"Wilco," Paul said. He put the radio down. "Coast is clear," he told the others.

"So thought the mouse, as she raced for the cheese," said Gamay.

Paul returned to the bow, watching and waiting.

"She must be running dark," Gamay said, "or we'd see her lights by now."

"Have to agree with that," Paul said. He looked up. The waxing moon was three-quarters full and casting a fair amount of light on this cloudless night. Even if the target was running dark, they should have been able to see it.

"Duke, what's our heading?"

"Zero nine five," Duke replied.

"It should be right in front of us."

"Maybe it's a ghost," Elena suggested.

"A ghost?" Paul said.

Elena rolled her eyes. "On the radar. You know, a false return."

Paul had to consider that a possibility and began to wonder if they'd made the trip for nothing. He pulled on a set of night vision goggles and stared until he finally saw an outline growing on the horizon. It was low and long and just barely jutting above the calm sea.

"Dead ahead," he said. "At last."

The gray bulk of the target began to grow larger, though it was hard to calculate distance in the dark.

"Cut our speed," Paul said. "Give us ten knots."

The roar of the engine dropped down to a heavy purr, and the wind noise lessened as the FRC slowed appreciably. It didn't appear they were dealing with a threat.

Paul glanced at Gamay. "So much for a trap," he said.

"Famous last words."

They moved in closer, and the black hulk in the darkness began blocking out the horizon to either side of them. Paul estimated the target to be nearly five hundred feet from stem to stern. There were no smokestacks or antennas, no defined areas of superstructure, that he could see. And though some sections were higher than others, there was a rounded effect to them, more like a river barge piled high with coal or some other bulk commodity.

"Looks like a barge," Paul said.

"What's a barge doing all the way out here?" Elena asked.

No one ventured a guess.

"Take us around to port," Paul said.

Duke cut the wheel, and the FRC turned right and traveled down one side of the vessel. As they pa.s.sed the end of the derelict, Duke took them up along the other side.

"Rounded end," Paul said. "This is the stern."

"It's not a barge," Gamay added, "it's a ship."

"A dark, dead ship," Elena said.

"A ghost ship," Gamay replied.

Even Paul had to admit there was something ominous about the vessel, something the grainy gangrene-tinted view through the night vision goggles only added to. Mist shrouding the ship, backlit by the stars and the sliver moon, gave it a spectral aura.

"Ghost ship," Gamay whispered.

Paul had seen enough. He pulled off the goggles and went to the FRC's small mast. As a rescue boat, the FRC was equipped with a row of powerful lights. Paul switched the main flood on and turned it toward the target's hull.

The garish light spread across heavy steel plate, rusted and corroded as if the ship had been drifting for years. The ship's portholes appeared to be sealed shut and were opaque with a tawny scale. A line of them ran just above the waterline.

As Paul panned the light, it revealed tangled lines running across the hull, strands of brown and green. It took a moment for any of them to realize what they were looking at.

Gamay was first. "Vines," she said.

Duke brought the throttle back to idle, and Paul angled the spotlight, tracking a tangled group of the vines that ran up the side of the hull past what should have been the sharp edge of the main deck but what was, in fact, an eroding slope of tancolored sediment.

"What in the world . . ."

Up on top, the vines ran everywhere like ivy draping an old stone wall. Dying gra.s.ses, weeds, and tangled scrub brush grew where the superstructure should have been.

Duke shook his head at the sight. "I've found some strange things floating out at sea before, but I've never seen anything like this."

They pa.s.sed the bow without sighting any markings, and Duke brought them back amidships.

"I think we should go back to the Condor," Gamay said abruptly.

Paul turned. "Aren't you curious about what we've found here?"

"Of course," she said, "I'm as intrigued as you are. But we came here to see if the target was a threat or a vessel in need of our help. It's obviously neither. With that established, we should get back home before anything strange occurs."

Paul studied his wife. "Not like you to be the voice of reason," he said. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"On the nightstand back home with my car keys," she said.

He laughed. "We've come this far. Might as well go aboard."

"And how do you propose we do that?" she asked.

Paul looked at her as if it was obvious. "Tarzan style of course," he said, pointing to the vines.

With calm precision, Duke brought the launch up against the hull where a thick group of creeper vines hung. Paul grabbed them and pulled with all his might.

"I'm going first," he said. "If these hold me, they'll certainly hold the rest of you."

Using the rim of a porthole as a foothold, he went up, climbing hand over hand, like he was going over the obstacle course wall in basic training. Eventually, he made it up onto the deck, which was covered with sediment.

Gamay came up next, and Elena followed right behind her. Duke remained on the launch.

"Feel like we've discovered a deserted island," Elena said.

"Let's hope it's deserted," Gamay added. "I'd hate to find headhunters living aboard."

Paul looked around. It really felt as if they'd made landfall. There was nothing man-made in sight. Just a foliage-covered mound in the middle of the Indian Ocean. "Looks like this ship got caught in the Sarga.s.so Sea."

