Thomas Prescott Superpack (88 page)

“Yeah, well, I’m [bleeping] sick of it. You’re a bunch of [bleeping] sensationalist lepers for all I’m concerned.”

Garret stormed off the stage. Then he stormed from the White House. And he’d been in his den for the past hour. He looked down at his cell phone. He had over a hundred missed calls.

Garret tipped the pink bottle back and finished it off.

PTUTSI

4:04
p.m.

W
hen Gina reached the Jeep—she’d slid the small girl through one of the openings in the fence, then climbed over—she had half expected to find Timon dead. She was surprised to see his fever had broken and the gunshot wound to his shoulder looked markedly better. The infection had gone down and the blood flow had all but stopped. He would live.

This had been around noon.

Gina had eased the small frame of the child into the backseat of the Jeep and given Timon strict instructions on how to care for her. She explained the young girl was infected with a virus, but not HIV. The virus would run its course in the next couple weeks, they just needed to keep her pumped with fluids. Gina cracked open a bottled water and slowly poured the tepid water into the young girl’s mouth.

Gina wondered how long it’d been since the girl had a drink of water. She gulped the water down, then opened her mouth for more. “Keep filling her up,” Gina said, handing the bottle to Timon. “And see if you can feed her a banana.”

Timon nodded, then said, “Go. We will be fine. You have two more children to find.”

From her perch high up on the hill, she peered down on the village. At the center of the village she noticed a small gathering. Between eight and ten small boys. She couldn’t make out their faces, but her gut told her the two boys she was searching for were part of the small group.

After what seemed like an eternity, Gina once again found herself at the bottom of the hill and she once again approached the two young men at the entrance to the gates. They looked far less friendly than they had on her earlier expedition. Almost as if they had been instructed no one was allowed to enter.

Gina put her head down and tried to walk past them nonchalantly. When she had taken two steps past the guards, she felt a hand clasp around her left biceps.

So close.

The young men dragged her through the village. Gina wondered where the men were taking her. To see the chief? What would she say? Surely he didn’t speak a lick of English. And if he did, what would she tell him.
Oh, no biggie, I just came to steal three of your children and take them with me. Take a chill pill.

The guard dragged her past the many smaller huts, and they began to approach a larger hut Gina hadn’t noticed earlier. It was on the far right edge of the village, opposite the quarantine, nestled up to the fence. It was nearly three times the size of the other huts and there was a large boulder blocking the entrance. Whoever was in the hut was not permitted to enter and exit freely. If the boulder, which was enormous, was not a deterrent in and of itself, there were two sentries posted on either side of the large rock.

Gina immediately knew the purpose the large hut served.

It was a prison.

DECK 7

5:52
p.m.

T
hapa had spent the last three hours making one final sweep of the ship. Making certain there were no unaccounted for enemies meandering about. He was astonished at how quickly his mindset had changed. At first the hostages had been his enemy, now it was the pirates. He had always known something was amiss. He’d been told he would be helping millions of sick people. And if ten people had to die—Stoves, the Captain, and his officers—to help save the lives of a couple million poor Africans, Thapa could deal with that.

Finding out the boat was rigged with explosives and the pirates were secretly ransoming a young British girl hadn’t set well with him. As a Gurkha for 20 years with the British Army, Thapa had come to think of England as his second home. Yes, the people were nearly as corrupt and capitalistic as the Americans he’d encountered, but they were
his
people. He had sworn to protect them.

Thapa thought of the mantra the British Army had bestowed on the famed Gurkhas; “He is brave, tough, patient, adaptable,
intensely proud and has unwavering loyalty.”

Loyalty? What did he know about loyalty?

He was loyal to the almighty dollar. He was no different than any person on this ship. What had the man with blue eyes, this Thomas, said to him, “You will never be able to look your children in the eyes again?”

And he was right. If he took the money his son might one day walk again, but it would cost him a father. Thapa would never be able to look him in his deep brown eyes ever again.

Thapa had decided then and there to do everything in his power to save all the people on the ship. He might not be loyal. But he was
adaptable
.

In Thapa’s sweep of the ship, he’d spent most of his time in Pretoria. The powers that be must be more concerned an insurgence would occur down here with all the crew than with the passengers in the show lounge. There were six pirates, all heavily armed. Of, course Thapa would have the element of surprise, but there was no way he could take out all six. If they were standing shoulder to shoulder, Thapa was certain he could put a bullet in each man’s heart before one of them reached for their gun. But the pirates were stationed far from one another; two at the entrance, then four positioned in various places throughout the restaurant. And of course,
between them all, 200 hostages.

An idea had struck Thapa, an idea that had brought him up to Deck 7. The radio room was situated directly behind the Bridge. Thapa looked at his pistol. He could put a stop to this whole thing right this second. Cut the tail off a snake and it will live. Cut the head off the snake, and the snake will die.

He approached the glass door to the Bridge and peeked inside. Both men were staring at the screen of a laptop computer. Both wore large grins. Thapa watched as the men looked at one another, then back to the screen, then back at one another. Thapa would describe their look as
disbelief
. Or
wonder
.

In the back of the room sat the girl. Slumped down in a chair, her swollen eyes staring ahead, open but unseeing.

Thapa turned his gaze back to the two pirates. The Mosquito was staring at him, the mirrored glasses hiding what Thapa assumed must be cold dead eyes. For as much as the other man trusted Thapa, he was aware this man was a bit more cautious. As he should be.

