Reyes and Kasim were out on the deck with boat hooks in their hands. They were pushing a body toward a lowered net hung from a cable attached to a derrick. Cabrillo made his way inside and headed down the passageway to the sick bay and opened the door.
Ackerman was lying on an exam table covered by electric warming blankets.
“He’s been trying to talk,” Huxley said. “I wrote it all down, but it was mostly gibberish until a few minutes ago.”
“What then?” Cabrillo asked, staring down at Ackerman, whose eyes had started to flutter. One eye cracked open just a touch.
“He started talking about the ghost,” she said, “not
Just then Ackerman spoke again. “I should have never trusted the Ghost,” he said in a voice growing weaker by the word. “He bought and paid for the un…ivers…ity.”
Ackerman started convulsing. His body began to shake like a dog exiting the water.
“Mom,” he said weakly.
And then he died.
No matter how much Huxley shocked him, his heart would not start again. It was just after midnight when she pronounced him dead. Cabrillo carefully reached up and closed Ackerman’s eyes, then covered him with a blanket.
“You did the best you could,” he said to Huxley.
Then he left the sick bay and walked down the
Ackerman’s words were still ringing in his head.
Walking onto the stern of the ship, he found Hanley staring over a trio of bodies. Hanley was holding an eight- and-a-half-by-eleven-inch computer picture in his hand.
“I enhanced the photograph with a computer to distort the face in order to account for the swelling,” he said as soon as Cabrillo walked closer.
Cabrillo took the photograph from Hanley, bent down next to the body, and held it to the face. He stared at the face of the corpse and then the photograph.
“Al-Khalifa,” he said slowly.
“He must have been weighed down and tossed overboard,” Hanley noted. “The only thing was that the killers didn’t know that the bottom of the ocean around here is littered with geothermal vents. The hot water caused the bodies to quickly bloat and overcome the weight. If it weren’t for that, we’d have never found them.”
“Have you ID’d the others?” Cabrillo asked.
“I haven’t found any records yet,” Hanley said, “plus there are more surfacing as we speak. Probably just Al- Khalifa’s minions.”
“Not minions,” Cabrillo said, “madmen.”
“Now the question is…” Hanley said.
“Who is crazy enough,” Cabrillo said, “to steal from other crazies.”
22
LANGSTON OVERHOLT IV was sitting in his office, bouncing a red rubber ball off a wooden paddle. The telephone receiver was cradled to his ear. The time was barely 8 A.M. but he’d already been at work for more than two hours.
“I left a pair of my engineers on board,” Cabrillo said to Overholt. “We’re claiming salvage rights.”
“Nice prize,” Overholt said.
“I’m sure we can use it somehow,” Cabrillo agreed.
“What’s your current location?” Overholt asked.
“We are north of Iceland heading east. We’re trying to track the bugs on the meteorite. Whoever killed Al- Khalifa and stole the meteorite must be aboard another ship.”
“You’re sure the body you recovered is Al-Khalifa?” Overholt asked.
“We’re faxing you fingerprints and digital photographs of the corpse,” Cabrillo said, “so your people can make a positive identification. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”
“After you woke me up this morning, I ordered some of my men to try to check out the ID on the passenger aboard the Eurocopter. We got nothing. I’m sending a team to Greenland to recover the bodies, then hopefully we’ll know more.”
“Sorry about the midnight call, but I thought you should receive the news as soon as possible.”
“No problem, I probably got more sleep than you.”
“I managed to grab a few hours once we left the
“What’s your gut feeling, old friend?” Overholt asked. “If Al-Khalifa is dead, then the threat of the dirty bomb seems diminished. The meteorite is radioactive, but without a catalyst the danger is a lot less.”
“True,” Cabrillo said slowly, “but the missing Ukrainian nuclear bomb is still out there somewhere, and we don’t know that several of Al-Khalifa’s own people didn’t kill him and will now try to mount the mission themselves.”
