“Last chance,” he said. “I don’t have to take you in alive.”
Salene had been a malicious, immoral leader of bad men for too long. He regarded Dahl with disdain and spat down at him. He laughed.
“Fuck you, pig.”
Dahl pressed the trigger of his HK and kept it there. Bullets volleyed up the conning tower and flew out toward the distant blue skies. The sound inside the steel tube was immense, mind-numbing. Salene screamed and lost his grip, tumbling at least eight feet before coming to an ungainly stop at Dahl’s feet.
His arm, underneath him, snapped. His face ricocheted off a steel rung and slammed against Dahl’s boot. Teeth flew out. Skin was flayed. Salene was in so much pain he couldn’t even scream.
“There you go,” Dahl said with humor in his voice. “You were right. That worked out much better.”
Kenzie came up alongside, regarding Salene with contempt. “He’s alive.”
“I see that.”
“Doesn’t deserve to be.”
“Unfortunately, he has information,” Dahl nudged Salene’s broken arm with his foot. “You hear that? I’m letting you live so we can squeeze information out of you. If you don’t comply, they’ll shoot you in the head and let your dead body rot. Specifically, we’re interested in the old men, the KGB goons, and where we can find them. Then, we want everything you have on the Devil, the man that hired you. Hey, you listening?”
Salene screamed in agreement, trying to shield his broken arm and spit out blood at the same time. “I have the old men,” he gasped. “I don’t . . . don’t . . .”
Dahl jammed his gun hard into Salene’s right armpit. “Don’t,” he said, “is not a word for your vocabulary right now. And just so we’re clear, neither is ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’ or anything negative.”
He turned to Kenzie. “Get the Bainbridge on the line.”
“You’re going to conduct the interrogation right here?”
“Damn right I am. This piece of shit is gonna give us something actionable before I waste my energy dragging him out of here.”
Kenzie keyed the comms.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Drake rose to his feet, composed and ready to end this. As he came upright, he fired the Glock handgun. Alicia worked in perfect sync, rising and shooting at the same time.
Over the heads of the passengers.
Decimating the pirates.
Drake shot three in just over two seconds, perfect head shots. Fistbump, Scarface and a nameless man went down, their blood and skulls bursting out behind them and across the windows or ferns at their backs. Alicia disposed of Gogh and two more men, who went spinning and collapsing to the carpet without the slightest idea of what had happened to them. One second they were salivating over the next innocent person they were going to injure and terrorize, the next they were rotting flesh.
Drake switched position, coming around the sofa. Volkov was crawling toward Mary, the knife clasped between his teeth. Drake saw three guns coming around toward him but, more importantly, he saw every one of the passengers starting to move, starting to get clear.
It was as perfect as it was going to get. Drake made a move toward Kobe, shooting another pirate, his attention fixed on the older men and women slumped around the head pirate and the shattered windows. Some had been clubbed, others slashed with knives. They were all vulnerable.
Drake ducked as pirates returned fire. A bullet glanced off a wall close to his head. Two more crashed through the sofa he’d just vacated. A quick look told him there were just four pirates left alive up here, not including Kobe.
Alicia then took down another—Olive.
Drake slithered around a wall, sliding out on his side with his gun up. Pigswill was right in front of him, the barrel of his gun pointed eight inches too high.
It was a small mistake, but a fatal one. Drake fired two into his sternum, saving his bullets, and waited for the man to fall. When he did, he exposed Kobe. Drake fired.
But Kobe was already in flight. Drake’s bullet ruffled his greasy hair. The pirate leader dropped and spun, firing back. Drake waited for several passengers to crawl out of the way.
Over to the right, Alicia grabbed a man under the arms and heaved, letting him drop to the floor over her back. His neck hit first and twisted. She finished him with a shot to the back of the head.
Two more confronted her, the last of the pirates up here except for Kobe.
Drake had his hands full. Alicia was close enough to kick one pirate’s gun hand and step into the body of the second. The first yelled as his gun flew away; the second reeled as Alicia’s frame suddenly crashed into him. Alicia leaned into the closest man, kicking out once more at the second. She caught him dead center in the balls, a maneuver she had honed to perfection over the years, and saw him fold. She smashed her right shoulder into the jaw of the man behind her and then, ducking, threw him forward across her shoulder.
He hit the carpet right beside his colleague, one on his knees, the other on his back.
Alicia stood over them, slamming a fresh clip into her Glock. Without ceremony or regret, she shot them both in the head.
And then looked up.
Drake was leaping at Kobe over the back of a crawling passenger. The two men came together hard, smashing down to the floor together and grappling. Alicia then saw Volkov grab an older woman she could only assume was Mary, the woman he loved and the woman who, inadvertently, had set in motion the entire chain of events leading to this moment.
Drake gave Kobe an uppercut, but the man was tough, and strong. He shrugged it off, raining three hard blows down on the top of Drake’s head. Drake grabbed the man’s leg and heaved his own bulk upward until they came face to face.
“Two hundred people?” Drake grated. “For one man. And for a few thousand dollars. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Kobe twisted and struck out with elbows. “They mean nothing to me. Two, two hundred, two thousand. I don’t fucking care.”
