The Savage Dead (9 page)

Amato said nothing.

“Are any of your men armed?” she asked.

“No,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

She gestured toward her carry-on. “Well, in that case, I won't completely relax.”

Captain Rollins was looking at her now. “Agent Compton, do I understand you to say you brought a weapon aboard my ship? You're armed.”

Tess smiled. “To the teeth, captain.”

 

 

Later, as they walked to their staterooms, Paul came up beside her. “You enjoyed that, didn't you?”

“What?”

“Amato looked like somebody had shot his dog when you pointed out his security people.”

“Hey,” she said, mirroring the grin he'd given her on the plane, “it's what I do.”

The four of them made their way up to Deck 7, passing casinos, delis, theaters, bars, and even an indoor shopping mall, all of it interconnected by a maze of hallways that seemed to go on forever.

Paul stopped at a junction and took out his iPhone. He'd downloaded an app for this, he'd said on the plane. Maps, show times, restaurant reviews—he had it all covered. He studied the phone now, looked left, then right, and started off to the left.

Tess cleared her throat and pointed right, keeping her hand down so the senator couldn't see.

“Uh, I think it's this way,” Paul said and headed to the right.

The senator nodded. She looked impatient, like she couldn't get to the room fast enough. She and her husband were enjoying a temporary truce, Tess saw. They weren't happy with each other, that much was obvious, but at least they weren't yelling at each other anymore.

Paul fell in beside Tess. “Thanks for the help back there.”

“No problem. They make these things like this to encourage exploring.”

“Yeah, well, it makes me feel like I've been swallowed whole.” He nodded down the long hallway in front of them. “Fair warning, though. We see some kid on a Big Wheel coming around the corner and I'm out of here.”

She laughed. “Deal.” She put a hand on his shoulder and was surprised to feel him go suddenly tense. At first, she thought she'd startled him, but then she saw him sniff the air and turn to watch a pretty girl in a floppy hat go walking down the hallway.

She cleared her throat again.

He turned to her. “What?”

“If we're going to be engaged you need to stop looking at other women.”

He smiled, but it wasn't the winning grin she'd already grown to like. He looked distracted, like he was worried.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“No, just . . .” He glanced behind them again, but the girl in the floppy hat was already gone. “It's nothing,” he said. “I just thought I recognized her perfume.”

 

 

They were at their cabin now. Tess opened the door and saw a monkey made of rolled and folded towels sitting on the foot of the queen-sized bed. “Hey, look at that,” she said, pointing at a couple of chairs out on the small shelf that passed for their veranda. “We've got a view of the ocean.”

“Yeah, that's nice,” he said. But he was looking at the bed. “I thought we were going to get two twin beds.”

“For a honeymoon?”

He didn't smile.

“Is that gonna be weird for you?” she asked.

“You mean, uh, sharing a bed? No, of course not.”

“Uh-huh. Well, hurry up and get over it, okay? We're playing a part here and the housekeeping staff will talk if they see we're not sleeping in the same bed.”

“You don't think they know the senator's here already ?”

“Maybe. The service did make Rollins and his officers sign confidentiality agreements, though. Hopefully, if they're good to their word, we should be able to keep things on the down low. For a while, anyway.”

“How long do you think that'll last?”

“At least until we put Mexico in our rearview mirror, I hope.”

She opened her luggage and laid out her pool things, a black bikini and a wrap, some sunscreen, and an Atlanta Braves baseball cap.

He watched her emptying out her bag. “Can I ask you something?”

“You don't snore, do you?”

“Huh? No, it's not that. It's about that girl I met at the Washington Hilton the night of Senator Sutton's speech.”

“What about her?”

“She was nice. Do you really think she's the same girl in the picture?”

She considered him for a moment before answering. She remembered his disbelief when she'd told him that his new girlfriend looked an awful lot like the serving girl for one of Mexico's most powerful drug bosses, the way he'd scoffed at her. She remembered the way he'd looked at the picture of the seventeen-year-old girl holding out a beer to Ramon Medina, the way a shadow of a doubt had darkened his expression.

In the end, he'd agreed not to see her again. He'd given over her phone number and had sat glumly through a humiliating debriefing in which he'd described every detail of his night with her.

Tess, for her part, had been sure that night. Maybe it had been Juan's certainty rubbing off on her. Maybe it was the thrill of working a high-profile team that made her see shooters in every shadow. Regardless, she was less sure now. It just seemed so unlikely, and really, she'd only seen this Monica Rivas woman for a moment, and that across a crowded room.

“I think it's best we play it safe for now, don't you?” she said.

“Yeah, I guess. It just seems so crazy. How could she be that girl? I mean, she went to Harvard.”

That was true, Tess thought. They'd checked that. It had only taken a few phone calls. Her biography seemed airtight.

“Do you think maybe she just happened to meet him when she was younger or something? You know, like a random thing? Maybe she had no idea who he was.”

She shrugged. “Anything's possible. Agent Perez is researching her now. If there is anything to it, he'll find it.”

He nodded, but didn't look convinced.

“Hey,” she said. “Cheer up.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a military-issued M4 machine gun. She tossed it on the bed on top of her black bikini. “We're on vacation, remember?”

