Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 29

"Expecting company?"

"Not right away," Sebastian said, "but soon enough. When they do come, we must be certain that they bleed. They must find it as difficult as possible to overcome our defenses or they won't truly believe they've won."

She understood. It was all part of the game.

Durban, South Africa Gamay arrived in Durban and found herself something of a local attraction. The discovery of the Waratah was being kept secret until the ship was brought safely into South African waters. But the rumor had begun to spread. And hearing that a member of the NUMA team had been flown in with samples of something that she needed examined, she was met with an excited response.

Several experts flew in on their own dime and convened with her at the University of Durban-Westville campus. They quickly set up shop, examining the samples of the insects, dead rodents, and various seeds and plants discovered on the Waratah.

While they worked, Gamay took the opportunity to visit the library and found a microfilm machine, where she could peruse the old newspapers printed at the time of the Waratah's disappearance.

"Are you sure you don't want to use a computer?" one of the librarians asked. "All of this is online."

"Thank you but no," Gamay said. "I've had quite enough of computers for a while."

Left alone, she read article after article. It was an education into a different time. She'd grown so used to today's world, where plane crashes and mishaps of any kind were covered live and the information distributed and verified almost instantly, that it was odd reading about the disappearance. Initially, the ship was just thought to be overdue, a common occurrence. Even days and weeks later, there were articles suggesting that the Waratah might yet arrive or that the search vessels would encounter her and tow her in. Estimates of how long her food supplies would hold out were offered as reason not to panic.

But then hope faded and the reality set in. Speculation and rumor began to run rampant. The storm of July 27th was considered the likely culprit. The statements of a man named Claude Sawyer became a focal point. He was the sole pa.s.senger bound for Cape Town who decided to disembark the ship in Durban. He sent a telegram to his wife that read, in part, "Thought Waratah top-heavy. Landed Durban."

Mr. Sawyer also claimed to have had a dream shortly before the ship reached Durban in which a knight crying the ship's name came charging through the waves with a sword raised high. After getting off in Durban, he claimed to have had another dream in which the Waratah was swamped by a ma.s.sive wave, capsized, and vanished from sight.

A different theory was espoused by Captain Firth of the steamer Marere. He believed the Waratah too big and strong to be taken by a rogue wave and thought it more likely that she'd lost a propeller or rudder and was adrift in the current, being slowly hauled past the Cape of Good Hope and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Firth was certain the Waratah would be found, much like a similar vessel, the SS Waikato, which broke a propeller shaft on the way to Auckland and drifted for six full weeks before eventually being discovered. Some speculated she would drift all the way to South America.

As Gamay read the newspapers over, she found her attention turning to other stories of the day: news of the storm, political arguments, and ads for products, including one that touted smoking as a cure for the common cold.

Most striking, she read a long dispatch about the Durban police battling a group of criminals known as the Klaar River Gang. After an explosion and a conflagration that burned up a fortune in paper currency, it was finally determined that the notes were actually near-perfect forgeries. While most of the Klaar River Gang had indeed perished, Robert Swan, chief inspector of the Durban police, feared the leaders had escaped and would resurface.

"May you live in interesting times," Gamay whispered to herself.

"Excuse me," a voice said from behind her. "Are you Gamay Trout?"

She turned to see a man wearing a navy blue suit and an open-necked, b.u.t.ton-down white shirt. He offered his hand. "My name is Jacob Fredricks. I've heard a rumor that you might have discovered the SS Waratah. Is that true?"

Gamay hesitated.

"I worked with NUMA on an expedition looking for the ship years ago," the man explained. "Unfortunately, we came up empty."

She recalled the name. And though she wasn't sure if this man was who he said he was, she doubted there was much danger to her or the ship anymore. As the truth was obviously leaking out from several sources, she decided to tell him what she knew.

They spent the next two hours discussing the ship's vanishing and the time Fredricks thought he'd found it, only to learn he'd discovered a World War Two cargo ship torpedoed by the Germans.

"I'm almost relieved to know the ship has been beached somewhere all this time," he told her. "Makes not finding her on the bottom a little easier to take."

Gamay smiled and told him about the incidents that had occurred since the discovery. Fredricks seemed surprised by what he heard but mentioned that odd theories and occurrences had always surrounded the ship.

"A psychic once held that they'd made land and started a new civilization," he explained.

"Closer to the truth than we might have guessed," Gamay said, though it was pretty clear that the pa.s.sengers never made land.

