Tentacles Page 6

  * * *

  All the tags had been checked by Al Ikes, and everyone was aboard.

  But not everyone aboard was wearing a tag.

  * * *

  As the Coelacanth pulled away from the dock, Marty stood on the deck, using his Gizmo to locate Luther. He found Luther’s orange tag in an area called the Moon Pool, along with a white tag belonging to someone named Yvonne. He was about to head down below to see if Bo had given Luther a new haircut when he remembered the dragonspy. He still wasn’t ready to enter the bowels of the haunted ship.

  He programmed the dragonspy to fly to the orange tag, which negated the need to use controls. A couple of crew members swatted at the bot as it buzzed over their heads, and came pretty close to squishing it. Wolfe would have to issue a stop swatting the bot order or the dragonspy would be exterminated before they reached the open ocean. When the dragonspy encountered a closed door, it would hover until someone opened it, or find a different route. Marty was impressed, but not surprised. When Ted Bronson invented something, he didn’t cut corners. He had somehow tied the bot’s tiny computer brain into the Gizmo tracking program. It knew where everyone on board was and which way they were going.

  When the dragonspy reached the closed Moon Pool doors, it hovered outside for at least five minutes, which Marty took to mean that there was no other way in. Finally, the doors hissed open, and he saw a blurry Bo rush by with what looked like a fish in her mouth. The dragonspy zipped through the first set of doors and barely made it through the second set before they closed.

  Marty put the dragonspy into hover over Luther and Yvonne.

  Luther looked up and waved. Most of his hair appeared to still be attached to his head. He was talking to Yvonne, but Marty couldn’t understand what he was saying — he sounded like an insect. Marty hadn’t perfected the dragonspy’s audio yet, but he was getting closer to figuring it out.

  He switched the dragonspy back to manual control, moving it up to the ceiling. The Moon Pool was too big to see on the little screen, but he could make out the dorsal fins of the three dolphins and an overturned stainless steel fish bucket. Bo had obviously decided that stealing one of her enemies’ fish was more important than Luther’s hair — temporarily, at least. Marty would have to get Luther a sock cap, or Bo would be after his friend the entire voyage. He called Yvonne on her two-way radio with his Gizmo. Everyone on board was required to carry a two-way. Luther hadn’t been aboard long enough to get his yet.

  “This is Marty. Can I speak to Luther?”

  Yvonne handed her two-way to Luther.

  “Thanks for using me as chimp bait,” Luther said. “That was a riot.”

  “Sorry,” Marty said, not meaning it. “Could you open the doors so the dragonspy can get out? I want to take a look around the ship.”

  “I ought to leave it locked in here until its juice dries up and it drowns in the pool,” Luther said. “Then you can explain to Wolfe and Ted how you lost their million-dollar bug.”

  “Whatever,” Marty said. “Just open the doors so I can look around.”

  “You could use your legs to do that,” Luther said, walking to the doors. “The ship’s interior looks better than the exterior, although I didn’t get a chance to see much of it because I was running in terror.”

  Marty didn’t want to admit that his own legs were trembling a little at the prospect of walking below deck. “What are you doing down at the Moon Pool?” he asked. “In fact, what is a moon pool?”

  Luther repeated what Yvonne had told him.

  “Oh,” Marty said, not understanding half of his explanation.

  “We’re going to put on wet suits and swim with the dolphins,” Luther told him. “And I won’t be wimping out like you did the last time you went for a dip with them. Yvonne’s great. She’s Wolfe’s dolphin trainer.”

  The dragonspy buzzed back out of the two sets of doors.

  Marty looked at the power gauge. He had about forty-five minutes of flying time before he had to call the dragonspy back to its little drawer or land it near an artificial light source to recharge.

  He flew it down passageways, through the engine room, then up to the bridge, where Wolfe was standing next to a gnarled old man with a carefully trimmed white beard and white hair battened down by a captain’s hat. According to the Gizmo, his name was Cap. He looked old enough to have sailed on the Titanic.

