Plague Ship (35 page)

“That wasn’t an uncommon thought,” Nixon added, “then or now. But then she said the people who died—my sister—were as much at fault for the attacks as the hijackers.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My little sister was twenty-six years old and about to start her medical residency, and this overpaid bimbo says the attacks were my sister’s fault. It was the disconnect, Gwen. People in Hollywood are so disengaged from reality that I just couldn’t take it. This actress made millions parading around on screen in her underwear in an offense to Muslim sensibilities and she lays the blame for hatred on my sister.

“I listened to what people in the industry were saying for another couple of months and knew everyone felt pretty much the same. I could take the ‘it’s America’s fault’ stuff. What I couldn’t stomach is that no one there believed they were also part of that America.”

Kevin didn’t add that he had gone straight to the CIA to offer his unique abilities or that he’d been presented a much more challenging and lucrative job with the Corporation, most likely because Langston Overholt had passed his name on to Juan before the CIA even knew he was interested.

Adjusting to the gung ho paramilitary nature of Cabrillo’s band of pirates had been remarkably easy, and, for the first time, Nixon had come to understand the lure of the military. It wasn’t the action and adventure, because most days were filled with tedium. It was the camaraderie, the sense of loyalty that the men and women shared for each other. They gave each other the ultimate responsibility, of keeping the other person from harm, which formed bonds far deeper than Kevin thought were possible.

But his time with the
Oregon
hadn’t really changed him much. He still gave money to liberal causes, voted the Democratic ticket whenever he remembered to get an absentee ballot, and the hybrid car was garaged in a storage unit in L.A. He just valued the freedom to do those things all the more.

“Wow, I am so sorry,” Gwen said into the lengthening silence. “I don’t really pay attention to that stuff much.”

“I didn’t use to either, but now . . .” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. He could sense that he made her uncomfortable. Maybe he had changed more than he’d thought.

The trailer door was suddenly thrown open. On the interview circuit of morning talk shows or on the red carpet of a movie premiere, Donna Sky was a luminous presence that could fill any room. She was the epitome of style, poise, and elegance. Storming into the makeup trailer with her hair hidden by a baseball cap and no cosmetics to hide the fact she had acne, she looked like any harried twenty-something with a chip on her shoulder and a sense of entitlement. Her eyes were bloodshot and ringed by dark circles, and, from across the room, Kevin could smell last night’s alcohol binge.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded harshly of Nixon. Her trademark voice was frayed because of an apparent hangover. Then she paused, studied him, and finally recognized him. “You’re Kevin Nixon, aren’t you? You did my makeup on
Family Jewels
.”

“That was your big break, as I recall,” Kevin said, standing.

“It would have come eventually,” Donna said, filled with self-importance. She took the chair Kevin had vacated and looked over her shoulder at Gwen, “Get rid of these bags under my eyes, will you? I don’t shoot for a couple of hours, but I can’t stand looking this way.”

Kevin felt like saying that she shouldn’t have gone club hopping the night before but held his tongue.

Gwen shot Kevin a knowing look and said, “Sure thing, honey. Anything for you.”

“Are you working on this movie now?” Donna asked Nixon as Gwen got to work with her brushes and eyeliner.

“Actually, no. I’m here to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”

She let out a bored sigh, and then said, “What the hell. What do you want to talk to me about?”

Kevin glanced at Gwen. She got the hint. “Donna, honey, why don’t you let Kevin do your makeup so you can chat in private?”

“Fine.”

Nixon mouthed the words
Thank you
to Gwen as she stepped away, handing him a brush. He waited until she’d left the trailer before getting to work. “I’d like to talk about Thom Severance and the Responsivist movement.”

Donna Sky instantly tensed. “Sorry, but that subject is closed.”

“It’s important. Lives may be at stake.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, all right? You want to talk about my career or my social life, fine. But I don’t discuss Responsivism with anyone anymore.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t!”

