The Shipkiller

by Justin Scott

  For Amber Edwards:

  I love all the things you are.

  I love all the things you have been.

  I love all the things you will be.

  PREFACE

  by CLIVE CUSSLER

  Lost at sea has been a well-used phrase that has caused grief and despair.

  Down through the centuries, those who sailed the seas were threatened by indescribable monsters lurking beneath the waves, ferocious storms, the terrible hardships of starvation and scurvy, and death by pirates and mutiny. The number of ships that lie on the seabed since time beginning is in the millions. Epic voyages and tragedies are recorded in the annals of Neptune’s underwater realm, many vanished without a trace and were quickly forgotten.

  But I have always had a love for the sea, especially a fascination with shipwrecks and their tales of death and disaster. And, if there was ever a classic David and Goliath seastory, Justin Scott’s The Shipkiller will be remembered along with Moby-Dick, Maiden Voyage, HMS Ulysses, and the mysterious loss of the Mary Celeste.

  Written in the late seventies, The Shipkiller describes the primitive radio communications of the times in vivid detail. No cell phones, no GPS, no satellite network, nothing that might have saved Peter Hardin and his wife from her death in the horrible collision between their tiny sailboat and a behemoth with a length of six football fields placed end to end.

  Today, thanks to enlightened ship owners and the highly competitive nature of oil companies, there have been major improvements in communications at sea. Still, as LEVIATHAN’s captain concedes, “survival, and survival alone, was the only victory the sea allowed,” and survival goes to the fit, the skilled, the alert, and the the lucky. To that end, Scott never overlooks any detail describing seamanship, weather conditions, and the technology of the huge ships that travel the world’s oceans.

  I immensely enjoyed the twisted, unique plot, the daring exploits of a heartsick yachtsman, and the fascinating characters caught up in a timeless and unforgettable novel of maritime intrigue and adventure.

  Clive Cussler

  THE

  SHIPKILLER

  BOOK ONE

  1978

  1

  Gray squalls and yellow sunlight checkered the ocean horizons. Siren, a forty-foot ketch, rose and fell in following seas, lifting her stern to the swells, plummeting into deep valleys, a speck of wood and fiberglass three miles above the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

  Lingering atop a wave, she gave Peter and Carolyn Hardin a glimpse of a ship in the distance, a dark smudge crossing their wake in a patch of sun many miles behind. Siren slid into a trough. Walls of water rose on either side, slate gray. Vivid smears of robin’s-egg blue spread beneath the surface like flat animals swimming.

  Carolyn touched her husband’s face with her lips. Hardin drew her close. When he looked back from another crest, the ship had vanished behind a hazy rain squall and Siren was alone once more, a single sail on an empty sea.

  He glanced at the compass. North-northeast. Nine days out of Fayal, the Azores, two more days to Falmouth, England, if the weather didn’t get worse. He looked at the sails. It was an action as automatic and regular as that of a good driver checking his rearview mirror in heavy traffic. The genoa jib had begun to luff. Hardin cranked its sheet. The winch ratchet clicked several notches and the fluttering stopped.

  The two-masted boat was on a broad reach, sailing almost directly before the wind, her mainsail, mizzen, and jib run far out, bellied taut and full. The wind, like the slow, warm current, flowed from the southwest, fresh and steady.

  Siren was twenty years old, overbuilt by skeptical designers when fiberglass was a new, untested material, and her broad and gracious hull needed such a breeze to make her lively. Hardin had crewed her when she was new and he was a young man. Three years ago he had bought her for his fortieth birthday.

  He sat windward of the helm, his eyes sweeping the water, alert for a dangerous wave, his browned hand resting comfortably on the chrome wheel’s elkskin wrapping. His broad face was weathered and faint squint lines arrowed toward the riant depths of his gray-blue eyes. A sturdily built man of medium height, he had a craftsman’s quick, pliant fingers and a squarish body hardened by years of compensating for the ceaseless motion of small boats.

