Marauder

by Clive Cussler

  Sinduk raised his hand as a signal, and three men dressed in the park’s yellow uniforms approached with loads of towels in their hands as if the bundles were an offering. By the menacing looks in their eyes and intense expressions, it was clear they were from the other Indo Jihad cell.

  They abruptly stopped only a few feet away when a white man drunkenly staggered up to Raven. He was shirtless, wearing nothing but swim trunks and sneakers, and seemed proud of his ripped abs, bronzed biceps, and chiseled face that wouldn’t have been out of place on a comic book superhero. He grinned at Raven as he gave a sloppy salute to the men with the green beer bottle in his hand.

  “Ah have been waiting for you, beautiful,” MacD Lawless slurred convincingly. He drained the rest of the bottle, which she guessed was water. “Where have you been?”

  Raven played along with the act. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

  MacD shook his head and burped. “It’s time to go, babe. Eddie and Linc are busy right now, but they’ll be ready any minute.”

  “Get out of here,” Sinduk demanded.

  Raven turned to Sinduk and put up her hand. “I can take care of him.” She faced MacD again. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  MacD smiled even wider, but his eyes flicked toward the men with towels. “Don’t push me away, darlin’.”

  He took a step closer to Raven, and she understood what he wanted her to do. With both hands, she shoved him backward into the men holding the towel bundles.

  MacD took a calculated stumble into the man in the middle, windmilling his arms in the process. He smashed the beer bottle into the head of the terrorist on his right, who dropped the towels he was holding. Two Daewoo K7 submachine guns clattered to the ground.

  MacD swung the broken bottle in the other direction, plunging it into the chest of the second man.

  Raven charged the third man as he drew a K7 from his bundle. She kneed him in the groin and jabbed the ceramic knife into his throat.

  Before she could pick up one of the weapons, a fist slammed into her back like a pile driver. She dropped to her knees and saw Sinduk pick up one of the guns. He ran toward the waterslide with one of the other men from the van.

  The third terrorist with Sinduk tackled MacD, and they began trading punches as they rolled around on the pavement.

  The wind had been knocked out of Raven’s lungs, and she struggled to catch her breath. At the sight of the fighting, blood, and guns, chaos erupted among the nearest parkgoers, with some running and shrieking and others craning their necks to see what the commotion was.

  Raven finally stood and picked up one of the K7s to chase after Sinduk, but a hand reached out to trip her. She fell forward and saw that it was the man who’d been hit in the head by the bottle. Blood streamed down his face as he dragged Raven toward him.

  The rubber flip-flops wouldn’t do much damage, so she didn’t bother trying to kick him. Instead, she whipped the K7 around by the barrel and bashed his head with the stock. This time he went limp.

  Three terrorists down, with another still fighting MacD. Sinduk and his companion made a run for the Senators’ families to complete the assassination mission.

  The civilians took priority over helping MacD. In any case, Ocean Land security staff were sprinting from the entrance to break up what they thought was a simple brawl involving some of the guests.

  They immediately pounced on MacD and the terrorist he was battling. Raven didn’t stay to watch the outcome. She cycled the bolt on the K7 to make sure there was a round in the chamber and took off after the jihadists, who were waving their guns and weaving through the terrified crowd toward the Crazy Eights.

  THIRTEEN

  The terrorists weren’t expert marksmen, but they had Eddie pinned down from behind concrete poles holding up the roof of the Raging Rapids loading area. Every time he stuck his head up to take a shot, he had to duck back down under the withering cross fire.

  Escaping the control room to either side was impossible without taking a bullet. Eddie couldn’t stay where he was. He had to find Linc and get back out to the park to help Raven and MacD.

  Out of the back door of the control room, he saw his one opportunity. An empty raft was passing by on the conveyor belt.

  He crawled out of the building and flopped into the moving raft. He pressed himself to the floor as it passed out of the shadow of the control room.

  He waited until the raft was nearly at the end of the loading zone, picturing the angles to where the terrorists were positioned. Eddie was counting on them still focusing their attention on the control room.

