Under Darkness Part 13

"Exactly." Mar-Mar's eyes flashed. "Up until now the loss of the hair has been kept very quiet. If the Muslim world discovers the relic is gone, the mosque officials know their lives would be forfeit for allowing it to happen. Not only their own lives, either. Their wives and children, mothers and fathers, everyone in their family would be killed, torn apart if a mob got hold of them.

"Once news of this spread, a jihad would rise up against the West. It would be a jihad of terrifying proportions. Millions would die. Even the Wahhabis don't want that kind of gra.s.sroots uprising, mostly because it won't be under their control."

"So what's the problem?" I asked. "Why don't we just return Ha.s.san Omar and the relic?"

Mar-Mar gave her head a small shake, her patience completely gone. "Of course we would return it if we could. But we can't. Your precious Darius took the bottle from the cleric Omar. Somehow, and we have yet to determine how, that bottle was lost. The hair is gone."

At that point all I could think was, Oh, s.h.i.+t Oh, s.h.i.+t.

Benny and I got back into the Rolls for the return trip to the city. We made ourselves comfortable in the plush interior. I leaned against the cus.h.i.+ons to think things out. Benny, who had remained silent the entire time we were with Mar-Mar, reclined against the seat as well, closed her eyes, and suddenly started to talk. She said she was heartily sorry she had blamed Darius for the vampire hunters.

I accepted her apology.

Then she opened her eyes and gave me an I-told-you-so look. Her words snapping, she proceeded to tell me she surely had been right, however, that Mr. Darius della Chiesa didn't waltz back into my life because he was "a lovesick hound dog." He had an ulterior motive, the same way he always did. She crossed her arms across her chest, huffed, and fell silent again.

"So what's his motive?" I shot back. "He doesn't know the Darkwings are looking for the Intrepid Intrepid. I doubt he knows the s.h.i.+p is missing. He certainly can't know that its disappearance is linked to his kidnapping of Ha.s.san Omar. We didn't even know that until tonight. You and I can connect his screwup with what we're into, but that's not the reason he came back to see me."

Benny stared straight ahead. "I still say he's up to something."

"I love him, Benny."

"That don't make him any better than he is," she said, purposely not looking at me. She was quiet for a moment; then her voice softened. "And I'm afraid he's gonna put you in a world of hurt. Even if he don't mean to, he will. I swear, a black cloud hangs over that man's head."

I didn't say I agreed with her, but I had a deep uneasiness that Darius was going to put me in a world of hurt too.

Before we reached Manhattan, Cormac rang my cell phone. He asked Benny and me to meet Rogue and him downtown, all the way downtown, Whitehall Street, at the Staten Island Ferry terminal. I asked why. Cormac told me they'd explain when we got there.

I rogered that and repeated it to Benny. She leaned forward to tell the driver our destination.

"Wonder why we're going to the ferry terminal?" she turned to me and asked.

"Sounds like we're going to Staten Island. They must have found something out there."

I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be working all night. Whatever the future held with Darius would have to remain in the future, for now. I doubted he would have shown up tonight at my apartment anyway. Once Mar-Mar revealed the contents of the letter to her cronies in the upper circles of power, people would be getting in line to talk to Darius. I imagined I would be standing pretty much at the end.

The Rolls didn't arrive at the ferry terminal until nearly one thirty, just in time for us to spot Cormac and Rogue in front of the terminal waving urgently at us. Benny and I tumbled out of the Rolls and ran like madwomen, tipsy in our high heels. The four of us rushed into the terminal. The huge doors at the far end were open; the ramp was down. The fat orange ferry with its blue lettering wallowed in its slip as other pa.s.sengers scurried in front of us, everybody in a hurry even at this hour of the night.

Halfway across the huge room an empty Utz Cheese Curls bag caught on my flimsy sandal. I danced around trying to free it, lost my balance, and started to fall. A strong arm grabbed me around the waist as Rogue caught me before I went down. Laughing now, we kept running up the ramp at double-time and clambered on board the Alice Austen Alice Austen.

The gate closed and, with a revving of the engines, the huge s.h.i.+p painted safety orange like a traffic cone-not white, like most of the world's ferries, but loud and bold like its city-pulled away from the ferry slip into New York Bay.

