by Paul Knox
“Yes. And I’m in a hurry, Ambrosia, so let me be frank. I need to bring a firearm. Will that be an issue?”
“Only if you forget bullets.”
Both women shared a smile.
“Great,” Reece said. “One sec.” She jogged back to the BMW and Mario.
She gave the boy a heartfelt look. “I’m planning on coming back tonight. You’ll be safe waiting here. If you can, get some sleep in the backseat. But if something happens and I don’t return… Have you ever driven before?”
“No,” he answered. “But how hard can it be? This car looks like it could fly.”
“Never mind. Can you remember a phone number?”
“I remember everything.”
“Great.” Reece told him Chang’s number. “If I’m not back by morning, go to one of these houses nearby and call him. Tell him where you are, and he’ll come get you. Got it?”
“Not him,” Mario grumbled.
Reece gave him a look.
“Okay. I will, Señora Reece.”
“Tell me that number one more time. Let me make sure you remember it.”
After Mario recited Chang’s number twice more, Reece said goodbye.
Then she pulled the submachine gun out, slinging it over her shoulder. She pocketed an extra clip.
“Nice gun,” Ambrosia snickered. “Size matters.”
“I have a tracking beacon—” Reece began.
“I have specialized marine radar installed.” Ambrosia began walking around the building, signaling Reece to follow her. “I’ve been briefed on the mission as well. You’re doing a good thing, Reece. I’m sure you can understand that the American government can’t be officially involved, but we unofficially support these actions.”
“Who exactly do you work for?” Reece looked Ambrosia over. She wore jeans and a black hoodie with no insignia or markings.
“I’m not at liberty to say. But I will say…we’re friends.” Ambrosia looked back and winked.
When they got to the helicopter, Reece did a double-take. She glanced from the rundown residential homes dotting the side of the ‘runway,’ to the paint-chipped warehouse Ambrosia came from, to a United States Military Black Hawk chopper. It appeared to have been dipped in black paint, so dark she barely made out its form against the inky night. As she moved closer, she realized it was modified. Reece had never seen a Black Hawk that looked exactly like the model she was about to fly in.
“Is this active, officially?” she asked as they climbed inside.
Ambrosia flicked a few switches and the rotary wings started spinning. “Depends on who you ask. I keep it out of sight in case of emergencies.”
“How does the Salvadoran government not know it’s here?”
“They know. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes if you catch my drift. If you keep your stellar reputation clean, I foresee a day when you’ll have the clearance to find it all out.”
“I don’t even have a job right now,” Reece muttered.
Ambrosia looked at her with a straight face. “Neither do I.”
Reece watched the ground disappear into the blackness. Soon all she saw was the rain and occasional lightning strike in the distance.
“What’s the plan, Reece?” Ambrosia asked, flipping a few switches.
“What are the chances of getting Pozo de Fuego back to the port?”
“Is it possible? Sure. Probable? No. A giant ship isn’t like driving a car. Especially in a hurricane. You’ll end up getting jacked around to the middle of nowhere—if you survive.”
Reece thought for a moment. “By law, the ship has to have lifeboats. Aren’t the cargo ship lifeboats completely enclosed and motorized?—rain proof and constructed for emergencies like this?”
“Kai Castro’s in charge?” Ambrosia asked rhetorically. “The big shot with a scar down his face? I wouldn’t expect that he did anything by the book. No one in their right mind would sail into a hurricane. But for your father and every woman on board—I hope the encapsulated lifeboats are there.”
Reece turned her eyes back to the rain. She couldn’t see anything. If it wasn’t for the onboard technology, there was no way they’d be flying right now.
Ambrosia studied the display screens in front of her. She pointed at a blip. “There’s Fuego. It’s about fifty miles from the port and traveling at an average speed of eighteen knots, which translates to about twenty-one MPH.”
“How fast are we flying?” Reece asked.
“Currently, one hundred forty-nine MPH. We’ll make contact in about twenty minutes.”
And true to her word, twenty-one minutes later Reece saw the lights of the cargo ship up ahead, as it bucked against the gigantic waves like a cowboy riding a bull, destined to lose control any second.
“You ready?” Ambrosia asked.
22
THE WHITE DRAGON
KAI CASTRO held tightly to the railing at the very front of the bow, sailing headfirst into the storm, screaming manically at the violent, uncontrollable seas. But his voice was like a whisper under the wild winds and heavy waves crashing over the ship’s deck.
He grunted in dissatisfaction while tracing his finger down the scar that ran from his right eye to his chin, remembering the knife fight that had created it. Then he threw his hands to the thunderous clouds above and cried out with every ounce of madness he possessed.
Seconds later, Pozo de Fuego bounced hard off a swell, sending Kai airborne, a full eight feet above the ship he commanded. The towers of containers behind swayed precariously.
Miraculously, Kai landed back on the deck and on his feet. His eyes raged with crazy.
The ship pilot stumbled forward to Kai, yelling something, but Kai only saw his mustache and beard moving with his lips. Kai stood his ground as the man slipped, stumbled and trekked toward him, grasping at anything around to maintain balance.
