Corsair

“You got it.”

“ ’Seppe, are you satisfied that Didi came onto this ship of his own free will?”

“He’s all yours.”

Juan keyed the microphone again. “Eddie, Linc, meet me down in the Magic Shop, double time.”

Juan slipped a portable radio into a pocket and fitted headphones over his ears so he could stay on the communications grid. As he ran from the room, he asked over his shoulder for Hali Kasim to patch him in to Kevin Nixon, the head magician of the Magic Shop. Launching himself down teak-paneled stairwells rather than wait for one of the elevators, Cabrillo told the former Hollywood makeup artist what he had in mind. After that, he got in touch with Max Hanley and gave him his orders. Max grumbled about what Juan wanted to do, knowing it would make for a maintenance headache for his engineers later on, but he admitted it was a good idea.

Cabrillo reached the Magic Shop on Eddie and Linc’s heels. The room looked like a cross between a salon and a storage shed. There was a makeup counter and mirror along one wall, while the rest of the space was given over to racks of clothing, special effects gear, and all manner of props.

The two gundogs, as Max called them, wore black combat uniforms festooned with pouches for extra ammunition, combat knives, and other gear. They also carried Barrett REC7 assault rifles, a possible successor to the M16 family of weapons.

“Lose the hardware,” Cabrillo said brusquely.

Kevin bustled into the Magic Shop from one of the large store-rooms where he kept disguises. In his arms were garments called dishdashas, the long nightshirt-type clothes commonly worn in this part of the world. The cotton had once been white but had been artfully stained to appear old and worn out. He gave one to each man, and they shrugged them over their clothes. Linc looked like he was stuffed into a sausage casing, but the shirt covered everything but his combat boots.

Nixon also gave them headscarves, and as they started winding them around their skulls he applied makeup to darken Eddie’s and Juan’s skin. A perfectionist, Kevin detested doing anything slipshod, but Cabrillo’s impatience radiated off of him in waves.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Juan said. “People see what they expect to see. That’s the number one rule in disguise.”

Linda’s voice came over Juan’s microphone. “Didi is about two minutes from the main hold.”

“Too soon. We’re not ready. Is there anyone on the bridge?”

“A couple of kids are playing with the ship’s wheel.”

“Hit the foghorn and pipe it down to the hold through the speakers.”

“Why?”

“Trust me,” was all Juan said.

The horn bellowed across the mangrove swamp, startling birds to flight and sending the mongrel camp dogs cowering with their tails tucked between their legs. Inside the corridor where Mohammad Didi and his retainers were walking toward their prize, the sound was a physical assault on the senses. Clamping their hands to their heads did little to mitigate the effect.

“Good call,” Linda told the Chairman. “Didi has stopped to send one of his men back to the wheelhouse. Those kids are in for it when he gets there.”

“What’s going on everywhere else?”

“The horn hasn’t stopped people from looting. I see two women carrying the mattresses out of the captain’s cabin. Another pair are taking those hideous clown pictures. And don’t ask me why he’s bothering, but a guy is working on pulling up the toilet.”

“A throne by any other name,” Juan quipped.

Kevin had finished with their makeup by the time Didi’s lieutenant arrived on the bridge and cuffed the two boys behind the ears. Linda disengaged the horn when the pirate reached for the controls, though he looked at the panel oddly because he hadn’t actually hit any button. He shrugged and hurried back to be with the warlord.

An armorer had arrived in the Magic Shop and handed over three Kalashnikov AK-47s. The weapons looked as battle worn as the ones the pirates carried, but like every facet of the Oregon this was a ruse. These rifles were in perfect working order. He also gave them filter masks that they tucked into the pockets of their dishdashas.

“You got us down here,” Linc said, “and got you boys looking like a couple of imitation homeys, but I don’t know the plan.”

“We couldn’t waltz up to Didi dressed like a bunch of ninjas with so many armed rebels roaming the ship. We need to get close to him without raising an alarm.”

“Hence the mufti,” Eddie surmised.

“In all the excitement,” Juan explained, “we’ll blend in and wait for our moment.”

“If Didi decides to open the drums of ammonium nitrate and discovers they’re filled with seawater, he’s going to sense a trap and hightail it off the Oregon.”

“Why do you think I’m rushing, big man? Kevin?”

Nixon stepped back and looked at his handiwork. He rummaged in a desk drawer and handed Juan and Eddie aviator-style sunglasses. Their skin tone was right, but without latex appliances there wasn’t much he could do about their features. Given enough time, he could make either of them a twin of Didi, but the addition of the shades made him satisfied. He gave a nod, and was going to pronounce his work complete, but Juan was already leading the others out of the room.

“Linda, where is Didi now?” Cabrillo asked over the radio.