C
H
A
PTER
8

Back in her cabin, Pilar tossed her hat onto the bed, took out her iPhone, and keyed up the app that allowed her to listen in on the omnidirectional microphones she'd planted in the senator's room. Sutton and her husband were arguing about his drinking. Pilar listened for a few minutes, hoping to learn something of the senator's schedule, but they weren't talking about anything she could use. Just the same thing being said over and over again. She found it tedious and pathetic.

Such a powerful woman, Pilar thought, suffocating in such a boring marriage.

Bored herself, Pilar switched over to the microphone in Paul Godwin's cabin.

The conversation there was more interesting. Paul and the lady Secret Service agent were talking about sharing a bed. She thought of the lady agent that night at the Washington Hilton. She was blond, slim, elegant in her red gown and pearls. Beautiful even. And practical, too, from the lecture she was giving Paul on sharing the bed.

Pilar smiled sardonically at the thought of Paul that night she'd gone up to his room. She could still picture him, timid, his heart pounding when he touched her, his breath hitching when she touched him. Was he doing the same thing now, looking at that bed with the little monkey made of towels on it, his mind racing around thoughts of sleeping next to that pretty agent?

She would probably like that lady agent, if they ever sat down together and talked shop. Pity that would never happen. And come to think of it, she'd probably like the senator, too, under different circumstances. Men, she thought, they had no idea the foolishness women suffered out of a sense of duty. She sighed and opened her carry-on bag. It was a pointless train of thought anyway.

Paul was saying, “Huh? No, it's not that. It's about that girl I met at the Washington Hilton the night of Senator Sutton's speech.”

Pilar had only been half-listening, but that got her attention. She stood up straight, all her senses focused on the phone.

They were talking about her. How had she come up? It'd been close as she was leaving their cabin. She'd passed right by him, probably close enough for him to smell her perfume. But he hadn't spotted her. She was certain of that.

So why were they talking about her? What picture were they talking about?

It wasn't good that the lady agent's boss was researching her, either. Her Monica Rivas identity was solid, and would stand up to even a Secret Service background check. It had gotten her into the Washington Hilton, after all, so she was pretty sure they wouldn't find anything. But why were they looking into her. What had set them off?

Well, there was no point in obsessing on it now. Besides, if they suspected something was wrong they wouldn't have come aboard in the first place. The best thing to do, she decided, was to just continue with the plan. The
Gulf Queen
's meat and fish had already been dosed with the
Clostridium
bacteria and they were probably just a few hours away from seeing the first victims turn. Still, Ramon ought to know about this.

She used her iPhone to connect with the e-mail account she shared with Ramon, typed out a quick e-mail to him, and saved it to the drafts folder. The next scheduled check-in was twenty minutes away, so he'd see it soon enough.

Pilar took off her clothes and changed into a white bikini and tied a sarong around her waist. She plugged earbuds into her phone and tucked the iPhone into the top of her bikini bottom.

Then she went off to hack into the ship's computer.

C
H
A
PTER
9

It was late and Anthony Amato, the ship's first officer, was dead. Pilar stood near the door to the officer's cabin and stared at the body. He was wearing just his boxers, the dark hair on his chest and arms standing out in stark relief against the white of his sheets. His neck was twisted so that his head hung over the side of the bed and his sightless eyes stared down at the floor. He was stocky, stronger than he looked, and he'd actually put up a pretty good fight when he realized she was trying to hurt him. It had surprised her. She'd had to pop him in the throat to get his hands off her. From there, she snapped his neck easily.

Still, she'd underestimated him, and that wasn't good.

She pulled her iPhone from her bikini bottom and went over to his desk. His left hand was on the chair next to the bed and she pushed it off before taking a seat at Amato's computer. She logged into the ship's computer mainframe using the pass codes she'd seen him use and then plugged her phone into the USB port.

A few moments later, a program designed to disable the ship's lifeboats began to run. From here on out, the boats could only be lowered manually, and with the havoc that was about to ensue, she doubted many of them would make it to the water.

Pilar unplugged her phone and quickly wiped down the surfaces she had touched. She had undoubtedly been caught by the ship's video equipment walking around with Amato throughout that afternoon, but that wouldn't be enough to connect her to his death. Should anybody happen to find his body, that is.

She took one last look around the room, then slowly opened the door and scanned the hallway.

It was empty.

She hurried to the elevators and rode up to Deck 20, where she would find the bridge and the communications center. The doors opened with a soft chime and Pilar stepped out. To her left she heard a woman talking quietly and Pilar looked that way. It was a young couple walking along the outside deck. The man was carrying a child, a girl of about four, her head on his shoulder and her eyes closed. The night breezes off the ocean were cool and sent a wave through the little girl's brown hair.

The little girl looked so pretty, so peaceful as she slept, and staring after them as they walked away, Pilar felt sick for what she was about to do. Policemen and rival cartel soldiers, those she killed without a second thought. Even the American tourists onboard this ship, the men and women, meant little to her conscience. But that child. What logic could she use to make sense of killing a beautiful little girl like that?