  The deck below the bridge had a large library that looked very similar to the library on Cryptos, minus the fireplace, aquariums, and high wire. Next to it were a series of laboratories, but the doors were all closed, so Marty couldn’t get the dragonspy inside. He caught Al Ikes strutting down a companion-way (in a three-piece suit, of course) and followed him. Al slid a card through an electronic lock at the end of a corridor, and a door slid open. Marty flew the dragonspy inside behind him. Joe, a.k.a. Bullet Head #2, sat at a bank of surveillance screens, including one showing Marty standing on the deck maneuvering the dragonspy. He didn’t see any of their living quarters on the screens, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Al had cameras there as well.

  Al paused and looked at a couple of monitors while Marty made some adjustments to the dragonspy’s settings. He was rewarded with clear audio for the first time: “Stay diligent, Joe,” Al said. “If you see anything unusual, report it to me immediately on the secure radios.”

  Yes! Marty thought. Now he could not only see people, but he could listen to them as well. Al, Wolfe, and the security force had different radios than the crew did. They were probably military issue and encrypted so no one could monitor their conversations.

  Al left the room. Marty followed him back through the door with the dragonspy, then continued his flying tour of the ship.

  Their living quarters were on the deck below the laboratories. They were nice. In fact, everything inside the ship looked as if it had been gutted and refurbished. Marty hoped the ghosts and the curse had been thrown out with the old stuff. He flew the dragonspy into his and Luther’s cabin, then through the adjoining door into Grace’s cabin. She was sitting at a small desk, scribbling in a Moleskine.

  Birthday! Marty thought. I have to make a cake!

  This meant that he was going to have to call the dragonspy back to roost and go below deck. The dragonspy could do a lot of things, but it could not make a cake from scratch.

  The dragonspy landed back at the Gizmo two minutes before running out of juice. Marty slipped the Gizmo into a cargo pocket, then took his first steps inside the haunted ship.

  * * *

  The kitchen, or galley, was next to a large communal mess hall. There were a lot of people sitting at tables drinking coffee and eating. Marty didn’t recognize any of them. The mess was set up buffet style. Men and women in white uniforms scurried back and forth from the galley to the buffet counter, replenishing trays and pans of food.

  Marty walked through the swinging doors into the galley, expecting to see Bertha Bishop directing the cooks and servers. Instead, he found a little man standing on a small stool shouting orders at the frenzied staff. He was pudgy, with long greasy black hair, a scraggly beard, crooked yellow teeth, and beady brown eyes.

  He glared at Marty and shouted, “What are you doing in here? Serving staff and cooks only!” He pointed an index finger at the doors. “Get out!”

  “Where’s Bertha?” Marty tried to “Lutherize” him with a goofy grin. It didn’t work on this guy.

  The man scowled, hopped off his perch, and strode over to Marty like he was going to hit him, but Marty held his ground. He had to bake a cake for Grace, and he wasn’t about to get booted out.

  “I’m in charge here,” the man said. “Bertha’s back on Cryptos with Phil.”

  This was news to Marty. He had just talked to Bertha the day before. She was worried about how she was going to cook for a crew of fifty. Marty had offered to give her a hand whenever he could.

  The man swept his hands around the galley. “I don’t think she could handle this,” he said.


  Marty laughed. There wasn’t anything Bertha couldn’t do — including kill the little man standing in front of him with nothing more than her index finger. The noisy galley had gone completely silent. Not a pot or pan clattered as the workers stared at the confrontation.

  “I have to make a birthday cake for Grace. I’m Marty O’Hara, and Travis Wolfe is my —” Marty said.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know,” the man interrupted. “He’s your uncle. Big deal. We’ve heard all about you and your snotty cousin.”

  It took a lot to make Marty mad, but the man had crossed the line. Marty’s fists clenched and his face flushed. Grace was a little snotty at times, but with good reason: She was smarter than anyone he knew. And no one was allowed to call her snotty except Marty … and maybe Luther. Marty had defended Grace when he thought she was his twin sister, and that wasn’t going to stop now that they were only cousins. He glanced at the man’s hands to make sure he wasn’t holding a butcher knife or a meat cleaver, and took a step forward.

  “What’s going on here?” Al Ikes shouted as he barged through the swinging doors.

