Wearing a new welt on his face and a look of shock, Fishhook scurried away like a scolded hound.
“What are you going to do with me?” Kristi asked with surprising force.
Andras smiled. He was going to have his way with her and then he was going to sell her on the black market. A nice little bonus to the money he’d been paid for this job. But she didn’t need to know that either.
Ignoring her question, he put the blade away and dropped down beside her. Using a metal wire, he bound her hands, wrapping them several times before twisting the ends together. With a piece of cloth he gagged her. That would keep her quiet.
Before he could get her up, a voice shouted from above. “Ship approaching! Looks like a cutter or some type of frigate.”
Andras snapped his head up. He tried to peer through the thick smoke. He couldn’t see anything.
“Where, you damn fool?” he shouted. “Give us a direction.”
“West-northwest,” his man shouted.
Andras strained to see through the drifting cloud of soot and smoke. A large vessel approaching was bad news, but something far worse caught his eye; a thin white wake, close to the Kinjara’s hull.
He could see it in gaps between the smoke. It crossed toward the front of the ship, where it vanished in the dark clouds. He looked toward the bow, which was now awash in two feet of water.
A second later the oily haze parted, and a ribbed inflatable boat raced out of the smoke, gliding right up onto the bow. Two men lay prone on its forward section, aiming and firing M16 rifles.
Andras saw two of his men fall, and another was hit and hobbling. The others scrambled for cover as the fast boat beached itself on the deck near the Kinjara’s second cargo hatch.
Several men in fatigues piled out of the boat on either side as one of the shooters — a man with distinctively silver hair — aimed and fired with deadly accuracy.
Two more of The Knife’s men went down before the shooter rolled off the attacking boat and took cover behind one of the open cargo hatches.
“Americans,” Andras cursed. Where the hell had they come from?
5
IN AN INSTANT THE DECK of the freighter became a battleground. Bullets and shell casings flew in all directions. Andras moved quickly, grabbing Kristi and dragging her backward. He added the occasional burst to what had become a raging gun battle, but his plan was to do more than stand and fight.
As he pulled back, he saw the situation for what it was: a first strike. The Americans had stormed in, taking out a half dozen of his men, but they were now pinned down on the deck, caught in a sort of cross fire while the ship burned and slowly sank beneath them. He guessed they wouldn’t have done that intentionally, unless they had backup coming.
The sound of a loudspeaker echoed from the approaching cutter.
“Throw down your weapons and surrender,” an authoritative voice demanded.
While he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, Andras was keenly aware of the danger to himself. But then, he was a man who’d made his life knowing how to turn the tables.
He reached one of the loading cranes. Grabbing the hook that dangled from it, he slipped it under the wire he’d wrapped around Kristi’s hands.
He threw the power switch and was rewarded with the sound of its hydraulic pump running. Before he sent her out, he ripped the gag off Kristi’s mouth.
She looked at him.
“You’re going to want to scream,” he said, “trust me.” With that, he threw the lever and the crane sprang to life. It pulled her upward and began swinging her out over the battleground for all to see.
KURTAUSTIN CROUCHED BEHIND a steel hatch cover. His idea to race around the bow of the vessel and literally drive right up onto it had been a cunning move. With the smoke surrounding them and the Argo approaching from the opposite direction, Kurt and his men had taken the pirates by surprise, speeding onto the deck and hitting several of them immediately.
The one flaw in his plan had been the number of pirates. There were far more than he’d expected, more than a dozen, maybe close to twenty. Those who’d survived and taken cover now had him pinned down.
Sooner or later the other tenders from the Argo would arrive, giving them a numerical advantage, but until then it would be tough sledding.
The radio on his belt crackled, a call from one of the tenders. “Kurt, we’re approaching the stern, no resistance so far.”
He didn’t have time to reply as shells started pinging off the hatch behind him. He ducked lower, trying to see where they were coming from. Before he could decide what to do next, he heard a female scream. He glanced skyward to see a woman, in her mid-thirties, dangling from the hook of a crane.
