Skeleton Coast - Cussler Clive - Страница 35

Neither did Merrick. He couldn’t get his mind around what Singer had already accomplished and what he was about to carry out. It was all just too much. Singer had already killed thousands of people and no one knew it. Now he was preparing to kill tens of thousands more. And for what? To teach the United States a lesson about environmental control and global warming. That was part of it, but Merrick knew his former best friend all too well.

This was personal to Dan, a way for him to prove to Merrick that he had been the brains behind their success. They had been like brothers in the beginning, but Merrick was the charmer, the one who could turn a good phrase in an interview, so it was inevitable that the media singled him out as the face of Merrick/Singer and marginalized Dan to the shadows. Merrick had never thought this had bothered his partner. He’d been an introvert at MIT so why would it be any different in the real world? He now knew that it had, that Singer had fostered a hatred toward him that bordered on the pathological.

It had changed everything about Singer’s personality, driving him from the company he’d helped build and sending him to the fringes of the environmental movement, where he used his wealth to do everything he could to ruin Merrick/Singer. But when that failed he turned his back on his newfound eco-friends and returned to his home in Maine to lick his wounds.

If only that were true,Merrick thought. But Singer had used his time to let his hatred grow and fester.

And now he was back, with an incredibly audacious and horrifying plan. A plan that had already been taken so far that there wasn’t any way it could be stopped. He hadn’t abandoned his environmental crusade, but had taken it in a new and twisted direction.

“We have to get out of here, Susan.”

“What’s going on?”

“We have to stop him. He’s out of his mind, and the people he’s gathered together are environmental fanatics who don’t give a damn about humanity. And if that’s not enough he claims to have hired a bunch of mercenaries, too.” Merrick buried his face in his hands.

It was his fault. He should have seen Dan’s anger in the beginning and insisted that he get a share of the limelight. He should have recognized the fragility of Dan’s ego and how the attention paid to Merrick tore it to pieces. If he had, then none of this would be taking place. The sting of tears turned into sobs, and all thoughts of his own discomfort vanished as he was overcome by what was happening. He just kept repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” without really understanding who he was apologizing to, Dan or his intended victims.

“Dr. Merrick? Dr. Merrick, please, why is Dr. Singer doing this to us?”

Merrick heard the agony in her voice but couldn’t reply. He was crying so hard it sounded as though his soul was being shredded. The wracking convulsions went on for twenty minutes until he’d cried his tear ducts dry.

“I’m sorry, Susan,” he gasped when he’d finally gained enough control to speak. “It’s just—” He didn’t have the words. “Dan Singer blames me because I was the public face of our company. He’s doing this because he’s jealous. Can you believe that? Thousands of people are already dead and he’s doing it all because I was more popular than him.”

Susan Donleavy didn’t respond.

“Susan?” he called and then louder, “Susan! Susan!”

Her name boomed and echoed, then faded. Silence once again filled the cell block. Merrick was certain that Daniel Singer had just claimed another victim.

13

“YOUcan rest down below if you want,” Juan offered when Sloane yawned.

“No thanks, I’m fine,” she said and yawned again. “But I will take some more coffee.”

Cabrillo pulled the silver thermos from the holder at his knee and handed it across, his eyes automatically scanning the lifeboat’s rudimentary gauges. The engine was running fine and they had more than three quarters of a tank of fuel and only another hour to go to reach Walvis Bay.

When Max had called an hour after they departed theOregon to tell him that George Adams’s helicopter reconnoiter of the area where the crazy old fisherman had seen his metal snakes had turned up nothing but glass-smooth empty ocean, Juan briefly considered simply returning Sloane to her hotel and catching a flight to Cape Town to rejoin his ship. It would have been the logical thing to do. But now, hours later and having a better sense of what made Sloane Macintyre tick, he was sure helping her was the right decision.

She was as driven as he was, someone who couldn’t leave a job half-finished and someone who didn’t back down from a challenge. There was something mysterious taking place in these waters and neither would be satisfied until they learned what it was, even if it had nothing to do with their respective jobs.

He admired her curiosity and tenacity; two traits he also prized in himself.

Sloane poured some of the black coffee into the thermos lid, her body swaying to the rhythms of the waves passing under the hull so she didn’t spill a drop. Still wearing her shorts, Sloane had accepted Juan’s offer of a Windbreaker, one of the two safety orange nylon pullovers that he’d retrieved from a storage bin. He had his tied around his waist.

The vessel was stocked with enough provisions to last forty people for a week and a miniature desalinator to provide potable, albeit still a little salty, water. The bench seats inside the enclosed cabin looked like cracked vinyl, but were in fact soft kid leather that had been distressed to make it look shabby. A panel mounted on the ceiling could be lowered to reveal a thirty-inch plasma TV with an extensive DVD library and surround sound. It had been Max’s perverse idea to cue up the movieTitanic first if the crew ever actually had to man the lifeboats.

Every nook and cranny had been carefully designed to maximize the comfort and convenience of anyone forced into the boat. It was more like a luxury motor yacht than a life-saving vessel. She was also built for safety. When her hatches were sealed the boat could turn completely over and still right herself, and with three-point harnesses for every seat, the passengers wouldn’t be tossed around. And because she was owned by the Corporation there were a few tricks built into her that Juan had no intention of showing his guest.

There were two positions where the boat could be commanded: inside near the bow protected by the boat’s fiberglass and composite cabin, or on a slightly elevated platform at the stern where Juan and Sloane stood so they could enjoy the spectacular sunset earlier and now the star-smeared night sky. A small windscreen protected them from the worst of the salt air, but the cold waters of the Benguela Current flowing north from Antarctica had dropped the temperature into the sixties.

Sloane cradled the coffee in her hands and studied Cabrillo’s face in the muted glow of the dashboard lights. He was traditionally handsome, with strong, well-defined features and clear blue eyes. But it was what lay under the surface that really intrigued her. He had an easy command of his crew, a natural leadership that any woman would find attractive, but she also got the impression he was a loner. Not the walk into a post office and open fire with a rifle loner, or the geek living in cyberspace type, but someone comfortable in their own company, someone who knew exactly who he was, what he was capable of, and found what he saw to his liking.

She could tell he made decisions quickly and apparently never second-guessed himself. That level of confidence only came from being right more often than wrong. She wondered if he had military training and decided he did. She imagined he’d been in the Navy, an officer, but one who couldn’t put up with the incompetence of those above him so he quit. He had traded in the structured life of the armed forces to live like a drifter on the high seas, clinging to an old way of doing things because he was really born a couple of centuries too late. She could easily see him on the bridge of a clipper ship crossing the Pacific with a load of spices and silk.