The Oceanic Princess (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 2)

by David DeLee

  “I get that. Sure. Happy to.” Bannon pointed at his papers. “If you can just—”

  Bannon noticed a barely discernable dark shadow race across the open tarmac between the hanger and the helicopter. Crouched and as silent as an apparition, McMurphy disappeared behind the far side of the helicopter.

  “You need to leave,” the Marine insisted. “Now.”

  “That open gate.” Bannon pointed in the direction behind him, away from the chopper. “I can show you. It’s just hanging open, swinging in the breeze.”

  “I’ll deal with that. You can’t be here.”

  Bannon looked past the Marine’s shoulder. McMurphy had climbed into the cockpit of the helicopter. He put on a set of headphones and gave Bannon the thumbs up.

  “If you could just tell me how to get—”

  “You need to leave, sir. Now. Or I’ll be forced to place you under arrest.” The Marine pointed the way for Bannon to go, using his other hand to gently turn Bannon in the direction he’d come.

  Bannon pointed at the helicopter. “But what about him? Is he supposed to be in there?”

  The Marine spun around, slipping the M16 from his shoulder.

  Bannon snaked his arm around the man’s neck and clasped the inside of his other arm while applying forward pressure to the back of the man’s neck. He knocked the man’s cover—headgear—to the ground. The Marine struggled, of course, but Bannon’s grip was firm. Soon oxygen deprivation did its job. The man slumped unconscious in his arms. Bannon dragged him across the tarmac and gently sat him down against the hanger bay door.

  He retrieved the man’s cover and placed it on his head, making it look as if the man had gone to sleep. Bannon made a final check, ensuring the man was breathing, then ran across the tarmac.

  McMurphy started the helicopter up. The motor began to whine, and the overhead and tail rotors began to spin. Bannon leaped into the co-pilot seat and slid the door shut. He watched McMurphy familiarize himself with the state-of-the-art cockpit.

  “You see how sweet this thing is?” McMurphy marveled at the LCD screen instrument panel, called a glass cockpit. “Fly-by-wire electronic interface. Mechanical flight control backup. A split torque gearbox. How cool is that?”

  “We’ll get you two a hotel room later. For now, can you just get us in the air?”

  He didn’t have to ask McMurphy if he could fly the newest helicopter to come off the government’s assembly line. That was the man’s superpower: If it had an engine or motor of any kind and a steering device, McMurphy instinctively knew how to operate it, and at an expert’s level.

  Bannon actually found the skill uncanny.

  As if to emphasize his confidence in the man, the helicopter rocked a little then rose.

  “You hear that?” McMurphy asked. “That’s the purring of three turboshaft engines. Seventy-five-hundred shaft horsepower each.” He pointed overhead. “That’s the sweet sound of seven composite rotor blades. There’s four more on the tail rotor.”

  McMurphy nudged the machine nose forward. The running lights snapped on, and McMurphy banked to the left.

  “Just get us out of here before the Marine Corps scramble fighter jets to blast us out of the sky.”

  They continued to climb and soon were out over the dark water of the harbor and heading out for the open sea. Logan airport and the twinkling lights of Boston quickly faded into the distance behind them. Ahead, dawn broke over the horizon. Thick purple clouds hung low in the sky as an angry red sun rose, reminding Bannon of the old adage: red in the morning, sailors take warning.

  Clearly the old superstition held little sway over McMurphy. With a face-splitting grin, he whooped at the top of his lungs. “Woohoo! Let’s see what this baby can do!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FAAID STOOD AT THE opening between the chipped yellow railings as his men climbed up the rope ladder provided them. They looked tired, worn down. A few were bloodied up. The woman had taken twelve men with her to secure Safiyyah Zayd. He counted five as they climbed past him. He looked down at Bridget Barnes still on the deck below. As it should be, he thought.

  When she climbed up the ladder, he offered her no assistance. As her feet hit the metal grate, Faaid said, “Are we sure you got the right one this time?”

  “It’s her.” Bridget’s voice seethed with animosity.

