(eng) Daniel Suarez by Change Agent

Author:Change Agent [Agent, Change]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

The sun was brutally hot, and the humidity made it worse. The cigarette boat drifted somewhere in the South China Sea, its liquid metal batteries exhausted. Kenneth Durand’s best guess was that the Hulks were eighty kilometers to the south. A line of rumbling thunderstorms glowered on the horizon there. Hopefully that would hinder launching drone flights. Searching for him by boat would be much harder.

To the north Durand saw sun and clearer skies. No land in sight—though he had a rough idea where he was: still six or seven hundred kilometers south of Thailand. He didn’t have a data link to the boat, and so couldn’t access its mapping systems or its no doubt elaborate virtual console. The vessel was devoid of physical screens and gauges. But he had found a thirty-year-old GPS unit that morning in the boat’s cabin along with a reverse osmosis water maker, and canned food, liquor, beer, and bags of chips.

He starting charging the GPS on the cabin battery, and though the internal battery didn’t charge, the GPS still worked. Better yet, it was so old he suspected it wasn’t going to be trackable, unlike the GPS in his phablet (which had gone overboard the night before along with his hairpiece, mustache, bush hat, and a lot else).

The GPS showed that Durand had dead reckoned his position fairly well. He was about a hundred and fifty kilometers off the coast of Kuantan, Malaysia. Well out to sea.

He felt a pang of guilt about the Thai smuggler who’d been washed overboard. And about the dead businessman. To his surprise, the long-tailed macaque had emerged at dawn from an open storage locker, chattering and poking around for food. How the animal had held on during the boat’s scouring submersion was beyond him.

He fed it canned pineapple chunks, and it followed him around just out of arm’s reach the entire morning, watching his every move.

“Sorry about your friend, monkey. Maybe he got picked up.”

The macaque chattered in response.

Durand wasn’t sure getting rescued by the slavers was a better fate. Still, he was glad the dead bodies and the blood had all been washed away. It made last night’s events seem like only a nightmare, and he preferred to pretend it had been just that. Only the monkey remained as evidence that anyone else had been here.

But then he stumbled over the Skorpion machine pistol lying on the deck against the stern gunwale. That hadn’t gotten washed overboard.

He decided he didn’t have the luxury of sitting around. He searched every locker, cabinet, and storage well in the boat, including down in the small, unkempt cabin. He came up with blankets, a flare gun, a blister pak of military-grade amphetamines, clothing, water skis and ropes, and a high-end nitrox rebreather pack along with wet suit, fins, and a Hawaiian sling for spear fishing. He checked the rebreather tanks and saw they were half charged.

Why did the traffickers have diving gear? Did they cache supplies or bitrings on shallow

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