by Alex Archer
“Harder, Matahi. A little harder.”
He did as he was told, and after a few minutes they were swinging almost all the way to the wall. Annja could see that the area they were facing had some bomber climbing holds that she could grab to get her off the rope.
But she couldn’t do anything until she let go of Matahi.
“When we get close to the wall, I want you to grab on to it and hang on.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Yes, you can. Just reach out and grab something with your free hand when we get close.”
To his credit, he tried. They swung close to the wall and he reached out and touched the rock, but couldn’t get his hand wrapped around anything and they swung back again with him flailing about.
Annja gritted her teeth and did everything she could to hold on to him, but she could feel his weight dragging her farther down the cable she was holding on to.
“We’re running out of time, Matahi. I can’t hold us much longer. You have to grab the wall and hold on to it this time.”
He didn’t reply, but when she looked down she could see that he was flexing the fingers of his free hand, getting ready to make another try.
They were still swinging to and fro, and it was a simple matter now to nudge them close enough for him to reach out a second time.
“Got it!” he called out at the same time she felt some resistance to her swing.
“Okay, find a foothold for your feet. When you’ve got something secure enough to hold you, let go of my arm.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can,” she told him.
If he didn’t let go soon, there was nothing she was going to be able to save him. It was as simple as that.
“On the count of three, okay?”
She didn’t wait for his reply.
“One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
To her immense relief she felt the weight come off her left arm as the islander clung to the face of the cliff instead.
Now it was her turn.
She swung toward the rock face and quickly chose a handhold before she swung back out again. Keeping her gaze fixed firmly on that spot, she waited for the cable to send her back in that direction on the reverse side of the swing, mentally counting in her head.
One…two…three…
She threw herself against the wall, jamming her hand inside the crack she’d seen on the first swing and twisting it to one side, using the pressure of her fist against the interior of the space to hold her there for the few seconds it took for her feet to find a corresponding perch.
At last she was secure against the rock, using her legs to support her to give her aching arms a rest. She put her forehead against the stone and breathed a sigh of relief.
That had been a little too close for comfort.
It’s not over yet, she reminded herself. You still have to climb to the top.
“You still with me, Matahi?”
All she got was a grunt from below her, but that told her he was still alive, at least, and that was good enough.
“We need to start climbing while we still have the strength. One hold at a time, okay? Find a spot for your right hand, then your left, then do the same for your feet. It’s not a race. Take your time and make sure each hold is secure, understand?”
Then another thought occurred to her.
“No matter what you do, don’t look down.”
Having exhausted all of her advice, she began to make her own ascent. There was nothing more she could do for her companion; he was going to make it or he wasn’t. It was as simple as that.
Reach up with the right hand and find a hold, she urged herself. Do the same with the left. Move the right foot to a new location. Do the same with the left. One small movement at a time, over and over again.
She didn’t think about where she was or how much farther she had to go. She couldn’t afford the distraction. All it would take was one wrong move, one loose grip, and it would be so long Nelly.
Doug still needed her. Now Garin needed her, too.
There was no way she was falling off this volcano!
After what felt like hours of inching upward one hand- or foothold at a time, Annja reached up over her head and felt nothing but air. She looked up and discovered the lip of the caldera just inches away.
Don’t get hasty now, she reminded herself. Plenty of climbers have been injured on those last few moves where they thought they were in the clear.
Making certain she had solid holds, she pulled herself up and over the edge. When she had her feet up, she rolled away from the drop and lay there on her back, staring into the sky for several minutes as the shakes she’d been resisting for so long suddenly took hold of her and racked her frame.
When the fear had passed, she eased herself back over to the edge and peered down the cliff face. At first she didn’t see Matahi and she feared the worst. Had he fallen off and she hadn’t noticed?
Then she spotted him less than twenty feet from the top, moving slowly and cautiously as she’d been doing. She wanted to encourage him but didn’t want to break his concentration, so she just silently cheered him on and was ready to help him over the top when he reached it.
Together they lay on their backs and worked to calm their beating hearts.
Matahi mumbled something in his native language.
“What was that?” she asked.
He repeated himself, this time in German. “Shoot me if I ever want to do something as stupid as that again.”
Annja laughed. “Gladly.”
She pushed to her feet and swung her arms about, making sure they had good circulation so that the lactic acid buildup would dissolve faster and they’d cramp less.
Matahi looked up at her.
“Where are you going?”
“To save my friends, remember?”
He was silent for a time, then said, “I knew there was a reason we did that crazy stunt. I just couldn’t remember what it was.”
“Well, if you can get me down to the beach, I promise you won’t have to help me any farther.”
Matahi smiled. “That’s a deal.”
