Gripping the locking handle, he pulled it sharply upward and swung the door open to reveal the interior. The moment he did, his eyes opened wide in shock and the barrel of the weapon dropped.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped.
CHAPTER 25
FOR SEVERAL SECONDS, O’Neill just stood there, staring at the sea of pale, blinking faces that confronted him. He saw fear in their wide eyes; fear and desperation.
There were so many. He counted at least thirty in sight, with more likely packed in behind. All young, all attractive, all female.
So many human beings crammed into that steel box, it was hard to believe. But they hadn’t just been forced in there. He saw blankets and sleeping bags on the floor of the container, along with spare clothes and bottles of water and other supplies.
Somehow they had been living and surviving in there.
One of the young women pointed at the weapon in O’Neill’s hands. He heard an exclamation in Russian, and a gasp of fear ran through the crowd. The ones at front tried to back away from him, only to be hemmed in by those behind.
Fear was quickly turning to panic, and if he didn’t do something fast, this situation was going to get out of control.
“Is okay!” he said in his faltering Russian, keeping the gun pointed at the deck. “Not be afraid. I help. I am American.”
That seemed to assuage their fears, but only slightly. Those at the front stopped and stared fearfully at him again, unsure what to say or do. Then suddenly a tall young woman with blonde hair, evidently one of braver ones, approached him. Her steps were tentative, but her expression was one of wary hope.
“Who are you?” she asked, speaking accented but fluent English. She looked him up and down, taking in his bloodied and disheveled appearance. “What happened to you?”
“My name’s Lieutenant O’Neill, U.S. Coast Guard. I’m here to get you all to safety.”
Her eyes lit up at this, but almost immediately they were veiled with suspicion. She glanced back at her fellow prisoners. “But what—”
“Listen to me,” he implored her. “What’s your name?”
She hesitated a moment. “Nika.”
“Okay, Nika, here’s the deal. You’re all in grave danger here,” he said, seeing no point in lying to them. “I don’t have time to explain, but I need you to do exactly what I say …”
CHAPTER 26
UP ON THE Ossora’s bridge, Dmitry turned away from the crane, now that its cradle had descended into the depths of the hold, and regarded the young woman who had tried unsuccessfully to attack him mere moments ago.
She was wise enough not to attempt such a move again.
“You never did ask me why,” he prompted.
She glared back at him in impotent rage. “Why?”
“Why we did all this. What we were willing to kill for.” He leaned closer conspiratorially. “Would you like to know what our cargo is?”
Starke shrugged. “Does it matter? Weapons, bombs, drugs … men like you don’t need much of a reason to kill.”
“You think we are terrorists or drug dealers?” Dmitry laughed. “Such limited thinking. We have something far more profitable.”
“Like what?”
“Women.”
“You’re smuggling women?” Starke repeated, shocked by what she’d just heard.
He nodded. “Fifty-two of them. Worth over five million U.S. dollars.”
“To who?”
Dmitry’s smile broadened. “Anyone who wants to buy them.”
The economics of such a scheme were staggering. Each young woman, sold into prostitution on arrival in the U.S., could bring in close to $100,000 before she was considered used up and discarded. The fifty or so they were transporting represented a huge investment that would pay off handsomely for his employer once they were delivered, and there were many more shipments planned.
All that was required were a few cargo containers, enough supplies and sanitary facilities to keep them in reasonably good health during the journey, and a ship captain willing to transport them without asking too many questions. Unfortunately they’d come up short on that last one.
“You sonofabitch,” she said, appalled. “You kidnap young girls across Russia and sell them like cattle?”
“We do not kidnap anyone. They come willingly, thinking they are starting a new life in America. There are many young women eager to leave Russia these days. We even promise to have jobs arranged for them. Of course, not quite the jobs they had in mind, but such is life.” He chuckled to himself. “Best part is, they even pay us to transport them.”
Starke stared at him, aghast. “They’re human beings, for Christ sake. Innocent civilians. How can you do this to them?”
Dmitry shrugged. He had long ago divorced himself from the moral considerations of his work, finding it best not to think of his cargo as human beings at all. “Not my problem. I am just a delivery man.”
Dmitry fired up his radio once more. “Is the cradle in position?”
“I think so,” came Yuri’s reply. “I have tension on the wire.”
He nodded in relief. A few minutes from now they would be off this fucking ship and on their way to the drop-off point with their cargo in tow. “Good. Bring it up.”
As the crane went to work raising the container up from the cargo hold, gears and pulleys whining and clanking with the effort, Dmitry turned his attention back to Starke and grabbed her by the arm.
“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” he said, forcing her down the stairwell. He paused for a moment before leaving the bridge, giving Watkins and Rodriguez a mocking bow. “Excuse us, my friends.”
Emerging out onto the deck a short time later, Dmitry and Starke were just in time to see the cargo container descending towards the deck, swaying with the motion of the vessel.
“I thought you might like to take a look,” Dmitry remarked as the container set down on the deck a short distance away with a resounding metallic clang. “Always room for one more.”
Starke, tossing her head back to get a lock of damp hair out of her eyes, glared at him in hatred. “Fuck you.”
