Skeleton Coast Read online

  “I need every available hand to start shoveling,” Kirby said darkly. “If the storm doesn’t abate, this ship is going to be landlocked by nightfall.”

  Turnbaugh and Ryder rousted their respective crews and using coal shovels from the engine room, pans from the kitchen, and a hip bath from the captain’s washroom they ran into the raging storm. With scarves covering their mouths and the wind so strong that talking was impossible, they pushed mounds of loose sand off the deck and into the water. They raged against the tempest, cursing it because every shovelful they heaved over the side only seemed to come back into their faces.

  It was like trying to hold back the tide. They managed to get one hatch scraped clean only to see the amount of sand piled onto the other three had doubled. Five adventurers and a ship’s compliment of twenty was no match for the storm that had traveled across thousands of square miles of seared earth. Visibility was cut to almost zero, so the men worked blind, their eyes tightly closed to the stinging grit that assaulted the Rove from every point on the compass.

  After an hour of frantic work, H. A. went to look for Charlie. “It’s no use. We have to wait and hope the storm slows.” Even with his lips touching Turnbaugh’s ear Ryder had to repeat himself three times to be heard over the shrieking wind.

  “You’re right,” Charlie screamed back and together they went to recall their men.

  The crews staggered back into the superstructure, shedding cascades of sand with each step. H. A. and Jon Varley were the last ones through the hatch, H. A. out of duty to make sure everyone was all right, Varley because he had a rat’s cunning to never give in when he was certain of a reward.

  It was still difficult to hear out of the wind inside the companionway.

  “Dear Jesus, please let this end.” So awed by the force of nature arrayed against them, Peter was almost in tears.

  “Do we have everyone?” Charlie asked.

  “I think so.” H. A. sagged against a bulkhead. “Did you do a head count?”

  Turnbaugh started counting off his people when there was a sharp rap on the hatchway.

  “Good God, someone’s still out there,” someone called.

  Varley was closest to the hatch and undogged the latches. The wind slammed the door against its stops as the gale whipped into the ship, scouring paint from the walls with the merest touch. It appeared no one was there. It had to have been a loose piece of equipment rattling outside.

  Varley lurched forward to close the door and had it almost shut when a bright silver blade emerged a hand’s span from his back. Gore dripped from the spear’s tip, and when it was pulled from the raw wound blood sprayed the stunned crew. Jon pirouetted as he collapsed to the deck, his mouth working soundlessly as his shirt turned crimson. A dark wraith wearing little but feathers and a cloth around his waist stepped over Varley with an assegai in his hands. Behind him more shapes were primed for the charge, their war cries rivaling even that of the storm.

  “Herero,” H. A. whispered with resignation as the wave of warriors burst into the ship.

  THE storm was a freak of nature, a once-in-a-hundred-years occurrence that raged for over a week, forever changing the coast of southwest Africa. Once mighty dunes had been rendered flat, while others had grown to newer and even greater heights. Where once there were bays, now great peninsulas of sand thrust into the cold waters of the South Atlantic. The continent had grown five miles bigger in some places, ten in others, as the Kalahari won one of its battles against its arch foe. The map would have to be redrawn for hundreds of miles up and down the coast, that is if anyone cared to map the forlorn shore. Every sailor just knew to stay well off the treacherous seaboard.

  Of the Rove and all those aboard her, the official report listed her as lost at sea. And that wasn’t far from the truth, though she lay not under hundreds of feet of water, but under an equal amount of pure white sand, nearly eight miles inland from where the icy waves of the Benguela Current pounded against Africa’s Skeleton Coast.

  2

  THE LABORATORIES OF MERRICK/SINGER

  GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  PRESENT DAY

  SUSAN Donleavy sat hunched like a vulture over the eyepiece of her microscope and watched the action unfold on the slide as though she were a god of Greek mythology being entertained by mortals. And in a sense she was, for what lay on the slide was her own creation, an engineered organism that she had breathed life into as surely as the gods had molded man out of clay.

