Research Ship George D. Stillson
East China Sea 30 Miles Northwest Amami
Ōshima Island
Freya Weyland leaned against the rusting stern railing, her hands curled around the hard steel, scarred knuckles white and fingertips as cold as the metal they rested upon. She leaned over and nestled her chin into her folded arms, eyes closed as the winter winds of the East China Sea swept across her face. The freezing air felt good, her skin prickling with goose pimples underneath a thin, fashionable sweatshirt, the chill numbing her fingers, stealing the breath from her lungs. A crescent moon hung low in the winter sky, casting dim illumination over the 170-foot research vessel as it quietly pushed through gentle swells.
The young man next to her spoke passionately, winding through a ponderous, well-rehearsed epiphany that probably impressed the coeds of his university’s science department. His conclusions were clearly meant to be edgy, at least for a mainline academic; the rebellious hypothesis punctuated by the neglected cigar in his hand as it slowly burnt to ash in the darkness. Something about the benefits of selective near-extinction—how collapsed fishing stocks would lead to real legislative change faster than any conservation activism. Better the fish died now; perhaps enough would survive to repopulate the region while the Japanese fleets languished in scrapyards for lack of catch.
He was handsome, at least compared to the balance of the R/V George D. Stillson’s male population. Tall, skinny— well, too skinny if she was honest with herself—trendy haircut with the long, slick top and shaved sides, half-lidded eyes, and a sly smile. And he could talk, really talk. He didn’t just stand around waiting for her to say something so he could pretend to agree. Maybe even a guy her mom might have called a breath of fresh air, the type who introduced himself as ‘Benny’ and not ‘Dr. Whoever the Third, PhD of Ivy-This or Ivy-That’.
She liked listening to him talk. She liked how he filled the silence with such ease, how she could simply lean on the railing staring ahead, and he wouldn’t get bored and walk away. She almost felt at peace when he spoke. Maybe this was what it was like to be a woman who didn’t know the right ratio of diesel to urea fertilizer, or the correct detonator needed to blow it sky high, or the sound made by breaking vertebra if one twisted a neck just so.
Freya raised up and turned towards the young man, smiling as she caught his eye. He stopped speaking for a moment, thrown from his pedantic verbal wanderings, and tilted an ear to better listen to her over the ship’s laboring diesel engines.
But she didn’t speak. She instead took the small cigar from his fingers, puffed it twice, and handed it back. She pursed her lips to blow a thick, clinging cloud of smoke and warm vapor into the night sky. Benny smiled, shifting in his thick, red ski jacket as he watched her with sparkling eyes.
“You’re hot blooded, aren’t you?” he said, trying to needle her into a response. “The type of girl who never gets cold, like maybe you grew up in Fargo, or an igloo?”
Freya allowed herself an amused laugh as she glanced down at her thin, inadequate sweatshirt. But still she said nothing.
In fact, the less she said the better—she’d made her way aboard the Stillson with a stolen passport, barely checked. But the exhaustive cover story she’d tediously memorized hardly mattered; nobody wanted to talk about academic papers or obscure oceanographic flora. Sure, small teams of Japanese and American graduate students wrestled over deck space and ship time as they netted fish, dissected specimens, gathered core samples, and deployed scientific instrumentation over the course of the working day. But the nights were the real attraction, bacchanalian parties in the recreation room winding down well into the early morning hours as the students stole away to explore one other in the darkened semi-privacy of their shared shipboard cabins.
The air of political tension made the expedition all the more exciting. Spy games weren’t unheard of, and the waters off Amami Oshima had earned a reputation as the kidnapping grounds of North Korean intelligence agencies. A disguised spy vessel was spotted and chased by four Japanese Coast Guard ships just a few years previous, sparking off a six-hour gunfight that ended when the North Koreans scuttled their own trawler.
The fifteen unlucky spies left clinging to the wreckage were deemed a security risk and abandoned to the unforgiving sea. Japan returned two years later to raise the trawler from the deep, finding her equipped with guns, rockets, a high-powered engine, and a hidden speedboat launch. Some of the Japanese grad students had visited the salvaged spy ship at the Coast Guard Museum of Yokohama, flashing the ubiquitous V-sign with their fingers as their photos were taken in front of the bullet-riddled hull.
