Ghost Ship

“No. I’m afraid I’ve been given a second chance, and I don’t want to wreck it — not yet anyway.”

He tried to argue, but instead, she kissed him again.

She stood up. “Get dressed. I’ll take some blood from you and get it checked out at the hospital right away. Then, on my way back, I’ll try and pick up your suitcase.”

“Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, they were both dressed. She put a tourniquet on his left arm, found a vein, inserted a needle, and withdrew a blood sample into a vacu-container.

She glanced at his arms. There was a small red dot in the inside crease of his elbow. She frowned.

Sam asked, “What?”

“It looks like you’ve recently had a blood test in this arm.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, see… right here. Someone’s performed venipuncture, either to take a sample of blood, or put something in.”

Sam said, “Like a drug addict, injecting something?”

“Exactly.”

“So you think I might have become a drug addict?”

“No, I doubt it. Like I said before, you don’t have that sort of personality.”

“So then why do I have track marks?”

“Track marks refer to a line of injection sites, commonly found on intravenous drug user’s arms, where they have injected continuously. This is just one injection site.”

“All right. So what does it mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you just injected once? Or maybe you had an operation and someone gave you antibiotics afterward? I don’t know. We’ll find out as soon as I get this sample to the lab.”

She sealed the blood sample in a snap-lock pathology collection bag, with the ring contained within three rings, the international symbol for a biohazard.

“I’ll take this to the pathology labs at the hospital,” she said. “I’ll do the test myself. It won’t take long. I should be back in a couple hours. I’ll try my best to have some answers for you. If Via Visconti is empty, I’ll retrieve that suitcase for you, too.”

Sam stopped her from leaving. “Catarina…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For everything. I mean it. You’ve been a life saver.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Catarina stepped up to meet him, wrapped her arms around his neck. Her lips parted, and she kissed his mouth. It was a slow caress, tender, yet passionate. She was painfully sexy. In her own Italian way, she made the simple act of kissing seem to have all the passion and pleasure of making love.

A moment later, she pulled back, opened the door — and disappeared from sight.

Chapter Seventeen

Tom Bower kept his eyes fixed on the graphical display screen in front of him.

It utilized the same heads-up display technology used by pilots on fighter jets, only in this case, it was projecting a live feed from high definition video cameras mounted at the front of the ghost ship. His right hand gripped a joystick. He was concentrating hard, making tiny adjustments, threading the ship through a small flotilla of sailing yachts at their anchorage.

He’d broken past the coast guard search and rescue vessel, but two jet skis had given chase. He was in the process of dragging them through the rougher waters near the coastline in an attempt to force them to slow down or get knocked off.

Tom glanced at the GPS display map. They were heading south along the Italian coast, moving at nearly fifty knots, swerving in and out of an array of jagged coastal rocks.

He made a quick shift with his hand, darted between a narrow tidal constriction, between a series of thirty-foot-high sea stacks and the point at the edge of the Riomaggiore harbor.

His bow wave ripped against the rocks, sending a tidal-wave-like response as it ebbed. The two jet skis responded badly. One tried to ride the wave, but pulled back too hard, and ended landing on his back in the water, while the other one attempted to make a sudden ninety degree turn, abandon the chase, and backtrack around the sea stacks.

Tom came out the opposite side and into the open sea.

He increased the throttle to full. Released from its earthly restraints, the ghost ship picked up speed, racing ahead at nearly seventy-five knots.

Tom glanced at the rear-view camera display.

One down and one lagging too far behind to catch him now that he was in the open water.

Then he swore, because the police rescue helicopter had joined the pursuit.

He kept the ghost ship on a southerly route.

Using his left hand, he expanded the GPS display using a reverse pinch grip, until the map showed the next fifty miles of coastal regions.

His eyes scanned the area, searching for somewhere to take refuge from the now permanent set of eyes, tracking them like a bird of prey, on board the police helicopter.

He considered the French Island of Corsica. An Italian police helicopter chasing an unidentified boat might at the very least prove a diplomatic problem for them, but was unlikely to last long enough to aid him at all. Besides, the island was roughly fifty miles away, across open ocean. It would be too easy for the pilot to notify the French coast guard and possibly get their assistance.

No, he needed somewhere closer.