Ghost Ship Read online

  Kovack stopped struggling instantly.

  “Make him mad,” she hissed, brushing Kovack’s ear with her soft lips. “I want to see what he does.”

  Kovack was unsure if the words were for him or for Sebastian. Needless to say, he did nothing.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Sebastian said calmly. “She will lead you astray. You would not be the first.”

  “What’s this all about?” Kovack shouted, panicked by what seemed like a mad game between the two of them. “We’re talking business.”

  “This is my way of sending a message,” Sebastian said. “One that will be clearly understood.”

  “Call for your men,” Calista advised Kovack. “Perhaps the drink has not gone to their heads yet. Perhaps the poison was not as potent as intended.”

  “Poison?” Kovack’s eyes were almost bulging out of his head. They darted back and forth until he forced himself to be still. He focused on Brèvard. The woman was insane.

  “What message do you want me to deliver?” he blurted out. “I will tell him anything you ask. I will deliver it personally. You can trust me, I’m Rene’s right-hand man.”

  Sebastian winced at the statement, an awkward look that crinkled the edges of his weathered face. “An unfortunate choice of words on your part,” he said.

  With that, he tensed further, raised the obsidian lighter and slammed it down on Kovack’s outstretched wrist like a meat cleaver.

  A bloodcurdling scream echoed through the palace, and Kovack rocked backward, released by Calista and falling to the floor. He landed on his back, cradling the stump of his wrist as blood spurted in all directions.

  The double doors burst open and three of Sebastian’s servants rushed in.

  “See to him,” Sebastian said, tossing the severed hand at the wounded man.

  The servants dropped down beside Kovack and wrapped his arm quickly. A tourniquet was applied, and he was dragged out.

  Sebastian glanced around, studying the blood that soaked his desk and suit. “Look at this mess,” he said as if a drink had been spilled.

  More servants came in and immediately began cleaning. Sebastian took off his coat and walked through a double French door out onto a balcony. Calista followed.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance as the latest storm prepared to soak western Madagascar. He was thinking he’d made a mistake. Anger had caused that. “Rene will not trust you after this,” he said to his sister.

  “Rene has never trusted me,” she corrected. “But he lusts for me, and he thinks I’m playing both sides.”

  “Then you will go to his auction.”

  “To bid on the woman?”

  “To steal her back,” Sebastian said unequivocally. “Rene would never accept our bid, even before all this. He’s gone into business for himself. He knows if he delivered her to us, we would keep her. She’s our property after all. And he would be passing up too much money. The way he spends it, he needs all he can get.”

  As her brother spoke, Calista nodded, though she seemed preoccupied with Kovack’s blood on the back of her hand. She dipped her finger in it and drew lines up along her forearm as if it were body paint.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Then tell me if you’re up to it.”

  “Of course,” she said, looking up. “But Rene is no fool. He will be watching. And if I steal what others bid for—the Russians, the Chinese—they will become a problem too.”

  Brèvard was not worried about enemies. When he was done with the con, he would disappear like a ghost, like smoke in the wind. And it would be as if he’d never existed in the first place.

  “Figure it out,” he said bluntly. “You’re smarter than him. Smarter than all of them. Put that devious little mind of yours to work and get her back before everything we’ve planned goes up in flames.”

  Kurt Austin arrived at the NUMA building in downtown Washington under an impossibly blue sky. He parked in the garage, made his way to the lobby, and took the elevator to the ninth floor. The receptionist was surprised to see him.

  “Good morning,” he said to her, smiling and heading down the hall.

  He arrived at the bull pen near his office where several others were gathered about, sipping coffee and getting ready to put in a good day’s work.

  They caught sight of him and stopped.

  “If even one of you claps or says, ‘Welcome back,’ I’ll assign you to McMurdo station in Antarctica for the winter and you won’t see daylight for six months.”

  Knowing smiles crept across their faces, and a few nods came his way, but the response was limited to his secretary squeezing his arm and someone else offering him a cup of coffee.

  Joe Zavala arrived, filled with energy and smiling as he almost always did. “Hey,” he called out loudly, “look who finally made it back to work.”

  He seemed surprised by the limited reaction from the others.

  “Good luck, Joe,” someone said. “Dress warm.”

  “Don’t pack the sunblock,” another coworker advised.

  As they passed him, Joe turned to Kurt. “What was that all about?”

  “Long story,” Kurt said, surprised at how good it felt to be surrounded by friends again. “How are you on the geography of Antarctica?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I have to send you there now or lose all credibility with the staff.”

  Joe narrowed his gaze. He could guess what that meant. “Considering that you wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t dove into the raging sea to pull you out after your safety cable snapped, I’d say we’re even.”

  Kurt was the Director of Special Projects within NUMA. It meant he and his crew could be assigned to anything anytime, anywhere. Joe Zavala was the team’s assistant director, a fantastic engineer and one of the most resourceful people Kurt had ever known. He was also Kurt’s best friend.

