“On you.”
They reloaded and edged out of the passage, stopping as blinding sunshine destroyed their vision. It took a few second to get used to it. A bullet shattered blockwork to Hayden’s left. The trio wasted another half a minute taking cover and staring into the sun, getting their eyes used to the glare. They put sunglasses on.
Hayden went low, creeping around the threshold. She was just in time to see a man she assumed was Salene and three guards leap off the corrugated roofs some way to her right. They landed and then kept running, firing back and up.
They would be firing at Dahl and Kenzie.
Those left of the guards she had pursued were angling straight toward Salene.
They would end it right here.
Right now.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Drake allowed himself to be lifted off the floor and dragged out of the restaurant, keeping sight of the fact that he was taking four deadly thugs away from a killing arena, away from over 150 defenseless civilians.
The downside was—he was on his own. Alicia, Mai and Luther couldn’t reach him. Drake had no plan, no thoughts on what to do. An opportunity would arise and then he would act. He pretended to be submissive, slumped between Gogh and Olive who dragged him along. When Pigswill punched him in the mouth he cried out and sniffled, swallowing the blood.
They dragged him out of the room and over to the starboard side of the ship. Drake kept opening and closing his eyes to remain both vigilant and docile at the same time. It wasn’t easy. Fighting was easier. But he had more than one goal here.
He needed these men to explain something.
For that, they would be better off alive. He pretended to try to stand, holding on to a ledge as they reached the big windows that overlooked the ocean.
“Please . . .” he said to get some conversation going.
“Not so tough now, cop, are you?” Gogh sneered.
“Not a cop,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”
“Break his teeth,” somebody said from behind. “Stop him talking.”
“I have a knife,” Olive said. “You want me to use it on his tongue?”
The pirates laughed. “That I’d like to see,” the fourth pirate said.
Drake turned to see a man who resembled Shrek standing behind him. He named the hulking figure Ogre. He struggled weakly as they grabbed him again and threw him against a glass door. His head rebounded, causing pain to explode inside his brain. He was ready to end this.
“Get the cop outside,” Gogh said. “On deck.”
“You bellends,” Drake said. “You’re as thick as pigshit and, actually, smell worse. You’re chasing a guy called Volkov instead of running away with your ransom. Don’t you see? The more you hurt the passengers the more chance there is that the Americans will hunt you down.”
“Passengers don’t matter,” Ogre barked without thinking.
There it was again.
“Course they do.” Drake felt the fresh air hit him as they all staggered outside. “No passengers, no ransom. No payday for you.”
He headed for a switchback staircase, wanting the opportunity to use it as an obstacle. The pirates crowded around, staring at each other, walking with him.
“Kobe shouldn’t hear of this,” Gogh said, realizing they might be caught out.
“Yeah, we oughtta be helping find Volkov,” Pigswill said warily.
“Kobe gonna cut your allowance off?” Drake taunted.
“Lower deck,” Olive said. “Get him to the lower deck.”
It was as if a violent crowd mentality had set in. These men had formed a bond now, a bond that existed only to do violence to the supposed ‘cop.’ No outside interference would break that bond. They had become savages, even worse than before.
They prodded him down the stairs, descending through decks. Drake prodded them back in his own way.
“Why is this Volkov guy so important to you?”
“Stop asking questions.”
“You should care about keeping the passengers safe. Even I’m clever enough to understand that.”
His verbal insult provoked Ogre more than the others. “One more comment and I’m gonna stab you in the fucking neck. We don’t need the fucking passengers. Yeah, you fuck. How about that?” Drake received a shove to the back which sent him down three steps. He made an effort to cry out in pain as he landed.
Ogre laughed maliciously. “Like that? You’ll be hurting a lot more in a minute.”
“Think you . . . think you hurt your head . . .” Drake stammered. “You definitely need the passengers.”
“Listen to this guy.” Ogre bayed like a donkey. “Thinks he knows it all. Man, I’m gonna enjoy smacking you in the face with your tongue. It’ll be your ears after that, which I’ll stuff down your throat. Then—”
“Rundo,” Pigswill said. “Shut the hell up.”
