by Larry Bond
Tumarev seemed unfazed. Instead, he simply nodded. “Of course, Major.”
He moved back around his desk and pulled open a drawer. “I have those records in here.”
But the ship captain’s hand came out of the drawer holding a pistol aimed squarely at Koniev’s midsection.
The MVD officer heard Helen gasp and reflexively reached for his own weapon.
“Don’t move, Major!” Tumarev said sharply. He included the two Americans in his next order. “Put your hands up! All of you!
Now!”
Koniev obeyed slowly, mentally cursing himself for his carelessness — for focusing so much on the hunt that he forgot that one’s prey could sometimes turn and fight. He should have asked the local militia for backup. Out of the corner of his right eye, he could see another pistol in the darkhaired Georgian’s hand.
Tumarev nodded pleasantly. “That’s better.” He motioned toward the MVD officer with his empty hand. “This pig first.”
The thin, blondhaired sailor, moving quickly and efficiently, roughly frisked Koniev — first taking his identity card and then yanking the Makarov out of his shoulder holster.
Grim-faced now, Koniev stood motionless as the when vanished behind him. Rustling cloth and a muttered American swear word told him Helen and Thorn were getting the same treatment. He tried frantically to sort through the situation — looking for some way out. What the devil was happening here?
What was Tumarev’s game? What did he hope to gain by taking a law officer and two foreigners captive? The man was acting more like a bandit chieftain than a ship’s captain.
More like a bandit chieftain. The phrase echoed in his mind.
Koniev studied Tumarev more carefully, suddenly chilled to the bone.
The blondhaired sailor moved back into his line of sight, still holding Koniev’s gun. “That’s all. The others were clean.” He looked at Tumarev expectantly.
The captain shook his head. “No, not here.” He smiled coldly.
“Use the tape.”
The sailor slid the pistol into his pocket, produced a roll of duct tape, and took a step toward Thorn — the nearest of the three to him.
Colder than he’d ever been in his life, Koniev half turned to look at Helen and the American colonel. They looked surprised, angry, and somewhat baffled. But did they truly understand the peril they faced?
Tumarev’s brutal, dismissive “not here” could have only one meaning.
Koniev breathed out, his thoughts suddenly reaching toward his older brother. Their parents were dead. And now perhaps Pavel would be left all on his own. The possibility of that pierced him with regret, but there were no options left no other doors to open. He must act. Or none of them would make it out of here alive.
Flatfooted, Koniev launched himself across the desk — straight at Tumarev. He was counting on surprise, on doing something totally unexpected. He was also counting on the fact that a bullet would have to hit something vital to kill him quickly. With luck, he could give Helen and Peter Thorn a chance to react.
Thorn exploded into action — spinning to the left, poised for a round kick with his right leg. He glimpsed Helen moving at the same time, whirling toward the darkhaired sailor who’d brought them here from the gangplank.
Three deafening gunshots erupted — two in rapid succession, the third a split second later.
His foot missed its intended target — slamming into the blond sailor’s hip instead of his stomach — but the kick still had enough energy to knock the man down. The roll of tape skittered away across the steel deck.
Thorn threw himself across the sailor, pinning one arm. He chopped down hard twice — aiming for the man’s exposed throat.
Something crunched on the second blow, and he saw the sailor’s eyes widen in horror.
The man suddenly stopped fighting and gasped, struggling desperately for oxygen that couldn’t get through the larynx Thorn had smashed. His arms and legs quivered as he flopped on the deck like a dying fish tossed into the bottom of a boat.
Another pistol shot rang out.
Thorn crouched low as the round whined over his head, ricocheting off the metal bulkhead in a shower of sparks. Jesus! His hands tore through the dying sailor’s clothing. Where the hell was Koniev’s Makarov?
There. His hand closed around the shape of the pistol inside a jacket pocket. He tugged frantically, feeling the cloth give way.
Yet another gunshot erupted behind him.
Come on! Come on! Thorn worked the slide — chambering a round. He rolled, bringing the Makarov up, looking for a target.
The darkhaired sailor Helen had attacked was down — lying twisted and broken on the deck. He rolled further … Too late he saw Tumarev swinging toward him, weapon in hand.
Three more shots cracked out — one right after the other. One round slammed into the freighter captain’s chest. The second hit him in the throat. The third caught him in the forehead.
His face a red, ruined mask, Tumarev fell back and slid down behind his desk. He left a trail of blood smeared across the metal bulkhead.
Helen Gray lowered the Tokarev pistol she’d seized, breathing hard.
She checked the room swiftly. Nobody was moving. Nobody but Peter.
They exchanged glances, unspoken communications that said “We’re both all right,” before simultaneously turning to Alexei Koniev.
The young Russian lay slumped over Tumarev’s desk. Two separate red patches covered most of his back. Oh, God … Helen moved toward him, aware of Peter doing the same thing. They each took an arm, turned Koniev over, and gently laid him on the deck. She knelt beside him, cradled his head, and pressed her fingers to his neck — searching for a pulse.
“He’s gone, Helen,” Peter said grimly.
