Considering their peril, Drake thought everything looked comparatively calm.
Then the decks shuddered and started to tilt as water flooded through holes caused by the explosions. The hull groaned; frothing waters churned up at the sides, and the entire structure slowly started to lean. People were thrown off their feet. Everyone was suddenly and terrifyingly confronted with reality.
Drake knew he had to help. With a last order thrown at the ship’s captain, he headed below decks.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Alicia was in her element.
Striding through passengers, ordering them left and right, pointing out lifeboat stations and life-vest bins. Helping the injured to the nearest station and forcing the able to move on, shouting that there were easily enough lifeboats for everyone. Clubbing pirates as she came to them. Noticing that there were precious few around here and wondering if they had an alternative escape route planned.
Hayden’s voice burst through the comms. Without embellishment she explained what had happened as Salene sought to escape, the appearance of the submarine, and its resulting capture.
Alicia’s first words were: “So why the hell aren’t you over here?”
“We literally just left the sub. We’re climbing into a couple of motor boats as we speak.”
Alicia huffed a little. Drake said nothing. Alicia explained about the lack of pirates and wondered where they might be.
“We didn’t kill them all. I don’t think.”
“Mai and Luther?” Dahl asked.
“On it,” Drake said.
Alicia paused then, just for a moment. The noise around her was incredible. Her senses, she felt, were being overwhelmed. Pure pandemonium reigned. The passengers were screaming and shouting, barging each other out of the way to get to their lifeboat station and arguing about who was first in line. Big men squared off with small men and tried to push them out of the way. Children cried. She was struck twice by running people, her shoulder bruised. And, for once, her voice could not be heard.
Alicia swept the deck with her eyes. She leaned out over the rail and checked the lower decks. They were all the same—a surging mass of people all clamoring to be first. In their haste they pushed away the old, the weak and the young. In their haste they looked like wild animals.
Alicia pushed her way into space. There was nothing more she could do. All that remained was for someone to start filling the lifeboats which, Drake assured her, would happen soon. As she waited, helping people here and there, the hot sun beating directly down onto her back, the ship making odd, terrifying noises as it slowly sank, she saw two pirates making their way toward the bow. They were kicking and pushing people out of the way, slashing them with knives. Their faces bore looks of fear and harassment. When a brave man confronted them, they clubbed him in the face and then lifted him between them, carrying him over to the rails.
“No.” His wife ran after them, pleading. “Please no!”
The pirates ignored her, hoisting the man up. That was when Alicia hit them, kicking one man in the front of his knee. Breaking it so that his leg folded backward, and he fell screaming. The other man she just shot in the chest, wasting no time on him. She plucked the passenger clear as the pirate toppled over the rail.
Alicia set the brave man upright and brushed him down. “Good job,” she said.
“Thanks.” He looked a little sheepish.
“Remember,” Alicia said. “If you’re not trained to protect, protect your own.”
He nodded, opening his arms as his wife ran into them. Alicia spent a minute disarming the pirate with the broken leg and zip-tying him to the rail.
“The ship is sinking,” he told her with scared, wide eyes.
“Yeah, you should have thought about that when you decided to throw that passenger overboard.”
She spun and walked away, straight into a haymaker.
The punch landed hard, breaking her nose. She fell to one knee, tears in her eyes, a crazy display of fireworks in her head. At the last second, she saw a knee headed for her face and was too woozy to block it. The knee smashed her nose once more, further breaking it.
Alicia went down.
A boot landed on her chest, protected by the Kevlar. The boot withdrew and lifted again, ready to stomp, this time on her neck. Alicia, still unable to see clearly, brought her arms up, catching the boot before it could do any damage.
She twisted and shoved it away. She wiped her eyes, tried to clear her head. A kick came in, which she managed to smother by holding onto the man’s leg, practically hugging it. Her position made it hard for him to continue his attack. The next thing she heard was a magazine being slapped into an AK.
So he’d hit her because he was out of ammo. Smart guy. Alicia flipped her body in an ungainly manner. All grace was out of the window. This was kill or be killed, and she could feel the blood pouring from her nose, the darkness threatening to engulf her brain. She heaved on the man’s thigh, unbalancing him, feeling relief when he crashed down onto the deck. She barely saw the AK glance off the side of her head, but she felt it. Skin peeled away. More blood flowed.
Alicia pounced on the gun, wrestling it away from the pirate. They struggled for a while, scrambling and rolling around the deck. When the pirate grunted in triumph and made to stab her in the chest, she let it happen, knowing the metal plate would deflect the blade. She used the moment to climb on top of her opponent, her face close to his, her blood dripping into his eyes. In charge now, she broke his wrist and pulled the knife out of his hand before plunging it into his throat. Even then he got another punch off, again striking her nose.
Once he was dead, Alicia hung her head for a moment. Blinding pain shot through her. But she only let it rule her for a moment. Struggling, she rose, looked up, glared at the blinding sun.
“You won’t get rid of me that easy.”
All around her passengers clapped. She turned in surprise, noticing their grateful faces, the admiring looks. She nodded and turned away.
Where next?