He grinned. “Not me, but plenty of others will have you. Believe that.”
His work completed, Yuri descended the metal ladder from the cab of the crane, unslinging an assault rifle from over his shoulder as he approached the container.
Dmitry keyed his radio again. “Oleg, get up here. We need your help transferring them to the Coast Guard boat.”
Pausing for a moment at the door, Yuri gripped the release latch and pulled it, allowing the door to swing open. To his surprise, however, he didn’t find himself confronted by dozens of frightened, desperate young women. Instead, he was confronted by yawning, empty darkness stretching out before him.
Darkness that was punctuated a moment later by the lightning flash of a weapon’s muzzle flare. Yuri tried to raise his own gun, only to take the majority of the automatic burst in his chest and torso. Mortally wounded, he collapsed backward, his blood painting the rain-covered deck.
CHAPTER 27
STEPPING RIGHT OVER the fallen man, O’Neill emerged from the shadowy interior of the container, the smoking AKS-74 up at his shoulder as he sighted his last remaining enemy.
Dmitry however had reacted quickly to this sudden change in fortune, pulling Starke in front of him, drawing his automatic and pressing it against the side of her head.
For the next few seconds, the two men simply stared at each other across the open expanse of deck as the rain and wind continued to whip past them.
“Not bad, my friend,” Dmitry remarked at last. “I underestimated you.”
O’Neill shook his head. “It’s over, Dmitry. Your cargo’s gone, your men are dead. Might as well surrender before you join them.”
The Russian smiled coldly as he edged towards the port side of the ship, keeping Starke between him and O’Neill. “I think not. This ship is not where I die.”
He had the shot. Starke was in front of Dmitry as a
human shield, but she was shorter and smaller than her captor. O’Neill knew he could take him. But then, he’d known it last time as well. He’d been wrong then; what if he was wrong now?
The AKS was a powerful but inaccurate weapon, designed to be used en masse by Soviet infantry. It wasn’t a surgical tool, but a sledgehammer intended to pound an enemy into submission. And if his shot was an inch or two off target, it would kill her.
O’Neill’s eyes met Starke’s in that moment, and he saw a look of understanding in them. She knew what he was thinking, knew the demons he was wrestling with, and she was trying to tell him it was okay. She was telling him to take the shot.
“You will lower your weapon and let me go,” the Russian said, his voice calm and composed as he stopped beside the port railing, with the MLB somewhere beneath him. He was a man still in charge of the situation.
When O’Neill didn’t flinch, Dmitry drew back the hammer on his weapon, the working parts clicking as they locked in place. “You hear that? I love that sound. It is so … decisive. It is the sound of your time running out, my friend. Choose now, or she dies and we both take our chances.”
Take the shot, Starke silently pleaded.
For a moment, O’Neill saw it playing out. He saw himself pull the trigger, heard the roar of the weapon and felt the kick in his shoulder, saw Dmitry pull Starke in front of him and heard the sudden, sickening impact as the round tore through her skull.
“Last chance,” Dmitry warned, finger tightening on the trigger.
“All right,” O’Neill said, lowering the weapon and laying it on the deck. “All right. You got what you wanted, Dmitry. Leave—I won’t stop you. Just let her go.”
The Russian smiled, his gray eyes shining with malice. “As you say.”
With that, he suddenly turned and shoved the young woman backwards. With her hands bound, she was unable to stop herself, and with a frightened cry toppled over the railing and disappeared.
“No!” O’Neill cried out, grabbing for the assault rifle he’d dropped.
But Dmitry had already disappeared over the edge himself, using a line attached to the railing to fast-rope down to the MLB below.
Realizing Starke would drown within seconds if he didn’t get to her, O’Neill abandoned the weapon, sprinted for the rail and vaulted right over it, throwing himself into the darkness beyond.
CHAPTER 28
A SECOND OR two of terrible, sickening weightlessness was followed immediately by a crashing impact as he plunged beneath the waves. For the second time that night, freezing water enveloped him.
O’Neill kicked for the surface, breaking through seconds later.
“Kate!” he yelled, looking across the undulating waves in desperation. “Kate, can you hear me?”
“Rick!” a weak, desperate voice called out.
O’Neill glanced off to his left, catching a momentary glimpse of pale skin and dark hair before it disappeared beneath the surface. Immediately he kicked and pulled towards it. As he did so, he heard the MLB’s powerful engines rumble into life, and felt the spray of water from the engine outlets as Dmitry accelerated away from the Ossora.
He no longer cared. Starke was his priority.
Taking a breath, he plunged beneath the surface, kicking downwards. Visibility was next to nothing in the inky darkness. She could have been right in front of him or a hundred yards away, and he wouldn’t have known the difference.
Blindly he reached out, groping for anything solid but feeling nothing. His lungs were starting to ache as his oxygen ran out, his search growing ever more desperate. He couldn’t keep this up any longer. She must have sunk beyond his reach.
There! His fingers brushed against something pliant. Some kind of material. A jacket! Instinctively he reached just a little farther, managed to grasp some of it, and kicked upward, striving towards the surface an unknowable distance above, just as it seemed that his lungs must burst.
