Salvage

by Chris Howard

  “One thing,” he whispered to himself. “We got one thing right. Even if we don’t make it out alive. We got Adam DuFour out of this shit.”

  Angelo caught the look and gave him something angry back, then, lowering his voice, said, “What are you talking about? We’re far from helpless here. We have a ship somewhere out there in the dark below on its way back to us—or somewhere north of us if we planned right with the current. We still have a few left of a mostly loyal crew.” The first officer gave the deck a glance, indicating the chief, as well as Tam and Miles, who had called up to say they had ducked into the engine room when the shooting started. “We have everything we need to get out of this. These decks and cabins and walkways are our homes—our ship and platform and cranes.” Smiling now, Angelo pointed an admonishing finger at the captain. “And, hey, you still have one leg fully working, a few scrapes and bruises, and you’ve only been shot once. I’d still put money on you.”

  Wilraven sighed. “Thanks, First.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Gone Wild

  The Marcene swung in on thrusters, gently nudging the Irabarren sometime after midnight. Levesgue was on the bridge after an hour’s rest against the shipping container. He had come in half an hour before with his trained pet Royce.

  As soon as he could, Wilraven was down on the deck to help Miles and Tam coordinate tying up with Jerry, the crane platform’s only free-roaming occupant. With everything shut down, Wilraven had Angelo run up to keep Levesgue occupied for a few minutes.

  The first officer looked at him curiously. “What are you going to do?”

  “Turn something on. Be there in a minute”

  Wilraven found the radio room locked, which wasn’t strange in itself, and he had keys. Paulina didn’t usually lock the room when she was out—even with portable VHFs for emergency calling floating among the crew. It wasn’t about access to the gear, but trust among the Marcene’s crew. He sighed, turned the key in the lock. A hint of suspicion creeping around the edge of his thoughts, he touched the door handle, turned it slowly while he backed out of the way of the door. It cracked open, a narrow strip of darkness beyond. He wouldn’t put it past Levesgue to set some kind of trap on accessing the room.

  He swung one hand in, shoved the door open and jumped back. Nothing.

  Reaching around the frame, he found the light switch and hit it. With one final glance down the corridor, another couple of seconds to listen for anyone coming his way, Wilraven stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  The room wasn’t much larger than a closet, enough for two to sit down. Only one chair in the space. He pulled it out of the way and bent to scan the equipment, some of it standard ship-board communications stuff, the GAI-Tronics call box and address system, the Globalstar sat comm. Paulina had said her hacked-together devices were taped or tucked under the VHF, which was a slim bottom deck in a stack of radio equipment. Dropping to his knees, he found two palm-sized plastic boxes taped to the underside of the radio bench. One had a couple of buttons, which he guessed were for send and receive, on the box that Paulina said could get around Levesgue’s jamming gear—something about relaying communications through friends in the Caymans. The other was plain, one cable sticking out that he just had to plug in for operation. It would jam Levesgue’s outgoing transmissions.

  There was a row of tiny USB ports along one of the rack-mounted panels, two filled with yellow and orange cables leading off to other devices, and Paulina specifically said the box just used the port for power, five volts. The little jammer might fit right in, but the radio room would also be the obvious place to look if your own radio wasn’t working.

  He spun to the door and heard footsteps. Fingers on the deadbolt lever, easing it in place, he hit the lights, trying to get his breathing under control. A second later someone grabbed the doorknob, turned it roughly, and then pushed. The bolt held.

  The footsteps moved off.

  There was something about the slow lack of purpose in the sounds that made him think it had been Royce, not Levesgue. Unless one of the others—the chief, Miles, Jerry, or Tam—had jumped ship for the sociopathic soldier. No way Chief Salzen was on Levesgue’s side. Ed was solid, and behaved as if he owned the Marcene, as if every maintenance penny was coming out of his own pocket. With the M shot up, overrun for a week by out-of-control security fucks, there was just no way Ed Salzen had changed sides. The chief had also sized up how things were going to proceed and had thankfully not gone through with the backed-up plumbing part of the plan. The others Wilraven knew by name, had worked with on a few jobs, but they were from the Irabarren—as was Royce Cordell, and so he wasn’t as certain as he would be with any one of the Marcene crew.

