Mirage

cap that had belonged to his grandfather, a season ticket holder for the twelve years they were in the City of Angels, and worn only at home games. He hadn’t worn it in so long, he had to reshape the bill.

It was only as he turned away from the walk-in closet that he noticed the plastic bag containing his soiled clothes had been removed and a silver server had been placed on the white alabaster bar in the corner of his cabin. Next to it was a single glass of wine that glowed like liquid ruby in the subdued lighting.

He chuckled a little ruefully.

An hour ago he’d been so hyper-aware of his surroundings that he still retained the muscle memory of every turn, bounce, and shudder of the ride from the forest until the moment the snow machine came to rest in the Oregon’s boat garage. Yet now, back in what had been his home for so many years, his guard had so dropped that he hadn’t noticed when one of the ship’s stewards, most likely the septuagenarian chief steward Maurice, had padded into his cabin as he was in the shower and removed the dirty clothes while bringing Cabrillo his supper. Had the man been an assassin, Juan wouldn’t have stood a chance.

He plucked the silver dome off the serving tray and was greeted by a rich, spicy aroma. He justified to himself that if there was any safe place for him on the planet, it was aboard the Oregon surrounded by her amazing crew. The embossed card resting on the plate said the meal was bison chili served in a French bread boule, and the wine was a Philip Togni cabernet sauvignon.

Maurice, who’d spent his career in the Royal Navy as the personal steward for at least a dozen admirals, was a superb sommelier, and Juan was certain the wine paired beautifully with the dish, but tonight wasn’t a wine night. There was a minifridge tucked under the bar, and from it Cabrillo slipped out a bottle of plain Stolichnaya vodka and two chilled shot glasses. No sooner had he filled them than there was a knock on the door. Max Hanley came through without being invited.

“In the movie,” Max said, crossing the room to take the barstool next to Cabrillo, “Bogie eventually asked Sam to play ‘As Time Goes By.’ Just so you know, I can’t even play ‘Chopsticks.’”

Juan smiled a bit. “Truth is, I didn’t have room for a piano in here anyway.” He handed one of the shot glasses to Max and hoisted the second. “To Yuri Borodin.”

“To Yuri,” Max echoed, and they both downed the vodka.

Max Hanley was the first person Cabrillo hired when he’d formed the Corporation on the recommendation of his CIA mentor Langston Overholt IV. Hanley had been running a scrapyard in Southern California at the time and had given Juan’s offer less than a minute’s thought before accepting. Prior to that he’d been involved in marine engineering and salvage, and before that he’d commanded Swift Boats on nearly every navigable inch of river in South Vietnam.

Heavyset, with a florid complexion, a crescent of ginger hair ringing the back half of his skull, and a nose that had been broken enough times that he could have been mistaken for a professional boxer, Max was the details man of the outfit. No matter how crazy the scheme Cabrillo dreamt up, Max was there to see it pulled off.

“I already broke the news to Misha Kasporov,” Hanley said without looking Juan in the eye.

That task rightly fell to the Chairman, but Cabrillo was grateful his number two had told Mikhail Kasporov of his boss’s fate. He toasted Hanley with a refill and downed it with a little shudder.

“He asked that we bury Yuri at sea with Russian military honors,” Max went on. “I had Mark pull up the appropriate ceremony off the Internet.” He handed Juan a piece of paper.

Cabrillo scanned the ceremony. Typical Russian, it was maudlin and somewhat bombastic but with a dutiful sense of patriotism, which, he supposed, summed up Yuri. “Tell the crew we’ll hold the ceremony at 07:30.”

“And not that you particularly give a damn tonight,” Max continued, “but Misha held to the contract to get Yuri out of jail. The rest of the money’s been transferred to our temporary account on the Caymans.”

Juan raised another shot. “Honor amongst thieves.”

“Amen.” Hanley pointed at Cabrillo’s dinner. “Are you going to eat that?”

Cabrillo pulled the plate closer. “Actually, I am. I’m starved. You can have my wine if you want.”

Max went around the bar to retrieve two fresh icy shot glasses from the fridge and refilled them from the bottle of Stoli. “Pass.”

“Misha knows his life isn’t worth a plug nickel,” Juan said as he dipped a spoon into his chili.

“We discussed that. He knew the score and is already on the move. He says he has a bolt-hole someplace in Africa where Kenin will never find him.”

Cabrillo nodded noncommittally. He knew of dozens of dead or jailed fugitives who thought they’d never be found. But Kasporov wasn’t his responsibility. “Any word from Linda?”

Linda Ross was the Oregon’s number three. An elfish woman who had hit the glass ceiling in the Navy, she was currently on another assignment with one of the Corporation’s regular clients.

“She and the Emir have left Monaco on his yacht and are en route to Bermuda.”

The Emir of one of the United Arab Emirates insisted that he travel with members of the Corporation whenever he left his native land even though he was always accompanied by a virtual army of bodyguards. Usually he insisted that the Oregon shadow his 300-foot mega-yacht, Sakir, but the ship was needed to rescue Yuri, so he’d been mollified by having Linda as his traveling companion.

Max went on, “We’ll have no trouble catching up with them once we clear some of the ice still floating around up here.”

When Juan converted the Oregon into the hybrid warship/intelligence-gathering vessel she was today, the modifications included the ability to break through ice nearly three feet thick. However, in these northern waters, drifting bergs posed the most serious threat, and the Oregon, even with her armored sides, could be torn open as easily as the Titanic by a glancing blow. It wouldn’t be until they were clear of the danger that they could open the taps on the most powerful engines afloat. Her revolutionary magnetohydrodynamic engines could push the ship through the water at a rate not much below some offshore power racers.

“Is the Emir behaving himself?” Juan asked with fatherly concern.

“He’s eighty. Linda says apart from a few perfunctory passes, he reminds her of her grandfather.” Max had a bulldog face, a canvas of a lifetime of experiences writ large. Suddenly his jowls seemed to grow and his brow furled until it was corduroyed. “Something tells me that Linda’s going to be on her own for a while longer, yes?”

“Not sure,” Juan said, tearing a hunk of crusty, chili-soaked bread from the boule and popping it in his mouth. “Just before Yuri died, he implicated Admiral Pytor Kenin—”

“No surprise there,” Max interrupted.

“No,” Juan agreed. “Kenin is behind the frame-up, but I don’t think that’s what Yuri was talking about.”

“What, then?”

“He mentioned the Aral Sea and someone named Petrovski. Karl Petrovski.”

Max leaned back into his barstool, his bullet head cocked to the side. “Never heard of him.”

“Me neither. Then Yuri said something like ‘eerie boat.’”

“Eerie boat?”

“Eerie boat. Don’t ask. I have no idea. But his last word was ‘Tesla.’”

“As in Nikola?”

“I have to assume so. The Serbian inventor who basically created the modern electrical grid.”

“And a heck of a lot more,” Hanley added. “Everyone knows about Thomas Edison and his contributions to modern society, but few have ever heard of Tesla. Well, apart from the new electric sports car named after him. Tesla was an uber-genius. Some of his ideas—”

Juan cut him off, a classic case of who knew more about what. “I saw a documentary on cable about how Edison tried to convince people that his DC theory was safer than Tesla’s alternating current by electrocuting elephants in New York City.”

“This was the dawn of a new age,” Max said. “The stakes couldn’t have been higher.”

“But, come on. Electrocuting elephants to prove a point?”

“In the end, showmanship did pay off, in a way. AC won out over Edison’s DC system, yet we all know Edison’s name, and Tesla remains a footnote in history. Sometimes history favors the activist more than the