Ogre clamped his mouth closed so abruptly his lips made a flapping sound. Finally, the pirates appeared to have reached their goal. Drake guessed it was a deck or so above the water. They spun him around and put his back to the gunwale, the upper rail that ran around the side of the ship. Behind him, there was a drop to the rolling seas. Drake had been backed into a corner.
Four pirates faced him.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“I think we want to,” Pigswill said.
“How we gonna grab his tongue?” Gogh asked, grinning and curious.
“You have the pliers?” Pigswill asked Olive. “You know, the ones you used for the wires?”
“In my pack.”
Olive bent down and unslung a small rucksack from his back. Drake stared at it. On the outside it was dark gray canvas. No items were secured in the outer pockets. But when Ogre unzipped it, Drake saw several coils of yellow and red wire inside and, as Olive rummaged, at least one black detonator.
Pure ice water flooded through him in terrible understanding. Now, he didn’t have to pretend to be scared.
“No,” he said. “No. Please. You can’t do this.”
“It is gonna hurt,” Pigswill agreed. “But I for one am looking forward to you getting that flapping tongue chopped off.”
“No. I mean the ship . . . please, no.”
Drake struggled to comprehend the evil of these men. If he traced it all the way back to the source though, he saw the hand of the Devil in this. Could it be true? He could hardly believe his own conclusions. Could this entire debacle, the seizing of the ship and kidnap of almost 200 passengers, have been staged to conceal the capture and abduction of just one man?
Volkov.
And then . . . this was where Drake really struggled. This was where his stomach folded until he felt physically ill. The presence of wire and detonators told him that, as soon as Volkov was found, the pirates were going to flee, stolen valuables in hand, and blow up the entire ship, sending it to the bottom of the sea.
Olive found the pliers and pulled them out of the rucksack, brandishing them like a weapon.
Drake fought to focus. “You’re going to kill all the passengers?”
Pigswill glared. “How do you know that?”
“To find one man? To cover it all up?”
“So, you are a cop. Well, we get paid either way. We get the valuables and ransom money for the four multi-millionaires that we’ll take with us. We also get a big bonus when Volkov is found.”
Drake saw them bunching up around him, but he could barely concentrate. Volkov’s secret identity wouldn’t last much longer. Up in the restaurant, sooner rather than later, they would choose his lady friend at random and start hurting her. After that, they were going to blow the ship. Drake wondered if his team and the passengers even had one hour left.
And he’d been trying to stall.
Fuck.
Olive brought the pliers up before his eyes and clacked them together. Drake didn’t move. Pigswill grabbed his right arm, Ogre his left. Still, Drake didn’t move. Gogh dropped a shoulder and
drove a fist into Drake’s stomach.
The Yorkshireman doubled over, yelling. Olive went into a crouch and drove the pliers into his mouth, trying to get a grip on Drake’s tongue. By luck or from experience, Drake didn’t know, the pliers clamped straight onto his tongue.
Olive gave them a yank.
Drake fell forward as pain exploded from the root of his tongue straight up to his brain. Nerves screamed. He brought both hands forward and grabbed Olive’s knees to prevent any further yanking. Olive just squeezed the pliers harder.
“I’m not letting go, cop,” he snarled into Drake’s face. “Now stand up.”
Drake used his thighs to rise, back straight, feeling his tongue being forced out of his mouth between his lips. Olive was grinning, just inches away. Drake felt blood trickling down the back of his throat.
“Knife,” Olive said, pulling harder on the tongue.
Drake gargled in pain. His face was forward, the tongue stretched about as far as it would go. It was numb where the pliers gripped it.
Gogh pulled a knife free of its sheath. The blade was blood-stained and rusted. He held it above Drake’s tongue, ready to make a vertical slash.