Drake reeled from a punch to the cheek that made him see stars. Kobe kicked him in the solar plexus. Drake didn’t feel the blow as much as he would have without the Kevlar protection, but it still resounded through his nerve endings. Kobe still had hold of his gun, the AK. He gripped it by the handle and turned it on Drake. A grin split his face when he realized the Yorkshireman was too far away to save himself.
“And now you’re gonna die.”
Drake flung himself forward, knowing he would be too late. Alicia wasn’t within range and was fighting two men. Drake’s best bet was to hope for a misfire.
It was a shock when two young passengers fell upon Kobe, pinning his gun arm to the ground. Kobe couldn’t move. His attackers fought with bared teeth and adrenaline, scared witless but willing to help save Drake and their fellow passengers. Drake gained the extra seconds he needed and leapt at Kobe. With a grateful nod to the two young men, he plucked the AK from the pirate leader’s hands and hauled him to a seated position.
And then punched him full in the face.
Kobe flew back, striking his head on the floor. Drake turned to the two men. “Run,” he said. “Help is coming. Go on deck and look for the rescue boats. Don’t jump. Get to the lifeboat deck. Help the injured and the old. Go now.”
They nodded and ran off. Drake hauled Kobe up by the front of his jacket. “We know about the bombs,” he said. “Disarm them now or die.”
It was a simple choice, rammed home by Drake’s grim and serious visage. Kobe snarled and struggled.
“You think I am alone now? Look again.”
Drake instinctively ducked aside as a gunshot rang out. Call it a soldier’s reflex, a lifelong fighter’s impulse, or a self-preservation response to something in Kobe’s eyes, but he dodged to the left as a bullet was fired close to his right ear. Shockingly for Kobe the bullet smashed right through the front of his face.
The pirate that fired was even more surprised.
Drake spun in place, withdrew his knife, and ra
mmed it up into the shooter’s stomach. The man fell in agony. Drake retrieved his Glock and scooped up Kobe’s AK47. He’d been aware there were more pirates aboard this ship and berated himself now for not double-checking his surroundings. He’d survived two close calls now in as many minutes.
Just as bad though, Kobe was dead. Drake searched him for a receiver, anything that might prove to be a disarming device, but found nothing.
Alicia’s voice filled his head. “You shot him?”
“Wasn’t me. Long story, love. You find anything?”
“All I got from these guys is BO. Christ, they stank like they were decomposing before they were dead. I hate to imagine what the stench will be like in a few hours.”
Drake felt the fear clutch his stomach. “We don’t have that long,” he said, and then switched his attention.
“Mai? How many bombs you got?”
“Twenty,” came the quick reply. “Wait, twenty one.”
“You’re getting rid of the disarmed ones?”
“We’re placing them as far away as we can,” came Luther’s harsh voice. “It’ll take too long to take ’em up a few levels and throw them into the sea. The hope is that since the devices are small and aimed downward the explosion won’t spread across this deck.”
Drake grimaced, but there was nothing else for it. The explosives had to be separated from each other to prevent a chain reaction.
“Twenty two devices,” Mai said. “And we have eyes on four more. We need a few more minutes.”
Drake cursed aloud, tension wracking his every thought, his every move. Every second could be their last. Around him, passengers were still leaving the restaurant and heading outside onto the decks. Close now, he could see the rescue vessels—all manner of craft approaching the stricken ocean liner, Le Rabot, with crews manning their decks.
Eight bombs left, he thought. How fast will it go down?
Alicia yelled out from her position to his right and then bounded over. In her right hand she held a small black Android phone. As she approached Drake, she turned it around so that he could read the display.
“First phone I found without screenlock,” she said. “The bastards have the countdown on a fucking app.”
Drake stared at the screen, struck dumb.
Nine . . .
Eight . . .
Seven . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Drake and Alicia simultaneously shouted a warning to Mai and Luther.
At the same time half a dozen more pirates burst into the restaurant.
Drake saw four more pirates running along the deck outside, heading for the same stairways between decks as the passengers. Inside, he ducked, not knowing how great the explosion would be, not knowing what would happen, wishing at least one of his teammates was by his side.
The pirates flew along inside the restaurant, aiming for the exit doors. Drake stayed low, counting the seconds down in his head. His thoughts were with Mai and Luther, and then for the passengers who had no idea what was coming.
The muffled blast of eight strategically positioned bombs didn’t reach everyone’s ears, but it reached Drake’s. It was deeply ominous, seriously terrifying. What came next though cut through the commotion and the screaming. It hit everyone.
A deep, deep juddering ran through the very fabric of the ship; a menacing tremor that reverberated through every panel, seam and bolt. The decks shook. Glass shattered. Walls collapsed.
Drake was witness to a descending utter silence as all ears turned toward what people sensed was a new, greater threat. They didn’t know yet, they couldn’t know, but human instinct, despite our advancements, remains at a base level, finely attuned to approaching death and destruction. And if one person’s doesn’t, the next does, so that soon every man, woman and child was gazing inward at the ship.
Ignoring their rescuers.
But nothing else happened.
Drake rose to his knees. He hadn’t expected the ship to founder quickly. It would take time, and that was all the time they had to save almost 200 people.
