Текст книги "Dark Watch"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

18

JUAN Cabrillo knew the type. The man behind the desk opposite him dressed poorly and took little pride in his personal appearance other than to follow the tenets of his faith. His turban was wound tightly around his head, but the fabric was frayed and stained with sweat. His shirt was of cheap cotton, and the dark circles under the arms looked permanent. Bits of food clung to his beard and mustache.

The office was also staged to present a particular image. The desk was covered with papers, and the file cabinets were filled to bursting. The furniture was cut-rate and uncomfortable, and the posters on the wall were most likely given away by the Indonesian tourist board. The computer behind the desk was old enough to be in a museum of ancient technology.

The woman who had shown Juan into the office was perhaps the only genuine article about the whole setup. She was an elderly Indonesian woman, stick thin and tired. Her clothes were as cheap as those worn by her boss, but Cabrillo suspected it was because he paid her a pittance and not because she was putting up the front of a struggling business.

After reading a complete dossier put together by Mark Murphy prior to the meeting, Cabrillo knew more about Shere Singh and his family than he’d ever wished to. He knew their estimated net worth was nearly half a billion dollars. He knew that the family’s patriarch lived in a five-hundred-acre compound in a house large enough to keep his eleven children and their families under one roof. He trusted his sons-in-law only to a point. It seemed that the sides of the business they were in charge of were for the most part legitimate. It was Shere Singh’s own sons who ran the illegal operations. Abhay Singh, the eldest, was the representative for the Karamita Breakers Yard.

He maintained their offices in a run-down district of Jakarta, near enough to the docks to occasionally hear a ship’s horn but far enough that one had to search to find it.

Setting up this meeting with Abhay Singh had been simple. Cabrillo had contacted the company while en route from Munich to Jakarta, representing himself as the captain of a ship he wanted to sell for scrap. He wanted to know what Karamita Breakers Yard would bid for the hulk.

Juan wasn’t dressed much better than the ship broker. He hadn’t shaved since the day before snatching Rudy Isphording and wore a greasy black wig under a yachtsman’s cap. His duck trousers had never seen an iron or a press, and the blazer stretched over his enormous gut was missing several buttons on the sleeve. If the wealthy Singh family wanted to present themselves as struggling workers, Juan could just as easily play the part of a down-on-his-luck captain.

Abhay Singh read over the report Juan had handed him on the Oregon,although he’d listed a false name that was currently being painted on the old freighter’s hull. The papers gave her dimensions, tonnage, and lists of equipment and appointments as well as several dozen photographs. The Sikh’s piggy eyes scanned the documents rapidly and thoroughly. The only sound in the dilapidated office was the rattle of a black oscillating fan and the traffic on the street one floor below the open window.

“There is one thing I do not see here, Captain, er, Smith,” Singh said, shooting Cabrillo a penetrating stare. “And that is your ownership documents. It appears that perhaps you do not own this vessel you want to sell for scrap.”

Cabrillo, playing the part of Jeb Smith, one of his regular personas when dealing with officials, matched Abhay Singh’s dark gaze. “There is something else you don’t see there.” He handed over another sheaf of papers.

Singh glanced at them skeptically, got halfway down the top sheet before his head shot up, his eyes glinting with avarice.

“That’s right.” Juan nodded. “Her holds are filled with eight thousand tons of aluminum ingots we brought aboard in Karachi. How about we make ourselves a bargain, Mr. Singh? You forget that my ship is owned by someone else, and I forget that when you take possession I know she’s carrying ten million dollars’ worth of raw metal that doesn’t belong to any of us.”

Singh set the papers flat on his desk and folded his dark hands on top. He gave Juan a speculative look. “How is it, Captain, that you came to us at Karamita?”

Cabrillo knew what he was really asking is how did Captain Jeb Smith know that the owners of the Karamita yard were open to corruption and bribery. “Poets often write about how vast the ocean is, and that’s true, Mr. Singh, but don’t you know the world can also still be a small place. One hears things.”

“And where does one hear things?”

Juan looked around furtively. “Different places from different folks. I can’t quite recall who told me about your fine facility, but word of mouth spreads faster than dysentery and can be even uglier to deal with.” His eyes settled back on Singh’s, and his expression had turned to stone. Abhay Singh understood the subtext of what Cabrillo was saying: Ask any more questions, and I’ll make sure the authorities take a closer look at Karamita.

