Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 20

Paul wondered about that. "Maybe the foliage on the outside became matted at some point. After that, it might have acted like a sh.e.l.l. Although it seems to have let moisture in. The sediment looks smooth and wet, packed down like sand on the beach after the tide recedes."

As he panned the beam of the flashlight around, the light seemed to be swallowed up. They were certainly looking into a voluminous s.p.a.ce.

He stepped back. "Who wants the honor?"

Elena shook her head. Gamay did the same, gesturing to the opening. "This was your idea."

Being as large as he was, Paul did not enjoy cramped s.p.a.ces. It wasn't true claustrophobia, just a practical sense that tight s.p.a.ces were not suited for someone his size. But Gamay was right, it was his idea.

Stepping back to the opening, he made sure there were no residual shards of gla.s.s in the sill, then climbed up and over. "Once more into the breach," he said, to groans from his audience.

Squeezing through the gap, Paul made it onto the damp sediment. The soil was compacted and damp.

"Any spiders?" Gamay called out.

"Not that I can see."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

With that established, Gamay crawled in after him.

To Paul's surprise, Elena came next. "You're not leaving me out there on my own," she said.

At first, they could only crawl. The sediment in the room had piled up so high that the ceiling was only three or four feet above their heads. As they moved away from the window, the s.p.a.ce spread out and the sediment sloped downward. In one section, small ridges protruded. Paul made his way over to them and started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Gamay asked.

"Remember that candlelight dinner you wanted?" "The one I never got?"

"Well, here's your chance," Paul said. He worked the object out of the silt. It was a rotting chair. "I think we're in the ship's dining room."

Gamay chuckled. "Somehow, I was hoping for a little more ambience."

They moved deeper into the room, traveling down the slope of the invasive sediment until it was no more than a thin layer on the floor. As Paul stood, he found it to be packed down hard and no more than six inches deep.

Gamay stood up and wiped her palms on the front of her jeans. "Not gonna need a mud bath next time I go to the spa," she said. "What next, O fearless leader?"

Paul looked around. "Let's see if we can figure out what ship this is and where she came from."

They moved deeper into the hull, soon finding the kitchen and a storeroom.

"Look at these ovens," Gamay said. "They're ancient."

"How old?" Paul asked.

"I don't know," Gamay replied. "Old. Like the stove my grandmother had forever."

Paul took a look at the stoves and some of the other equipment. The designs belonged to another era. He began to feel as if he'd stepped back in time.

He pulled open a cabinet and it was stacked with serving plates. He picked one up and began sc.r.a.ping off the blackened mold. When he'd cleared enough of it, a logo became visible in the center, a stylized anchor with barbed flukes, resting sideways. It looked familiar.

He showed it to Gamay, who shrugged and shook her head.

"The storerooms are empty," Elena said, popping into the kitchen. "Not a can of beans left behind."

Paul put the serving plate back. "Let's find the bridge."

He took a step toward the door and stopped. The harsh breathing sound had returned. It was a deep sound, guttural and menacing. This time they all heard it.

Paul aimed his light for the doorway as something shot forward. A roar of some kind echoed through the dark as all three of them dove in different directions.

Paul grabbed Gamay and pulled her to safety as a shape spun toward them and what felt like a log slammed Paul in the ribs. He tumbled and sprawled in the mud. His flashlight flew from his hand, and the roaring continued.

"Run!" he shouted.

Elena clambered up onto the stoves as Gamay helped Paul up.

Something slammed against the old, cast-iron stoves, and the impact sent the serving plates Paul had discovered smashing to the ground. A burst of gunfire rang out, bathing the room in staccato flashes as Elena fired her Ruger at the attacker.

By now Paul and Gamay were scrambling out the door and into the dining room. In their haste Gamay slipped in the muck and pulled Paul down with her. They tumbled to a stop against the far wall.

Paul's light was gone, but Gamay found hers and aimed it back at the door to the kitchen. A monster emerged, charging toward them. A twelve-foot crocodile with ragged teeth and an ugly b.u.mpy snout. It lunged just as Paul pulled his gun and fired, blasting several shots straight into the creature's gaping mouth.