Kevin tried to recall everything Linda had taught him about interrogation over the past twenty-four hours. “About a week ago, a ship chartered by the Responsivists sank in the Indian Ocean.”

“I know. I saw it on the news. They say it was hit by a wave. They had a special name for it.”

“Rogue wave,” Kevin offered. “They’re called rogue waves.”

“That’s right. The ship was hit by a rogue wave.”

Kevin pulled a sleek laptop out of the backpack he’d brought with him and set it on the counter, pushing aside Gwen’s clutter of junk. It took him a few seconds to find the file he wanted.

The quality of the video was poor because there was so little light for the camera Mark Murphy had used aboard the
Golden Dawn
, but it was still clear enough to see the horrified expressions of the dead bridge crew and the gallons of blood that was splashed across the deck. He let it play for about five minutes.

“What was that? A movie you’re working on?”

“That was taken aboard the
Golden Dawn
. Every passenger and crewman on board had been murdered, poisoned with something so toxic that no one even had time to use the radio.” He found another piece of stored video. This was taken from the
Oregon
’s mast-mounted camera and showed the ship sinking. Her name was clearly visible when the searchlight swept the bows.

Donna Sky was clearly confused. “Who took those pictures and why wasn’t this reported to the media?”

“I can’t tell you who shot the footage, but it’s not being reported yet because this was a terrorist attack and the authorities don’t want the terrorists to know what we know.”

He gave her credit. She caught his use of the possessive. “Are you, like . . . I mean, do you work for . . .?”

“I can’t answer that question directly, but my having possession of this video should tell you enough.”

“Why are you showing this to me? I don’t know anything about terrorism.”

“Your name came up prominently during the investigation, and evidence points to this attack being carried out by elements within the Responsivist movement.” He said it as gently as he could, and either she would believe him or she would call security and have him thrown off the lot.

Her reflection in the mirror stared at him fixedly. Kevin had built his career covering faces, not reading them. He had no idea what she was thinking. He wondered how he would react if someone told him his minister was a terrorist.

“I don’t believe you,” she said at length. “I think you created that footage to discredit Thom and Heidi.”

At least she hasn’t tossed me out on my ear, Kevin thought. He asked, “Why would I do that? What possible motive would I have to fabricate those videos and travel halfway around the world to show them to you?”

“How should I know what you think?” Donna snapped.

“Please, think this through very logically. If my goal was to discredit Responsivism, wouldn’t I take this to CNN or Fox?” When she didn’t say anything, Kevin asked for her honest answer.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Since I haven’t, then my goal must be something else, right?”

“Maybe,” she conceded.

“Then why can’t I be telling the truth?”

“Responsivists don’t believe in violence. There is no way members of our group did this. It was probably a bunch of radical antiabortionists or something.”

“Miss Sky, believe me when I tell you that we have checked every known group in the world looking for those responsible. It keeps coming back to Responsivists. And I’m not talking about the rank and file.” Kevin was on a roll now and the lies kept coming. “We believe there is a splinter group that perpetrated this atrocity, and may have other such attacks in the works.

“You and I both know that some people take their faith to the extreme. That’s what we think we’re dealing with here: extremists within your organization. If you truly want to help your friends, you have to tell me everything you know.”

“Okay,” she said meekly.

They spoke for almost an hour before Gwen returned. She had several of the movie’s extras with her that needed makeup for upcoming scenes. In the end, Kevin was convinced that Donna Sky knew absolutely nothing about what the Corporation had stumbled upon. He also felt that she was a sad, lonely young woman who had become imprisoned by her own success, and that the leadership of the Responsivist movement had singled her out for recruitment for that very fact. He could only hope that someday she would find an inner source of strength that would allow her to stand on her own. He doubted it would happen, but he could hope.

“Thank you very much for talking to me,” Kevin said as he packed up his laptop.

“I don’t think I was that helpful.”

“No. You were great. Thanks.”

She was regarding her face in the mirror. She again had the allure that so captivated movie audiences. Gone were the ravages of last night’s excess. Kevin had restored her face’s artful mix of innocence and sex appeal. The sadness in her eyes was hers alone.