Singh flashed an insincere smile. “It gladdens my heart to hear that others speak so highly of our business. I think we can come to an arrangement, Captain Smith. You must know the price of scrap steel is up in the markets, so I can see you receiving a hundred and ten dollars per ton for the hulk.”

“I was thinking more like five hundred and fifty dollars,” Juan countered. By rights he could have quadrupled that price because of the aluminum ingots he was pawning, but he wanted to get the negotiations over with and shower away the stench of dishonesty.

“No, that won’t do,” Abhay replied as though Juan had just insulted his sister. “I can perhaps go as high as two hundred.”

“You can go as high as four hundred, but I will take three.”

“Oh, Captain,” Singh moaned theatrically, acting like Cabrillo was now insulting his mother. “I wouldn’t even break even at that price.”

“I think you will more than break even. We both know the value of her cargo. Why don’t we say two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, and I will deliver the ship to your yard in two days.”

Singh paused to consider the proposal. Juan knew that the Mauswould most likely reach Karamita at the same time he delivered the Oregon,and he wondered what would win out in the Sikh’s mind: greed or prudence. A cautious man would lock down the facility until after the drydock had disgorged its cargo and they’d scrapped the evidence of their piracy, but Singh would stand to make a fortune off the prize Juan was offering.

The Sikh made his decision. “The yard is full right now. Bring your vessel in seven days, and we’ll have room.”

Juan got to his feet and stuck out a sweaty hand. “Deal, but just in case the ship’s owners have spies in Jakarta, I’ll be at Karamita in two days anyway.” He was out the office and past the reception desk before his comment even registered in Abhay Singh’s mind.

He met George Adams at the airport, and the pilot choppered them back to the Oregon,where she held station well outside the shipping lanes. George had racked up twenty hours in the past few days ferrying the team Juan had used in Switzerland back to the ship. At last the whole crew was together with the notable exception of Eddie Seng.

In his cabin, Cabrillo stripped off the Jeb Smith outfit, sealing the foul clothes and wig in a plastic bag that he tossed in the back of the walk-in closet for the next time he’d need to play the part. He lathered his face with a shaving brush and carefully went over his skin with a straight razor.

In the mirror above the copper sink he saw the glint in his eye, the look he always got when he was nearing his quarry. That Singh had agreed to buy a vessel without clear title was reason enough to have the man arrested, but more importantly it told Juan that the scent he’d picked up from Rudy Isphording was running true. Abhay Singh and his father were in this up to their necks. Juan’s job now was to make them expose just enough for him to track down Anton Savich and then hang them all.

After his shower and smacking his cheeks with bay rum, he dressed in a pair of charcoal trousers, a crisp white cotton shirt, and soft dark moccasins. He called down to the galley to have some food brought to the boardroom, then called all the ship’s senior staff to a meeting.

The boardroom was on the starboard side of the ship aft of the superstructure and large enough to hold forty people, although the table only accommodated a dozen. When there was no need for stealth, large rectangular portholes were opened to bathe the room in natural light. Juan was the first to arrive, and he settled himself in the high-backed leather chair at the head of the cherry finished table. Maurice, the Corporation’s chief steward, appeared with a steaming dish of samosas and a pitcher of his famous sun tea. He poured a glass for Juan and handed him a plate.

“Welcome back, Chairman.”

Because the dossier on the Singh family had been e-mailed to Juan during his flight from Europe, and George Adams had met his flight in Jakarta with the Jeb Smith disguise, this was his first time on the Oregonsince leaving for Tokyo with Tory Ballinger almost two weeks ago.

“Good to be back. What’s the latest?” Maurice was an incurable gossip.

“Rumor has it that Eric Stone is currently involved with a woman in Spain over the Internet. I hear their little chat sessions are rather torrid.”

Eric was a first-rate helmsman and had a mastery of the ship’s systems that rivaled Juan’s and Max Hanley’s, but when it came to the opposite sex, he was absolutely hopeless. In a bar in London following the Sacred Stone affair, Eric had gotten so flustered over a woman’s brazen approach that he’d rushed outside to be sick.

“You wouldn’t be using my override to check the ship’s computer logs, would you, Maurice?” Juan chided mildly.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing, Mr. Cabrillo. I merely overheard him discussing it with Mark Murphy.”

