Plague Ship

“That is very thoughtful of you all,” Janni said, smiling. “And the two are so close that I won’t even notice.”

“Hear that, Maurice?”

“I did not.”

“I believe we’re having herring,” Juan said, “which is the traditional start to any meal, followed by fiskeboller, which I understand to be fish dumplings. Then there is roast pork loin with red cabbage and browned potatoes, followed by your choice of pandekager pancakes with ice cream and chocolate or ris a la mande .”

At this, Janni’s smile widened. “That is a rice dessert,” she explained to the others, “With cherry sauce. It is my favorite in the world. We have it, too.”

“Are you from Oslo?” Linda asked as the first dishes were laid on the linen tablecloth.

“I moved there when my parents died, but I was born in the far north, in a small fishing village called Honningsvad.”

That explained her darker complexion, Juan thought. The native Lapps, like the Inuit of Alaska or the indigenous people of Greenland, had evolved darker skin as protection from the relentless glare of sunlight off the ice and snow. She must have some native blood.

Before he could ask a question, he spotted Hali Kasim framed in the dining-room entrance. His hair stuck up in tufts at the side of his head, and even at a distance Juan could see the plum-colored circles under his eyes and the fatigue that made his flesh look like it was slipping off the bone. Juan stood.

“Would you all please excuse me?”

He strode across to his communications specialist. “You’ve looked better.”

“I’ve felt better, too,” Hali agreed. “You said you wanted the results of my work cutting through the static jamming our bug as soon as I finished. Well, here it is.” He handed a single sheet of paper to the Chairman. “I even used the sound-mixing board Mark has in his cabin. This is the best I could do. Sorry.

The numbers in parentheses are the elapsed time between words.” I DON’T . . . (1:23) YES . . . (3:57) ’BOUT DONNA SKY . . . (1:17) (ACT)IVATE THE EEL LEF

. . . (:24) KEY . . . (1:12) TOMORR(OW) . . . (3:38) THAT WON’T BE . . . (:43) A MIN(UTE) . . .

(6:50) BYE.(1:12)

“That’s it, huh?” Juan struggled to not show his disappointment.

“That’s it. There are a few unidentifiable sounds that the computer wouldn’t give more than a ten percent certainty of their meaning. Heck, it gave Donna Sky’s name only a forty percent chance of being right, but I’m pretty sure it is.”

“How long was Martell’s conversation with Severance from the time he turned on the scrambler to when he said good-bye?”

“Twenty-two minutes six seconds.”

Cabrillo read through it again. “The four things that stick out are Donna Sky, a key of some kind, and the word fragments eel and lef. What’s the computer probability on the accuracy of those last ones?”

Having spent countless hours poring over the data, Hali didn’t need to refer to his notes. “Sixty-one percent. Key was ninety-two.”

“Eel, lef, and the key came within forty-five seconds of one another, so it’s a fair bet they’re related. And coming a minute seventeen seconds after mentioning Donna Sky, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think she’s somehow connected, too.”

Hali gaped at him. “I stared at this piece of paper for hours before noticing that.”

“That’s because you were trying to deduce meaning from the words rather than the pauses.”

“I do have one more thing.” Kasim slipped a microcassette recorder from his pant pocket and hit PLAY.

Juan heard the same static as before, and then it suddenly stopped. “End transmission,” a voice said clearly.

“Who the hell was that?”

“I ran it through the computer. English isn’t that guy’s native language. Best it could come up with is Middle European, and it put his age between thirty and fifty.”

“Ah,” Juan said, remembering the snippets of conversation they had managed to record before the jammer was activated. “I bet this is Zelimir Kovac. Come on.” They returned to the table, where Mark Murphy was stammering his way through a joke that wasn’t going well. He seemed relieved when Juan interrupted. “Eric, did you manage to find anything on Zelimir Kovac this afternoon?”

“Nada, zip, and zilch.”

“I think I know this man,” Jannike said. “He was on the Golden Dawn. He is an important person with the Responsivists.”

“He never showed up on any of their websites, payroll, or anyplace else,” Eric responded, as if she’d insulted his research abilities.

“But he was there, I tell you,” Janni said defiantly. “People never talked to him but always about him. I think he is close to the group’s leader.”

Cabrillo wasn’t concerned that Kovac hadn’t come up on their radar. He was thinking about how he had been aboard the ill-fated cruise liner and now shows up in Athens. Then he remembered that one of the Dawn’s lifeboats had been missing from its davits when the Oregon found the ghostship. “He killed them.”

“What did you say?” Julia asked with her fork poised halfway to her mouth.

“Kovac was on the Golden Dawn and now he’s at the Responsivist retreat in Greece. He escaped the ship on one of her lifeboats, and the only reason he would have done that is if he knew all those people were going to die. Ergo, he killed them.” He turned to Janni. “Could you describe him?”

“He was very tall. Almost two meters.” That put him at six foot five. Big dude, Juan thought. “He looked very strong and serious. I only saw him a few times, and he never smiled. In truth, I was a little frightened of him.”

“Would you sit down with Eric and Mark and try to create a picture of him?”

“I can’t draw.”

“We have a computer that will do that for you. All you have to do is describe him and they will do the rest.”

“I will do anything you ask if it means he gets punished for what he did.” She started sobbing as the memories of that horrible night welled up. Eric put his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him.

Juan gave him credit for not beaming at Mark Murphy.

Julia Huxley dropped her fork and tossed her napkin on the table as she stood. She was at Janni’s side in an instant. “That’s enough excitement for one night. Let’s get you back down to medical.” She helped the stricken young woman to her feet.

Mark and Eric looked like they were going to help.

“Gentlemen,” Juan said in a warning tone, and they both sank back into their seats, dejected. “There is a time and place. This is neither.”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison, like contrite children. Had Juan not been occupied by all the information he’d gotten in the last couple of minutes, he might have smiled at their display.

He sat, turning his attention to Linda Ross. “Your mission’s scrubbed.”

“What? Why?”

“I won’t let you go into that compound unarmed knowing Kovac is there.” She flared. “I can handle myself.”

“This isn’t open for discussion,” Juan said, his voice flinty sharp. “If I’m right, then Kovac is a mass murderer on an unimaginable scale. You aren’t going in there. Period. Hali scrubbed our recording further, and Donna Sky’s name featured prominently in Martell’s conversation with Thomas Severance.

We know she’s a notable Responsivist and may have information on what’s going on. That’ll be our conduit into their plans.”

“If she’s a hard core believer, then she won’t talk to us,” Linda said.

“She’s an actress, not a trained agent. Five minutes with her and she’ll tell you everything you want to know. We just have to find her and get to her.”