Dark Watch of-3

by Clive Cussler

  “I’m not leaving here until I know what vessel this is.”

  Cabrillo caught the stubborn lift of her chin and knew she meant it. “We’re on a ship that shouldn’t be here called the Toya Maru. She was snatched while the pirates were attacking the Avalon. That big ship you remembered seeing was a floating drydock called the Maus. They concealed the Toya Maru inside her and towed her here. All the while under near constant surveillance by my people, I might add.”

  “So why shouldn’t she be here?”

  “Because the Maus is still a couple days out.”

  A look of confusion swept across her beautiful face. “I don’t understand.”

  Juan was growing frustrated. They had to get out of there, and Tory wanted to play twenty questions. But the truth was he was more angry at himself than her. Like everyone involved, he, too, had failed to anticipate the pirates’ cunning. “It means they knew they were being shadowed the whole time and waited for their chance to offload the Maru, which came when I had to call the Oregon away for a day near Taiwan. They put a crew aboard this ship and sailed her down here under her own steam, while my people followed the ballasted drydock. Gauging the amount of disassembly work they’ve already accomplished, I’d say they’ve had her in this shed for a few days at least.”

  He touched her sleeve. “I’ll tell you everything, but later. We have to get going.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Cabrillo tucked his pistol into his holster and climbed the ladder. The hatch wheel gave a chirp of protest as he broke the seal, then spun freely. He eased the cover up, got his gun in position, and ducked his head through to the next level. It was pitch-black and silent. He pulled his body through and waited for Tory. Once she was at his side, he risked using his light again.

  He recognized the space as the main ballast control room. From here the crew could use a system of pumps to transfer their load from tank to tank in order to maintain trim. He briefly considered finding the sea suction inlet, a breach in the hull where seawater could be pumped into the ship for ballast, but it would take too long to find and open an inspection hatch. Plus there would be heavy mesh to prevent the pumps fouling on a large fish or kelp when it drew in the water.

  Now that he had his bearings, he turned on his minicomputer and called up a set of the Toyo Maru’s blueprints. On the tiny screen the schematics were tough to make out, so it took him a few minutes to trace their escape route.

  “Got it,” he said at last. “Okay, stay close and stay behind me.”

  “Chivalry, Captain?”

  “Practicality. I’m wearing body armor, and unless you dropped twenty pounds in two weeks, I know you’re not.”

  She shot him a cheeky smirk. “Touché and lead on.”

  Cabrillo checked the corridor outside the ballast control room and edged out. With no light to amplify, Tory’s goggles were useless, forcing him to rely on his flashlight and trust the guards would give themselves away before they saw it.

  At the end of the hall they came to a set of steep stairs. Juan was halfway up when he heard voices and saw light from above. Without turning he stepped back again, feeling Tory right behind him. From the bottom of the stairs he caught a glimpse of two men armed with assault rifles passing by. He and Tory waited a full three minutes after the voices faded before making the climb again.

  They had reached the level just below the main deck. Once they reached the outside, Juan planned to just jump over the side and find the rebreather. In the darkness Shere Singh’s men would never spot them.

  From down the hallway came the unmistakable mechanical ratchet of a weapon being cocked. Cabrillo threw Tory to the deck as lights snapped on all over the place. His finger was working the trigger before he had a target, laying down suppression fire to maximize confusion. In the first seconds of the ambush he didn’t care about the danger of a ricochet. Getting out was all that mattered. Tory added her own pistol, an unsilenced 9mm that boomed like a cannon in the metal confines of the ship.

  He wanted to get back down the stairs, but when he glanced over the landing, autofire ripped up from below so close he felt the heat of the bullets and the muzzle flash was like an explosion in his face.

  He fired a blind shot at the downstairs gunman and crawled across the passageway, seeking cover where the hall turned ninety degrees. Once out of sight of the ambushers, he dragged Tory to safety. He hadn’t been hit, which was a miracle, and now wasn’t the time to worry about the Englishwoman.

