Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

A group of sailors helped them out of the boats and directed them to a deck hatch. Calista was taken to the infirmary while the ship’s commander shook hands with Kurt and Joe.

“Welcome aboard the USS Ohio,” he said. “I hear you guys work for Dirk Pitt at Jim Sandecker’s old outfit, NUMA.”

They nodded in unison.

“Both men asked me to give you their regards,” the commander said. “Plan on briefing them tomorrow morning. Which is in an hour and forty minutes, by the way.”

“Just our luck,” Kurt said.

“At least you spent three days snoozing in Korea,” Joe said. “Imagine how I feel.”

Kurt laughed. “I’ll do the briefing,” he said, “but I need to get a secure message through before we submerge. Would that be possible?”

“Sure,” the commander replied. “What do you want it to say?”

“It’s complicated,” Kurt began. “Basically, I need someone to declare a bank holiday tomorrow. And maybe for the rest of the week. Just in case.”

In the last hours of that night the SS Waratah finally returned home. Some had wanted to delay her arrival until morning, but Paul would have none of it. He thought the venerable old ship had been away long enough.

Nudged forward by the Sedgewick, she came into the harbor virtually alone. But as she approached the dock, Paul noticed a sight he would remember for the rest of his life. It seemed as if half of Durban had come out, and thousands stood quietly in the dark with candles in their hands. They lined both sides of the inlet and the dock.

He saw no camera flashes, and there were no dignitaries waiting to give speeches. All that would come later. For tonight, the people of South Africa were welcoming this ship home.

The Waratah bumped the dock and was tied up. A highranking officer of the South African Navy came aboard and Paul relinquished command of the ship. From that moment on, he thought only of finding Gamay and wrapping his arms around her.

True to her word, she was waiting for him at the bottom of the gangway. They embraced and began walking the dock. Paul had never in his life seen so many cards, flowers, and wreaths.

He stopped beside a picture that looked familiar to him. In

the black-and-white portrait he saw a burly man with a handlebar mustache. His name was written below, as was his position, fireman, on board the Waratah, assigned to the aft boiler.

Paul still didn’t believe in ghosts, but he wondered if they might exist after all.

Hand in hand, he and Gamay walked the rest of the dock without saying a single word.

The details of Kurt’s message explained what he knew about Brèvard’s scheme. And when the President and the chairman of the Fed were informed, a three-day moratorium on all Fed activity was declared.

Meanwhile, Montresor, Sienna Westgate, and the other hackers willingly explained what they’d done, and been forced to do, revealing the viruses, blinds, and trapdoors they’d planted one by one until all the various dangers were uncovered and neutralized.

After twelve hours on board the Ohio, Kurt, Joe, and Calista were transferred to a ship bound for Durban. At the same time, Lt. Brooks and the other Marines were picked up and flown back to the Bataan after promising never to make fun of oceanographers again.

Upon their approach into the Durban harbor, Kurt and Joe marveled at the sight of the Waratah, back home after all these years. Untold thousands of bouquets lined the dock in front of her, and a proper cleaning and restoration was already under way. Plans were being made to turn part of the ship into a museum and the rest into a floating memorial to the two hundred eleven passengers and crew who vanished over a century ago.

A journal discovered in the sick bay gave some closure to the mystery. Though, sadly, the descendants had to live with the knowledge that those who weren’t killed in the original hijacking were abandoned in lifeboats to perish at sea in the subsequent storm. A memorial service with full honors was being planned.

As they bumped the dock, Kurt looked around for friendly faces. “I thought Paul and Gamay were going to be here,” he mentioned to Joe.

“I got a message from them,” Joe said. “They’re on a double date with Duke and Elena. Something about going to a shooting gallery to prove, once and for all, who saved the Waratah.”

Kurt shrugged. The message made no sense to him. Though Paul and Gamay weren’t there to greet them, someone else was. An attractive woman in a white dress that contrasted nicely with her cinnamon-colored tan. She stood on the pier below, waving and shouting up to Joe.

“Didn’t know you had friends in these parts,” Kurt said, though Joe seemed to have a friend in every port.

“She’s the reporter who did the story on how I rescued you from the maw of the angry sea,” Joe explained. “We hit it off while you were recuperating.”

“Well, if anyone’s earned some R & R around here, it’s you. See you back in D.C.”

Joe nodded, sauntered down the gangway, and left with the young woman.