Noble Sanction

by William Miller

  He walked across the tops of the containers. His boots made hollow clonks on the corrugated steel. One of the Russian-made automatics was cradled his work-calloused hands as he worked his way toward the back of the freighter.

  The last of the light had faded from the sky and stars appeared like diamonds in the deep blue vault of heaven. The wind was picking up, tugging at the collar of Schafer’s work-stained coveralls. He went carefully over the metal scaffolding between containers. One bad step and he’d go tumbling down through the rafters. He’d be dead long before he hit the deck.

  The sounds of the gunfight reached a fevered pitch and then settled to brief spats of back and forth. Schafer smiled. Both sides were running out of ammo. He reached the last row of containers, crept to the edge, and peered over.

  Night cloaked the Minerva in deep shadow, but Schafer could just make out the form of a man stretched out on the deck. The foolish American was clearly outlined against the lighter paint of the ship. Schafer shouldered his weapon, sighted on the prostrate form of the American, and fired.

  Noble scrambled to his knees for a peek over the waist-high wall. It was a twenty-foot drop to a narrow strip of deck that separated the castle deck from the last row of containers, but at least it would get them off the stern and out of the line of fire. Just thinking about the jump made his knees ache.

  Better than waiting around for them to overwhelm us.

  There was a deafening roar overhead and bullets chewed into the corpse at Noble’s feet. He lunged away from the wall, lifted his AK47, and sighted on the shadowy silhouette of a man outlined against the night sky. His weapon rattled off an angry reply. Bullets sparked against the container wall in deadly yellow flashes before the bolt slapped against an empty chamber.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Noble cursed and crowded against the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. In his haste, he had fired low and shot up the side of the container, missing the man. His AK47 was empty. He let the Russian rifle clatter to the deck and dug the CZ pistol from his waistband. Noble wasn’t a fan of the Czech-made handguns. The triggers were too gritty with a long travel for his taste. He could probably make the shot, but not before the Baader-Meinhof soldier plugged him full of holes, so he pressed himself against the wall and looked for some way to escape.

  Eliška was pinned down on his right. Another shooter controlled the stair on Noble’s left. And now they had someone atop the containers as well, controlling the high ground. Once the Germans realized they had the invaders boxed in, they would draw the net closed.

  Think of something fast, Noble told himself.

  He could sprint to one of the capstans. It would give him a better angle on the three shooters, but he doubted he would make it across the castle deck before they cut him down. Noble imagined himself halfway across the deck when they caught him in a deadly triangle of fire.

  Not going to happen.

  He pressed flat against the wall as another deadly spray of bullets blistered the ground inches in front of his feet. The German on his left leaned out at the same time and hosed the castle deck. The dead body caught most of the rounds. Two lead wasps buzzed past Noble’s face. He angled the CZ pistol in that direction and triggered a round. He wasn’t really aiming, just trying to drive the German back behind cover. It worked. The man disappeared around the head of the stair, buying Noble a few precious seconds.

  Schafer shrank back from the edge after the first loud burst of machine gun fire from the deck below. He hadn’t noticed the figure crouched against the wall in the dark. He cursed himself for being so sloppy. He had wasted the element of surprise and poured rounds into a dead body instead.

  Some of the bluster had gone out of him. The American had nearly shot his legs off. Schafer was in no hurry to expose himself again. He hunkered atop the container, holding his rifle out in front of him with the barrel angled down, jerking the trigger. He couldn’t see what he was shooting at. He shot off half the magazine and then chanced a peek.

  A bank of clouds hid the moon The deck lay in gloomy shadow. All he could see was a small bit of one shoulder, or maybe it was the top of the American’s head, behind the low wall. Schafer knew he could make the shot if he could get the angle right, but it would require him to lean out over the edge and expose himself. He dug a spare magazine from the pocket of his coveralls and reloaded. The mag seated with an audible click. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then stood up and leaned over as far as he dared, aiming for the dark wedge of shoulder.