  He tossed his minicomputer out into the hallway. Immediately an automatic weapon opened up. Good. The guards were jumpy. He levered his pistol out into the hall and fired three shots, moving his body as he pulled the trigger so he was exposed by the time he pulled the trigger a fourth time. He spotted his target, a turbaned guard lying on the deck and cringing behind his AK-47. Cabrillo put a pair of bullets through the top of his head, then dashed for cover as another guard farther down the hallway unloaded his magazine in a wild sustained burst.

  He grabbed Tory’s hand, and together they ran away from the ambush, all pretense of stealth forgotten.

  Juan rounded a corner and saw the flicker of movement an instant before a rifle butt crashed into his skull. He fell flat, poleaxed, but didn’t lose consciousness as Tory came up behind him and double tapped the guard as he was recovering from the swing. The guard was blown back by the kinetic energy of her nine millimeter rounds and the wall behind him was painted in his blood.

  His head feeling as fragile as glass, Juan let Tory help him to his feet. His vision was blurred, and blood oozed from where skin had been smeared from his forehead. It hung like a flap over his left eye. Juan ripped away the slice in a savage jerk that caused a fresh rush of blood but allowed him to see. Tory gasped.

  “I know a good plastic surgeon,” was all he said, and the pair started running again.

  That’s when a metallic scream unlike anything Juan had ever heard began. He knew immediately it was the ship saw. A moment later the thick band of the chain saw cut into the ship just ahead of the superstructure, no more than twenty feet in front of Cabrillo and Tory. Water from the lubricating jets turned to steam, spiking the humidity to a hundred percent, and slivers of metal filled the passageway like shrapnel. The saw changed directions and began to cut horizontally toward them, shredding metal bulkheads as though they were tissue. The thick chain burst through the wall next to them, its teeth cutting the ship as easily as a can opener. The chain came at them four feet off the deck, moving through the vessel almost as fast as they could run. The stench of scorched steel was overwhelming, and an occasional filing blew off the chain and landed on Cabrillo, melting holes in his wet suit.

  They came to another staircase and raced up, their focus on staying away from the deadly saw. As if the machine knew where they were headed, it started to angle up after them, chewing apart the stairwell like some prehistoric predator. The railings ricocheted off the wall as the sawing action tore them from their mounts.

  Juan could barely see. The combination of the blood and what he knew was a mild concussion slowed him. But Tory didn’t leave his side. Together they raced from the ravenous charge of the ship saw. They ran past crew cabins, and when they rounded another corner, both began to sprint for an exterior hatch. It was a race because they were running parallel to the thick cutting chain and could no longer see it as it sliced apart the Toyo Maru.

  Ten feet from the open door, the wall to their right began to glow and vibrate as the chain’s teeth took their first taste of the bulkhead. Because the Japanese tanker wasn’t exactly square in the shed, the saw first ate through the corner they had just turned and, like a zipper being pulled, it started to split the wall.

  Juan glanced over his shoulder. The chain had already cut through the first ten feet of the hallway and as he watched, another few feet were torn apart. Metal filings filled the hall like a nest of enraged wasps as the chain began to span the width of the corridor.

  With five feet to go before they wer
e clear, Cabrillo pounded Tory between the shoulder blades. The blow made her tumble, but her inertia kept her rolling. Juan threw himself after her as the thick chain passed directly over them the instant they burst out onto the open deck.

  And into another ambush.

  Four turbaned men had been waiting for them, eyeing the duo’s fall over their AKs’ iron sights. Juan and Tory had landed in a tangle of limbs that parodied intimacy. Before either could get their gun hand free, the Sikhs had weapons to their heads. The ship saw rattled to silence.

  “I was hoping the saw wouldn’t get you just yet,” an accented voice boomed from a catwalk suspended over the ship.

  Juan and Tory had their weapons taken away and were allowed to their feet, their fingers laced at the back of their heads. Cabrillo studied the man above him. Judging age and his resemblance to Abhay, Juan guessed that the man was the leader of the pirate ring.

  “Shere Singh,” Juan growled.