  “And what of the rest of my men?”

  “Our men,” she reminded him curtly. “They’re dead.”

  “Seven of them? Against two men?”

  “They had help. We’re lucky any of us survived.”

  “And the Americans. Bannon and McMurphy? They are dead?”

  “No. They are not dead. Didn’t you hear me? We barely got out of there with our lives.”

  She glared at him like she had more to say, but he turned his back to her, shifting his attention to Zayd as she labored to climb onto the deck. She’d been injured. He wondered how. No doubt yet another criminal act the Americans would have to pay for.

  “I warned you,” he said. “The Americans are formidable.”

  Zayd stared at Faaid’s scarred face. Unconsciously he turned away.

  “You must be Aziza Faaid.”

  He gave her a slight bow. “Yes. I am.” He kissed the back of her hand. “A pleasure to finally meet the real you.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes. “Please.”

  Zayd withdrew her hand. “I wish I could say the same. Ghaazi Alvi did not warn me of the incompetence I would encounter upon coming to this horrible country.”

  “I assure you—”

  The woman held up a hand, silencing him. “I am not interested in hearing your excuses for your failure and incompetence.” She leaned over and rubbed her knee.

  Taken aback, Faaid said, “I disagree with your assessment of our progress. You are here.” He waved a hand around the well deck and then toward the railgun. “Your weapon is here.”

  With a smirk, Bridget said, “I’ll leave you two to it. I need a shower and a nap.”

  She walked away, looking tired and disgusted.

  “Have you any idea what the Americans put me through?” Zayd asked once Bridget was gone. “What my capture has cost my fa…me.”

  “While I will admit, your journey did not go as smoothly as we had planned. For that you have Captain Amar to blame, not I. He was he who allowed the Coast Guard to board his ship, he who let them take you captive. He has paid for his ineptitude with his life, thanks to me. You are here,” he insisted, “because of me.”

  The woman made a disgusted sound. “I assume you have managed to locate our target at least?”

  The man fisted his hand but bit back his retort. “We have. All the information you need regarding the Oceanic Princess’s current position and heading are…”

  One of the two men who’d emerged from the control room with Faaid stepped forward and handed Zayd a tablet in a heavy duty, military grade, green metal case. “…input and ready for your review, ma’am.”

  She accepted the tablet and without glancing at it, walked to the gangway that led across from the passageway to the railgun boat, leaving Faaid to stand…alone. The two men joined her on the bow of the boat as she went about the task of inspecting the weapon. Faaid watched her. He seethed at her contempt for him, for all he had done for her. He wanted to scream: We rescued you. That was me. If not for me, you’d be in a dank American prison by now.

  But he remained silent. They were close to their goal. The Americans would suffer. They would pay and he would get his revenge.

  But before he could bask in the glory of victories to come, his attention was taken by Bridget Barnes who stormed back down the passageway toward him. “She’s escaped!”

  Faaid glanced at Zayd, but she was too distracted by her computer and inspection of the railgun to pay attention to the commotion being caused by the contemptuous redheaded female. He took her by the arm and steered her to the far end of the passageway.

  “Keep your voice down. There
is no need to disturb—”

  “She’s killed four of your men. She killed Reza.” Bridget shook her arm from his grasp.

  “I am aware. I have the entire crew looking for her. There is nowhere she can go.”

  “I don’t care about where she can go. I’m worried about what she will do. Or did you forget the last time you two met? She blew you up. She scarred you for life. She left you for dead.”

  His face darkened with anger. He clenched his teeth in an attempt to contain it. “That will not be the case this time.”

  “Sure about that?” Bridget taunted.

  “What more would you have me do? My men are searching the ship. They will find her.”

  “Before or after she blows us all to kingdom come?”

  “We only need a little more time.” Faaid did his best to put a positive spin on the situation. “Besides, what Ms. Sardana does to the Dauphin matters little. Once Zayd is done with her work, we will leave here and complete our glorious mission.”

  Bridget remained unconvinced. Faaid read her expression.

