Matt Hilton - Dead Men's Harvest

‘Feels like a trap.’ Hartlaub had leaned very close to my ear to whisper, but even so his voice was too loud. I raised a finger to my lips, indicating silence. I pointed to the nearby stacks of containers and to a deep ribbon of darkness between two towers. Hartlaub followed me into the narrow space.

In a low whisper, I said, ‘You’re right. This could be a trap, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.’

‘We should split up. That way if one of us gets captured at least the other still has a chance to save Jennifer.’

Splitting up would normally be a very bad idea: alone we were more vulnerable to ambush. Even so, Hartlaub was correct, because there was nothing normal about this mission. ‘I’m going to go below deck. You check out things up here, then go towards the bridge and check that out. Engage the enemy only if you have to.’

I didn’t need to explain that I required Hartlaub to cover my retreat if it became necessary, he’d already got that. He’d also realised that I was trying to divert him from his prime objective.

‘You know they’re not up here, Hunter,’ he said. ‘I’ll follow you down. Don’t worry, though. I’m here for Cain, but not at the expense of your sister-in-law. We get her, and then we do Cain.’

I acquiesced silently and we slipped out from between the containers and looked for a way below decks. We moved between hulking machinery, cranes and hoists primarily, and found a large piston-controlled hatch. We ignored that way inside because it would be too noisy and very likely led into another open storage area anyway. In front of us were a few shed-like structures, but because none of them boasted windows I assumed that they contained further machinery that required protecting from the elements. We found a metal stairwell adjoining the upper deck containing the bridge. We didn’t want to go up, so I led Hartlaub under the stairs and there we found a door that would give us ingress. It was a heavy steel affair, with a handle that required pressure to open it. If the rest of the ship was anything to go by, the door hinges would be ill maintained and the resulting squeal of protesting metal would be an instant giveaway. Shaking my head at Hartlaub I moved away. There was a soft clunk, and I turned quickly. Hartlaub was peering in through the open doorway. I tried to show my anger with a flash of my eyes, but the gesture was wasted on him. Anyway, when I paused to listen, the noise of him opening the door was lost in all the other clunks and bangs emitted by the ship as it rode the restless sea. Hartlaub stepped inside and I had no option but to follow.

We were in a narrow vestibule. A door on our right led into an antechamber, and two to our left into the forward deck. Directly ahead there was a railing and I moved to it, saw that it marked the beginning of a stairwell leading down into pitch blackness. Last time I fought Tubal Cain I had to descend steps into a similar pit of blackness, and I hoped that this time it didn’t lead to such a hellish place as Cain’s ossuary at Jubal’s Hollow. Cain had decorated the entrance to his bone chamber with archaic symbols, and I was glad to note that a sign on a nearby bulkhead was only written in Cyrillic. It was nowhere near as weird here, but I still experienced a wave of trepidation at what I could find below. When I’d found John, pinned to the walls of Cain’s chamber with iron spikes and the skin of his back split open to expose his ribcage, I’d almost lost my ability to fight; God help me if he’d done the same to Jenny.

No, strike that. God help Tubal Cain.

I pushed ahead.

He’d just got off the satellite phone and Cain wasn’t very happy. He knew that the CIA man was stalling and even though he’d threatened to start dicing up Jennifer, Walter Hayes Conrad hadn’t been moved to hurry the process along. Conrad swore that John Telfer was on his way, but it was beyond his power to organise his transfer in anything below five hours. Cain doubted that; he could have had Telfer bundled on to a military jet and transferred from anywhere in the US within half that time.

‘You have one more hour,’ Cain had said. ‘If Telfer isn’t there by then I start cutting.’ The fact that Cain himself wouldn’t be at the rendezvous by then was academic; he wouldn’t allow Conrad the three extra hours he’d pleaded. Those three hours weren’t in order to arrange John Telfer’s arrival but something else.

Cain knew that the CIA were resourceful enough to have pinpointed his location by now and would be organising some sort of assault on the ship. He had warned the CIA man of what such action would bring. First sign of any kind of military presence, he promised, and he would slaughter his captive. Cain was pragmatic enough to guess that he was a more valuable prize to the CIA man than the life of a nobody from England. The assault would be coming and it was time to move. The location where he’d requested John Telfer to meet him was equally dangerous, but so long as he got his blade into Telfer’s body before the attack began he’d be happy enough. He didn’t fear death, but he did fear dying without taking his nemesis to Hell alongside him. His legend depended upon it. To the world Tubal Cain, the Harvestman, was a hapless fool by the name of Robert Swan who’d died in the Mojave Desert. It was time that the ridiculous lie was rectified and everyone knew the truth. Slaughtering Telfer under the watchful eye of the world would ensure that he would finally earn the credit he was due.

Before leaving the bridge, he smashed the satellite phone repeatedly against the control panel of the ship’s guidance system, breaking both. Light crackled and pulsed from the starred radar screen. The damage assuaged some of the anger he felt towards Walter Conrad. A stairwell led down through the tower to the lower decks, and he went in search of Baron and the crew members who’d given him their service since their old captain had perished. Down there he hoped that they’d readied the equipment. Captain Grodek had been a filthy-minded wretch, and he’d delighted in filming his own skin flicks that were uploaded directly to the World Wide Web. Well, it wasn’t only human-trafficking pornographers who could use digital technology to spread their message via the click of a mouse. Cain had discovered the room where the girls had been abused, found the cameras and wi-fi compatible laptop computers, and realised that he too could televise his own prime time show.

He found Baron waiting for his return.

‘Everything’s in order?’

‘Everything’s in chaos.’

Baron’s lips pinched, having no idea what he was alluding to. No, there was only one Prince of Chaos here, maybe even in the entire world. It didn’t matter; Baron was still a valuable ally.

‘Jennifer Telfer, she’s ready?’ Cain looked past Baron, peering into the room beyond. It was the ship’s galley, the place where the crew had spent their downtime, and was as ugly as anywhere else on the ship. The air was putrid with the stench of old grease, hand-rolled cigarettes and the fumes of strong spirits. Sailors allegedly drank rum, Russians vodka, but it appeared that this crew enjoyed anything as long as it was alcoholic. There was a double row of tables down the centre of the room, chairs parked under them, and at the far end a separate table at a right angle to all the rest. The captain’s table was as grimy as the others. Behind it sat Jennifer Telfer, staring back at him, the whites of her eyes stark in the dim light.

Baron neglected to answer: what was the need? Instead he anticipated Cain’s next question. ‘The crew are readying the lifeboat, bringing the video equipment you requested and loading it before we take her up. Some of the idiots are grumbling about how you intend paying them once this is over with. They didn’t anticipate abandoning the ship and are afraid that you’re going to renege on the deal first chance you get.’