  She remained motionless for nearly an hour, enraptured by what she was seeing, amazed that the results were so positive this early in her work. Against all scientific principles, but trusting her gut, Susan Donleavy removed the slide from the scope and set it on the workbench next to her. She crossed the room to where an industrial cooler hulked against one wall and removed one of several gallon jugs of water kept at precisely sixty-eight degrees.

  The water had been in storage for less than a day, having been flown to the lab as soon as it had been collected. The need to keep fresh water samples was one of the principle expenses of her experiments—nearly as costly as the detailed gene sequencing of her subjects.

  She opened the jug and smelled the salty tang of ocean water. She dipped a dropper into its surface and siphoned up a small amount, which she then transferred to a slide. Once she had it centered under the microscope, she peered into the realm of the infinitely tiny. The sample teemed with life. In just a few milliliters of water there were hundreds of zooplankton and diatoms, single-celled creatures that formed the first link of the food chain for the entire ocean.

  The microscopic animals and plants were similar to the ones she’d been studying earlier, only these had not been genetically modified.

  Satisfied that the water sample hadn’t degraded in transport, she poured some into a glass beaker. Holding it over her head, she could see some of the larger diatoms in the glare cast by the banks of fluorescent lights. Susan was so focused on her work she didn’t hear the door to the lab open, and since it was so late she didn’t expect anyone to be disturbing her.

  “What have you got there?” The voice startled her and she nearly dropped the beaker.

  “Oh, Dr. Merrick. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I’ve told you, like I tell everyone in the company, to please call me Geoff.”

  Susan frowned slightly. Geoffrey Merrick wasn’t a bad sort, really, but she disliked his affability, as if his billions shouldn’t affect the way people treated him, especially staffers at Merrick/Singer who were still working toward their doctorates. He was a year over fifty, but kept himself in shape by skiing nearly year-round, chasing the snows to South America when summer came to the Swiss Alps. He was also a bit vain about his appearance, and his skin remained too tight following a face-lift. Though a doctor in chemistry himself, Merrick had long since given up lab work and instead spent his time overseeing the research company that bore his and his ex-partner’s names.

  “Is this that flocculent project your supervisor ran past me a few months ago?” Merrick asked, taking the beaker from Susan and studying it himself.

  Unable to lie to get him out of her lab Susan said, “Yes, Doctor, I mean, Geoff.”

  “It was an interesting idea when it was presented, though I have absolutely no idea what it could be used for,” Merrick commented, handing back the beaker. “But I guess that’s what we do here. We chase down our whims and see where they take us. How’s the project coming?”

  “I think okay,” Susan said, anxious because no matter how nice he was, Merrick intimidated her. Though, if she were truthful with herself, most people intimidated her, from her boss down to the older women she rented her apartment from and the counterman at the café where she bought her morning coffee. “I was about to try an unscientific experiment.”

  “Good, we’ll watch it together. Please proceed.”

  Susan’s hands were beginning to tremble so she placed the beaker on a stand. She retrieved the first slide, the one containing her engineered phytoplankton, and sucked up the sample with a fresh dropper. She then carefully injected its contents into the beaker.

  “I forget the particulars of what you’re doing,” Merrick said, standing over her shoulder. “What should we be seeing here?”

  Susan shifted to hide the fact his proximity made her uncomfortable. “As you know, diatoms like this phytoplankton have a cell wall made of silica. What I’ve done is, well, what I’m trying to do, is find a way to melt that wall and ramp up the density of the cell sap within the vacuole. My engineered specimens should attack the unaltered diatoms in the water and go into a frenzy of replication and if things work out right…” Her voice trailed off as she reached for the beaker once again. She slid a hand into an insulated glove so she could touch the glass container. She tilted it onto its side but rather than spilling quickly, the water sloshed up the side with the viscosity of cooking oil. She righted the beaker before any dripped onto the lab table.