  Wilraven waited a minute, then eased open the door and slipped into the corridor with the jammer in his pocket. He made his way up the inside stairs to his own cabin, locked the door behind him, and plugged Paulina’s jam box into his old Mac. He froze, holding his breath, waiting for something to happen.

  Nothing.

  He tossed some papers over the box to hide it, shoved his workspace into the wall and headed up to the bridge, where Angelo and Levesgue stood with their backs to the wall, eyeing each other warily from opposite sides of the room. Royce came in through the port door a few seconds later, saw the captain and ducked back out.

  Levesgue was the first to lever himself away from the wall, ignoring Wilraven as he followed Royce outside.

  “What’s going on, First?”

  Angelo casually pushed off the wall and moved to the middle of the navigation board, picking up the binoculars to scan the sea. “Not much. We’re alone out here.” He pointed his chin toward the closed portside door. “He wasn’t happy that you were off by yourself. Think he’s trying to call home, or the OSV Katren. Can’t reach her—or anyone else.”

  “Any hint on what he might say if he got a hold of them?”

  Angelo shook his head, unconvinced, and let out a gust of a sigh. “I think he wants to kill our people. Bring some of his own here to take care of us, and take our vessels.”

  Wilraven nodded, not surprised. “Everything shut down?”

  “Chief’s wrapping things up below.”

  Wilraven glanced around the empty bridge, headed to the starboard side door. “Let’s walk.”

  The early morning was dark and cool, and there was a steady breeze coming off the sea. A string of lights dotted the western horizon, ships under way in the Yucatan Channel. The Marcene had her deck lamps on, along with the single white at-anchor light in the masthead. One of Levesgue’s team had left the port red intact but had gone up and broken the Marcene’s top reds the first day they had tied up to the Irabarren. Without the reds up top, there was no way to signal any kind of emergency, ship-aground, or anything that might draw unwanted attention.

  They took the outside stairs slowly, Wilraven leaning over to whisper, “You have your keys still?”

  “They haven’t demanded them yet.”

  “Radio room’s locked but still working as far as I can tell. Paulina left us a way to get around Levesgue’s jamming, taped underneath the bench, right under the VHF. Plug it in, two buttons, one for call, one for receive, I think.” He was trying to remember the blurry red pencil lines Paulina had sketched out.

  Angelo looked out to sea thoughtfully. “We have to get word out soon.”

  “Or we have to take Levesgue on our own.”

  The first officer nodded. “He’s armed. Still has most of a box of missiles in his cabin. Not going to be easy.”

  Wilraven dredged up the after-fight comedown with Levesgue, kicking the bodies of his own people over the side and then dropping on his ass, leaning wearily against the shipping container. “And Levesgue’s not entirely with it, and getting worse.”

  “You’ve weathered a couple of his fist-swinging shitstorms the last couple of days.”

  “Who knows when he last slept?”

  “Well, that goes for us, too.”

>   “Right.” Wilraven let Levesgue’s increasing craziness sit between them for a moment, then headed in a new direction. “Royce has gone over. Chief’s solid. Any thoughts on trusting the rest of the crew?”

  Angelo was chewing his lip, shaking his head. “Assuming Jeanetta and Aramesh are with us since he locked them up. The rest are all down in engineering. Salzen’s taken them under his wing. My first thought is we’re cool with everyone but Royce.”

  Wilraven stopped to lean on the railing halfway down to the deck. “Waiting to ask you, what happened back there in Cuban water with the depth imaging and the Serina?”

  There was an immediate smirk on Angelo’s face. Then the expression slid off his face— Royce was coming up the stairs from the decks just ahead of Levesgue.

  “Captain,” Levesgue said quietly, but it was the quiet of a man balanced on some narrow piece of sanity over a pit of kick the fuck out of you and enjoy doing it.

  Wilraven turned, kept his teeth clamped tight, trying to hold down the rage that punched around inside him every time he saw the man.