"Except that this isn't seaweed," Gamay said.

"The fact that she's still afloat tells me she's basically watertight," Elena mentioned, "though she's riding awfully low in the water."

Paul thought so as well. "I wonder if all this vegetation is weighing her down."

"Possibly," Elena said. "Considering the thickness of the vegetation and the soil, it's probably making her top-heavy. Hopefully, we don't get any big waves while we're on board. If she starts to roll, she'll almost certainly go over."

To Paul, the discovery of the ship was a bolt of adrenaline. He wanted to know what ship it was and where it had come from. He stepped to the edge and shouted down to Duke. "Throw up the paddles. I think we can use them."

Duke pulled the FRC's emergency paddles from a locker and tossed them up one at a time. Paul caught them, handing one to Gamay and keeping one for himself.

"What are we supposed to do with these," Gamay asked, "row this ship back to civilization?"

"That is not a paddle," Paul explained, "it's a shovel. And we are not going to row, we're going to dig. If this ship is watertight, that suggests all the muck is on the outside, leaving the interior intact. We're going to find a hatch and go inside."

"And I can't get you to rake the leaves at home," Gamay said.

"Not as much fun."

"I like it," Elena said.

"See?" Paul said.

"You're supposed to be on my side," Gamay told Elena. "Girl power, remember?"

"Sorry," Elena said. "This beats sitting around on the Condor in the dark and doing nothing."

With a smile of satisfaction, Gamay handed Elena the paddle. "Then you can help him dig."

Paul chuckled and called down to Duke once more. "Stay close. We're going on a nature walk."

"Will do," Duke replied.

With his sense of curiosity near an all-time high, Paul led the party through the foliage toward the highest point of the mounding, an area completely entombed in the thickest of vines. If he was right, the main part of the ship's superstructure was hidden beneath it.

Pushing between a pair of wild bushes, he stopped. "Look at this," he said, aiming his flashlight into a tangle of leaves.

A huge spider, the size of a child's hand, sat in the middle of an ornate web. It had a yellow color to its body and was hardsh.e.l.led, as opposed to soft and furry like a tarantula. Nearby, a second spider of similar size and color rested on an even larger web. They found three more in a ten-foot radius.

"Ewww," Elena said quietly. "They're absolutely disgusting."

"Did you have to point them out?" Gamay asked. "Now I feel like they're all over me." She was turning awkwardly, trying to see if anything was on her back.

Paul had to laugh. He'd always found spiders interesting, though even he had to admit he wouldn't want the ones they were looking at sneaking into his sleeping bag.

"Come on," Paul said. He continued forward, careful to avoid the spiders and the thicker parts of the scrub, and they soon arrived at a spot just below the peak of the mound and near the center of the ship's beam.

With Gamay providing the illumination, Paul and Elena began pulling out the vines and excavating the clumpy soil. The paddles proved to be fairly effective as shovels, and they were soon tunneling at a forty-five-degree angle, gouging a channel deep into the soil, when Gamay put a hand on Paul's shoulder.

"Stop."

He looked back at her.

"I thought I heard something."

"You mean besides my grunting at having to do all the work?"

"I'm serious."

Paul gripped the shovel. He and Elena still carried sidearms, Ruger SR9s, made in Prescott, Arizona, but no one seriously thought they'd be needed once they discovered the radar target was an abandoned ship.

Gamay used the beam of her light to scan the area. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

"Maybe it's a giant spider," Paul whispered. "Momma spider to all those little babies we found."

Gamay gave him a light smack on the shoulder. "I'm serious. I have a bad feeling about this."

Beside them, Elena unlatched the holster strap on her sidearm and put her hand on the grip of the pistol like a gunfighter getting ready to draw.

A light breeze rustled the leaves around them and faded away. As it did, Paul heard something too. It was low and raspy, like the sound of labored breathing. It lasted for no more than a few seconds and then ceased. He looked around in the growth but saw nothing.

"You heard it too," Gamay said. "Didn't you?"

More like their minds were playing tricks on them, Paul thought. "You two and your ghost ship," he said. "Let's not get all jumpy."

Elena nodded and took her hand off the pistol grip.

"I'm going to keep an eye out for disembodied spirits," Gamay said.

Paul nodded, returning to the work at hand. "Especially any that might be interested in digging."

With renewed vigor, he continued the excavation. Soon enough, the paddle struck something hard. Brushing the debris away, he spotted the rusted steel plate. "We've hit the wall," he said. "Literally."

They widened out the channel and came upon a hatch. Attempting to pry it open was useless, but they continued to dig and uncovered a half-shattered window. Clearing the remaining gla.s.s away, Paul looked inside.

"What do you see?"

"It's like a cave," Paul said. "The silt has filled most of the room, but farther in it seems to lessen."

"I'm surprised it isn't filled to the top," Elena said.