Marauder

by Clive Cussler

  Eric, who’d been crouched over the control panel, turned his head and then passed out, slumping across the console.

  Sylvia watched all this happen with her breath held. She realized she couldn’t inhale again or she’d suffer the same fate.

  She snatched the dual-canister mask that was attached to the dead man’s belt and pressed it against her face. When it was sealed against her skin, she used the remaining breath in her lungs to blow out forcefully, clearing the mask of any residual air and gas that had gotten trapped inside.

  She finally inhaled, expecting her world to go dark. There was no wooziness, so she must have acted in time. She drew the straps over her hair, ripping off her headset as she tightened the mask.

  Through the window in the upper half of the door, Sylvia saw two of the mercenaries looking at their handiwork. She knew that as soon as they saw she was unaffected by the gas, they’d kill her.

  She’d only fired an MP5 submachine gun once in the Oregon’s armory, but it seemed simple enough. Literally point and shoot, with a minimal kick even on full auto. A QCW-50 was lying beside the dead mercenary. She hoped the Chinese weapon was just as easy to operate.

  She picked it up at the same moment the two men saw her. She flicked the safety, put the gun to her shoulder, aimed its red-dot sight at the window and yanked the trigger, holding it down without letting go.

  Bullets tore through the glass, hitting both men. She knew the weapon had a fifty-round magazine, but she was still shocked at how fast they were used up. The gun clicked empty just a few seconds later.

  The door was pocked with bullet holes, but she seemed to have hit her targets. Both of them were down, which was fortunate since Eric hadn’t taught her how to reload.

  She got to her feet, concerned about Eric and Linc, when she locked eyes with the man whose image had haunted her since the sinking of the Namaka.

  Angus Polk pushed the door open, a look of anger on his face and a gun in his hands. Sylvia had a split second to sprint for the stairwell before his bullets started slamming into the bulkhead behind her. She dived and rolled down the first flight of steps to the landing, smacking hard onto the floor.

  Despite the jolt of pain in her back, she willed herself to her feet and ran down the interior stairs without looking back.

  * * *

  —

  Polk didn’t recognize the woman who’d just killed two of his men, but he’d soon find her. Based on how wildly she’d shot and the fact that she’d fired the entire magazine on full auto, she didn’t seem like a pro. He looked forward to hunting her down.

  But first he had to open the cargo bay doors again. With eleven minutes left to launch, they were the only thing standing between the rockets and all of those citizens out there waiting to celebrate the new year.

  As he walked to the control panel, movement on one of the monitors caught his attention. There were three intruders dressed in black inside the citadel, as well as four corpses of the men he’d sent to secure it.

  One man was seated on the stairs, while a man and a woman were kneeling by the lockers.

  They were rooting through his supply of the Enervum antidote, stuffing the packs into bags. The man had paused his work and seemed to be talking to no one in particular.

  Polk looked at the intruder who was slumped over the bridge console and noticed that he was wearing a tiny earpiece. His friends in the citadel must have been wondering why they’d lost contact.

  They wouldn’t have to wonder long, but they wouldn’t be going anywhere, either.

  Polk brought up the fire control system on the touch screen and selected the option operating the emergency fire doors in that area of the ship. Thick fireproof panels began to slide together. The man in the citadel got to his feet and ran to the door, but he wasn’t fast enough. The room was sealed. Polk finished by locking out manual override at that location.

  Now no one would be entering or exiting the citadel. It was secure, but not airtight. They would be gassed along with everyone else in the city once the rockets went off.

  Polk activated the intercom to the citadel.

  “Whoever you are,” he said, “your friends are unconscious and paralyzed by Enervum up here on the bridge. I hope you now realize what a mistake you’ve made coming onto my ship. Just hang out there. You won’t have to wait long.”

  Once Jin arrived in the Marauder—and he still held out hope that she would—they’d go down with the Centaurus.

  Even as the three captives listened to him, they began to pry at the doors. Let them try all they wanted, Polk thought. Those doors wouldn’t budge unless they had a jackhammer.

  He still had to open cargo bays three and four. He pushed aside the unconscious man on the console to get at the switches. He flipped them, and the huge folding doors began to rise again.

  Once they were in place, he pounded the switches with the butt of his rifle, hopelessly jamming them so they couldn’t be used to close the doors again.

  Now that those tasks were taken care of, the rocket launch was assured despite the intruders’ best efforts.

  He inserted a fresh magazine into his weapon, turned to the stairwell, and went in search of his quarry. Now it was just him against her.

  SEVENTY

  The Gator idled a hundred yards from the Centaurus, only its cupola poking above the surface. MacD was checking over the laser designator. It looked like a giant pair of binoculars, except with three lenses instead of two, the third being for the laser itself. MacD would hold it up to his eyes, and whatever he was looking at was what the rail gun would hit.

  “The doors are moving again,” Linda said from the cockpit.

  “What?” MacD said.

  “The cargo bays are opening.”