Seconds later, a voice bellowed above the din.
“Are we ready to stop this madness?” the voice shouted.
Kurt didn’t look up, as that was a good way to get one’s head blown off, but the guns around him went silent.
Kurt glanced at the young woman. Blood streamed down her arms and across her clothes.
“Now that I have your attention,” the voice boomed, “you’re going to let my men get off this stinking garbage scow of a ship or I’ll blast this woman to shreds like a piñata.” Kurt glanced around, sweat and smoke burning his eyes. He noticed water beginning to swirl at his ankles, and several feet away it poured into one of the open cargo hatches.
The ship was settling fast. The bow was now completely submerged with only a few high points sticking out like dead trees in flooded field. Worse yet, as the water began filling the forward cargo holds the weight on the front section would increase rapidly.
In a few minutes the Kinjara Maru’s fate would change from a gentle settling to a nosedive into the abyss.
“I’m waiting!” the hidden speaker shouted.
“Kurt?” a voice asked over the radio. “What do you want to do?”
Kurt looked up at the woman again. “Hold your positions,” he said into the radio.
“Well?” the unknown voice shouted, demanding an answer.
“Okay,” Kurt yelled back. “Take your men and get out of here.” He shouted to his men. “Hold your fire until they’re clear.” Almost instantly Kurt heard movement, the pirates pulling back.
“Can anyone see him?” Kurt whispered into the radio. “He has to be up high.” Someone must have risked a look because a shot rang out. A grunt sounded over the radio.
“No peeking,” the voice shouted.
“Damn,” Kurt mumbled. He keyed the mike on his radio. “Who got hit?” No response. Then someone said, “It’s Foster.” Kurt shook his head angrily. “You hit one more of my men,” he shouted to the unseen figure, “and I promise you’ll die on this boat!” “I’m sure,” the hidden man replied, “that you’d like to believe that.” By now the water was lapping at Kurt’s thighs. It felt like the tide coming in, only way too rapidly. The ship’s equilibrium was changing. As the pitch increased, loose items began sliding down the deck toward him.
Kurt glanced up at the woman again. She had to be in tremendous pain. He wanted to shoot the scum who’d hung her up there, but he didn’t dare risk a look for her tormentor.
Then the sound of large outboard motors starting echoed from over the starboard side of the ship. In a moment, the soft rumble turned to a fierce roar, and what looked like a stripped-down powerboat began racing off into the distance.
“Go,” Kurt shouted.
His men sprang into action.
“Hawthorne’s down,” someone said.
“Get him up,” Kurt shouted. “Get him and Foster into the boat.” “What about the search?”
“I doubt these guys left any survivors,” he said. “Either way, you don’t have time to look.” The ship had tilted ten degrees nose down, far enough for a length of chain to come sliding toward him like a great metallic snake.
Kurt dodged the chain. It hit the edge of the cargo hatch and poured itself into the cavernous space below, rattling omin
ously as the links slid over the edge until the chain released itself into oblivion.
“Get off the ship,” Kurt ordered.
“What are you going to do?” one of his men asked.
“I’m going to get that woman.”
6
AS THE KINJARA MARU FOUNDERED, Kurt Austin scrambled forward and up the sloping deck. The footing was treacherous where the deck had become coated with water, oil, and sludge. He pulled himself upward with anything he could grasp.
Reaching the ladder that led up to the crane, Kurt climbed it, catching sight of the pirates racing away to the south. Putting them out of his mind and hanging on to the railing, he reached the crane operator’s hutch.
A strangely shaped folding knife with a black handle and a steel or titanium blade stood on its point, embedded into the crane operator’s seat. A little present left behind by the thug who’d strung the woman up. Kurt grabbed it, folded it up, and slid it into a pocket.
