"Of course. She called me from her doctor's office." His lip curled. "She said she had to meet me. At our 'special place.' She babbled on about how she loved me, how I had to marry her, how she would do anything for me. I wanted only one thing from her, though."
"You slimy prick! You used her pregnancy to worm her password out of her."
"It took little worming."
They faced each other across ten yards of steel gangway, surrounded on all sides by stacked containers, each dead certain the other wouldn't leave the cargo hold alive.
That became clear when Moore reached for the small of his back and produced a six-inch blade. The naked steel didn't worry Cleo as much as the Heckler & Koch still tucked under his right arm. She gathered her muscles, went up on the balls of her feet. She was ready to spring when another figure lunged out of the shadows between the containers.
"Eat this, you murdering son of bitch."
Moore whirled, threw up his arm, but couldn't block the vicious thrust. Snarling, Sloan stabbed the point of the shellacked starfish into his throat.
Red spewed from the wound in a glistening arc, drenching both attacker and attacked. Choking, gurgling, strangling on his own blood, Moore slashed at Marc.
Sloan danced to one side to avoid the blade, jerked the starfish free and stabbed again.
The hijacker staggered, then went to his knees, the starfish embedded in his jugular. With a last choking gurgle, he raised his weapon.
Cleo leaped forward but couldn't close the distance in time. The bastard fired, either from reflex or intent.
She knew one instant of absolute terror as bullets pinged off metal containers. Another when a stray shot hit some vital ship's organ and plunged the entire hold into darkness.
"Marc!"
Totally blind, she thrust out her arms and started to feel her way forward.
"Where are…?"
She broke off, wincing, as a Klaxon began to scream. In the next instant, the hatchways between the watertight compartments began to thud shut.
Now blind and deaf, Cleo didn't dare move forward. She stood frozen for a moment, then grabbed her purse and pawed through it.
The key chain was there.
She knew it was there.
Somewhere.
Ears aching under the siren's violent assault, she fumbled in the darkness. She was almost weeping when her fist closed around Doreen's souped-up penlight.
The high-intensity beam pierced the darkness. Flinging up an arm to shield her eyes from the reflection off the metal containers, she directed the beam down the center of the hold. A solid wall of steel separated her from Marc. With a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, she spun around.
Yep, there it was. Another eight or ten inches of solid steel, standing smack between her and the stairs.
And that damned Klaxon wouldn't stop shrieking.
Fighting the urge to fire a few desperate rounds in the general vicinity of the siren, Cleo tried to remember Marc's crash course on the Pitsen-barger's layout.
Every watertight compartment came equipped with an escape hatch. Sloan had guarded the one over the engine room. All Cleo had to do was locate the one in this compartment, scramble up the ladder and crawl out onto the deck.
She found the ladder easily enough. Holding the penlight between her teeth, she even managed to climb the rungs and wrestle the iron latches securing the hatch free of their flanges.
The heavy cover took all she had, though.
Scrunching around, she put her shoulders to the reinforced lid and shoved upward. The first heave dislodged it. The second sent it flopping back. Wedging her hips through the narrow opening, Cleo scrambled onto the deck. The wind whipped at her hair. Salt spray needled her face. She gulped in several deep breaths, dropped the forever light into her purse and turned in a circle to get her bearings. The tall, air-conditioned pods blocked her view of everything but the antennas and glass eyes of the bridge.
Still deafened by the shriek of the Klaxon, she '' rounded the far pod and started for the deckhouse.
The sight that greeted her at that point shoved the breath back down her throat. The radio operator leaned against the rail halfway down the deck. He had a rocket launcher propped on one plump shoulder and the muzzle aimed at the Sea-hawk still perched on the pad.
Cleo saw the pilot through the bubble of the cockpit, his hands on the throttle. Saw one of his crewmen dive for the.50 mm canon. Saw Lady Marston spring out of the side hatch and drop into a two-fisted shooter's stance.
Johanna was too far out of range. All the way at the bow of the ship. Cleo registered that fact even as she herself leapt forward, shouting wildly.
"Hey! Radio Man!"
His head whipped around at the same instant the rocket launcher's target-acquisition indicator light went from red to green. Setting his fleshy lips, Radio Man whirled and aimed the muzzle at the chopper once more.
Cleo didn't hesitate. Blanking out any thought of the explosives stacked all around her, she brought the.38 up and fired.
24
I he bullet took Radio Man in the shoulder and spun him around. Cleo had all of half a second to congratulate herself for spoiling his aim before a sleek white missile erupted from the launcher.
"Oh, shit."