  “I hope you found what you were looking for,” the Sikh said. “I would hate to think of you going to your graves still filled with curiosity.” He gave an order in a language Juan didn’t recognize, and he and Tory were shoved toward the ship’s bow.

  Overhead an unseen operator was resetting the chain blade of the ship saw. Tracks built near the ceiling allowed it to be maneuvered almost anywhere within the shed. The segmented blade now spanned the deck about fifteen feet behind where the bow had been cut off, held so taut that despite its length of nearly two hundred feet, it didn’t sag. And in the glare of overhead lights the tips of its special alloy teeth glinted like so many hundreds of daggers.

  A moment later, Shere Singh reached the Toya Maru’s deck and approached, flanked by two more guards. He carried an odd metal pipe with long, perpendicular handles. Juan and Tory were each held by a pair of men in such a way that their toes barely touched the deck. Cabrillo tried to shift his weight to find leverage to break free, but each movement caused his captors to lift him even higher. When Singh was close enough to smell, he passed the length of pipe under Juan’s arms and behind his back. The guards shifted their grip so they could hold him in place by grasping the handles.

  Cabrillo now understood the device’s purpose. This had to be a favorite way for the pirate to dispatch his enemies. The handles allowed the guards to hold their victim so when they pressed his body against the ship saw they were in no danger of being caught in the whirring chain.

  When she realized the full horror of what was about to happen, Tory Ballinger screamed like an enraged lioness and jerked her body to get away. The men holding her laughed and lifted her even higher, so her entire weight pulled awkwardly against the tendons in her shoulders. The agony quickly drained the fight out of her, and she seemed to deflate.

  “You’re not going to get away with this,” Cabrillo said.

  The threat sounded as hollow to him as it did to Shere Singh, and the heavyset Pakistani laughed. “Of course I am, Captain Jeb Smith. But I must say you have lost a lot of weight compared to what my son, Abhay, described.”

  “Jenny Craig.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Listen Singh, we know about the Maus, and we know about the Souri. As soon as either vessel tries to enter a legitimate port, they will be seized. You’re finished, so why not give up now and spare yourself a pair of murder charges.”

  “So you would not charge me for the deaths of the Toyo Maru’s crew, eh?”

  Juan hadn’t held much hope that the pirates were merely holding the tanker’s crew, and now he had his confirmation. “In about ten minutes a special forces team is going to rush this building and kill everyone inside.”

  Singh laughed again. He was enjoying his complete dominance over his captives. “They will be five minutes too late for you and your nubile friend. There is nothing you can say to stop me and nothing you can do, either. I have men approaching your boat as we speak. At most you have a small mercenary force. They will be dealt with.”

  Cabrillo knew that even if he didn’t make it out of this alive, his people would cut down Singh and all his men like so much wheat. But he wanted to keep Singh talking. Buy himself some time until he could think of a way out of this mess. “If we are going to die, at least tell me about the Chinese. How do they fit into your plan?”

  Singh stepped close again. He possessed the piercing hazel eyes of a goat, and they never blinked. He smelled of cigarettes and at about six foot four stood half a head taller than Cabrillo. Using just the strength of his arm, he rammed a fist into Juan’s solar plexus, a blow that expelled every molecule of air from his lungs. Had the Sikh used the full force of his body, Juan’s ribs would have been stove in. It took several struggling breaths until his lungs felt at least partially inflated.

  “You never knew I discovered you were following the Maus from the Sea of Japan. You didn’t know I offloaded this ship” — Singh stamped a foot onto the deck — “when I had the chance. I have been ahead of you every step of the way, so what makes you think I would be so stupid as to tell you anything now? Knowledge must be earned. I taught my sons that. Anything given to you is worth exactly what you put in to deserve it. Nothing. What we do with the Chinese we’ve captured is none of your concern.”

  That at least verified for Cabrillo that Singh was connected to the snakeheads. “Aren’t you at least curious who we are and why we’ve come after you?”