Ogre and Pigswill were loving it, leering from left and right. At that moment, all four pirates were focused on the knife, on the pliers, on the point of impact and how entertaining the result would be. Laughter was bubbling up in their throats.
Drake might be alone, and in deep shock, but he wasn’t incapacitated. Olive might be the worst of his opponents right now, but he was also the best for Drake. A lightning fast strike to Olive’s nerve cluster at the solar plexus made the pirate’s eyes widen, his mouth turn into a wide O and, more importantly, his fingers to open. For half a second the pliers still gripped Drake’s tongue, crushed into the flesh. Then they fell away as Drake leaned in to the still-folding Olive and plucked the gun from his waistband.
Drake sidestepped, throwing the man into Pigswill. At the same time, he fired a bullet into Gogh’s chest. Ignoring the sharp pain in his mouth, he struck out at Ogre’s gun hand, knocking the weapon away. Ogre looked shocked but he was a fighter and came hard at Drake, unarmed, throwing both arms around the Yorkshireman.
Drake fired three times point-blank into his stomach. Ogre slumped away, taking the gun with him, but both Pigswill and Olive had recovered by now. Olive was on his knees and jerking out a knife. Pigswill had stepped away, creating space to level his gun at Drake’s face.
There was no time. Pigswill was already pulling the trigger. Even Drake couldn’t move that fast. But he did flick his eyes behind Pigswill and smile.
“Take him,” he snapped.
It gained him precious seconds. Pigswill turned fast to find nobody creeping up on him, and cursed. In the meantime, Drake had calculated his one chance of survival. Without a second thought he grabbed hold of the top rail and used it to vault over the side of the ship.
He fell into the rolling waters below.
He hit with a heavy splash, slicing through the seas, going from bright blue to dark blue in a second. He let the momentum carry him down, away from any bullets that might follow and, when he’d used up all his impetus, kicked his feet and angled his body to the left. Quickly, he swam toward the ship’s bow and made his way around, coming up on the other side before surfacing for air.
Drake trod water for several seconds, considering his options.
He had no weapons, no comms. He had no access to his team. There were still thirty pirates or so aboard the ocean liner. Nobody inside knew about the bombs designed to send it plummeting into the ocean. For all he knew, Volkov could have been uncovered by now. Where would the bombs be?
Not on the passenger decks. They would have secured them low down, close to the hull.
Drake swam alongside the motionless ship, coming eventually to the place where they’d infiltrated earlier. He waited for long seconds and then, satisfied nobody was checking the sea for swimmers, climbed up the side of the ship until he reached the emergency stairwell.
He ducked inside and squeezed water out of his clothes.
It took ten long minutes to make his way back to the restaurant. Then, concealed, he spent a little time getting back up to speed. First, he pinpointed the positions of Alicia, Mai and Luther. Soon, he would signal one of them but first he had to see what had happened during his absence.
He saw six pirates, including Pigswill, Olive and Gogh. Ogre it seemed, was dead or left dying by his colleagues. Several aging men had been lined up along the large windows next to a row of women. Drake could see bullet holes in the bulkhead and several shattered windows. Passengers nursed damaged wrist and arms. Even as he watched, the pirate Alicia had named Scarface pressed the muzzle of his handgun to a woman’s head.
“Last chance, Volkov. Sooner or later we’ll get to somebody you really care about.”
Drake knew this was a do or die moment and readied himself.
Then everything changed.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Dahl stared across the battleground, sweating, bleeding, chest heaving. Blinding sunshine beat down on him. His eyes, behind the Aviator sunglasses, were narrowed and hard as nails. Both fists were clenched, one gripping the handle of an MP5, the other grasping the hilt of a bloodied knife.
A hundred feet ahead of him, running on scorched earth, was Salene and eight guards. To his right were Hayden, Kinimaka and Luther.
At his side stood Kenzie.
“This is where we end these fuckers,” he said. “Worst of the worst. Hostage takers. Ransomers. Child kidnappers. Remember that when they draw on you.”
