The Storm - Cussler Clive (книги без сокращений .TXT) 📗

Kurt doubted that. A pair of red fire extinguishers sat untouched in their supporting clamps, one on each side of the boat. “Then why didn’t they use these?”

With no answers or even guesses, Kurt looked to Gamay. “Dirk tells me you’ve been taking classes in forensics.”

She nodded. “My time last year with Dr. Smith made me realize small things can tell us a lot. Especially when little else makes sense.”

“None of this makes any sense to me,” Kurt said. “A few containers of missing bulk goods doesn’t mean they were pirated, not when the computers and anything of real value was left behind. Broken dishes and a broken table might suggest a struggle, but it isn’t enough to make me think they went crazy and killed each other. So the only danger I see is this fire, but if they fought it with the hose, they seemed to forget they had fire extinguishers.”

“Maybe the fire disoriented them,” Paul suggested. “Maybe it happened at night? Or it released toxic fumes somehow, and they had no choice but to go overboard.”

That sounded like a possibility to Kurt. Thin but at least possible. And that might explain the strange residue. Perhaps it was an accelerant or gel of some kind. But if so, how did it get there?

“Let’s start with that,” he said. “The fire didn’t come from the engine bay, so something else had to cause it. Let’s get samples of the sludge, and anything else that seems odd.”

“I’ll do that,” Gamay said.

“And I’ll help Joe get the power back up,” Paul added.

“Good,” Kurt said smiling. “Leaves nothing for me to do except introduce myself to an attractive young woman.”

CHAPTER 6

GAMAY STARED AT HIM AS IF HE WAS JOKING. “OF COURSE you will,” she said. “You’re Kurt Austin, what else would you do?”

Despite her gibe, and suspicious glances from the others, Kurt said nothing more. He crossed the gangway onto the jetty but kept his eyes on the guard at the kiosk as if the guard was heading back inside.

At the last second he turned, locked his gaze on the woman by the tree, and began to march toward her.

He moved briskly, with long strides. She stared at him for a second and then began to back up. Kurt kept going.

The woman moved faster, backing toward the street. As she did so, a delivery van came racing down it. A partner coming to whisk her away, Kurt guessed.

But the woman stopped in her tracks, appearing confused. She stared at the approaching van and then looked at Kurt and then back at the van as it screeched to a stop several feet away.

The door flew open and two men jumped out. She tried to run, but they grabbed her.

Kurt didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he knew that wasn’t a good sign. He broke into a run, shouting at the men.

“Hey!”

The woman screamed as they dragged her backward. She struggled, but they flung her through the open door and piled in behind her. By the time Kurt reached the street, they were speeding off. The guard from the kiosk raced up behind him, blowing a whistle.

A whistle wasn’t going to cut it.

“Do you have a car?”

“Just a scooter,” the guard said, pulling out a key and pointing to a little orange Vespa.

Kurt snatched the key and ran for the scooter. It would have to do.

He threw a leg over the seat, stuck the key in the ignition, and turned it. The 50cc engine came to life with all the power of a bathroom fan.

“Who doesn’t have a car?” he shouted as he popped the kickstand, twisted the throttle.

“The whole island is only two miles across,” the guard yelled back to him. “Who needs a car?”

Kurt couldn’t argue with that logic, and even if he could have, he didn’t have time. He twisted the throttle wide open, and the Vespa accelerated, buzzing like a weed whacker, chasing after the fleeing van.

A minute ago he’d wondered if the woman was a reporter, then became suspicious that she might be something more dangerous. Now he was trying to save her from kidnappers. It was making for a very interesting morning.

The van rumbled down the street two hundred yards ahead of him. Its brake lights came on and it turned left, moving inland.

Kurt followed, nearly taking out a bicyclist and a street vendor selling fish. He swerved and went up onto the sidewalk, nearly dumping the scooter in the process. A moment later he was back on the street.

The van had widened its lead substantially, and Kurt was afraid he might not be able to catch it on his underpowered ride.

“Great,” he mumbled to himself as bugs began hitting him in the face. “All those years listening to Dirk tell stories about the Duesenbergs and Packards he borrowed, and I end up on a thirty-horsepower scooter.”

He ducked down, trying to make himself more aerodynamic, and decided to count himself lucky that the scooter didn’t have tassels on the handlebars or a basket for Toto on the front.

A group of pedestrians lay ahead, moving along the crosswalk. Kurt’s thumb found the horn.

Meep-meep.

The annoying, high-pitched buzz was just enough to part the line of people. Kurt zipped through the gap like a madman and focused in on the van.

They were racing inland now, traveling along a road with so many letters and vowels in the name Kurt didn’t bother trying to read or remember it. All that mattered was keeping the delivery van in sight.

He wasn’t sure how fast other scooters went, but this little Vespa topped out at about forty miles per hour. Just as he began thinking his task was impossible, his luck began to change for the better.

Despite the guard’s rhetorical question as to who needed a car, plenty of people seemed to have them. The narrow streets were filled with cars—not to East Coast rush-hour standards perhaps—but enough to make the road into an obstacle course.

As Kurt swerved around one sedan and then cut between two others traveling side by side, he found himself gaining on the van. He could see it up ahead, trying to bull its way through a busy intersection.

As he whizzed around another slow car, he could hear the van’s horn blowing loudly. It made it to the corner and turned right.

Kurt negotiated the turn easily, knifing between a pair of stopped cars and hoping no one decided to open a door.

They were headed west now, and Kurt was closing in on the van, suddenly thrilled with his little orange steed. He saw the water approaching. Somehow, they’d reached the other side of the island already.

The van broke out into the open, zoomed along past the containers and equipment of the commercial harbor. It skidded to a stop across from a waiting speedboat, and the door opened.

The two men who’d thrown the mystery woman inside dragged her out. The van itself raced off.

Kurt ignored it and bore down on the Polynesian woman and her captors. He sped toward them and jumped off the scooter.

Without a rider, the Vespa went down and slid across the concrete. Kurt flew through the air and tackled the two men and the woman all at once.

The four of them tumbled and rolled across the concrete. Kurt felt his knee and hip scraping on the street, the familiar pain of road rash shooting through him. But he hopped up and charged the assailants.

One of them ran for the boat. The other stood, drawing out a knife. He faced Kurt for a second, backed up a few steps and then threw the knife.

Kurt dodged it, but the effort gave the man a precious second or two. He followed his friend to the boat and jumped in. The outboard engine roared and the utility boat moved off in rapid fashion. Kurt saw no identifying numbers or marks on it.

He shook his head. The match was a draw. The thugs had been denied their captive, but they’d made a clean getaway.

He turned his attention to the woman. She was crouched on the ground, holding a bloody elbow and looking as if she were in great pain.