The water lay calm, black, and glittering with the reflections of thousands of lights as we began the twenty-five-minute ride to the St. George terminal in Staten Island.

Benny immediately asked Rogue what was going on, but it was hard to hear what he said over the drone of the motors. He moved close to her and whispered something in her ear.

She nodded, then moved to the high rail. None of us went inside. I enjoyed being out there in the darkness, silent, content to look at the lights of Manhattan's skyline slipping away as we journeyed into the night.

Waves slapped rhythmically against the hull of the s.h.i.+p. The air left damp kisses on my face. I smelted salt and sea.

We all stayed as we were, not speaking, looking at the view. Benny had never ridden the ferry before. She tipped back her head and looked, awestruck, her face transfixed with wonder.

She wasn't the only one. The beauty of this crossing kept me riveted in place, a lightness coursing through me, a swelling of emotion in my chest. I gazed behind us at Manhattan. The familiar skyline reminded me why I was doing this job-the real reason, not the threats the agency had used to coerce me. I longed to protect this place, this unique and special island. I would do it at any risk, at any cost.

My emotions broke completely when I saw the Statue of Liberty to the right of the s.h.i.+p. Floodlights at the base revealed her green gown, but the glow of the illuminated torch and crown looming high, a beacon of welcome, closed my throat with tears. Give me your tired, your poor Give me your tired, your poor, the Emma Lazarus poem began. Even your vampires Even your vampires, I mentally added.

The sight of the statue's lights once again brought back memories of Fitz. The first time we went out together he had brought me down to the Battery to point out Lady Liberty in the harbor. He wanted to explain to me what it meant to him. That night the fog had rolled in and we never saw her. It had been the gesture itself that told me everything about him.

As Whittier wrote, For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."

Before I could get too maudlin, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. Cormac motioned with his head that they were going inside. I left the deck and joined them.

The harsh glare of the interior lights stabbed hard at my eyes. I should have brought my sungla.s.ses. Cream-colored plastic seats with yellow pads lined the walls. Benny went looking for a clean one to sit on.

She was wiping one off with a tissue from her purse when she saw a stoop-shouldered man with a New York Post New York Post under his arm about to sit down on a seat that she had already inspected. Being Southern and having never met a stranger, she turned to him and called out, "Hey, y'all, something spilled on that one." under his arm about to sit down on a seat that she had already inspected. Being Southern and having never met a stranger, she turned to him and called out, "Hey, y'all, something spilled on that one."

The man paused, checked it out, and said, "It's dried up." Then he sat on the stain. "Doesn't matter anyway. I'm wearing black," he said.

I saw her give a little start. She put the tissue back in her purse and walked over to where I was standing. It was then that I noticed that both the male Darkwings were carrying gym bags over their shoulders. I didn't think they had been working out.

"Wazzup, guys?" I said, hand on hip and all att.i.tude to mask how f.u.c.ked-up I felt.

"We made some inroads," Rogue said.

"And some indents." Cormac smiled.

"Yeah." Rogue grinned, reached out, and draped a big arm around Benny's shoulders, pulling her closer into our circle to talk.

"The tire guy is now in federal custody," he said. "Turned out he was a member of a radical Brooklyn mosque, the one a.s.sociated with the Blind Sheikh-"

I stole a look at Benny and made a mental note to contact Lieutenant Johnson.

"-and that made him more interesting to us. We found him at home, at supper. He wasn't happy to see us."

"No, he definitely wasn't," Cormac said.

"To make a long story short, he denied knowing anything about his ketch's now-you-see-it-now-you-don't behavior. But we convinced him to let us take a look around the garage of the tire store. For a place that just sold tires there were some mighty interesting steel cables and electronic equipment. We called J, and pretty soon some guys in black showed up. Bye-bye, tire guy."

"So why are we on the ferry going to Staten Island?" I asked.

"J said to investigate bigger boats, freighters, oil tankers, you know. A couple of longsh.o.r.emen friends of mine picked up some information we need to check out." Rogue took out a toothpick from his s.h.i.+rt pocket and put it between his teeth.

"In Staten Island?" I reiterated.

"Not exactly, but close," Rogue said.