Alicia realized she had fought halfway across the deck. It had been a savage battle. She paused for a moment to wipe blood from her face and, gingerly, touch her nose. Again, pain blasted through her. It was definitely broken, and definitely crooked.
Damn. She’d have to find a mirror and reset it before Mai saw. She didn’t give a shit about anyone else, but no way was the Sprite going to use her bent nose as ammunition.
Alicia became aware that the ship was listing in the water. She guessed it had gone down several inches during her fight. It was getting worse, the tragedy unstoppable. Rescue boats still drifted off the port side. The Bainbridge was motoring closer. Choppers were in the air.
And the passengers still lined the decks.
But the crew were helping, clearly well trained in abandoning ship. Ignoring the lifeboats for now, they were throwing cylinders holding life rafts overboard and into the sea. When the cylinders hit the water, they automatically inflated and drifted. They were emergency rafts in case people were forced to jump. The crew were working fast and efficiently. Alicia swept her eyes across the lined-up passengers, all terrified, all incredibly weary. They were dressed in all manner of clothing from snug denim shorts to green bikinis and ripped evening dresses. They wore Speedos and jeans and pleated trousers. They were wild-eyed, cut and bruised, dazed from suffering a lifetime of trauma in just a few days.
Some of the crew were trying to control the chaos, attempting to calm men and women. They checked life vests. They gently assured several people that taking bags containing money and passports overboard was not an option.
“Why the fuck haven’t they launched the fucking lifeboats?” Alicia yelled into the face of a passing crew member.
“It’s happening now that all the crew are topside,” the man breathed. “Look.”
Alicia turned back to the lifeboats, studying them for the first time and realizing she was standing opposite one. Large orange oval vessels, they were attached to the
side of the ship and accessible through a white steel barrier. The crew were manning every entry point and shouting over the passengers’ heads.
At last, a kind of petrified calm settled across the decks.
“We are now launching!” an officer shouted at the top of his voice. “Don’t rush, don’t push. We have plenty of boats.”
The boats were attached to davits, long cradle-like arms that would shift out away from the ship and lower each boat into the water. Alicia watched as the crew unlocked the barrier preventing the passengers’ access to the boats.
Predictably, they surged at the new entrance.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Drake stormed through the sinking vessel, his mind fixed on one thing.
Where the hell are Mai and Luther?
The worst never entered his mind. He thought they might be injured or unconscious. Maybe their comms had fried. But he couldn’t think beyond that.
Drake raced away from the bridge, found a staircase and leapt down several flights until he came to the lower deck. He slowed, remembering a bomb had just gone off, but expected the damage to be imperceptible at first, gradually escalating to catastrophic.
He found himself in a corridor of staterooms, the plush décor out of place with the circumstances of his charge. He ran across a deep-pile, red carpet, emerging at a Duty Free shop which he arrowed straight through.
On the other side he found devastation.
He faced the central hub area that Mai had spoken of. Below it was where the bombs had been planted. Drake raised his gun and moved forward, going through a shattered door and into the side-open area. Ahead, he saw an open door to the right and hurried toward it.
Taking them three at a time, Drake flew down dozens of risers, emerging onto the lower deck. Flinging open the door he stepped out.
There were holes in the floor, the explosives having being shaped to fire downward. Drake guessed they had been laid around crucial areas. The sound of the entire structure groaning like a dying beast was louder down here. It sounded like a pod of miserable whales. It sounded like his entire world was coming apart.
“Mai! Luther!”
They had to be here. Drake avoided the holes in the floor, realizing the surrounding area might be unstable. He ran from wall to wall, from port to starboard, checking every nook and cranny.
Just a few minutes had passed since the bombs went off.
Drake pushed deeper along the deck, stepping carefully and checking every corner. Halfway along, he saw a door to the right and the boots of a prone body. Fear hammered up into his chest. The boots weren’t moving. Drake raced to them, mouth dry, but as he came closer he realized it was a dead pirate.
Mai or Luther had stopped the guy before the explosion. Maybe he was one of the bomb makers or just another guard. Either way, he had met a fitting end.
Drake carried on along the deck. Just past the center he found that, if he craned his neck, he could see straight down into one of the holes the bombs had made. He now realized how crude the bomb maker was. These devices had been fashioned purely to put a holes in the floor, in the ship itself. This was why the ship was sinking slowly and listing. Of course, the process would speed up existentially. What took five minutes would soon take four minutes, and then three and so on, until the ocean liner ended up at the very bottom of the sea.
Drake pushed on.
“Mai! Luther!”
He dreaded seeing another body. His mouth was dry, his tongue glued to the roof. Drake was not a man to scare easily but hunting for unresponsive friends in a devastated area was about as frightening as it got.
“Drake?”
Luther’s voice cut clear through his fear, firing his adrenaline. Drake ran toward the voice, rounded a partition and slowed.
“Shit, you okay?”
Luther was on his knees, a massive figure brought low. Blood dripped from the line of his forehead. His camo trousers were ripped and slashed. Some flesh was broken. Luther was kneeling over a body, a body that was clearly dead.
Drake’s legs went to jelly. For a second he couldn’t move, didn’t want to get closer. His head began to pound, the blood boiling.