  “If you’re so worried about what the woman will do, go find her yourself.”

  “I will.” She spun on her heels and stormed off. To two loitering crewmen, she said, “You two. Follow me. Now!”

  “Remember,” Faaid called out as they walked away. “We only have twenty men left. Try not to get them all killed.”

  -----

  TARA WATCHED THE EXCHANGE through the rifle scope. They were too far away for her to hear their words, but body language told her all she needed to know. Bridget Barnes and Aziza Faaid were working together but they did not like each other. That Bridget was a woman, and seemingly a woman of some influence or power over him, was part of it. Faaid was a misogynistic pig, of that there was no question. She had a feeling there was more to it than just that.

  From what Tara could see, Zayd ignored the drama between Faaid and Bridget. She’d climbed down to the railgun boat along with two men. Tara assumed they were engineers or operators assigned to work with her. They took orders from her, quickly rushing about to perform tasks or give her things as she limped around the deck. Bannon had injured her knee pretty good.

  Tara smiled. Good. As she watched, she pieced together what was going on.

  Zayd’s work at the NSEDC must have had to do with electromagnetic propulsion. It’s the same principles at work, whether one’s launching a rocket into the atmosphere or shooting a projectile at over five thousand miles an hour, nearly seven times the speed of sound, at an enemy target. Faaid and Bridget had the weapon. How? That was a question for another day. They needed Zayd to make it operational.

  Which left one final, terrifying question: What was the target?

  Tara lowered the scope from her eye. She pinched the bridge of her nose more determined than ever that everything had to go to the bottom of the ocean. If that meant she went down with them, then so be it.

  Bridget stormed off and Faaid yelled after her. “We only have twenty men left. Try not to get them all killed.” Bridget saluted him with her middle finger.

  She had spunk. Tara had to give the woman that.

  “So, she’s coming for me,” Tara said under her breath as she backed down the passageway. “Well, game on.”

  She slipped back into the stairwell.

  The twin hulls were directly under the wet dock, but she was too far forward. The access to the engine rooms and fuel storage tanks would be in the stern. That meant she had to return to the upper vehicle deck and go all the way aft then take another set of stairs down behind the wet dock control rooms that ultimately would lead into the aft engine room.

  She eased the door open onto the vacant upper vehicle deck. This deck remained as it had when the ship was used for its original purpose, ferrying vehicles and passengers over the water. A large open space capable of transporting nearly five hundred cars, most of them would’ve been parked in rows on this level. The rest would have filled the space now repurposed into the well deck.

  The space was a cavernous empty room. It ran nearly the full one hundred-meter length of the ship and took up almost the entire thirty-meter beam. Lone pallets of supplies and other material were randomly plopped down, stored for future use. There were two parked forklifts.

  Tara carried the rifle in her left hand and held the chain wrapped up in her right. She stayed low and ran the length of the empty space. When she was almost to the stairwell, two men came out of the opposite stairwell across from her. Damn the timing.

  “Hey, look.” One of them pointed at her from across the space. “Stop!”

  The second one brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

  She paused, thought about reversing direction and running back the way she’d come, feeling like one of those little yellow ducks in a carnival shooting gallery. She decided to charge ahead.

  She carried the rifle so that her finger was in the trigger guard. She swung the weapon around and pressed the butt of the gun to her hip. She fired one handed, squeezing off two shots.

  The two men dove in opposite directions. One slid behind a pallet of shrink-wrapped cardboard cartons. The other one rolled behind a forklift. She couldn’t take the time to get into a protracted gun battle with the two men. Too many reinforcements would be on their way in too short a time. Safely behind good cover, the men began to shoot.

  Tara fired back as best she could, with zero hope of hitting anything, but with the intention of keeping the men pinned down and so scared they couldn’t shoot straight.

  That last part seemed to work.

  Bullets pinged and ricocheted around her as she ran the last third of the space without getting shot. She was only mildly surprised by that. Most people who take up arms, even professionals like police, other law enforcement officers, and the military, don’t take the time to practice and become truly expert with the tools they’re required to carry, even though such proficiency might one day save their lives.

