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Soaring on twin hulls like a gigantic manta ray, the fast ferry Barcelona
raced through the thirteenth hour of her ever-expanding pattern search
even as the sun rose on vast and empty waters.
The huge catamaran--built for high-speed blue water crossings--was manned
by an Australian delivery crew, most of whom were shipyard mechanics tending
the four brand new Caterpillar turbo-charged diesels that hurled her at
eighty miles an hour. Trailing wings of mist and spray, she whipped back
and forth across a hundred square miles of ocean.
The Barcelona's glassed-in bridge sat high above the main passenger cabin,
which spanned her widely separated hulls. Her pilot station resembled
an AirBus flight deck, with digital readouts and flat screen monitors
relaying information from the engines, trim monitors, and navigational
instruments.
Big windows offered a bird's eye view of the sea and there was ample room
for the Barcelona's Australian delivery captain, his first officer and
the helmsman, as well as the American who had chartered her, and his bodyguards.
Three big blokes--quiet as mountain shadows--two white, one black. Ex-US
Navy SEALs, the Barcelona's captain guessed, judging by their swimmers'
shoulders and barrel chests.
"Mr. Nickels," the captain said, "We're running out of
time."
Nickels was not so tall as his bodyguards, well under six feet, but as
lean in the gut, and big in the shoulders, and immensely powerful. The
captain rated him Special Forces, too, what with the buzzcut hair, and
the hightop black Addidas, and the anvil build. But unlike his men, who
looked the sort you might have a pint with, there was a cold, bloodless,
emptiness in Nickels' eye that warned he was one vicious piece of work.
But it had been a long, long night and the captain, a hard-bitten, hard-drinking
former salvage master, was fed up. What had looked like easy money back
at the Panama Canal had turned into a royal pain in the butt.
"I said we're running out of time, Mr. Nickels."
The near silence on the bridge was broken only by the distant whine of
the engines and the maddening on-again, off-again "ping" of
the elusive homing signal. Finally, Andy Nickels looked up from the homing
bug receiver and said to the Australian, "Shut your fucking mouth."
"You've no call to talk that way, mate. I delivered. I've been tracking
that bloody signal for three days."
Nickels spoke to one of his shadows, who strode swiftly from the bridge.
The captain watched the security cameras trace his route into the elevator,
down below to the main deck to the galley. Another camera picked him up
as he flung open the door of the walk-in refrigerator and disappeared
inside. Puzzled, the captain stole a glance at his first officer; Hoskins
shot back a disgusted look that conveyed the message, Not my idea to accept
an illicit off-the-books charter.
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