Ships of My Fathers Page 24

  He tried to think of some other friends of Malcolm’s, but the problem was that even if they were here, they would not have any real authority. If only he knew someone in the Navy. They could wield real authority, especially on a station like Arvin, but the only naval officer he could remember had been that recruiter on Tortisia. And he could not think of any that Malcolm had known either.

  Except… he had met one himself somewhere along the line.

  Michael tried to remember. He had come to the wake, said his ship had been passing through the system when he had heard. Monty something, of the Alger? Algiers? Or was it Alva? He switched to the naval directory. He did not have much to go on, so he asked for an alphabetical list of ships based at Arvin.

  There it was, a third of the way down the first screen: the CFS Alvarez, listed as being in port, dry dock seventeen. He clicked on the ship’s icon to pull up the details. It was listed as down for repairs, something about a generator alignment. He knew a thing or two about those and figured that the Alvarez was not going anywhere for a few weeks. The screen also listed the dockmaster and the senior officers.

  Second on the list was Lt. Commander Montgomery Wheaton. He brought up the picture, and he could remember him now. “Don’t believe all the stories,” he had said. “He was as solid as they come.” He had also said to look him up if he ever needed a favor. Well, today Michael could really use one.

  He punched the call link, but it was not Wheaton who answered. “Naval operations, how may I help you?”

  Michael swallowed hard. Commit and focus. “I’m trying to reach Lt. Commander Montgomery Wheaton of the Alvarez. Can you patch me through?”

  “One moment please.”

  That was easy, he thought, but the next man was not Wheaton either. “Alvarez comm, Martins speaking.”

  “Hello, I’m trying to reach Lt. Commander Wheaton.”

  “Sorry, he’s not on board at the moment.”

  “Can you tell me where he is?”

  There was a pause. “According to his schedule he’s meeting with the yard master.”

  “Is there any chance you can forward me to his link?”

  “No can do. He left very explicit instructions not to be interrupted. He’s breaking balls if you ask me.”

  “Please? It’s kind of an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  He thought about it. Adopted son of a long-lost friend emergency? That was not going to get far. “Family emergency.”

  The icon for video request lit up, so he turned it on. The sailor on the other end of the line did not look much older than Michael, but at this point, Michael had no idea what he looked like. But however he looked, it was clear from the other’s reaction that Michael’s desperation must have been obvious on his face. “Family, eh? Look, buddy, I want to help, but old Monty said that if I…” he trailed off with a sigh. “Look, here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to forward you to his mailbox. You record a message, and I’ll flag it as high priority. I can’t guarantee he’ll look at it right away, but he will see that it’s there.”

  Michael tried to think of what could change his mind, but came up with nothing.

  “Sorry, bud, it’s the best I can do.”

  The screen shifted to a recording interface, so he pushed start and hoped he was going to make sense.

  “Lt. Commander, my name is Michael Fletcher, and I sure hope you remember me. We met at… my skipper’s wake… on Taschin a few months back. His name was Malcolm Fletcher. You said if I ever needed a favor, I should look you up, and I’m in trouble. So I looked you up.

  “Umm, anyway, I got onto a ship that I probably shouldn’t have. It’s the Blue Jaguar, and we’re here at Arvin station now. I had to sneak off the ship to even call you, and I’m sure they’re looking for me. And that’s the other thing. It looks like station security is looking for me too, but I don’t know why. I’d rather turn myself in than go back to the ship, but I don’t know what they’re after. They may want to send me back to my uncle, and the whole point of this was to get back to Taschin.

  “I know it all sounds very complicated, and I guess maybe it is, but I could really use some help. I’m at a bar… I didn’t catch the name, but it should be on the message id. I guess you can try to get hold of me here. Just…” he trailed off, not sure what else to say. Summing it all up for Monty made his plight seem that much worse. “I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.”

  He disconnected and went back to the bar. “Do you have any orange soda?”

  The security guard still sat in a chair outside his normal station. Elsa was still issuing commands from his little room.

  “Are you sure he’s not on board?” she asked.

  “I cannot be sure,” Bishop replied, “but I’ll stake my reputation that if we can’t find him, no naval inspector is going to find him either.”

  “All right. Tell Mr. Nieru to let them in. Cooperate, but get them off my ship. No more than one hour. That should be more than enough for them to satisfy their curiosity.”

  “Aye, ma’am. Did Leo and Maya find you?”

  “Yes, I’ve got them out searching for the boy.”

  “Pardon me, ma’am, but won’t that attract attention?”

  “No,” she replied. “No attention at all.”

  Collins let the station security detachment go in ahead of him. They had been given a basic schematic of the ship, and the regular men could search all the obvious places. With a final nod to the Schneiders waiting beyond the dock, he went in. It would be up to him to search the less obvious places.

  He started by going directly to deck one. He went into each of the store rooms of the quartermaster and paced the floor. The then did the same in the hallway. At the aft end, he came up two paces short. The wall looked like any other, but what lay beyond was not the quartermaster’s storage. He started to run his hands around the edge seam, looking for purchase but found none.

  “May I help you, Commander?”

  He turned to see an iron-faced man. His name tag read R. Bishop. “Yes, Mr. Bishop. You can open this compartment.”

  “I don’t understand. What compartment?”

  Collins sighed. “Mr. Bishop, I am familiar with this class of ship. I know it down to the placement of bulkheads and the alignment of struts. There is an empty space on the other side of this wall. You will open it for my inspection or I will call in a cutting team to take it apart.”

  Bishop grumbled but tapped out a command on his data pad. The wall moved out into the corridor smoothly before splitting in two to slide back across the adjacent wall sections. Collins peered inside and saw crate after crate stacked floor to ceiling with a narrow aisle running down the center.

  “This certainly looks interesting,” he said. “I’m curious as to how this cargo shows up on your manifest.”

  “I’m sure you are, Commander,” Bishop replied, “but as your inspection warrant is for a person and not cargo, I think you will leave the captain’s private cargo alone.”

  He peered in, taking a step forward, but Bishop matched his step with two, cutting him off at the shoulder. “You must agree, sir, that none of those containers is large enough for your man.”

  He nodded. They were not large enough by half. Turning, he then faced the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. “And this one? More cargo? Perhaps a brig?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Arms locker?”

  Bishop hesitated.

  “Open it.”

  Bishop complied. The wall opened to reveal long racks of rifles, handguns, and heavier powered weaponry.

  “Quite the collection, Mr. Bishop.”

  “The captain and crew… you see, we like to vacation at hunting preserves.”

  “Hunting preserves?”

  “Yes, sir. Talloway, for example, out past the spinward border.”

  “I see.” He turned back up the hallway. “And this is your security office?”

  Bishop followed along and o
pened the reinforced hatchway. Beyond it was a small office with monitors all around and two seats on either side. On the monitors he could see throughout the ship where station security was walking the halls, looking into various rooms, taking up positions at key intersections, and being generally useless.

  Collins eventually settled himself in front of the monitors opposite the secure door. “I like what you’ve done here,” he said. “The active monitors do a lot to erase the suspicion of a space beyond, but I know there’s at least twenty meters of usable volume ahead of us. Open it.”

  Bishop’s shoulders sagged, but he complied. With a few keystrokes at the left console, the wall moved forward and separated. Beyond it laid a stainless steel corridor with rubber skids spaced along the floor.

  “Secure cargo,” Bishop offered, extending his hand forward.

  Collins looked him in the eye. “I know a brig when I see it, Mr. Bishop, and I know better than to step into one without the jailer in front of me at all times. Are you going to give me the tour?”

  Bishop stepped forward into the hallway, while Collins kept back at a distance. A dozen windows lined the hallway, six on a side. Collins recognized them as cell doors. In fact, it felt eerily like a Naval brig block like he had seen on a number of cruisers.

  “Any occupants?” Collins asked.

  “No, sir. We are not carrying any secure cargo at this time.”

  “Open them, one at a time.”

  They did, and each time, Bishop walked into the cell so that Collins could safely step up to the door and look around. These were exactly like the navy’s brig cells. In fact, they were some the harshest ones he had seen: steel walls, floor, and ceiling, with rounded joins, and no furniture. There were only three breaks in the walls: an air vent coming in, an air vent going out, and a drain at the bottom of the floor. He had personally put a number of people into cells just like this one. The fact that this freighter had a dozen of them made him want to lock Bishop in right then and there.

  But even the twelfth cell was empty and spotless. Bishop smiled coolly at him from the far side of the cell. “Where else would you like to look, Commander?”

  Ned sat outside his aunt’s bar and watched the people go by. It was the typical mix of crew and dock workers, but today there was a surprising amount of station security. He had already put his usual ready-to-sell wares back with his larger stash in the office, but security did not seem to be hassling anyone. They were mostly passing by.

  He finally spotted a couple that were moving more slowly, sometimes stopping to ask a question. The man looked pretty mean, even for security, but the woman was a hot little morsel. From the way her jacket hung tightly across her shoulders, she must have been built for action underneath it. Hopeful, Ned waved her over.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she said. Close up, Ned found her even more attractive. He would have liked longer hair, but her short-cropped bob would probably feel nice against his chest.

  “I see a lot of you security folks down here today. What’s up?”

  “We’re looking for some kid, a real troublemaker.”

  He gave her a little grin. “You got a picture? Of the kid, I mean.”

  She held out a tablet with an image.

  His grin grew into a broad smile. It was the boy who had bribed his way in almost two hours before. “You know, I think I may have seen this boy.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Did you? Where?”

  He gave his lips a little lick. “Well, if I help you out here, maybe you’ll come help me out later? You know, when you’re off duty.”

  She set the pad down on his little table and moved in closer. “For a good looking guy like you, why wait?” She pushed him back into the shadow of the bar’s entryway, her hands playing across his chest and waist. “Let’s see what you’re offering me here.”

  He gulped as her hand slipped beneath his waistband and her fingers wrapped themselves around his testicles. “You’re the friendliest security gal I’ve ever met,” he said.

