Prologue

The facts:
Tragedy struck the brigantine Mary Celeste on the morning of November 25, 1872. The hourly log was later recovered from the deserted vessel. At 8 a.m. the last notation was made. By 9 a.m. no one remained aboard to chalk the next entry.
Something had terrified Captain Benjamin Briggs and his crew, prompting the seasoned skipper to make a decision certain to affect not only himself, his ship and crew, but his family as well—his wife and two-year-old daughter were aboard Mary Celeste. Much ink has been spilled in fanciful and scientific attempts to explain the calamity that engulfed this perfectly seaworthy ship, yet all that is known for certain is this: in a matter of minutes, Captain Briggs became convinced that the only way to save their lives was to order everyone into a hastily launched lifeboat. By giving the order to abandon ship, he also launched the greatest of all maritime mysteries.

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On December 5, 1872, a month after leaving New York Harbor, Mary Celeste was found drifting on a calm and empty sea. The ship was in fine condition, perfectly intact with valuable cargo safely stored in her hold, but the crew and passengers had vanished. None were ever seen again.
Until now . . .

Chapter One

The Present

Saturday: 11:30 p.m.

Lights and sirens approaching from behind caught Anderson Owens’s attention. He’d been deep in thought and cruising to WCRX, where he hosted a syndicated radio program airing at midnight. When the lights and sirens of several squad cars and unmarked vehicles sped past, he sighed with relief; he’d been going well over the speed limit, and his unpaid tickets were accumulating. His thoughts had returned to his diabetic mother and her struggle to raise his late sister’s headstrong daughter. A breeze was blowing the salty scent of the Gulf in his direction, and an April shower had appeared from nowhere just as a front tire blew.

Owens had driven this road hundreds of times in his best friend’s borrowed Land Cruiser, and no amount of distraction, not even rain or an occasional blown tire, had compromised his driving, but today was different. It seemed the Land Cruiser suddenly had a mind of its own, refusing to respond to his pressure on the brakes. The vehicle slid off the wet coastal highway and plowed through a gravel embankment. Sarasota was mostly at sea level, but this section of the highway was elevated. Owens struggled for control, relying on rabbit-quick reflexes to steer around rocks and pine trees as he descended through underbrush, a bone-jarring ride to a drop-off where jagged rocks rose from the sea.

A branch tore away the wiper on the driver’s side, making it difficult to see through the rain. When he burst into a clearing fifty yards from the sea, the headlights blinked off. The gloom made him question what he saw—the blurry image of a female in a white uniform. She sat on a boulder, her arms crossed over a satchel on her lap. The woman made no effort to move out of the way as the Land Cruiser raced toward her.

Adrenaline shot through Owens as his foot pounded the brake pedal in vain. It wasn’t cold, but he was shivering, not that he noticed. He was trained to ignore such distractions and focused on controlling the vehicle, made difficult by the blown tire and steep descent. If he turned the wheel to the right or left, he’d shoot out into empty space and plunge down to the sea. His only hope was surviving a collision with the boulder. Surely the woman would jump out of the way.

She didn’t.

Instead, she lifted a hand in his direction, a motion resembling a benediction. The Land Cruiser’s engine suddenly died. Rather than stopping, the vehicle rattled and shook, and he felt himself held in place by the seatbelt, which most of the time he failed to engage. Momentum continued to propel him in her direction.

He steeled himself for the collision and was surprised when the vehicle abruptly lost speed and rattled to a halt a few feet from the boulder. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until a hot burst of air exploded from his lungs, his ragged breath now accompanying the plink-plink of the Land Cruiser’s cooling engine. He jumped out into the rain and pulled tangled dreadlocks from his eyes. “You scared the bejesus out of me. You okay?”

She didn’t respond.

The Land Cruiser’s lights were out, but the moon emerged from behind rain clouds and he could read the plastic tag above her right breast. Printed in black letters over the image of a cruise ship was a name: Sophia. “I could have killed you, Sophia. Why didn’t you try to get out of the way?”

