The Target Page 3

  “What do you mean?” the captain said.

  “Nobody.”

  “Any sign of what’s going on?”

  “No, sir. All their stuff is still there. Sleeping bags are in their rooms. Toothbrushes are in the bathrooms. It’s all there. I saw half-eaten burgers in the mess hall as if something happened and everyone left right in the middle of their meal.”

  “What the devil? Left right in the middle of their meal?” The captain paced across the wheelhouse a couple of times. He stood by the window looking ashore and blew smoke at the glass. “Alright then, Andreas. Have your men cast off the lines. We’ll head over to the whaling station. They must be over there.”

  “Yes, sir. Shouldn’t we just send a skiff over?”

  “No, something unusual is going on here.”

  “What could it be?”

  The captain shook his head. “No idea. Maybe someone was seriously hurt over at the whaling station. If so, a small boat ride all the way back here could be rough. I want to be prepared to act fast and offer whatever assistance is needed. Anyway, as I understand it, the artists and Professor Sands here will be staying at the manager’s house over there anyway. I need to offload their baggage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s make it fast, Andreas. Every minute I sit around here is costing me money.”

  After the lines were cast off, the captain pushed the lever forward, and whole ship vibrated under the power of the big marine diesels. Jake headed back to his cabin, guessing he had ten or fifteen minutes, which was just enough for a little catnap. He’d barely slept last night with the rough seas. Even a few minutes of shuteye would be nice. A few minutes was all he got.

  He’d barely closed his eyes when he heard loud clanking. Just as the anchor chain stopped rattling, the lights in the hall flickered. He could see this due to the one-inch gap at the bottom of his cabin door.

  Then the lights went out. No longer was there any light coming under the door. Jake had known it was an old ship, but if the generators died every time the anchor dropped, then the boat would be lucky to finish out its journey. The captain was crazy to take a ship in poor condition into the stormy waters of the Southern Atlantic. Jake swung his legs out of bed and shoved his gun under his belt. He was just glad to be at Grytviken.

  He heard voices in the hall, passengers talking in English about the lights.

  Static scratched through the little speaker by the door. Jake jumped backwards, startled by the unexpected noise.

  As he caught his breath, a strong voice came over the loud speaker: “This is the captain. We’re having generator problems; however, it’s nothing to worry about. We will have the issue fixed soon.”

  Static from the loud speaker faded.

  Then a loud BOOM rocked the entire ship.

  CHAPTER 2

  The explosion reverberated through the ship’s hull, and the floor and walls vibrated for a moment. Jake kneeled down as a protective gesture. The ship heeled over, then rocked back to starboard.

  As it continued to gently roll, Jake ran up to the wheelhouse.

  The captain stood at the aft bulkhead. He had a telephone in his hand that was attached to the wall cradle by a wire. An officer stood at the wheel.

  “What’s going on?” Jake said.

  The gray-haired captain turned to him. “As a matter of safety, I’m sending all passengers ashore immediately while we investigate the situation. Please return to your cabin and collect your gear.”

  Out on deck, Jake stopped at the rail and judged the misery and chances of survival if there was another blast and he had to swim. Even if he swam ashore, he could get hypothermia. He found himself amazed at how such a beautiful place could also be so deadly.

  He was awestruck by the cold and harsh scenery of South Georgia. At the head of Cumberland East Bay and below stark mountains of sheer rock, the Nordenskjöld Glacier was crushing a low valley under her massive weight while her icebergs calved into the bay. Jake pulled his stocking cap lower against the freezing wind and headed forward.

  He was surprised to find that the others were already assembling out on the main deck. They looked confused and frightened while Jake stood at the rail and took in the scene. The bay waters were presently calm, and the sounds of barking seals and squawking penguins filled the air. The animals were scattered along the beach in small groups.

