Odd, the manifest the driver handed Darrow was in a different format than the one routinely used by the Royal Sky Line. It listed the truck's contents as two tons of rice, three tons of potatoes, and one ton of sugar… but he'd already checked four tons of rice on board that morning and they weren't scheduled to receive any more. There'd been a screwup somewhere down the line.
"I'm sorry," Darrow said, handing the clipboard back.
"I can't take this. I'll need to check it with the commissary office."
"Is there a problem here?"
Darrow looked around and saw two of the ship's Security officers approaching along the pier from aft. He recognized one as a guy named Ghailiani. He didn't recognize the other one, though that was hardly surprising. There were nine hundred Royal Sky employees on board this ship; you couldn't possibly know them all.
"Nah, not a problem," Darrow told him. "I think this shipment is for someone else, though."
"What makes you say that?"
"It's not our inventory form, for one thing. And I can't tell if it's been screened. I don't see a customs stamp, either." All shipments of cargo and provisions were carefully checked before they were loaded aboard ship, by security personnel, by customs officers, and even by public health inspectors. Bombs, smuggled contraband, and diseases were three things that could give the company a very bad public image, and every step was taken to make sure that none of those got on board. "Come to think of it," he added, paging through the manifest, "I'm not sure how he even got in here."
"Let's take a look," the second security man said. "Maybe the right papers are in the back."
Darrow shrugged. "Sure."
The lorry had been backed up until it was directly alongside a huge Dumpster on the pier, and Darrow had to turn sideways to squeeze through the narrow passage. The truck's tailgate came down with a bang, and Darrow pulled himself up onto the cargo bed. It was dark inside, the space filled with a number of large crates masked in deep shadow.
"You have a torch?" he called back. "It's bloody dark in — " He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. "What the hell?"
"What's wrong?" the security officer called from outside.
"I thought I saw — "
Someone grabbed Darrow from behind, a hand clamping down over his mouth, an arm pinning his arms at his sides. A second shadow emerged from behind the crates in front of him, and he felt something hard and metallic rammed against his ribs.
He tried to scream.
Three sound-suppressed gunshots, sharp, hissing chirps, cut through the close darkness. Darrow bucked once, then sagged in the arms of the man behind him.
"Merciful Allah," Ghailiani said in the light outside the truck. "Forgive me."
Chapter 4
Arnold Bernstein stepped through the metal detector, then stopped, reading the metal sign in front of the big white tunnel. "What's this?"
"X-ray scan, sir," the security guard standing next to the tunnel said. "It's completely harmless. Just step through like you did with the metal detector."
"Bernie!" Gillian Harper said, coming up behind him. "Why do they need to x-ray us?"
"They say," Reggie Carmichael said with a knowing leer, "that it looks right through your clothes, and lets them see you naked!"
"Who says?" Harper demanded. "I'm not getting naked for anybody!" They were standing in the short stretch between the metal detector and the white tunnel, confronted by a security guard and the metal sign. The rest of the Harper entourage was continuing to step through the metal detector, and the line was piling up.
"That's right, baby!" Jake Levy said. He was one of Harper's agents, and always had his eye on the bottom line. "Not unless they pay you for the peek."
"I'm sure it's nothing like that" Bernstein said. "See? The sign says it's not intrusive. It's just security!"
"Well, I'm no terrorist!" Harper said, her voice taking an unpleasant edge to it. "Bernie, you can get me in another way. I'm a star, for Christ's sake!"
"What seems to be the problem?" the guard asked. He looked weary, as though he'd been handling recalcitrant passengers all day.
"Do you have any idea who I am?" Gillian Harper demanded.
"No, ma'am, I have no idea. I'm sorry, but I have my orders. No exceptions."
"Gillian, I think we'd better do as the man says. You can let yourself be x-rayed, or you can let them feel you all over looking for… whatever it is they're looking for. Which is it going to be?"
"You can't talk to me that way, Bernie!"
God. Another temper tantrum coming on. "I'm sorry, Gillian. Rules are rules." Even for you, you strung-out little bitch, he thought. No amount of money was worth this.
Bernstein was disgusted. Gillian Harper's bad-girl image played great at the box office, but her attitude made her increasingly difficult to work with. Damn it, she was just another in a long line of high-visibility, high-maintenance models, movie stars, and MTV pop idols, no different, really, from Spears or Lohan or any of the rest. What was it about a little fame that, made these people think they were immortal?
But Bernstein was her manager… as if anyone could manage the brat. Getting her to do anything that wasn't her idea first was damned near impossible. It had been her idea to do this latest gig — shoot segments for her new music video, "Livin' Large," on board a luxury cruise ship and at various landmarks in the Mediterranean: on the beach at Majorca, in front of the Parthenon, along the Turkish coast. "Livin' Large" held the promise of being a top-of-the charts blockbuster, bigger than "Material Girl," maybe… If the bitch could control her temper, stay sober, and keep her mind on the job. Her idiot boyfriend wasn't helping; Carmichael was a minor actor with delusions of grandeur, a pretty boy who'd hit it lucky in a film or two and now seemed bent on destroying himself. And her.
The drug use worried Bernstein.
Arnold Bernstein had already decided that he was through with this insane business. Let him get just one more big hit under his belt and he could say good-bye to Gillian Harper and all of her parasites. He had a fair amount of money tucked away. Maybe he would produce dinner theater somewhere, some place far away from the glitz and the lights and the high-living idiots.
"Gillian," he said sharply, "it's not like half the male population of this planet hasn't already seen you naked. Get your ass through that machine!"
He strode through without looking to see if the rest were following him.
"Captain?"
Captain Eric Phillips was leaning over the chart table, reviewing the latest met print-out. Several hours ago, a low-pressure cell had begun forming off the West African coast, and by the time the Queen reached the Strait of Gibraltar in another four days, it might make for some rough weather.
"Can it wait? I'm busy — " "Sir, we have a problem. A real problem." "Now what?" Captain Eric Phillips looked up, exasperated. Why did problems always begin multiplying exponentially the closer the ship came to debarkation?
His staff captain, Charles Vandergrift, stood a few feet away, holding the bridge phone against his ear. "It's Ghailiani, sir. Security. One of our officers has been found… dead." He sounded as though he couldn't quite believe the report.
That got Phillips' full attention. "Dead? My God, who? How?"