Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 23

"There's a helipad on the roof," Joe said.

"And a garage underneath the building," Kurt added.

"If she was going to take the elevator, she wouldn't have come this way," Joe said.

"That means she's on the stairs."

Without delay, Kurt moved down the hall to the fire escape and eased the door open. Like most fire escapes, the stairs were metal, descending in a rectangular zigzag. Even before he was fully inside, Kurt could hear rapidly moving footfalls echoing in the s.p.a.ce.

He moved to the edge of the rail as Joe slipped inside and shut the door. Gazing down, he spotted a woman's hand on the rail moving rapidly toward the bas.e.m.e.nt. But it was not alone- another hand trailed hers.

Kurt stepped back and held up two fingers. Joe nodded. Kurt pointed to their feet. "Shoes," he whispered.

Joe pulled his shoes off as Kurt was doing the same. "At this rate, I'm gonna be naked by the time we catch up to her."

"That ought to scare her," Kurt replied. "Not to mention everyone else involved."

Leaving their shoes behind, they began to descend in their socks, treading lightly but quickly, and staying away from the inside rail, where a quick look upward from either of the targets might give them away.

They were pa.s.sing the sixth floor and headed for the fifth when the woman and her friend reached the bottom floor. The door at the base of the stairwell opened, and they could hear the unmistakable sound of a gun with a silencer on the barrel. Three dartlike shots were followed by a dull thud, and then another.

"They've taken someone out," Joe whispered.

Kurt stooped and peered over the edge. What looked like a pair of guards was being dragged into the stairwell. Calista and the man took several items from the bodies, covered them hastily with a tarp, and then went out through the door into the garage once again.

"What are they up to?" Joe wondered aloud.

Kurt had no idea. When the door banged shut, he started to move again, racing down the stairs as fast as he could. He made it to the bottom of the stairwell and pressed against the door, looking through the wire safety gla.s.s window. He saw the woman clearly now. Her hair was short and black again, and she was dressed in a uniform like one of Than Rang's guards.

"She's climbing into the cab of an eighteen-wheeler," Kurt said.

"What about her friend?"

Kurt glanced around. He couldn't see the man, but the sound of a door slamming and a slight vibration in the mirror of a second truck suggested he'd gotten in the second rig. For now, they just sat there waiting.

"What's the story on those guys?" Kurt asked, glancing back to Joe.

As Kurt watched the trucks, Joe moved back into the recesses of the stairwell where the dead men were covered by the tarp. "Ammunition belts and empty holsters," Joe said. "Radio clips on their belts are empty. I'd guess these men are security specialists, not drivers."

"Makes sense," Kurt said. "Somebody has to ride shotgun on an operation like this. By the looks of it, our two friends have split up, taking the place of these two. They're each in a different truck."

"Guarding the cargo and waiting for the drivers to arrive," Joe suggested.

"That's my guess."

"So now what?"

"Stowaway time," Kurt said. "We get on board, they load up the other hackers and hopefully take us right to Sienna."

"What if Sienna is being held in Kim Jong-un's palace?" Joe said.

"Then we get a tour of North Korea," Kurt said.

"Not sure I like that idea," Joe said. "They don't have a lot of Mexican food up there, you know. Or much food in general, for that matter."

Kurt didn't exactly like the idea of ending up in the Hermit Kingdom himself. But he didn't think they were going there. "From what Colonel Lee said, the border is closed. Even if it were open, there's no way these guys are driving across the DMZ in a pair of big rigs with the DaeShan logo splashed all over them."

"That makes sense," Joe said. "I'd still rather call in the cavalry."

"We stop these guys on this side of the border, we'll never find Sienna," Kurt said. "I didn't come this far to show my hand before the final deal. But if you want to stay here, I understand."

Joe shook his head, and with a grunt pulled off the goatee, completing his transformation from Solano back to Zavala. "And go back to the party upstairs? I don't think so. But if we're not going into the so-called Democratic Republic of North Korea, then where are we going?"

"Colonel Lee said the cyberattacks weren't directly traceable to North Korea, even though they're fairly certain North Korea was behind them. He said this Unit 121 had people working all over the world: in China, j.a.pan, hidden here in Seoul. If that's the case, then we might not even leave the city."

Joe broke into a grin. "I like the way you think," he said. "I'm sure you'll turn out to be wrong as usual, but there's something to be said for remaining positive until all hope is actually lost."

Kurt glanced back at the dead men, blood already oozing out from under the bodies. "That tarp won't hide them for long," he said, "which means our friends can't play impostor for any extended length of time. Whatever they're going to do, it's going to happen quick."

"Okay, let's go," Joe said. "But if we end up on the docks at Incheon or getting loaded onto a 747, I'm definitely calling in the cavalry."

"Deal," Kurt said.

