32 Interceptor after about an hour and twenty minutes. It was a sleek-looking fast attack craft thirty-two meters in length, with all sorts of radar and antenna arrays atop a high wheelhouse with 360-degree windows. The boat’s crew, at least those who weren’t on the bridge, were milling about in their blue and gray camouflage uniforms on the forward deck, which was the only spot where Farley could deposit his guests, since the small stern ramp was occupied by a bright orange Zodiac. Farley already had the coast guard’s frequency up on his headset, and he called the bridge.

  “Afternoon, mate. PRM taxi here dropping off some trash. Be a sport and pull down those whips for a minute so I don’t slice the ends off, over.”

  Two coast guard crewmen appeared atop the bridge and manhandled a pair of high whip antennas into seaward curves, and Farley carefully brought the Gazelle into a hover just inside the pointy bow. He threw a snappy salute and a “get out” thumb at Kruvalt, who stuffed a scrap of paper with Rita’s scribbled number on it into Farley’s shirt, then opened the clamshell door on his side and slipped down to the skid in the
rotor wash. Wheelwright shoved his tiny cargo door open on the opposite side, barely squeezed through, and they both dangled from their respective skids for a moment, nodded at one another, and dropped to the deck. Farley banked away and was gone in a flash.

  With the Gazelle departed it got instantly quiet, except for the circling gulls. The Interceptor was sea anchored and rolling in gentle waves that licked at its navy-gray hull. Kruvalt and Wheelwright got to their feet and looked at the boat’s forward superstructure, which leaned away toward the stern in a slant. A slim black man was sitting on a foam mattress on the deck, leaning back against the bulkhead, flanked on both sides by seven members of the crew, one of whom was holding a white umbrella to shield him from the sun, while another, probably a navy corpsman, was painting his sunburned face and lips with an oily salve. To the right on the deck was a bright orange life ring with windhoek stenciled on it.

  Kruvalt and Wheelwright walked over, and a young ensign rose from a squat. Rod shook his hand.

  “Kruvalt, captain, PRM SWAT.”

  “Ensign Borges,” the young officer said, then nodded at Wheelwright as well.

  “What’s his status?” Kruvalt asked.

  “Not good. Nigerian kid, messman on his ship. We think he was in the water for two days.”

  “Sole survivor?”

  “Thus far, sir.”

  Kruvalt nodded and moved in as the naval crewmen made space. He squatted next to the Nigerian sailor, and Wheelwright mirrored him on the other side. The young man’s face was terribly swollen, his eyes were gleaming slits, and the skin of his arms was peeling away like burned crepe paper. He wore only a dirty yellow singlet and shorts. His legs were covered by a lightweight space blanket that gleamed in the sun.

  “Hullo, son,” Kruvalt said.

  The sailor seemed to stir from delirium, looked at him and whispered, “More water,” in Nigerian-accented English. One of the sailors handed Kruvalt a plastic bottle and he tipped a gentle stream into the man’s mouth.

  “What happened out there?”

  “It was nighttime. . . . We were running from Ambovombe to Maputo.” The man’s weak voice was gurgling and he leaned his head back and closed his swollen eyes. “A big helicopter came . . . white . . . United Nations. Landed on the stern. Spacemen got out.”

  “Spacemen?” Wheelwright said.

  “Five, or six . . . they had guns, and something like . . . a milk can.”

  Wheelwright looked at Kruvalt, who shrugged and said, “Then what, mate?”

  “They called for the captain . . . he came down from the bridge with some others. They talked for a little . . . I did not hear what.”

  “Where were you?” Wheelwright asked.

  “In the galley . . . I saw it from the porthole. They shot him . . .” The sailor coughed, a liquid sound from his heaving lungs.

  Kruvalt touched his sunburned shoulder, but just barely and only to let him know he was still there, and said, “Take your time, mate.”

  “It was terrible, terrible . . . They made the rest of the crew come to the stern . . . everyone but me. They sprayed them with something from the milk can . . . it made them scream and choke and the blood came from their noses and eyes . . . They shot the ones who tried to escape.”

  Wheelwright and Kruvalt locked eyes, then Kruvalt asked the sailor, “Why not you?”

  “I jumped. I took the life ring.”

  “From where?”

  “Topside . . . all the way up.”

  Wheelwright lifted the edge of the space blanket and looked at the sailor’s legs. They were broken. He laid it back down.

  “Then what?” Kruvalt said.

  “I don’t know. She was still running, but slow. . . . I heard more screams but no more gunshots. . . . And then the bodies splashing, all of them.”

  “Which bodies?” Wheelwright said.

  “The whole crew.”

  The sailor’s eyes were still closed, but tears spilled from the swollen corners and ran down his crimson burned cheeks. Kruvalt touched his trembling hand where it lay on his lap.

  “Where are they?” he said, but he was looking up at the ensign, who raised his palms and shook his head.

  “All gone,” the sailor said.

  “Where?”

  “Sharks.”

  A couple of the navy crewmen were covering their mouths with their fingers as they listened.

  “Why didn’t the sharks get you?” Wheelwright asked.

  “I don’t know. We were more than eighty. . . . Maybe their bellies were full.”