Without answering, she stood, set the satchel on the boulder and smoothed the white pants of her uniform. A gold locket dangling from a chain around her neck glinted in the moonlight.

“What are you doing out here all by yourself in the middle of the night?” he asked, wiping rain from his eyes with a wet shirtsleeve. It seemed like an eternity before she whispered. “I was waiting for you.”

He felt rather than heard the words; her lips didn’t seem to move.
“I knew you’d come.” She reached out and fondled his wet dreads before brushing them from his face.

Her fingers felt cool on his skin. “How could you possibly know that?” he asked.

She offered no explanation.

Before he could launch another question, she reached out and circled him with her arms. Her eyes closed and she slumped against him. “Time is running out, but I need sleep. I...”

She’d passed out.

Owens lifted her chin and studied her slack face. She radiated wholesomeness, hardly his type, so he was startled when he noticed his chest constricting and his scalp tingling, particularly where she’d touched him. At first, he’d believed her to be middle aged, probably because her hair was pulled into an old-fashioned bun, but up close he could see she was in her early twenties, twenty-five tops. She was slender with curves in all the right places, her hair was chestnut-colored, and she had the smooth skin of a porcelain angel. What wasn’t angelic was the bitter smell on her breath. He suspected drug use, although she didn’t look the type. She’d probably sleep a long time.

He carried her to the back of the Land Cruiser, transferring her weight to one arm to free a hand so he could open the back door, noticing she felt lighter than he would have imagined, not much heavier than a child. Her satchel was retrieved from the boulder and used as a pillow. A quick examination didn’t reveal any obvious injuries, and the hospital was in the opposite direction. He made her as comfortable as possible in the back of the Land Cruiser.

He glanced at his watch; it, too, had stopped. The last time he’d checked he had thirty minutes until his show started, after which his listeners would be tuning in to dead airtime. His senses had quickened during the raucous ride to this spot, but now time seemed to have paused, the clouds overhead parting to reveal strips of celestial infinity in the firmament above.

He needed to get the Land Cruiser running and back on the road. After replacing the blown tire with the spare, he checked the muddy undercarriage; no broken driveshaft or blown seal. Everything looked fine. Popping the hood, he observed that the brake fluid reservoir remained full.

The fuel gauge also registered full. Nevertheless, he pulled the gas can from under the jump seat and tried to funnel fuel into a tank too full to hold more. Back behind the wheel, he once again turned the ignition key. This time the lights blinked on and the engine started right away, rumbling to life with a snappy vroom. Fortunately, the rain had departed as swiftly as it had appeared so driving without a windshield wiper would be a minor inconvenience.

His dreads were wet, and icy water was dripping down his neck. Owens stepped out and shook away the rain before engaging the Land Cruiser’s winch, looping the chain around the trunk of a tree and pulling the vehicle up to the road. He stowed the gas can back under the jump seat. This took time, certainly more than thirty minutes. His cellphone wasn’t picking up service, but Vicki, his producer, was smart enough to air a prerecorded episode of his show. His arm brushed against the sleeping girl. Before, he’d been too preoccupied to notice, but he did so now—she was bone dry.

◊
Gravel sprayed the air as he raced into the parking lot of WCRX Talk Radio.

He thrived on tales of the bizarre and supernatural, as did his listeners; The Anderson Owens Show was picked up by more than forty affiliates. He usually rolled up to the station around 11:30, giving him time to settle in and read his emails.

Tonight, he was in a rush, but concern for the girl made him hesitate before dashing inside. He checked again, tapping her cheek lightly with his hand. She didn’t respond. She’ll wake up and wander off to the bus stop down the road, he told himself. But what if she doesn’t have any money? He reached for his wallet and plucked out two twenties, stashing them in the breast pocket of her uniform. He checked his watch—now running again—but the time displayed was wrong; it suggested only a few minutes had passed. He’d reset it later, he thought, dashing inside.

