The Navigator (NUMA Files 7)

Riley gave another thumbs-up. “I got ya.”

Several minutes later he put the helicopter into a banking turn and made the first circle. The fog had cleared and visibility was two to three miles. They saw a handful of fishing boats and big chunks of ice, including one which might have been Moby-Berg. The only large ship was a freighter. Its deck was too small to hold two copters and was obstructed by cranes that would have made takeoff and landing impossible.

Austin asked the pilot to make two more circles. On the second circuit, they saw a big vessel silhouetted against the ocean sheen.

“Ore carrier,” said Zavala from the backseat.

The helicopter dropped to an altitude of a few hundred feet and paced the black-hulled ship. Rectangular hatch covers that covered ore-storage holds were evenly spaced on the long deck between the tall crew house at one end and the high, raised bow at the other.

“What do you think?” Austin asked the pilot.

“Hell. It’d be easy to land a chopper on that deck,” Riley said. “It’s like an aircraft carrier.”

Zavala agreed. “If you wanted to hide something, there’d be plenty of room in those cargo holds.”

“Hafta modify a few things,” Riley said. “No big deal.”

Austin asked the pilot to check out the ship’s name.

The helicopter flew over the ship’s wake, offering a clear view of the big white letters on the transom: SEA KING

The ship was registered in Nicosia, Cyprus. There was a logo of what looked like a bull’s head next to the name.

Austin had seen enough. “Let’s head home.”

The chopper wheeled around and the vessel faded into the haze.

As the whup-whup of the rotors faded, a pair of pale round eyes watched from the bridge until the helicopter shrunk to the size of a mosquito. Adriano lowered the binoculars, a tight smile on his lips. The helicopter had come close enough to give him a clear view of the face in the cockpit window.

The hunter had become the hunted.

AS THE OIL PLATFORM helicopter approached the containership, a Coast Guard cutter could be seen anchored a short distance away. The pilot put the helicopter down on the deck of the containership. When Austin and Zavala stepped out of the aircraft, Captain Lange was waiting for them. He said the Coast Guard had sent over an investigatory team to start interviewing witnesses.

Austin was going on sheer nerve power. His brain was fried. His rib cage throbbed. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a tedious interrogation. A good night’s sleep would be preferable. He knew that the Coast Guard would bring a fresh perspective to the crazy events of the day, but he was just plain weary.

The Coast Guard lieutenant who conducted the investigation in the recreation room was businesslike and efficient. He drew statements from Austin and the others, and said he would work his way through the rest of the crew. Austin must have winced with pain more than once, because the lieutenant suggested that he should have his wound properly tended to in a hospital. The captain said the oil rig helicopter could run him back to the mainland in the morning.

Carina asked if she could go with him. She said she wanted to attend a reception in Washington the next evening and wouldn’t worry about her cargo with the Coast Guard cutter escorting the ship. Zavala wanted to get back to prepare for his trip to Istanbul. Austin called Captain Dawe and said they would have to take a rain check on the hunt for Moby-Berg.

“I’m disappointed,” Dawe said. “I’ll have some new jokes when you come back.”

“I can’t wait.” Austin said.

Chapter 15

VIKTOR BALTAZAR HAD LISTENED in silence as Adriano told him about the foiled hijacking plot. The bile had risen higher in his throat with each detail of the failed attempt to steal the Phoenician statue. Although he displayed no outward manifestation of his anger except for a vein pulsating in his forehead, Baltazar’s fury was like the molten innards of a nascent volcano. When Adriano described how the mineral ship had been shadowed in a helicopter by the same pale-haired man who had prevented the theft of the statue, Baltazar could stand it no more.

“Enough,” he growled.

Baltazar squeezed the cell phone in his mailed fist, tightening his thick fingers like a vise, until he felt the satisfying crunch of plastic and metal. He tossed the ruined instrument to the groom holding the reins of a giant gray sorrel. He took a steel helmet from the hands of his waiting squire and lowered it onto the padded cap on his head.

With his sturdy frame encased in gleaming armor from head to toe, Baltazar resembled a hulking robot from a science-fiction film epic. He was far more agile than any metallic monster, however. Even wearing armor that weighed seventy pounds, he easily pulled himself into the stallion’s high-backed saddle.

The squire handed Baltazar a fifteen-foot wooden lance. Called a courtesy lance because of the blunt steel tip that distinguished it from a sharp-pointed war lance, the weapon was still potentially lethal when propelled forward by the power and strength of the huge Belgium horse. Baltazar had bred the animal from a long line of great warhorses that were known as destriers in medieval times. The animal was twice the size of an ordinary riding horse. Even without its protective armor, his mount weighed more than a ton.

Baltazar rested the lance across the thick, arching neck. The squire handed him a shield that came to a tapering point at the bottom. The head of a bull was emblazoned in black on the white shield. The same bull’s-head motif decorated Baltazar’s tunic and a flowing cloth that was draped over the horse’s body.

With the lance at rest, Baltazar bent forward until he could see through the occularium, a narrow horizontal slit set high in the face of the helmet. On his left was a low, solid fence known as the tilt. On the other side of the tilt, at its far end, was a rider, also dressed in full armor, who was mounted on an equally large horse.