That fit. Juan chuckled to himself. Murph, Eric’s partner in crime, had even less luck with women than Stone, if one overlooked the occasional Goth girl he hooked up with. But a girl with more piercings than a pincushion and who was impressed with a guy who could catch air on a skateboard half-pipe wasn’t much of a catch in Cabrillo’s mind.

“Well, you know what they say, Maurice, any love is good love.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Mr. Cabrillo.”

The steward bowed out as Max, Linda Ross, and Julia Huxley entered the room. They helped themselves to tea and plates loaded with the spicy samosas. A few seconds later Hali Kasim came in with Franklin Lincoln. Linc normally wouldn’t have been in on the meeting, but he was taking the place of the absent Eddie Seng. Eric and Murph arrived last, arguing about some obscure line from an old Monty Python movie.

“First things first,” Juan said after everyone had taken their seat. “Any word from Eddie?”

“Still nothing,” Hali replied.

Juan cocked an eyebrow at Doc Huxley.

She answered immediately. “The subcutaneous transmitter I surgically implanted in the muscles of Eddie’s thigh checked out perfectly before you and he took off for Tokyo. In fact, that one’s only been in there three months.”

A few key members of the Corporation had special burst locaters implanted under their skin, Juan included. The electronic devices were the size of postage stamps and drew power from the body’s own nervous system. Every twelve hours they were supposed to send a signal to a commercial satellite that was then relayed back to the Oregon. It was a covert way of keeping tabs on operatives in the field without having them carry bugs that could be discovered and confiscated.

The technology was new and far from perfected, which is why Juan didn’t necessarily trust the devices; however, in Eddie’s case, there had been no other alternatives.

Hali added, “The last transmission we received from him showed he was on the outskirts of Shanghai, someplace close to the new airport.”

Juan digested the information. “Any chance they planned on flying him out?”

Max Hanley tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. “We considered that option, but it doesn’t jibe with what we know of the smugglers. Eddie’s following the trail of the illegals we found in the container. By rights he should be following the same route.”

“But if they were losing too many people to the pirates, wouldn’t they change their tactics?” Eric Stone asked from behind the laptop he’d set on the table.

“We don’t know how many the pirates have taken,” Hali replied. “The ones we found on the Kracould have been the first batch that were intercepted.”

“Or the last straw,” Eric countered, “and now the snakeheads have switched to airplanes.”

“If they already had seaborne resources, it would be cost prohibitive to switch to aircraft. They would need all new infrastructure.”

Juan let the debate circle the table but knew there were no answers. Until they received something from Eddie’s transmitter, they were just jawing in a vacuum. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said to end the futile debate. “Hali, broaden the number of satellites you’ve been checking. It’s possible that somebody else’s bird is getting Eddie’s signal. Think outside the box on this one. Check anything capable of relaying an electronic burst transmission.”

The Oregon’s communications expert bristled. “I’ve checked the logs. My people have looked at every satellite that comes within a thousand miles of Shanghai.”

“I’m not doubting the competence of your staff, Hali,” Juan soothed. “If Eddie was within that thousand-mile circle, they would have found him. But I don’t think he is. Now I want you to double the area, search for him within two thousand miles of Shanghai, and if he’s not there, expand the grid until you find him.”

Hali jotted a few notes on a notepad bearing the Corporation’s logo. “You got it, boss.”

Juan paused until he had everyone’s attention. “As for my meeting yesterday, Shere Singh, his son Abhay, and anyone else affiliated with the Karamita Breakers Yard is on our official list of suspects. They own the Mausand its sister ship.” He caught Mark Murphy’s attention. “That reminds me. Anything on the sister drydock, Souri?”

Murph grabbed Eric’s laptop and moused through a few screens. “Here we go. She was Russian-built and bought at the same time as the Mausbut under a different web of dummy companies. They did make the same mistake and used Rudolph Isphording to establish the fronts. Unlike the Maus,the Sourihas yet to be engaged in any salvage activities. No one has rented her, no one has even seen her. She was on the Lloyds list, but the last they knew she was still in Vladivostok waiting for her new owners to take possession.”

Juan opened his mouth to ask a question, but Murph was ahead of him. “Already checked. She was towed out of the harbor eighteen months ago. And no one remembers the names of the tugs.”

“Damn.”

Linda Ross spoke around a mouthful of samosa. “So, for the past year and a half Singh and company could have been using her for anything. Even if they didn’t go around snatching ships off the high seas, a vessel that size would be perfect for all sorts of smuggling operations. They could load her with a few hundred stolen cars. Hell, they could haul a couple of big corporate jets without dismantling the wings or cram a couple thousand immigrants into the hold.”

