Rembrandt's Ghost by Paul Christopher

Author:Paul Christopher [Christopher, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780451221759
Google: N1GMNPmVZeQC
Amazon: 0451221753
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2007-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

16

The wardroom of the Batavia Queen was a large, low-ceilinged room, forward of the engine covering and directly below the bridge. Originally intended as the officers’ mess when it was a minesweeper, it had been paneled somewhere along the way in cheap plywood and fitted out with a tuck shop for the whole crew. The deck was painted a bilious green. There were a few booths against the bulkheads and three tables bolted down. Shelves had been placed here and there over the years, some fitted with small appliances like a toaster oven, a microwave, and a giant boom box, others stacked with dry goods and ratty-looking paperbacks or magazines.

Supposedly overseen by Bazooki, the steward, the cleaning and operation of the wardroom were actually done on a catch-as-catch-can basis divided among everyone on the twelve-man crew, including Briney Hanson, the captain. Given that fact, it was surprisingly clean and tidy, with an overpowering scent of some sort of industrialstrength cleaner that made Finn Ryan almost gag with the wafting odor of a synthetic pine forest.

The Queen’s engines droned in a dull, idling hum barely turning over while the ship stood against the fueling wharf in the Jurong Docks area of Singapore Harbor. Through the portholes on the port side, Finn could see across the dark rooftops of the Jurong warehouses to the neon strip of Pioneer Road and beyond it to the Ayer Rajah Expressway. New York might have been the city that never slept, but Singapore was the city that never stopped. It was almost three in the morning and the flow of traffic on the expressway was a never diminishing thunder of engines and blur of headlights. She tried to concentrate on Briney Hanson’s story about the chubby police officer, this Lazlo Aragas, who sounded like something out of an old Humphrey Bogart movie, but her eyes kept drooping with the need for sleep. Hanson had been talking since they’d arrived on board the rusty old freighter and she was still confused.

It was obvious that Billy was still confused as well, Finn thought. ‘‘So Aragas is after this pirate—this Malay you claim was the one who blew up my boat?’’ he said.

‘‘From what I hear, Khan is more of a revolutionary than a pirate, and if he is a pirate, he’s the Robin Hood sort.’’

‘‘Steals from the rich, gives to the poor, you mean?’’ Billy asked.

Hanson nodded. ‘‘Something like that.’’

‘‘Yet he’s got the connections to blow up a boat in Amsterdam and have us kidnapped in London?’’

Hanson shrugged. ‘‘Apparently,’’ he said. ‘‘And I’m not surprised. If a man in a cave in Afghanistan can blow up the World Trade Center in New York, why not Khan? It’s a small world these days. Paris for lunch, Fiji for the weekend.’’

‘‘I suppose you’re right,’’ grunted Billy.

‘‘But you think this has more to do with money?’’ Finn asked.

‘‘I don’t believe Aragas is simply interested in bringing a pirate to justice.’’

‘‘So you believe this story about the Japanese submarine?’’ Billy said, his skepticism obvious in his tone.

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