Horrified, she watched the lethal cylinder fly straight for the Pitsenbarger's bridge. Glass splintered. Metal shrieked. The missile disappeared.
For a delirious instant, Cleo thought the thing must have pierced right through the bridge and splashed harmlessly into the ship's wake. The thought had no sooner formed than the entire upper portion of the deckhouse blew.
Shock waves from the explosion threw Cleo against a storage pod. She hit with a thud that jarred every bone in her body, remained flattened against the container for a second, then slid to the deck.
She sat there, legs splayed, ears ringing. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. With every thud of her heart against her ribs, she expected the pods surrounding her to blow.
Radio Man must have expected the same thing. When the spots cleared enough for Cleo to focus, she saw the horror on his tubby face as he stared at the flames now engulfing the upper half of the deckhouse.
Tossing aside the launch tube, he whirled and ran for one of the lifeboats. Before Cleo could stagger to her feet, he'd ripped off the orange cover, scrambled inside and began frantically cranking the davits to swing the boat over the rails.
She didn't spare the little creep another glance. Her first priority right now-her only priority- was finding Jack and Marc and the others before the fire reached the cargo deck.
She raced along the rail, aiming for the nearest hatch cover. Marc was in the next compartment. He had to be. And Jack… He was heading forward with the crew. Or was it aft? Cursing, Cleo tried to re�
�member.
A panting Johanna Marston came racing toward her. "Where are Marc and Donovan?" she shouted over the still-shrieking Klaxon.
JBelow. Somewhere."
"Sod it! I assume that bloody Klaxon means the emergency systems have activated and the cargo compartments are sealed off."
"Right."
She whipped a glance at the row of hatch covers stretching the length of the ship. "So the men will have to escape through one of those hatches."
"If they can locate them! It's pitch-black down there."
The British agent cursed and threw a look at the flames and smoke pouring from the upper deckhouse.
"You take this one. I'll get the next."
She was already off and running as Cleo dropped to her knees beside the nearest escape hatch. The deck that had looked no bigger than a postage stamp from two hundred feet up now seemed to stretch to infinity. Thirteen compartments from stem to stern, all with heavy, stubborn hatch covers to wrestle off.
Cleo attacked the first, twisting the flanges, popping the cover, shoving it to the deck. She poked her head into the opening and screamed into the inky darkness.
"Sloan! Donovan! Anyone!"
There was no answer except the scream of the siren. Heart pounding, Cleo pushed to her feet.
Panting, she and Johanna Marston leapfrogged down the deck. The iron latches scraped the skin from Cleo's palms. The heavy covers ripped her nails off at the quick.
"Donovan!"
The flames roared higher, hotter. She remembered the hijackers they'd left bound and gagged in the lower portion of the deckhouse. Jaw set, Cleo shoved the thought away. Jack and Marc and the Pitsenbarger's crew came first.
Particularly Jack.
Mostly Jack.
The awful, agonizing fear that Donovan might die locked in a dark cargo hold sent her racing to the next hatch. The ship couldn't blow until she'd found him. It couldn't!
Every pulsing shriek of the Klaxon spiked into her skull. Heat blistered her skin. Smoke seared her throat. Nails bloodied, she ripped at another hatch cover and screamed into the blackness.
"Donovan! Where the hell are you?"
"Right here."
The white blur of a face popped out of the darkness. When five or six others crowded behind it, Cleo sat back on her heels and gulped down a lump the size of Texas.
Shooting her a grin, Jack hauled himself up. "'Bout time you showed, North."
"Yeah, well, things got a little hot up here on deck."
When he caught his first glimpse of the flames shooting from the deckhouse, his grin dived straight south.
"Jesus H. Christ! What did you do?"
"Radio Man fired a missile. He was aiming for the Seahawk, but I, uh, got in the way."
"What?"
"I'll tell you about it later. Right now I think we should just concentrate on getting the hell off this ship."
Jack agreed. Kneeling beside her, he reached down to help a filthy, bearded seaman through the hatch.
Crew loyalties died hard, Cleo discovered when she and Jack got the small, ragged band on deck. None of them wanted to leave their shipmates behind. Nor could Cleo or Jack abandon Sloan and his sister.
One of the crew who'd climbed through the hatch was the second engineering officer. He sported a bruise the side of a grapefruit on one side of his face and his nose was a pulpy, swollen mass, but Cleo guessed he'd been kept alive because he was needed to operate the ship's systems. Turning a grim face to the flames, he assessed the situation.