“We need to turn back! This is insane! If we keep going, we’ll all die!” the ship’s pilot insisted.
Kai stared at the man, whose facial hair was soaked and matted. “This won’t be the first polla I’ve tamed,” he snarled back. “If we make it through the night, we make it to America—and you get your payday. Now get back down to the bridge and tell the helmsman to press on!”
Kai grasped hold of the ship pilot’s shoulders and shook him, screaming in his face. “We have the power of hell’s fire!” Then his expression changed, eyeing the man with distaste. “Go dry your face. You look like a wet dog.”
Kai thought, we’re already a day behind. My buyers won’t be happy having to stay any longer on the California coast. My name must not be associated with failure.
His thoughts wandered to his two brothers, busy with the Pipil tribe. He hoped they were finally uncovering the fabled gold he’d been searching for since childhood.
With that priceless loot, he’d be rich beyond imagination. He would take control of The Association. And the white dragon would be remembered as the most powerful man to have lived in these present times.
Kai had read the accurate, government-suppressed translation of the Dresden Codex. The very last section, added a hundred years after the rest, told that the ancient Halach Uinic’s bloodline was tasked with passing down the secret knowledge of the gold’s whereabouts. Kai had traced the ancient genealogy to the modern-day Leon family of the Pipil tribe.
Not long ago, Kai had killed the Leon patriarch and his wife, slowly, one by one, expecting them to confess.
But Leon never did, even with the gruesome deeds Kai inflicted on his wife. He claimed the location had been lost to time.
Lies.
23
SANDY and the women slid around the inside of the container. He and the women held each other and huddled the best they could, reducing the amount of elbows, feet and heads that knocked against each other in the darkness.
Many of the younger girls cried. Alejandra tried her best to calm them, but even her steady guidance wasn’t a match for this intense storm.
Would the backup team even find them out here in this storm, before something catastrophic happened?
Every time the ship dropped off another swell, the group floated like astronauts before smashing to the floor of the container. They were thrown around as the containers rocked back and forth.
Normally shipping containers were fairly safe. They didn’t usually fall off a ship and into the ocean. But sometimes in dangerous weather conditions—they did. In fact, so many did, that on average four to five containers were lost to the seas every single day.
And a hurricane was just the type of weather condition that caused such losses.
Sandy didn’t mention that to any of his fellow captives; he didn’t want to scare them more than they already were.
But then a particularly atrocious series of swells caused massive drops, and numerous waves the size of buildings crashed over the Pozo de Fuego. Sandy heard the sounds of metal rods breaking and twist locks snapping.
BLANG! TING! POP!
The container suddenly drifted sideways. And it kept tipping…and tipping. The side wall was now the new floor.
For a moment, Sandy became airborne as the container dropped—until he and the women smacked their backs and shoulders hard into the metal.
The sound of the rain outside changed. It no longer pinged on swaths of manmade objects. Instead, the sound of water on water surrounded. Sandy felt like he was on a roller coaster, rising and falling with the waves.
His container had broken free from the ship and crashed into the ocean.
The fear of death infected Sandy, locked in a shipping container rocking violently atop the naked sea. In the middle of a wicked hurricane.
He wasn’t a praying man, but at that moment Sandy shut his eyes.
24
REECE peered through night vision goggles. The helicopter quickly closed the distance between her and the ship.
“Containers just tipped,” Reece called out, alarmed. “They fell in the water! Was Sandy in one of those?”
“I can’t tell,” Ambrosia said, glancing at the display screens. “Let’s hope your tracking beacon—” Suddenly she whipped the Black Hawk around as a clack clack clack nailed the exterior armor plating. “We’re taking fire!”
“Don’t shoot!” Reece yelled. “Bullets will tear right through the containers like paper.”
Ambrosia ripped upwards through the rain. She began circling the cargo ship.
The more Reece watched through the goggles, the more she saw that the gunmen were immensely unsteady, firing at them with handguns while trying to keep their balance. The shots were sporadic and most went wide.
Then a wave crashed over the side of Pozo de Fuego and washed one of the men out to sea. The others noticed and hunkered down on their grasp of the railing, concerned with saving themselves.
“Can you get me close enough to jump onboard?” Reece asked.
“Yeah, I’ll get you a hop-skip away from the deck. Those handguns aren’t gonna do anything to this bird. You on the other hand…”
Reece readied the submachine gun she had taken from Konstantin and his thugs. “I’ll be fine.”
Another wave crashed over the Pozo de Fuego, and the handguns ceased fire a second time as the men struggled to stay on their feet. A couple men slipped and slid across the deck.
“Here we go!” Ambrosia immediately dropped altitude like a meteor through the sky, aimed at the stern. “There’s a rope behind you!” she yelled.
Reece tied the rope to a metal bar under her seat and then ripped the bottom of her T-shirt all the way around. She used the fabric to cover her palms.
Seconds later, Reece was positioned less than six feet above the deck, back by the stern.
“I’ll hover around and help if I can.” Ambrosia said. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Reece called back as she jumped off the Black Hawk, sliding down the rope.
