Zack Chasteen 04 A Deadly Silver Sea, page 13
part #4 of Zack Chasteen Series
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I am the provisions master,” he said. “A man, one of the waiters, came in here with a gun, took away my assistant. I . . . I hid from him.”
I helped him to his feet. He looked at me, said, “What is happening?”
“They killed the officers, took everyone hostage.” No time for details. I pointed at the hatchway. “You know how to open that thing?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“But what?”
“It is supposed to remain closed while the ship is moving.”
“Open it,” I said.
He hesitated, then moved to the open-air office and a control panel on a wall beside the desk. He punched a button. Pulleys and chains began to clank, wheels moved on tracking—the hatchway yawned slowly open.
And as it did, it became immediately obvious why it was supposed to stay shut while the ship was moving. Seawater rushed in, a torrent that swept over the concrete floor, covering my feet, up past my ankles, spreading to all corners of the large room.
The provisions master sensed my alarm.
“It is OK,” he said. “It will reach a certain level, a few inches, and then it will stay there.”
I sloshed through the water to the boat bay, its broad gate fastened with a padlock. I waved the provisions master over.
“Open it,” I said.
He shook his head.
“That is for the dockmaster,” he said. “I don’t have a key.”
“You know where to find one?”
“No, I would have to search for it. Maybe somewhere in the dockmaster’s desk. But it is locked, too.”
I looked at the padlock on the wire cage. It was a case-hardened Kryptonite U-lock. I used one just like it on my boathouse back home in LaDonna. No way I was going to bust it open.
I stepped to the hatchway, looked out. Sea foam churned in the ship’s wake, the sky black with a blanket of clouds. I could make out a few lights on the horizon—other ships. We had to do something to draw their attention.
“Got anything that will start a fire?”
The provisions master looked startled.
“Why do you wish to do that?”
“So someone will see us.”
I began rummaging through the stacks of stuff, trying to find anything that might create a big flame.
“But we cannot start a fire onboard ship,” the provisions master said. “It is too dangerous. It will . . .”
“Yeah, but maybe we could find something that will burn, put it on one of these pallets, send it out the back . . .”
I found some barrels of lube oil. We could maybe pry one open, smear oil on boxes, put them on a pallet, maybe set them on fire, lower them off the back. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And who knew if we could even get the damn stuff lit. Or if shlossing around on the water wouldn’t immediately douse it.
The clock was ticking. I had to go for the sure thing. I had to get up to the lifeboats, set off a distress signal. Then, if possible, I would get back to the marina and figure out a way to open the cage, free the boats.
Still, it seemed like a missed opportunity. This big gaping hole to the rest of the world. And us, not doing anything with it.
“You got any Magic Markers?”
“Magic what?”
“You know, felt tip pens, something to write with, make a sign.”
The provisions master went to his desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a black Marks-A-Lot.
“That’ll do,” I said.
I stepped to the pallet nearest the hatchway. It was piled high with white boxes. Computer boxes. Like the one Sam Jebailey had shown us during his speech. The boxes were strapped together with plastic web tape, too tough to just rip apart.
“Knife?”
The provisions master produced a box cutter from a pocket. I used it to cut the tape. I grabbed one of the computer boxes, walked to the hatch, and slung it overboard. The box disappeared below the churning water, then bobbed to the surface. Lots of protective plastic foam inside, helped it float.
“Give me the marker,” I said.
I grabbed another one of the computer boxes.
“OK,” I said. “Here’s what you’re going to do.”
I uncapped the marker and scrawled on the side of the box:
SOS
Royal Star
SOS
Then I tossed the box overboard and watched as it bobbed up. I handed the marker to the provisions master.
“All these boxes. Write that on them. Then toss them off. You got that?”
He nodded.
I looked at the double doors, the ones I’d just come in through. I didn’t really want to go back the way I just came.
“Is there another way out of here?”
The provisions master pointed to a far corner of the room.
“An elevator. There,” he said. “It goes up to the galley.”
I looked at the double doors.
“Can you secure those? Make sure no one gets in here?”
“They do not lock from the inside,” he said.
“Can you put something in front of them, anything?”
“The forklift,” he said. “I could move a pallet, park the forklift behind the door.”
“Good. Do it,” I said. “And then start throwing off boxes.”
I grabbed my crossbar, headed for the elevator. On the way, I found two more cameras and decommissioned them.
I stepped inside the elevator, pressed the up button. As the doors creaked shut, I saw two things:
The provisions master driving the forklift, picking up one of the loaded pallets, moving it to block the big double doors.
And, along a rear wall, pretty as you please, some ugly aluminum suitcases. Halliburtons. I counted nine of them.
35
It was just a service elevator and it only traveled between Deck Three and Deck Four, from the provisions area to the galley.
The door opened and I stepped out. I stood at the rear of the galley, by a conveyor belt used to carry dirty pots and pans to the dishwasher. Ahead of me—long metal prep tables filled with food for a dinner that would never take place, banks of gas stoves upon which stock pots steamed and bubbled, some overflowing into the flames. Smoke curled out of ovens—the smell of burnt bread and charred meat.