  Levesgue waited for him to respond. When Wilraven didn’t, he continued, “I am trying to communicate with my remote team, and there seems to be something wrong with transmission, anything outgoing from the ship . . . ”

  He let the words trail off, as if hoping Wilraven would pick them up and string on a few causes. It wasn’t easy, but the captain kept his mouth shut.

  Levesgue turned to Royce, his voice shifting into a snarl of bitten-off words. “Go. Get to the switchboard—circuit breakers are on the far side. Shut off power to the radio room. Now. Chief officer gives you trouble, see me.”

  The soldier swung back to Wilraven and the first officer. “Either of you know why I can’t call out from here?”

  Wilraven came off the railing, angry. “You’re the dumb fuck who killed the best communications person I’ve ever seen. Figure it out yourself.”

  The gun’s muzzle hammered him in the chest, slammed him back against the rail. Levesgue pushed words through his snarling teeth, spraying spit. “Are you the only one who can run this ship?”

  Nothing but silence, the cool air gusting in from the south, and the pale morning sky bleeding the colors out of the world. Levesgue’s face looked like a skull, hollowed-out eyes and cheeks, lips pulled back from his gritted teeth framed in gray gums. Wilraven felt the pressure of the gun against his chest, saw the wild look in the eyes fixed on him.

  No. Don’t do this.

  Pinned to the rail, Wilraven was turning to stop Angelo from doing the wrong thing. The first officer was already in motion, slapping the gun away. Thunder cut the air, the nine-millimeter firing–A ring like a heavy hammer against steel. The round went through the gap between Wilraven’s side and raised arm, grazed the metal railing, shooting into the sea beyond.

  Angelo blocked Levesgue’s cross-body jab, stepped in and caught the soldier across the face with a right forearm swing. Levesgue’s head snapped back and he staggered away, caught his balance, bringing the gun around. He blinked away the shock of a solid hit, sucking in blood through his teeth. Angelo stayed on him, too close for the gun to be fired, blocking another left-hand punch driven more by fury than care.

  With the adrenaline dump in his system, Levesgue leaned away from Angelo’s strong right, his skills finally kicking in. He brought the gun up on its side, his fist tight around the grip, using it as a striking weapon. Too fast, and the first officer’s miss and momentum carried him forward. Levesgue shifted his feet back and hammered down across the side of Angelo’s head, slamming him facedown into the stairway’s metal grating.

  The first officer didn’t get up.

  Levesgue fell back against the inside wall, breathing hard. Wiping his mouth across the one arm, he brought the gun up, aiming at Angelo. Wilraven pushed off the rail, stepping between the gun and his first officer, one finger raised as if admonishing Levesgue over some minor oversight. “You’re already down to the minimum crew to run the Marcene. We lose anyone else and we aren’t going anywhere.”

  The soldier blew a couple of words, probably something abusive, through his blood-coated teeth. Then he turned and made his way back down the stairs, the gun still tight in his grip.

  Wilraven started breathing again.

  The captain lifted Angelo off the stairs, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and leg, leaning heavily on the rail to get them both to the bottom without tumbling. He was a couple of steps up from the deck when the gunfire started: an eruption of noise, ten or eleven rounds going off in quick succession. Then a gap of silence, time to reload. And then Levesgue unloaded the gun again.

  Wilraven turned to find Royce racing across the deck at him; the crane engineer just gave him a sneer as he jumped past them, heading up the stairs toward the sound of gunfire. He had always pegged Royce as a coward, someone who would never move toward the sound of guns going off. On the other hand, he couldn’t fathom why Royce—even if he was a total dick—would have joined with the killers against his shipmates. Some greater threat or reward.

  And then it came to him. The silver. Had to be that. Royce had abandoned his post, the dive bell crane, to be on the other side of Irabarren when the ROV Wendolyn swung aboard with the load of Spanish coins.

  The gunfire stopped.

  A few minutes later Levesgue came down the port stairs with a frightened Royce in tow, gun stowed, a weird smile on his face. His voice was smooth, sounding childishly pleased with the way things were going. “No one’s talking to anyone now.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Mary Land

  Laeina had no problem stealing a car.

