Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Joe narrowed his gaze. He could guess what that meant. “Considering that you wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t dove into the raging sea to pull you out after your safety cable snapped, I’d say we’re even.”

Kurt was the Director of Special Projects within NUMA. It meant he and his crew could be assigned to anything anytime, anywhere. Joe Zavala was the team’s assistant director, a fantastic engineer and one of the most resourceful people Kurt had ever known. He was also Kurt’s best friend.

“Good point,” Kurt said, unlocking the door to his office and stepping inside. “But, then again, if you hadn’t gotten so antsy and tried to reel me in like a prize marlin, I wouldn’t have cracked my noggin on that steel doorframe and scrambled up all my eggs. Thanks to you, I’ve spent the last months on a shrink’s couch.”

Joe followed Kurt in and closed the door behind him. “I’ve seen the shrink whose couch you’ve been sharing. You can thank me later.”

Kurt nodded. There was plenty of truth to that too. He sat down at his desk. It was piled high with unopened packages and unread reports. The inbox was stacked two feet high.

“Didn’t any work get done around here while I was gone?”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Where do you think all those reports came from?”

Kurt began to leaf through things, most of it dull. Maybe he’d bring those files home in case he had trouble sleeping. They seemed boring enough to put him right out.

He scanned through a stack of memos and other papers requesting his presence at meetings that were long over. Into the circular file they went.

He began to look at the mail. A couple tubes held charts he’d requested months ago. He opened a box, finding a DVD inside.

“What’s this?”

Joe leaned forward. “From the Jayhawk’s camera,” Joe said. “South African reporter turned it into a news story. It shows some of the action.”

Kurt thought about watching the video but decided against it. It couldn’t help him with the questions he had. “Too bad I didn’t have a camera on my shoulder,” he muttered.

He put the DVD aside and went through some more interoffice mail. Finally, he got down to an envelope from the South African Coast Guard. He tore it open to find a report on the storm and the rescue. He scanned it like one might read the sports page, looking only for the highlights. His attention sharpened when he came to something he didn’t know.

He sat up straight, reading the paragraph three times just to be sure.

He looked at Joe. “Brian Westgate was picked up nineteen mil

es from where the Ethernet went down?”

“The next day,” Joe said. “After the storm passed. He was in an inflatable raft.”

“I was under the impression he was found in a life jacket, bobbing up and down like a fighter pilot who bailed out.”

“The story was kind of spun that way. He dove out of the raft and swam to the helicopter. When they picked him up, the only video they released was of him in the water all alone. Probably a publicity thing.”

Kurt put the report down. “Doesn’t it strike you odd that he was in a raft by himself while his wife and kids were drowning?”

“He said he was trying to get the raft ready while they held fast in the bridge. A surging wave crashed onto the deck and took him and the raft overboard. According to his story, he tried like crazy to paddle back, but it was impossible.”

Kurt flicked on the computer and pulled up the NUMA mapping system, zooming in on the eastern coast of South Africa.

Running his finger beneath the numbers listed in the report, he memorized the latitude and longitude where the Ethernet foundered. He typed it into the computer and tapped the enter key. The computer marked the spot with a bright red triangle.

He did the same for the location of Westgate’s recovery and a green triangle appeared.

“Nineteen miles apart,” Kurt said. “No way.”

“It was almost thirty hours later,” Joe pointed out. “And that was a hell of a storm.”

Kurt knew what Joe was thinking, but it didn’t add up. “Unless he was drifting against the current and through a crosswind, he wound up in the wrong place.”

Kurt turned the monitor around so Joe could see. Little gray arrows denoting the prevailing current ran opposite to the direction Westgate had drifted.

“He should have wound up southwest of the yacht, not northeast.”