"Now, stop playing with us, you guys," Benny said.

"Fun's fun, but if n you want to know what we we found out, you have to go first." found out, you have to go first."

"You found out something?" Cormac said, sounding disappointed. He hated to be upstaged.

"Yes, we surely did, but it's still your turn."

"Okay, here's the deal," Rogue said, motioning us even closer together and lowering his voice, although outside of the guy on the other side of the cabin reading the New York Post New York Post there wasn't another person in sight. "Rumor has it that a container s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed in the Arthur Kill near the Verrazano Bridge did a disappearing act last week: there one day, gone the next, back the next. The coast guard was alerted about something fishy and has detained the s.h.i.+p in port. They were supposed to investigate. They got sidelined by priorities: thirty tons of marijuana on a freighter from Panama. there wasn't another person in sight. "Rumor has it that a container s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed in the Arthur Kill near the Verrazano Bridge did a disappearing act last week: there one day, gone the next, back the next. The coast guard was alerted about something fishy and has detained the s.h.i.+p in port. They were supposed to investigate. They got sidelined by priorities: thirty tons of marijuana on a freighter from Panama.

"The container s.h.i.+p incident happened before the Intrepid Intrepid disappeared. n.o.body connected the dots. We need to take a look-see. Course, it may already be too late, but I guarantee that by the time the coast guard gets there, there won't be anything to find." disappeared. n.o.body connected the dots. We need to take a look-see. Course, it may already be too late, but I guarantee that by the time the coast guard gets there, there won't be anything to find."

"So why are we going to Staten Island?" I asked for the third time.

"Now, Rambo, hold your horses. I'm getting to that. It's a shorter flight from the ferry terminal on Staten Island out to the s.h.i.+p than from Manhattan."

"Really?" I said. "And I'm supposed to strip down and leave a fifteen-hundred-dollar dress on the ferry? I don't think so."

"We already figured out you might not want to go skinny-dipping on the way home," Cormac said. "We're going to take our clothes along in the gym bags."

Unseen by anyone, we left the Alice Austen Alice Austen by air before it docked at the Staten Island terminal. Four vampires aloft, staying under the radar, we winged our way over the dark waters of the bay until we were within sight of the bridge. Beyond that, the 653-foot bulk of the s.h.i.+p by air before it docked at the Staten Island terminal. Four vampires aloft, staying under the radar, we winged our way over the dark waters of the bay until we were within sight of the bridge. Beyond that, the 653-foot bulk of the s.h.i.+p Belgium Belgium sat gently rocking on the calm seas. Its deck was loaded high with containers. The flag flying from its smokestack, lit by a spotlight, showed an orange silhouette of an island and a green olive branch on a white field. The flag of Cyprus. sat gently rocking on the calm seas. Its deck was loaded high with containers. The flag flying from its smokestack, lit by a spotlight, showed an orange silhouette of an island and a green olive branch on a white field. The flag of Cyprus.

That didn't tell us much. Cyprus maintained the sixth-largest registry for commercial s.h.i.+ps in the world. Detecting the owners wasn't our job anyway. We needed to find out why the s.h.i.+p had appeared to vanish. And we needed to do it by remaining as invisible as possible ourselves.

Benny had made it clear she did not intend to get even a wing tip wet. I seconded that. I'd had a taste of the filthy water in the bay a while back. I wasn't enthusiastic about repeating the experience. She and I planned to inspect above the waterline for signs of cables or electronic equipment.

Cormac and Rogue had decided to search the s.h.i.+p itself. These freighters carry a crew of twenty or twenty-five-not many, considering the size of the vessel. The hour was late. They should be asleep. With any luck the Darkwings wouldn't be spotted.

Within minutes of our arrival I wanted to chalk this excursion up to another case of best-laid plans going all to h.e.l.l. First of all, Benny and I flew around the entire outside of the s.h.i.+p and didn't see diddly-squat. We spotted a number of places on the hull that looked as if the paint could have been sc.r.a.ped by a cable. We saw nothing more. If anything had been there, it had long since been removed.

We took a second look just to make sure. I didn't like being this close to the water; it was working on my nerves. I really was ready to call it quits. And something else was nagging at me, making me uneasy, but I couldn't figure out what.

