“Well, from the looks of it, that pile of junk won’t be moving anywhere soon.” He shook his head. “What happened to it?”
“Austin here was using the vehicle for cover, and the gunmen shot it out from under him,” Zavala said.
Randolph glanced at Austin, then gave Zavala a hard stare. Seeing nothing in either man’s face that suggested Zavala was joking, the detective-superintendent ordered his team to cordon off the crime scene with yellow police tape.
He turned to the captain.
“I’d be very pleased if you could tell me what happened on your ship last night.”
“Glad to,” Gannon said. “Around three in the morning, four armed men boarded the ship from a small boat and rousted me out of my bunk.” He plucked the front of his ratty-looking pajamas. “As you can see, I wasn’t expecting company. They were looking for Dr. Max Kane, a scientist who had been involved with the bathysphere project.”
“Did they say why they wanted Dr. Kane?”
Gannon shrugged.
“Their leader was a creepy guy with a shaved head. When I told him that Kane had left the ship, he rounded up my crew and threatened to kill them. He would have followed up on his threat if Kurt and Joe hadn’t intervened.”
Randolph turned back to Austin and Zavala.
“So you’re the ones responsible for this mess?”
“We didn’t have a lot of choice at the time,” Austin said.
?
?Do all NUMA research vessels carry armed security men?”
“Joe and I weren’t armed at first. We borrowed weapons from the gunmen. And we’re not security men, we’re NUMA engineers running the Bathysphere 3 project.”
Austin might just as well have said he was from France, like the Coneheads in the old Saturday Night Live skit.
Randolph’s eyes swept the scene, taking in the bodies, the weapons next to them, and the wrecked ROV. He was chewing his lower lip, and it was obvious that he was having a difficult time reconciling the blood-soaked deck with Austin’s explanation.
“Engineers,” Randolph repeated in a flat voice. Clearing his throat, he then said, “What kind of engineers?”
“I specialize in deep-sea diving and salvage,” Austin said. “Joe designs and pilots submersibles. He built the bathysphere.”
“And it was you two engineers who, against overwhelming odds, routed an armed band, using their own weapons to kill two of them in the process?”
“Three,” Austin corrected. “There’s another body on the bridge.”
“We were lucky,” Zavala pitched in, as if it explained everything.
“What happened to the fourth man, with the shaved head?” Randolph asked.
“He was lucky,” Austin said. “He got away.”
Randolph held a degree in police studies and was a veteran policeman, but even an untrained observer would have sensed something different about these two NUMA engineers. Relaxed and genial as he appeared to be, the broad-shouldered Austin had a commanding presence that went beyond his strikingly coral-blue gaze, thick gray mane of hair, and chiseled profile. And the handsome Zavala looked as if he just stepped out of some swashbuckling Hollywood epic.
“Is there any chance the men were pirates?” Randolph asked. “Bermuda does a big cruise-ship business, and rumors of piracy could be very damaging.”
“Piracy is possible but not probable,” Austin replied. “This isn’t Somalia, and these guys weren’t interested in the scientific equipment that pirates normally go after when they hit a research vessel. They knew Dr. Kane had been aboard and they were looking for him.”
“Thank goodness! I’ll put this down as an isolated attack, then.”
“Has the Coast Guard come up with any leads?” Austin asked.
“They surveyed the area around the ship, and will continue to keep an eye out. I suspect that the boat carrying the men who attacked your ship is long gone. I’d like full statements from you gentlemen and every crew member on board. Any way I can reach Dr. Kane?”