Skeleton Coast (Oregon Files 4)

“No, sir. They come in, fuel up, and go again.”

Juan leaned back in his chair, cocking an elbow over the seat back. He tried to link the facts together and come up with a coherent explanation but nothing really fit. Certain that Sloane had left out crucial elements from her story, he knew he’d never piece the puzzle together and had to decide how much he wanted to pursue this. Rescuing Geoffrey Merrick remained their top priority, and on that front they had enough problems without adding Sloane Macintyre’s. Still, something nagged him.

Tony Reardon suddenly spoke up. “We’ve told you everything we can, Captain Cabrillo. I would really like to get off your ship. We have a long trip back to port.”

“Yes,” Juan muttered distractedly and refocused his attention. “Yes, of course, Mr. Reardon. I don’t understand why you were attacked. It’s possible that there is a lost ship out here loaded with treasure and you got too close to someone’s operation. If they are working without government permission they very well might have resorted to violence.” He gave Tony and Sloane a frank stare. “If that’s the case, I advise you both to leave Namibia as quickly as you can. You’re both in over your heads.”

Reardon nodded at that advice but Sloane looked like she was going to ignore it. Juan let it go. It wasn’t his concern.

“Mr. Lincoln,” he said, “would you please escort our guests back to their boat. If they need fuel please see that it is taken care of.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The group stood as if on cue. Juan leaned across the table to shake hands with Justus Ulenga and Tony Reardon. When he grasped Sloane’s she pulled him forward slightly and said, “May I speak to you in private?”

“Of course.” Cabrillo looked at Linc. “Take them to the Pinguin. I’ll escort Ms. Macintyre myself.”

They took their seats as soon as the group left. Sloane studied him the way a jeweler inspects a diamond that he is about to cut, looking for the tiniest flaw that could ruin the gem. She came to some sort of decision, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on the table.

“I think you’re a fraud.”

Juan had to suppress a guffaw. “Excuse me,” he finally stammered.

“You. This ship. Your crew. None of it is what it appears to be.”

Cabrillo fought to keep his expression neutral and the blood from draining from his face. In the years since h

e’d founded the Corporation and started traipsing around the globe on a succession of ships all named Oregon, no one had ever thought they were anything but what they appeared to be. They’d had harbor officials, inspectors of every kind, even a canal pilot on their transits of Panama, and no one had shown the slightest suspicion about the ship or its crew.

She doesn’t know, he thought. She’s fishing. He had to admit to himself that they hadn’t pulled out all the tricks they utilized when they were in port and about to be inspected, but there was no way an untrained person who’d been aboard for all of thirty minutes could see through their carefully laid deception. His heart slowed as he came to this realization.

“Care to explain?” he invited casually.

“The little things, for one. Your helmsman was wearing a Rolex exactly like the one my father had. That’s a two-thousand-dollar watch. A bit too nice if you guys are as poor as you say.”

“It’s a fake,” Juan replied.

“A knock-off wouldn’t last five minutes in the salt air. I know because I had one when I was a teenager and working on my father’s fishing boat after he retired from the merchant marines.”

Okay, Juan said to himself, she’s not completely untrained when it comes to ships. “Maybe it is real but he got it from a fence who stole it. You’d have to ask him.”

“That’s a possibility,” Sloane said. “But what about your steward? I’ve been working in London for the past five years and recognize English tailoring when I see it. Between his Church’s dress shoes, custom suit pants, and handmade shirt, Maurice was sporting about four thousand dollars’ worth of duds. I doubt he bought them off a fence.”

Juan chuckled, imagining Maurice wearing anything secondhand. “He’s actually richer than Croesus but is—how would the English put it—dotty. He’s the black sheep of an old-money family who has been knocking around the globe since he turned eighteen and got his inheritance. He approached me last year when we were in Mombassa, asked to be our steward, and said we wouldn’t have to pay him. Who was I to turn him down?”

“Right,” Sloane said drawing out the word.

“It’s true, honest.”

“I’ll leave that for now. But what about you and Mr. Lincoln? There aren’t a whole lot of Americans working aboard ships because Asians are willing to do the jobs at a fraction of the wage. If the company who owns this vessel is as tight as you claim, the crew would be Pakistanis or Indonesians.” Juan made to reply but she cut him off. “Let me guess, you work for a pittance, too?”

“My mattress isn’t exactly stuffed with cash, Ms. Macintyre.”

“I bet.” She raked her hand through her hair. “Those are the little things I figured you would explain away. How about this? When I first saw your ship there wasn’t any smoke coming from the funnel.”

Uh-oh, Juan thought, recalling how the engineer had forgotten to turn on the smoke generator until after the Pinguin was in visible range. At the time Juan hadn’t thought it a big deal, but that oversight was coming back to haunt them.

“I first thought that the ship had been abandoned but then I saw you were making headway. A few minutes later, smoke starts pouring from the stack, a good amount of it, in fact. Interestingly, the exact same amount when you were charging toward us at twenty knots as when I was on the bridge and noticed the telegraph was set to all stop. And speaking of your charge, there is no way a vessel this size could turn that fast unless you have isopod directional thrusters, which is a technology developed long after this ship was built. Care to explain that away?”