“No, no. Is that . . .?”
Luther looked up, nodding.
Drake went into numb disbelief. His entire body shrieked one second later when an arm fell across his shoulders.
“Hey, Matt, you okay?”
He squealed and leapt aside, shocked to the core. When he saw Mai standing there, her face holding an amused and quizzical expression, he almost cried. Without a word he stepped in and hugged her, hugged her close and tight.
Mai patted him on the back. “You okay?”
“I thought . . . I thought that was you.” He pointed to Luther and the dead body.
“No. That’s one of the crew members the pirates killed when they were setting the bombs. We tried to save him but failed.”
Drake saw now why Luther was so upset. Carefully, he stepped away from Mai. “Sorry to hear it.”
“You thought I was dead?” Mai pressed. “Is that why you squealed?”
“I don’t squeal.”
“It was either a squeal or a squeak.” Luther stood up and brushed himself off, holding his ribs as he started to walk over. “Either way, it sounded wrong.”
Drake studied the big man. “You okay?”
“Bruised,” Luther said, limping a little. “Took a tumble when the bombs went off, but I’ll live.”
Mai gestured at the holes in the floor. “Just eight did all that damage. Imagine if there’d been thirty.”
“You guys saved a lot of lives today,” Drake said. “We should get back up top to help them abandon ship.”
“We can’t leave men behind.” Luther looked over at the dead crewmember.
“We can’t take him with us,” Drake said with regret. “They’re loading the lifeboats.”
Together, they ascended until they were back at the hub area. At one point, Drake stopped and listened. He could hear a rushing sound now, something he hadn’t heard before.
“Water,” Mai said.
“Seawater,” Drake said. “This crate is going down.”
The words stopped him in his tracks. It conjured a vision of impending doom. Death swirling and churning, rising up for him. Before he could dwell anymore, Mai dragged him away and they left the hub area behind, heading straight for the staircase.
“What’s the situation?” Luther asked. “Our comms went out after the explosion.”
Drake wasn’t sure what they knew so laid it all out. “Salene is in custody. Hayden, Dahl and the others are on their way here to help, hopefully by chopper. The lifeboats are ready, and the rescue boats are prepped. The crew is headed topside to help, assuming they aren’t already there among the passengers.”
“Alicia?” Mai asked.
Drake was careful not to smile at the concern he read in her voice. “She’s fine. She’s helping to keep the passengers calm.”
Mai blinked and frowned. “Did I hear you correctly? Alicia’s keeping them calm?”
Drake shrugged. “Yeah, I’m in shock too. God knows what we’re gonna find up there.”
They pounded up the stairs, Drake’s thigh and calf muscles screaming from the exertion of the past few hours. The first deck they came to was awash with passengers waiting to climb up to the lifeboat deck. Drake continued on, finally arriving at the right deck. His way outside was blocked by more people than he could count.
“Alicia,” he said into the comms. “Where are you?”
Figures rushed by, barging them aside. Some hammered on the glass, shouting for a way outside. Those people on deck could barely move, let alone turn around, so crushed were they. Beyond them, Drake saw a stream of figures rushing into at least two lifeboats.
Alicia came back: “Mid deck. Watching the loading. It’s mayhem out here, but the crew are doing a great job.”
“We can see. I have Mai and Luther. We can’t get to you.”
Drake imagined the pirates would have a way off the boat. It occurred to him now that maybe that way had been compromised, perhaps by the death of Kobe, perhaps by the capture of Salene, or something else entirely.
Either way, there could well be up to twenty desperate Somalian pirates running around this sinking ship.
He related the news to Mai and Luther, who became instantly more aware. “How’s the egress going?” Drake asked Alicia.
“Not good. I just heard from the crew that the pirates disabled all the emergency systems when they took control. That’s the doors, the sprinklers, the compartmentalizing of decks and rooms around the explosion. Fucking everything.”
“I doubt these Somalian pirates would be capable of that.”
“Me neither. I guess the instructions came straight form the hand and mouth of the Devil. This is his plan.”
Drake hung his head in frustration and fear. “Shit. I can’t see you.”
“That’s okay. Can you feel the boat listing?”
Drake nodded. “It’s going down faster now. We saw water coming up through the lower deck. We don’t have long.”
And then the Rabot let out a deep, distressing groan. All along the port and starboard sides windows blew out as pressure on their joints mounted. The deck titled further, people falling and hanging on for dear life. Many failed and hit the bulwark hard, bloodying their heads and arms. Some broke legs and fingers as other passengers fell on them. Some of the outer décor and furnishings snapped off, peeling away or plummeting down, either hitting the sea or falling among passengers. Drake pushed away from the glass door as he sensed it was about to shatter inward. In another moment it exploded. People fell inside and outside, tumbling in a screaming mass, covered in a surge of glass. The entire floor titled upward. Drake grabbed hold of a fitting to steady himself. The sound of rushing water reached his ears, but he knew it couldn’t be that close. It was the sound of his own mortality.
Luther and Mai were lifting people, helping them to a safe place. Many turned away from the proffered aid and attempted to get nearer lifeboats that, even bolted to the ship, were swinging more than a little.
The Sea Rats Page 19