  Marty and the man nearly jumped out of their shoes.

  Miniature cameras, Marty thought, glancing up at the ceiling. Just like the ones on the dragonspy. They’d be invisible unless you knew where to look. Joe or Roy must have called Al and told him there was trouble in the galley.

  “Nothin’, Mr. Ikes,” the chef said. “I was just tellin’ the kid that he can’t come waltzing in here and push us around just because he’s Dr. Wolfe’s nephew. We’re a little busy making sure the crew gets their grub. He didn’t like it and started mouthing off.”

  This was a blatant lie, of course, but Marty didn’t contradict the man. He was curious about the extent of Al Ikes’s surveillance capabilities and this might be a good way to find out.

  Al stared at the chef. “You and I know that’s not what happened, Theo,” he said.

  So the chef’s name is Theo, Marty thought. And Al can see as well as hear everything we’re doing aboard ship.

  “It’s exactly what happened,” Theo said. “The kid thinks he owns the ship. Wants to bake a cake, for crying out loud.” He scowled at Marty. “Like he could bake a cake. We don’t have any cake mix. We set sail before all our supplies got here. We’ll be lucky if we don’t starve to death before we get to New Zealand.”

  “I’ve never used cake mix,” Marty said. “I make my cakes from scratch.”

  “Yeah, right,” Theo said.

  Marty ignored him and turned to Al. “I thought Bertha was going to handle the cooking on board.”

  “Change of plans,” Al said. “She and Phil will be joining us later. They stayed on the island to tie up some loose ends. We have some new caretakers arriving on Cryptos in a couple of days. A Mr. and Mrs. Hickock and their son, Dylan. Phil and Bertha need to brief them before they turn the island over.”

  Marty looked at Theo. “So you’re just the temporary chef until Bertha joins us.”

  “So what?” Theo said. “Until she gets here, I’m still in charge.”

  “And I still need to make a cake for Grace’s birthday,” Marty said. “And I’ve never used a cake mix. I assume you have flour, milk, sugar, eggs, butter?”

  “What do you think?” Theo said belligerently.

  “Enough!” Al shouted. “Any time Marty comes in here, I want your full cooperation.” He paused and looked at everyone in the galley. “That applies to all of you. And it’s not because he’s Travis Wolfe’s nephew. It’s because I told you to cooperate.” He looked back at Theo and lowered his voice. “And if you lie to me again, Theo, I will personally throw you overboard.”

  The last person on earth Marty thought would come to his defense was Al Ikes.

  “I’m watching you, Theo,” Al continued under his breath. “Marty was not rude when he came in here, and Grace is not snotty.”

  Grace actually liked Al Ikes and got along well with him, something Marty did not understand until that moment.

  Theo looked confused. He obviously didn’t know a thing about the surveillance cameras peppered around the ship. And Marty wasn’t about to tell him.

  “Go bake your cake,” Al said, and left the galley.

  Theo got back on his stool — a little shakily — and told everyone to get back to work, but not nearly as loudly or harshly as he had spoken to them before.

  And Marty baked a birthday cake — from scratch.

  * * *

  The party was held in the Captain’s Mess.

  Wolfe, Luther, Marty, and Grace sat around a teak table picking at the special dinner prepared by Theo, which was nothing more than buffet food plopped onto nice china. Each plate featured a different cryptid from around the world. Wolfe explained that Ted had commissioned the set for him and Rose as a wedding present.

  Marty kicked himself for not preparing the dinner along with the cake. Theo was no cook. How had he gotten the job as temporary chef?

  PD was sound asleep in one of Wolfe’s large cargo pockets, exhausted after her day with Bo. And Bo had not been invited to the party, much to Luther’s relief. After the chimp and her pint-sized accomplice had battled the dolphins and stolen a fish, Yvonne had found Bo and coaxed her into her comfortable enclosure with a lock of Luther’s hair. Luther was happy to have the hair snipped by Yvonne rather than ripped out by Bo.

  Grace didn’t mind the small party or the bland food. She was with the people she loved, including Luther, who had been like a second brother to her for most of her life.