  The shoreline was also fringed by several rotting docks and decrepit whale boats that had been abandoned in a previous era. The whaling station was located deep inside a bay that was flanked by snow-covered hills and precipitous mountains that rose thousands of feet above sea level. More than a dozen rusted and decrepit sheet-metal buildings stretched across a snow-covered beach. A red-orange-brown colored tank farm rose above the weathered roofs. There must have been two dozen corroding whale oil tanks, and some of them looked forty-feet high and half as wide. In the snowy background stood a small white church that had endured hundreds of Antarctic storms.

  Red Mayo, one of the dozen men who’d helped Jake chip ice the other night, was waving a clipboard around and organizing a shore party. He was a tall, athletic guy with a hatchet face. He said, “Jake, is that your zodiac?”

  “That’s right.” Jake noticed that the white-haired woman he’d seen before was heading in their direction, her face about as pale as an iceberg.

  The white-haired woman marched up to the big guy and vigorously tapped his shoulder. “Are you Red Mayo?”

  “Yeah,” the tall guy said. “Stand over there with the others. We need to move quickly.”

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. “What is going on?”

  “Not now, Ava. Get ready to board the skiff. I’ll have a briefing once we’re ashore.”

  Anger flashed in her eyes. “I want answers now or I won’t go ashore. I heard that there was no one at the research station.”

  Red turned back to Jake and said, “I see your skis and other gear are already in the boat. Climb down the rope ladder, and I’ll swing your zodiac over to you.”

  Jake nodded. “You sure you have room for all the others in the skiff?”

  “We’re covered. The captain said to take your boat ashore alone. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Jake made landfall in his zodiac and waited for the others. The shore boat spit five people onto the beach and motored back toward the ship. The whole scene was made ghostly by the fog rolling over the snow and by the treeless and barren mountains in the background.

  The beach, which reached back to the rusty metal buildings, was strewn with corroded equipment—half buried in the snow. Several antique boat propellers with four-foot diameters peaked out of the deluge, which was melted down to a foot deep at sea level and had been packed by a snow cat. Adding to the mess were ship booms sticking out of junk piles and rows of whale oil tanks. In the background, cavernous buildings looked like punch-drunk fighters. Sections of tin roofs had been ripped off and blown away by decades of Antarctic hurricanes. Jake turned away from the wreckage and faced the bay where black waves rolled in under a gray sky. He was excited. He’d been waiting for this for months. He could barely wait to put on his snow-shoes, strap Ashley’s metal detector to his back, and head on down to Refuge Bay where a metal tube with Nazi orders from Grand Admiral Dönitz might still be waiting. Nobody would have found it on South Georgia. Most of the island was rarely visited by people. What the devil could have caused that explosion? he wondered.

  Quiescence filled the air and echoed across the old station with a reverence reserved for graveyards. Jake would have to be careful. Weather-beaten structures and sharp, rusty equipment spread around posed dangers in a place far from doctors, and there were plenty of ways to have accidents. He looked over his fellow travelers as they gathered on the beach.

  A few of them were mumbling about the explosion or the fact that the research station had been abandoned. Everybody was frowning. The crippled guy that Jake met earlier was hunched forward and had a cane under his a
rm as he tapped a prescription bottle against his watch. Each time he tapped his watch, a cord of muscle in his forearm twitched spasmodically. Ava, the white-haired girl with pale skin and angry eyes, looked like she wanted to slap him.

  “Mr. Pace.” Ava shot a dark glance at the cripple and said, “Stop it!”

  Mr. Pace’s hand froze in mid air. Silence fell like an axe. He glanced ferret-like at Ava.

  Jake said, “Ava, relax. Everything is going to be alright.”

  She turned on Jake. “Don’t you talk to me like that! I will not be disrespected.”

  “Nobody’s disrespecting you, Ava. I said ‘relax,’ that’s all. You’re not helping the situation by snapping at people.”

  “Snapping! What is it you’re worried about, Sir? I noticed you were the first one to come ashore. What was the big hurry? Maybe you know more about the explosion than you’re saying.”

  “What? You really need to get a hold of yourself.”

  “How dare you talk to me like that!”

  Mayo said, “Ava, just shut up!”

  She gave him a nasty look, but glared at Jake.