  Andreden told her about the tracking bots someone had put into his coffee. The technology Reyes and the others were using against them—biologically fixed micro-devices, virtual torture environments—gave him little certainty that anything he or Laeina had touched in the past wasn’t bugged or tagged. He trusted the rental no more than he had to, just enough to find a replacement, and everywhere they went they were both looking for unmarked white vans on the streets.

  Just outside Key Largo, Laeina got into an almost identical Ford—red instead of green—and did her magic to shut down the alarms and allow it to start. Hacking into things and toymaking seemed to go well together.

  They drove through the evening in silence. Two hours had passed before Andreden felt like asking questions.

  “So, help me understand. That whole thing back there with Damaris was like taking a dip in insanity. What happened?” Andreden put the car in cruise just north of Miami, keeping it at a steady eighty miles an hour up Interstate 95. “Damaris is behind military contracts? He helps prisoners escape. He invests in companies. And he supplies what exactly?” He sounded doubtful. “Monsters for sinking ships?” He didn’t even want to bring up the weird Rootworld thing.

  Laeina was focusing on the terrain sliding by the passenger window. Andreden was about to repeat the questions when she answered, just above a whisper, “One monster. He came to the Americans to help him make more.”

  He blinked a couple of times, trying to fend off the idea of breeding more than one of the things he had seen in Monterey Bay. “And your sister Adista was aboard a ship this monster took to the bottom of the sea?”

  She turned toward him, studying his face for a few moments. “That is what it sounds like.”

  “And she’s like you? Can go underwater and not have to come to the surface to breathe? Seaborn?”

  Laeina nodded.

  “Then . . . ”

  “Why didn’t she escape?” She finished his question, and continued with it. “Swim away, swim to the bottom of the sea, anywhere? My questions as well. I don’t know.” There was a long pause, but it hung there between them like a video with the resume-play button blinking, something important just on the other side of play. “She has a friend—childhood friend—who may have been with her. Tychasis. I don’t have the shape of his form—his signature—and so I cannot know
if he was there with Adista or not. Tychasis is . . . trouble. Impulsive, is a better word. He does not mean harm, but peril and miscalculation are ever in his wake. Just waiting for him to slow down. Following him like . . . ”

  “Pilot fish with a shark?”

  The glare she gave him felt hot, ready to burn holes through him. “Yes. The shark comparison is accurate. Tychasis is powerful. He has two strong bleeds off his mother and father. But he doesn’t always know where to direct that power. Or when to keep it to himself.”

  Andreden scowled over at her. “Bleeds?”

  Laeina looked tired and just sighed away his question. “It concerns . . . power. I will explain another time.”

  She slept through Georgia and most of South Carolina, and was tense and thoughtful through North Carolina, but still didn’t say much.

  Outside Lumberton, she reached into his pack in the back seat and pulled out his notebook. With it propped on her knees, she keyed in his password without asking him for it. Of course.

  “I saw—inside Damaris—the building where they are keeping Martin. It’s near the water in Baltimore. There is sugar nearby.” Which made Andreden glance over at her, to see if she was serious.

  Laeina zoomed in on the maps, skipping over large stretches of Virginia, then into Maryland. She pressed on, sliding along the winding waterfront of Baltimore. “I’m going to look at the maps and images from the street to see if I can find it.”

  He also noticed that she said “Martin,” not her sister, Adista. If the ship-sinking operations and directives came through the place in Maryland, then they would possibly have records of the sinking of the Serina Beliz, which vanished on her way home, somewhere in the Caribbean.

  They drove through the night, stopping outside Fayetteville to nap and grab some coffee—which Andreden drank because he needed it, not caring if the stuff was full of GPS bots or whatever Reyes and his team had used.

  The sun was coming up as they dropped off the interstate to cut through downtown Baltimore, toward the harbor, Laeina pointing out exits and street turns from the map. “I believe this is it. Not certain.” She was tapping on the screen at the image of a big brick building that hung out over the water on concrete piles in the southeast part of the city.