O’Neill and Starke broke surface at the same moment with an explosive, desperate gasp, greedily sucking in air.
The young woman in his arms was coughing and spluttering, her hair in her eyes.
“Kate! You okay?” he asked, pushing locks of damp hair out of her face.
Then, to his everlasting joy, she smiled at him. “Never better.”
O’Neill couldn’t help himself. He let out a laugh of sheer relief, tilting his head forward so that his forehead rested against hers for a moment.
Only the distant sound of the MLB’s engines prompted them to glance around. “That bastard’s going to get away,” she said quietly, watching the vessel depart.
CHAPTER 29
ON THE MLB’S enclosed bridge, Dmitry was seated at the helm with the engines at full thrust. He was furious at the loss of his cargo, and the inevitable loss of profit for his employer. Likely this would mean the end of his career in Russia, as the people he worked for didn’t look kindly on failure. He would have to go dark for a while, disappear, let them think he’d died along with the others.
But the world was large, and there were many opportunities for resourceful men like himself. In time, he would come back. And as much as O’Neill had thwarted his plans, the last laugh would still be his.
Slowing the engines a little, he fished the radio detonator from his pocket and glanced over his shoulder at the distant Ossora as he flicked back the arming cover.
Occupied as he was with escape and vengeance, he’d failed to notice the familiar canvas satchel stowed hastily beneath his seat.
“Sleep well, my friend,” he said as he pressed the trigger.
CHAPTER 30
THE DISTANT ORANGE fireball of the explosion lit up the sea like the dawning of a new day, followed by the great rolling boom as a couple of pounds of plastic explosive combined with about a hundred gallons of fuel oil.
Starke watched the fireworks display in disbelief, seemingly unable to comprehend how it had come about. It took her a second or so to realize what O’Neill had done.
“You switched the explosives,” she gasped.
Despite himself, despite their dire situation, O’Neill smiled. “Best I could come up with at short notice.”
It was Starke’s turn to laugh, though her teeth were already chattering as the cold began to take hold. “Good enough for me. Now if you don’t mind, can we please get the hell out of here?”
He wasn’t about to argue. Turning back to the Ossora, he began to kick towards it while helping Starke to keep afloat, but it was hard going and he was already tired and hurting. The current which had drawn him along the vessel on the starboard side earlier was now pulling them away from it.
“This isn’t … working,” Starke managed to say, shivering violently now. It was clear she had mere minutes left, and he wasn’t much better off.
“Just keep going,” O’Neill said through gritted teeth, unable to believe that after everything they’d been through, they were going to die from exposure because they couldn’t get back aboard. “We’ll make it.”
“You will,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Go, Rick. We both know you can’t get both of us back aboard.”
O’Neill stared at her, wishing he had something he could say that would keep her going, but they both knew the truth. There was little to be gained by lying.
He knew one thing, though—he wasn’t leaving her.
They were startled when something large landed in the water just a few yards away, showering them with spray, and stared in shock as Rodriguez suddenly breached the surface beside them.
“Hey, skip,” he said, grinning at them both. “Mind if I cut in?”
“Seb,” O’Neill gasped, hardly believing what he was seeing. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You were tied up on the bridge,” Starke added.
“I was,” he agreed. “Lucky for you, I had a little help.”
He pointed upward, to where dozens of faces lined the rails, staring down at the three of them. All young, all female.
“Now what do you say we get you out of here?”
In short order Rodriguez, reaching out with powerful and confident strokes, was able to help them over to the ladder, where a couple of lines were lowered from above and used to pull the exhausted O’Neill and Starke to safety. They were soaked, freezing, and bedraggled by the time they collapsed on deck, but still very much alive.
The young women who only minutes ago had been held captive inside the cargo container handed them blankets and dry jackets, much to O’Neill’s amazement. They had just saved not just his life, but Starke’s too.
As before, it was the young blonde woman named Nika who stepped up to speak to him, and he suspected she was the one who had coordinated the rescue effort. As one leader to another, he’d never been more grateful to another human being.
“We know now what those men had planned for us,” she began, sober and serious. “You said you would get us to safety. That means all of us. Do I have your word?”
O’Neill looked back at her, understanding exactly what she wanted, both for herself and the fifty-one other young women who had set out on their hazardous, desperate venture. A chance at a new life.
“You do,” he promised her, holding out his hand.
After hesitating a moment, the young woman reached out and took it.
EPILOGUE
Attu Station – Three weeks later
O’NEILL ONCE MORE found himself in his office, staring at his computer screen. At least this time, there was no storm brewing, either outside or in the office itself.
The cutter Munro, traveling at flank speed far longer than her engineer considered safe, had arrived on the scene a couple of hours after Starke and O’Neill were plucked from the water. They’d subsequently found four Coast Guard personnel and over fifty Russian refugees in the mess hall, quietly drinking from a couple of bottles of vodka they’d been lucky enough to find. What the hell—they’d all earned it that night.
Deadly Cargo: BookShots Page 9