I moved through the galley, hungry despite the circumstances, wolfing down stuff as I went—a hunk of blue cheese, some nuts, some grapes, a slice of salami from an antipasto tray.
A meat cleaver lay atop a cutting board. I grabbed it. Then I continued through the galley, through swinging doors that opened to the main dining room. It was all done up for the bon voyage banquet—fine linens, huge bouquets on the tables, wine buckets ready and waiting.
The dining-room doors were open. Beyond them a hallway led to a stairwell.
Was it the same stairwell I’d been heading up when Pango and the guy in the blue jumpsuit spotted us?
I thought so, but couldn’t be sure. The ship was a confounding warren of hallways and cabins, staircases and corridors. I couldn’t get its layout straight in my head.
I moved out of the dining room into the hallway. From the stairwell ahead—gunshots.
I flattened against a wall. The shots stopped. It sounded as if they had come from below. I pictured the men on Deck Two, hunkered down with their crossbars. Parks with a single rifle, trying to ward off the waiters and all their weapons.
I had to get to the lifeboats. But I couldn’t risk taking the stairwell.
I edged along the wall, to the end of the hallway. I looked around the corner, saw a set of doors that opened to the outside, a promenade deck.
I was getting ready to make a run for the doors when, from the dining room, I heard a clatter of dishes. Something breaking, falling to the floor.
I pulled back, found a door—the men’s room—stepped inside.
I cracked open the door, peeked out, saw two women leaving the dining room, heading into the hall. I recognized one of them, the old gal with the notable boob job, the one who’d hogged all the stone crabs before they made it to me. The other one was much younger, barely out of her teens, pretty, with long blond hair.
The blond girl clutched the older woman’s arm as they crept down the hall. As they neared, I leaped out of the men’s room and pushed them back inside it.
Shrieks and gasps, they started to scream. After all, I was holding a meat cleaver.
“It’s OK,” I told them. “Quiet.”
“You scared the bejesus out of us,” the older one said.
I said, “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”
The blond one pointed up. The older one said, “From the lounge. That’s where they’ve been keeping us. We got out.”
“My wife. Barbara Pickering. She’s . . .”
The older one smiled.
“You’re Zack.”
I nodded.
The woman said, “She told me all about you.”
“She’s OK?”
“She’s fine, really, just fine. The contractions have started. A bit more urgent than she wants to believe, I think. But, yes, she’s alright.”
“How did you get here?”
The woman pointed back to the dining room.
“Stairs in the kitchen,” she said. “They lead up to the lounge, behind the stage.”
I told them what had happened on Deck Two. Then I told them to go back to the lounge, round up the other women, and lead them down to the marina, using the elevator in the kitchen.
“There’s a guy down there, the provisions master. He’s blocking off the main doors to the marina.”
The older woman said, “What about you?”
I told them about the lifeboats, how each of them had a distress signal.
“Soon as I set it off, I’ll head back down to the marina,” I said. “Think you can handle that?”
They both nodded.
I cracked open the men’s room door, checked the hallway. Coast clear.
I waved them out, back toward the dining room.
“Tell Barbara I’m coming for her,” I said. “No matter what, I’ll be there.”
36
I gave it a moment, making sure the two of them had made it safely into the dining room.
No more gunshots from the stairwell. I stepped out of the men’s room, rounded the corner of the hallway, and ran for the doors leading to the promenade deck. They parted automatically.
And then I was outside. A choice to make: Which way?
I looked right—a long stretch of deck lined with lounge chairs. To my left—a set of steps leading up.
I bounded up the steps, energized by the fresh night air, the rush of wind above the sea.
Deck Five. Another long stretch toward the bow, more lounge chairs. Toward the stern—more steps leading up. I took them.
And then I was on Deck Six looking at the lifeboats strapped in their cradles. Three of them, a matching set on the other side of the ship.
I headed for the closest one, envisioning what I would be looking for—an orange bag stuffed under the bow. The lifeboat rested in a cradle, which put its gunwale a couple of feet above my head. I’d have to pull myself up. But unlike the other lifeboats, the blue tarp covering this one had been removed. One less thing between me and the distress signal.
I put down the cleaver and the crossbar. I gripped the gunwale, caught a foothold on the cradle, gave it all I had.
Up and over the gunwale. And onto something—not the fiberglass floor I’d expected, but something odd, something vaguely human.
The face stared up at me, dead eyes, a bloody brow. One of the ship’s officers who’d been gunned down on the main deck.
I rolled off and onto another body. Beside it, another. And another. A dozen of them easy.
I couldn’t help it. I screamed. I defy anyone to suddenly find themselves in a boat full of dead bodies and not scream. You could have heard me all the way to Havana.
I tumbled over the gunwale, thudded onto the deck. And as I regained my feet, if not my wits, doors a few yards forward slid open. Out rushed one of the waiters.
He spotted me, leveled his rifle. A burst of shots spackled the deck between us, splinters of teak exploding.