  MacD went forward and crammed himself into the tiny space with her. The Centaurus loomed like a leviathan, filling the window. Sure enough, the doors above the cargo bays closest to the superstructure were in the upright position.

  MacD listened in as Linda tried to make contact with the bridge of the Centaurus.

  “Eric, come in,” she said. “What’s going on up there?”

  There was no response.

  “Chairman, this is Linda. Come in, please.”

  “Juan here.”

  “We’ve lost contact with the bridge, and we can see that the cargo bay doors have opened again. They can launch the rockets.”

  “We just heard from Polk. He claims that he got Linc, Eric, and Sylvia with the Enervum gas.”

  “We didn’t see a rocket go up.”

  “He must have used a grenade or smoke canister. But we’re locked into the citadel at the bottom of the ship. We’re trying to get out, but we’re not having any luck. This place is sealed tighter than Fort Knox.”

  “Can we do anything? Should we try to get aboard?”

  “No,” Juan said. “Stay put. We need you out there to target the Centaurus.”

  MacD looked at Linda. “Ah’d rather go and fight.”

  She returned his gaze with a resolute expression. “The Chairman knows what he’s doing.”

  * * *

  —

  It was only when Sylvia had gone down two levels that she noticed that one of Polk’s rounds had nicked her leg. She’d left tiny blood droplets behind her, like a trail of bread crumbs, leading Polk right to her.

  There was no point in hiding. In less than eight minutes, the rockets would launch unless she could stop them somehow. But with Eric and Linc paralyzed, and Polk in pursuit, it seemed hopeless. Even if she got another submachine gun from one of the other dead mercenaries, she wasn’t sure she could defeat a former police detective in a shoot-out.

  Still, she had to try something. If he was following her blood trail, she might be able to use it to lead him to her.

  There was a fire ax on the wall. She took it out o
f its cradle and got a feel for its weight. It was heavy for her, but she thought she could get in a solid swing.

  Sylvia walked to the next corner and went around it. She put her back against the wall, the ax tight in her hands, and waited.

  She kept the mask on in case Polk threw another grenade. She tempered her breathing so that the sound of her mask filter was as muted as possible. Polk would be breathing harder in his own mask because he was on the move, so she hoped he wouldn’t hear her.

  She didn’t have to wait long for Polk. The distinctive Darth Vader wheeze of his breathing slowly grew louder as if he were taking his time stalking his prey.

  She’d only get one swing, so she had to make it count. The awful breathing sound got closer and closer until it seemed like he was right around the corner.

  Without waiting for Polk to show himself, Sylvia swung the ax as hard as she could at chest level.

  A hand came up to deflect the handle, but in his shock at being attacked Polk misjudged the angle. The razor-sharp edge sliced across his wrist, cutting deep, before embedding itself in the wall.

  Polk let out a scream as blood poured from his ruined wrist. His hand dangled uselessly.

  In a fit of fury, he forgot the gun and lunged at Sylvia with his good hand. He grabbed on to the canister of her face mask. He yanked her toward him, his eyes wide with rage, a terrifying sight through the eyeholes of his own mask. With the rubber seal loose now, only the straps were keeping it on her head.

  Sylvia strained to pull the ax free, but she couldn’t get it out of the wall. If Polk got any presence of mind back, he would let go of the mask and grab her around the throat to choke the life out of her.

  She angled her head so that the straps came off, and she fell backward onto her rear. So did Polk, who landed on his wounded arm and let out an agonized shriek.

  Sylvia took advantage of the distraction and ran for it. As she neared the end of the corridor, bullets whizzed by her, but Polk’s one-handed aim was wild.

  She went down the next hall and realized she was near the mess and galley. Polk wouldn’t give up until he found her, so she decided to make it easy for him. After all, she wasn’t wearing a mask anymore, and he knew it.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Eric woke with a start. His face felt like it was pressing against some buttons. He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying across the bridge control console. He racked his brain but didn’t know how he got there. Even worse, other than his head, he couldn’t move.

  The last thing he remembered was tinkering with the lock pick set to try to abort the rocket launch. Then everything was a blank until this moment.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Linc lying on the floor. He was conscious and blinked at Eric, but he said nothing.

  On the floor next to him was the cylindrical canister of a smoke grenade.

  That’s when Eric realized they must have been gassed. In addition to paralysis, one of the symptoms was short-term memory loss. Murph hadn’t remembered losing consciousness, either.

  Eric lifted his head as much as he could, but he couldn’t see Sylvia anywhere. The lock picks were where he’d left them, jutting out of the rocket control system keyhole. The display in the case’s lid was still counting down to midnight.

  Movement on one of the bridge monitors caught his attention. He could see the Chairman and Eddie pounding at a door, trying to get it open. They were trapped in the citadel by the fire doors.

  Eric tried to move his arms, but the best he could do was bang his hand against the panel. There was no way he’d be able to release them.

  Then he made one other disturbing observation. The switches controlling the cargo bay doors had been destroyed since he’d been gassed.

  He had to warn someone. Although he couldn’t form words, Eric could still move his tongue. He activated his molar mic to contact the Oregon.

