The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

on the rail of the stairway to the upper container bed. “Well, yeah. I don’t wanna insult yer intelligence, Agent Porter, but ev’ry sailor has a fixation on Sea Titan.” He made an about-face and blew past Ben. “C’mon. Let me show ya somethin’.”

29

Ben didn’t follow the bos’n at first. The containers towering above—the rhythmic pound of loading and unloading—held him transfixed. What deadly items might be hidden among the glass baubles and frozen fish in that vast Aladdin’s Cave? Maybe none. Maybe thousands.

“Ya comin’, Agent Porter?”

“Right behind you.”

Ben turned to find Mallory only a step away, eyeing him.

“See much action in yer line o’ work, Agent?”

“I’m not sure I get your meaning.”

Mallory held up his fists, and it took all of Ben’s control not to flinch. The bos’n grinned and touched his cheek below his eye, indicating Ben’s shiner from the fight with Hagen.

Ben had almost forgotten about it. “Oh that. I wish I could say, ‘You should see the other guy,’ but this black eye came from a shower door. When the hotel provides you with a no-slip mat, make sure to use it.”

“Right. Shower door.”

Two decks down, Mallory cranked open a steel hatch and waved Ben through. “Take a look.”

Ducking to avoid the bulkhead, Ben stepped into a huge space, like a dystopian underworld. “Speaking of Aladdin’s Cave,” he muttered.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.” The two stood on a platform overlooking an Olympic-size pool. Four vertical support beams rose from the water to the ceiling three stories above. The place looked like an upscale health club dropped into a prison yard, with a tennis court, two racquetball courts, and a half basketball court.

“You’ve no idea o’ the challenges o’ tennis at sea,” Mallory said, clapping him on the back. The bos’n thrust his chin at three stories of rooms at the far end. “Showers, Ping-Pong, billiards. The top floor is the crew bar. The one man universally loved on the Princess ain’t the cap’n. It’s Francisco the bartender.”

“Impressive. Truly. But why are you showing me all this?”

Mallory looked at him as if he had asked why it snows in winter. “Don’t ya see? Ev’ry cargo hugger-mugger from here ta Singapore wants ta sail for Sea Titan. Bigger ships. Better facilities. Better life. I’m afraid yer bomber’s fixation with Sea Titan is a dead end.”

A dead end. Sensen had told him the same about the entire Rotterdam angle. Who was Ben to personally bring down Leviathan, anyway? A Company team could sweep through the containers at night with microwave scanners, searching for weapons-grade material or infiltrate Sea Titan to get at the truth. What could a severed spy do?

“You may be right.” Ben fought to maintain his smile. He’d take one last long shot, then call it a day, dump the Peugeot, and regroup. “I appreciate the tour. Could I trouble you to show me the bridge while I’m here?” He finished by pressing a psychological button. “You do have access to the bridge, right?”

“’Course I’ve got access. Whodaya think yer talkin’ to?” Mallory directed him out through the hatch again and shoved it closed. “Hope yer in good shape, Mr. Interpol. We’ve a half kilometer o’ passages and stairs ahead with a grand total sixty-meter vertical climb, more than the Leanin’ Tower of Pisa.”

Lefts. Rights. Stairs. Ladders. Down one story. Up two.

Mallory never wavered in his path, where Ben felt utterly disoriented. If the bos’n worked for Leviathan, playing the fool to set a trap, he had Ben at his mercy.

“How far now?” Ben found the question difficult, his breathing coming harder than expected. He sucked at the air, seeking oxygen, legitimately embarrassed. “Why is this . . . so hard? Feels like . . . a mountaintop.”

“Stale air.” The bos’n glanced down from the top of a canted ladder. “We rest the diesels in port, meanin’ the air pumps gotta shut down. That’s why the crew has ta use the dock barracks. It’ll be better up here. C’mon.”

Ben emerged into fresh, cold air, but Mallory gave him no time to breathe. He went straight across the deck to the first ladder of the ship’s upper superstructure, interlocking levels reminiscent of a Jenga tower. Fresh air or not, by the time they reached the flying bridge, he was spent.

At the door to the bridge, the bos’n had a word with the watch officer, but he’d left Ben too far behind to hear. Whatever passed between them, the watch officer didn’t give Ben so much as a passing glance when he caught up.

The tour began with the radar tower and emergency equipment. Ben could not have cared less. He left Mallory and headed for a bank of computer screens. “And what are these?”

“Er, that’s navcon, our navigation controls. These are the radar screens, fed by yer tower out there. And this’n . . .” He gestured to a map screen filled with moving targets, voice fading. Ben had clearly pushed past the limits of his knowledge.

“Ah.” Ben read the acronym on the placard beneath the screen, having no idea what it meant. “The ECLRT.” As he spoke, a digital ship passed beneath the active cursor, and a box of data appeared. Location. Stats. Nice. He walked closer.

Mallory followed. “Right. The ECLRT. The long-range tracker.” He gave a tentative nod. “You’ve seen one before?”

“Oh, I’m a bit of a sea tech nut. May I?”

Before Mallory could answer, Ben took control of the mouse. A click on any Sea Titan vessel, highlighted in green, gave him the ship’s six-month port history. He moved from one to the next, down the European coastline. “Wow. You have quite a fleet. I assume the Princess is the flagship.”

“Not quite.” Mallory held out a hand to stop the advancing watch officer. “That’d be the Behemoth, our largest—currently the largest on earth. She makes runs out o’ the main facility in Valencia, on the Spanish Mediterranean.”

“The Med, huh?” A quick shift of the mouse set the cursor on the target. The history came up. A tingle passed through Ben’s chest. His long shot