  “Good point,” Kurt said, unlocking the door to his office and stepping inside. “But, then again, if you hadn’t gotten so antsy and tried to reel me in like a prize marlin, I wouldn’t have cracked my noggin on that steel doorframe and scrambled up all my eggs. Thanks to you, I’ve spent the last months on a shrink’s couch.”

  Joe followed Kurt in and closed the door behind him. “I’ve seen the shrink whose couch you’ve been sharing. You can thank me later.”

  Kurt nodded. There was plenty of truth to that too. He sat down at his desk. It was piled high with unopened packages and unread reports. The inbox was stacked two feet high.

  “Didn’t any work get done around here while I was gone?”

  “Sure,” Joe said. “Where do you think all those reports came from?”

  Kurt began to leaf through things, most of it dull. Maybe he’d bring those files home in case he had trouble sleeping. They seemed boring enough to put him right out.

  He scanned through a stack of memos and other papers requesting his presence at meetings that were long over. Into the circular file they went.

  He began to look at the mail. A couple tubes held charts he’d requested months ago. He opened a box, finding a DVD inside.

  “What’s this?”

  Joe leaned forward. “From the Jayhawk’s camera,” Joe said. “South African reporter turned it into a news story. It shows some of the action.”

  Kurt thought about watching the video but decided against it. It couldn’t help him with the questions he had. “Too bad I didn’t have a camera on my shoulder,” he muttered.

  He put the DVD aside and went through some more interoffice mail. Finally, he got down to an envelope from the South African Coast Guard. He tore it open to find a report on the storm and the rescue. He scanned it like one might read the sports page, looking only for the highlights. His attention sharpened when he came to something he didn’t know.

  He sat up straight, reading the paragraph three times just to be sure.

  He looked at Joe. “Brian Westgate was picked up nineteen mil
es from where the Ethernet went down?”

  “The next day,” Joe said. “After the storm passed. He was in an inflatable raft.”

  “I was under the impression he was found in a life jacket, bobbing up and down like a fighter pilot who bailed out.”

  “The story was kind of spun that way. He dove out of the raft and swam to the helicopter. When they picked him up, the only video they released was of him in the water all alone. Probably a publicity thing.”

  Kurt put the report down. “Doesn’t it strike you odd that he was in a raft by himself while his wife and kids were drowning?”

  “He said he was trying to get the raft ready while they held fast in the bridge. A surging wave crashed onto the deck and took him and the raft overboard. According to his story, he tried like crazy to paddle back, but it was impossible.”

  Kurt flicked on the computer and pulled up the NUMA mapping system, zooming in on the eastern coast of South Africa.

  Running his finger beneath the numbers listed in the report, he memorized the latitude and longitude where the Ethernet foundered. He typed it into the computer and tapped the enter key. The computer marked the spot with a bright red triangle.

  He did the same for the location of Westgate’s recovery and a green triangle appeared.

  “Nineteen miles apart,” Kurt said. “No way.”

  “It was almost thirty hours later,” Joe pointed out. “And that was a hell of a storm.”

  Kurt knew what Joe was thinking, but it didn’t add up. “Unless he was drifting against the current and through a crosswind, he wound up in the wrong place.”

  Kurt turned the monitor around so Joe could see. Little gray arrows denoting the prevailing current ran opposite to the direction Westgate had drifted.

  “He should have wound up southwest of the yacht, not northeast.”

  Joe studied it dumbfounded. “Maybe the storm caused a temporary shift in the current,” he said. “Or maybe the wind changed as the storm passed.”

  “Not this much.”

  Joe looked at the map again. He exhaled. “Okay. I’ll bite. What do you think happened?”

  “I have no idea,” Kurt said, standing up. “Why don’t we go ask Mr. Billionaire himself? He’s got some dog and pony show going on at the Smithsonian.”

  “Uhmmm . . .”

  Kurt glanced at the clock and grabbed his keys. “Come on, we can catch him if we hurry.”

  Joe was hesitating. He stood up with all the speed of a tree sloth. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  Kurt was beaming, almost manic. He thought it sounded like a great idea. Especially the part about it being in public.

  “It’s fine,” he said, heading for the door. “In fact, my doctor recommended it. It’s all part of my recovery.”

  With that, he stepped through the door, hitting the light switch on the way out. He didn’t turn around to see if Joe was following. He didn’t have to, he could hear Joe running to catch up with him in the hall.

  The steps of the original Smithsonian offered a grand backdrop for anyone wishing to make a big announcement. Built of red sandstone from Maryland, the “Castle,” as the original building was nicknamed, had a romantic and sturdy quality to it. It looked like a fort from the Civil War era, or even the type of building that might have stood in the “rockets’ red glare.”

  But the Smithsonian name was also renowned for its mission to teach and for its celebration of the modern technology. For a man like Brian Westgate—an Internet billionaire descended from an old-money family—there was probably no more perfect spot to showcase himself or his company.

  A crowd had begun to assemble under the bright blue sky, and Westgate found his nerves getting the best of him. He sat inside the building, ensconced in an office just down the hall from the main entrance. As he waited his turn to go on, two handlers primped and checked him over.

