A Touch of Fever

CHAPTER
1

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

“Okay, I’m getting a seriously bad vibe here.” The Museum of Piracy was a cheesy waterfront tourist attraction designed to separate visitors from their hard-earned vacation dollars. It was well past closing time, however, and Pete Lattimer appeared to have the place to himself. A rugged, brown-haired ex-Marine in his midthirties, dressed casually in a dark sports jacket and slacks, he muttered to himself as he navigated quietly down a darkened corridor. The beam of his flashlight swept over the museum’s various displays and decorations. A wooden steering wheel, salvaged from an old shipwreck, was mounted on one wall, next to a tattered black flag bearing the Jolly Roger. Pieces of eight were locked away under glass. A diorama depicted swarms of miniature buccaneers boarding a scale-model replica of a Spanish galleon. Informational plaques accompanied each exhibit. The nautical clutter made the place seem like a cross between a seafood restaurant and, well, a certain overstuffed Warehouse many hundreds of miles from here… His gaze darted from display to display, his alert brown eyes searching. None of these artifacts was the one he was looking for. So why were the hairs on the back of his neck standing up? Pete kept his guard up. He had a sixth sense when it came to trouble, and painful experience had taught him never to ignore his instincts. Paying attention to his “vibes” had served him well as a Secret Service agent, protecting the president. It was even more important now. He hoped Myka was being careful too. What was keeping her anyway? In theory, his partner was checking out the upper levels of the museum while he explored the ground floor, but she should have caught up with him by now. They had split up to cover more ground quickly, but maybe that had been a mistake? He was used to Myka watching his back. He listened for any sounds or disturbances coming from upstairs, but heard only the low hum of the air-conditioning. For a second he considered checking on Myka by phone, but decided it was probably too soon to worry about her absence. Myka was a pro; she could take care of herself. Chances were, she was just being thorough. Her keen attention to detail was what had made her such a great Secret Service agent-before they were both reassigned to other duties. One of the “perks” of those duties? Having to prowl an empty museum in the middle of the night, in search of something that might or might not be here. And that could just get them killed. What the heck, he thought. It beats a desk job. An old woodcut illustration, enlarged and mounted on the wall, depicted a public execution. Pete winced at the sight of captured pirates dangling from the gallows before a jeering crowd. A caption informed him that the mass hanging had taken place right here in Charleston, back around 1718. Just looking at the illustration made Pete’s neck hurt. His free hand went instinctively to his throat. He gulped. Did they have to keep this place so dark after closing? The grisly atmosphere was giving him the creeps. He quickened his pace, anxious to find the elusive artifact. Enough with the sightseeing. All he wanted to do now was snag it, bag it, tag it, and get out of here.

“Yeah, we should be so lucky,” he muttered. A black velvet curtain closed off the entrance to an adjacent wing. Ornate gold-painted letters above the threshold guided visitors toward the Hall of Infamy, while a smaller sign, dangling from a chain across the doorway, apologized that the exhibit was currently closed for renovations. He approached the curtain anyway. That tingly feeling was getting stronger. Figures, he thought. The next stop on his tour of the museum would have to be something called the Hall of Infamy. How come Artie never sends us to All-You-Can-Eat Cookies instead? Still, duty called.

Pete took a deep breath, then unhooked the chain blocking the way.

Drawing back the curtain, he stepped cautiously into the hall, which turned out to be a wax museum honoring the most notorious pirates of fact and fiction. Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Black Bart, Long John Silver, Captain Hook, Jean Lafitte, and about a dozen other legendary cutthroats and marauders were posed along both sides of a long, carpeted hallway, their molded features leering at Pete as he made his way down the carpet, past the still and silent buccaneers. Glass eyes and bloodstained cutlasses reflected the glow of the flashlight. Red fiber-optic fuses infested Blackbeard’s bushy whiskers. A stuffed parrot perched atop Silver’s shoulder. Treasure chests, cannonballs, anchors, and other props added to the maritime decor. Pete felt like he was running some sort of nautical gauntlet-or maybe walking the plank. Yo, ho, ho, he thought wryly. I’ll pass on the bottle of rum.

Doing his best to ignore the sinister figures, he finally stumbled onto his destination: a life-size replica of Charleston’s most scandalous daughter: Anne Bonny. The celebrated female pirate occupied a place of honor at the end of the hall. A tricorn hat topped a mane of wild red hair. A man’s blue frock coat, a striped shirt, and canvas trousers failed to conceal her shapely figure. A red silk cravat, knotted around her neck, added a touch of color to her ensemble. A flintlock pistol was tucked into her belt. Striking green eyes gleamed with bloodlust and avarice. Her crimson lips were curled in a sneer.