  After Grace blew out her thirteen candles and everyone enjoyed a piece of Marty’s delicious cake, Luther showed off his graphic novel. Wolfe got a big kick out of it and called it a masterpiece — an exaggeration, but a compliment that was greatly appreciated by Luther, whose face flushed bright red.

  Grace wasn’t expecting a gift from Wolfe. He had been very busy the past few days, and they had departed so quickly she was sure he hadn’t had time to even think about her birthday. But Wolfe surprised her by placing a large package on the table.

  “I didn’t get a chance to get over to the mainland to go shopping,” he explained. “But this is a one-of-a-kind gift. It belonged to Rose — to your mother. It was her most prized possession. She would have wanted you to have it.”

  Grace carefully removed the wrapping, already knowing what was underneath. It was an ancient manuscript. The last time she had seen the book it had been in a glass case in the library back on Cryptos. She opened the heavy leather cover.

  “It’s a graphic novel!” Luther said.

  “It’s an illuminated manuscript,” Grace corrected. “Written and drawn by hand long before there were printing presses or computers.”

  Luther leaned over for a closer look. The illustration of the dragon on the page Grace had turned to was beautifully rendered. He looked at the text. “What language is it written in?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said. It wasn’t one of the five languages she was fluent in.

  “Rose didn’t know, either,” Wolfe said. “She spent years trying to decipher the text. All we know is that it’s a book about cryptids. It’s probably the first book on cryptids ever written. Rose thought the text might not be in an unknown language at all, but in code. She had the manuscript copied and took the reproduction to the Congo when we first set out to find Mokélé-mbembé. While we were there she spent hours trying to break the cipher.”

  Grace turned the page, and they were greeted by a monster with tentacles pulling a ship beneath the sea.

  “The giant squid,” Luther said.

  “From the illustrator’s or author’s imagination,” Wolfe said. “It’s unlikely they actually saw all the creatures in the book themselves.”

  “Where did my mother get this?” Grace asked.

  Wolfe shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me. I suspect it might have been something that belonged to Noah Blackwood or his family.”

  “She stole it?” Marty asked.
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  “I don’t think so,” Wolfe answered. “But I didn’t want to leave it on Cryptos in case Noah sends someone to poke around the island while we’re gone. Which I think he’ll do. I didn’t want anyone taking it.”

  “Is Noah Blackwood the reason Al set up surveillance cameras with audio all over the ship?” Marty asked.

  Wolfe, Luther, and Grace stared at him.

  Luther looked around the Captain’s Mess. “I don’t see any cameras,” he said.

  “They’re miniaturized,” Marty said. “Just like the cameras Ted put in the dragonspy.”

  “Not exactly like the dragonspy’s, but similar,” Wolfe said. “And they aren’t all over the ship. They are in the common areas, the bridge, and the labs. But we don’t have cameras in the private cabins. How did you find out about them?”

  Marty didn’t want to admit that he had been stalking Al Ikes with the dragonspy. “I had a little problem in the galley with Theo,” he said. “Al came to my rescue. The only way he could have known about it is if he or one of his men were watching and listening.”

  Wolfe nodded. “I heard about that. And yes, someone was watching — and listening. I’m not comfortable with all of this surveillance and extra security. It’s just that I don’t know what Noah Blackwood is going to do. And I’m not being paranoid. We have nearly forty people on board whom we don’t know all that well. They’ve all been background-checked, of course, but Al believes that some of them are working for Noah Blackwood, and I agree with him. We have the Mokélé-mbembé eggs on board and we’re going after a giant squid for Noah’s primary competitor.” Wolfe lowered his voice. “And then there is Grace …”

  Wolfe did not need to finish the sentence. They all knew that Noah Blackwood was going to come after his granddaughter.

  “So, there are spies on board,” Luther said with undisguised glee. “I bet we can figure out who they are.”

  “This is not a game,” Wolfe said sternly. “I don’t want any of you looking for so-called spies. Noah Blackwood and his people are dangerous. If you see something out of the ordinary, just tell me or Al about it. We’ll decide whether it means anything.” He locked eyes with each of them, one by one. “Is that clear?”