Freya decided that if Benny ever stopped talking and tried to kiss her, she might just let him. It’s what her cover identity Cindi Phelps would do, wasn’t it? Cindi Phelps with an ‘i’ at the end of her first name. Cindi Phelps the marine biologist in training who once wanted to become a dolphin trainer. Cindi the grad student who was determined to make her way to sea like a real scientist—at least until Yasua Himura decided her passport was worth more than her life. The real Cindi had been chosen deliberately, her digital fingerprint exactingly traced through social media, cell phone records, and online correspondence, until she was firmly established as the candidate best suited for replacement. As an added bonus, the real Cindi somewhat resembled Freya, albeit six inches shorter, and with a distinctive toothy smile that Freya could not reproduce no matter how hard she tried.
Benny took two last careful puffs off the short cigar before carefully grinding out the red ember on the stern railing. She watched as he placed the cooling stub into a plastic bag with several others. It was all she could do to stop herself from scoffing at him, how he so carefully disposed of a single cigar butt after flying halfway across the world in a hydrocarbon-spewing jumbo airliner. Why not just toss it into the sea? What would it matter?
“You should come to Thailand with me,” said Benny, clearing his throat as he inched towards her, the length of railing between them abruptly shrinking. “Have you ever been?”
Freya shook her head, the tiniest smile appearing on her lips for a moment. She realized with surprise that it wasn’t Cindi’s—it was hers.
“It’s beautiful,” he said with a faraway sigh. “White beaches, water so clear it just disappears. Five-hundred-year-old Buddhist temple ruins everywhere. We can wake up in the morning and do yoga on the sand. Eat seafood caught right in the shoals. Dive the reefs as the sun peaks. Spend nights dancing in the clubs. I’ve already booked a beach hut—there’s nothing like falling asleep to the sounds of the surf.”
She could tell he almost ended the pitch with just the two of us, but the words died in his mouth before he spoke, almost as if uttering them into the cold would have robbed them of all meaning.
“I’ll think about it,” said Freya, speaking for the first time. Would Cindi have said yes?
“It’s not just me. A bunch of us are going,” added Benny quickly. “I mean, why travel all the way out here and not tack on a little fun at the end? You got somebody you need to go running home to?”
“I said I’ll think about it,” said Freya, giving him the barest twitch at the corners of her mouth as she retreated from the railing. Pleased with the response, Benny smiled so wide that his face looked as though it’d split in two.
Freya stepped through a hatch and into the interior of the Stillson, taking in the familiar stained, off-white steel interior and ’70s-era wood paneling, eyes adjusting to the too-bright fluorescents flickering above. Her cabin was just a few doors down, not much more than two bunks, and a tiny, shared bathroom. She unzipped the sweatshirt and took off her tank top, stripping down to a pair of tight athletic leggings and a sports bra. It was impossible to get enough protein on the ship, but her rigorous exercise routine still held great benefit, the discipline keeping her darker urges in check.
Her slight Japanese roommate was perpetually— desperately—seasick, spending more time guzzling Gatorade and Dramamine in the research ship’s tiny infirmary than sleeping in her own bunk. The privacy of the de facto solo room was a welcome bonus, her unanticipated isolation circumventing the need for any unnecessary skulking throughout the crowded ship.
Freya was only halfway through her thirty-minute pushup routine when she noticed the blinking light in her half-open duffel bag. The satellite phone had been easy to bring aboard. It hadn’t even required an explanation. Cindi was a rich girl, and rich girls got rich-girl toys. She felt a flutter of anxiety, consciously forcing herself to slow her heartbeat before she pulled the phone from the duffle, pressed it to her ear, and accepted the call.
“Are you there?” spoke Himura with his soft, commanding voice. His intonation was like a warm blanket around her shoulders, filling her with purpose and resolve.
Freya pressed the star button on the keypad, listening to the faint tone as it disappeared across the airwaves.
“Can you speak?”