Memories of Lupe rose up in her mind with such suddenness that she gasped. He'd been about that little girl's age. She remembered holding his trembling body in the back of that eighteen-wheeler, the air so hot she could hardly breathe, the smell of all those dead bodies around them, promising him they'd be all right. And then he'd stopped trembling, and she'd panicked. “Lupe!” she'd said, the sweat from her face dripping into his open eyes. He didn't blink. He couldn't. He could only stare at her with that same wide-open, unknowable vacancy with which Anthony Amato had stared at the floor. “Lupe, no. Please no.”

For a moment, she almost broke down. Had she done so, it would have been the end of her. She knew that. She would have gone back to her cabin and put a gun in her mouth. Or thrown herself overboard.

But she didn't. She forced herself to think of Ramon Medina instead, and that turned her insides to steel.

She turned away from the deck where the young family had disappeared into the darkness and made her way to the Radio Room. Earlier, while First Officer Amato still thought he had a chance with the woman he knew as Monica Rivas, he had given her a tour of the bridge. She was surprised to see that the radio room was unmanned, and she said as much. He'd told her that modern cruise ships duplicated most communications functions on the bridge, making the radio room largely redundant. By law, they were still required to have two operators on duty and to cover at least sixteen hours out of the day, but those shifts only came during the day and when they were close to port. During the wee hours of the morning, all communications functions were handled from the bridge.

That made Pilar's job that much easier. She used Amato's keycard to access the room and closed the door behind her. She would have to turn on the light to do what she needed to do, and that of course meant she ran the risk of discovery should a member of the bridge crew pass this way, but it was a chance she had to take. The radio room was small, about the size of her bedroom back in D.C., and dominated by the main console. She plugged her iPhone into its USB port and initiated the programs that would make the
Gulf Queen
deaf and dumb to the outside world.

She heard two men talking in the hallway outside and froze. In order to completely silence the ship she had to disable not only the main VSAT, or Very Small Aperture Terminal, broadband capabilities, but also the Global Maritime Distress and Safety Systems and the older style satellite-based radio/telephone system the ship used to communicate with vessels yet to be equipped with VSAT. Also, she had to disable the satellite emergency position indicating beacons, which could be released manually to float free of the ship and alert rescuers as to the ship's identity and location. It was a lot to do, and the program in her iPhone that hijacked it all was only twenty percent downloaded with an estimated eight minutes still to go.

The voices drew nearer.

Uh-oh, she thought. Time to act.

Pilar set the phone down and moved to the wall next to the door. If the men entered the room they'd see her phone right away and know that something was wrong. She'd have no choice but to kill them.

Then there was a flicker of light and shadow in the door's vent window and Pilar knew they were looking inside.

She saw the door handle wriggle up and down and she tensed, ready to attack the moment both men were inside the room. Then the door opened and a younger man in white uniform stepped inside. Through the crack at the door hinges she could see him glance around the room without going inside.

“Nobody,” he said. “I guess they left it on.”

“Better turn it off. Amato's gonna be pissed if he finds out they left it on.”

“Yeah.”

The young officer thumbed the light switch and closed the door behind him, leaving Pilar in the dark, still tensed for the attack.

She relaxed but didn't move.

She stayed there, in the dark, silent as the grave, until her phone chimed to let her know the program had finished downloading. Moving fast, Pilar unplugged it, wiped off everything she'd touched, and got out of there. She could hear voices from the bridge just a few feet away, and she was careful to pull the radio room door closed as softly as she could.

Then she got in the elevator and headed down. The elevator stopped at Deck 11 and three chunky-looking girls in their early twenties got on. All three of them looked seasick.

One of them, a doughy-faced girl in an Alabama Crimson Tide shirt with red circles around her eyes, said, “You know which floor the doctor's at?”

“You mean the infirmary?” Pilar asked.

The girl nodded, her mouth pursing up like she wasn't sure if she was going to throw up or not.

“Deck four,” Pilar said, and said a silent thanks when the doors slid open on 7.

She watched the doors slide shut on the three girls and frowned. It was starting already, a lot sooner than Ramon had said it would. If people were already showing symptoms, that meant the first to turn would be doing so in a few hours. Ramon would no doubt be pleased.

She hurried to her room and signed into the e-mail account she shared with Ramon. The program she'd fed into the ship's communications system gave her a twenty-minute delay, which was just enough to time to send off a quick report. After that, she'd turn on the cell phone jammer in her luggage, change into some battle clothes, and hunker down for what was coming.

She opened the drafts folder and was surprised to see a message waiting for her there. It was her time to send, not his. He had never broken that protocol before. A little worried, she opened his message.

Pilar read the message through again, and one more time after that.
I'm glad you love me.
What the hell kind of thing was that to say to a woman? The man had no shame.

But he
did
know her heart. She hated that, but it was true just the same. She loved him. He owned her, body and soul, and she was drawn to him just as this ship was drawn to its own destruction. She could no more change the truth of that than undo the ghastly thing she'd just put in motion.

She erased his message and typed one of her own. A simple one, because she didn't trust herself to contain her anger in a longer one.

The message read simply: