Matt Drake 11 - The Ghost Ships of Arizona (8 page)

“Why has it never been found?” Lauren wondered. “Surely a well-organized flyover would do it.”

“The desert’s an astoundingly large place. Wind-blown sands from the desiccated delta of the Colorado River generate vast sand dune systems that are constantly shifting. Storms spring up in seconds. Then there’s mud near the inland waters and other dangers. It’s entirely possible that the things one storm uncovers, the next completely eradicates. And, supposedly, it
was
found. Several times. Only to disappear again.”

“But not recently?”

“The last sighting occurred in the 1970s,” Karin related. “Though it wasn’t corroborated. Ground penetrating radar would reveal a ship’s remains but nobody has managed to accomplish such an undertaking yet.”

Drake made a noise. “Except possibly our new potential friend, Nicholas Bell.”

“That seems likely.”

“And if we sought to replicate his activity?”

“It would undoubtedly reveal us to him.”

“Then what’s the answer?”

Karin closed her laptop, staring with more than a little regret at the slim black case. To Drake it seemed as if it might be for the last time.

“Are you okay?”

“We go old school,” Karin said. “Seek out the old timers. Head into the desert. We find the ghost ships the old way.”

Drake thought of all the times they had used modern technology to solve their problems, their ancient quandaries. “That should be different.”

“It’s the only way.”

“An expedition?” Smyth was clearly trying hard to keep his voice neutral. “Campfires and tents? Trail guides? Sleeping under the stars? Not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Are you scared?” Drake asked. “Scared of the desert’s ghosts?”

“Fuck, yeah. Aren’t you?”

“I’m more scared of getting swallowed and buried in a sandstorm.”

“And yeah, there’s that too!” Smyth jumped onboard Drake’s theory as if it were a million-dollar yacht. “Mostly that.”

“Don’t worry.” Lauren patted the back of his hand. “I’ll keep you safe. Us New Yorkers don’t take no shit from anyone, especially ghosts.”

“Questions need to be asked locally,” Karin said. “And quietly.”

Drake took a quick look out the window. The sun was descending in the west but hadn’t set yet. “No time like the present.”

“I’ll come with you,” Smyth said. “Get me out of this pokey old room.”

Drake winked carefully at him. “I’d prefer to take Karin,” he said neutrally. “A man and woman would look more natural than two burly old blokes.”

“Old?” Smyth protested but got the point. “No worries.”

Karin stroked the lid of her laptop once more. “I’ll come with you, Matt.”

Drake wondered just what the hell was going on in her head.

*

Yuma basked beneath a clear sky full of sunshine, even as sundown approached. Karin told Drake that this town was officially the sunniest place on earth, with clear skies for 90 percent of daylight hours. Drake stared at the wide, scorched streets.

“Think there’s an old timer’s bar around here, love?”

“Probably a hundred. But why bother buying ‘em drinks when they advertise their services on the web?”

Drake barely stopped his mouth from falling open. “They do? Where?”

Karin tapped her head. “All in here. Eidetic memory, remember?” She smiled at the small joke.

Drake grinned more than he should. “Amazing. Lead on.”

Karin surveyed the area. “I’m not too sure about this bloody ‘old school’ thing,” she said. “What we need now is some kinda satnav.”

Drake pointed out the white-walled building flanked by trees off to the right. “Old school satnav right there,” he said. “I think they call it a post office.”

Karin nodded. “Use to be the corner shop that gave you directions,” she smiled, “where I grew up.”

“Me too.” Drake set off. “Along with a pound’s worth of Black Jacks, Midget Gems and kaylie.”

“Kaylie?”

“I guess you’re too young. Kaylie was like sherbet, only better. Rainbow kaylie was the best; all you did was dip your finger in the bag, get it covered, and then pop it in your mouth. At the end of the bag your finger always ended up bright yellow.”

“Sounds great,” Karin said in a non-committal tone. The pair entered the post office, requested directions, and were on their way to a meeting point in just a few minutes.

“How did you know which old guy to choose?” Drake asked.

“I didn’t, of course. I just went for the oldest of them all.”

“Oh. Well remember, we don’t want him to expire out in the desert.”

“Then he shouldn’t be advertising his services.”

Drake stayed quiet, making sure they made their rendezvous in good time. Far from a dingy bar, it turned out to be the lobby of one of the town’s classiest hotels and it was clear from the start that the man they met only wanted to fleece them, asking for money upfront within the first five minutes. Karin asked a few pointed questions and then they parted company, heading for rendezvous number two. The second man turned out to be almost as shameless, but when he found out they seriously meant business, he went quiet for several moments. Subsequently, the face he turned upon them was thoughtful.

“All right. I can tell you’re not the usual fare we get through here. There’s a man,” he said. “There are two or three if I’m being totally truthful. No shit, I can point you the right way and I can see you’re havin’ no part of me. That’s fine. But you won’t find ole timers like him on the Web, Miss. That’s for amateurs. These ole guys are strictly word-o-mouth.”

“And I imagine you want paying for pointing us in the right direction?” Drake asked.

“Tell you what . . .
I’ll
trust
you
. Don’t matter to me either way. If you get what you need come find me—pay me what you think the information was worth.”

Drake shrugged. “All right. But don’t even think about trying to lead us out into the desert and laying an ambush, old man.”

“Never crossed my mind, friend. Trouble is though . . . Kelly . . . he’s the kinda guy finds you.”

“Meaning?”

The old man chuckled. “Meaning you head out into the desert, friend, and he’ll find you. I can arrange it tonight.”

“Seriously? Do we look like we were born yesterday?”

“Nope. Well, she does. You—not so much.”

Drake wasn’t entirely sure he shouldn’t be offended. “Hey!”

“I know. Long paper round. Old before your time. So, ya gonna meet my man or what? You won’t be getting a better offer today.”

Drake stared into the watery eyes for a time, then turned to Karin. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

“He seems cool. And it’s the best chance we’ve got.”

Drake bit his tongue. That may be true, but it was no way to move forward. His mind flicked over alternative choices and found them startlingly sparse. Without a local, first-rate guide they would be lost in the desert—quite plainly. On the other hand, Yuma, and these old men, hardly seemed likely to imperil his team. The risk was negligible. “Why should we hit the desert?”

“The ghost ships are out there,” the old man said, nodding dreamily. “An’ I’m making no bones about it. Not blowing yer skirt up neither, excuse me, Miss.”

“Don’t worry.” Karin almost smiled. “I’ve heard—and seen—worse.”

“Then I’m mighty sorry about that. An’ as I said—those ships’re out there. Galleons. Longboats. A schooner. Set eyes on more’n one of ‘em meself.”

“Have you?” Drake wondered how much more embellishment the tale could get. If the reports of Nicholas Bell’s actions out here in Arizona weren’t so reliable he’d have moved on to more important things by now.

Then again, he’d once set eyes on his own set of fanciful longboats.

Karin’s voice broke his musings. “How do these boats move around?”

The old man’s eyes were speculative. “They don’t, of course, young lady. The geography moves around them. Dunes become valleys and hills turn into basins. No two storms leave the landscape untouched. And you never wanna get in the middle of a dust or sand storm out here, not a bad one. They whip up like wraiths, bad genies that wrap around you and take you down, deep into the desert. You get turned around, lost, buried. They would never find you.”

“And that’s why the ships are so scary.” Karin nodded in understanding.

The old man looked at her through slitted eyes. “No, young lady. They’re scary because at night, when it’s full dark, they creep, they loom, they threaten and sneak. They haunt the desert, Miss, and if you don’t respect them they will spirit you away forever to your doom.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hayden snatched a moment with Mano, taking him out onto the balcony as Dahl spoke to his wife inside their suite. Her purpose was manifold, but first she wanted to reassure him.

“We’ll get past all this,” she said. “The Pythians. Webb. The stalkings. Even Kono, I hope. We’re strong, Mano. Stronger even than that new body armor we’re trialing.”

“Speaking of trialing—how did you find the new Sig?”

Hayden made a happy face. “Kick ass.”

“Sure. Me too. And we’ve sure had our canoes sunk more times than I can count lately,” Kinimaka said figuratively and looked down at her. “Do you think the Pythians have much more in the tank?”