  He was an easy subject to work on. Fifty-one years old, fit and trim, without the slightest hint of excess in his face, he had wavy hair, high cheekbones, and a tiny cleft in his chin. He looked more like a news anchor than the computer geek he was made out to be.

  His sandy blond hair was never unruly, though a young woman named Kara made sure it was coiffed just right. “Important not to look too young or too old,” she whispered.

  At the same time, another handler adjusted the American flag pin on his lapel and made sure the creases in his navy blue suit were sharp enough to slice bread.

  As they fussed over him, David Forrester, the CEO of Westgate’s company, sat across from him.

  “Feel like I’m running for office,” Westgate grumbled. He waved the handlers off. He’d had enough of them.

  “Maybe you should,” Forrester said.

  “Be kind of hard to sell Phalanx to other governments if I was the head of our own,” Westgate replied.

  “Good point,” Forrester said. “We’ve already got requests from five European countries, along with Brazil and Japan. Everyone wants their data secured, and nothing comes close to Phalanx in terms of ensuring that.”

  “Maybe you should go out and give the speech.”

  “Do I look like the face of this company?”

  Forrester was a lawyer who’d spent two decades with an investment banking firm and several years working for one of the Federal Reserve banks. He was short and squat, like an old athlete gone to seed, but with great strength hidden beneath the slowly growing layer of fat. He had a jowly face, thinning hair, and wore rimless glasses, behind which were sharp eyes that did not miss a trick. Thin, almost colorless lips gave him a stern, menacing look. The disciplinarian you did not mess with.

  “You’re giving away a million computers to America’s schools,” Forrester pointed out. “And you just signed a contract with the federal government to protect American data from foreign sources. These are all good things. This is your chance to brag to a grateful nation. To tell all Americans that their data is secure.”

  “It feels wrong,” Westgate moaned.

  “Because of the sinking?”

  Westgate nodded. “It’s too soon.”

  “It’s been months,” Forrester said. “That’s an eternity in our twenty-four-hour news cycle. Besides, the stock is up fifteen percent since the accident. Sympathy buying.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Westgate blurted out. “You’re talking about my wife and kids. My daughter and my son.”

  Forrester held up a hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Forget it.”

  “Look,” Forrester said. “Wasn’t this Sienna’s idea in the first place? Didn’t she ask you what good more money would do in your bank account? She wanted you to start giving back and here you are. We all know the Phalanx design and architecture was Sienna’s stroke of brilliance. It’s her legacy. As long as the system lives on, she’s made a mark in the world that no one can erase.”

  Westgate pursed his lips, unable to either agree or disagree.

  A knock at the door told them it was time to go onstage.

  Both men stood up. Westgate walked out the door and onto the stage to fairly loud applause.

  He began in earnest, talking almost too quickly. But as he hit his stride, he began to forget about the crowd, the contracts, and even David Forrester, and he began to talk from the heart.

  He spoke about education and opportunity and the vast investment his company was making in America’s schools. He spoke about how computers and training meant better jobs for single mothers and why technology and education meant a way out of poverty and off the government rolls.

  He didn’t mention the deals his company had just made to upgrade security for a basket of federal agencies, didn’t mention the multibillion-dollar contracts with the DOD, SEC, the Fed, and Homeland Security. Nor did he mention the sinking or the loss of his family.

  He didn’t have to. The reporters in attendance brought up both the moment he began taking questions.

  A tall woman in a red dress went first
. “We understand your company has just been chosen to upgrade Internet security for most branches of the federal government. A million computers is a large gift, but it’s small in comparison to a multibillion dollar contract.”

  Westgate smiled. He’d been prepped with exactly the same question, phrased exactly the same way, the night before. It dawned on him that Forrester was behind it, most likely paying the woman to ask, keeping the message pure and ensuring the face of the corporation stayed on message.

  Westgate held his smile just long enough for the cameras to snap a few shots.

  “The computers are just the beginning,” he said. “The next phase is to open secure learning centers in all the downtrodden neighborhoods. Safe places where children and adults can learn for free. We don’t just want data to be secure, we want the people using it to be secure.

  “As for the big contract,” he added, “a billion dollars a year is small potatoes if it prevents twenty billion a year in thefts. Did you know that in the last year alone, anonymous hackers and state-sponsored groups have breached allegedly secure networks at the FBI, the Department of Energy, the Social Security Administration, as well as the data storage centers at NASA and the Defense Department?

  “And that’s just the government breaches. Every day, companies around the world are under siege from criminals, state sponsored terrorists, and purveyors of corporate espionage. The Phalanx system my wife helped develop creates a different kind of security when it’s installed. It literally thinks for itself, detects threats using logic, not just random matching of code. The Fed and the Department of Defense are thrilled. And the rest of the country will be too.”

  A smattering of follow-on questions were easily handled before a reporter from a local TV station asked about Sienna and the children. Westgate paused. He tried to collect himself, but when he spoke his voice genuinely cracked and he couldn’t quite get the words out.

  It was unplanned, and awkward for him, but from the corner of his eye he saw Forrester grinning. Some part of him wanted to apologize and deflect the question, but he pushed on, despite a sudden pain in his temple that felt like the beginnings of a stroke.