  Then the young sailor shuddered and stopped talking. Kruvalt touched his curly hair and then the corpsman nudged him aside so he could check the man’s neck pulse. Kruvalt and Wheelwright got up and Kruvalt took the ensign’s elbow and the three walked over toward the bow.

  “What do you make of it, Borges?”

  “Not a clue, but he told us the same story, twice. And now, to you.”

  “And there was nothing else in the water?” Wheelwright asked.

  “Just one more thing.” Borges called over to one of his sailors, who bent and opened a plastic cooler that looked like a blue-and-white picnic beer chest. He came over to the trio and held up a large plastic ziplock bag.

  Inside was a gnawed-off hand.

  Chapter 23

  Neville Island, Pennsylvania

  “Eric, that is one fugly car.”

  Steele turned and looked at his mother. Susan Steele never used language like that, even when the profanity was camouflaged by contractions. She stood there next to him on his gravel driveway, arms folded, chewing one stem of a pair of purple Vogue sunglasses as she regarded the vehicle.

  “Not really, Mom. It’s just a Toyota.”

  She turned her head, dipped her chin, and peered at him from under her brunette bangs. She was tall, still trim, and had just arrived from her new real estate job where she’d managed an open house all day long and had nailed the sale. She was wearing ankle boots, blue jeans, a pink roll-neck sweater, and a light leather jacket. She felt about dresses the way her son felt about ties.

  “Eric. It’s a hybrid.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. It’s a Camry.”

  “That color is something like a prostitute’s nail polish.”

  “Mom.” Steele smiled at that, but he also blushed. “It gets great mileage.”

  Susan cocked her head, as if she hadn’t heard what she’d heard.

  “Did you say . . . mileage?”

  “Well, yeah.” He glanced over his mother’s head at her lease, a white Jeep Wrangler Sahara. Thank God the days of his childhood were long gone when his mom had worked two jobs, back-to-back, just to keep them alive, and sometimes a third on weekends. But he had a different discomfiting thought.

  Jesus. My mother’s cooler than I am.

  “I’ve been in those things,” Susan said as she pulled a face at the glossy red Toyota. “The engines don’t make any noise. You can’t even tell when they’re on.”

  “Well, I’m sort of past the Fast and Furious stage. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Susan moved to him, reached up and touched his forehead.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.” He snorted unconvincingly and pulled her hand away.

  “Where’s your car, Eric. Your real car.”

  “It’s right in there.” He pointed at his double-door garage.

  “There’s a corpse in the trunk, isn’t there . . .”

  “No!” He laughed, squeezed her shoulder and kissed her forehead.

  “There’s something wrong with you,” she said. “Nobody with a GTO drives something like this. It’s just not . . .”

  “Let’s go eat, Mom.”

  He took her elbow and they walked to the front door, which looked like a classic chestnut piece from the Craftsman era, but was actually a Krieger level-four blast door. Steele had built the first version of his house with his own hands, a conversion project from an old warehouse owned b
y Dravo Corp, the former manufacturer of World War II invasion landing craft. That iteration of his island fortress, in the middle of the Ohio River just northwest of Pittsburgh, had been burned down to charcoal briquettes in a “dispute” with a team of Russian terrorists. During the ensuing running gun battle, Steele’s first GTO had also bitten the dust, and his mom, who was visiting at the time, had almost died as well. As often as possible, he tried not to think about that.

  But now Version 2.0 of Schloss Steele was complete, and better and more secure than the first. The reinforced concrete walls had been shipped in from the same manufacturer of the T-walls used in Afghanistan, but here they were stuccoed white for a friendlier appearance. The windows were double-paned ballistic glass, with fashionable jet-gray steel frames, and the exterior had a perimeter of invisible cameras and sensors, a complex array designed by Ralphy Persko himself. Once again, Steele had constructed a safe room inside with a closed-circuit air supply, but now that bunker had a steel hatch in the floor, through which you could drop to a hundred-meter illuminated escape tunnel that broke out into the woods. He’d also rebuilt the armory, adding six M72 Light Anti-Armor Weapons to the inventory, because the last time he’d found himself up against determined shooters using M249 Squad Automatic Weapons.

  Most of the remaining interior appeared “normal,” with a sprawling open-floor-plan living area, a white brick fireplace (the chimney cap could be remotely slammed shut), four nice bedrooms with baths upstairs (each had a skylight and a concealed drop-down ladder, so they could be used as sniper perches), and furnishings by Raymour & Flanigan (nicer than IKEA; not as pricey as Stickley Audi & Co.). Steele had hired a Pittsburgh designer to create the kitchen, which featured stainless steel appliances and a central preparation and dining slab of white-and-gray speckled granite. He didn’t spend much time cooking, so that was mostly for his mother—or maybe for some future spouse, who wasn’t likely to appear in any near year.

  Inside the house, Steele touched a button on something that looked like a thermostat on the wall. The cover flipped up, he palmed a reader, and the low thunk of pneumatic door and window locks sliding into their barrels reverberated throughout the house. The box beeped and an app on his cell came alive, displaying the shifting images from six different cameras. He glanced at it, put it back in his jeans hip pocket, and snapped the alarm cover down. His mom had already gone into the kitchen and dropped her big purse on the granite.