  They had battled rain squalls all day on this, the third leg of their slow and easy crossing from New York. Then, quite suddenly, the squalls had withdrawn to the horizons, the clouds overhead had fanned apart like a spreading lens aperture, and the sun shone brightly. It made the sea sparkle and dried the decks.

  They opened the forward hatches to let the warm air take the damp from the cabin and they shed their vinyl parkas and pants, and rubber sea boots—the foul-weather gear that they had donned against the cold, driven wet of the squalls. The wind slackened some more and they took off their wool sweaters.

  Finally, with a hopeful look at the sun, Carolyn began unbuttoning her shirt. Hardin watched, thinking how beautiful she looked with her short black hair puffed by the breeze, her cheeks radiant, and her full, dark eyes sparkling. He cheered enthusiastically when her shirt fell to the deck.

  They had been married ten years and their partnership had survived marked differences in ages, tastes, interests, and the ricochets of the fragmenting unions of their friends, to whom, over the years, they had come to represent a promise that pleasure did not have to be fleeting to exist.

  Carolyn blew him a kiss, stepped out of her faded jeans and tossed him her panties. It was the beginning of May and her skin was still winter white. She lay on her stomach on the bridge deck, which traversed the front of the cockpit, and braced her toes against the coaming. When the boat pitched, her leg muscles rippled with grace and power.

  Hardin eyed the horizons speculatively. Overhead the sky was clear, but astern, holes of blue sky changed shape as dark cumulus clouds moved beneath gray stratus like interlocking iron plates. More squalls might be forming, but they were distant, ten or twelve miles off, and moving slowly.

  He took off his own shirt and knelt beside Carolyn. The sun baked into his back. He kissed her ankle, her calf, the backs of her knees. She combed his thick brown hair with her tiny fingers. When she found a place that made him shudder, she asked, “Self-steering?”

  Hardin looked again at the gentling sea.

  “Self-steering,” he agreed. “Don’t go ‘way.”

  Carolyn welcomed him back with a slow and intimate kiss.

  They were deeply enfolded when Siren heeled before a sudden sharp and chilly gust, and cloud shadow enveloped the boat. Carolyn snuggled closer, goosebumps speckling her skin.

  “What’s happening, Captain?”

  Hardin lifted his head and looked at the sea. Cloud banks and rain squalls had spilled into the sunshine. He could see clearly for many miles ahead, but the horizon was creeping closer on either side. Above, the sun boiled white behind the clouds like the mouth of a blast furnace.

  “We better . . .”

  “Now?” Carolyn asked wistfully. “Shouldn’t we finish one thing before we start another?”

  “‘Fraid it doesn’t work that way.”

  She levered up on her elbow and looked over the side. Astern, a squall was mustering a long line of rapidly gaining low black clouds.

  Carolyn greeted them with an exasperated gesture.

  “You couldn’t wait?”

  Laughing and trading one-liners, they scrambled to shorten sail. Carolyn took the helm while Hardin went forward with the storm jib and sheets. He hanked the small sail onto the forestay below the genoa, attached the halyard shackle, and led the sheets through a set of fairleads and back to the cockpit.

  Carolyn steered slightly upwind to spill air from the genoa so he could lower it. The
headsail began to flap and a second cold gust made it crackle like pine branches in a fire. She coordinated the movement of the boat with his progress and the sail fell on deck.

  He unhanked it and quickly stuffed it down the forward hatch; there was no time to bag it. Then he hoisted the storm jib hand over hand, took a wrap around the halyard winch, and cranked the sail up taut.

  Carolyn let Siren fall off the wind and the storm jib filled. Then she eased the mainsheet and the mainsail spilled its wind. Hardin lowered the big unwieldy sail and Carolyn came forward to help gather and furl it to the boom with elastic cord.

  She sagged against him, laughing.

  “My legs can’t take this. My knees are like peanut butter.”

  The squall closed swiftly, preceded by angry gusts that flicked the tops off the crests, flattening them. Spindrift skidded over the water, trailing long lines like torpedo tracks. Quickly, they returned to the cockpit, reefed the mizzen sail, and put Siren back on her broad reach.

