Bukolov joined him in the wheelhouse as he finished. The doctor’s gaze shifted across the dead bodies. “Is that all of them?”
“I think so. Time for you all to get to work. Take Kane and use his nose to sniff out which cargo holds might have been contaminated by Felice’s team.”
From an inner pocket of his jacket, Tucker removed a gauze sponge prescented with the sulfurous discharge from Bukolov’s specimen of LUCA. He held it to the shepherd’s nose.
“TRACK AND FIND.”
He next turned to Nick. “Go with them,” he ordered. “Keep them safe.”
“Will do.”
The three took off, heading belowdecks.
Remaining in the wheelhouse, Tucker crossed quickly to the computerized helm console. He hoped to find some way to turn the Macoma, to stop its collision course with the rocky coastline.
Off in the distance, a light glowed through the snowfall. It had to be Old Mission Point, dead on the bow.
Maybe two miles, probably a little less.
He glanced at their speed on a gauge and calculated swiftly.
Eight minutes to impact.
Tucker studied the helm. Dozen of additional gauges, switches, knobs, and readouts spread across its console—but no wheel.
Instead, he spotted a joystick with a handgrip—beside it, an LED readout marking the ship’s course. He grasped the stick and eased it slightly to the right, while keeping his eyes on the course readout.
“Come on, come on . . .”
The LED digits refused to change. Frustrated, he shoved the stick all the way to the right, but to no effect. The Macoma continued it relentless charge for the coast.
The glow in the distance grew brighter.
What am I doing wrong—?
Backing a step to consider his options, his boot crunched on something on the floor. He glanced down to find the deck beneath the console strewn with circuit boards, each one broken in half.
Felice had sabotaged the helm.
Even in death, she continued to thwart him.
Kane suddenly appeared at the port bridge hatch, followed a half minute later by a panting Bukolov and Nick.
“We found it!” Bukolov declared. “Or rather Kane did. Remarkable nose on that fellow. They contaminated hold number five, just behind us. But it’s sealed like a bank vault. Looks like someone sabotaged the locking mechanism.”
Felice.
Nick stared out the window, looking ill. “That’s Old Mission Point,” he confirmed. “Dead ahead.”
“That’s awful close,” Bukolov said. “If we crash before we can decontaminate that hold . . .”
LUCA would be let loose into the world.
8:27 P.M.
After explaining his inability to turn or slow the ship, Tucker wasted a full precious minute as he scanned the helm, clenching his fist all the while. There had to be something: an override, an emergency shut down . . .
Where’s a damned plug when you need to pull one?
His eyes skipped over a gauge—then returned to it, reading it more carefully.
HOLD FIRE SUPPRESSION
Tucker suddenly stiffened and swung to Nick and Bukolov.
“Follow me!”
He slid down the ladder, followed by the two men who scrambled after him. Kane used the outside stairs to join them below. At the bottom, Tucker grabbed the shotgun from the last man he had killed.
Nick looked around. “What are we—?”
“We need to find the crew,” he said.
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later. Kane can help us.”
Tucker searched the next few rooms on this level and found a crewman’s cabin. He grabbed some dirty clothes from a hamper and placed it in front of Kane’s muzzle, ruffling it to raise the scent and gain Kane’s full attention.
“TRACK AND FIND,” he ordered again.
The shepherd buried his nose in the garments, snuffling deeply. He finally backed a step, lifted his nose high in the air—then bounded through the door.
The three men ran after him. Kane led them on a chase deeper into the ship’s bowels, but in short order, the shepherd skidded to a double set of doors, sniffing furiously along the bottom.
The door was labeled CREW DINING.
Tucker pounded on it. “Anybody there?”
Multiple voices shouted back, both frantic and relieved, overlapping one another.
He tried the knob and found it locked. “Move as far to your right as you can! And turn away from the door!”