  But then her face changed, and he felt her nails start to dig into his scrotum. “Maybe,” she said, “or maybe I’m the meanest. So how about you tell me what you know, and maybe I won’t keep these,” she emphasized with a painful squeeze, “as a souvenir of our little encounter.”

  He swallowed hard. “He’s inside,” he waved his thumb to the door behind him. “Got here over an hour ago. Wanted to use the terminal. Hasn’t left. That’s all I know. Honest.”

  She gave him one more squeeze and then pulled her hand out, wiping it back and forth across his face. “Now that’s a good boy. You remember that, if you ever see me again, got it?”

  “What do we have here, Maya?” her partner asked.

  “Kid’s inside, Leo. You take point.”

  “Will do.”

  They left him, and Ned slipped down gingerly into his chair. No way that kid had been worth a twenty.

  Michael was on his second bowl of pretzels and his third orange soda, but there was still no word from Lt. Commander Wheaton. How long could that meeting with the yardmaster take? Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a uniformed man slide onto the stool next to him. He turned to see, but the first thing he noticed was not the gray security uniform the man wore. Rather, it was the face of Leo Perez looking back at him.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Fletcher.”

  He jerked around the other way and did his best to leap from the stool, only to stop just as suddenly. Maya Zoland stood four meters back with a pistol leveled at him. She was also in a station security uniform. “Going somewhere, Michael?”

  He felt Leo grab his arm and twist it behind him. “We’re going to do this nice and quiet, Mr. Fletcher. If you try to run, Maya might have to use that.”

  “You can’t just kill me,” he said.

  Maya leered at him smugly. “We’re security, Michael, and I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘shot while resisting arrest.’ Now let’s move.”

  Leo started walking him forward. He looked around in panic, catching the eye of the bartender wiping down one of the tables. “Tell Monty I’ve been kidnapped!” he shouted.

  “That’s it, you’re under arrest,” Leo roared, and underscored it by punching him hard in the left kidney.

  He went out silently. The bouncer gave him one brief glance and then looked away.

  Collins stood over the empty metal tub, no bigger than a coffin. It had been tucked snugly in a hidden space between the two sail generators. It was the right size for holding a body, though the constant vibration of the generators under power would have made it a living hell for anyone hiding there. Still, it was an effective hiding place. He had almost missed it.

  But no one was hiding there now.

  A small gathering waited nearby. The sergeant from station security stood patiently. The XO, Marcus Nieru, was less patient. He stood with arms crossed and eyes threatening to shoot flames. The unflappable Mr. Bishop stood with hands behind his back and a hint of satisfaction on his face. Admitting some measure of defeat, Collins stepped over to join them.

  The sergeant spoke first. “We’ve finished our sweep, sir. No sign of the boy.”

  Collins chewed on it, trying to think of what he could have missed. “I’d like to look through your cargo bay next.”

  “I’m sorry, Commander,” Mr. Bishop said, “but it’s been depressurized for several hours now.”

  The XO stepped forward. “And we don’t have the time in our schedule to repressurize it for you, so that’s it.”

  “Well, I’m sure I can find an EVA suit.”

  “Then you’ll have to find another warrant,” Mr. Nieru replied. He held up the sheet Collins had presented him with before. “This doesn’t say anything about our cargo.”

  “Well, I’m not looking for your cargo. I’m looking for Michael Fletcher in your cargo.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the sergeant spoke up. “But he’s right. The warrant does specify the crew areas of the ship. It does not
include the cargo bay.”

  Nieru shifted to a more relaxed posture and stepped to allow Collins a clear path to the exit. “I do wish you the best in finding your man, Commander, but you’ve taken up enough of our time. I formally request under article seven of the CSC that you and your security leave the Blue Jaguar now.”

  The sergeant nodded to Collins. He did not like it, but at this point, he knew he had no choice in the matter. He followed the sergeant out.

  Bishop brought up the rear, and he kept his silence until they had reached the final airlock. “Did you enjoy your tour, Commander?”

  Collins turned and faced him. “We’re not done, you and I.”

  Bishop smiled. “Perhaps not, but we’re done for today.”

  He sealed the inner hatch before Collins could think of a reply.

  Michael’s legs were bound to the chair with some kind of sticky plastic sheeting. His hands were cuffed behind him, the links fed around and through the chair back. In theory, he might be able to stand on his toes, but he was not going anywhere without the chair.

  Not that he even had that much choice. Leo stood behind him, while Maya watched him from the door, her hand never far from her pistol. At least he was still on the station. They had taken him to a back room in a poorly lit warehouse unit. He must have asked a dozen questions, but his captors ignored him.

  After about twenty minutes of this, Maya raised a hand to her ear and said, “I’ll be right out.” With a nod in his direction, she left.

  He considered for a moment that this might be a good time to try something, but that line of thought was cut short by a hard smack to his temple. Through the pain and disorientation that followed, he heard Leo say, “That’s for even thinking about it.”

  It would not have mattered anyway. Maya returned within a minute, and she brought Captain Lewis with them. Lewis, Watkins… whatever her name was, her arrival was as dreaded as it was inevitable. She paced over, grabbed his face by the jaw and forced him to look up at her. “Well, at least now I don’t have to pretend anymore.”