  Hardin went below to secure the forward hatch. The cabin was neatly kept, warm with earth colors, and stocked for their long cruise. Checking that everything that should be was tied down, he hurried back to the cockpit and shrugged into his foul-weather parka. When he reached for the helm, so Carolyn could don hers, their hands worked briefly in tandem.

  “Got it.”

  Carolyn put on her sweater and parka. Her legs were still bare, but the squall had arrived. She tossed the rest of their clothes down the companionway, shut the main hatch, and sat beside Hardin, bracing her feet on the opposite cockpit seat. He gave her the jib sheet and kissed her mouth.

  A fierce gust hit the sails and frothy seas rammed the hull on the stern quarter, pushing Siren beam to the wind. She heeled sharply. Hardin played the wheel, working to bring her stern to the mounting seas.

  The squall brought darkness as if it had yanked a black canvas across the sun. The temperature dove twenty degrees; icy rain lashed the decks; jagged lightning fragmented the dark and painted the wild sea stark white. Waves scattered, collided, combined, and leaped high.

  Carolyn played out the jib to spill the wind, and because Hardin was busy with the wheel took charge of the mizzen sail as well. Siren stood taller, filled, and tore before the squall like a frightened mare.

  It was over in minutes. The sky lightened, the wind dropped, the temperature rose, and the seas calmed. Rain fell straight and hard, then stopped abruptly.

  “Whew,” said Carolyn. “Next time we reef the mizzen. She was running too fast.”

  “She can take it,” said Hardin. He grinned and stroked Carolyn’s bare knees. “Besides, the excitement was good for us. Things were getting a little dull around here.”

  “You’ve got a short memory. How’d you like to spend the night in the dinghy?” She leveled an imperious finger at the little white boat on the cabin behind the mainmast.

  “Alone?”

  “Alone. And here comes another one, so make up your mind.”

  A second dark line was overtaking them, a mile back. Hardin’s senses were drawn to it. He stared at the approaching squall, trying to see through its fluffy gray leading edge into its dark core. He saw no unusual menace, no freak wave, no sign of extraordinary wind.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Carolyn, sensing his uneasiness.

  “I don’t know,” Hardin replied slowly. “I just have a funny feeling.”

  He took binoculars from their locker and scanned the cloud line. “Looks more like rain than wind, doesn’t it?”

  He gave her the glasses. Carolyn agreed. It didn’t have the hard darkness of a real squall, nor were advance gusts announcing its coming.

  Hardin looked around. The first squall had veered east. There was sun ahead and it looked as if the weather would clear by night as the climbing barometer suggested. He glanced astern again, still debating whether to take in the mizzen sail. There was an adage: The time to reduce sail is when you first think about it.

  “Let’s reef the mizzen.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  They reefed the mizzen sail.

  Siren slackened her pace, stripped to her storm jib and abbreviated mizzen, and the rain line gained at a faster rate.

  Hardin scanned it again, hunting what bothered him. He saw nothing. When he lowered the glasses, he found Carolyn regarding him with a frank and open gaze. She traced his lips with her finger.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  “Hold me, please.”

  Hardin slipped behind her, took the wheel, and let Carolyn lean back in his arms. With one hand on the helm and the other around her shoulder, he sighted the sea over the top of her silky black hair. She unzipped his parka and rested her head on his chest. Siren moved peacefully, her bow still pointing the distant sunlight, her stern to the clouds.

  Carolyn shivered.

  “Peter, I’m frightened.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked out at the sea, then behind them. Her body went rigid in his arms.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Hardin turned and stared.

  A black steel wall filled the horizon.

  “Jibe!”

  He whirled the wheel hard left as fast as he could, held it with his leg, and yanked in the jib sheet hand over hand. The racing winch ratchet buzzed angrily. Siren lurched downwind. Carolyn leaped to the mizzen boom, released the reef, and hoisted the sail to the top of the mast.

  Sails flapping, Siren nosed around until the wind was dead astern and the black wall was bearing down on their port side. It was less than an eighth of a mile away—six hundred feet—and closing fast.