Turning to the control panel, he checked for power. Thankfully, the lights on the panel remained illuminated.
“Hold on,” he shouted to the woman, realizing even as he spoke that she wasn’t holding anything at all, but guessing that “Hang in there” would have had a terrible ring to it.
Years in the salvage business had left Kurt very familiar with cranes. He grabbed for the control handle that would retract the crane back to his position. As he operated the lever he heard a whirring sound, and the crane jerked backward a few feet and then slammed to a halt. The poor woman swung back and forth like a pendulum, crying and screaming in pain. Seconds later a hydraulic warning light came on.
It was only then that Kurt noticed red liquid pouring down the side of the crane. He glanced and saw that the hydraulic line had been cut clean through. Now the little gift made sense to him. He could almost hear the thug laughing.
His headset crackled.
“Kurt, we’re off the ship, but you should know that we can see the top of the rudder. The fantail of this thing is coming out of the water.”
Kurt looked forward. The front quarter of the ship was submerged, debris floating everywhere. Time was running out fast.
With the crane dead, he had little choice. He dropped his rifle and began to climb out onto the crane’s boom. It was a tricky crawl made worse by the grease, oil, and hydraulic fluid. Trying to keep the boom underneath him, he scooted forward.
From behind him, a group of steel barrels came tumbling down the deck. One of them hit something sharp, sparked, and then exploded. The blast knocked Kurt sideways. His feet slipped, and the weight of his boots threatened to drag him off the boom.
Ahead of him, the woman screamed, sobbing as she shouted out to him. “Please,” she begged. “Please hurry.”
Kurt was doing all he could just to hang on. He glanced back. Fire enveloped the hutch he had been standing in only moments before. Moving had been a lucky break, but not if it just postponed the inevitable.
He swung his legs to one side and then back the other way and up, catching the boom with one leg. A smaller secondary explosion echoed from below as the smell of kerosene enveloped him. Down through black smoke, Kurt could see flames licking across the water as the burning fuel spread, blasts of heat roasting him as he moved forward.
Another ten feet and he reached the spot where the woman was hooked. The wire wrapped around her wrists was slicing into her skin. Her arms were scarlet with flowing blood, and her face was pasty white.
He grabbed her by the arms and tried to pull her up, but he had no leverage. Swirling waves of heat rose up from the crackling fires below. The ship shuddered as something internal broke loose. One of the engines or even the cargo sliding around.
“Kurt, she’s going,” came the call over the radio. “Any minute she’s going.”
I’m aware of that, Kurt thought. He grabbed her arms again.
“Pull yourself up,” he shouted.
“I can’t,” she cried. “My shoulder is out.”
That didn’t surprise Kurt. But it left him with only one choice.
He grabbed the knife from his pocket, flipped it open, and slid it under the wire that held the woman. Trying desperately not to cut her but knowing he didn’t have much time, Kurt began to saw. The wire snapped all at once, and the young woman plunged toward the ocean.
Kurt pushed off and dropped in after her.
Smoke and fire passed him in an instant. He hit the water, and felt one leg strike something beneath it. When he came up, the woman was right in front of him, bravely trying to tread water with one arm.
Kurt grabbed her and splashed away from the flames of burning gas and oil. Quickly, he realized a much greater danger. The water was swirling around them. He felt it pulling at his feet like the undertow at the beach.
The ship was going down.
He looked aft. The fantail had risen up like the Titanic, the bow was beginning to plunge.
Grabbing the woman’s good arm, he began to swim, pulling her along. When the ship went down, it would create a massive wave of suction dragging everything within a hundred-foot radius down with it. Both of them would be long drowned before it released their bodies back to the surface.
It was hopeless, but he swam hard anyway. And then the fast boat from the Argo suddenly raced in. It slid to a stop beside them.
The men rapidly hauled the woman in, literally yanking her out of the water, as Kurt pulled himself over the side. The engines roared again.
