Fragment

SEPTEMBER 17
2:29 A.M.

Thatcher pressed the crown to light his Indiglo wristwatch in the dimly lit passageway and used the glowing watch face to illuminate the hatch handle.

He pulled the handle and crept into the storage room where he had helped stow the aluminum cases. He removed his watch. Using its glowing blue face, he inspected the cases until he found the one with label streaks on the side.

He took the case, then slipped quietly down the passageway to the Trident’s broadcast control room in the starboard hull.

He tapped first on the door, to make sure no one was there. Hearing no response, he slipped inside.

The room was dark. The troll that inhabited it had finally gone to his quarters directly across the hall to sleep, and had left his banks of machines in sleep mode. Their red status lights flickered in the shadows like eyes.

Thatcher unlatched the aluminum case and poured out the contents of Pandora’s box.

Six dead-looking Henders rats tumbled onto the floor. Their legs immediately started twitching and clawing.

“Welcome aboard the S.S. Plague Ship, you little bastards,” Thatcher whispered. “Go forth and multiply.”

He closed the door quietly behind him. The passageway was empty and silent except for the thrum of the ship’s engines. He ran toward the stern.

A minute later, he was jumping into the large Zodiac that still trailed the Trident between the port and central pontoons. He took out a Leatherman tool from pocket number eleven and used its serrated knife to slice through the nylon towline.

The Zodiac slipped away on the Trident’s wake into the spring night.

“Survival of the fittest, Dr. Binswanger,” he murmured triumphantly at the ship as it motored forward into the gloom.

He pulled out the satphone he had taken from the Hummer, then fished out a GPS locator from another pocket in his vest. Gazing at the shrinking Trident on the dark sea, he punched a number into the satphone.

A grouchy voice answered after a few rings.

“Stapleton! I just knew you’d be up, old friend! What’s that? Well you’re up now. It’s Thatcher. Yes! I need help, mon frere! I had to abandon ship and I am currently on a raft in the South Pacific. Yes, I’m serious! You can’t imagine how serious! It’s a long story. Take down my GPS coordinates before I lose you: Latitude 46.09, 33.18 degrees south, Longitude 135.44, 44.59 degrees west. Send the Navy! I’ll fill you in on the details later! I need your help, my friend! OK, you have a pen? Latitude…”

The spring sun of the southern hemisphere warmed the cheeks of the sleeping Thatcher Redmond as it rose.

The satphone in his vest pocket rang, waking him up from a strange dream in which he was floating in a raft on the open ocean…

He sat upright at the stern of the big Zodiac and was astonished to see the vast broadside of the guided missile frigate U.S.S. Nicholas cutting into the sea beside him. Stapleton had come through! He had to think fast.

“Yes, hello!” Thatcher said into the phone. “I am Dr. Thatcher Redmond. I must have hit my head and fallen overboard last night into this raft,” he improvised, breathlessly. “Unless someone else struck me!”

“Is that the ship, sir?” came the voice, apparently from the giant ship.

Thatcher turned and saw the Trident on the horizon. He had expected the damn ship to be miles away by now.

“Yes, that’s it!” he said, thinking fast as probabilities shifted in his mind. “That ship is infested with dangerous animals illegally smuggled off Henders Island. I am an award-winning scientist, and I’m simply appalled that this sort of thing can go on and no one is doing anything about it!”

“Did you say animals are being smuggled on that vessel, sir?”

“Yes, yes! Dangerous animals! From Henders Island!”

There was a long silence as the raft rolled up and down on the ship’s wake.

Over the ship’s loudspeakers came an answer: “A RESCUE HELICOPTER FROM THE U.S.S. STOUT WILL COME FOR YOU WITHIN THE HOUR, SIR! JUST HANG TIGHT!”

The Navy frigate sliced through the water toward the Trident with alarms sounding.

As he propped himself against the stern to watch the U.S.S. Nicholas close in on the Trident, Thatcher sat back and repressed a smile. He reached into his pockets to see if he still had anything to snack on squirreled away.