After getting a confirmation, he waved Bukolov and Nick farther down the hall, along with Kane. He then pointed the shotgun at the door’s hinges from about six inches away and turned his head.
The blast stung his ears.
He moved immediately to the second hinge and did the same. With his ears ringing, he kicked the door the rest of the way open.
Seven or eight crewmembers stood huddled together in the far corner. Felice must have rounded them up when Tucker arrived by helicopter, knowing her hopes of contaminating the cargo without anyone’s knowledge were ruined.
A tall, auburn-haired woman stepped from the group. “Who are you? What’s going on?”
“No time,” Tucker said. “We’re working with national security. Who’s the engineer?”
A wiry man in a thick wool sweater and suspenders raised his hand. “I am. John Harris.”
“You’re familiar with the ship’s fire suppression system for the cargo holds?”
Tucker pictured the label on the helm’s gauge: HOLD FIRE SUPPRESSION.
Of course, a cargo ship must be equipped with a sophisticated means of controlling fires, especially those that broke out in their cavernous holds. Fire was a ship’s worst enemy.
“Yes, certainly,” the ship’s engineer confirmed. “It’s a high-pressure water mist system.”
“Where is it?”
“One deck down, right below us.”
“Can you isolate hold number five?”
“Yes.”
“Great. This is Doctor Bukolov. Take him to the fire suppression controls—then purge the water out of the tank and refill it with what the good doctor gives you. Can you do that?”
“Yes, but—”
He turned to Bukolov. “Doc, do you have enough?”
“Yes, more than adequate, I believe.”
“John, you’ve got your orders. Get moving.”
As they set out, Tucker turned back to the other crewmembers. “Who’s the captain?”
The tall woman stepped forward again and introduced herself. “Captain Maynard.”
“Captain, the Macoma is going to run aground in about three minutes, and the helm console is locked. Where’s the safest place on the ship?”
“At the stern. Chart Library. One deck below the navigation bridge.”
“Go there now!” he ordered.
As the crew filed past him, the last in line, a bald man wearing a cook’s apron, suddenly wobbled into him. He was holding a bloody towel up to his mouth, and there was a deep gash in his forehead. Dried blood caked his eyebrows, nose, and mouth.
Tucker asked, “What happened to you?”
The man moaned and removed the towel to reveal a split lip and a flattened nose.
More of Felice’s handiwork.
“I’ll get you medical help as soon as we can.” He turned to Nick. “Help get this guy to safety.”
Nick nodded and hooked the man around the shoulders, helping him move faster. The pair hurried after the others.
Tucker turned and slid down the ladder to the next deck, following Bukolov and Harris, the ship’s engineer. He found the pair standing before a wall console, with a panel open next to it. Bukolov’s dispersal tank rested nearby, a hose running from it through the open panel.
“The fire-suppression tanks are here,” Bukolov said as Tucker joined them. “He just finished siphoning the kill switch into the right one.”
Tucker checked his watch.
Two minutes.
He asked Bukolov, “Will this really work?”
“In an enclosed space like that hold? Without a doubt—that is assuming their fire suppression system works as described to me.”
“It’ll work,” Harris said and started pressing a series of buttons, then turned a lever clockwise. A button marked with the number 5 began flashing red on the board. “It’s ready.”
“Punch it.”
Harris stabbed it with his thumb. From the tank closet, a whoosh sounded, followed by a gurgling.
“It’s flowing,” the engineer confirmed.
“How long until it’s empty?”
“It’s high pressure, high volume. Forty-five seconds and the compost in that hold will be soaked thoroughly.”
Tucker clapped him on the shoulder. “Good job. Now we need to reach the Chart Library and join the others.”
They scrambled up the ladder, where Tucker found Kane waiting. They took off as a group down the passageway with Harris leading the way.
The deck began shivering beneath their feet.
The engineer called over his shoulder, “The keel’s scraping the sandbar!”
“Keep running!”