Gamay screamed in Paul's ear, but the gunshots drowned her out as the sh.e.l.ls went through the upper jaw of the animal, into the brain, and out the other side. The creature slammed into Paul, crashing onto his abdomen and knocking the wind out of him like a sack of concrete tossed from the back of a truck. But it didn't bite or thrash, it just collapsed on him, twitching and then lying there.

The long snout and what remained of the head lay right on Paul's chest. The stubby forearms and claws continued gripping Paul's legs until the muscles died. Of all things, Paul noticed how badly its breath stank.

Realizing it was dead and that they were alive, Paul kicked out from under the beast and pushed it away with his boot. Its powerful tail twitched once more before going permanently still.

It was only now that Paul realized he was leaning against Gamay. She was behind him, one arm wrapped around him tight, the other holding the flashlight and aiming it at the dead creature.

"Elena?" Paul shouted. "Are you okay?"

She came out of the kitchen, hobbling and holding her weapon up. "I'm okay. Twisted my knee, but I can walk."

Paul slid off of Gamay and moved to the side, leaning against the wall as she was. "Good work with the flashlight," he said. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "And strangely enough, I'm no longer afraid of spiders."

Paul laughed. Among all her other wonderful attributes, Gamay's spirit and humor were two that he could never resist. "I love you," he said. He reached over and kissed her, muddy and all.

"I suppose we're having crocodile for dinner," she said.

"No," Paul replied. "But on the bright side, he's not having us either."

"He would make a nice pair of boots," Elena said. "And a matching handbag."

They all laughed at that.

"Where did he come from?" Paul wondered. "He couldn't have been in here."

Gamay pointed the flashlight back toward the entrance. Telltale claw marks and a sliding trail from the creature's body were easy to see in the muck. "It must have been living on the ship," she said. "Looks like it followed us in."

"What's a crocodile doing on a ship to begin with?" Elena asked. "Not to mention the hundred-acre woods out there."

Paul had been considering that ever since they'd found it. "I remember Kurt and Joe telling me about a salvage job they did once. The ship had been aground for several years, beached near a protected wildlife refuge on the coast of Burma. NUMA agreed to help because it was leaking oil into the water. Kurt said the ship had become part of the land by the time they got to it. Covered in weeds and filled with plants and insects. They literally had to dig it free."

He looked around. "I'm guessing this ship had a similar fate."

"You wouldn't know it from the weather we've had lately, but there have been big storms down here over the last few months," Elena said.

"So this ship might have been beached for a while and then gotten pulled out to sea with a storm surge," Gamay proposed.

"Maybe," Paul said. "And this poor creature was probably caught on board when it was pulled out to sea."

"Why didn't he just drop back into the water and swim to sh.o.r.e?" Elena asked.

"Maybe the storm was too bad," Paul guessed.

Gamay looked at the dead animal. It was big in comparison to the three humans but didn't appear overly large for a crocodile. "I know salt.w.a.ter crocodiles can cross large sections of ocean, but this one looks different to me. Kind of skinny. Maybe he's a different species."

Paul nodded. That made as much sense as anything.

He stood up, pulling clear of the muck and helping Gamay to her feet. It was then that he noticed the large picture frame behind them. The canvas inside was black from mold and decay, and nothing could be seen of the artwork hidden beneath, but a bra.s.s plate affixed to the lower edge of the frame seemed to offer some type of inscription.

Reaching forward, Paul began to rub the plate with his thumb, sc.r.a.ping years of debris away. Even as he worked, the plate remained tarnished and dark. But before too long the recessed markings of an engraving became visible. He continued sc.r.a.ping until he could just make out the last part of a name. Three letters: T-A-H. Despite rubbing his fingers raw, he couldn't make out anything else.

"It can't be," he whispered.

"Can't be what?" Gamay asked.

He thought about the advanced age of the kitchen appliances, the dimensions of the vessel as they'd estimated them, and the logo on the serving plate he'd found.

"You may be right," he said to Gamay. "This might be a ghost ship after all."

Gamay looked at him suspiciously. "What are you talking about?"

"Let's get to the bridge," Paul said. "I don't want to jump to any conclusions."

It would take another twenty minutes for them to find the bridge. It was eerie, standing there, with mud smashed up against the ship's windows. It was as if the ship itself had been buried in some gigantic grave.