As Joe covered the bodies once more, Kurt eased the door open and moved out of the stairwell. They stole into the garage as quietly as alley cats, making sure to stay out of the mirrors' lines of sight. When they reached the back of the first trailer, Kurt unlatched the door and waved Joe inside. As soon as Joe was up, Kurt climbed in and closed the door gently.

By the time Kurt turned around, Joe had his phone out, using the light from the screen as Kurt had done in the crawl s.p.a.ce. He was examining the cargo.

"Computers," Joe said. "High-tech servers, by the look of things. I've seen racks of equipment like this in Hiram's data center."

"We're in the right place," Kurt said. "This cargo must be destined for the North Korean Cyber-Force."

They settled in, sitting down and leaning against the wall of the truck, hidden by a large stack of equipment in case anyone opened the door for a quick look.

A short time later, the sounds of activity picked up outside the vehicle. Loud voices speaking Korean were interspersed with directions in broken English. Shortly thereafter, the big rig shuddered as the engine came to life and the truck began to move. They seemed to inch their way through the garage slowly before climbing a ramp and then accelerating.

After several turns that felt like they were negotiating city blocks, the truck began to pick up speed. Kurt pulled out his phone, found he had a strong signal, and switched it to map mode. It took a moment to locate his whereabouts and calculate his direction and speed, but soon there was a little blue dot on the moving map.

"Where are we headed?" Joe asked.

"You don't want to know," he replied. To Kurt's chagrin, they were on the main highway, moving due north, heading directly toward the DMZ.

Sebastian Brevard sat on the veranda of his sprawling baroque palace, overlooking the Olympic-sized swimming pool where he swam most mornings, as a servant delivered his breakfast of crepes and fresh fruit.

After deeming the meal acceptable, Sebastian waved the servant away, only to have Laurent appear seconds later.

"I a.s.sume you have news," Sebastian said.

"Calista reports the infiltration plan is under way," Laurent said. "Egan is with her."

As planned, Sebastian thought. "Make sure the extraction team is ready to pull her out as soon as she signals us."

"Already done."

"What about the others?"

"Preparing to eliminate Acosta."

"Excellent," Sebastian said, grinning. "I only regret that I won't be there to see his fat face when they dump him into the sea."

"Yes, it would have been nice to take him ourselves," Laurent said.

"Make sure there is no evidence," he said. "It will serve us well if the rest of the world thinks he's still alive."

"I've already given that order," Laurent said.

Sebastian took a sip of fresh papaya juice and gazed out over the s.h.i.+mmering pool to the sprawling hedge maze that covered ten acres on a lower level of the property. His grandfather had built the house and the surrounding walls. Sebastian's father had brought in the flowering plants and built the maze. A reminder, he often had said, that those who don't know the path are liable to get lost.

Brevard knew the path he must take.

Much as his great-grandfather had done, Sebastian intended to complete the job of a lifetime and disappear. In some ways, he hated to leave the family home, but it was the only path that led to a future.

To keep the treasure he planned to take, the world would have to be fooled into thinking nothing had been stolen in the first place. To survive, if they ever figured it out, required a second trick: misdirection. He would convince the world that they'd killed him and ended the threat. And, for good measure, he'd point the finger at someone else if they needed a scapegoat to hang.

In that role, he would cast his unstable little sister and her ex-lover Acosta. They would play it perfectly.

He considered her fate for a moment, wondered if he should feel some sense of guilt, and then dismissed the idea as if it were absurd. Much like the family home, she would soon outlive her usefulness.

Dismissing Laurent, Sebastian opened a laptop beside him and tapped a few keys. Calista had set it up to monitor activity of the NUMA crew to their south, the ones investigating the wreck of the Ethernet. According to the latest report, they were in the same vicinity, now getting a.s.sistance from a South African tug and setting up a salvage effort on a derelict they'd discovered.

Curious, he tapped a few keys and was able to retrieve from the NUMA database several photos of the s.h.i.+p. To his surprise, it was covered in foliage and tawny-colored soil. He scrolled down until he found a designation. The discovery all but sent him into shock. The salvage claim listed the derelict's name as the SS Waratah.

He put down the slice of orange he was chewing on and wiped his mouth with a napkin, scanning the NUMA file for more information on the s.h.i.+p. Her dimensions matched. The photos taken in several parts of the s.h.i.+p depicted old equipment and fittings. A picture of serving trays with the Blue Anchor logo in the middle were unmistakable. And an off-colored image of the s.h.i.+p's bell with the name and the s.h.i.+p's launch date engraved on it left no doubt.

"d.a.m.n," he said, tossing the napkin down.

Brevard felt his throat constricting. It was as if unseen hands were reaching out from beyond the grave to choke him and to pay him back for his family's treachery a hundred years before.

