Dr. O (28 page)

The entire time that the gargantuan ship with its ugly rusted hull had sat in the locks it was helpless, held in check by the lock master at his controls. It was the kind of power that would appeal to the good doctor, like a fast and sharp little sparrow frightening off a giant condor, or holding it in check before its nest.

"Yes, I can see why this place would appeal to you, Ovierto," she said to herself, but an aged man in a guard's uniform, who had been wandering about, started her when he suddenly said beside her, "What's that, miss?"

For an instant she thought it was one of Ovierto's gophers, if not Ovierto himself. But she calmed when she saw the condition of his teeth, the sunken gums, and the warm blue eyes. "Oh, nothing," she said, "just sort of—

"Talking to yourself?"

"Yeah, silly, huh?"

"I saw you come up alone. I'm alone myself. When you're alone, who else you goin' to talk to but yourself, huh?" He laughed lightly. "Been a lovely day, and sunset is going to be a nice one. Lovely weather we have up this way. You're not from around here, are you? Didn't think so. The way you dress... look 'round at most the visitors here. You can see who's from just around here and who's not, just the way they dress."

"You see anyone else today that looked different?"

"Nothing to write home about, no. Well, best tend to my duties."

She nodded and smiled, watching him amble away. But she caught up to him and said, "Sir, would you look very closely across at those men working on the other side of the locks."

"What about 'em?"

"Do you recognize them?"

"Sure."

"I mean, you know all of them?"

"McClosky, Walford and Ames Kensington... what of it?"

"Are you sure. Take a close look."

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Just a visitor, but I'm supposed to meet someone here and I thought it might be one of those men."

"Hmmmmph." He had tired of her and rushed away. She went back to dawdle at the stand, going up to the second story. Everyone was watching a ship approaching from the other direction, which was about to enter the locks.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Dr. Maurice Ovierto had taken every precaution, and it did appear that finally he would have Inspector Thorpe within his reach; even more importantly, he would have Pythagoras. With Pythagoras and the power it represented he could one day rule the government. It was that simple.

But he still held a soft spot in his heart for Thorpe, the last of her line, a line he had vowed to see an end to. He'd miss her when she was gone, and he wondered how he would get on without her. But she was getting to be a bit annoying as well.

He would wait until dark at the locks for the arrival of the Carpathia—a huge freighter from Britain, trading in iron ore, on its way up to the steel mills of Michigan and Illinois. As the mammoth ship entered and came through the locks, he would conduct his business with Inspector Thorpe. His plans for her amounted to a night's debauchery. She was, after all, quite a beautiful woman, and he was, after all, quite a man.

He had spent countless hours fantasizing about the moments they would one day share, what he would do to her and with her, and how he would drag out her suffering. He had imagined her whine, her plea, her begging for death and mercy. He had imagined the feel of her flesh under his nails—finally under his scalpel. He had even imagined drinking her blood before her eyes.

The fun would start when, before her eyes, he destroyed forever any chance she might have of regaining the bones of her father and mother.

He had paid his porters well to get her this far, and he had kept it anonymous. No one knew what was going on here except Thorpe and him.

He looked over his shoulder at the men who were removing the cold storage crate from their pickup to his van, now shoving it all the way up into his truck.

"This kinda crate don't stay cold long, man," said one of the swarthy, heavyset Mohawks to him. "Whatever you got on ice, you'd better find a freezer soon."

"Never you worry your mind about that. You just worry where you and your friends are going to spend all this." He handed them the second half of their well-earned cash. "You're sure there were no questions at the border crossing?"

"You kidding? We didn't even slow down, man. They know not to mess with Mohawks on our own land, man."

"That's what I thought. And no one followed from Canada?"

"Not a soul. Whatchu so worried for, man? Whatchu got in that thing?"

"No questions asked, remember? That was the deal"

"Sure, sure... whatever you want, Mr. Samson."

"Come on!" the others were shouting for their leader. But he was concerned about the future. "Anything you need again, we're here, Mr. Samson. You know how to get in touch."

"Well, there is one thing more you can do —alone, however."

"Alone?"

"Come with me. You will be paid well."

"Sure... sure." He returned to the others, and one argued that he'd like to come along, too, but this one made him silent and in a moment, Ovierto and the Indian were on their way toward the locks. Sunset had come on and the night shift at the locks would come on, too, now. Ovierto had already been here at the changing of the guard and he had observed that most of the men working the locks congregated in one building during this time, changing into rubber boots and gear.

The Carpathia was chugging toward the locks as Ovierto's van arrived, going to the workman's side of the locks, a place off-limits to the tourists just across the concrete canal of the locks. He tried to imagine which of the dark figures at the observation deck was Donna Thorpe.

"We must hurry," he told the big Indian, who was perhaps in his mid thirties, though with such a thick baby face it was hard to say.

"You can't come into the grounds like this, man. They'll have the law after you."

"Don't worry, just do as you're told. Stay here. I'll need you to help me lift this thing when the time comes."

"Whatchu got inside here, man?"

"Damnit, Indian! No fucking questions."

"I don't like jail time, man!"

"Do as you're told and I can promise you no jail." He stuffed several more hundred dollar bills into the Indian's flannel coat.

"All right, but this don't make sense."

"It doesn't have to make sense, damnit. Just follow my instructions."

The man the Indian knew as Samson was gone, and he sat in the rear of the van with the box, which was quickly thawing out in the surrounding sixty-degree temperature. He wondered again what was inside. But for now, he watched the man called Samson go straight to the administrative offices, flashing a badge.