25
THE FIRST THING Reece noticed as her feet thumped to the deck of Pozo de Fuego was that the dozen or so shipping containers that had fallen into the ocean were spreading out in the waters and moving away from the ship.
Ambrosia flipped on a spotlight from the helicopter after Reece had jumped, and it lit up the area. Doing so was a gamble on Ambrosia’s part, since neither of them knew the amount or type of firepower these criminals had. The Black Hawk was now basically a neon sign advertising the word target.
Reece glanced at the INSITE tracker. Sure enough, Sandy’s beacon was moving away from her. Just as she feared, he was in one of the containers in the water. And as if nothing could get worse, Reece watched as the roiling sea swallowed one of them. A second and third began sinking too.
Two men ran towards Reece, firing. A bullet clinked off the metal decking a foot away from her, ricocheting into the side. Reece began her attack. The submachine gun sounded like a jackhammer, and the two men flew backwards, both of them hit multiple times.
Similar scenarios played out a few more times as Reece ran around the sides of the cargo ship looking for the lifeboats. Inexperienced with the submachine gun, she held the trigger for too long each time she fired. After the third firefight, the gun click-click-clicked, empty of rounds. She dropped the weapon.
A few more strides and she made it to the lifeboat. It was self-launching, ready to slide down a tilted ramp into the sea. Before getting inside, she checked the INSITE app again. Rain hammered into her phone and she quickly pocketed it. From her quick glance, she had singled out a group of three containers that floated together about fifteen to twenty yards away. Sandy was in one of them.
Lightening flashed, brightening the skies like a split second of daylight. A man appeared out of nowhere, staring at Reece with a menacing, twisting face. A large scar ran down his cheek from under his left eye. In his hand was a gun which pointed directly at Reece.
She pulled her handgun, yelling, “Kai Castro?”
But Kai got the first shot. Luckily the ship lurched at the moment he fired, and the bullet was lost to the night. Reece returned fire with two quick shots, both ringing loudly as the bullets pierced through metal.
Kai ducked behind the nearby shipping containers, disappearing. Reece didn’t have any time to chase after him; Sandy was drifting farther and farther away.
Reece bounded up the metal white stairs to the lifeboat, hanging onto the railing with both hands. When she hopped inside, a giant wave slammed into the ship, knocking it sideways and spilling water over the entire vessel.
She slammed the door shut, enclosing herself in the miniature submarine-looking lifeboat just as the wall of water found her. She yanked the release lever and the boat disengaged, free-falling away from the Pozo de Fuego.
When the lifeboat hit the ocean it completely submerged. Reece watched the water surround her through the little windows. It looked like the boat was sinking.
But within seconds it popped back above the surface. She started the motor and began moving toward the three containers. The Black Hawk followed from above with its spotlight.
As she pulled alongside the first one, Reece prayed an ill-timed wave wouldn’t knock her out of the lifeboat. There would be no saving anyone, including herself, if that happened. She opened the lifeboat’s door, hung her upper body out of it and banged on the side of the container. “Hello!?” she called.
No answer. But her voice was barely audible in the noise of rain and helicopter blades. Would she even be heard?
A large wave began to crest. She ducked back inside the lifeboat just before it crashed down. The lifeboat and containers all became submerged, until they popped back above the water moments later, more spread out than before.
Reece maneuvered around to the second and again banged on the side. “Sandy!?” she yelled.
It was shocking and unbelievable when she heard his voice call back.
“We’re in here!” he called. “There are twenty-three of us in total!”
Reece grabbed two safety ropes. She fastened both to railing at the rear of the lifeboat. With the other ends, she tied one around the two levers on the container doors, and the other around her waist.
She was forced to shut the lifeboat’s door so water wouldn’t fill the cabin.
The shipping container was floating on its side, and opening its door meant lifting it up instead of swinging it out.
“Get everybody to the back!” Reece yelled to Sandy. “I have to shoot the lock!”
She waited for the space of three breaths, and fired. The cheap padlock broke off. She hung onto the lifeboat’s railing and stretched her other arm as far as it could go, trying to open the container’s lever.
The lever wouldn’t budge. And the rocking of the water wasn’t making anything easy. Reece constantly fell about and the shipping container kept slamming against the lifeboat.
Another wave appeared like a hand of the gods, ready to swat Reece like an insignificant bug. It crashed down and Reece was thrown from the boat, instantly swallowed by the black water.
For a moment she didn’t know which way was up. The impact had knocked most of the air from her body. She would need to breathe soon.
The rope around her waist tugged. The lifeboat had re-emerged from the waters and yanked her in that direction. She grabbed the rope and oriented herself, then breaking the surface and gasping for air, spitting out salt water.
She pulled herself up the rope until she could grab the railing of the lifeboat again. Both the boat and the container’s metal frames were dented, but the damage hadn’t affected the hull’s integrity. At least, not yet.
Reece began kicking at the container door’s lever. Finally it budged. She was able to pull it up the rest of the way. The bottom door was still latched, so water didn’t immediately rush inside. But within seconds, the waves were spilling into it.