“Hello, Annie,” Pete whispered. He recognized her from Artie’s briefing back at the Warehouse. The real Anne Bonny had been a bored young wife who had run off to sea to pursue a life of piracy nearly three hundred years ago. Along with her lover, “Calico” Jack Rackham, she had terrorized the Caribbean before being captured by the British navy way back in 1720. Legend had it that she had fought like a hellcat to the very end. Looking at her fierce expression, Pete could believe it. He lifted his gaze. Anne’s right arm was raised high, the better to deliver a fatal blow to the unlucky seaman cowering at her feet. There was just one problem: her wax fingers were empty. The bloody cutlass was missing. Crap, Pete thought. That isn’t good. All of a sudden, his goose bumps had goose bumps. “Where is the trader of London town? His gold’s on the capstan, his blood’s on his gown.” A singsong voice, carrying an old sea chantey, issued from the shadows surrounding Pete. “And it’s up and away for St. Mary’s Bay, where the liquor is good and the laddies are gay…” What the heck? He spun around, searching for the source of the lilting voice, which echoed eerily off the walls of the spooky wax museum. His flashlight probed the darkness but could not immediately locate the unseen singer amidst the looming wax pirates. The chantey seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. “Farewell to Port Royal, the stink and the crowds. There’s blood in the scuppers and wind in the shrouds…” “Hello? Is someone there?” He reached instinctively for his Tesla gun, only to remember that it was Myka’s turn to carry the high-tech sidearm. All he had was an ordinary semiautomatic. Damn.

“Myka? I could use a little help here?” His vibe detector was on high alert. He could practically feel hostile eyes scoping him out. Chills ran up and down his spine like an express elevator. His gut twisted itself into knots. Adrenaline primed him for action. And none too soon. A rustling sound behind him alerted him to danger, and he dived for safety even as a dimly glimpsed figure charged from between a wax pirate and his booty. A gleaming cutlass sliced through the empty space Pete’s head had occupied only seconds before. He rolled across the carpet and sprang to his feet just in time to see the polished steel blade connect with a waxworks version of Calico Jack instead.

Whoosh! In a blur of motion, the cutlass appeared to deliver fifty blows with a single swing. The air sounded like it was being churned up by a blender. One minute, Jack Rackham was striking a dashing pose in his brightly colored calico vest, the very picture of a rakish pirate captain; a second later the unlucky statue had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of shredded fabric and wax shavings.

Paper-thin flakes wafted down onto the carpet. A glass eye rolled across the floor. “Whoa!” Pete exclaimed. He scrambled backward, bumping into a rusty iron cannon. The beam of his flashlight swung upward, exposing his attacker: a blond woman clutching Anne Bonny’s missing cutlass. He recognized her as Lainie Evers, a tour guide who worked at the museum. He and Myka had met her briefly when they were casing the place earlier today. The formerly helpful guide was still dressed for work, looking like a theme-park version of a stylish female pirate. A plastic name badge was pinned to a ruffled white blouse. A laced red corset cinched her waist, above a black skirt and knee-high boots. A skull-and-crossbones motif was printed on the skirt. More like a Halloween costume than authentic pirate garb, in other words. The cutlass, on the other hand, was the real deal.

Snarling, Lainie wheeled around to confront Pete, who put the cannon between himself and the sword-wielding guide. Crazed eyes and contorted features mimicked Anne Bonny’s savage expression. She spit venomously at Pete. “Fight like a man, you scurvy rogue, or die like a dog!” Wow, Pete thought. Somebody’s swash is buckled a little too tightly. The cutlass was obviously messing with her head. As Pete knew too well, certain historical artifacts could become imbued with powerful tangential energies stemming from past owners and events-with bizarre, unpredictable results. Pete had hoped that he and Myka could get their hands on the cutlass before it stirred up any trouble, but clearly their timing sucked. The sword already had Lainie in its spell. “Hey! Unshiver your timbers, lady!” He tried to talk her down.

“You’re not thinking straight…” “Belay that! A short life and a merry one, I say. Especially for you!” She lunged at Pete, hacking wildly. The flashing cutlass struck sparks off the cannon as he ducked away from the multiplying blows. “Not really feeling the merry right now.” He reached again for his gun, but reconsidered. Lainie was an innocent victim here; she wasn’t herself. No way did he want to resort to deadly force. Too bad she didn’t feel the same way. “Stand still, you villainous cur. Or I’ll slip ye the Black Spot!” Uh-huh, he thought. Not going to happen. Dousing his flashlight, he retreated from the possessed guide, trying to blend in with Captain Kidd and the others. By now his eyes had partially adjusted to the dark, and he could dimly make out Lainie stalking up and down the red carpet, cursing profanely in a manner that would have seared the tender ears of any grade-school kids visiting the museum on a field trip. Pete assumed she didn’t use that sort of language during business hours.

