“I feel like I’m getting pretty waterlogged, just sitting here,” Matt muttered, unreeling yet another section of the seemingly endless roster of nautical names.
No, this was a particular kind of waterlogged feeling. Between his car rides and computer work, he hadn’t seen the inside of a bathroom since before he’d left school. His back teeth were practically floating.
Returning back down the hall, much relieved, Matt paused to stick his head into his own room. Maybe Captain Winters could go for a drink or something. Matt felt pretty thirsty, all of a sudden.
He blinked. A list of names hung in the air in holographic projection. But the captain was nowhere to be seen. Had he been struck with the urge, too? Maybe he was a step before Matt and had gone to the kitchen for something to drink.
But when Matt checked, the captain wasn’t in the spare bathroom or in the kitchen.
He seemed to be…gone.
Baffled, Matt dashed back to the system in his room. Yes, there was the list of boats. It was some marina in Annapolis — apparently Winters had decided to check the big cities first.
Could he—?
Matt ran an eye down the displayed listing. He stopped beside the entry for a fair-sized cabin cruiser….
The good ship
21
Considering the circumstances, Matt wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t able to get hold of Jay Gridley. The head of Net Force was directing an all-out effort to find Megan O’Malley.
Matt should probably feel glad he’d managed to contact the Net Force Explorers’ liaison, Agent Len Dorpff. That, however, had been the easy part of the job. Now he faced the uphill task of convincing Dorpff to believe in Captain Winters’s theory — and getting him to act on it.
Dorpff frowned in the display over Matt’s computer. “So, you’re saying that Marcus Kovacs’s home in the Blue Ride — and the preparations for an extended stay in the mountains — these are a blind of some sort?”
Matt nodded eagerly. “He wants us to put our resources and attention there while he makes his escape by boat. That’s how Mike Steele got away the last time. He even faked his death in a boating accident. Look at the baby gift he had made for Captain Winters — a rattle in the shape of an anchor. The guy is obviously crazy over boats.” He extended his hands toward the image. “It’s not my idea. Captain Winters figured it out, and he probably knows Steele better than anybody in Net Force. The captain may even have found the boat and gone there on his own to stop the getaway.”
“Yeah. Can you explain this sudden inspiration to me again?”
“We were checking the names of boats, looking for certain connections. It seems that Steele saw law enforcement as a sort of grown-up game of cowboys and Indians. He was also into the mystique of the Vikings. The boat he disappeared on was called the
“I’m with you so far,” Dorpff said. “So what about this new discovery?”
“I came in to my room to find Winters gone and the list of ships scrolled to a listing for a big cabin cruiser called the
Would Dorpff see the connection? “Mike Steele thought of his Net Force job as cowboys and Indians,” Matt said. “So if he went over to the other side—”
“He’d become an Indian — or in Viking-talk, a
“A single very uncommon word, attached to a powerful boat, close but not too close to Washington, that would serve as a perfect getaway vehicle.”
“I’ll pass it up the line,” Dorpff said. From the sound of his voice, he was impressed but still dubious about the Winters-Hunter theory.
“I expect this is the last thing you’ll want to hear,” Matt said, “but I’ve got to say it. When you took over the liaison job, you said you hoped you’d do as well as Captain Winters. Well, one thing he always did was go the extra mile for any of his Net Force Explorers. If Captain Winters had heard this from one of us, and thought it might possibly help save Megan, he’d take it right to the top.”
Len Dorpff stared at him for a moment, speechless.
But then the young agent slowly nodded his head. “You’re right, you know,” Dorpff said. “When I took this job, that put the Net Force Explorers under my care. I can’t hold back when one of my people is in trouble.”
He grinned out of the display at Matt and gave him a sketchy salute. “I’ll give it my best shot, Matt,” he promised. “My best.”
Megan had recovered enough from the effects of the gassing that she could sit on the bunk. She couldn’t go much farther with her wrist handcuffed to the rail. Mike Steele had been surprisingly good-natured. He’d cleaned up the mess her outraged stomach had made on the carpet and then disappeared.
They still hadn’t left the dock. Apparently, there was quite a bit of work to do before the boat would be ready to set off. Either Steele had been so confident in the success of his deception that he hadn’t been maintaining his getaway craft, or he’d been super-careful not to be spotted anywhere near it.
After what seemed like hours the kidnapper returned to the cabin. “We should be leaving shortly,” he announced. “It should look like someone getting home from work and going for a brief jaunt to clear away the cobwebs. I’ve also been checking the charts, trying to find someplace isolated enough that you won’t be getting people on my tail too soon, but safe enough that you don’t drown in case you’re stuck when the tide comes back in.”
He hesitated for a moment. “I’m glad you were sensible about the whole screaming thing. There’s nobody on the docks, and I didn’t want to be forced to gag you while you were still queasy from the gas. Getting sick while you’re gagged is no joke.”
Megan silently agreed. She’d heard of people drowning in their own vomit when they had no place to spew except down their own lungs.
“So, if you can just remain reasonable a little while more, we can end this with no permanent damage on either side.”
Megan still kept silent. That would be her last chance to do anything to try and stop this getaway. Under the circumstances, it might be the last thing she did in her life. Behind that obliging exterior, Mike Steele was a desperate man. If she tried to use her martial arts training against him when he came to undo her handcuffs, he certainly wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.
Worse, she only had Steele’s word that he was going to beach her someplace desolate. What had the pirates in
That would go twice for a dead female Net Force Explorer. Steele would have a lot less to worry about if he tied her unconscious body to a spare anchor and sent her to the bottom of the bay.
The moment of truth was fast coming up, and Megan still hadn’t made up her mind what to do.
“I think there’s been enough damage done already, Mike,” a new voice cut in.
Both Megan and Steele whirled in surprise to the cabin’s entranceway. James Winters stood in the opening, tapping a large wrench into his right hand.
“Threatened with my own wrench,” Mike Steele said lightly. “I guess that’s the best you could find since they stuck you on the bow-and-arrow squad.” Mike glanced at Megan. “That’s cop slang—”
“For people who aren’t allowed to keep their guns,” she finished. “I know.”
“No more moving,” Winters said. “And keep your hands where I can see them, or I’ll brain you where you stand.”
He’d picked a good place for this confrontation. The cabin was too cramped for Steele to maneuver, and