Freya used the star button twice and waited in silence for his next words. Though she was alone in her cabin, she didn’t want to take the chance of a sudden interruption.
“Take control of the bridge. Once inside, you must be prepared to hold the location for a minimum of ten minutes. Return this call when it’s done.” Freya started to finger the star button in acknowledgement, but it was too late—Himura had already disconnected.
Ten minutes. A lot could happen in that time—not near enough time to lure and lock the bridge crew out. She’d need to fight.
Freya slipped off her lightweight athletic shoes, exchanging them for the heavy leather work boots buried in the bottom of her duffle. They weren’t as broken-in as she would have preferred, but the high ankles, thick rubber lugs, and steel toe inserts offered other advantages. She tucked her feet into both and laced them up, tying the final knots high like a combat boot.
No sense in giving a potential adversary more to grab onto than absolutely necessary—she’d keep the sports bra and yoga pants only, there wouldn’t be enough time to get cold. Freya secured her thick blonde dreadlocks with a rubber band and then ransacked her roommate’s luggage with the other. The young Japanese woman was exceptionally well prepared for the expedition. She’d brought at least three times as much stuff as she’d ever conceivably use. Freya tore open the clear toiletries bag first, locating a pair of delicate grooming scissors she used to cut through a handful of her longest dreadlocks. She removed the oversized first aid kit next, binding her knuckles and wrists with thick white athletic tape. Last was the lotion—she would have preferred Vaseline or even coconut oil, but her roommate’s thick, long-lasting skin cream would work almost as well. Connecting the satellite phone to a wireless earpiece, Freya secured the bulky handset in the rear of her waistband.
Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus. Count to ten.
Freya scowled as she walked past the passenger lounge. Inside, a dozen graduate students exchanged a bottle of cheap rice wine, laughing as they watched an old American horror movie. A ghostly hand emerged from a mirror, reaching towards an unsuspecting woman as she slipped out of her clothes—the students shrieked and pointed, giggling as they clutched each other on the sagging couches.
Benny was in the center of the smallest couch, flanked by four of his friends from the same department. They stopped talking when they spotted her, smacking and hissing at each other until even the slowest among them stopped to stare openly in her direction. He’d no doubt told them about Thailand, how he was on the verge of bagging the ice queen, the cold bitch—she knew all the names they called her.
I’d let her kick my ass any day of the week, whispered one. Benny halfheartedly tried to shush him while still soaking in every moment of the self-congratulatory frat-boy camaraderie.
Freya eyed the knives from across the recreation room, barely visible behind the counter as they clung to the magnetic strip in the galley. She wanted to take one, but there were too many eyes watching her. It wasn’t just Benny and his boys, it was the girls now, too, their gazes dripping over her tight black yoga pants and sports bra, the sheen of lotion over her defined abdominals and muscled arms. Like she was some kind of freak for turning her body into what it was designed for. What did Himura call her? Yes—his perfect instrument, a form with unmistakable function.
She walked to the teakettle on a nearby table, suspiciously glancing over her shoulder. The grad students were distracted by the movie again, the horror heroine having changed into highly impractical lingerie as she investigated a haunted mansion by candlelight.
Grabbing a knife was still too obvious, leaving Freya to quietly fill the top of the now-boiling kettle with leftover olive oil from dinner. She waited until it was scalding before carefully filling a thick mug and pouring the rest down the drain just before it started to smoke.
Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. Count to ten.
Freya left with cup in hand, breathing slowly in and out as she ascended the main stairs towards the bridge. The pushups had driven fresh, hot blood to her arms and hands. She shook out her shoulders and ankles to keep her muscles warm and fluid.
The bridge ran nearly the width of the thirty-four foot beam, large windows reaching from waist-level consoles and chart tables to the low ceiling above. With the sole exception of a single flat-screen, the bulk of the instruments dated to the mid-’70s. Freya felt she was stepping back in time. The short, barrel-chested American captain stood before the helm, hand resting gently on the simple steering lever, throttle set to a leisurely eight-knot cruising speed. He touched the lever out of habit alone. Freya knew the autopilot took the bulk of the helmsman’s duties, the computer gently adjusting the Stillson’s seaborne course as she plied the rolling swells.