CHAPTER 22

FLYING TO THE PHILIPPINES HAD TAKEN CABRILLO and Franklin Lincoln a little over fourteen hours. Getting from the capital, Manila, to Tubigon, on Bohol Island, in the center of the seven-thousand-plus-island archipelago, had taken almost as long, although the distance was a little more than three hundred miles as the crow flies. Juan knew from experience that the proverbial crow rarely flew in third world nations.

Because ground transportation couldn’t be guaranteed on Bohol, they had been forced to first fly to nearby Cebu Island and rent a sturdy, if aged, jeep and wait for the ferry to take them across the Bohol Strait. Linc had remarked that the ferry was so old, the tires slung over her rusted sides should have been white-walls. The boat had a pronounced list to starboard, despite being loaded intentionally heavy on the port side. Any thought of sleep during the crossing was nixed by the tractor trailer lashed next to their jeep loaded with pigs that suffered
mal de mer
even in these sheltered waters. The smell and their squeals were enough to wake the dead.

Twice during the crossing, the engines inexplicably went silent. The first time was for only a few minutes. The second lasted nearly an hour, as crewmen under the eye of a snarling engineer tinkered with the machinery.

Worrying about surviving the trip was a welcome distraction for Cabrillo. It allowed him to stop dwelling on Max’s fate for a while. But when the engines belched to life again, his thoughts immediately returned to his friend. The irony wasn’t lost on him that Hanley’s own father had died in the Philippines defending Corregidor Island in the opening months of the Second World War.

Juan knew that Max would do whatever it took to protect both his son and the Corporation. The man had a sense of loyalty that would make a Saint Bernard proud. He could only hope that they would find the leverage needed to ensure Max’s freedom. He had no illusions about the methods Zelimir Kovac would use to extract information. And if Max couldn’t hold out, once he started talking his life was forfeit.

That thought ran like a loop of tape through Cabrillo’s mind.

As the lights of Tubigon finally resolved themselves, Juan’s satellite phone chimed. “Cabrillo.”

“Hi, Juan, it’s Linda.”

“Any word yet?”

“Nothing from Severance, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Damn. Yes, it was.”

Ten calls to the director of the Responsivists and still nothing. Juan had posed as the head of the security company supposedly hired by Max to rescue his son. He’d spoken to the receptionist enough to know she read romance novels during her lunch break. She had apologized each time he’d called, stating that Severance wasn’t available, and patched him through to voice mail. Juan had offered any reward Severance wanted for Max’s return, and when that didn’t garner a response he’d started threatening. His last call had warned Severance that if Max wasn’t released unharmed, he was going to come after his family.

It was an empty threat, thanks to Langston Overholt, but Severance didn’t know that. Nor, it seemed, did he care.

“What’s up?” Cabrillo asked.

“Kevin just finished up with Donna Sky. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Is he sure?”

“They talked for an hour,” Linda said in her pixielike voice. “She’s just an actress who belongs to a loony cult. She’s too high-profile to be directly involved with anything untoward. And, according to the celebrity scandal rags, she’s tied up shooting her new movie for at least the next four months, apparently to the chagrin of her latest paramour who’s in Australia touring with his band, which, by the way, Mark Murphy says sucks.”

“Then I’d probably like them,” Juan said, digesting this latest piece of information. “If Gil Martell didn’t say her name when he was talking to Severance after we broke into his office, then it has to be something else. Can you ask Hali to go over that tape one more time?”

“He cursed up a storm when I told him he might be wrong and then volunteered to listen to it all again.”

“Tell him he gets an extra ration of grog. Anything else?”

“Eddie’s back from Rome, and we’re getting good audio on the arms dealer’s yacht but nothing pertinent so far.”

Cabrillo had completely forgotten about that mission. “Okay. Good. Keep me posted. Linc and I are about three hours from where the Responsivists have their Philippine retreat. We’ll keep you posted.”