Chapter 34
After the confrontation on the elevators and the climb up the inside of the volcano, the hike through the jungle was anticlimactic. Matahi led her to safety with unerring accuracy.
Twice they stopped to refresh themselves from the stalks of certain plants that her companion pulled up and cut open. Annja was glad he was there; she would have been dying of thirst by the time they made it to the lagoon if she had to do this alone.
Dawn was only starting to creep over the horizon when they reached the trees sheltering the beach. Annja could see the hulk of the U-boat and beyond that, anchored in the cove, was the Reliant.
But they weren’t the only two boats out there.
A massive yacht was now moored a few yards away from the Reliant. It flew a Swiss registration flag and had five decks plus a large helipad on the aft section of the upper deck. It had its running lights on, and in the moonlight it was easy to see the ship’s name, Redemption, was painted in red on the side.
Figures.
She could see a handful of guards patrolling the decks, but this far out in the Pacific she expected that discipline would be lax. She should be able to sneak aboard without too much trouble. Then it was just a matter of locating Garin, getting him off the boat, and locating Krugmann so that she could find out where Doug was being held.
Nothing to it.
She turned to Matahi and put out her hand.
“Thank you. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”
He shook her hand. “You will be all right from here?”
“Yes,” she lied, not really having any idea but not wanting to endanger him any further.
“All right then, I will return to tend to my people. Good luck to you, Annja Creed.”
And then, like a ghost, he was gone,
disappearing into the jungle behind her.
Annja waited a few minutes and then made her way down to the water’s edge. She stayed in a crouch, in case there was a sentry on the beach that she hadn’t seen, but the view seemed clear and she didn’t run into anyone before she reached the lagoon. She guessed that the yacht was about fifty yards offshore, which would be a good swim but not a particularly trying one.
She sat on the sand, took off her shoes and left them near the pier. She eased into the water, not wanting to make any more noise than absolutely necessary, and then gently began swimming in the direction of the yacht. The water was cool but not cold, and thanks to the protected nature of the lagoon it was as flat as a sheet. She swam first to the Reliant, which was moored closer to shore than the Redemption, and hung on the side for a moment, listening. It didn’t sound as if anyone was aboard so she swam around to the diver’s platform at the back and pulled herself onto it.
She knelt there, listening, making sure that she was alone. Satisfied that there was no one else aboard, she crossed the cockpit to the companionway and slipped down into the darkness of the lower deck.
Knowing how easily sound carried across the water, she kept her motions small and moved slowly where and when she could. It had been hours since she’d eaten, so she got some food out of the refrigerator and ate a couple of quick sandwiches, gulping them down with a glass of water. The food revitalized her, gave her the energy she knew she would need for the next step of her plan.
She went back up on deck, this time carrying Garin’s binoculars, and spent some time studying the activity across the lagoon aboard the Redemption.
She made out four guards, two on the top deck and one each on the second and third decks. They were carrying automatic rifles, but she couldn’t tell what make from this distance. They appeared to be wearing some kind of uniform, as well, but it was hard to tell exactly what.
A glance at the battery-powered clock in the cockpit told her that it was coming up on 4:00 a.m. The sun would be up in another two hours. She needed to get aboard the yacht, find Garin and get him out before the sun came up at 6:30. She wasn’t sure she could do it. Given the size of the boat, it might take her that long just to search two decks. Hopefully she’d get lucky sooner rather than later.
Hopefully both Garin and Doug were still alive.
She put the binoculars away and changed into a bathing suit. Grabbing an extra set of swim fins from the locker on deck, she slipped them on and lowered herself into the water at the rear of the boat. She set out swimming for the yacht, using the fins to give her more power underwater without the noise that kicking her feet on the surface would have made.
Ten minutes later, she reached her destination.
It looked much bigger from her current vantage point down at the waterline. She’d hoped to be able to just pull herself over the side, but the boat rode much higher in the water than she’d expected and the railing was several feet out of reach. She began to make a slow circuit of the craft, looking for another option she could use to get aboard. She finally found what she needed on the port side aft. The launch ramp had a cigarette boat currently stored on it, but there was plenty of room for her to pull herself out of the water and walk up the ramp to the lower deck.
Annja moved as quietly as she could, not wanting to call attention to herself until it was absolutely necessary, at which point she intended to make as much noise as possible to help cover her escape with Garin.
She began quietly opening doors and checking the rooms beyond, not knowing where Krugmann was keeping his captive. Why he hadn’t just killed Garin earlier Annja didn’t know. She supposed it was because Krugmann had decided, from all he’d seen during their time together, that Garin was wealthy and perhaps he could ransom him to someone, his family or the board of directors of one of his multinational corporations.
Perhaps Krugmann was hedging his bets in case she defeated his henchmen. Was Garin merely being used as bait?