  Tara reached the door, banged through it, and slammed it shut behind her. She jammed the rifle under the door handle, angled so the gun would act as a wedge, preventing anyone from coming through the door. At least for a little while.

  Long enough to give her time to do what she needed to do.

  She charged down the stairs as fast as she could, past the closed door to the control rooms. At the next level, she stopped only long enough to jam the blade of her knife under the door, wedging it shut as well. At the bottom of the last set of stairs, she found herself in the aft engine room. Each hull had a forward and aft engine room, a room that housed the large propeller shafts, and a fuel tank room forward of the engines.

  The first order of business was to get rid of the chain secured to her arm. She found a workbench in the corner and set to work on snapping the padlock shackle that locked the cuff to her wrist. A chisel, a heavy hammer, and a few awkward swings later—luckily without smashing her wrist or her fingers—the padlock broke open and she was free of the chain.

  Rather than discard it, she wrapped the chain around her waist like a belt, twisting the ends like the sash of a bathrobe. The one accessory every badass woman needs, she thought.

  Under the workbench she found a handheld acetylene torch and flint striker. She grabbed them and moved forward, through the next engine room, and into the room housing the port side fuel tank.

  The first part was going to be a snap. She set down the torch and striker, and smashed her elbow through the glass box encasing a red fire axe. With axe in hand, she went to work cutting through the thick fuel lines that ran from the room-size tank to the forward and aft engines. Sweaty in the oppressive heat of the room and out of breath from the effort, she stood back and watched as diesel fuel gushed from the split lines, splashing across the floor like an open inner-city fire hydrant on a hot summer afternoon.

  Alarm bells rang.

  For Tara, that was like a starter pistol going off. “Clock’s ticking, girl.”

  The room plunged into darkness.
The only light was from a few gauges and the glowing red emergency exit light over the only door out of the room. A few seconds passed, then bright emergency backup spotlights flooded the room with a blinding glow. Fuel continued to pour on the floor. The smell made Tara’s eyes water.

  She had to move fast now.

  She retrieved the axe and the striker and backed up into the forward engine room. There she traced the fire suppression system’s high-pressure water lines. Metal pipes running along the ceiling, not unlike a standard sprinkler system, and the carbon dioxide chemical lines. She cut through them all with the axe.

  Water poured from the pipes and escaping carbon dioxide hissed from the lines she severed, preventing either from reaching the fuel tank room. The gushing fuel began to slosh over the lip of the door and spill into the engine room. As she’d planned, though she hoped the splattering fuel didn’t hit a hot exhaust pipe and spark a fire prematurely.

  Tara backed up through the engine room. The fuel flooded the room, following her like she was some arsonist pied piper. At the door between the two engine rooms she stopped, watching the stream of fuel and oily water flow closer.

  “Hey!”

  She turned. A crewman carrying a flashlight came through the opposite door. Armed with a handgun, he fired. Tara ducked, keeping an eye on the sparks as the bullet pinged off the bulkhead behind her. She grabbed a wrench for the bench and flung it at her attacker.

  He covered his head and twisted away, dropping the flashlight in exchange for a handheld radio. “Intruder in port forward engine room! I repeat…”

  Tara rushed at him. He fired several more shots. She felt a hot flash of pain in her upper arm. She ignored it, grabbing him by the front of his brown tunic. Must have been a sale on the uniforms at Terrorists-R-Us, she figured. She spun him around and pushed him forward. His sneakers splashed through the half-inch of diesel fuel covering the floor. Still holding onto the acetylene torch, she swung it like a baseball bat, striking him across the jaw.

  He staggered back, slipped and fell into the fuel and water mix on the floor, soaking his clothes. He splashed around. His nose wrinkled as he realized what he was swimming around in. Tara backed up to the door. He stared at the handheld torch and striker in her hand then looked up at her. Wide-eyed, he said, “Please.”