  The only thing he could do was click his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  * * *

  —

  I’m getting a strange signal over the comm system,” Hali said from his post in the Oregon’s op center. “I thought it was static, but . . .” He sat up straighter, excited. “Wait. It’s Morse code.”

  Max sat forward in the captain’s chair. “Put it on speaker.”

  A series of tsking clicks tapped out a pattern of dots and dashes.

  “That’s Eric,” Murph said, adding a “Woohoo” cheer for emphasis at hearing from his friend. Although all three of them knew Morse code, Murph spoke the words aloud as they listened.

  “Eric here. On bridge. Linc alive. Paralyzed by gas.”

  “So Polk wasn’t bluffing when he told Juan that everyone on the bridge was gassed,” Max said.

  “What about Sylvia?” Murph asked, his brow knitted in concern for his sister.

  “Not here. Where she?”

  “We don’t know,” Max replied. “We haven’t heard from her.”

  “Are cargo doors closed?” Eric asked.

  “No,” Murph said. “Open.”

  “Can’t close. Switches broken.”

  “Then we can’t stop the rocket launch,” Hali said. “Not even if the Chairman gets out of the citadel.”

  “Put me in touch with Juan,” Max said. “We have to let him know.”

  * * *

  —

  In the citadel, they’d been trying to open the doors for minutes now and had made no progress. Eddie was trying to activate the manual controls that had been disabled from the bridge. Juan had his knife jammed into the crease between the fire doors that had come together at the main entrance. His efforts to pry them apart hadn’t produced even an inch of movement.

  He called out to Raven, who was working on the door the mercenaries had used.

  “Any luck up there?”

  “Nothing so far,” she said, her voice straining as she attempted to wrench the door open. “It’s hard to get much leverage when your rib is digging into your lungs.” But she kept at it.

  Juan looked at his watch. Eight minutes before midnight.

  “Juan, I’ve got an update for you,” Max said in his earpiece.

  “Go ahead.”

  “We’ve heard from Eric.”

  “I’m glad to hear he’s alive.”

  “So is Linc, but they’re both paralyzed. Eric says the cargo bay doors can’t be closed again. The switches were sabotaged.”

  “Is Polk still on the ship?” Juan asked.

  “Linda hasn’t reported anyone leaving.”

  “And Sylvia?”

  “We’ve lost contact with her. Can you get out of the citadel?”

  “It’s not looking good on that front.”

  “Then we’re in a bit of a pickle, aren’t we?” Max said.

  “Seems like it.”

  Juan considered their options. Disabling the rockets wasn’t going to happen, and now they couldn’t even contain them on the ship.

  The backup plan to get the antidote off the ship and have the Oregon destroy the Centaurus once they were safely away wasn’t in the cards, either.

  He couldn’t have MacD and Linda board the ship. If they came onto the Centaurus, they could be killed by Polk or prevented from getting back to the Gator. Then there would be no way to stop the rockets and their payload of Enervum from devastating Sydney.

  That left only one choice. Eddie brought up what Juan was thinking.

  “How long do you think it will take for the Centaurus to sink?” Eddie asked.

  “The rail gun shells travel at seven times the speed of sound. With that kind of kinetic energy against an unarmored ship, the rounds will probably rip through the side and down through the keel. With four or five well-placed shots, I bet she’d go down in five minutes or less.”

  Eddie nodded slowly and looked at his watch. “Seven minu
tes to go.”

  Juan looked up the stairs. “Raven, any chance that door is going to open?”

  She shook her head. “Not without an RPG.”

  Juan leaned back as he thought about what he needed to do. That’s when he noticed the ventilation hatch thirty feet above them. There was no way to climb up to it even if they could detach the steel cable locking it down.

  But there was one other way to get to it.

  “We’re running out of time,” Eddie said. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ve got an idea, but it’s risky.”

  Eddie shrugged. “I prefer your risky ideas to no ideas.”

  Everyone in the crew knew what they’d signed up for when they joined the Corporation. They had lost crew members in the past, and their names were memorialized on a plaque in the ship’s boardroom as a reminder of what they’d sacrificed for the ship, their crewmates, and the greater good. Juan knew there was a very good chance their names would be added to the plaque if this didn’t work, but he didn’t see any other way.

  “Max, you know how you don’t like my Plan Cs?”

  “Yeah,” Max said dubiously. “They’re usually insanely dangerous.”

  “I’ve got another one now. You’re going to hate it.”

  “Why?”

  “Ask Murph what will happen if the Centaurus is underwater when the rockets launch without the cargo bay doors closed to stop them.”

  Max relayed the question. A few seconds later, he came back with, “He says the overpressure from the water in the tubes will cause them to explode as they launch.”

  “Then it looks like we have our answer.”

  “No,” Max said when he understood what Juan was planning to do. “There’s got to be another way.”

  “Afraid not,” Juan said. “In fact, it’s our only chance to escape. You have to sink the Centaurus immediately. That’s a direct order.”