  A lupine look crossed Singh’s face. “You have me on that account, my friend. I indeed do want to know who you are, and if you came here a week ago I would have delighted in extracting that information. But now, today, it doesn’t matter. I will permit you to go to your grave with your secrets as I go about my business with mine.”

  Singh made a spiraling gesture with his finger, and the powerful motors that drew the ship saw through its massive gears came to life. The chain soon became a blur as it whipped by just above the deck. The sound was staggering but nowhere near as bad as when it was chewing through a derelict hulk.

  Juan looked around for something, anything, to forestall the inevitable. He’d come up with the germ of a plan, but at most he could hope to take out two, maybe three of the guards before he was gunned down. His only hope was that Tory would have the presence of mind to get herself over the side of the tanker and the hell away from the shed. He looked over to her. Their eyes met with such intensity that it was as if they could read each other’s minds. She knew he was going to try something crazy, and her gaze told him she would make the most of his attempt. That brief exchange told him that in another world he would have enjoyed knowing her better.

  The guards maneuvered Juan closer to the whirring chain saw, and no matter how he tried to resist he couldn’t stop himself from taking halting tiptoe steps toward the industrial guillotine. Even from five feet away he could feel its power. Like the tingle of atmospheric electricity during a storm, it was a living force that split the air.

  He tried to twist his shoulders, but that only made the guards shove him even closer.

  Shere Singh moved up next to Juan, keeping enough distance that there was no way he could reach the Sikh. Singh held a length of wood in his hand. Making sure he had Juan’s attention, he lowered the piece of timber onto the spinning chain. There was a brief pop and an explosion of sawdust. It took a fraction of a second for the saw to pulp the heavy piece of mahogany. Singh grinned again and stepped back, shouting over the roar of the machine, “I think I will let my men enjoy the woman before they feed her to the saw.”

  Juan gave no outward sign that he was about to act, but in his mind he planned out every move, choreographing the actions so when he went into motion there would be no hesitation. There was, however, a glaring variable to his plan. And that was if he survived the first instant.

  He kicked both legs into the air, relying on the goons behind him to hold him steady as the limbs inexorably fell back toward the saw. His right calf made contact with the top of the serrated chain. He was dimly aware of Tory’s stunned scream as t
he fast-moving saw bit into something hard in his leg and ripped the pole handles out of the guard’s grip.

  The shock and savagery nearly ripped Juan’s leg from its socket and the straps securing the prosthesis below his knee were stretched to their very limit. But it had worked. The men hadn’t fought the saw in a tug-of-war that would have allowed the blade to slice through the titanium struts of his artificial leg. The saw’s relentless momentum tossed Juan like a rag doll fifteen feet across the deck. He landed in a perfect shoulder roll, and as his body came to rest, he was reaching into the ruin of what he called his combat leg for the Kel-Tec pistol secured within the composite limb.

  The Kel-Tec was one of the smallest handguns in the world, weighing just five ounces when empty. But unlike other small pistols that were limited in their caliber to .22 or .25, the Kel-Tec was designed to fire P-rated .380 cartridges. They were man stoppers, and the armorers on the Oregon had hot-loaded the rounds to within a few newtons of their maximum tolerance.

  As much as Cabrillo wanted to put the first bullet through Singh’s head, the compact weapon only had room for seven rounds. He took aim at the startled guards who’d been holding him a second earlier and fired. The first round went wild. His breathing was coming too fast and his stump had begun to throb. The next two found their marks, and one of the guards had his throat blown open. He fell forward into the ship saw.

  The chain severed his body in a fountain of blood. His head and torso fell to the deck with an obscene wet smack while his lower extremities were kicked into the air when a tooth snagged on his spinal column. They cartwheeled through the air and caught the second guard in the chest, knocking him flat and for the next few seconds out of the fight. Juan shifted his aim at the men holding Tory. They held her in such a way that he couldn’t get a clean kill, so he put a round into the kneecap of one of them. As he spun away shrieking, Tory managed to twist out of the other’s grasp. Juan dropped him with a double tap to the chest.