  Jake stood next to a couple of guys who looked unhappy. One of them, a guy with a short beard and round glasses, seemed nervous and was shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to the other. He leaned over to Jake and whispered, “As a photojournalist and war correspondent, I’ve seen nutcases all over the world. Ava’s now one of them.”

  Jake smiled. “You’re a photographer then?”

  “Yes, photojournalist. Won many awards. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq—I’ve seen it all through this lens.” He held up his camera. “I came on this trip to reboot and find a new perspective on life, to try my hand at nature photography. I was hoping for a low-stress trip, but it’s not off to a good start.”

  Jake nodded. “I can’t argue with that.”

  The other guy standing by Jake was Red Mayo, whose thick arms bulged in his tight black sweater. He must have had a vigorous weight-lifting regimen, one that wouldn’t be easy to keep up in the Arctic, unless they had a gym hidden away among the ruins. He was dressed in black clothes, including his backpack and gloves.

  “Anybody see the caretaker?” Mayo said, looking around.

  A few negative responses came back. Jake had heard that a caretaker would be present throughout the winter since the artists would be at the whaling station.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Mayo said. “I want to discuss the situation. Since I’m the group leader, the captain asked me to talk to you about what’s happening.”

  “Why did we have to rush ashore?” Ava said. Her face was stiff with anger. “If the sailors can stay on the ship, then what’s the big hurry?”

  Mayo gave a puzzled look. “Explosion, Ava, explosion, comprende? They need to assess the damage and investigate who might be responsible.”

  Ava turned dead pale and silent like her mouth was a tomb for her tongue. Her face was a blank expression except for the loathing eyes and frowning lips. Then she said, “How dare you insult me. How dare you. I don’t like being rushed to safety the moment a boiler blows or an engine backfires. Do not patronize me!”

  The bearded man by Jake stepped forward, tight lines ripped across his forehead. He ignored Ava. “What are you saying, Mayo? Are you saying it was intentional? On our ship?” His head shifted around as he shot hostile glares at different people.

  Mayo lifted his hand. “Hold your comments for now, Len. I’ve discussed the situation at length with the captain and he assures me that there’s no reason to panic. He doesn’t think there’s likely to be a second explosive.”

  “Second!” Len said. His face was spider webbed with deep creases of worry. His eyes lit up with the fear.

  Jake noticed the cripple, standing next to him and shaking his head. His face also showed concern, but it was more of a fatalistic expression—one of a wounded man who knows he can’t fight back. He looked stunned, as if he wasn’t comfortable out here caning his way around in this wild place with a possible bomber among them. He said, “Relax, Len. Whatever will be will be. Nothing we can do about it.”

  “We don’t know anything about any second device,” Mayo said, waving his clipboard around. “The captain just couldn’t take the risk of keeping us onboard. The skiff will be bringing nonessential crew members ashore right away.”

  “I just don’t like being patronized,” Ava said, glaring at Jake. “If there’s a bomber among us, the whole crew should be here. I don’t want to be left alone with a psycho.”

  Jake shook his head and glanced out at the ship. He saw men gathering on deck and lined up at the ladder, one climbing down. He looked back at the passengers listening to Red Mayo. He noticed a pretty young lady who stood back from the group. She had smooth olive skin, and her black hair curled out from under her white cap. Her brown eyes smoldered, but she avoided eye contact.

  Jake noticed Ava glance at him and quickly look away. He sensed animosity, but he didn’t care. As soon as he found out where things stood, he would clear out and let them deal with this on their own. There was nothing he could do to help. He had to begin his search for the secret Nazi orders, which he hoped would still be preserved after decades in their steel tube. The sooner he began searching the better.

  Jake’s gaze wandered back to the dark-haired girl. She was focused on Red Mayo’s explanation for why there was an explosion on her ship. Everyone was looking at Mayo. Jake knew he had to get busy because time was short. He would have to leave the island in only ten days—hopefully after he found his prize World War Two relic.