Kenzie was off and running first, her heels churning up the dirt and the dust. Her teeth were bared. Dahl was at her back and then alongside her. To the left the others ran at the same time and at the same pace. This large patch of no-man’s-land would take several minutes to cross, even running at full pace.
Salene and his guards did not deviate. They charged in a straight line for the docks, one behind the other. The waters shimmered out there, rippling and rolling. Dahl saw several small boats and one big tanker moored under some cliffs. The tanker was rusting, listing and clearly being used for parts. The pirates of Somalia didn’t care who they hurt, affected or made widows. They cared only about profit, power and feeding their desires. Most had no idea how the civilized world worked.
Dahl ran faster. Salene and his goons grew closer, still running in perfect single file. Occasionally one of them looked back when Salene could be heard bellowing. There was no doubt in Dahl’s mind that the pirate leader would sacrifice them at some point. He was only trying to get as close to the docks as he could before doing so.
“Let’s ramp it up a bit,” he said.
Raising the HK, he fired a volley. The bullets might have passed among the pirates or might have gone wide but none of them fell. They did jump and squirm though, and made their run erratic, which was Dahl’s intention.
“Doesn’t feel right,” came Hayden’s voice over the comms.
Dahl blinked. “What am I missing?”
“They know we’re behind them. They know we’re armed. They know this is a good ten-minute run. What the hell are they doing?”
Dahl made an effort to force the battle-rage from his mind and allow himself room to think. Hayden had a point, if not necessarily a great one. These men were pirates. The Swede thought about Salene and what he had accomplished so far. How the Devil had decided to work with him.
Hayden was right. Something was off.
First, he checked the skies. He’d fallen foul of drone attacks before. Then he checked for snipers on the hills and far-away cliffs. It wasn’t an exact science with sweat dripping in your eyes, running at speed, but he failed to spot anything.
Then he checked the ground.
Hard-packed earth for acres, left and right, behind and in front. It wasn’t instinct that made him stop. It was the smallest, most inconsequential thing he could see.
Stones . . . small rou
nd pebbles set every few feet, forming a narrow path. Salene and his guards were following that path.
Dahl and his friends were not.
“Stop!” Dahl hissed. “Stop running!”
Instantly they all pulled up. The Swede understood that Hayden couldn’t possibly see what he was seeing. She, Kinimaka and Molokai were twenty feet to the left, cutting toward them. Both he and Kenzie were running to their side of the crude path.
“It think we’re in a minefield,” Dahl said.
“A what?” Molokai’s voice was taut.
“Minefield. There’s a rough-and-ready path here, marked by pebbles, and Salene is following it.”
Hayden and the other two stood very still and studied the ground around them. There were no obvious tells, no mechanisms protruding up out of the ground, but Dahl’s words made absolute sense.
“Twenty-five steps,” Dahl said. “That gets you to us and the path. Can you make it?”
He was aware that with every passing second, Salene was getting further away.
“Risky,” Molokai said. “As you know I was a bomb tech. Most of my army experience is mines and IEDs. This is my worst fucking nightmare.”
Dahl sympathized but didn’t have time to chat it out. Instead, a thin red veil came down and he aimed his weapon halfway between him and Molokai.
“Duck.”
“Wha—”
Molokai’s question was buried beneath a hail of gunfire. Dahl pummeled the ground with bullets, spraying left and right along an imaginary center line. It took only eight seconds for the first mine to erupt and then three seconds more for the next. Earth mushroomed upward twenty feet into the air just as an ear-splitting explosion rang out. The second was even louder. Dahl took cover as the dirt started to rain back down.
Hayden stood among the falling soil and gravel. “We got this far,” she said. “We can make it twenty-five more steps.”
“Only if we do this,” Dahl said and opened fire again.
Kenzie joined him and soon Kinimaka and Hayden were emptying magazine after magazine into the wide patch of earth that separated the two teams. Together, they formed a safe channel. Two bombs erupted along that path. Molokai could only observe, standing upright with his weapon held down and his eyes wide and staring.
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