  Noble knew he had to do something. The longer he waited, the more these guys would start working together and his chances of survival would plummet. Someone had to take out the shooter overhead. Noble could do it, but it would require moving away from the wall and exposing himself to the other two.

  A Jim Morrison lyric leapt into his head: “Five to one, baby. One in five. No one here gets out alive.”

  He felt a whomp-whomp-whomp deep in his chest and mistook it for his own heartbeat. There was a chance—an astronomically slim chance—he could shoot the tango overhead and then pivot and get the guy at the head of the stairs as well, but it wasn’t very likely. There was a far better chance Noble would die taking out the shooter atop the containers. His death would give Eliška a fighting chance.

  “Five to one, baby. One in five …”

  The thought of catching a bullet didn’t scare him. If the German on the stairs was any good at all, he would hose the deck the moment Noble exposed himself. A few seconds of pain and then it would be over. Then what? The thought of the unknown used to leave Noble in a cold sweat, but Sam had crossed over. Maybe she was on the other side waiting for him? If I die, thought Noble, let me be with Sam. Let me go wherever she is.

  He didn’t know if it was a prayer or just a passing wish offered up to whatever mindless force set the gears of the cosmos in motion, but a sense of peace settled over him—a peace so profound that Noble felt the anguish of her death leave him for the first time. His hands stopped shaking and the metal bands around his chest relaxed. He couldn’t hear anything, but he could feel the rhythmic chug of the engines. The smell of exhaust mixed with salt water filled his lungs. It was now or never. He took two big steps away from the wall and started to pivot when a single hard crack rose above the ringing in his ears.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Noble’s shoulders cranked up around his ears and his head pulled in like turtle trying to hide inside its shell. All the muscles in his back went rigid. He waited to feel the bullet punch a hole between his shoulder blades and explode out his chest. He was still moving, but time had slowed to a crawl. Fractions of a second seemed an eternity. Noble pivoted on his heels and pushed the CZ pistol out with both arms, looking for a target.

  He spotted the figure atop the containers, limed by starlight, but the man seemed to be melting—shrinking down into the container like a wax statue in a microwave. It was surreal. Noble’s brain struggled to make sense of it. Then he heard the heavy whomp-whomp-whomp of the Kiowa and realized it wasn’t his heartbeat he had been hearing but the heavy beat of the chopper coming back to lay down suppressing fire.

  Noble shifted his front site to the top step and fired. His fingered tightened on the trigger and the weapon kicked at the same time the deckhand leaned out for a shot. Noble’s bullet caught the man in the face and snapped his head back. Chips of broken teeth exploded like shrapnel. A shock of blood and pulpy red matter splattered the gunwale. The German’s body went limp and tumbled down the stairs.

  Noble turned. He saw the OH-58 hovering sixty meters off the port bow. The chopper was just a black shape hanging in a dark sky. The single rotor beat out a steady rhythm. Noble thought, or maybe just imagined, he saw the sniper wave once before the Kiowa banked hard and headed for the coast. They had to be almost out of fuel by now. They’d never make it all the way back to Croatia. They would have to make an emergency landing in the Balkans. A Croatian surveillance helicopter landing on fore
ign soil would cause a stink, but Captain Vuković had done his good deed for the day—for the year, so far as Noble was concerned. He lifted a hand in farewell, then hurried to the top of the steps where the deckhand’s weapon had fallen.

  The Captain and his sniper had bought Noble a few precious seconds. He grabbed the gun and checked the chamber as he jogged back to the hatch. Eliška met him halfway. She was unarmed and said, “Are we going below?”

  “Anything is better than waiting up here for them to box us in again.” Noble motioned to the hatch with the barrel of the AK47. He took a firm grip on the weapon and positioned himself in front of the opening. His finger took up the slack on the trigger.

  Eliška gripped the latch, gave it a quick twist, and hauled up on the metal portal.