Hardly ten minutes had pa.s.sed before Benny and I concluded we weren't going to find anything helpful. It was a long way to come to find nothing. Hoping the men were having better luck inside the s.h.i.+p, we landed near the bow on the metal plates of the deck, trying not to sc.r.a.pe our claws against the hull. We didn't want to draw anybody's attention. I worried that there might be a crew member left on watch, or that the sound might carry to anyone below decks.

Benny and I figured we could at least snoop around the containers for transmitters, electronic generators, or some kind of cloaking device. h.e.l.l, I wasn't sure I'd know one if I fell over one. As it turned out, we weren't poking around the containers more than a minute when I heard a small sound. I grabbed Benny's arm. We froze.

We listened. It sounded like rustling. Rats Rats? I thought.

It wasn't. Someone yelled, "Hey, up here!"

Benny and I looked in the direction of the voice. Cormac and Rogue had landed on top of the stack of containers above us.

"Come up here," Rogue yelled louder.

My heart almost stopped. The idiot The idiot! The crew was going to hear that big mouth. What did he think he was doing? I flew up there as fast as I could, Benny right behind me.

"Why are you yelling?" I hissed at him. "Are you nuts?" Before either man-bat had a chance to answer I looked at them both crouched up on top of the container. Something wasn't right. "What?"

Rogue turned his face toward the stem of the s.h.i.+p, with the pilothouse and crew quarters.

"Did you find evidence?" I asked as a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over me. "You were only in the s.h.i.+p a couple of minutes."

Rogue nodded his head affirmatively. "Yeah, we found something."

I stared at him. He didn't seem excited by his success. I looked at Cormac.

"What? What's going on?"

"They're dead," Cormac said.

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"The captain, the crew, even the captain's rat terrier. They've all been shot to death, every last one of them."

All I wanted to do was get off this ghost s.h.i.+p. I immediately figured out what had been bothering me: It was the smell of death, indistinct on the outside of the s.h.i.+p over the water, but there nonetheless.

Benny, who never flew without her handbag slung around her neck, reached inside for her cell phone. I had asked her to carry mine as well. She looked over at me. I nodded. She tossed it to me.

"Who are you going to call?" I queried as I reached out and caught my phone. "J?"

"I'm not calling n.o.body," she said. "I'm going in there to take pictures. You You call the boss." call the boss."

The Missouri girl had a lot of guts; I'll say that for her.

All of us flew to the stern with Benny, and everybody went into the s.h.i.+p except me. I'd seen enough dead bodies lately. I didn't see any advantage to viewing the carnage. I told them I'd wait out on deck.

I needed to think. It was pretty obvious that whoever was behind capturing the Intrepid Intrepid played hardball. They didn't leave witnesses or anything that could help us locate the missing s.h.i.+p. I was surprised Mr. Saud, the tire guy but in Hempstead, hadn't been eliminated. There had to be a reason. Maybe he was one of the key players. Or maybe it was just dumb luck that he was still alive when Cormac and Rogue found him. played hardball. They didn't leave witnesses or anything that could help us locate the missing s.h.i.+p. I was surprised Mr. Saud, the tire guy but in Hempstead, hadn't been eliminated. There had to be a reason. Maybe he was one of the key players. Or maybe it was just dumb luck that he was still alive when Cormac and Rogue found him.

It was a lucky break. Now he could be interrogated. I hope it helped.

Benny had told me me to call J. She would rather face a murder scene than our handler. I made a face thinking about how p.i.s.sed off he was going to be with me, but what could he really say? to call J. She would rather face a murder scene than our handler. I made a face thinking about how p.i.s.sed off he was going to be with me, but what could he really say? He He was the one who suggested I go talk to my mother. was the one who suggested I go talk to my mother.

And since she was my mother, my bringing her the letter followed some logic. I had broken the chain of command in one way. In another way I had maintained the link between mother and daughter. A nice a.n.a.logy, I thought, giving myself some credit for wit.

Then I had a sobering thought. I needed to watch my back. J would get even with me if he saw a way he could.

I hit the speed dial, number three. J's number appeared right after Mar-Mar's and Darius's. I hunched my shoulders against the gathering wind to shelter the phone so he could hear me better.