That was a distinct possibility, too.
The third room she checked happened to be the engine room, and she saw that it had a map of the boat hung on the bulkhead. She spent a few minutes memorizing the layout of the boat as best she could. Who knew when that information might come in handy?
She had just opened the door across from the engine room when she heard voices coming in her direction. She slipped into the dark room and pushed the door most of the way closed, leaving only a little crack through which she could watch and listen.
The guards stopped in the middle of the passageway, outside the room in which Annja was hiding. One of them produced a pack of cigarettes, European by the look of them, and passed both a cigarette and a lighter to his buddy. They lit up and stood around, either on break or just not caring that they might get caught. They spoke in English, but Annja couldn’t pinpoint their accent, which meant they could be from anywhere.
Most of what they discussed was inconsequential to Annja—the latest football scores (British football, not American), the shift they’d been assigned to for the next week, and how glad they were that they didn’t have to shadow that stupid sailboat they’d been following through terrible weather for the past couple of days. Annja was aware of the ticking clock and was getting ready to step out and give them the action they’d complained they were lacking, when one of them told the other that the boss had returned to the boat with two prisoners in tow. One had been placed in the suite next to the owner’s while the other had been tossed into the storage closet on deck two. They seemed to find that funny, given just how many empty suites and other accommodations were available on a boat that size, but the boss wanted him locked in a closet so locked in a closet he would be.
The men finished their cigarettes and moved on. Annja gave them a few minutes and then slipped out of the room and returned to the engine room next door. She went straight to the diagram of the boat, found the storage closet she thought they were talking about and worked out a path to get to it that didn’t leave her too exposed.
She moved to the rear of the boat and climbed the steps to the deck above, hiding for a few minutes in a shadowed alcove until the guard passed by. She knew from watching their routine from the Reliant that she had six and a half minutes before the guard completed his sweep and returned to the same spot. She pulled open the door to the interior hallway and quickly but quietly padded along on her bare feet, counting doors as she went.
Reaching it, she tried the handle.
It was locked, which wasn’t unexpected.
“Garin? Are you in there?” she whispered through the door. She paused and then heard a muffled reply from within. She couldn’t tell what the person was saying, but there was definitely someone inside.
“If you can hear me, get back from the door. I’m going to break it open, and I don’t want you to get hurt in the process.”
She gave him a moment and then reached into the otherwhere for her sword. She inserted the point between the doorjamb and the door itself, then levered it down and out.
The door popped open with a crack.
She glanced at her watch.
Three and a half minutes to go.
She opened the door and stepped inside. It was a linen closet. Shelves lined the walls, and she could see labels that said Double, Economy, King and Queen, as well as others noting a particular pattern or emblem on the towels they contained.
Pressed up against the far wall, only his upper body visible in the light, was a man in dirty clothes with a hood over his head.
Annja hurried over to him and pulled off the hood.
Doug Morrell sat there blinking with his hands and feet tied together and a gag tied around his mouth.
“Doug!” Annja couldn’t believe it.
He tried to say something, but the gag wouldn’t let him.
Annja fought with the knot for a second and then managed to get it free.
Doug cleared his throat, spit up a bloody wad of phlegm, and then said in a voice that sound
ed as if it hadn’t been used in a while, “You’ve got to get out of here! It’s a trap!”
Chapter 35
“A trap?” Annja said. “For whom?”
“For you!”
Doug tried to stand up, but his feet were still tied together and he would have toppled over if Annja hadn’t caught him.
“Hang on,” she said. She bent and used the sword to slash through his bonds. She did the same with those on his hands and wrists before helping him to his feet, taking care with his injured hand.
He looked to be in fairly decent shape for a man who had been held prisoner for more than two weeks. His face was bruised and three of his fingers were broken, but it appeared that they were feeding him regularly and had tended to his injuries.
Annja was so glad to see him that she did something she very rarely did.
She pulled him close and gave him a big hug.
Doug squirmed and tried to get free, which only went to show her just how agitated he actually was.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You have to leave. This whole thing has been a setup to get you here. He said something about wanting the sword, which, at a guess, I’d say is the one you are holding in your hands. What the heck are you doing with a sword anyway?”
Yep, that was Doug all right. Nonstop talk that jumped from subject to subject. It was good to have him back. Now all she had to do was get him off the boat.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“He wants the sword, huh? He’ll have to come and get it, then.”
A voice spoke from the doorway behind her.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
It was followed immediately by a soft spitting sound and a quick little jab in her neck.
Annja spun.
Paul Krugmann stood in the doorway of the closet, a dart gun in one hand.
Annja reached up and found the dart embedded in her neck.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the darkness claimed her before she could utter a word.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, Annja came to with a pounding headache and an awful taste in her mouth.