  “How long till we can get back on the ship?” Ava said, her face almost as pale as the snow in the mountains behind the whaling station. “I need my bags.”

  Mayo shook his head. “Right now, I don’t know how extensive the damage is. I don’t know how long it will take to fix. It could be hours. The sailors might know more about it.”

  “How do you know the explosion was intentional?” Ava asked, a critical tone in her voice.

  “Because a deck hand was stabbed to death.”

  “Murder?” Ava said. “Murder on the...” The anger drained out of her voice and disintegrated into a tone of fear. Her pale expression was blank, completely devoid of emotion. Then her eyes took on a slightly hunted look. She shot a fearful, hostile look at Jake.

  A big-boned, meaty scientist said, “Horace wears a knife on his belt.”

  “Who’s that?” Ava said. “Half of the crew is trash anyway. What about Jake? Does he carry a knife?”

  “I’m going to be camping on a remote island ten days,” Jake said. “Of course I carry a survival knife.”

  “A man was stabbed, and you have a knife. Interesting.”

  Jake took a deep breath and resisted getting lured into more nonsense. He saw Len, the bearded guy with glasses, shift his weight from one leg to another, and his lips moved as if he was going to speak, but he did not. Len was just as quiet and mysterious as Talia, the dark-haired girl. Len looked tired and morose. His face was spider-webbed with stress lines. Jake’s thoughts were interrupted when the cripple named Pace caught his interest.

  “When I was younger …” Pace said. He trailed off as is he’d run out of steam before he even got going. It was sad to hear because Pace was not an old man. His hand clutched a prescription bottle, which he kneaded ceaselessly. He rolled that plastic bottle in his bony hand. It seemed he was trying in vain to crush the bottle because his knuckles were white. Pace was very lean, evidently losing the weight due to his health issues. He was not skeletal, but he was lean, and his posture was bent forward, his weight leaning on his cane while his free hand kneaded that little plastic bottle.

  Len Jackson’s lips started moving again, but this time he spoke. “Do they know who did it?”

  The big-boned scientist shook his arm. “I said Horace wears a knife.”

  “Who the hell is that?” Len Jackson said.

  Mayo shook his head. “We don’t know who�
��s behind this.” He gazed over towards the water as two sailors jumped into knee-deep water and pulled the shore boat up onto the sand. A dozen other sailors jumped out onto dry sand. They gathered in a circle and seemed to hold a separate meeting of their own. A few of them looked like they were on a work-release program from maximum security prison in Buenos Aires. One box-faced guy was about six-five and 270 pounds with a tattooed neck and arms like anchor chains. Jake recognized him as the hulk that threatened him in the passenger lounge, the mutinous thug who refused to chip ice.

  The big, meaty scientist pointed at him and said, “That’s Horace right there. The tall guy with the tattooed neck.”

  Horace looked over, and he glared at the man who was pointing at him.

  The scientist cursed and lowered his hand.

  “He’s not the only one with a knife,” Ava said. “Is anybody praying attention around here?”

  “Stay here a minute,” Mayo said. He went over and talked with the sailors.

  Jake glanced at Ava and then turned away. He was puzzled by her. There was something unnatural about her hatred for him.

  Jake noticed that Len Jackson kept gazing up into the barren mountains of rock, snow, and ice. Jake wondered what was on his mind.

  Mayo came back over. “There’s nothing more I can tell you now, except that the captain has a few—”

  Ava cut him off. “What do you mean by nothing that you can tell us? Does that mean you know something?”

  “No,” Mayo said. “Nothing about the ship yet. For now, the captain is concerned about having his passengers wandering around a decrepit facility like this without a briefing. This whaling village is also a dangerous place.”

  “It’s safer than his ship,” Ava snapped.

  Red shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Still, you can tell just by looking around that there is nothing stable around here. The captain has asked that you do not enter the buildings and don’t go on any of the old boats. Very dangerous. Furthermore, don’t get within twenty yards of any building in case of a collapse.”

  Jake frowned. He was getting impatient. He needed to go through his gear and then head out.