  Once he had a clear view, Eddie popped up between two of the headrests and aimed at the terrorists from the side as they concentrated on the now empty building. He fired three-round bursts at each of them, and they crumpled to the ground.

  Eddie scrambled out of the raft before it was launched into the river. His best chance for catching Linc was from the rider line bridge over the waterway.

  He ran down the path until he reached the bridge. He spotted Linc’s raft as it came around a bend toward him.

  The raft was bobbing and wheeling as Linc fought against the two terrorists, who seemed to be trying to pitch him out of the raft. Linc was an expert brawler, but the unstable footing against two opponents who were smaller and more agile meant he was taking kicks and punches from both sides.

  Eddie took aim, but the swirling raft made it impossible for him to get a clean shot without the risk of hitting Linc.

  The bridge had a wire mesh screen to keep people waiting in line from dropping objects on the passengers fifteen feet below. Eddie climbed along the downriver side of the mesh. He had only a few seconds before the raft passed underneath the bridge.

  He flipped down the outside of the barrier until his feet were dangling at the bottom of the bridge over the thirty-foot-wide chasm. As soon as he saw the lip of the raft emerge from beneath the bridge, he let go. At the same time, the raft was caught in an eddy and spun to the side. Eddie landed on the edge of the step into the boat, and he pitched backward to keep from falling out.

  He landed right at the feet of Linc, who was pinned by the two terrorists. They looked down in astonishment at the new passenger.

  “Nice of you to drop in,” Linc grunted.

  Eddie sprang to his feet and threw an elbow at the head of the closest terrorist, who barely dodged it. He twisted around, but Eddie latched onto his neck and put him in a headlock. The man clawed at Eddie’s arm, helpless.

  Now that Linc had only one foe to contend with, he used his colossal strength to wrestle the man over the side of the raft. The terrorist grasped the headrest to keep from falling into the foaming white water, but the boat lurched sideways as it hit a current, and he was crushed against the concrete wall.

  The jolt forced the raft under a jet of water used to playfully drench the riders, but the combination of impacts allowed the terrorist to push Eddie back, and the two of them tumbled over the side.

  Eddie still had his arm around the terrorist’s throat as they fell, and the force of the impact as they hit the water was enough to snap the man’s neck. He went limp, and Eddie let go as he swam to the surface.

  He saw they were approaching the roughest leg of the journey, with whitecaps breaking and churning the water like a washing machine.

  The raft bumped his head from behind, and he grabbed hold of the rubber tube. He tried to pull himself up, but the surface was too wide and slick. It was just a matter of time before he would be crushed between the giant raft and the canyon walls.

  “Need a lift?” said a deep voice above him.

  Eddie looked up to see Linc reaching down to him. He took hold of Linc’s hand as the raft spun yet again, tilting toward a sure impact with the side of the channel.

  As easy as if he were lifting a prize trout from a river, Linc yanked
him out of the water and into the raft.

  “And here’s the catch of the day,” Linc said as he leaned back against the closest seat to steady himself and catch his breath.

  Eddie clutched one of the safety bars to keep from getting tossed around as they continued down the rapids.

  “Thanks,” he said. He keyed the mic with his tongue. “MacD, report please.”

  There was no response. He tried again with the same result.

  All he and Linc could do now was wait in frustration until the raft was carried back to the end of the ride.

  FOURTEEN

  If the crowds of shrieking guests hadn’t been in Raven’s way, she would have shot Sinduk before he reached the Crazy Eights. The terrorist leader and his comrade were making slow progress as they dodged panicked tourists, allowing Raven to make up ground as she ran after them through the cleared path they’d created behind them.

  Halfway up the stairs of the waterslide, the Senators’ families peered over the railing to check out what was causing the chaos below. Raven feared they would come back down the stairs right into Sinduk’s path. She tried waving at Muñoz, Schmidt, and their two teens to keep climbing.