  The hatch swung open with a ponderous groan. They were greeted by the roar of engines running full throttle. Noble hunkered down and thrust the AK47 out in front of him, looking for any sign of movement. Instead, he saw a dark red smear, like old paint, on the watertight seal. His finger eased off the trigger.

  “I must have hit him,” Noble whispered. At least, he thought he whispered. His hearing was coming back slowly. He crept to the edge and peered down the ladder. Another splash of red, this one bright and wet, painted the bottom of the railing. Noble dropped to one knee and bent over, nearly double, so he could clear the blind angles created by the hatch. When he was sure nobody was waiting to bushwhack him, he sat down on the lip, swung his legs over and scrambled down the ladder to a corrugated catwalk.

  Eliška scampered down behind him and pulled the hatch closed.

  Noble pointed out the splash of blood. Eliška nodded.

  The path leading to a bulkhead door was smeared with a bloody handprint. Noble had scored a hit alright. But the deckhand had enough life left in him to make a run for it. Noble wondered how far the man went before he collapsed. He was bleeding pretty heavily. He couldn’t have made it very far.

  One side of the catwalk was open to the engine room below. Noble could see the giant motors propelling the massive Maersk Minerva through the water. The sound was deafening. Noble had to yell to be heard. “All we have to do is shut down the engines and wait for the harbor patrol.”

  “I didn’t come here to sabotage a boat,” Eliška said. “I came to kill Lucas Randall.”

  Noble caught her elbow. “We take out the engines and let law enforcement deal with Lucas,” Noble said. “He’ll get his. I promise.”

  She looked like she wanted protest but said, “Fine. Lead the way.”

  Noble started down a long flight of stairs to the engineering deck. He went slow, trying not to make any noise on the metal risers, watching every shadow. He was halfway down when he realized Eliška was no longer behind him. He turned in time to see the bulkhead door swing shut with a soft clang.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Eliška eased the bulkhead door closed and spun the wheel. The bolts shot into place. It wouldn’t take Jake long to figure out she had slipped off—he probably knew already—but he was driven by an unerring sense of duty to his country. He would stop the engines before following after her, and that gave Eliška all the time she needed.

  She was in a long hallway complicated by pipes and valves. The passage ran on, more or less straight, toward the front of the ship. The bow, Eliška corrected herself. Sailors call it the bow. She was following blood splashes on the walls and floor. She needed a weapon and figured the guy leaving behind all the blood hadn’t gone far. He was leaking fast. The human body is basically a hydraulic machine. Rupture the system and the fluid starts to leak. The faster the leak, the sooner the machine breaks down. Eliška didn’t know anything about boats, but she knew a lot about the human body. More importantly, she knew how to destroy it. And this guy was running on borrowed time.

  Several side passages intersected the main one. Eliška paused at each to look around for dark red smears. She crept along the confusing web of corridors with her heart tripping along inside her chest. A film of sticky sweat gathered on her forehead and turned her T-shirt into a damp rag hugging her breasts.

  The wounded man had made it a lot farther than Eliška would have guessed. It took her ten minutes. She finally found him sitting with his back against a large metal pipe. He was still alive. A dark stain covered his chest like a greasy bib. His eyes were open. One hand held onto a model 19 Glock, but he didn’t have the strength to lift it. His eyes went to Eliška and he made a strange gurgling sound at the back of his throat. He was drawing on the last of his strength just to keep his eyes open and focused.

  Eliška hunkered down in front him and reached for the Glock. “Mind if I borrow this?”

  He tried to talk. A line of dark blood dribbled from his mouth instead.

  Eliška thumbed the mag eject and pressed down on the hollow point rounds. Mostly full. She could tell by the feel. She slipped the magazine back in the weapon and seated it with a hard slap.

  “Lucas Randall,” Eliška said. “Is he aboard?”

  The deckhand managed a nod.

  “On the bridge?” Eliška asked. “Pilothouse? Whatever it’s called.”