“Mai?” he tried the comms. “Luther?”
There was no reply. Alicia spoke up too, in case Drake’s comms were damaged. Every fiber of Drake’s being wanted to head down below, to check on Mai’s safety, knowing she could be trapped or injured, but passengers crowded the decks at this side of the ship, and they were desperately in need of rescue.
A communication from the USS Bainbridge flew in across his earpiece. “We’re monitoring the ocean liner’s computer systems remotely. The damage-control computer is going apeshit. Fire-control systems are active. Warnings are firing off everywhere. Your ship is sinking. Do you hear me? Get those people the fuck off that thing.”
Drake spread his hands. “How? I’m a fucking soldier. I’m willing, but don’t have the slightest clue how to evacuate a ship.”
“Right. The crew are assembling. The heat alarm is quiet, so you don’t have to worry about fire. At least, not yet. You’ll know when the sprinklers activate. We’re sounding the alarm right now, to give the passengers fair warning. Now, listen up.”
Alicia came close to Drake, both of them watching for pirates as they listened to the Bainbridge’s advice.
“Get the passengers to their lifeboat stations. They have to be prepared to abandon ship. Shout at them if you have to but get them to their stations. And finally, you must free the captain and his officers. They have to launch the lifeboats.”
“You can’t?” Drake shouted.
“It should be done manually. The danger is too great otherwise. Now move.”
Drake read the desperate urgency in that voice and regarded Alicia. “It’s up to you and me, love. You free the captain. I’ll yell at the passengers.”
“Not a chance.” Alicia knew the greater danger lay in saving the passengers and potentially fighting an unknown number of pirates. She wouldn’t be told what to do, particularly if it was for her own good.
“I’m better with people,” she said. “You free the captain.”
Drake was left gawping at her statement as Alicia ran for the broken windows. Gathering himself, he recalled how to reach the bridge area and set off at a sprint. He exited the restaurant, the focal point of his life for many days, and raced for the passage that headed off in the direction of the bow. Two more minutes and he was climbing a set of stairs, not slowing, emerging into a plushly appointed corridor that led to a wide set of white double doors at the far end.
The bridge. The control room. The home of the captain and his officers while the ship sailed.
Drake looked to the right. A door led out onto the top deck. It was a better option. He exited and walked around a slight bend. Stopping at the set of windows that marked the start of the bridge, he peered around.
Inside, he saw three men dressed in white shirts. They were seated together, staring forward. One man had a head of gray hair, the others seemed younger and sported thick black manes. Clearly, they were officers. Drake saw no other people in the bridge.
Softly, he rapped on the glass with the barrel of his gun. When they looked over, he gave them a questioning gesture.
An officer raised tied hands and shuffled around to show he’d been bound in place, then stopped, succumbing to a shouted order from his captain. Drake smashed the glass until he could climb in, careful to break off any remaining shards.
“Ey up. You guys looking out for mermaids or what?”
“Get me free, for God’s sake,” the captain said, turning his shaggy gray mane in Drake’s direction. “This ship is sinking. I have to send out a Mayday.”
Drake nodded. “The USS Bainbridge has taken care of that already. Rescue boats are on the way.”
“Good.” The captain nodded, holding up his bound hands for Drake to free them. “The Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea is the busiest shipping lane in the world, and patrolled by more than one navy. Other boats and ships should be coming to our aid.”
Drake threw the rope away. �
��They hurt you this last few days?”
All three men nodded, wincing as they moved. Drake realized that their white shirts were stained with dried blood, their trousers stiff with it, their hair matted. Their time alone with the pirates hadn’t been good.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have to get past all that for now. The ship is sinking. I’m in contact with the Bainbridge, a few miles to port. They’re sending rescue ships and are telling us that we must make ready to release the lifeboats. ASAP. Are you listening to me?”
The captain’s eyes were fixed. “Sinking?”
“Yes!” Drake snapped. “They set off explosions. Now, the passengers are headed for their lifeboat stations.” At least he hoped they were. “Are you ready?”
They were, it seemed. Drake knew that any sailor, whether aboard a cruise liner, oil tanker or an elite racing yacht, would know the potential danger from pirates in the Indian Ocean. They had signed up for this and had most definitely trained for it. He was pleased now when all three men jumped up, ready to get to work.
The officers acted like men who’d been trained for emergencies.
“Seas are choppy. Waves no more than two feet,” one man said.
“Passengers are already moving to the lifeboats,” the second officer said.
Drake followed his gaze to the CCTV system on board. That was good news. Alicia was making a difference out there. Maybe she was a people person after all.
Good at shouting at them at least.
He tried the comms again.
“Mai? Luther? Report.”
Only silence came back. Drake saw the boats sent by the Bainbridge powering closer, Zodiacs and lifeboats and plenty of other craft. But they could only come so close.
“Life vests,” the captain announced over the ship’s tannoy, “are located in the white bins along the rail. Put on your life vests now.”
Drake was glad to see many of the passengers digging out the orange life vests and strapping them on. Many were huddling around the lifeboat davits, waiting to climb aboard.
The Sea Rats Page 18