She meant her comment to be speculative, but the air in the boardroom suddenly became somber and chilled, as if a cloud had covered the sun and darkened the wood-paneled room. Everyone envisioned the massive vessel turned into a slave ship and filled with countless miserable souls destined for a life perhaps worse than death.

“Jesus,”someone muttered under their breath.

“Find it, Mark.” Cabrillo’s voice was like steel. “Whatever it takes, you find that ship.”

“Yes, sir!” the young weapons specialist replied.

“Okay, back to where I was,” Juan continued gravely. “For those of you who don’t know, I was just in Jakarta negotiating to sell the Oregonfor scrap.” Normally this would have warranted a sarcastic remark or at least an appreciative chuckle, but everyone was too focused. “Just like Isphording said, the men who own the Karamita Yard are as corrupt as they come. Until yesterday all we had was speculation, thirdhand accounts, and the word of a convicted embezzler. I am now satisfied that Singh is involved with the pirates and maybe the smugglers, too.

“He doesn’t want us to deliver the Oregonfor a week, which would give him enough time to dispose of whatever ship is inside the Maus,but we’re going to drop anchor outside the yard in two days. On the night the Mausshows up, we’re going to blow the lid off this entire operation.”

“What’s the plan?” Linc asked.

“That’s what we’re here to discuss. Everyone get together with your department staff and come up with some scenarios. Mark, have you gotten pictures of the yard yet?”

“From a commercial satellite. They’re a year old, and it looks like the place was under construction at the time.”

“Get George to make a few passes in the chopper for some better shots. If the Robinson doesn’t have the range, have him rent another helo in Jakarta. As soon as he’s back, make sure everyone has copies.”

“Check.”

“Linc, I don’t know how many guards the place will have or what kind of weapons they carry, so make sure all your gun bunnies have everything they need, up to and including shoulder-fired missiles.”

“Aye, aye.”

“Doc?”

“I know, I know,” Julia preempted. “I’ll double-check our blood supply and play vampire with the crew if we need more.”

Everyone stood, but Juan wouldn’t dismiss them just yet. There was one more piece of business he had to address. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to be very clear here. This mission has gone far beyond what we were hired to do. So far we’ve put ourselves in danger and come out all right.” He gave Linda a significant look. “You’ve been up against Singh’s hired guns on a one-to-one and know their capabilities. The money we’re making is nothing compared to the risk we face once we enter the breaker’s yard. Actually it barely covers the cost of running the ship.” He got a few grins. “The people under you draw salary plus bonuses. We don’t. We only get paid when there’s a profit.

“Each of you joined the Corporation with expectations of using your unique talents to make money. I’m afraid that there won’t be much on this caper, so if any of you want out until we’re done, you have my permission. Your jobs will still be open after we’re through, and there’ll be no questions asked and no recriminations later.”

He waited for a reaction, his eyes meeting each of his senior staff’s. No one said a word until Max cleared his throat.

“It’s like this, Chairman. We’ve all had a chance to talk about this ever since we started following the Maus. And the truth of the matter is, some jobs are worth more than money. We all pretty much agree we’d pay for the chance to nail these bastards to the nearest outhouse door. We’re backing your play one hundred percent.”

The crew gave a few “hear, hears” as they followed Hanley out of the boardroom.

Juan could only smile his gratitude to his people.

Sporting his Jeb Smith disguise again to foil casual observers on the beach, Juan leaned against the rail of the Oregon’s bridge wing. He’d been there long enough for the coat of scaly rust on the railing to turn his callused palms orange. The sun was a waning fireball setting slowly behind the mountains that rose in the distance behind Shere Singh’s Karamita Breakers Yard. The air was heavy with the smell of scorched metal, industrial solvents, and spilled bunker fuel. While coming north along the Sumatra coast he’d observed pristine white beaches and lush jungle. Most of the land was unspoiled and primeval. But around the yard it looked as though a cancer was eating away at the earth. The beach was a tarry morass, and the sea was the color of dishwater. With the exception of a new warehouse built out over the bay, all the buildings were dilapidated and coated with black dust. He had never seen a more depressing or dehumanizing place.