Two officers flanked the captain. Freya noted with satisfaction that the larger of the two was the coverall-clad chief engineer, a tall, lanky man with thinning hair and crumpled earplugs slung around his neck, his permanently oil-stained fingers tapping absentmindedly on the nearby chart table. Good—dealing with him on the bridge would significantly lessen the chances that the remaining crew could contest her control of the ship from the engine compartment. The only other man on deck was the ship’s Japanese first officer, a quiet, jowly man who only rarely lifted his heavy eyes from other people’s shoes.
The view from the large windows was impressive, made all the more so by the dim interior lighting. A crescent moon rippled like silver over the rolling ocean as the research vessel rose and fell through the waves, cresting each one in turn with a sudden gush of white spray over the distant bow.
“Whud’ya need?” grunted the captain, barely nodding in her direction as he kept his eyes towards the distant moonlit horizon.
Freya just closed her eyes. Focus. She visualized the moments to come in her mind—the first blow, the second, the look in their eyes when they realized something had gone very wrong. Her hand trembled for a moment, the scalding oil rippling as beads of sweat collected between her fingertips and the surface of the searing ceramic mug. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus.
“Seriously?” said the captain, scratching his white beard in irritation at her lack of response. He swiveled to address her face-on. If Freya had been a normal passenger, she would have felt a flood of anxious energy wash over her as he prepared to dress her down. But she wasn’t a normal passenger.
Three seconds. Focus.
“This area is not for students. I’m going to need to talk to Harold about this—” began the captain.
He never finished.
Freya hurled the entire mug of olive oil into his face, soaking him with the near-boiling liquid. A scream erupted from his lips in a pitch too high for a man as his fingernails already dug into the red, sloughing skin around his eyes. Freya turned, took aim, and flung the empty mug directly into the tall engineer’s face, hearing his nose crack as the cup bounced off his face and hit the ceiling before shattering to pieces on the linoleum floor.
Yes—this approach was better. A knife was obvious, recognizable, reactionary. The oil gained her a minimum two-second advantage, maybe even double that. Even so, she would have preferred a blade, something to brandish, a last-ditch backup if nothing else. The Japanese first officer rushed her with unexpected speed, grabbing at her arm. His grip slid right off her slick skin, giving Freya the split-second opportunity to bury her fist into the side of his jaw. He dropped hard, sliding across the floor before slamming headfirst into a map cabinet. The captain was screaming louder now, shaking uncontrollably as he held his blistering, ruined face. She turned just in time to see the engineer drag himself off the floor which gave her time to plant one, two, three steel-toed kicks to the side of his head. Freya cocked a fourth kick with her boot, silently daring him to move.
Without warning, pain erupted across her back like she’d been smacked with a baseball bat, her shoulder blade and right arm instantly numb from the tooth-rattling impact. She whipped around to see the Japanese first officer—he didn’t stay down, goddamn it—brandishing an oversize Maglite like a club. His mistake.
“You should have crushed my skull when you had the chance,” she said as she grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet as he struggled in her grip, flailing ineffectually with his flashlight. She hurled him against the wall. Off-balance, his already-broken jaw dangerously exposed, she jammed one vicious elbow after another into his face. The heavy light tumbled from his grasp and rolled across the rocking bridge deck as he slumped to the floor for the final time, bleeding and unconscious.
Freya cracked her neck and massaged the back of her injured shoulder, trying to will feeling back into her still-tingling right arm. The blow to the scapula had hurt, goddamn it, more than she cared to admit. Her mistake: underestimating the short, lethargic first mate.
Focus. Breathe in. breathe out. Release the pain.
The door behind her creaked opened. Freya twisted around, hands already up, fists balled and ready to strike. The captain had slipped into shock behind her, silence falling over the bridge deck once more.
