Dark Watch (Oregon Files 3)

“You wouldn’t be using my override to check the ship’s computer logs, would you, Maurice?” Juan chided mildly.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing, Mr. Cabrillo. I merely overheard him discussing it with Mark Murphy.”

That fit. Juan chuckled to himself. Murph, Eric’s partner in crime, had even less luck with women than Stone, if one overlooked the occasional Goth girl he hooked up with. But a girl with more piercings than a pincushion and who was impressed with a guy who could catch air on a skateboard half-pipe wasn’t much of a catch in Cabrillo’s mind.

“Well, you know what they say, Maurice, any love is good love.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, Mr. Cabrillo.”

The steward bowed out as Max, Linda Ross, and Julia Huxley entered the room. They helped themselves to tea and plates loaded with the spicy samosas. A few seconds later Hali Kasim came in with Franklin Lincoln. Linc normally wouldn’t have been in on the meeting, but he was taking the place of the absent Eddie Seng. Eric and Murph arrived last, arguing about some obscure line from an old Monty Python movie.

“First things first,” Juan said after everyone had taken their seat. “Any word from Eddie?”

“Still nothing,” Hali replied.

Juan cocked an eyebrow at Doc Huxley.

She answered immediately. “The subcutaneous transmitter I surgically implanted in the muscles of Eddie’s thigh checked out perfectly before you and he took off for Tokyo. In fact, that one’s only been in there three months.”

A few key members of the Corporation had special burst locaters implanted under their skin, Juan included. The electronic devices were the size of postage stamps and drew power from the body’s own nervous system. Every twelve hours they were supposed to send a signal to a commercial satellite that was then relayed back to the Oregon. It was a covert way of keeping tabs on operatives in the field without having them carry bugs that could be discovered and confiscated.

The technology was new and far from perfected, which is why Juan didn’t necessarily trust the devices; however, in Eddie’s case, there had been no other alternatives.

Hali added, “The last transmission we received from him showed he was on the outskirts of Shanghai, someplace close to the new airport.”

Juan digested the information. “Any chance they planned on flying him out?”

Max Hanley tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. “We considered that option, but it doesn’t jibe with what we know of the smugglers. Eddie’s following the trail of the illegals we found in the container. By rights he should be following the same route.”

“But if they were losing too many people to the pirates, wouldn’t they change their tactics?” Eric Stone asked from behind the laptop he’d set on the table.

“We don’t know how many the pirates have taken,” Hali replied. “The ones we found on the Kra could have been the first batch that were intercepted.”

“Or the last straw,” Eric countered, “and now the snakeheads have switched to airplanes.”

“If they already had seaborne resources, it would be cost prohibitive to switch to aircraft. They would need all new infrastructure.”

Juan let the debate circle the table but knew there were no answers. Until they received something from Eddie’s transmitter, they were just jawing in a vacuum. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said to end the futile debate. “Hali, broaden the number of satellites you’ve been checking. It’s possible that somebody else’s bird is getting Eddie’s signal. Think outside the box on this one. Check anything capable of relaying an electronic burst transmission.”

The Oregon’s communications expert bristled. “I’ve checked the logs. My pe

ople have looked at every satellite that comes within a thousand miles of Shanghai.”

“I’m not doubting the competence of your staff, Hali,” Juan soothed. “If Eddie was within that thousand-mile circle, they would have found him. But I don’t think he is. Now I want you to double the area, search for him within two thousand miles of Shanghai, and if he’s not there, expand the grid until you find him.”

Hali jotted a few notes on a notepad bearing the Corporation’s logo. “You got it, boss.”

Juan paused until he had everyone’s attention. “As for my meeting yesterday, Shere Singh, his son Abhay, and anyone else affiliated with the Karamita Breakers Yard is on our official list of suspects. They own the Maus and its sister ship.” He caught Mark Murphy’s attention. “That reminds me. Anything on the sister drydock, Souri?”

Murph grabbed Eric’s laptop and moused through a few screens. “Here we go. She was Russian-built and bought at the same time as the Maus but under a different web of dummy companies. They did make the same mistake and used Rudolph Isphording to establish the fronts. Unlike the Maus, the Souri has yet to be engaged in any salvage activities. No one has rented her, no one has even seen her. She was on the Lloyds list, but the last they knew she was still in Vladivostok waiting for her new owners to take possession.”

Juan opened his mouth to ask a question, but Murph was ahead of him. “Already checked. She was towed out of the harbor eighteen months ago. And no one remembers the names of the tugs.”

“Damn.”

Linda Ross spoke around a mouthful of samosa. “So, for the past year and a half Singh and company could have been using her for anything. Even if they didn’t go around snatching ships off the high seas, a vessel that size would be perfect for all sorts of smuggling operations. They could load her with a few hundred stolen cars. Hell, they could haul a couple of big corporate jets without dismantling the wings or cram a couple thousand immigrants into the hold.”

She meant her comment to be speculative, but the air in the boardroom suddenly became somber and chilled, as if a cloud had covered the sun and darkened the wood-paneled room. Everyone envisioned the massive vessel turned into a slave ship and filled with countless miserable souls destined for a life perhaps worse than death.