The massive scale of the buildings, cranes, and pieces of construction equipment rendered the workers almost to insignificance. The derricks towering over the yard swung slabs of steel from the beached ships to fenced-in areas where grimy men attacked them with torches, hammers, and their bare hands. From Juan’s vantage a quarter mile from the beach, they looked like ants devouring the carapace of some giant beetle.

And around the Oregonfloated an armada of the damned. The fleet of derelict ships destined to be torn apart at the yard stretched nearly to the horizon. They comprised an archipelago of rusted hulks as haunted and forlorn as the spirits of the dead awaiting entrance into hell. The container ships, oilers, and bulk freighters reminded him of a herd of cattle in the pens of a slaughterhouse. The Oregon’s decrepit state was artful camouflage, but around her was the real thing, the consequence of salt air, raging seas, and neglect.

“Will you look at that,” Max Hanley said, stepping out from the bridge. He wore a pair of grease-stained coveralls. The oil was fresh. He’d just come from the engine room. “Compared to some of those tubs, I’d say the old Oregonlooks shipshape and Bristol fashion.”

A deafening roar from inside the large warehouse reverberated across the bay and drowned out Cabrillo’s reply.

“What isthat?” Max exclaimed after the noise faded.

“Murph’s new stereo?” Juan laughed. “I think there’s some kind of saw inside the warehouse. I read about them once – big chain-driven machines that can cut a ship like a slicer going through a loaf of bread.”

Max ducked into the bridge to retrieve a pair of binoculars from their cradle under the chart table. After a few minutes, the warehouse’s landward doors cranked open. Small diesel locomotives emerged towing a twenty-foot-thick slice of a ship. The segment had a graceful flare, almost like a sculpture, and had come from near the unknown vessel’s bow. A mobile crane lifted the section into the air once the train engines had reached the end of the tracks. The piece was open in the middle. Whatever ship it had come from had cargo holds rather than decks, most likely a bulk carrier or a tanker.

“Looks like a freighter-shaped cookie cutter,” Max remarked.

“Big cookie,” Juan said as the chunk of steel was laid on its side for workers to continue the disassembly process.

Something about his distracted tone caught Hanley’s attention. “What’s going on in that cesspool you call a mind?”

“We know Singh is involved. But I’ve been up here a couple of hours, and the place looks like it’s on the up-and-up except what might be going on inside the shed.”

“Where the ship saw is?”

“Uh-huh.” Juan studied the building from the binoculars he’d taken from Max. “I want to take a peek inside tonight.”

“What about the Maus?”

“She’ll be here soon enough. In the meantime, knowing what ship they’re tearing apart in there might tell us something.”

“It’s possible that it could be one of the ships the pirates hijacked before we were hired to stop them,” Hanley agreed. “Could be they brought her down here inside their other drydock.”

Cabrillo looked at his old friend. “I won’t know until I get inside.”

One of Max’s bushy eyebrows went up. “Just you?”

“No sense risking any of the crew on this. I’ll be in and out before they know I was there.”

“Linda Ross thought the same thing when she and her team boarded the Maus.”

“Take a look at the seaward side of the warehouse.”

Max took the binoculars and studied the sprawling structure. “What am I looking for?”

“The building’s built on pilings. I suspect that the metal siding doesn’t extend all the way to the sea floor, and even if it does, I’m sure the doors don’t. It would cause too much drag opening and closing them.

“You plan to swim under the doors.”

“Once inside I should be able to identify the ship. It won’t take more than an hour, and most of that is just swimming there and back.”

Max stared out at the massive shed, judging odds and risk. He came to a quick conclusion. “Use a Draeger rebreather,” he advised just as a horn sounded to end the workday onshore. “That’ll eliminate the trail of bubbles on your way in and out.”

An hour after midnight, Juan Cabrillo was in the amidships boat garage wearing a head-to-toe wet suit. The water surrounding the Karamita Yard was as warm as blood, but he needed the thin black Microprene as cover once he reached his goal. He wore thick-soled dive boots and had his fins ready on the bench next to where he sat. He was going over the Draeger unit. Unlike a scuba rig that provides fresh air for a diver with every breath, the German-made rebreather used powerful filters to scrub carbon dioxide when a diver exhaled in a closed-loop system that allowed for great endurance while eliminating the telltale stream of bubbles.

