The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

Juan pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. He rose and made a motion to follow Linda out.

Max got up, too. “Where are you going?”

Juan opened the door. “To make sure those cases aren’t spreading radiation all over my ship.” He knew his voice sounded a bit more terse than usual, but he couldn’t help it.

“Wait a minute,” Max said, catching up to him in the hallway, all but blocking the way. “This Gretchen Wagner—it sounded like you knew the name. Do you two have a history together?”

“You might say that.”

“Why? How do you know her?”

“Well, for three weeks, she was my wife.”

Juan gave Max an inscrutable grin and left him standing in the cabin passageway, mouth agape.

NINE

SOUTH OF MAJORCA

With a storm fast approaching, Cobus Visser didn’t want to stay out on the deck of the containership Narwhal any longer than he had to. He and Gustaaf Bodeker had been tasked with checking every single reefer unit connection to make sure they were secure enough to weather the morning squall. If the refrigerated containers lost power during the storm, the vegetables inside would rot before they could reach port in Malta.

As the lowest-ranking members of the twelve-man crew, Visser and Bodeker had been assigned this tedious and undesirable task. Lanky, twenty-year-old Visser was the newest addition, and while he didn’t mind the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, he didn’t understand why they’d been sent so far from their home port of Rotterdam. Normally, this small feeder cargo vessel was limited to short trips in the North Sea, distributing loads from Dijkstra Shipping’s giant containerships that carried goods from ports in Asia. But without explanation from the captain, the Narwhal had been suddenly diverted on the long trip to Malta, an island country located between Italy and Libya, which had caused much speculation among the crew.

“Why do you think the captain won’t tell us what we’re picking up in Malta?” Visser asked Bodeker, who was inspecting the connections on their thirtieth reefer unit. The former speed skater, with thighs the size of beef slabs, seemed irked by the discussion, but Visser didn’t care.

“We’re paid to go where the captain takes us and where the owner tells us to go,” Bodeker replied. “Why does it matter what we carry? All of the containers look the same anyway.”

“Yes, but we’ve always been told before. We know these reefers hold tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The rest of the containers are filled with computer parts to be recycled in China. I saw the bill of lading. But the cargo master told me we are picking up only one container in Malta. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No more strange than being sent to the Mediterranean in the first place.”

“That’s another thing!” Visser went on excitedly. “We’ve been shuttling back and forth between Rotterdam, Oslo, and Bergen for the last three months, and then, out of nowhere, we’re going a thousand miles in the other direction to pick up a single container?”

“So?”

“Well, it’s weird. Do you want to know what I think?”

“Not really,” Bodeker said.

Visser ignored him. “I think we’re on a classified mission for the Dutch government. We’re picking up cargo that they don’t want anyone to know about.”

Bodeker rolled his eyes. “You would think that. Don’t you ever get tired of all these conspiracy theories?”

“And I suppose you think the government tells us about everything they do.”

“I didn’t say that. But don’t you think it’s more reasonable that the company has some time-sensitive cargo to bring back to Rotterdam and we’re simply the only ship that was available?”

“Come on, Bodeker,” Visser said. “That’s just failure of imagination. And boring.”

“Your pestering is getting boring. Let’s finish this job and get back inside.”

Visser waved his hand in disgust. He stretched and looked out to sea, surprised to see a bone-white ship passing by in the other direction no more than a mile off the port bow. He’d never seen a design like it.

He tapped Bodeker on the shoulder. “What do you think that is? It can’t be a navy ship.”

Bodeker straightened in annoyance and then looked curiously at the vessel. “I’d say it’s a yacht.”

“You’re kidding. That thing is huge!” The sleek vessel had to be 400 feet long, a hundred feet longer than their own cargo ship. “It’s got to be a cruise ship, although I’ve never seen one that had a twin-hull configuration. It’s too far away to make out the name.”