Page 31 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

“Ah,” the white man said. “And you sent all your men aboard to look for it. How cunning of these Americans.”

As Sharma watched, the intruder lifted the binoculars to his eyes once more, retraining them on theSoufriere.While he was focused on whatever he saw there, Sharma pressed the emergency button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again, but to no avail.

The intruder lowered the binoculars and turned. He looked disappointed. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but there’s no help coming.”

The man nodded to one of his triplets. The office door was pulled wide open. On the other side lay Sharma’s two hulking bodyguards, face down in pools of their own blood.

One seemed to have gotten a hand on his pistol, but had obviously had his throat slashed before he could use it. The other had been impaled by multiple foot-long spikes and now lay with his body lifted from the floor by the protruding tips of the weapons. Farther away, a third employee of his lay dead as well.

As Sharma stared in shock, the intruder grabbed the radio off the windowsill. Switching channels, he caught the chatter coming from the crew on theKhalil. “You communicate to them with this?”

Sharma nodded.

“That’s all I need to know.”

With that he walked away, stepping out through the door and over the dead bodies. He stopped only to utter a word to his three soldiers: “Mord.”

Sharma lunged for a weapon he kept hidden on the desk, knocking his inbox to the side and sending a stack of papers flying. The snub-nosed .357 revolver was there. He grabbed it and spun around.

Before he could bring it to bear, one of the men had stabbed him in the gut. A second smashed his arm with a pipe, knocking the gun to the carpeted floor.

Sharma fell back, cradling his shattered arm. When he looked up, the three men were hovering over him. Their eyes reminded him of the rabid animals that ran the streets of Mumbai. They were on top of him simultaneously and all he could do was scream.

Chapter 19

Kurt and Joe’s search for the tracking beacon took them to the stern of the ship, the main stairwell that led up into the accommodations block, and down into the ship’s engineering spaces. Along the way, Joe waved the receiver back and forth like a divining rod, narrowing their focus as the signal from the transmitter grew stronger and weaker.

Reaching the stairs, Kurt pulled open the watertight door, drawing a horrendous screech from the rusted hinges. It sounded like a hundred nails scraping a blackboard.

Joe shook his head as if he had to clear the sound from his system. “Could it be any louder?”

With Kurt holding the spring-loaded door open, Joe stepped through. Heading up half a flight of stairs and tilting the receiver, he found the signal strength weakening. He stopped and backtracked, descending again and pointing the receiver downward. “Slightly stronger. It’s below us. Somewhere in engineering.”

Searching the engineering spaces, they zeroed in on the signal. “This is it,” Joe said, stopping in front of a compartment on the starboard side.

“We’re pretty deep in the ship,” Kurt said. “No wonder the satellite couldn’t pick up the transmission.”

Kurt aimed his flashlight at the door. It was nothing more than a basic storeroom, but locked from the outside with a padlock.

“Maybe there’s a key under the mat,” Joe suggested.

Kurt aimed his light downward. “No mat.”

Looking for a way to break in, Kurt retrieved a fire ax from the emergency station. With Joe holding the flashlight, Kurt raised it up and then brought it down, smashing the blunt end into the padlock. The lock broke off and clanged to the deck, the sounds of both of the impacts reverberating through the otherwise silent passageway.

“You would not make a good ninja,” Joe said.

Kurt laughed. “You wanted in,” he said, waving toward the door, “I got you in.”

Joe slid the transmitter back into his pack and pulled out a flashlight of his own. He pushed cautiously through the door, pointing the narrow beam this way and that. What he found chased away the laughter. “Damn.”

Piled up against the far bulkhead—leaning on one another as they sat against the wall—were the bodies of four men in rag-like clothes. They were huddled below a small porthole that had been broken open and through which a makeshift funnel of sorts had been threaded. The funnel was attached to a small length of tubing that led to a metal cup.

“They were trying to get water,” Joe said. “They must have died of thirst. Compartment like this would turn into an oven in the tropical sun. That’s a pretty horrible way to go.”

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