  Merrick clapped, delighted as a child for whom she’d just performed a magic trick. “You’ve turned the water sort of gooey.”

  “Kind of, I guess. The diatoms have actually bound themselves in such a way that they capture the water within a matrix of their sap. The water’s still there, it’s just held in suspension.”

  “I’ll be damned. Well done, Susan, well done.”

  “It’s not a total success,” Donleavy admitted. “The reaction is exothermic. It generates heat. Around a hundred and forty degrees in the right conditions. That’s why I need this thick glove. The gel breaks down after only twenty-four hours as the engineered diatoms die off. I can’t figure out the process behind the reaction. I know it’s chemical, obviously, but I don’t know how to stop it.”

  “I still think you’re
off to a tremendous start. Tell me, you must have some idea what we could do with such an invention. The idea of wanting to turn water into goop isn’t something that struck you out of the blue. When Dan Singer and I started working on organic ways to trap sulfur we thought it might have applications in power plants to reduce emissions. There must be something behind your project.”

  Susan blinked, but should have known Geoffrey Merrick didn’t get where he was without a keen sense of perception. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I thought maybe it could be used for settling ponds at mines and water-treatment plants and maybe even a way to stop oil spills from spreading.”

  “That’s right. I remember from your personnel file, you’re from Alaska.”

  “Seward, Alaska, yes.”

  “You must have been in your early teens when the Exxon Valdez hit that reef and dumped all that oil in Prince William Sound. That must have had quite an impact on you and your family. It must have been rough.”

  Susan shrugged. “Not really. My parents ran a small hotel and with all the people on the cleanup crews they did okay. But I had a lot of friends whose parents lost everything. My best friend’s parents even divorced as a result of the spill because her dad lost his job at a cannery.”

  “Then this research is personal for you.”

  Susan bristled at his slightly condescending tone. “I think it’s personal for anyone who cares about the environment.”

  He smiled. “You know what I mean. You’re like the cancer researcher who lost a parent to leukemia, or the guy who becomes a fireman because his house burned down when he was a kid. You’re fighting a demon out of your childhood.” When she didn’t reply Merrick took it to mean he was right. “There’s nothing wrong with revenge as a motivation, Susan. Revenge against cancer, or a fire, or an ecological nightmare. It keeps you far more focused on your work than doing it just to get a paycheck. I applaud you and by the looks of what I’ve seen tonight, I think that you’re on the right path.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said shyly. “There’s still a lot more work to go. Years, maybe. I don’t know. A tiny sample in a test tube is a long way off from containing an oil spill.”

  “Run your ideas to ground, is all I can say. Go wherever they take you, and for as long as you need.” From someone other than Geoffrey Merrick that would have sounded trite but he spoke it with sincerity and conviction.

  Susan met his eye for the first time since he’d entered the laboratory. “Thank you…Geoff. That means a lot.”

  “And who knows. After we patented our sulpher scrubbers, I became a pariah to the environmental movement because they claimed my invention didn’t do enough to stop pollution. Maybe you can finally salvage my reputation.” He left with a smile.

  After he’d gone Susan returned to her beakers and test tubes. Wearing protective gloves she took the one filled with her genetically modified diatoms and slowly tilted it to the side again. Ten minutes had elapsed since she’d last handled it and this time the water sample at its bottom clung to the glass as though it were glue; and only after inverting the hot beaker completely did it start to ooze downward, as slowly as chilled molasses.

  Susan thought about the dying otters and seabirds she’d seen as a child and redoubled her work.

  3

  THE CONGO RIVER

  SOUTH OF MATADI

  THE jungle would eventually swallow the abandoned plantation and the three-hundred-foot wooden pier built along the river. The main house a mile inland had already succumbed to the effects of rot and encroaching vegetation, and it was only a matter of time before the dock was swept away and the metal warehouse nearby collapsed. Its roof sagged like a swaybacked horse, and its corrugated skin was scaled with rust and flecked paint. It was a haunted, forlorn place that even the soft milky glow of a three-quarter moon couldn’t liven.