He burst into the studio. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Vicki.

“Late?” Vicki glanced at the clock on the wall, showing twenty minutes to twelve. “You’ve cut it closer than this before. What happened to you? What’s with all the mud?”

“Car trouble.”

“Didn’t know it was raining. You’re on in twenty.”

He couldn’t explain how—he should have been late—but now there was no need to hurry. He went to the restroom to clean up. Not much could be done about his dirty clothes, but this was radio, not television. He washed mud from his face and hands while thinking about the girl sleeping in the back of the Land Cruiser. What had she said: She’d been waiting for me, knew I’d come? And what about Time is running out?

For who? For what? Crazy drug talk.

In the sound booth, he adjusted his headphones and tapped his Nikes on the rubber mat. This was the part of his day he enjoyed most, connecting with his fan family. Vicki pointed at the On-The-Air light.

“Anderson Owens here. Welcome to WCRX Live Talk Radio’s Anderson Owens Show. For the next three hours we’ll discuss anything and everything, but our Holy Trinity consists of extraterrestrial events, supernatural occurrences and conspiracy theories. We’re broadcasting to you on more than forty affiliates across the United States. Tonight, we’re discussing Artificial Intelligence—pathway to a brighter future or a surrender to godless overlords?”

An hour later during a prerecorded commercial he dashed to the parking lot with a blanket from the hurricane cupboard near the lobby. The girl was where he’d left her in the back of the Land Cruiser. She didn’t awaken when he opened the back door and covered her with the blanket before returning to his microphone.

By 2:50 a.m. he and Vicki were winding down for the night.

“Time for one last caller. We have Damian, one of our frequent flyers, calling from right here in Sarasota, Florida. What’s on your mind, Damian?”

“Thanks for taking my call, Anderson. Say, something’s going down here. Do you know why the CIA is hunting for a woman who disappeared from a cruise ship after it docked in Tampa yesterday?”

He thought about the unconscious girl in the parking lot. Minutes before the blowout, he’d seen police lights in the rearview mirror. He’d been concerned, but they’d sped past without pulling him over.

“Don’t know anything about it. Tell me more.”

“My cousin’s a cop here. He just told me the police have put out an APB on a young girl in a white cruise ship uniform. He tells me they work with feds all the time, but here’s the interesting part—always the FBI, never the CIA. The area is swarming with CIA agents. The cops have been ordered to hand her over to them if they find her.”

Vicki cued in their theme music. He wrapped up the call and signed off for the night.

The woman was where he’d left her, still dead to the world. He pulled out his cell phone but paused. Was his curiosity enough to warrant a call? He decided in the affirmative and punched in a code known to only a handful of people. After two short beeps followed by a long one, he pressed a few numbers.

A computer-generated voice responded. “Authorization, please.”

“Sotto Voce #Z902R0R8O. This is Nike. Anything unusual happening in Sarasota that I should know about?”

Another voice came on the line. “Good evening, Nike.”

Much better. This voice—very real and sexy. “Yes, CIA operatives are hunting for a woman employed aboard Island Empress, docked in Tampa at 1500 hours yesterday. The target is known to have boarded a bus for Sarasota and is in the vicinity.”

“Why do they want her?”

“Unknown currently.”

“Can you keep me updated?”
“Yes.” The usual economy of words.

“Thanks.”

Owens hung up. His radio gig served as cover for another job—intelligence-gathering operative for an organization known by only a precious few. His callers usually stretched the truth but often provided useful information. This last caller was evidently on to something; here was a female in a cruise ship uniform, and the closest cruise port was Tampa, forty-three miles from Sarasota. She must be the target the CIA was zeroing in on. But why did they want her?

The hairs tingling on the back of his neck were working like a GPS, revealing an on-ramp to mystery.