  They weren’t looking at her, but it didn’t matter. Sinduk took a potshot at them, plastering the stairs with bullets too low to hit them. The Americans screamed and started running up the Super Pass side of the stairs.

  Sinduk and the other man reached the stairs and sprinted up after them. Crowds of riders streamed past them down the main stairway. Luckily, Sinduk was so focused on his goal that he ignored the easier targets.

  Raven got to the stairway moments later and took the stairs two at a time. There was a gap between the switchback stairs, allowing her to see Sinduk two stories above her. She stopped and took aim as they rounded a corner. She had Sinduk in her sights and fired.

  The shots didn’t hit him because the other terrorist stepped into the path of the bullets. The man went down without a sound.

  Sinduk pointed his weapon over the railing and sprayed the stairway with rounds. They pinged off the metal, but Raven was able to duck back in time to avoid being struck.

  When the hail of bullets stopped, she leaned back and saw that Sinduk had continued up, but he made sure not to present himself as a target again. Raven kept running.

  When she passed the dead terrorist on the sixth level, she saw drops of blood spattered on the stairs leading to the top. She must have hit Sinduk. There was still a chance to catch him.

  When she was on the eighth level, she saw him just above her, limping from a bloody wound on his thigh. He was wrestling his way through frightened guests pushing and shoving to get into one of the eight tubes of the waterslide and flee from the gunfire underneath them.

  She bounded up the stairs, trying to reach Sinduk while he was distracted. She was still a flight down as he stepped onto the loading platform at the top.

  When Raven turned the final corner, she saw that Sinduk had stopped and was pointing the gun at his quarry. The employees had long vanished, and the few remaining guests were piling into one of the eight tubes gushing with water. Oliver Muñoz shielded his daughter Elena while Emily Schmidt frantically pushed Kyle toward the waterslide.

  The Senators’ families were only a few steps away from him.

  Raven couldn’t take the risk of shooting with so many innocents in the line of fire.

  In Sinduk’s other hand was his phone. He tapped on it and dropped it to the floor.

  “Death to America,” he shouted in English, raising his weapon.

  At that moment, Raven hit him in the back with her shoulder using all the power she could muster. The blow knocked them both to the floor. Sinduk dropped his weapon, and it went skittering into one of the waterslide tubes.

  He leaped onto Raven, trying to snatch her gun away. Muñoz made a motion toward them, but Raven thought that was a good way for him to get killed.

  “Go,” she yelled. “Get out of here.”

  As Raven wrestled with Sinduk, Muñoz shoved Elena and Kyle into a tube, followed by Emily Schmidt and finally Muñoz himself.

  Sinduk roared in fury as he saw his targets fleeing. He pried the gun from Raven’s hand, sliding it away from them before slamming his elbow into her chin. Raven rolled away, shaking her head from the powerful jolt.

  They both got to their feet, him on his bleeding leg, her with a swollen jaw. They faced each other with the gun lying halfway between them.

  “Who are you?” he snarled in Arabic.

  “I’m a guardian of decency,” Raven said, drawing the ceramic dagger from its sheath that she had stuck into the knot of her sarong.

  She could see the gears turning in his head. If he reached down to get the gun with his bad leg, she’d be able to stab him before he could get back up. But he needed that weapon to complete his task.

  He sneered at her. “You don’t realize it, but you’ve already lost.”

  Instead of trying to pick up the gun, he reached out with his foot and kicked it into the waterslide tube where the Schmidts and Muñozes had gone down. In the same motion, he dived in after it. Raven didn’t hesitate and plunged in headfirst right behind him.

  The slick course twisted and corkscrewed down, with the translucent tube filtering the sunlight into a diffuse green glow.

  Sinduk was only inches ahead of her. He clawed at the submachine gun that was sliding through the water just out of his reach.

  Toward the bottom, as the slide leveled out, Sinduk was finally able to grasp the handle and pull it to him. He flipped on his back and pointed the gun behind him at his pursuer. There was nothing Raven could do to dodge the shot.