At a sprint, Harris led them toward the stern, passing intersection after intersection. As they passed one, movement drew Tucker’s attention to the right. For a fleeting second, he spotted a white-smocked figure sprint past, heading the opposite direction along a parallel corridor.
The man was wearing a backpack.
Tucker skidded to a stop, as did Kane.
A backpack . . . ?
Bukolov looked over his shoulder. “Tucker . . . ?”
“Keep going! Go, go!”
The running figure in white had been the ship’s cook. He was sure of it. But why—?
Tucker went momentarily dizzy as he fixed the man’s broken visage before his mind’s eye: give him thick salt-and-pepper hair, a mustache, and clean the blood off his face . . .
General Kharzin.
No, no, no!
Tucker remembered the subterfuge back in Africa, when Kharzin had sent in a body double to take his place. This time around, he had flipped that scam on its ear: disguising himself to look like an injured member of the crew. From the fact that the crew seemed to accept Kharzin as their cook meant that the general must have assumed the role of ship’s cook at some prior port, coming aboard under false pretenses in order to expedite Felice’s team: to get them aboard unseen, to help them contaminate the hold, and likely to help get them back off the ship unseen.
Clever.
But once Tucker arrived and the gig was up, Felice must have beaten the man to further disguise his features. Kharzin was the mission’s final layer of security. If the ship was saved, he could still slip away with a final canister of LUCA and wreak what damage he could.
Tucker couldn’t let that happen.
He backtracked, turned left at the intersection, and took off after the fleeing man with Kane. When he reached the parallel corridor, he stopped short and peeked around. There was no sign of Kharzin, but somewhere forward a hatch banged against steel.
He broke from cover and kept going. The deck gave a violent shake. He lost his balance and slammed against the bulkhead.
As he righted himself, he heard faint footsteps pounding on aluminum steps.
He pointed ahead. “SEEK SOUND.”
Kane sprinted down the corridor, turned right at the next intersection, and down another corridor. It ended at a set of stairs, heading toward the main deck.
Ten feet from the stairs, a hatch door banged open far above.
As he closed the distance, Tucker dropped to his knees and skidded forward with his shotgun raised. As his knees hit the bottom step, he blasted upward—just as Kharzin’s rear foot disappeared from the opening.
The hatch banged shut.
Tucker bounded up the steps, watching the locking wheel begin to spin. He hit the hatch before it fully engaged. He shouldered into it, bunching his legs and straining. Finally it popped up, sending him sprawling outside onto his chest.
Kane clambered next to him.
Tucker pushed himself to his feet and looked around. To his left, General Kharzin was running forward along the deck.
Tucker shouted, “Kharzin!”
The man never looked back.
He took off after the general—then suddenly his feet flipped out from under him. He landed hard on his back. The deck bucked again, accompanied by the sound of steel scraping against sharp rocks.
Tucker and Kane went flying.
47
March 28, 8:30 P.M.
Old Mission Point
The Macoma’s nine hundred thousand pounds of iron and steel plow into the cold sands of Old Mission Point, its bow bulldozing trees, rocks, and bushes ahead of it. Debris crashes over the bow railing and smashes into the forecastle. A hundred feet inland, the bow strikes a boulder off center, heaving the ship onto its starboard side, dragging the forward third of its hull across a row of jagged rocks along the shoreline before finally lurching to a heavy stop.
Tucker knew none of this.
As the world became a herculean roar of rent steel and churning rock, he recalled snatching hold of Kane’s collar, of tucking the shepherd to his chest, and the pair of them tumbling over the Macoma’s deck. They had bounced across the cargo hatches, pinballed off the davits, and slammed into the wheelhouse’s bulkhead. They finally slid across the last of the canted deck and came to rest entangled on the starboard railing.
Christ Almighty . . .
With his head hammering, he forced open his eyes and found himself staring down into a well of blackness. He blinked several times, bringing the world into focus.
A world of mud.