"Damn, he's a cop of some sort."

He began to wonder if he and his friends hadn't just crossed the border with narcotics. He wondered if it had something to do with the lumbering freighter just coming into the arms of the lock. He looked again at Samson, who now seemed to be alone in the office, and it made him wonder about the old man inside. What had happened to him?

Samson rushed toward the other building where the oncoming shift was about to exit. Samson yelled something at them and rushed them all back inside, again flashing a badge. He must have a lot of juice, the Indian decided, as he watched Samson exit the building alone. He thought he saw some strange fog around him like a halo as he opened and closed the door, but now it was gone.

Then the Indian heard a noise coming from the box, a soft, croon that was either animal or human. It made the Indian start and jump from the van, but he was suddenly grabbed by Samson who held a gun to his head. "Help me with the box, now!"

"Sure, sure, but—"

"Shut up and put your back into it."

"All right... all right. I didn't see anything, man. I didn't hear anything." The Indian figured it was a police sting, that Samson wanted the box on the ship, and that he had a partner inside. That made some kind of sense out of what at first seemed meaningless.

They carted the cold storage box over to the rail, where the ship was now coming closer, her engines completely cut. The locks had been placed on an au-tomatic sequence. At the moment, the Carpathia loomed above them like a monster against the night sky.

No one could see them from the other side, nor could they see anyone on the observation deck. Ovierto thought it perfect for his plans.

He gave a signal to the lock master, the old man now back at his controls. The water in the lock was rushing from beneath the underside of the ship, bringing it slowly, ever so slowly down and down to-wards them.

Ovierto was taking his goddamned time, Thorpe was beginning to think, when she saw the van move in opposite the viewing stand, just before the large ship entered the long corridor of the locks before her. She watched the man in the van get out after some hesitation and go to the lock master, but her vision was suddenly blocked by the incoming ship. She rushed from the second-story tower to the main observing area, pushing past tourists and visitors. There were signs all along the rail warning her to stand back and not to cross the fence under any circumstances, but if she were to outsmart Ovierto, she knew she'd have to break more than a few rules.

Donna Thorpe rushed through a door in the chain link fence that held the crowd back. People all around gasped at her actions. She paid them no heed, trying to determine how best to get aboard the ship which, for the moment, loomed above her like the Empire State Building. She went the length of the ship, looking for a way aboard. Some member of the crew saw her out a porthole, and he opened a door, waving her off and pleading with her to get back, that what she was doing amounted to suicide.

She raised her badge and hoped he could see it in the dark over the distance. There was an enormous gap between the huge hull of the ship and the cornerstone she stood on.

The crewman put up the palms of his hands to indicate that she should be patient. He then signaled that the ship would soon be moving downward, at which time she might have a chance of getting aboard. He must have excellent eyesight, she decided.

Then the ship began to almost imperceptibly glide downward. Had there been no horizontal lines on the ship, she would not have known it was descending. Somewhere on the other side, on land, Ovierto was preparing for her, but he was expecting her to be where he had last seen her, in the stands, waiting patiently for a message so that she might dutifully follow his dictates now.

She chose instead to surprise the bastard. It wasn't in her nature to sit idly by and let a madman dictate to her. She had come this far under his direction, but the final act would be hers. She felt for the plastique she had taped in the package. All she need do is fire into it when he was near and they would both be dead, hunter and hunted, sent off to eternity in a bloody embrace.

The ship nudged downward... downward. On board, the crewman who had watched her so carefully opened a hatchway and let a ladder fall forward. It jutted out from the ship, braced there, waiting for the ship to lower to her level, all out of sight of Ovierto's prying eyes.

"It's coming due, Ovierto... coming due," she muttered to herself, waiting, trying desperately to hold onto a shred of patience.

"Get ready," said the sailor, who seemed fascinated by her now. He had a British accent, and the idea of her jumping into his arms, aboard his ship, had seemed to grip him with a romantic fervor. Too long on shipboard, she imagined; he thought she was some local woman who had gone out of her mind with loneliness in this isolated, cold, northern region. "I'll catch you," he promised.

She looked down to what seemed an abyss.

"Don't look down," he argued.

The aged guard was coming down the chain link fence toward her, agitated, shouting and wildly shaking his hands. The man was out of his element on this side of the fence, and he almost slipped and fell.

"Jump!" said the man on shipboard.

She backed to the fence where some spectator grabbed her, holding her there for the guard. She pulled and tore away, leaving her jacket, exposing the gun. She ran forward and leaped, catching the last rung of the ladder, dangling over the churning water at the huge keel, imagining the whirlpool below her, imagining her body being sucked down into the huge turbines below the water. But she held on, and in an instant she felt a hand grab onto hers.

Donna Thorpe felt the power of the man as he lifted her from the rungs of the metal ladder. She'd hurt herself in the jump, and she felt the warmth of her blood trickling down her left leg, but she ignored this. She came face to face with the man who had helped her, her eyes asking why when suddenly his brute strength was turned against her, twisting her and taking control of her gun.

"You don't understand," she shouted, "I'm FBI, In-spector—"

"Thorpe, yes, I know."

"Who the hell are you?"

"A friend of Ovierto. Damn you! Damn this... changes everything. Oh, Christ. No one expected you to board the ship. All you were supposed to do was drop the package." He held her with one hand while he tore through her purse, ripping out what he wanted.