“Not if we cane their asses this time,” Hayden said. “They can recruit more leaders by the dozen, by the hundred, it doesn’t matter. Webb is gonna explode big time.”

“Which I for one want to see.”

“We will.”

“Together.”

“Together.”

Hayden held the big Hawaiian tight, pressing herself into his body. In an odd way, standing as they were exposed on the balcony, she felt less scrutinized than in her own street and home. And safer than in her own state and government buildings.

Webb’s puppet string ran twisted and extensively.

Kinimaka winked more than a little suggestively, his hand hovering lower than was appropriate at that moment. “Maybe we could . . .”

Hayden wriggled a little. “Ooh, Mano.”

“Not being under surveillance and all that maybe we could be a bit more . . . experimental?”

Hayden closed her eyes in anticipation. “Mano!”

Dahl, standing right beside them, then spoke up. “I’d save your energy, pal. I’m sure you’ll need it soon. What have you learned of the Z-boxes, Hayden?”

She had spent the last few hours liaising with their team back in DC who were carefully decoding their only device. Of course, it was a clever piece of Chinese engineering and nobody wanted to be responsible for breaking it.

“It’s at least as bad as we feared. They are intricate code-cracking machines, able to extrapolate complex cipher strings and encryptions in minutes, but even they have their limitations, we think. Much of the time—unless they’re decoding basic stuff like public passwords, email accounts or hacking computers—they’ll need a base hardwire from which to hook in.”

“Do we think that’s why they hit San Jose?”

“Probably.” Hayden shrugged. “It’s the best guess so far.”

“But what could they possibly have stolen to help with that?” Kinimaka said.

“Maybe nothing,” Hayden said. “Maybe they left something behind. On a server. We have a team inbound.”

“And Beau told us three substations would be attacked. So maybe they need more data first, or whatever.”

“Beau also told us the wrong friggin’ substation,” Hayden said irritably. “But I do agree. We’re putting together a list of places they’re most likely to hit next.”

“And by next . . .” Dahl’s big hands clenched with a sense of impotence.

“Yeah, I mean now. Today. Tomorrow.”

“The geeks in DC,” Hayden said quietly. “They’re worried this is an Aurora Vulnerability situation.”

“Sounds bad.”

“Worse than bad. Back in ’07 Idaho University discovered that within the United States’ electrical grid system there exists a vulnerability to cyber-attack, a vulnerability that could result in the destruction of essential components. It found that any attacker who can gain access—the hardest part—could communicate with the device, control it, or use the Aurora Vulnerability to damage or destroy it. Now, the electrical people say a failure of just one single generator could result in extensive outages and a
possible cascading failure of the entire electrical grid.
Just like the northeast blackout of ’03.”

Dahl visibly held in a curse. “Do these people never learn?”

“Oh, they learn well enough,” Hayden said. “They know. And then they claim their dividends and bonuses and go buy a personal jet.”

“So it’s a very real situation?”

Hayden nodded. “Add to that the second vulnerability—it could take a year to fix.”

“How does it work? This Aurora attack?”

“I was told it’s an out-of-sync opportunity. Imagine you rev a car’s engine in neutral and then, as it reaches maximum, you shift into drive. That one moment when the engine goes out of sync—going from neutral to incredible power—is when it’s most vulnerable. That’s when the attack is initiated.”

They turned and walked inside, Hayden giving Kinimaka a “down boy” look. She stopped after a minute to stare around the hundredth, or possibly thousandth, hotel room she’d stayed in during the last few years. Eventually, they all looked the same.

She waved toward Dahl. “Johanna okay?”

He nodded, knowing instantly what she meant. “No strange happenings at the Dahl household. I think we stalker-proofed it just in time.”

Kinimaka headed for the kitchen counter and his own phone. “I’ll try Kono.”

Hayden flung herself headlong on the room’s only sofa. “What we have managed to determine is that the substations have to be relatively close together to communicate properly on the same system.”

“Relatively? That means . . .”

“California.”

“Ah, is that all?”

“It’s been narrowed down to substations in Silicon Valley, Sierra Nevada, Santa Clara and Palo Alto. Something to do with them being on the same data streams and hard lines.”

“Bloody hell.” Dahl began to blink rapidly. “So what are we waiting for? They could be in danger even now.”