The Draeger could be dangerous at depths much below thirty feet, so Juan planned to stay close to the surface. In a slim waterproof pouch strapped under his right arm he had a minicomputer, a flashlight, and a Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN double-action automatic. The pistol fired the new 5.7mm ammunition. The advantage of the small, needlelike cartridges was that the matte-black weapon’s grip held twenty rounds with one in the chamber. Also, the bullets were designed to blow through most ballistic vests while at the same time not overpenetrate a target.

A dive knife was strapped on the outside of his right thigh and a dive computer to his left wrist.

A dive technician hovered nearby. “Just for the fun of it, I had Doc Huxley analyze a water sample,” the tech said as Juan finished his inspection. “She said the sea here is more polluted than the Cuyahoga River when it caught fire back in the sixties.”

“That’s your idea of fun?” Juan asked sarcastically.

“Rather analyze that gunk than swim in it.” The man grinned.

“You all set?” Max asked as he entered the darkened garage. Linda Ross was at his side, a slip of a girl compared to Max’s looming silhouette.

“Piece of cake.” Juan got to his feet. He nodded to the tech, who doused the red battle lamp.

“Eric’s at the helm,” Max told the chairman, “and Mark is at the weapons station just in case something goes wrong. Also Linc and a few of his SEALs are kitting up now and will be ready with a Zodiac by the time you’re halfway to the warehouse.”

“Good idea. But let’s hope I don’t need ’em.”

The garage’s door rattled open, and without another word Juan stepped down the ramp, slid into his fins, and silently rolled into the sea. As soon as the water enveloped him, he felt the cumbersome weight of his gear vanish. This was Cabrillo’s element. Here his mind became focused. He could forget about Eddie Seng, the pirates, the smugglers, and the thousands of details it took to run his company. It was as if nothing else in the world existed except him and the sea.

He adjusted his buoyancy until he was ten feet below the surface and checked his dive computer’s integrated compass. With his arms dragging at his side, Cabrillo effortlessly finned through the inky water, his breathing even and smooth. After a minute he could no longer sense the Oregon’s presence to his left. He’d passed her bow.

Even with the Draeger’s large mouthpiece, he could taste the foul water on his lips. It was metallic, like sucking on a penny, and when he touched his wet suit he could feel a greasy sheen of spilled oil. Juan was no tree hugger – he understood that civilization was bound to have an impact on the environment. But, if for no other reason, he wanted Singh shut down for the ecological damage his operation had done to the region.

He didn’t dare use a light, so he had to rely heavily on his other senses. He’d been in the water for twenty minutes, swimming against a mild tide, when he heard a hollow whooshing sound. It was water sluicing under the doors of the mammoth building. He changed course slightly to compensate for a minor drift, and a minute later his hand brushed against rough concrete. It was one of the many pilings holding up the huge building. He swam around so he was directly behind the shed. While gantry lamps illuminated a great swath of the beach, the seaward side of the structure was in total darkness. Cabrillo flicked on his dive light. The red lens produced a feeble ruddy glow, but it was enough for him to get his bearings.

He doused the light again and allowed himself to float upward, breaking the surface with the merest ripple. The doors were as tall as an eight-story building and stretched nearly two hundred feet wide. All but the largest cruise ships, container ships, and tankers could easily pass inside on their way to be broken up.

Juan ducked back under the water, kicking down only a few feet before feeling the underside of the door. He rolled under the door and resurfaced inside the hangarlike shed. He spat out his regulator and pushed his dive mask onto his forehead. The tang of scorched metal burned his nose when he took a breath.

For a moment he thought the warehouse was completely black, far darker than the near moonless night, but he realized he’d surfaced under a catwalk. Once he moved out from its shadow he could see there were a few bare bulbs strung along the distant ceiling, revealing the dark outline of a ship. He swam along its length. Unlike the vessels out in the bay, this ship wasn’t scaled with rust. The hull was smooth and free of growth and had a fresh coat of either black or dark blue paint.

This was no derelict at the end of its useful life. This was a new ship that wasn’t more than a few years from coming down the ways. Cabrillo’s pulse quickened.

He found a set of open metal scissor stairs that rose from under the water all the way to the walkway circling the building near the ceiling. He shrugged out of his gear and tied it so it remained submerged. He transferred his silenced automatic to a shoulder holster and made sure the minicomputer had survived the trip without damage. Leading with the pistol, he slowly eased his way up the stairs, placing each foot carefully before transferring his weight. He had no idea if Singh had posted any guards, but he knew the slightest sound would echo within the metal confines of the building, so he took every precaution to maintain silence.