As he scanned the remaining details on the file, he recalled his father telling him the story, a story pa.s.sed down from one patriarch to the next through four generations. It was a lesson about pain and danger. A tale of escaping death and pa.s.sing it on to others so the Brevard family might be preserved.

He knew of his family's escape from South Africa with the wolves of the Durban police on their heels. He remembered hearing over and over again how it was only ruthlessness that had saved the family, how shortly after the hijacking the crew tried valiantly to take the s.h.i.+p back. How they'd been thwarted because his great-grandfather had expected it and had taken hostages whom he was willing to kill.

In the aftermath of the uprising, the pa.s.sengers and most of the crew were put off the s.h.i.+p in the lifeboats, leaving only two double-enders for launches and twenty crewmen behind to run the s.h.i.+p itself-a far more manageable number.

As fate would have it, a storm had come up the next day, a storm so powerful the Waratah was almost capsized, just as the newspapers thought she had been. It seemed impossible that any of the lifeboats survived that gale, and, as it turned out, not one ever made it to sh.o.r.e.

The Waratah, on the other hand, was driven north, where, aided by the storm surge, she traveled up the narrow river farther than anyone could have expected. She ran aground in a meander that couldn't be seen from the coast in an unpopulated section of the country. It was there that the last members of the crew were killed.

Over the years, the s.h.i.+p seemed to burrow itself into the silt, sinking lower and lower, and soon being enveloped and completely covered.

Sebastian's father had shown him the hill beneath which the s.h.i.+p sat, and, years later, he'd seen part of the s.h.i.+p itself after a woman the Brevard family was holding had inadvertently discovered the s.h.i.+p and tried to escape, along with two of her children, using one of the s.h.i.+p's remaining dilapidated boats.

To everyone's surprise, the wooden launch actually stayed afloat long enough to reach the African coast, but the woman and her children had died from exposure long before they reached safety.

Sebastian had always considered it poetic. They were, in some ways, the last victims of a doomed s.h.i.+p. But the superst.i.tious part of him now wondered if this ancient s.h.i.+p could somehow be in the process of evening the score.

"How is this possible?" Sebastian whispered to no one.

He could only conclude that the torrential rains of the month prior had somehow unearthed the s.h.i.+p and pushed her out into the channel, and from there the current had taken her south, right into the path of the NUMA team. But how had she remained afloat? How had she not broken apart and sunk to the watery grave long rumored to be her home after a hundred years of rotting away?

Whatever the reason, it seemed karma, the random nature of the universe, had dealt him a terrible card at the very moment he was getting ready to play his hand. He didn't know what evidence of his great-grandfather's actions might remain on the Waratah, but it was possible that clues left on that s.h.i.+p would reveal the family's treachery or even lead the world to his door before he was ready to entertain them.

He called for Laurent and waited. He had to speak carefully. No one else knew the secret of the lost s.h.i.+p. Not even the other family members.

"What do you need, brother?" Laurent asked upon returning to the veranda.

"Gather up your pilots and get the helicopters ready," he said. "It's time to attack our friends at NUMA once again before they become too complacent."

"You want us to attack them from the air?" Laurent asked. "I thought you and Calista had already sabotaged them with the computers."

"We did," Brevard said. "But instead of being towed into port, they've remained on station and even found themselves a derelict to salvage. They're proving more resourceful and persistent than I care to allow. I need them distracted further. At this moment, with their salvage operation under way, they seem to have made themselves vulnerable."

"We have a few torpedoes in the armory," Laurent said. "Acosta was going to sell them to the Somalis before he betrayed us."

"Perfect," Brevard said. "Arm the helicopters with those torpedoes. I want that derelict sent to the bottom. And while you're at it, make a few strafing runs over the other s.h.i.+ps in their little fleet."

"You want us to attack the derelict?" Laurent said, sounding confused.

Sebastian stared. He could understand why the order sounded odd. "Don't question me," he growled, "just do as I order. Trust me, I have my reasons."

Laurent held up his hands in an act of contrition. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just wanted to make sure I understood."

"How soon can you launch?" Sebastian asked.

"Within a few hours."

"Excellent," Sebastian said.

As Laurent disappeared, Brevard turned back to his breakfast but found he'd lost his appet.i.te. The last thing he needed was to be exposed before he was ready to move.

Kurt and Joe rode in the back of Than Rang's tractor trailer as it cruised along South Korean highway Route 3. Through the wonders of modern technology, Kurt could track their progress on his phone.

"Still heading for the DMZ?" Joe asked.

"Like a homing pigeon," Kurt said.

Forty-five miles from Seoul, and no more than a mile from the edge of the DMZ, they felt the truck gear down. A series of twists and turns made it feel as if they'd gone off the highway. At the same time, Kurt's reception went out and didn't come back. Wherever they were, it was beyond the range of the cell phone towers.

He put the phone away and glanced over at Joe. "You can forget about calling the cavalry, we've lost our signal."