Kurt fell into the back of the boat. Looking up he saw the “castle”—the five-story structure that housed the crew’s quarters and the bridge and the antenna masts — plunging toward them at a forty-five-degree angle, like a building falling out of the sky.
The fast boat leapt forward like a stallion as the pilot slammed the throttle home. Right out into daylight.
The castle crashed into the water no more than twenty feet behind them. A surge of foam hurled them along and then spat them out like a surfer ejecting from a massive breaker.
Seconds later the Kinjara Maru was gone.
As they sped away, heavy rumbling sounds rose up from the depths, along with surges of air and debris.
Kurt looked at the woman. She was covered in soot and oil, her shoulder was either broken or separated, her wrists were gashed by the wire that had cut into them, and her eyes were swollen and almost as red as the blood that soaked her clothes. Using her less injured hand, she placed pressure on the gash on her other wrist.
“We have a doctor aboard the ship,” Kurt said. “He’ll tend to your injuries as soon as we board.”
She nodded. At least she was alive.
“To the Argo?” the helmsman asked.
Kurt nodded. “Unless you have somewhere else in mind?”
The helmsman shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, and pointed the boat toward the Argo.
TEN MINUTES LATER, they were back on board the Argo. While the ship’s doctor tended to the young woman and the away team stowed the fast boat, Kurt stepped onto the bridge.
The ship was already accelerating and changing course.
“You look like hell,” Captain Haynes said. “Why aren’t you in sick bay?”
“Because I’m not sick,” Kurt replied.
The captain eyed Kurt strangely and then looked past him. “Somebody get this man a towel. He’s dripping all over my bridge.”
An ensign tossed him a towel, which Kurt used to dry his face and hair. “Can we catch them?” he asked.
Haynes glanced at the radar screen. “They’re faster than us, doing forty knots. But a little boat like that didn’t bring these boys all the way from Africa. I’ll bet you a steak dinner they’re heading for a mother ship somewhere.”
Kurt nodded. Pirates had become more sophisticated in recent years. While most still operated from little hamlets along the coasts of poor Third World nations, some had larger vessels that took them out to sea. Mother ships, disguised as old freighters and such.
They hid thei
r tricked-out speedboats inside and often used semi-legitimate voyages to disguise their true purpose. Kurt had heard from one authority that the pirates would be easy to catch if someone would just look for the freighters that constantly dropped off cargo without ever picking any up. But then the buyers were too smart to ask where goods came from when they were getting such great deals.
“Anything on radar?” Kurt asked.
“Nothing yet,” Haynes said.
As dry as he was going to get, Kurt tossed the towel and picked up the captain’s binoculars, gazing out toward the target.
The fleeing boat itself was hard to see, but the long white wake it left was a giant arrow pointing right to it. They were five miles off, and putting the Argo farther behind, but it would take hours for them to escape radar range, and by that time…
A flash caught Kurt by surprise, momentarily blinding him through the binoculars. Immediately following it, Kurt saw debris flying in all directions and an expanding cloud.
“What in the world…”
A few seconds later the sound reached them. A single low boom, like a massive firework had gone off. When the view cleared, the speedboat was gone; obliterated in a single, thundering explosion.
7
KURT AUSTIN HAD BEEN in the communications room of the Argo for over an hour. The last forty minutes of that he’d been talking with NUMA’s director of operations, Dirk Pitt.
Kurt got along well with the Director, having known him when Pitt was still doing fieldwork for NUMA. Considering the kind of missions NUMA’s Special Operations Team often ended up taking on, it helped to have a boss who’d “been there and done that,” as Pitt had pretty much been everywhere and done everything.
Moving to the head office hadn’t dulled Pitt’s senses, even if it did place him in the crosscurrents of the political world.
As the Argo patrolled a wide circle near where the Kinjara Maru had gone down, Kurt explained what they knew and what they didn’t. Pitt asked questions. Some of which Kurt couldn’t answer.
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