“Cindi…?” sputtered Benny, his voice barely above a whisper as he stared at her in abject horror. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window; face blood-flecked and snarled, teeth gritted, glistening skin rippling as she breathed hard and fast. Freya took a running start towards Benny before he could utter another word. She leapt forward and slammed him in the chest with both booted feet. Benny flew backwards, losing an unlaced shoe as he tumbled through the air, his thick red ski jacket a blur in an uncontrolled free fall. He was halfway down the stairs before he landed, outstretched wrist catching the edge of a step as he snapped down like a cracked whip, collarbone taking the brunt of the impact. Screams erupted from the lounge below as Freya closed her eyes and latched the door with quivering, adrenaline-fueled fingers.
Steadying herself, Freya activated the earpiece and dialed Himura’s number. The phone clicked and beeped, slowly making the connection as she locked and barricaded the remaining doors. She inadvertently jumped a little as the bridge’s still-charging hand radios erupted with static and frantic voices begging for help, begging for information. The doorknob to the interior door abruptly moved. Fortunately, the lock held as the rattling increased and the voices took on a desperate, violent pitch.
The call went through. She didn’t need to hear his voice to feel him on the other end. His calm, gentle presence pulling the jittery energy from her body, centering her, focusing her, and preparing her for what was to come.
“Is it done?” His soothing voice was barely audible over the distant connection.
“Yeah,” she confirmed between heaving gasps. “I have control of the bridge.”
“How long can you maintain your position?”
“A few minutes at least,” she answered. “Probably the full ten, maybe longer. Depends on how much of a fight they’re willing to put up. So far, it’s been manageable. One of them landed a decent hit, but nothing feels broken.”
The grad students and crew had already begun to organize themselves, and the pounding against the thin interior door grew louder with each passing second. Others climbed the cold exterior stairs and gathered on the exposed bridge platform, cupping their hands to look through the glass windows, their eyes darting between Freya and the three unconscious bodies on the floor around her. The braver among them began to smack against the glass like she was a zoo animal, shouting at her, trying to get her attention.
Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten. Hold the bridge.
The carnage around her—slick, still-hot olive oil on the linoleum floor, bloody handprints on the wall, three barely-breathing men lying at the feet of her steel-toed boots—was distracting.
Freya closed her eyes, centering herself. After all, she knew the East China Sea was always intertwined with death. North Korean ghost ships had drifted through these waters for decades, their crews driven to madness and suicide as their disabled vessels drifted aimlessly atop endless ocean. So too had the divine winds of kamikaze swept these waves, first as the twin typhoons faced by Mongolian invaders, and, seven centuries later, as 4,000 young men plunging headlong from the sky towards Allied warships. Now it was the specter of unrestrained industry—the horsemen of the apocalypse opening their seals to pour forth plastics, poisons, hydrocarbons, fertilizer, and radiation into the sea.
“Set course to north-by-northwest,” ordered Himura. “Full possible speed. You will see a radar contact. Steer towards that contact.”
Freya nodded, knowing full well Himura couldn’t see her acknowledgement. “What am I intercepting?”
“A North Korean patrol vessel,” he answered. “They believe they are hunting a Japanese spy ship. They will board the George Stillson and summarily execute her crew and passengers before scuttling the ship. I trust you can make your escape, perhaps in one of the small outboard crafts?”
She froze. “How?” was all she could manage as she opened the navigation software, preparing to enter the new course. “How could you possibly have arranged this?”
“Meisekimu has become exceedingly proficient at utilizing their military codes—and she’s enjoyed learning to imitate the voices of their naval commanders as well.”
Freya swallowed hard, closing her eyes as she prepared to ask the real question. The only question that mattered. “But why?”
“It’s a pretext for an inevitability,” said Himura impatiently. “Have you set the new course?”
“No,” said Freya, louder this time as she shook her head. “That’s not what I meant—why? Why any of this? These people—they’re like us, they’re on our side.”
“Then give them their martyrdom, as you are willing to take yours, and I, mine.”
“But I know what I signed up for—and I know they don’t want to be fucking martyrs.”
“Please set the course.”
