Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 31

"What's being done about it?"

Yaeger sighed. "Everything that can be," he said. "A crash effort is under way to pull Phalanx and replace it with alternate systems. In addition, other security measures are being strengthened and reviewed. Some systems are being disconnected from the grid entirely."

"A step in the right direction," Kurt said. "But when the people behind this mess realize that Sienna is no longer useful to them, neither she nor her children are going to last very long."

"No," Yaeger agreed. "The most likely outcome has them being killed. The group behind all this will simply start over. Whatever their ultimate goal is, they've spent considerable time and energy trying to bring it to life. Nothing we've seen suggests they would give up."

"Any idea what they're up to?"

"We've detected a ma.s.sive increase in hacking attempts but no clear pattern," Yaeger said. "We think they're trying to disguise their true objective."

"Which means we have to find them," Kurt urged. "The only way this ends is if we stop it at the source."

Yaeger nodded. "And that brings me to why you're here and flying west with the night instead of east to Guam. We have a new lead. And, strangely enough, you're the one who gave it to us."

As he spoke, Yaeger pulled another photograph from the file folder. Kurt had seen it before. It was the picture he'd taken of Calista on the deck of Acosta's yacht.

"Max has finished the facial recognition a.n.a.lysis on your mystery woman."

"Any hits?"

"Not at first," Yaeger replied. "We checked through the civilized world's DMV bureaus, pa.s.sport-issuing organizations, and court archives. Even Interpol. No matching photographic record of this woman exists. So I asked Max to scan all publicly available images and see if we could find a counterpart."

"There must be billions of photos out there," Kurt said.

"Trillions," Hiram said. "Many trillions when you include video images. Even for Max it was a big task. Took three full days. And when she finally came up with an answer, I almost asked her if she was joking."

"I didn't know computers could joke," Kurt said.

"Max has been known to pull a prank or two. But this time she was serious."

Hiram produced another photo, this one copied from an old three-by-five glossy. It showed a handsome couple in their thirties. Gathered around them were three children, two boys and a girl, who looked to be the youngest child. Judging by the clothes, the photo had probably been taken in the mid-eighties.

"Nice-looking family," Kurt said. "Who are they?"

"The woman's name is Abigail Banister," Hiram said. "She was a telecommunications expert."

Kurt studied her. Aside from the clothes, the woman could have been Calista's twin.

"The man is her husband," Hiram continued, "Stewart Banister. He was a satellite guidance specialist. They're English. They disappeared while on safari in Zimbabwe twenty-eight years ago. At the time, there was some suspicion that they'd defected to the Eastern bloc. It seems British Intelligence had a low-level alert on them because of certain political beliefs and some old friends they'd made back in their college years. Though, for reasons that will become clear to you shortly, the world soon learned that such was not the case."

Kurt had an idea where this was going. "The woman looks just like Calista. And the little girl . . ."

"According to Max, her facial structure shows an eightynine percent correlation with those of the woman you know as Calista. Once we did a computerized age progression, using her own features and those of her siblings and parents, we end up with a ninety-six percent correlation. For all intents and purposes, it might as well be a fingerprint match."

"You're saying the little girl is Calista?"

Yaeger nodded.

Kurt had great respect for what Hiram and Max could do- certainly they'd pulled off near miracles before-but this seemed like a shot in the dark. "Is there any way we can prove what you're suggesting?"

"We already have," Yaeger said.

"How?"

"DNA a.n.a.lysis."

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 b.u.t.tons 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 middlecla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 makes.h.i.+ft 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 a.s.sume 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.

"I present the SS Waratah," Hiram said. "Discovered by Paul and Gamay Trout, three days ago, adrift in the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean."

Kurt looked at the photo. He realized that Hiram wouldn't be joking about such a thing, not at this point, but it boggled his mind and he had to make sure. "You're serious?" Yaeger nodded.

"How is it possible?"

