Jamie Freveletti - Running Dark

“Much worse. On the second application, it kills.”

“How do I figure into all this? Why did you hire me ?”

“I knew several months ago that Cardovin didn’t work. With Cardovin dead in the water, we needed a cash infusion fast. I went to an investor known for his interest in undercapitalized companies. The investor offered to keep us afloat while we tested AX 2055 but insisted that your company be hired in the bargain. The investor was a major contributor to Cooley’s campaign, and he claimed that Cooley wanted you hired to keep an eye on you. I didn’t mind—your reputation was solid, and I’d get the money. The company would survive.”

“Who would buy such a drug?”

Stark took a deep breath. “At first we thought of athletic teams, people weakened with immune disorders, Parkinson’s, or any group that required an endurance or a dopamine boost. We ran mice tests and were preparing for approval to begin human clinical trials, but the mice died on the second stick and precluded that completely. Then it disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

Stark nodded. “The drug and its files were stolen from our lab. We reported the theft, and I considered that to be the end of it. Until you told me that you’d been stuck and what happened after. I knew it was our drug. Before it was stolen, we’d been preparing a trial using endurance athletes. We’d inject them after they’d exercised to exhaustion and see if the drug served to boost performance. Whoever stole it was running their own back-alley clinical testing.”

Emma didn’t believe his claims of complete innocence. “You mean to say that you knew I’d been hit with an illegal, untested substance that kills on the second ingestion, yet you neither warned me nor told anyone else of your suspicions?”

Stark got angry. “I wasn’t sure! It was only after I was kidnapped in Nairobi that I realized the stolen product was out there, ready to be sold on the black market. They wanted to know where they could get the formula and some more product. They were going to hit world leaders. Get them to behave irrationally, then either blackmail them or stick them twice and kill them. I insisted that we didn’t have any. After it was stolen, we didn’t make any more.” The ship ground to a halt. “What’s going on?”

“We’re out of time,” Sumner said. He looked at Stark. “You’re going to the bridge deck.” He turned to Block, who had walked up a few minutes earlier. “Take him with you. Keep him in your sight at all times.” He pulled the duffel out of Stark’s hands and gave it to Block, who opened it and looked inside.

Block’s face lit up. “Now, ain’t that a beautiful sight? It’s an RPG.”

“Have you ever shot one?” Janklow asked.

Block looked annoyed. “Why do you keep insisting that I don’t know how to shoot?”

“I’ll teach him,” Hassim said.

Block nodded at him. “Thanks. Harry Block here. I’m from Texas.”

Hassim almost smiled. “Hassim. I’m from Kenya.”

“Now that the formalities are over, let’s fire up these babies and blow the bastards away.”

Hassim turned to Janklow and Sumner. “How many boats are coming?”

Sumner grimaced. “Between twenty and thirty.”

If Hassim was frightened, he didn’t show it. Neither did Sumner. Emma thought them both the most unflappable men she had ever met. She turned to look out to sea. The pirates, if they were out there, could not be seen by the naked eye just yet. Then she looked down at the water next to the boat and gasped. Hundreds of jellyfish floated next to them. Huge schools of the gelatinous creatures passed by, their pulsing bodies moving them through the water with their long tentacles flowing out behind.

Sumner came to the railing to stand next to her. “What are you looking at?” he said.

“Jellyfish. Masses of them.”

Sumner gazed at the schools, saying nothing.

A thought occurred to Emma. She turned toward Hassim. “How will the pirates board us?”

“They use grappling hooks to attach themselves to the ship’s side, usually near an existing ladder, but if one is not available, they will place their own after they’re sure the skiff is attached.”

“So we’ll know where they’ll be coming over if they do get that close.”

Hassim nodded. “Affixing the grappling hooks, attaching a ladder, and climbing up all takes a little time, so yes, you can predict where they will appear.”

“Can we collect these jellyfish without killing them? Use a net?”

Hassim strode over to the railing. “Those are box jellyfish. Terribly dangerous. Too many stings—”

“Too many stings and a human will go into a form of anaphylactic shock. It’s perfect.”

Hassim shook his head. “These fish will not help us. The pirates will board directly from the skiff. They won’t go into the water first, so there is no chance that the jellyfish will sting them.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking we collect a bunch of these, put them in shallow pans at the top of each stationary ladder. When the pirates swing a leg over to board, they step on the fish and get stung. I’m not suggesting we wait around for this to work, but it will be quick and easy to set up and we have very little to lose.”

Hassim frowned in thought. Janklow moved to the railing to check out the jellyfish.

“Jellyfish won’t always sting. There’s a good chance the majority of them will be too shocked themselves to do any harm to anyone else,” Janklow said.

“I would never underestimate the sting of a box jellyfish. People have been stung by fish that have been baking on the sand for hours,” Hassim said.

“And if we pour fresh water on them, it may encourage them,” Emma said. “Nematocysts fire from all sides if they’re hit with water, even dead or dying ones.”

Block marched to the ship’s rail and looked over. “You sure about that?”

Emma shook her head. “Not entirely. But I’m fairly certain that the tentacle will react to the water with a sting of its own.”

Cindy touched Emma’s arm. “Let me work on this. I’ll ask some crew members to help me net them. The kitchen should have bus pans we can use.”

“And could you leave some bottles of water nearby?”

Wainwright emerged from the door that led to the bridge. He looked grim. “They’re massing in formation just on the outer fringes of radar. It’s as if they’re preparing to mount an assault on an aircraft carrier, not on a cruise ship.”

Sumner nodded. “I think we need to arm the passengers.” Wainwright looked about to interrupt, and Sumner put up a hand. “We can tell them to fight only if threatened by an unarmed man. Warn them to surrender to anyone holding a gun.”

Wainwright thought a moment. No one spoke. Stark stood off to the side. Emma noted that he looked as serious as the rest. Wainwright appeared to reach a decision.

“This doesn’t feel like an ad hoc attack, it feels like a planned offensive. Let’s get all the passengers back into the casino. I still won’t arm the passengers, just the cruise-ship employees. I’ll have them guard the casino entrance. The repair crew is working on the oil-pressure problem. With any luck we’ll regain some mobility.”

Emma stared out to sea. Nothing broke the endless blue water except the cresting white tips as the waves undulated. She turned back to analyze the deck, the stairs up to the bridge level, and the control room within. An idea came to her.

“Cindy!”

Cindy stopped and turned, half in, half out of the entrance to the stairs.

“Can you also get me some buckets, a jug of bleach, and a bottle of ammonia?”

Cindy looked perplexed. “Sure, but why?”