His voice seemed far away, and Helen realized she’d known there was no pulse for some time — only a minute, probably, but it seemed much longer.
Still cradling Koniev’s head, she looked down at his chest and saw the dark red ruin where two bullets had struck him, spaced only inches apart. A third opening, this one an ugly exit wound, showed where the darkhaired sailor had shot him in the back while he struggled with Tumarev. That bullet should have been fired at her, she knew.
Alexei Koniev had bought them time with his own life.
She stared down at the young Russian major. Why had he done it? He must have known the price he would have to pay.
She heard Peter searching the compartment, gathering weapons and spare clips. She looked up.
Peter was right to force his emotions to the side for now. They were still in danger. If they survived, she would have time to mourn later.
But knowing that didn’t make it any easier to let her grief over Koniev’s death go, to close it off for a while longer.
Helen fought for control, and took a deep breath.
As she stood up, Peter came over to her and pulled out a handkerchief.
Taking her face in one careful hand, he tenderly wiped her cheeks dry.
She hadn’t even known she was crying.
Then he offered her Koniev’s 5.45mm Makarov and two spare magazines.
Helen shook her head quickly, fighting back more tears. “You keep it.”
She picked up the pistol she’d used to kill Tumarev. Three shots there plus the bullet the darkhaired sailor had fired at Koniev added up to three 7.62mm rounds left in the magazine and one in the chamber. Not enough. She tore it out and snapped in a fresh magazine.
Some people would have called the Tokarev she carried a piece of obsolescent junk. It was single-action, not double, and it didn’t have a real safety — just the half-cocked hammer. Still, she’d scored three-for-three with it against that son of a bitch Tumarev.
And right now, that made this pistol the sweetest piece of hardware she’d ever fired.
Peter handed her three extra magazines and watched as she tucked them in her jacket pocket. “Ready?”
Helen nodded.
He
grimaced. “We’ve got to get off this damned ship and get the militia out here, pronto.”
True, she thought. Staying put meant ceding the initiative to any bad guys left outside the cabin. It was high time to get out of this blood-soaked rat pit. “You think the whole crew’s in on this thing?”
Peter shook his head, more in puzzlement than disagreement.
“I dunno anything for sure right now.” He prodded one of the dead sailors with his foot. “But somehow I don’t think we’re going to have an easy stroll back out to the pier. Whoever planned this wants us dead real bad.”
Helen joined him near the door to the passageway. She glanced back at Koniev’s body, then turned away.
“The feeling’s mutual,” she said grimly.
Thorn took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, readying both his mind and body for instant action.
Now.
In one smooth motion, he pulled the door open, ducked forward, scanned the passage, and then pulled his head back in.
Nothing. He glanced at Helen. “Clear.”
She nodded tightly, holding her pistol ready in both hands.
Thorn glided out into the corridor, keeping low. It ran straight aft to a door standing wide open into the sunshine. Helen followed right behind him, sliding off to the other side.
Feet clattered on the metal stairs leading up from the main deck. A man’s head and shoulders appeared in the open door.
“Watch left!” Thorn warned softly. He dropped into a shooting stance, but kept his finger off the trigger. Years of Delta Force training had taught him the art of discriminate shooting. The guy coming up the stairs could be anyone — all the way from the ship’s cook to a Russian militia officer. Instead, he focused on the man, quickly noting a shaggy haircut, a dark leather jacket, and a thin, pale face.
Halfway up the stairs, the stranger spotted them in the passageway and called out something in rapid-fire Russian. Something about wanting to know where “Kleiner” was, Thorn thought — wishing his own Russian were good enough to give him an answer.
Suddenly the pale-faced man got a better look at them. He froze for a single instant, then turned, and dropped back down the stairs out of sight.
“Well, that was useful,” Helen remarked dryly.
They came to a junction. A second passageway crossed theirs, running across the ship with doors to the port and starboard — both closed.
Thorn hesitated. “Portside’s the way out,” he suggested.
“And probably the first place they’ll be waiting for us,” Helen countered.
“Good point.”
They turned the corner into the second corridor.
Helen reached the starboard door first. It was a heavy metal watertight hatch opened by a long handle connected to clamps on both sides. Pull the handle and the clamps would unlatch.
They would also make noise. A lot of noise.
She stopped, pressing her ear against the door and testing the handle.
Thorn controlled the urge to tell her to throw it open, to get moving.
He had to trust Helen’s judgment. He put one hand on the metal wall of the corridor. Shit. He could feel the vibration made by running feet.
“We’ve got company,” he said quietly, already starting back toward the intersection.
The portside door flew open — revealing another man, this one in grease-stained overalls. He held a pistol in his right hand.
Thorn dropped to one knee and took rapid aim — still holding his fire.
Was this one of the bad guys or just somebody investigating all the shooting?
The sailor’s eyes opened wide. His pistol swung up.
Bad choice, Thorn thought coldly. He squeezed the trigger once, then again. Hit by both rounds, the gunman folded over and flopped onto the deck-half in and half out of the door.