She slashed at the air, slicing it to ribbons. Whistling repeatedly with every swipe, the cutlass keened like a chorus of dying men. No doubt it had claimed the lives of many sailors during Anne Bonny’s bloody heyday. Pete considered his options. Reasoning with Lainie appeared to be a lost cause; the cutlass’s influence was too strong.

He needed to get the sword out of her grip-and vice versa. Ideally without getting turned into confetti in the process. Moving as stealthily as he could, he circled behind her. Decorative cables and anchors threatened to trip him up, but he somehow managed to skirt around the edges of the exhibit without knocking anything over or getting tangled in the mock rigging. Creeping out from behind a painted wooden figurehead in the likeness of a busty mermaid, he snuck up behind Lainie, hefting his flashlight like a bludgeon. His eyes zeroed in on the back of her skull. All he needed to do was knock her out long enough to separate her from the cutlass and neutralize it.

With any luck, she wouldn’t remember any of this. Lainie was only a few paces ahead of him. Her blond hair was tied back in a pigtail. He raised the flashlight. Sorry ’bout this, he thought in advance. The aspirin’s on me. Before he could make his move, however, a harsh electronic buzz emanated from his jacket’s inner pocket. Pete felt the Farnsworth vibrate insistently-at the worst possible moment. Not now, Artie! But it was already too late. The jarring signal alerted Lainie, who whirled about, swinging the cutlass in a deadly arc. Pete threw himself backward barely in time to avoid getting disemboweled. The tip of the blade shredded the front of his shirt, sending threads and buttons flying, but just missing the skin underneath. The close call sent his heart racing. Ignoring the persistent buzzing from his pocket, he took cover behind the carved wooden mermaid. He glanced down at the tattered fabric in shock. “Hey,” he protested. “I liked that shirt!” Lainie didn’t care. “Avast, ye filthy bilge rat! I’ll feed your salty guts to the sharks!” She came at him with a vengeance.

The cutlass hacked away at the figurehead like a chain saw in disguise. Wood chips and splinters pelted Pete’s face. The makeshift barricade was being whittled away right before his eyes. In seconds, there would be nothing left of the mermaid but a toothpick. He backed into the wall behind him. Lainie had him cornered. He reached for his gun. Could he really bring himself to shoot an innocent victim? “Sorry. That’s my partner you’re trying to turn into fish food,” a familiar voice called out from the opposite end of the hall. Myka Bering appeared in the doorway. The tall brunette aimed an exotic-looking handgun at Lainie. The weapon looked like something from an earlier century, all polished brass and crystal, in contrast to her black blazer and slacks. Copper coils and batteries glowed inside its transparent barrel. Miniature gauges monitored its charge.

Myka’s stern tone made it clear that she meant business. “Feeding time is over. Hand over the cutlass.” “Never! I’ll send ye down to Davy Jones’s locker ’fore I surrender me blade, you poxy wench!” Waving her cutlass, Lainie charged at Myka. Pete opened his mouth to warn his partner of the sword’s rapid-fire capacity, but he needn’t have bothered. A bolt of crackling blue electricity shot from the muzzle of the pistol, which had been designed and built by Nikola Tesla over seventy years ago. The galvanic blast stopped Lainie in her tracks.

She stiffened in shock, her hair standing on end, toppling backward onto the carpet. The cutlass slipped from her grip. Myka hurried forward and kicked the sword away from Lainie’s limp fingers. She scowled at the prone tour guide. “First off,” she said, “I know exactly where Davy Jones’s locker is, and it’s nowhere near the bottom of the ocean.” She nudged Lainie with her toe to make sure she was down for the count. “Second, don’t call me a wench.” Pete emerged from behind what was left of the mermaid. “Duly noted.” Myka eyed her partner with amusement. She was an attractive woman, only a few years younger than Pete, with curly auburn hair and dark brown eyes. She lowered the Tesla gun. Now that the immediate threat was over, her voice adopted a more teasing tone. “‘Bilge rat’?” “Don’t start.” Pete brushed sawdust from his face and clothes. “What took you so long?” “I stumbled onto a security guard upstairs. He was lying on the floor in the Sunken Treasure exhibit.” She glanced at Lainie’s unconscious form. “Our Anne Bonny wannabe here had got to him first.” “Eww.” Pete imagined what the supercharged cutlass could do to a person. He grimaced at the grisly images flashing across his mind. “Was he…?” He pantomimed a chopping motion with his hand. “What? No, no,” Myka assured him. “He was just out cold. I figure he interrupted Lainie on her way to the cutlass.” Pete was glad to hear it. Sweeping up shredded security guard was nobody’s idea of a good time. “Why do you think the cutlass latched onto her?” “Proximity? Aptitude?” Myka shrugged. “Maybe she just spent too much time around the sword, and eventually it started invading her psyche? You know how it works.

Sometimes artifacts can lie dormant for years before the right person-or the wrong one-comes into contact with them. Lainie probably just clicked with the cutlass for some weird metaphysical reason.