  She didn’t have to. As Sinduk pulled the trigger, he dropped into the pool at the end of the slide. Bullets tore into the sky until he was dunked under the surface.

  Raven pitched into the water, the knife held out like a spear. It sank into Sinduk’s chest, and he stared at her wide-eyed as blood billowed out into the pool. The life drained from his face, and the gun dropped from his hands.

  Raven withdrew the knife and sheathed it back in her sarong before picking up the gun. She emerged from the water and realized that it was only three feet deep. As she stood, she scanned the area and saw the Schmidts and Muñozes scrambling out of the pool, seemingly unharmed.

  Raven, however, knew they weren’t out of danger yet. Sinduk said she had already lost. He had to be referring to something he’d mentioned to her at the van.

  The terrorist leader had a backup plan.

  FIFTEEN

  The Ocean Land security guards hadn’t presented much of a challenge. MacD, however, was miffed that it had taken him a couple of seconds longer to free himself than it had the jihadist. He sprinted after the terrorist and caught him ascending the Crazy Eights.

  MacD snagged the back of the terrorist’s shirt on the third level and yanked him backward.

  The terrorist wheeled around with his fist cocked. MacD was ready for him. He easily sidestepped the punch and leveraged the man’s momentum to heave him over the railing. The terrorist fell still when he struck the pavement below.

  MacD spotted Raven climbing out of one of the lower pools with a submachine gun in hand. Scarlet spread from a motionless body in the clear water.

  Raven went straight to a group of three people huddled around a fourth. Oliver Muñoz tended to his teenage girl, Elena, who was coughing like she had swallowed water, while Emily Schmidt and her son, Kyle, watched. They recoiled from the gun Raven was carrying, but whatever she said to them put them at ease.

  “MacD, do you read me?” came Eddie’s voice in his ear.

  “Ah’m on the waterslide.”

  “We’re coming out of the Raging Rapids.” MacD saw Eddie and Linc jogging out of the rafting ride construction zone. Both of them were dripping wet. “Where is Raven?”

 
; “She’s at the bottom pool with the Schmidt and Muñoz families. All four of them look all right, and we’ve eliminated all the terrorists we spotted, but there may be more.”

  “Understood. We’ll meet you there.”

  MacD sprinted down the stairs when a geyser of water erupted from one of the pools below him, followed by a concussive blast. A few seconds later, another one hit. Then a third.

  MacD had experienced enough explosions to know that it was mortar fire coming from somewhere.

  Raven and the families dived to the ground. MacD could see that the shells were closing in on them. He looked out from his high perch. His eyes were drawn to puffs of smoke emanating from the fishing boat out in the channel between the islands.

  He saw Eddie on his phone and heard what he was saying.

  “Oregon, we’ve got incoming mortar fire.”

  MacD didn’t hear the reply, but he saw the result.

  A rusty old cargo freighter with four cranes was rounding one of the islands at a leisurely pace. MacD recognized it instantly as the new Oregon.

  He knew that the chameleon-like paint scheme that allowed the ship to change appearance from a brand new vessel to a decrepit tramp steamer at the push of a button was not her only upgraded feature. The Oregon was less than two miles away, and MacD could see a turret rising from the bow deck. The barrel of the ebony gun rotated until it was pointed at the fishing boat.

  The weapon was a rail gun, but MacD hadn’t seen it in operation until now.

  Unlike a cannon that propels its shell with gunpowder, the rail gun used a powerful electromagnet to accelerate its rounds to hypersonic speeds. Although the shell was inert, its velocity of more than five thousand miles per hour gave it the same explosive energy as the warhead of a Tomahawk missile.

  As another puff of smoke indicated the mortar was letting off another round, the rail gun fired. Instantaneously, the fishing boat was ripped in two from stem to stern as if it were made of tissue paper, detonating the mortar rounds in a fireball. The two halves of the fishing boat sank into the sea, leaving nothing but burning oil on the surface.