Paul looked through every drawer and cabinet. "No charts, no logbooks, nothing of value."

"Just like the storeroom," Elena said. "Someone cleaned this ship out."

Finally, Paul found something that was too heavy to carry: a bell the size of a laundry basket, lying on its side. He rolled it over until he found another engraving. This time the carved markings were deeper, and once he'd sc.r.a.ped the corrosion and tarnish away, Paul could see the letters clearly. A name was engraved on the side of the bell, a name he recognized, a name that all those who'd ever studied shipwrecks knew quite well.

"The Waratah," Paul said out loud. "I can't believe it. This ship is the Waratah."

He showed the engraving to Gamay, who seemed as surprised as him.

"Why do I know that name?" Elena asked.

"Because it's famous," Paul said. "The SS Waratah, of the Blue Anchor Line, vanished with the crew and pa.s.sengers in 1909. She was believed to have gone down in a storm somewhere between Durban and Cape Town. No wreckage was ever found. Not so much as a life jacket or a buoy with the name Waratah stenciled on it."

Elena narrowed her gaze at the two of them. "You're saying this ship we're on, covered in mud and wrapped in vines, is actually a hundred-year-old derelict that's supposed to be sitting on the bottom of the sea?"

Paul nodded. "Sitting on the bottom of the sea a long way from here."

"I told you those stoves were old," Gamay said.

Paul laughed and considered the irony. "Everyone who is anyone in undersea exploration has searched for this ship at one time or another. Treasure hunters, naval historians, adventurers. NUMA even took a stab at it with the help of this famous author whose name escapes me at the moment. We thought we'd found it, but the wreck turned out to be a different ship called the Nailsea Meadow."

"No wonder no one could find it," Elena said. "It never actually went down."

"Which begs the question," Gamay said, "where has she been hiding out all these years? And since she seems to be empty, what happened to her pa.s.sengers and crew?"

Incheon Airport, South Korea The pa.s.sengers of Air France Flight 264 from Paris to Seoul gathered their things in the orderly but eager fashion of those who'd been cooped up in a metal tube for too long, as if the eleven hours on the aircraft were more easily endured than the five minutes it took to unload and escape into the terminal.

An announcement that the Jetway had malfunctioned was met with a universal groan. But the opening of the rear doors allowed fresh air into the cabin, and soon the pa.s.sengers were streaming down the stairs at the rear of the aircraft.

This odd method of emptying the aircraft meant that the pa.s.sengers in the rear went first while those in first cla.s.s had to endure the interminable delay.

In the very first row, in seat 1A, Arturo Solano did little to hide his displeasure. The only solace was a few more minutes staring at the shapely American woman who sat next to him. They'd spoken all too briefly during the flight, but as the other first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers filed out she turned his way.

He knew the look. A few words about art and parties and most women went weak in the knees. She was going to ask him if she might attend the party or perhaps even meet privately for dinner.

With a mischievous eye, she watched the last of the firstcla.s.s pa.s.sengers disappear through the curtain and then smiled.

"I know what you want," he said in his best English.

"Do you?" she replied.

"Of course," he said. "I'd be delighted to put you on the guest list."

"I'm flattered," she said, glancing forward as the front cabin door opened. "But since you won't be going, there's no need for me to attend."

Solano felt a moment of confusion. It grew deeper as three Korean men in dark suits appeared, entering through the supposedly broken Jetway. He stood up, indignant and suspicious, but the woman jabbed him with something. He felt a shock go through his body and then became rapidly drowsy. He fell into her waiting arms and began to doze even as she laid him down on the cabin floor.

Shortly before he pa.s.sed out, another man entered. This man wore a white linen suit, identical to Solano's own. His hair was coiffed in the same nouveau pompadour style and his face sported a goatee. In fact, as this new arrival stared down at him, Solano felt as if he might be looking in a mirror.

"Who . . . are . . . you?" Solano managed to whisper. "I'm you," the man replied.

Baffled and too drowsy to form another thought, Solano closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Two of the Korean men dropped down beside him and pulled him upright. As they folded his unconscious body into a cart disguised as a catering trolley, the woman in the business suit took Joe by the arm.