speakers, waking the dead in the morning like air-raid sirens.”
The call of the muezzins from the mosques in Jakarta was known to be exceedingly loud and to ring out at an exceedingly early hour. Only recently had the time for their song been moved from three a.m. to the somewhat more reasonable hour of four thirty.
Still too damned early, Devlin thought. But, in some ways, he’d miss even that, such was the lure of exotic lands.
“Always thought I’d make captain,” he said.
“And give up all this?” Keane asked, slurring every word.
Devlin laughed. He’d longed to be a captain and ship’s master for most of his life, but an event several years back had made him wonder if he wanted the responsibility. It had also set his drinking on a dangerous course. Captains didn’t tie one on with their crews, they drank alone in their cabins. And they were often forced to make harsh decisions, the kind that haunted Devlin as it was.
“Not on your life,” Devlin said with false bravado. He threw an arm around Keane’s neck in a move that was half headlock and half hug.
The two men were laughing as they reached the motor launch they’d brought from their ship: a freighter loaded with rolls of copper, anchored offshore in the never-ending queue.
As they climbed into the small runabout, Devlin stepped to the controls. Keane, on the other hand, found himself a comfortable spot to lie down, stretching out across a trio of seats and pulling an orange life vest under his head for use as a pillow. Before Devlin had even cleared the bowlines, Keane was passed out and snoring loudly.
“That’s right,” Devlin mumbled, “you sleep. I’ll do all the work as usual.”
He cast off the bowlines and then fired up the small boat’s engine. A moment later, he was picking his way across the crowded harbor.
Small boats moved here and there. A pair of tugs worked to drag a monstrous bulk carrier out into the channel, while crewmen, painting and scraping and fighting the endless battle against rust and corrosion, scampered over other vessels like crabs on the rocks.
Devlin guided the launch past all this and out into the anchorage. He kept a fair course, moving slowly past the waiting ships, until a particular vessel caught his eye.
Slowing the launch just a bit, Devlin stared at a black-hulled vessel with a dark gray superstructure. It looked vaguely familiar, like a small cruise liner, though the dark paint was neither festive nor striking. The more he studied the ship, the odder her appearance was to him. She didn’t seem to carry any lifeboats, radar masts, or even antennas. In fact, she carried none of the normal appendages that sprout from modern ships.
In his inebriated state, Devlin struggled to make sense of it. He saw no one on deck and no sign of activity. The ship itself reminded him of a derelict, stripped for parts. Her black-gray color was like that of charred steal, but the coating wasn’t soot, she’d been deliberately tinted that way.
Subconsciously, Devlin angled the launch toward her, moving closer and then coming around the bow. There he spotted something new, something unmistakable.
“It can’t be,” he said out loud.
In front of him lay the overlapped plating of a hasty repair job. Plates of different thickness and consistency had been welded and riveted into place to cover a breach in the hull. The heavy black paint covered it all, but the jagged, H-like shape of the repair was unmistakable.
He shouted to Keane. “Wake up,” he said, “you have to see this.”
Keane grunted something and rolled over.
“Keane?!”
No response. Devlin gave up on him and turned back to the ship. He was wide awake now.
“You’re a bloody ghost,” he whispered, edging closer to the black hulk. “A bloody ghost or a bloody trick.”
He was still muttering various curses of disbelief when the launch bumped up against the ship. He reached out and touched her. There was an odd, almost rubbery feel to the paint. But the ship itself was real enough.
A sense of uncontrollable anger began to well up inside Devlin, a dark Irish rage. Years of guilt and self- hatred fueled it. Someone was tricking him, or had tricked him years ago.
He passed around the bow and headed for the stern. A gangway sat in the lowered position, resting diagonally across the aft end of the ship. Its bottom step was eight feet above the harbor’s oily waters. Devlin pulled up next to it.
He cut the throttle and lazily tied a line to the sloping stairs. He didn’t bother with Keane and instead climbed onto the launch’s roof. From there, he clambered awkwardly up onto the gangway.
It shook with his weight and banged against the hull, but it held. Despite the racket, no one appeared to welcome him aboard or shoo him away.
Devlin began to climb. He moved slowly at first on shaky legs, and then faster as he became more certain of the truth. “I saw you go down!” he shouted at the ship. “I saw you bloody well go down!”
He stumbled as he neared the top and sprawled out on the last few steps, breathless and almost weeping. He could see raised letters on the stern. They were hidden beneath the rubbery black paint, but they hadn’t been scraped off before the new paint was slapped over the top.
He ran his hand across the letters he could reach. They were real, just like the ship itself.
Like a man caught in the surf, Devlin was bowled over by waves of emotion. Confusion, sadness, and elation hit him almost simultaneously, one after another.
He sat there, sobbing like a child and hoping he wasn’t in the middle of a dream, until the sound of footsteps came from above. The squeak of a gate followed as a section of the rail was pulled back where the gangway met the main deck.
Devlin looked up as a man appeared. The face was bearded now but familiar to him. An odd moment passed as two sets of eyes tried to connect what they saw to distant, faded memories.
The bearded man won the race. A sad smile crept over him. “Hello, Padi,” he said in a kind and melancholy way.
“Janko?” Devlin said. “You’re alive? But you went down with this ship.”
The bearded man offered a hand and helped Devlin to his feet, bringing him aboard and steadying the inebriated old sailor as he stood on the main deck.
“I wish you hadn’t found us,” Janko said.
“Us?”
“I’m sorry, Padi.”
With that, Janko shoved a handheld device into Devlin’s ribs. The blow stunned the old sailor, but the massive shock that followed did more damage. Devlin convulsed as he fell backward. He was unconscious by the time he hit the deck.
A watertight hatchway opened behind Janko, and two other men came running out.
“Is everything all right?” one of them asked.
Janko nodded and slipped the device back into his pocket. “Check the launch.”
One of the men raced down the stairs. The other glanced at Devlin, lying still on the deck. “How the hell did he know who you were?”
“He was the chief on the tug I signed on to,” Janko explained. “The one who cut us loose in the storm. From the look of it, he’s been beating himself up ever since.”
“What should we do with him?”
“Take him below,” Janko said. “Bodies bring attention. Disappearance is more easily explained. Especially that of a drunk.”
A shout came up to them from the launch below. “There’s another man in the boat. He’s passed out cold.”
“He must have been unconscious when they got here,” Janko thought aloud. “Doubt he’ll remember a thing. Untie the launch and let it drift. By the time he wakes up, he’ll think this one went overboard. Another sad accident at sea.”