  Another nod.

  “How do I get there?”

  His head turned a fraction and his eyebrows went up.

  Eliška pointed to her left. “This way?”

  He nodded and then looked at the gun in her hand. The question was written on his face.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Eliška told him. “I’m not going to shoot you. That would be too noisy.”

  She wrapped one hand around his neck and squeezed. His eyes opened wide and his hand came up, fueled by one last burst of adrenaline from his failing heart. Dumb fingers swatted at Eliška’s forearm with all the strength of a dying bird flapping around on the ground after a cat has ripped out its guts. Eliška choked him until his eyes rolled up and then counted to thirty.

  When it was over, she patted his pockets and found a small folding knife. She clipped the knife to her waistband at the small of her back, gripped the Glock pistol in both hands and followed the passage, looking for a way to the pilothouse. She hadn’t gone far when the loud chugging rhythm of the engines stopped.

  Noble had managed to cut the power.

  Silence settled over the Maersk Minerva and the sudden quiet was unnerving. Suddenly, every sound seemed amplified, like her hearing was turned up to ten. She listened to waves lapping against the hull and the groan of welding plates rubbing together. Her own breath sounded like thundering bellows. The rumble of the engines had helped mask her movements. From here on, she would have to go slow. She adjusted her grip on the Glock and told herself to relax.

  Slow and steady wins the race, Eliška told herself.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  The feeder ship was in sight. Lucas could see the running lights winking in the darkness less than two hundred meters off the starboard bow. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, to reach the other vessel. Another thirty or forty minutes to load the containers. An hour tops, and the operation would be successful. Nothing Noble did at that point would make any difference.

  Stanz, Ludwick, and Grinkov were guarding the only two approaches to the pilothouse. All three looked jumpy and tense. They gripped their weapons with white knuckles, ready to shoot anything that moved. Anyone coming up the stairs would be met with a hailstorm of lead.

  Lucas grabbed a satchel full of flares and a pair of heavy leather work gloves. Someone had to be up top to mark the right boxes and help attach the guide cables for the transfer. With Noble keeping the crew busy, Lucas would have to do the job himself. He slung the satchel over one shoulder and his battle-rifle over the other.

  Erik asked the obvious. “You going to hook the boxes?”

  “There’s no one else to do it,” Lucas pointed out.

  He was about to say more when the engines cut out. There was no fanfare, no fireworks. One minute, the heavy diesel motors were chug-chug-chugging away; the next, they quit. Lucas rounded on E
rik. “What happened?”

  He spread his hands in a hopeless little gesture. “I don’t know. The engines are offline.”

  “Get them back on,” Lucas ordered.

  Erik jabbed at the control panel, flicked several switches and worked a lever. He shook his head. “We are dead in the water.”

  “Noble.” Lucas said and followed it with a curse. “He must have sabotaged the engines.”

  Lucas gazed out the windows at the distant lights. The first real hint of worry started deep in his belly. His hands curled into tight fists. He wanted to find Noble and kill him, but that would have to wait. He needed to get the money onto the feeder ship before harbor patrol arrived. The OS-CinCom was so close. Lucas turned to Erik. “Radio ‘em. Tell them to come to us.”

  Erik shook his head. “If we do that, every ship in the Adriatic will know right where we are.”

  Lucas went to the large picture window. So damn close.

  Stanz was on a knee in front of the portside door, his weapon trained down the stairs leading to the pilothouse. He spoke up for the first time. “I say we take the fight to them.”

  “Stay put,” Lucas ordered. Stanz was good, probably one of the best men Lucas had, but Noble would have the engine room locked down by now.

  Maybe not, thought Lucas. He might be injured and low on ammo. Who knows what kind of hurt he’s already taken just getting belowdecks? Noble was human, after all, and it sounded like the crew of the Minerva had put up a hell of a fight. Noble could be on his last leg, just hoping to hold the Minerva until the Navy could arrive.