Thapa pulled the door open and stepped inside. The older man turned and looked genuinely pleased at his presence. “Ganju,” he said. “Ganju, come here, let me show you something.”

Thapa took a couple hesitant steps forward. He could easily take his pistol out and get off a couple shots. But the other man had moved and was situated behind the girl. A wise tactical move. If Thapa were to put a bullet in the older man, the young warlord would no doubt use the girl as a hostage, or simply pull out his machete and gut her here and now.

No, The Mosquito would have to live. For now.

Baruti waved him forward and said, “You must look at this.”

Thapa walked forward until he was a couple feet from the laptop. He was familiar with computers, he had been trained on them extensively, and he kept in contact with his family through e-mail when he was at sea. He looked at the screen. It was a bank’s webpage. Thapa didn’t have a photographic memory, but numbers always seemed to stay with him—he could recite pi going back nearly a thousand decimals—and he committed the IP address to memory.

He assumed this meant Monaco International Bank. Thapa had heard Monaco was the new Switzerland. The safest place to hide money outside the Caymans. But transferring money to the Caymans took days. In Monaco, he’d heard it took minutes.

There were several places that information needed to be filled in. An accountant number, a password word bar, a second password bar, and then a third field marked, “RGP.”

Thapa had heard banks were using these now. RPG. Random Generated Password.

Baruti typed in a long account number. Then two separate 20 digit passwords. Thapa deftly watched his fingers move across the number pad. When it came for the RGP field, Baruti pulled something from around his neck, a tiny capsule on a silver chain, and peered down at it. He then
entered in an eight-digit code.

Baruti noticed Thapa’s curiosity and said, “The number changes every minute.”

Thapa nodded.

The screen refreshed and showed the account balance. Thapa had never seen so many zeros. Just under 747 million dollars.

The man smiled and said, “Think of all the good we can do with that money. Think of all the lives we can save.”

Thapa appraised him skeptically. He was certain the man would live lavishly until he took his last breath—who wouldn’t who had just inherited, or stolen, a billion dollars—but Thapa had no doubt the majority of the billion would be money well spent. The man would probably make more of an impact with that money that any government in the world could.

Baruti said, “I want to show you something else.”

He clicked on the recent transaction button and the screen refreshed. There were several transactions on the page. There were three transactions that had just occurred. One was for 250 million dollars. Something very expensive. There was another for one million and a third for two million. He noticed the two million dollar withdrawal was to a numbered account. His numbered account.

Baruti patted Thapa on the shoulder and said, “I thought you deserved a bigger piece of the pie for your efforts.”

Thapa knew there wasn’t a sum of money that could buy his loyalty back. Not two million, not ten billion. His loyalty wasn’t for sale. He tried to appear overcome with gratitude and said, “Thank you. Thank you.”

Thapa then retraced his steps and left. The Mosquito never took his eyes off him.

Thapa couldn’t help thinking that now that these men had their money, they no longer needed anyone on this ship. The countdown on the bombs would be at just over 18 hours, but he knew they would have a remote detonation switch. They could blow the ship at any second. Thapa pondered their getaway plan. Did they have scuba gear or a mini sub stashed somewhere? Would they get a mile or two away from the ship, then blow it? That’s how he would do. In the confusion of the ship exploding, it would be an easy getaway.

Thapa decided he wouldn’t let that happen.

He made his way into the radio room, and slipped the key into the steel door. He went to the safe at back and entered in a code. If what Thapa came for had been found during one of the routine inspections it would have been confiscated and Thapa would have had a lot of explaining to do. He extracted the small compact object from the safe and hurried out.

SHOW LOUNGE

7:0
7 p.m.

Hitch. Independence Day
.
Men in Black. Men in Black II
.
I, Robot
. Both the
Bad Boys
.
Hancock.
How many was that? Seven. No, there had to be more.

It was a game my sister and I played often. You went back and forth saying how many of an actor’s movies you could name. For example I would say, “I can name seven Johnny Depp movies,” and my sister—who was obsessed with Depp, part of the reason I think she moved to France—would say, “I can name thirty Johnny Depp movies.” And I would say, “Name those movies.”

It’s a tad different when you’re playing with yourself. Currently, I was trying to name ten Will Smith movies, what should have been an easy enough task, but I was stuck on eight.
Enemy of the State.
Make that nine.

I remained stuck on nine. I am confident I would have been able to conjure up a tenth film, had Gilroy not stood up.

I noticed it out of the corner of my right eye, which still throbbed, but had opened about halfway. I was staring at Little Wayne on the stage, mostly because I was trying
not
to stare in the direction of my sister and the gang. I didn’t want to give them false worry. Or false hope. Oddly enough, Gilroy was the one I’d been most concerned about. He didn’t seem like the type that would sit idly by while death inched closer and closer to him. No, he was a man of action. And I was surprised it had taken him this long. But, again, I couldn’t blame him. And if I were in his shoes, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

As Gilroy strolled up the aisle, part of me wanted to signal him that I had things under control. That if he just sat his hairy ass down for a couple more hours, he, along with everyone in this room, would survive this mess. But another part, a sinister part, wanted to see what this idiot had planned. Now, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want to see the guy get killed, but I wouldn’t mind if he lost a couple of those dazzling white teeth in the process of pulling whatever stunt his genius bravado had come up with.