He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Helen had the starboard hatch open now, and she was scanning the outside of the ship.
A voice called something from the aft. Maybe a name? Or maybe an order?
Thorn couldn’t tell. He felt more footsteps through the freighter’s metal skin.
“The natives are getting restless, Helen,” he said bluntly.
“I can hear,” she shot back. “Don’t rush me.”
All of Thorn’s instincts told him to move and move fast, before they were cornered. The two shots he’d just fired had echoed throughout the entire ship.
“Okay, it’s clear,” Helen finally announced. She stepped out onto the walkway that ran around the outside perimeter of the deck and turned toward the ship’s stern. Thorn followed close behind her, pulling the hatch shut behind him to buy them some extra time. He turned, blinking in the bright sunlight, and immediately saw why she’d been so cautious.
The catwalks surrounding each deck were a maze of metal boxes, hose reels, and other objects he couldn’t recognize. Hell, he thought, you could hide a platoon out here.
Without pausing, Helen slid forward — moving smoothly from cover to cover. Thorn came after her, keeping his pistol trained behind and above them, while she searched for enemies ahead.
They were heading for the gangplank, one deck down at the aft end of the superstructure. That was their only real way off the ship. Diving off the side into the oil-stained harbor wasn’t an option not with armed men waiting above to pick them off while they were in the water.
Going off on the pier side would be even worse. That was a long way down. Jump far enough to hit the pier, and they risked breaking legs, arms, or their necks. Jump too short and they’d wind up in the drink anyway — only this time trapped in the shadowed space between the ship and the pier.
No, Thorn thought grimly, it was the gangplank — or nothing.
Helen Gray poked her head around the aft corner of the Star of the White Sea’s superstructure — straining to see the gangplank through the tangle of gear cluttering the freighter’s stern. There were four men standing close to it — all arguing excitedly. At least two had guns in their hands. She couldn’t see the others clearly enough to tell whether or not they were armed.
Before she could draw back into cover, one of them caught a glimpse of her movement and snapped off a shot. It whipcracked past, missing her face by about a foot.
“Shit!” Helen yanked her head around the corner of the superstructure and backed up fast.
“How many?” Peter asked urgently.
She held up four fingers, listening intently for the sound of feet clattering up the stairs toward them. If the bad guys were completely stupid and rushed them. she crouched lower still, aiming toward the corner. Eight rounds in the magazine, she decided. That ought to be enough.
They weren’t stupid.
Instead of men running, she heard only shouted commands in Russian — and then silence.
“We’ve got to move!” Peter whispered urgently in her ear.
It was hell having the same kind of counterterrorist training, without ever having worked as a team before, Helen thought.
Both of them were highly skilled in the combat arms and in close-quarters tactics. But they were each used to leading teams that had lived, practiced, and fought together long enough to know each other’s moves instinctively.
Helen rapidly ran their options through her mind. They were outnumbered by at least two to one. Given the disparity in numbers, constant movement was the best way to keep pressure on the bad guys — to make the bastards dance to their tune.
Staying on this deck was the worst option. That was “horizontal thinking” and too obvious. Combat in a built-up environment was often a lot like an aerial dogfight. Sometimes it paid to go vertical.
She glanced up at the third deck. Moving there would give them better visibility and better fields of fire. But it would also leave them more exposed — and it would limit their ability to maneuver. She shook her head. The day she treed herself was the day somebody could declare her brain-dead and pull the plug.
Helen looked down.
Heading for the main deck would cut their fields of fire, but it would give them more running room. And that made it the best choice of all. Closerange firefights were the best matchup for the pistols they were carrying. She hadn’t seen any of the bad guys carrying long arms, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility.
Peter arrived at the same conclusion in the same instant.
“Down to the main deck?” he suggested.
“Yeah,” Helen agreed impatiently. “I’m with you, Peter.”
“Never doubted it, Special Agent Gray.” Then he was up and running lightly back the way they’d come.
She came out of her crouch and followed after.
There were stairs leading down to the main deck right outside the hatch they’d come through. They took the stairs two at a time, staying as quiet as possible while moving as fast as possible.
They needed to put some distance between themselves and the place where she’d been spotted.
When they reached the forward end of the freighter’s superstructure, Helen could see an open deck stretching hundreds of feet toward the bow. Even with the forest of masts, winches, and other cargo-handling equipment, moving out there would leave them too exposed. It was a ready-made killing ground. Besides, she thought, their salvation — the gangplank-lay in the other direction.
Thorn eased around the forward corner of the superstructure carefully — scanning for any signs of movement on the deck ahead.
Nothing. With his left hand he signaled the all-clear to Helen and slipped ahead ― careful to stay close to the metal bulkhead.
His plan was simple. Head for the gangplank, eliminate anyone guarding it, and run like hell for the cover offered by the warehouses at the land end of the pier. Anything more complicated was likely to go wrong — especially since they knew so little about the ship’s layout and the people they were up against.
With his senses extended, and staying as low as possible, Thorn advanced a step at a time — listening, watching, trying to guess where the enemy might be lurking.