He stared dazedly down through the starboard rails that had caught them as the ship rolled to its side. Below him rose a giant pile of black mud, its summit less than seven feet under his nose.
He smelled the ripeness of manure and the earthiness of rot.
Compost.
Kane licked Tucker’s chin. The shepherd still sprawled half on top of him. The only thing keeping them from a plunge below were the struts of the rail.
“I got you, buddy,” Tucker said. “Hang on.”
Under him, the hull outside hold number five—where Felice’s team had introduced LUCA—looked as though a giant had taken a pair of massive tin shears to the steel. Spilling from the gash was a massive wave of slurry compost, forming a mountain under him and spreading like dark lava across the landscape of Old Mission Point.
Fifty yards away a wood sign jutted from the sludge:
LIGHTHOUSE PARK—OLD MISSION POINT
A few yards past that marched a familiar figure, mucking calf-deep through the edge of the debris, a backpack hanging off one shoulder.
Kharzin.
Tucker disentangled his left arm from the railing, reached across his body to Kane, and drew the shepherd more tightly to him.
They had to find a way down—not that there was a way up.
He saw only one possibility, a messy possibility.
He stared below at the steep-sloping mountain of wet compost.
“Hold on, buddy, it’s going to be a bit of a drop.”
Tucker shifted them to the edge of the railing and rolled off. As they fell, he clutched Kane tightly against his body. They hit hard, especially for landing in mud—then they were tumbling down the slick surface of the mire. The smell filled his every sense. Muck soon covered them in a heavy coat.
In a matter of a few moments, they rolled free of the compost mountain and out across a mix of snow and sand. Tucker stood up, weaving and unsteady. His left shoulder throbbed. Kane limped a few steps, his left rear leg tucked up against his body, but as his partner worked the kinks out of his muddy body, he brought the limb down and tentatively took a few hops.
Sprained perhaps, but not broken.
Now where was General Kharzin? He was nowhere in sight.
; Kane limped forward, ready to go, but Tucker forced the shepherd down with a firm, “STAY.”
You’ve done plenty, buddy.
Tucker drew the Browning from its holster and edged forward, sticking to the deeper shadows of the Macoma’s canted hull. Now out of the wind and snow, he could hear the pop and metallic groan of the dying ship. It loomed above him, like a building frozen in the process of collapsing.
He noted a rope dangling from a railing ahead, marking Kharzin’s exit from the ship. The end hung a good ten feet off the ground. He pictured Kharzin dropping from it.
Continuing onward, he climbed the bulldozed wave of sand and rock at the ship’s bow. The tip of the ship hung like a massive shadowy hatchet in the storm overhead, waiting to fall.
Tucker reached the crest of the stony tide and peered cautiously over its lip.
Fifty yards away, a figure moved through the storm, his back to Tucker and favoring one leg. Apparently Kharzin’s descent hadn’t gone any easier. The man slowly limped toward a snowy tree line, marked by park benches and gravel pathways.
Tucker cautiously picked his way down the backside of the rocks and started stalking toward his target, not wanting to spook him. Whether Kharzin heard his approach or not, the man suddenly shrugged off his backpack, knelt down near a copse of leafless maples, and unzipped the bag.
A stainless steel tank shone brightly within the muddy pack. Kharzin unscrewed the nozzle hose of the sprayer and tossed it away.
Uh-oh . . .
Tucker moved swiftly forward, incautiously snapping a twig.
Kharzin turned his head.
The two of them locked eyes.
Tucker raised his pistol and charged Kharzin. The other swung around, shaking free the tank from the pack and hugging it to his chest like a shield.
Kharzin confronted him, dared him. “Go ahead! Shoot! Hit the tank or hit me . . . it doesn’t matter! Either way, the corruption inside will spill free upon your precious soil. And I’ll have my revenge for my daughter, for my country!”
Tucker lowered the Browning and slowed his run to a walk.
Off in the distance came the wail of sirens.
Kill Switch (9780062135285) Page 38