Page 114 of Backtrack

He and Lola had studied diagrams of the ship’s layout online, but they hadn’t had time to get an actual tour from Ajit—making him break one of Grumpy’s primary rules.

A wide corridor ran down the center line of the ship almost the entire length of Deck 4. This served as the main highway for the crew to rapidly get themselves and tons of ship’s stores from one end of the vessel to the other without setting foot in the passenger area. This was I-95.

Crew cafeteria, crew kitchen, bake shop, and ship’s butcher were forward, along with cold and ambient storage lockers holding the tons of stores loaded on the ship at the beginning of each cruise. Offices, training rooms, some crew cabins, and the crew bar were all aft.

Cutter had learned years before that if he walked with purpose, he was rarely confronted. Of course his imposing height and resting mean mug might have had something to do with it. He put his hand on the metal hatch that would take them out onto the I-95 corridor.

“¿Listo?”

Lola perked up the moment the doors swung open.

“I’d recognize that voice anywhere,” she whispered. “It’s Abraham Malosi.”

Lola went in first, bladed at a slight angle, hand on the butt ofher Glock. Accustomed to going through doors with Cutter, she took three large steps inside, giving him plenty of room to follow unimpeded.

Crew members from all around the world made their way up and down the hallway, alone or in groups of two or three. Not nearly as crowded as the passageways on the upper decks, it was far busier than Cutter had hoped it would be.

Two men in blue coveralls and crew badges that identified them as assistant engineers glanced up. One of them smiled at Lola, then narrowed his eyes when he saw she was a passenger. She raised the tail of her jacket, exposing her silver star and Glock pistol. The assistant engineers hustled away without so much as a word. Whatever part of the world these men were from, encounters with law enforcement were not likely pleasant. Bright fluorescent lighting gleamed off the polished gray floor. Some of the crew wore the uniforms of their respective departments; some wore sweats and T-shirts between shifts. Many, if not most, hailed from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, or African countries, where a life of months at sea paid astronomically better than any land-based job. Women in housekeeping uniforms chatted among themselves as they pushed carts piled high with sheets. A young Indonesian man in black slacks and a white shirt pretended to run down a laughing group of his friends with a cart full of rattling glasses and dinnerware. Another tired-looking man a foot shorter than Lola trudged past, leaning like Sisyphus into a heavy canvas cart heaped to overflowing with blue pool towels.

“There!” Lola said. She pointed to the hulking Samoan security man fifty feet ahead, talking to someone they couldn’t see in an alcove off the main corridor.

Cutter gave a curt nod. “Let’s get a little closer—”

Pool Towel Sisyphus chose that moment to issue a barking challenge. He was polite but firm.

“Very sorry! Passengers not allowed here. Is not safe!”

Security officers are particularly attuned to such commotions. Malosi, carrying the guilt of a conspirator and fearful of being found out, was already jumpy. His head snapped around at the noise. His eyes flashed to Cutter.

Lola called out, turning up her Kiwi accent in an attempt to tone down the perceived threat, “Hold up a sec, brah!” It didn’t work. Malosi had been in the security office during Ajit’s tour. He knew who the deputy marshals were and why they were on the ship.

Six-five and topping three hundred pounds, the big man spun with the speed and grace of a gazelle, leaving only a blur of white shirt and dark slacks, and he fled up I-95 toward the front of the ship.

Cutter threw stealth and surprise to the wind.

“Police!” he barked. Few members of the multinational crew were likely to know what a US Marshal was, but they understoodpolice.

Lola called again, “Malosi! Stop!”

“Keep an eye on the right,” Cutter said as they approached the alcove where the security man was standing when they first saw him.

“Got it,” Lola said.

Neither had drawn their sidearm. Running with a gun in hand was a recipe for disaster. It wasn’t so much that they worried about accidental discharges—neither let their finger camp out on the trigger when they weren’t planning to shoot—but a trip or stumble could easily separate them from their weapon when they needed it the most.

They slowed a hair as they reached the alcove. As Cutter expected, it was a dead end. Instead of Leo Bouchard, a tall woman with a blond ponytail and the epaulettes of a junior officer on her white uniform blouse stepped in front of them, blocking their path.

“Passengers are not allow—”

Cutter’s first reaction was to flat hand the woman in the face, but he stopped himself at the last second, cursing under his breath as he juked around her, losing precious time.

Lola slowed enough to lift the tail of her jacket and flash her badge—and the Glock beside it. “Police,” she said. “Call Ajit on the radio and tell him the marshals need help!”

“That’s not—”

“Do it!” Lola said over her shoulder, digging in to pick up speed.

The brief encounter allowed Malosi to add another three pacesto his already twenty-yard lead. But I-95 was not quite a thousand feet long—the interior length ofThe Polar Star. He was about to run out of highway.