Skeleton Coast - Cussler Clive (книги txt) 📗

Sloane adjusted the binoculars to fit her face and brought them to her eyes. A big ship coasted on the horizon, a single-funneled freighter that appeared to be heading toward Walvis Bay. At this extreme range it was impossible to see any detail other than get a vague sense of her dark hull and a small forest of booms and derricks on both her fore and aft decks.

“I never see a ship like that out here before,” the charter captain said. “Only ships come to Walvis are coasters or the cruise ships. Fishermen are all closer to shore and tankers rounding the Cape run four or five hundred miles further out.”

The world’s oceans are divided into sea lanes that were almost as clearly marked as interstate highways.

With deadlines always tight and the price of keeping a vessel at sea running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for supertankers, ships invariably followed the straightest line between destinations, rarely varying a mile or two. So while some parts of the ocean teemed with marine traffic, other regions never saw a single ship in a year. The charter boat was in such a dead zone—far enough from the coast to avoid regional freighters supplying Walvis Bay but well inside established routes used for rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

“There’s something else odd,” Sloane said. “There’s no smoke coming from her funnel. Do you think she’s a derelict? Maybe she was caught in a storm and the crew had to abandon her.”

Tony came up the ladder. Sloane was pondering the presence of the mystery ship and the fate of her crew and didn’t hear him so when he touched her shoulder she started.

“Sorry,” he said. “Look behind us. There’s another boat coming this way.”

Sloane whirled so fast that her hands on the wheel caused the boat to lurch to port. It was notoriously hard to judge distances at sea but she knew the boat driving hard for them could not be more than a couple of miles astern and for it to catch up to them it was running faster than the charter boat. She tossed the binoculars at the captain and eased the chrome throttle handles until they hit their stops.

“What’s going on?” Tony shouted, leaning forward as the boat picked up speed.

The captain had sensed Sloane’s fear and for the moment said nothing as he scoped the approaching craft with the binoculars.

“Do you recognize it?” Sloane asked him.

“Yes. She comes into Walvis every month or so. A yacht. Maybe fifty feet long. I do not know her name or her owner.”

“Can you see anyone?”

“There are men on the upper bridge. White men.”

“I demand to know what is going on!” Tony roared, his face flushing.

Again Sloane ignored him. Without having to see them, she knew who was in the boat behind them. She gently eased the wheel and started racing for the distant freighter, praying that her pursuers would back off if there were witnesses. Out on the open ocean she was sure they’d be killed, the fishing boat scuttled. She pressed more firmly on the throttles but the diesels were already giving her everything they had. Her lips worked as she silently prayed that she was wrong about the freighter being abandoned. If it was, they’d be dead as soon as the yacht caught up.

Tony grabbed her arm, his eyes blazing. “Damn it, Sloane, what is this all about? Who are those people?”

“I think they’re the same men who chased me back to the hotel last night.”

“Chased you? What do you mean, chased you?”

“What I said,” she snapped. “I was chased back to the hotel by two men. One of them had a gun. They warned me to leave the country.”

Tony’s anger turned into fury and even the captain looked at her with an unreadable expression. “And you didn’t see fit to tell me. Are you out of your mind? You get chased by men with guns and then lead us out here to the middle of nowhere? Good God, woman, what were you thinking?”

“I didn’t think they would follow us,” Sloane shouted back. “I messed up, all right! If we can get close enough to the freighter they won’t do anything.”

“What the hell would have happened if that freighter wasn’t here?” Spittle popped from Tony’s mouth with each word.

“Well, it is, so we’ll be fine.”

Tony turned to the ship’s owner. “Do you have a gun?”

He nodded slowly. “I use it on sharks if they come round.”

“Then I bloody well recommend you get it, mate, because we might just need it.”

The boat had been taking the waves on a gentle broadside but now that Sloane had altered their course they were cutting into them, the bow sawing up and down and sea foam exploding each time they plowed through a crest. The ride was rough and Sloane kept her knees bent to absorb each impact. The captain returned from below and wordlessly handed Sloane a worn twelve-gauge and a fistful of shells, intuitively knowing she possessed a strength Tony Reardon lacked. He retook his position at the helm and made subtle corrections as each wave passed under them so as not to lose speed. The luxury yacht had gained at least a mile while the freighter looked no closer.

She scanned the big cargo ship through the binoculars and her heart sank. The vessel was in poor repair.

Her hull was painted in myriad dark shades and looked like it had been patched with steel plates a dozen times over. She saw no one walking the decks or manning the bridge and while it looked like foam creamed off her bows as if she were making way it couldn’t be possible because there was no smoke from her stack.

“Do you have a radio?” Sloane asked the captain.

“It is below,” he replied. “But doesn’t have enough range to reach Walvis if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Sloane pointed to the freighter over the bow. “I want to alert them what’s happening so they can lower a boarding ladder.”

The captain glanced over his shoulder at the fast-approaching yacht. “It will be close.”

Sloane slid down the steep steps using just her hands, and ran into the cabin. The radio was an old transceiver bolted to the low ceiling. She powered it up and worked the knob to channel 16, the international distress band.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the fishing vesselPinguin calling the freighter en route to Walvis Bay.

We are being chased by pirates, please respond.”

A burst of static filled the cabin.

Sloane adjusted the radio dial and thumbed the microphone. “This is thePinguin calling unidentified freighter en route to Walvis. We need assistance. Please respond.”

Again she heard static, but thought she caught the ghost of a voice in the white noise. Despite the boat’s violent pitching, Sloane’s fingers were as delicate as a surgeon’s as she moved the dial in fractional increments.

A voice suddenly boomed from the speaker. “You should have listened to me last night and left Namibia.” Through the distortion Sloane was still able to recognize the voice from the previous night and her blood went cold.

Sloane mashed the microphone. “Leave us alone and we will return to shore,” she pleaded. “I will be on the first plane out. I promise.”

“That is no longer an option.”

She looked over the transom. The yacht had cut the distance to a couple hundred yards, close enough for her to see two of the men in the bridge holding rifles of some sort. The freighter was a mile or more away.

They weren’t going to make it.

“WHAT do you think, Chairman?” Hali Kasim asked from his seat at the communications station.

Cabrillo was leaning forward in his chair, an elbow on the arm of his chair, a hand cupping his unshaven chin. The forward display screen showed the view from the mast-mounted camera. The image from the gyro-stabilized video was rock solid and zoomed in on the two boats fast approaching theOregon . The fishing boat was making a solid twenty knots while the motor yacht was easily closing in at thirty-five.