Freya swallowed again. The pounding on the windows and doors was loud now, impossibly loud. She wanted to scream at them, tell them to shut the fuck up, let her think. Didn’t they know what was at stake? Himura’s orders were simple, so terribly simple—enter the new course, lock out the computers, disable the steering mechanisms, and escape. There’d be plenty of opportunity to slip away before the shooting started, leaving behind baffled passengers and crew who’d be glad to rid themselves of her, unaware of their fate. But try as she might, she couldn’t do it. Her finger froze as it hovered over the keyboard.
“Please do this, Freya,” pleaded Himura. The tone was new, even softer than his gentle persuasion—he was all but begging her. “Do it, or I will put a second, bloodier plan into motion. A plan that will take many more lives. I do not wish to take so much unnecessary life—but I will if I must.”
Crack! A fire extinguisher smashed against the glass windows, the sharp impact echoing throughout the darkened bridge. The grad students and remaining crew were furious now, mob-like, some having armed themselves with broomsticks and chair legs, which they beat across the windows like hail. Two of the crewmen wielded a massive extinguisher tank from the engine room, drawing it back like a battering ram as they prepared to slam it against the window once more. Others had begun to beat against the opposite side of the bridge with hammers and wrenches, cracks already beginning to spread throughout the thick, typhoon-proof glass.
Freya punched the new numbers into the computer, preparing to confirm Himura’s course. She could see the North Korean ship now, just a tiny green blip lurking at the far reaches of the radar screen. Her finger hovered over the enter key, preparing to punch it, end the standoff. But . . . she didn’t. She couldn’t.
The red fire extinguisher slammed against the window a fourth, a fifth time, the clear pane already a ruin of chipped and breaking glass. They were all pounding on the windows now, smashing and scratching with table legs, knives, hammers, wrenches, and their bare hands, all made anonymous in their violence. Freya’s half-numbed knuckles throbbed underneath the bloodstained athletic tape, muscles clenching and unclenching as she prepared to defend herself against the seething mob.
Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten. Get ready to fight.
Whack! The extinguisher burst through the window, its momentum tearing it from their hands as it bounced end over end and rolled across the tilting deck. Like falling stars the scattershot of diamond-shaped glass fragments danced across the linoleum floor. Freya rushed the broken window, hurling heavy books and operations manuals at her attackers. But they were ready for her, five of them falling over themselves as they spilled over the sill and into the bridge interior. She launched herself into their midst, punching and kicking and scratching—but there were too many. Two of them caught her wrists, shoving her backwards as another swung at her ribs with a broomstick, landing a stinging blow. Yelping in pain, Freya kicked with her steel-toed boots and rolled away, leaping back up with fists cocked, back against the wall.
More shattering glass cascaded across the floor from the other side of the bridge. Two students leapt through the window with knives and wrenches in hand. Distracted for an instant, she was once again enveloped by the mob-like mass of attackers, then thrown facedown onto the floor. Four wriggling bodies pounced on her, pinning her to the floor. Before she could move, someone threw a blanket over her face from behind, yanking back so hard she thought her neck would snap. A table leg connected just above her left ear an instant later, the blinding concussion nearly knocking her senseless. All she could do was groan and struggle to free her wrists, seeking something—anything—to grab, someone to hurt. But, there was only the slick, oil-soaked floor.
Then, motion. She was jerked to her feet. The thick, scratchy blanket pinned her throbbing head. She couldn’t breathe. Her elbows bent upwards behind her back by an impossible number of grasping hands. The screaming in her ears was muffled now, far away, like it was happening to someone else in the far reaches of a long hallway. Burning, flashing lights swam across her black vision as she violently convulsed, vomiting into the smothering blanket over her eyes and mouth. She coughed, gasping, sucking the acidic mess out of the fibers and into her lungs.
And then pain—sharp, digging pain pulled her from the stupor as her bare stomach was dragged across the broken glass rim of the windowsill. Freezing wind ripped the last of the warmth from her sweat-soaked skin as she was held headfirst over the rusting railing of the bridge deck.
Focus . . . breathe . . . but I can’t.
Somehow she sensed the emptiness below.
The pressure from her wrists and elbows released abruptly as she pitched violently forward. She felt only the briefest, sickening sensation of weightlessness, blanket falling from her face as she plunged headlong into the dark, frigid ocean.