"We've got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before the fire reaches the lower deckhouse. Who's left inside?" Thank God she'd kept a running tally. "Last time we saw Captain Kobe, he was on the bridge. The radio operator-or the man disguising himself as a radio operator-has already hit the lifeboats. We left one of the hijackers trussed to a chair in the captain's cabin, two more on the thirds' deck, another on the crew deck."
"Fuck 'em. What about McCauley, our cook's mate?"
"He took a bullet and was too woozy to walk.
We left him in the galley."
"Powers, you and Handerhand go for McCauley. Jerrold, you come with me. We'll try to find the captain. The rest of you, launch the lifeboats and abandon ship."
"We've still got two of our own aboard," Jack said. "We have to-"
"Is that them?"
With a jerk of his chin, the engineer indicated the figures plunging out of the smoke. Lady Marston had Marc's arm draped over one shoulder. Bowed under his weight, she half carried, half dragged him across the deck.
Jack hurried to relieve her of the burden, his jaw tightening at the glistening red splashes on Sloan's borrowed khakis. "Did you take a shot?"
"No," Marc croaked. "Just came up…on the windward side and…swallowed some smoke." Despite the smoke still rattling around in his lungs, he managed a small, savage smile. "The blood isn't…mine."
"Marc put Trish's killer out of business," Cleo said, getting a shoulder under Sloan's other arm. "Come on, let's get you two into a lifeboat."
With the electrical systems out, the crew had to manually crank the davits to swing the boats clear of the rail and lower them to sea level. Jack hefted Sloan into one already full to overflowing and steadied Johanna Marston as she climbed in behind her brother.
"Take her down!" Jack shouted to the man at the crank. "We'll go for the next one."
Two of the gaunt crew members were already ripping the cover off the next lifeboat. Cleo took a couple of steps, skidded to a halt and saw the decision she'd just come to reflected in Donovan's blue eyes.
"They're scum. I know they're scum. But we can't let them fry."
"Get into the lifeboat, Cleo. I'll go after them."
She didn't bother arguing with that women-and-children-first absurdity. Spinning on one heel, she raced for the deckhouse.
"You take the engineer's deck," she shouted above the crackling flames. "I'll take the crew quarters."
The smoke wasn't as intense as she'd expected. The wind was sucking it up through the deckhouse like a chimney, Cleo realized, and blowing it back over the ship. But the heat was blistering.
"Use this to shield your face." Jack flung his sport coat at her. "And don't touch the rails. They'll sear the skin off your palms."
Ripping off his shirt, he wrapped it around his face and head and sprinted up the stairs three at a time. Cleo threw a last look at his bare back and ducked into the crew quarters.
She found the unconscious hijacker still folded into the locker where they'd stuffed him. Cursing the potency of Donovan's subduing agent, she hauled the man across her shoulders in a fireman's lift and staggered back down the stairs.
The flames must have consumed another deck. Cleo could hear them above her, hissing and spitting. Close. Too damned close to those tons of explosives on the upper cargo deck.
"Get him
into the boat!"
Dumping the unconscious man at the feet of the crew manning the davits, she whirled and started back for Jack. She was a few yards from the deckhouse when the hatch flew open and No-Pants Guy burst out.
Wide-eyed with terror, he raced for the lifeboat. Leaving him to make it on his own, Cleo wrapped Jack's coat around her head and fought her way back into the inferno.
A half deck up, she was almost bowled over by the Pitsenbarger's second engineer. He carried a body slung over one shoulder. Captain Kobe, she saw in a quick, frantic glance.
"Found him on the thirds' deck," he shouted over the roaring flames. "Bastards put a bullet into him, but he's still alive."
"Did you see Donovan?"
"Yeah. Said there was one more, up in the captain's quarters."
Dammit! He'd gone for Westerbeck.
"You'd better get the hell out of here," the engineer warned, his boots thumping on the stairs. "You've got to put some blue water between you and the Pits before the flames reach the cargo deck."
Right! As if she needed the reminder!
Mouth and nose masked, eyes streaming, Cleo peered up through the well in the center of the deckhouse. All she could see were smoke and flames.
Leaving the hijackers to fry was one thing. Frying along with them wasn't on Cleo's immediate agenda. If that was anyone but Donovan up there…
She started up the stairs, only to discover frying wasn't on Jack's agenda, either. He came barreling down, grabbed her hand on the run and yanked her after him.
"Couldn't reach Westerbeck," he shouted. "The officers' deck is ablaze. Let's get the hell out of Dodge."
They shot out of the deckhouse and saw they were alone. The crew had evidently decided a hijacker wasn't worth getting blown apart for. They were already in the water and firing up their boat's engine.
THE MIDDLE SIN Page 25