Hiram explained their theory about how the sediment she was buried in stunted the corrosion on her hull, and what Gamay and Elena found in her sick bay.

"We're operating on a theory that a violent group took over the s.h.i.+p," he continued, "and sailed her north."

"Any idea where she ended up?"

Hiram nodded. "The west coast of Madagascar," he said, then followed up by explaining how Gamay had led them to that answer, pa.s.sing yet another photo from the file to Kurt.

Two satellite images were printed on the photo side by side. They showed a muddy river snaking and turning.

"Before and after," Yaeger explained. "The picture on the left is two months old. The picture on the right was taken last week."

Kurt's eyes went right to a highlighted section where the channel bent ninety degrees and then ran out to the sea. In the older photograph there was a large obstruction, like a hill or sandbar, that seemed to force the bend. In the newer photo the hill was gone, the river had carved out a new course, and the channel had widened and straightened substantially.

"Torrential rains last month scoured a new route to the sea," Hiram said. "They took everything in their path along with them, including the hull of the SS Waratah. The hill in question matches her dimensions almost perfectly."

Kurt rubbed the stubble on his chin. "So the Waratah was hijacked and stashed in this river, not lost at sea like everyone thought. Eighty years pa.s.s, and the Banisters, being held captive, discovered her, patched up one of her lifeboats, and tried to sail to safety, leaving five-year-old Olivia behind. They don't make it. The hijackers keep the young girl and slowly indoctrinate her. All these years later, we have Calista to deal with."

Hiram nodded. "You'd have made a good detective," he said. And, with that, he presented one last piece of the puzzle. This time the image depicted a large plantation-style estate, complete with hedges shaped into a complex maze, terraced gardens, a large pool, and various other structures. A row of satellite dishes sprouted along one side of the main building, while a helipad with a moderate-sized hangar lay on the other. Kurt could see the tails of two military-looking helicopters sticking out of the hangar.

The property was sprawling, and the grounds beyond the walls looked like pastureland. Kurt could see livestock roaming free. At the very top of the property was a jagged bluff of weathered gray stone. It ran the entire width of the photo.

"This compound is five miles upriver from the spot where the Waratah was hidden. It's owned by a mysterious but powerful man named Sebastian Brevard. For four generations the Brevard name has been connected with various types of criminal activity. Money laundering, bank fraud, trafficking in weapons and stolen goods. But strangely, there is no record of their existence before 1910, when they purchased this large tract of land."

"I'm guessing doc.u.ments were fairly scarce back then," Kurt said. "Especially in Madagascar."

"You'd be surprised," Hiram said. "The fact is, from 1897 to 1960, the island was part of the French empire. In the land purchase records filed with the colonial governor's office, the Brevard family claim emigration from France. And a distant level of n.o.bility. However, the coat of arms they lay claim to is made up. It has no true heraldic provenance in the annals of French society. Nor is there any record of a wealthy French family bearing the Brevard name leaving France for warmer pastures during that time."

Kurt saw what Hiram was getting at. "So this false band of n.o.bles appear out of nowhere six months after the Waratah goes missing and they buy the land on which the s.h.i.+p is hidden, presumably to keep it that way."

"Not just the land where the s.h.i.+p was hidden," Hiram corrected, "but a mile-wide swath all the way from the water's edge up to this impa.s.sable outcropping of granite."

"I think I can guess where the money came from," Kurt said. "Jewels, gold, and cash stolen from the pa.s.sengers and crew of the Waratah."

"Our thoughts exactly," Hiram said. "Supplemented, we now think, by a stack of counterfeit notes that were considered among the best ever produced during that era."

Kurt sat back and considered the implications. It seemed likely that Sienna's kidnappers were the same group of thugs who'd abducted and destroyed the Banister family thirty years before. Beyond that, the evidence suggested they were descended from a group that pirated the Waratah back in 1909.

Instead of anger, Kurt felt only a cold determination to put an end to their destruction. "I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree," he said. "Any idea who they really are? Where they came from?"

