Highway.
'Be back in a second,' he told Arnold.
He walked to the corner and saw Kusum hurry along the crumbling waterside pavement to a rotting pier where a rustbucket freighter was moored. As Jack watched, a gangplank lowered itself as if by magic. Kusum climbed aboard and disappeared from view. The gangplank hoisted itself back to the raised position after he was gone.
A ship. What the hell could Kusum be doing on a floating heap like that?
It had been a long, boring day, but now things were getting interesting.
Jack went back to Green’s Machine.
'Looks like this is it,' he said to Arnold. He glanced at the meter, calculated what he still owed of the total, added twenty percent for good will, and handed it through the window. 'Thanks. You've been a big help.'
'This ain't such a good neighborhood during the day,' Arnold said, glancing around. 'And after dark it really gets rough, especially for someone dressed like you.'
'I'll be okay,' he said, grateful for the concern of a man he’d known for only a few hours. He slapped the roof of the car. 'Thanks again.'
Jack watched the cab until it disappeared into the traffic, then he studied his surroundings: a vacant lot on the corner across the street, and an old, boarded-up brick warehouse next to him.
He felt exposed standing here in an outfit that shouted 'Mug me' to anyone so inclined. And since he hadn't dared to bring a weapon to the UN, he was unarmed. Officially, unarmed. He could permanently disable a man with a ballpoint pen and knew half a dozen ways to kill with a key ring, but didn't like to work that close unless he had to. He would have been much more comfortable knowing the Semmerling was strapped against his leg.
He had to hide. His best bet would be under the West Side Highway. He jogged over and perched himself high up in the notch of one of the supports. It offered a clear view of the pier and the ship. Best of all, it would keep him out of sight of any troublemakers.
Dusk came and went. The streetlights came on as night slipped over the city. He was away from the streets, but he saw the traffic to the west and south of him thin out to a rare car cruising by. Still plenty of rumbling overhead on the West Side Highway as the cars slowed for the ramp down to street level just two blocks from where he crouched. The ship remained silent. Nothing moved on its decks, no lights showed from the superstructure. It had all the appearances of a deserted wreck.
What was Kusum doing in there?
Finally, when full darkness settled in at nine o'clock, Jack could wait no longer. In the dark he was pretty sure he could reach the deck and do some hunting around without being seen.
He jumped down from his perch and crossed over to the shadows by the pier. The moon was rising in the east—big and low and ruddy now, slightly rounder than last night. He wanted to get aboard and off again before it reached full brightness and started lighting up the waterfront.
At the water's edge Jack crouched against a huge piling under the looming shadow of the freighter and listened. All quiet but for the lapping of the water under the pier. A sour smell—a mixture of sea salt, mildew, rotting wood, creosote, and garbage—permeated the air. Movement to the left caught his eye: a lone wharf rat scurried along the bulkhead in search of dinner. Nothing else moved.
He jumped as something splashed near the hull. An automatic bilge pump was spewing a stream of water out a small port near the waterline of the hull.
He was edgy and couldn't say why. He’d done sneak searches under more precarious conditions than these. And with less apprehension. Yet the nearer he got to the boat, the less he felt like boarding her. Something within him warned him away. Through the years he’d come to recognize a certain instinct for danger; listening to it had kept him alive. Right now that instinct was ringing a frantic alarm.
Jack shrugged off the feeling of impending disaster as he took the binoculars and camera from around his neck and laid them at the base of the piling. A rope, better than two inches thick, ran up to the bow of the ship. Rough on his hands but easy to climb.
He leaned forward, got a firm two-handed grip, then swung out over the water. As he hung from the rope, he raised his legs until his ankles locked around it. Now began the climb: Hanging from a branch like an orangutan with his face to the sky and his back to the water, he pulled himself up hand over hand while his heels caught the finger-thick coils of the rope and pushed from behind.
The angle of ascent steepened and the climb got progressively tougher as he neared the gunwale. The tiny fibers of the rope were coarse and stiff. His palms were burning; each handful of rope felt like a handful of thistles, especially painful where he’d started a few blisters playing tennis yesterday. It was a pleasure to grab the smooth, cool steel of the gunwale and pull himself up to eye level with its upper edge. He hung there and scanned the deck. Still no sign of life.
He pulled himself over the gunwale, then ran in a crouch to the anchor windlass.
His skin prickled in warning—danger here. But where? He peered over the windlass. No sign that he’d been seen, no sign of anyone else aboard. Still the feeling persisted, a nagging sensation, almost as if he were being watched.
Again he shrugged it off. He had to reach the deckhouse. Well over a hundred feet of open deck lay between him and the aft superstructure. And aft was where he wanted to go. He couldn't imagine much going on in the cargo holds.
Jack set himself, then sprinted around the forward cargo hatch to the kingpost and crane assembly that stood between the two holds. He waited. Still no sign that he’d been seen...or that there was anyone here to see him. Another sprint took him to the forward wall of the deckhouse.
He slid along the wall to the port side where he found some steps. He took them up to the bridge. The wheelhouse was locked, but through the side window he could see a wide array of sophisticated controls.
Maybe this tub was more seaworthy than it looked.
He crossed in front of the bridge and began checking all the doors. On the second deck on the starboard side he found one open. The hallway within was dark but for a single, dim emergency bulb glowing at the far end. One by
