Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Where’d we get her DNA from?”

“From you,” Yaeger said. “You had Calista’s blood all over you, not to mention a few strands of black hair caught in the buttons of your coat. Joe pointed it out to one of the CIA techs when he got to the hospital. They were smart enough to save the samples. We’ve since matched Calista’s DNA with surviving relatives of the Banister family.”

“So the girl in this picture is Calista,” Kurt said.

“Her real name is Olivia,” Yaeger said.

They looked so normal. “Are you telling me these middleclass suburbanites left England, faked their disappearance, and started some kind of international crime family?”

“No,” Hiram said. “The real story is much sadder than that. As I told you, they disappeared while on vacation. The father resurfaced six months later when he was shot to death in Bangkok. His hands were bound, his face was bruised, and he was clearly trying to escape from someone when he was gunned down. The responsible party was never found. A year after that, the bodies of the mother and the two boys were discovered.”

“Where?”

“In a dilapidated lifeboat drifting off the coast of Mozambique.”

Hiram passed another photo over, this one of the lifeboat as it was discovered. The three bodies were covered, but there were several containers at their sides. Here and there, Kurt saw patches to the rotting wooden boat and a pair of makeshift oars. In one corner was a broken splint of wood and a tattered bolt of cloth that might have been used as a mast and sail.

“They died of dehydration,” Hiram explained.

“No water in those containers?” Kurt asked.

“Perhaps at first,” Yaeger said. “But if that’s what they held, it wasn’t enough. Based on the condition of the bodies, the coroner guessed they’d been in the boat for at least two weeks, maybe three. Not enough water for three people for that much time. Not even if those containers were filled to the brim.”

Kurt looked back at the photo of the smiling family and guessed at the sequence. “Somehow, Calista got left behind. Maybe they knew there wasn’t enough water for four and were hoping three could make it.”

“Who knows,” Hiram said. “The only thing we’re sure of is that the smiling little girl in that picture has been with whoever took her for almost three decades.”

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

“She may remember some of it,” Hiram cautioned. “She would have been four when they were abducted, five going on six when her mother and brothers made what we can only assume was a desperate attempt to escape. But considering what we’ve learned about people in captivity, it’s highly probable that whatever memories she had of the situation have been suppressed. Between Stockholm syndrome and the human desire to survive, the mind can be bent into accepting even the strangest of things. In her case, as a young child, it would probably have been as simple as just making her part of a new family.”

Kurt considered the irony. “She’s gone from abductee to abductor.”

“She wouldn’t be the first.”

Kurt nodded. Looking at the photo, he felt sorry for the little girl who’d become Calista. But his main concern was the madness she and her partners were now spreading over the world.

“So this is a break for us,” he said. “If we find the people who took her, we find the mastermind behind all this.”

“Exactly our thinking,” Hiram said. “Which leads us to a leap of faith. Take a look at the old lifeboat in the picture. Can you make out the name stenciled on the upper plank?”

Kurt squinted. He could see a discoloration, but that was it. He shook his head.

“Here’s an enhanced photo.”

Kurt took the new printout. Computer augmentation had made the name more legible. Kurt read it twice to be sure, and then a third time. “I know you wouldn’t be joking at a time like this, but are you certain?”

Hiram nodded.

“The Waratah?” Kurt said. “The Blue Anchor Line’s Waratah that vanished in 1909?”

“One and the same,” Hiram said. “Between St. Julian Perlmutter’s vast number of records on the subject and a South African who spent years looking for the Waratah, we’ve confirmed that she had two double-enders of exactly this type among her complement of auxiliary craft and lifeboats.”

Kurt stared at the name on the photo. It certainly looked correct. But it seemed impossible. “It’s got to be a mistake,”

he said.

“Logic would tell you that,” Hiram agreed, “except that I know something you don’t. The Waratah never went down.” With that, Hiram pulled out another photograph. On it Kurt saw a derelict vessel covered in sediment, corrosion, and what Kurt guessed to be vegetation. She didn’t have much shape to her.