  “Run it out!” yelled Hardin, spinning the wheel back to center and letting the mizzen sheet race hotly through his hand. When the sail was out at right angles to the boat, he threw a quick turn around the winch barrel and cleated the sheet. The jib blew back and forth with sharp snapping sounds, searching the wind.

  Hardin hit the auxiliary’s starter switch, praying it would start. It was an old engine and he hadn’t run it since the Azores. The jib sheet tangled around a halyard cleat on the main mast. The pinioned sail flapped uselessly. Carolyn secured the starboard sheet and darted forward to free it. Siren plunged into a deep trough. Carolyn’s feet slipped out from under her and she fell hard, skidding toward the edge. Hardin cried out. He was helpless, too far away to save her.

  Her legs slid under the safety lines into the water. She grabbed a stanchion with one hand, clawing desperately with the other. The water pulled her farther off the deck. Siren lumbered to the port side and Carolyn used the lift to pull herself back on deck. She scrambled to her feet, leaped to the mast, and untangled the jib. Hardin steered left and the sail snapped full, the jibe completed.

  Carolyn ran along the port deck and dove down the companionway. Hardin saw her face was white as the sails. Only she knew exactly how close she had come to falling overboard in front of the monster ship bearing down on them.

  They were sailing across its path. Hardin stabbed again at the auxiliary engine’s starter switch, his eyes on the enormous black hull. He had never seen a ship so huge. Already they should have been beyond it, but it was so wide that it seemed to be coming sideways. Less than four hundred feet of water separated them.

  The diesel starter ground. Carolyn raced up from the cabin with their life jackets. She held Hardin’s for him, while he steered with his leg and frantically pushed the starter, and secured it before she put her own on. All the while her eyes were glued to the black hull.

  The diesel coughed alive. Hardin eased the gear lever forward and Siren put on two more knots. The ship was so close that he could see weld lines in the metal. It was taller than the tops of Siren’s masts, wider than a block of five-story brownstones.

  And moving very fast. A giant bow wave crested over twenty feet. He saw no one watching over the side, no bridge, no lines, no lights, no name. Nothing but a blank wall, its flat l
ines broken only by an anchor that was bigger than Siren.

  Hardin thought they would make it past the edge of the bow wave. Now he could see along the side of the ship, a sheer cliff that vanished in the distant mists. In its lee the sea seemed calmer, protected from the wind like the still waters of a lagoon. The wind was directly astern, the sails over the port side. Siren was still sailing at right angles to the ship. Hardin wanted to broaden the angle and head farther away, but he would have to jibe again to do that and he hadn’t the time. He gunned the engine. Siren shuddered forward, but he had to cut the power the next moment as the cold diesel threatened to stall.

  The mizzen sail fluttered. Then the jib.

  Siren slowed, wallowing clumsily.

  Carolyn’s eyes snapped to the sails. “The wind?”

  Hardin knew the full horror of what had happened. The monster had stolen it, casting a wind shadow like a tremendous bluff. The sails drooped and hung limply.

  He jammed the diesel wide open. It was too cold for sudden acceleration and it coughed and died. For a long moment the slack flutter of the sails was the only sound. The ship was a hundred feet away. Whatever powered it made no noise. Only the loudening hiss of the cresting bow wave announced its coming.

  Hardin and Carolyn found each other’s hands and backed toward the bow. They huddled there, clutching the forestay, watching in disbelief as the silent wall blacked out the sky.

  The wave heeled the sailboat onto its side, where it lay like an animal baring its throat to plead defeat. Hands locked, Hardin and Carolyn tried to leap away as the black ship trampled Siren into the sea.

  2

  Siren died with a loud crack of splintering fiberglass.

  Hardin leaped. The water was violently cold. He broke surface and pulled Carolyn to him. Something smashed his side. Pain coursed through his knee. Carolyn’s hand was wrenched from his. He heard her scream once before the water buried him again.

  The life jacket yanked him back to the surface. A tremendous blow struck him high in the back of his head. Everything seemed dark, though he knew his eyes were open. He was somersaulted over and over. His arms and legs seemed useless, but the life jacket kept him afloat as the metal hull brushed past.