"One of the strangest stories took place in 1987," he said.

"When you thought you'd found the wreck?" she asked.

"No, that was years later," he said. "Back in '87 an old, double- end lifeboat was found adrift off the coast of Maputo Bay, Mozambique. By some fisherman, if I recall. There were three people in it. A woman and two boys. The woman had a slight bullet wound, but it was not fatal. Unfortunately, dehydration was . . . for all three of them. They were identified as part of a family that had been abducted years before. Authorities thought they'd escaped from somewhere up the coast. Somalia was the prime suspect. It was a pretty lawless place even back then."

"Sounds terrible," she said. "But what does that have to do with the Waratah?"

"The old lifeboat they were in was rotted half to the core. It had been hastily patched and sealed with household items and wouldn't have lasted much longer, had it not been found. Several experts insisted it was a design used and built from 1904 to 1939. Years later, someone did a computer a.n.a.lysis of the photos taken then and claimed to discover the remnants of lettering still visible on the highest plank, basically because the layers of paint had limited the erosion. I truly can't remember how they did it, but in the photo the writing could have been interpreted to spell Waratah."

Gamay sat back, stunned. "You're joking."

He shook his head. "At the time, everyone a.s.sumed it was a hoax. Like that alien autopsy video. But now, after what you've found, there is a possibility it might be true.

"And then there was the Klaar River Gang," he said, moving on to a new subject.

"I was just reading about them," she said.

"Some think they bribed their way aboard the ship," he told her.

"Really?"

"Yes. And then drowned when it went down."

"Except that it didn't go down," Gamay noted. "Could this gang have hijacked the ship?"

"From what I've read, they were ruthless," he told her. "If the ship was taken over, they would have been just the kind of people to do it."

Gamay found her mind swirling. She wanted to investigate everything this man had told her. But before she could do anything, her phone buzzed. A text message requested that she return to the laboratory, where the samples were being a.n.a.lyzed.

"I have to go," she said. "I would love to talk more when I have some time."

"Anything for NUMA," he said, handing her a business card and shaking her hand.

Gamay left the library and returned quickly to the lab. The biologist who'd led the team summarized the results.

"Have you been able to give us some idea of where the ship might have been?" she asked.

"You're in luck, Ms. Trout," the biologist told her. "You've found several species that exist in only one place on Earth."

He showed her the skeleton of a small animal that one of Paul's deckhands had dug up during the excavation. She thought it looked unique when she was putting the remains in the plastic case.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A fossa," he said, showing her a picture of the animal.

"It looks like a cross between a cat and a kangaroo," she said, looking at the picture.

"It's actually a type of mongoose," he replied. Next he showed her a large moth-it had been just emerging from a coc.o.o.n when Elena had spotted it. Neither of them could believe how large it was.

"This is a moon moth," the biologist said, before moving over to the spiders they'd found on the first night. "Golden orb-weaver spider," he explained. "While there are many species like this around the world, what we found in its web is unique." He pointed to an insect, one that had been wrapped up in spider silk. "Giraffe weevil," he explained, handing her a magnifying gla.s.s.

She focused her vision. The little bug looked fairly normal except for a long, skinny neck and head that stuck out from its body like an extension attachment on a vacuum cleaner.

She couldn't believe they'd gotten so lucky. She figured the bad news was coming next. "Let me guess. Somalia?"

"No," he said. "Much closer. The west coast of Madagascar."

"Madagascar?" she repeated.

He nodded. "You see, the island of Madagascar broke off from Africa a hundred sixty million years ago," he explained. "India was still attached to it at the time. But, eighty million years ago, India itself was torn loose by plate tectonics.

"As the three landma.s.ses were pulled farther and farther apart, animals and plants left on Madagascar evolved differently from those in the rest of the world. As with Australia, there are hundreds of species that call only Madagascar home. You've discovered three of them on your floating wreck. Which tells us it was parked there for quite a while before it floated back out to sea."

"And the crocodile?" she asked.

"Plenty of them in Madagascar," he said.

Gamay nodded. The evidence was clear. The Waratah had spent her time aground on the western sh.o.r.es of Madagascar. The only questions now were where, and why someone was interested in sinking her.

Kurt Austin felt himself falling, dropping weightless, into the darkness, his nerves tingling at the sensation. He plunged into the water and the cold sting opened his eyes. Suddenly he could see. Murky blue surrounded him, but there was light up above and the strange sight of waves toppling from beneath as they rolled over him.