  A large freighter was nudging closer to the pier, dwarfing even the massive warehouse. With her bow pointed downstream and her engines in reverse, the water under her fantail frothed as she fought the current to stay on station. It was a delicate balance to maintain her position, especially considering the Congo’s notorious back-currents and eddies.

  With a walkie-talkie held to his lips, and his other arm flailing theatrically, the captain paced the starboard wing bridge and yelled at the helmsman and engineer to make corrections. The throttles were moved in fractional increments to keep the 560-foot vessel exactly where he wanted.

  A group of men wearing dark fatigues waited on the dock and watched the operation. All but one carried an assault rifle. The man without an AK-47 had a huge holster strapped to his hip. He tapped the side of his leg with a leather riding crop and despite the darkness sported mirrored aviator shades.

  The captain was a large black man wearing a Greek fisherman’s cap atop his shaved head. The muscles of his chest and arms strained against his white uniform blouse. Another man was with him on the bridge wing: slightly shorter and not as muscled, he was somehow a more commanding presence than the captain. He exuded authority from his watchful eyes and the loose, casual way he carried himself. With the wing bridge lofting three stories above the quay there was no chance of their conversation being overheard. The captain nudged his companion, who’d been studying the armed troops rather than paying attention to the tricky maneuvering.

  “Seems our rebel leader stepped straight out of central casting, eh, Chairman?”

  “Right down to the riding whip and shades,” the chairman agreed. “Of course, we’re not beyond giving people what they expect to see, either, Captain Lincoln. That was a nice little performance with the walkie-talkie.”

  Linc looked at the walkie-talkie in his big hand. The small device didn’t even have batteries in it. He chuckled softly. As the most senior African-American member of the crew, Lincoln had been tapped by the ship’s real captain, Juan Cabrillo, to act the part for the current operation. Cabrillo knew that the representative sent by Samuel Makambo, the leader of the Congolese Army of Revolution, would be more comfortable dealing with a man who shared the same skin color.

  Linc looked over the rail once again, satisfied that the big freighter was holding steady. “All right,” he bellowed into the night. “Let go fore and aft lines.”

  Deckhands at the stern and bow lowered thick ropes through the hawseholes. With a nod from their commander, two of the rebels slung their weapons over their shoulders and looped the lines over the rust-coated bollards. Windlasses took up the slack and the big freighter gently kissed the old truck tires slung along the length of the pier that acted as fenders. Water continued to foam at the ship’s stern as reverse thrust was maintained to fight the current. Without it, the ship would have ripped the bollards from the decaying wooden dock and drifted downstream.

  Cabrillo took just a moment to check the freighter’s stations, keeping position, gauging current, windage, rudder, and power with one sweep of the eye. Satisfied, he nodded to Linc. “Let’s make a deal.”

  The two stepped into the ship’s main bridge. The room was illuminated by a pair of red night-lights, giving it a hellish appearance that made its dilapidated state all the more obvious. The floors were unwashed linoleum that was cracked and peeling in the corners. The windows were dusty on the inside while the outsides were rimmed with salt crust. The sills were the graveyards of all manner of dead insects. One needle on the tarnished brass engine telegraph had broken off long ago, and the ship’s wheel was missing several spokes. The vessel carried few modern navigational aids and the radio in the shack behind the bridge could barely transmit a dozen miles.

  Cabrillo nodded at the helmsman, an intense Chinese man in his early forties, who shot the Chairman a wry smile. Cabrillo and Franklin Lincoln descended a series of companionways lit only occasionally by low-watt bulbs in metal cages. They soon reached the main deck where another member of the crew waited.

  “Ready to play jungle jeweler, Max?” Juan greeted.