After a while, she couldn’t resist stealing it from the exhibit.” “And we all saw how well that worked out for her.” Pete decided that he could skip any new pirate movies from now on. He nodded at the cutlass. “Let’s neutralize this bad boy before Johnny Depp gets his hands on it.” “Better late than never,” she agreed. “You care to do the honors?” “Why not?” Carefully following procedure, the agents donned specially treated purple latex gloves before handling the artifact. The last thing they wanted was for one of them to become possessed by the cutlass. Pete plucked the short, broad blade from the floor while Myka unfolded a lightweight metallic-silver evidence bag large enough to contain the cutlass. A small quantity of viscous purple fluid sloshed inside the bag; the concentrated “goo” could temporarily neutralize the arcane energies in certain artifacts. She held the bag open. “All set?” Pete asked. He held the cutlass gingerly over the bag like it was radioactive. Myka nodded. “Ready when you are.” “Okay. Watch your eyes.” Pete dropped the cutlass into the bag, then hastily looked away. A fountain of incandescent golden sparks erupted from the bag as the energized cutlass reacted with the goo.

The pyrotechnic display faded quickly, but the flash was still bright enough to make Pete’s eyes water. Glowing blue dots danced briefly in his field of vision. Myka was blinking too. Wow, he thought. That was a bright one. The sparks were a good sign, though. They meant that the cutlass really was the artifact they were looking for. An ordinary sword, with no supernatural properties, would not have triggered the reaction. Myka sealed the bag for safekeeping. In theory, the goo would keep the cutlass quiet on the way back to the Warehouse. Pete’s jacket buzzed again. Artie obviously wanted an update. “You going to answer that?” Myka asked. “Yeah. Hang on.” He fished the insistent device from his pocket. Resembling an old-fashioned cigarette case, the Farnsworth was encased in a burnished bronze lozenge. He flipped open the lid to reveal a convex glass screen above a number of antique-looking knobs and dials. A video cell phone, the gadget was based on a prototype developed by Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, one weekend back in 1929. Completely off the grid of more conventional telecommunications networks, the Farnsworth provided the most secure line known to the Warehouse and its agents. Pete and Myka shared a single Farnsworth. A red light flashed in sync with the buzzing. Pete flicked a switch to accept the call. “Hi, Artie.”

Preceded by a burst of static, the face of a grizzled older man appeared on the miniature TV screen. Bushy black eyebrows that looked like they were on steroids bristled above a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Gray hairs infiltrated his frizzy black hair and beard. Artie Nielsen shoved his face forward. A fish-eye lens distorted the black-and-white image slightly, giving it the look of a funhouse mirror. A brusque voice emanated from the Farnsworth. “Did you get it?” “We’re fine, thanks for asking,” Pete replied. Artie could get a bit curmudgeonly where bagging artifacts was concerned. After being cooped up in the Warehouse for nearly four decades, his phone manners had grown rusty. “But, yep, we got it.” “Thank goodness.” Artie sighed in relief. He relaxed visibly. “Run into any problems?” Pete glanced around at the trashed museum. Calico Jack was nothing but shavings.

The figurehead was kindling. Lainie Evers was sprawled upon the floor.

Pete’s best shirt hung in tatters, exposing his hairy chest. He carefully angled the Farnsworth so that his ventilated clothing was not visible. “Nah,” he answered. “Just the usual.” The funny thing was, he wasn’t lying. Compared to some of their investigations, this had been a walk in the park. Nobody had blown up, spontaneously combusted, imploded, turned into glass, walked through walls, gone invisible, or been transported to another dimension. That kind of thing could really spoil your day. Chances were, Lainie Evers wouldn’t even remember what had happened here tonight. The Tesla tended to scramble people’s short-term memories. “Good.” Artie didn’t ask for details. He’d review their reports later. “Now get that cutlass back here as soon as you can. But by coach, remember. Not first class. The Regents are on my case about the budget.” Pete bit his lip. You’d think a top-secret organization whose origins stretched back to antiquity wouldn’t hold on to its purse strings quite so tightly, but by now he was used to Artie’s chronic frugality. Coach it was. Pete’s long legs cramped in anticipation. Maybe there would be a good in-flight movie? “Okay, Artie. See you soon. Say hello to Claudia and Leena for me.” “You can do that yourself, once you deliver that cutlass.” The transmission cut off abruptly. Pete put away the Farnsworth and took the silver bag off Myka’s hands. The cutlass weighed it down. A gust of air-conditioning rustled the sliced-up shirt. He picked at the butchered fabric. “Aw, man…” Myka smirked. “Maybe we can find you a souvenir T-shirt in the gift shop.

Perhaps one with Anne Bonny on it?” “Very funny,” Pete said. “Next time, you search the Hall of Infamy.” Myka let him vent. “Deal.”