"It's all speculation," Yaeger said, "but a band of criminals known as the Klaar River Gang had been terrorizing Durban through the winter of 1908 and into the summer of 1909. Records show that the gang fractured in a power struggle and turned on itself just as Durban police were about to round them up. Most of the members were killed, but several high-ranking a.s.sociates were never accounted for. Despite initially thinking the gang had been wiped out, the chief inspector of the Durban police soon came to the conclusion that the leaders of the gang had escaped and had killed the others to cover their tracks. He stated publicly that he expected them to surface again, but they never did. Later in his life he became enamored with the idea that they'd made their way aboard the Waratah and perished when it went down."

"What made him think that?"

"Timing, for one," Yaeger said. "They'd vanished two days before the Waratah sailed. But there was another reason as well. Counterfeit ten-pound notes eventually surfaced in the Blue Anchor Line's payroll, very hard to distinguish from the real thing. It was a.s.sumed that some tickets had been purchased with the notes and that's how they got into the office's cashbox. Similar notes, and burned fragments, were found at the gang's hideout."

Kurt thought he saw the line of reasoning clearly at last. "So the leaders fake their deaths and slip aboard the Waratah, paying for pa.s.sage with forged notes, only to vanish with the s.h.i.+p. Even those who guess where they might have gone think that's the end of it, karma catching up with the gang or some grand cosmic rebalancing of the scales of justice. No one realizes they've hijacked the s.h.i.+p, taken it to Madagascar, and hidden it on this river. They use the wealth stolen from the pa.s.sengers and their own forged banknotes to buy a new life. But instead of going straight, they slowly turn back to what they know: crime. And every generation since has followed the pattern."

"That's about the size of it," Hiram said.

"If we're even half right, I think it's time we put an end to it," Kurt said. "Any chance we have the Delta Force or a team of Navy SEALs standing by?"

"Afraid not," Hiram said. "A strike force is being readied. Believe me, no one back home is happy with what's going on or with the possibility that such a prominent American is being used and held by a group as unsavory as this bunch. But there are logistical problems."

"Such as?"

"For one, we have no proof," Hiram said. "Beyond that, even if our theory is correct, we can't be sure that the cyberattacks are emanating from this compound or that Sienna and the others are there. If we tip our hand and ask for help from the government of Madagascar, we'll lose the only advantage we have going: the element of surprise."

"You need boots on the ground to get you proof," Kurt said.

Hiram nodded solemnly. "That's where you and Joe come in. It's strictly volunteer at this point, but we'll be crossing over Madagascar in a few hours. That puts you and Joe four hours closer than the next-best option."

"You know I'm game," Kurt said. "And I'm sure Sleeping Beauty back there won't want to miss out on all the fun. But what happens once we get proof? a.s.suming we can find it."

"Call it in and sit tight," Hiram said. "Special Forces will do the rest."

Kurt liked that idea. But there was one concern. "What if the Brevards know that Special Forces is being readied? They've been one step ahead of us all along."

"Not this time," Hiram said. "Like my trip out here to see you, all orders and logistics connected to this operation are being drafted up on old-fas.h.i.+oned typewriters and hand-carried to the commanders in question. The Brevards can tap all the computers they want, but they won't find what isn't there. And if they do look, what they'll discover is misinformation.

"Right now, the NUMA database, the Air Force database, and even the international air traffic control system, show this plane winging its way to Guam. Orders putting you back on medical leave have already been set in motion, while Joe's being rea.s.signed to a whale-watching mission off the coast of Venezuela. In the meantime, a CIA threat a.s.sessment has labeled Acosta as the prime suspect, putting him in league with the Iranian cyberforce and North Korea's Unit 121."

Kurt grinned. "That's not bad. If this Brevard guy is taking a peek into our systems, he's probably feeling awfully good about himself right now. We might even catch him flat-footed."

"We might at that," Hiram said.