He kicked for the surface and came out into a storm. Winddriven rain lashed the sea, and swells the size of railroad cars buoyed him up and then dropped him down once again. The yacht, the Ethernet, was ahead of him. Sienna and her family were on it.

He kicked toward it and pulled himself aboard as a wave brought him up on the deck that was nearly awash in the storm. Struggling toward the bridge, shouting for Sienna, he found himself pushing through the main hatch only to be clubbed in the back of the head and slammed to the floor.

The impact at the back of his skull nearly knocked him unconscious; he was woozy and dazed. The next thing he knew, someone was slamming him against the bulkhead and trying to choke him.

"Where the h.e.l.l did he come from?" a voice shouted from the other side of the bridge.

"There's a rescue copter outside," the man holding him called back.

Kurt knocked the man's hand from his throat, but the man flung him down and put him in a headlock.

Not one to lose many fights, Kurt was aware of weakness in his limbs that must have come from the initial blow to the back of his head. Having been concussed several times in his life, Kurt recognized the symptoms. The ringing in the ears, tunnel vision, dizziness. The blow should have put him out, might have even killed him. But, then again, Kurt has always been a hard head.

He looked up, trying to a.s.sess the situation. The man at the far end had a woman by the arm.

"Sienna?" Kurt said weakly.

She looked over at him. "Kurt?" she said.

She tried to pull free and reach for him, but the man yanked her back and handed her off to a subordinate. "Get her to the escape pod. Her husband and the children are already there."

Sienna struggled against them but could not break free. As she was dragged into the ship, Kurt could hear her shouting his name. He tried to stand, but his a.s.sailant was too heavy for Kurt to overcome in his current state.

"What about the rest of us?"

"We'll be joining her as soon as we get rid of this one." The man dropped down beside Kurt, flipped open a knife, and went for the cable that attached Kurt to the harness.

Kurt heard the helicopter through the storm and saw the spotlight probing around. It spurred the dim realization that he wouldn't survive if these men cut the cable connecting him to it.

He snapped free, kicked the man with the knife, and lunged for the door only to be tackled again.

"Kill him."

The man c.o.c.ked the hammer on the pistol, but Kurt spun and kicked the man's knee. The weapon discharged, hitting the clear ceramic wall. The wall didn't shatter, but cracks spread across it like veins. Before Kurt could make a second move a boot caught him in the chin, and the man holding him pressed him down into the water, trying to drown him.

Despite every effort, Kurt could not push hard enough to rise up.

"Wait!"

The order came from a female voice. The man pulled Kurt from the water and held him there.

"We can use him," the woman said.

As he was allowed to breathe, Kurt stared at the woman. He recognized her. The short dark hair, wet and matted to her head. The high cheekbones. He knew her somehow. Her name was . . . Calista.

"He'll tell the world about us," the man said, objecting.

"Someone has to," she said cryptically. "You idiots have killed the captain and the crew. We planned on using them for that purpose."

"We didn't expect them to fight."

She dropped down beside Kurt and opened a small case. Kurt could feel the yacht rolling in the swells. It was in danger of going over. Almost unconscious, Kurt fought to stay awake. His strength was gone. His mind clouding over.

The woman produced a syringe and jabbed it in his neck. Kurt's mind drifted further.

She moved close to his face and held it in both hands. "You came aboard the yacht," she said, her voice a distant echo. "You saw Sienna beyond this wall."

She turned his head toward it. The cracks caught his eye. "She was floating facedown. Her hair was wet, waving like sea gra.s.s."

Kurt stared at the gla.s.s wall. The glare of a flashlight reflected off it, blinding him. When it was gone, he could see through the gla.s.s. The room was half filled with water. The cushions and papers floated in muck.

Sienna was there, he saw her. He lunged toward her only to bang into the gla.s.s.

"She drowned," the voice told him. "Along with her daughter. Such a pretty child. Such a shame."

Kurt could see it happening. The little girl in her dress, a towheaded blonde. Her small fingers were still curled around her mother's hand. He remembered hearing that her name was Elise.

"Her eyes are open," the woman said.

Kurt winced at the image. He tried again to get to them but was thrown back to the deck.

"The yacht is sinking," the voice told him. "Filling with water. Break the gla.s.s! It's your only hope."

Kurt slammed his fist into the gla.s.s wall but it was no use. He couldn't break through.