I grabbed the cleaver, hurled it at him. The waiter fell to the deck, dodging it.
And then I was running, running for the stern, running for I didn’t know where, just running along the port rail, the sea roaring far below.
More shots from behind me. And then, ahead, a second waiter appearing from another set of doors. He wheeled around, took aim.
My reaction was instant and unthinking.
I grabbed hold of the rail. And I vaulted over it—free-falling into the night.
MAN OVERBOARD
37
I did not fall with grace or good form. No knifelike, splashless dive. I tumbled ass over elbows. The judges did not award style points.
I must have blacked out, either from the certainty that I was about to die, or from the sheer force of crashing into the water.
I don’t remember the instant of impact. But I do remember looking up and seeing a monstrous cloud, like a roiling thunderhead just before the storm. How cool, I thought, how beautiful.
And then: I can’t breathe.
And then: I can’t breathe because I’m underwater.
No one ever accused me of being quick to connect the dots.
And then the water was tugging at me, trying to pull me somewhere I instinctively knew I did not want to go. I fought against the pull, flailing against a monstrous undertow, losing to it, then struggling from its grip until I was swept away by an opposing current and rode it upward.
I don’t know how long I was underwater. Maybe ten seconds, maybe a minute. All I know is that when I finally surfaced, the Royal Star had moved past me and I was staring at its transom.
I didn’t have time to panic. Riding the ship’s wake was like body surfing a Class IV whitewater river. I went up, down, all around. Peaks and valleys, one wicked roller coaster.
I’d lose sight of the ship for a moment, then I would crest atop a wave and see a sliver of light at the base of the ship’s transom—the marina—and the dark form of the provisions master moving busily about, tossing off boxes, just like I’d told him.
I yelled. But the rush of the waves, the churn of the sea, the massive backwash of the ship, drowned out my voice even unto my own ears.
For one brief, insane moment I thought I might actually catch the ship. I paddled and kicked with a fury. I got nowhere. The ship kept surging onward, sending out a wall of water that knocked me back.
I rode wave after wave, yelling and waving, trying to get the provisions master’s attention.
Then a commotion in the marina—the provisions master twisting, falling to the floor. Another man, one of the waiters, straddling him, holding a rifle. The waiter stepped away. The marina hatchway closed tight, the sliver of light went dark.
And the Royal Star kept on its course, moving ever farther away.
38
FRIDAY, 4:45 A.M.
“You saw Zack?” Barbara said. “He’s OK?”
“Yes, dear. I’ll tell you all about it. But later. Now we must hurry.”
Marie Lutey and Penelope had been delayed returning to the lounge. Coming back through the dining room, they just missed being spotted by one of the waiters as he made a sweep through the galley. They hid under a table, heard the gunfire from outside on the deck, stayed hidden until things quieted down.
Even after they got back to the lounge it had taken time to convince the other women that they should chance making their way down to the ship’s marina. Several of them were dead set against it.
“Listen,” Marie told them, “there are men out there risking their lives so we can escape. You mean to tell me that counts for nothing?”
They had argued back and forth, but finally Marie had prevailed.
And now all the women were gathering their things, Marie telling Barbara about Zack’s plan to set off the distress signal in the lifeboat, then join them in the marina.
“Quite a guy,” Marie said. “The kind of guy who won’t let anything stand between him and what he wants.”
“That’s Zack alright,” Barbara said. “Hardheaded as they come.”
“Don’t let that one get away, honey. Definitely a keeper.”
They made their way to the rear of the stage, through the curtains, to the door.
And then they heard the waiter shouting: “Stop! You stop now!”
Tony, the one who had been guarding them when the commotion broke out. Running toward the stage, rifle at the ready.
And behind Tony—two other waiters entering the lounge, guarding the men they had rounded up from down below, almost all the male passengers, it looked like. Some of them calling out to their wives, breaking past the two waiters, heading for the stage. Women rushing to join them.
Barbara spotted Sam Jebailey, others she recognized. But no sign of Zack.
A few women ran for the steps, trying to get off the stage. Tony pointed his rifle, stopped them.
“You stay here,” he said. “No go down there.”
The other two waiters were trying to corral all the men, keep them away from the stage. But they weren’t having much luck. Men swarmed forward, reached out for their wives. Tearful reunions and embraces.
Barbara saw Kane Kinsey working his way to the edge of the stage. Penelope squeezed past Barbara. She knelt, hugged him.
“We tried,” Kinsey said. “But they had us pinned down, we couldn’t get out of there. And we couldn’t get back into the cabins. The doors locked behind us. There was nowhere to go.”
“But you’re OK,” Penelope said. “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m OK.” Kinsey looked around, made sure the waiters were out of earshot. He spoke low. “They didn’t get all of us. The old guy, Mr. Linblom, he designed the ship. He’s still down there in the cabin. They didn’t find him. And this one other guy, he got away. He’s still out there somewhere.”
“You mean Zack?” Barbara said. “Zack Chasteen?”
