He dug in his pocket and pulled out a folding knife; he was about to start on the solder seal when he heard a movement behind him. He looked up, startled, as Browne came into view.
“What the hell,” Zimmer cried out. He reached for his pistol, but Browne held a small pistol pointed right at the captain’s head.
“You’ll be dead before you get it out of your jacket,” Browne warned, his voice perfectly calm, as if he were discussing the weather.
“Okay, you win, Mr. Smart Guy,” Zimmer said, spreading his hands.
Browne motioned with the pistol. “Drop the knife into the bilge, like a good man.”
Zimmer did as he was told. “Now what?”
“Now the gun. Take it out of your belt, very carefully, and slide it over to me.”
“This isn’t a very big ship and you’re outnumbered. Sooner or later we’ll get the drop on you. So maybe we can make a deal.”
“The gun first,” Browne said reasonably.
Zimmer considered his options, which for the moment amounted to zero. He did as he was told, easing the big Glock 17 out of his belt, laying it on the grating, and shoving it toward Browne. He watched as Browne scooped up the gun, checked the safety, and stuffed it in his belt. He was a careful man. “Same question as before. Now what?”
“Does Helmut know that you’re down here?”
Zimmer shrugged. “I didn’t stop to discuss it with him.”
“Maybe you should have. According to him, opening the box will destroy a substantial portion of the value.”
“What does it matter? The box is heavy, so there’re a lot of diamonds inside. Even at a discount they have to be worth millions.”
“Helmut promised me ten percent. What’s your offer?”
“Exactly zero,” someone said behind him. Lane recognized the first officer’s voice by the rough accent.
“Shoot me and your captain dies,” Lane warned.
“Maybe,” Metaxas replied from the darkness. “But you’ll die, too, with a bullet in the back of your head. Put the gun down.”
Lane tried to judge the distance. Zimmer looked up at him with a big grin on his face. Lane finally nodded. “As you wish,” he said. He bent over and placed the PSM on the floor grating.
“Hold up, Spiro, he has another gun in his belt,” Zimmer cautioned.
“Look, I don’t care who wins. I just want my money,” Lane said.
“Yeah, right,” Zimmer smirked. He stepped forward as Lane spread out his hands. “Don’t try anything. Spiro is a very good shot.”
Zimmer reached for the Glock, which was a mistake. Lane grabbed him and spun him around to act as a shield as he pulled out the big gun and thumbed off the safety.
Metaxas fired two shots, both of them wide for fear of hitting his captain. The bullets fragmented on the steel plates, the jagged pieces of shrapnel ricocheting down the passageway. He disappeared into the darkness.
Lane fired one shot, then held up and listened.
Zimmer shoved an elbow into Lane’s ribs, and managed to break free at the same moment Metaxas fired two more shots, one of them buzzing past Lane’s head, the other hitting Zimmer in the neck, knocking him backward in a spray of blood.
Lane grabbed a handle of the box, hefted it and stumbled as fast as he could into the darkness around the turn of the hull directly at the stern, firing three shots as fast as he could pull them off behind him.
Metaxas hunched in the semi-darkness at the foot of the stairs, holding his side. In the dim light from the open hatch above he could see that he was bleeding, but it wasn’t too bad. He’d been hurt a lot worse in barroom brawls.
Captain Zimmer had gone down. He’d seen that much before Browne started shooting back. So now the Maria, the plan, and the diamonds were his.
“Listen up, Browne, can you hear me back there?” he shouted.
“I can hear you,” Lane called back. “Your captain’s dead.”
“I know. So now I am the senior officer, and I’m willing to make a deal with you.”
“Why the hell should I listen to you? As soon as you got the chance you’d kill me.”
“No, I wouldn’t, because I need your help now just as much as you need mine,” Metaxas shouted. He moved along the passageway, his right hand trailing on the inner hull.
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard them talking up in the captain’s cabin. That’s why I followed him down here. I knew that he was coming for the diamonds. We’re meeting up with a yacht tonight. They were going to kill the entire crew, me and you included, and then sink the ship.”
“Then what was Zimmer doing down here by himself? And why was the box moved? This wasn’t the same place we put it when we boarded in Hamburg.”
“I only heard part of their conversation. I don’t know the whole story. I swear it on my mother’s grave, on the heart of Jesus.” He edged farther along the passageway to where Zimmer’s body lay in a heap next to the open grating. The box was gone. His stomach rebounded sourly and a black rage came over him for just a moment until he got hold of himself.
“If you want to make a deal, toss your gun down and come back here where I can see you,” Lane instructed.
“How do I know you won’t kill me and keep the diamonds for yourself?”
“Like you said, we need each other.”
Something cold and hard touched Metaxas on the back of his neck and he stiffened. “Move and you’re dead,” Speyer warned softly.
“I’m waiting,” Lane called.
“Just a minute, John, I’m getting the situation under control here,” Speyer shouted. He relieved Metaxas of his gun.
“Did you hear his story, Helmut?” Lane asked.
“That’s just what it was, a story. They’d hatched their own plan to kill us all and take the diamonds for themselves. Speaking of which, where are they?”
“I shoved them back into the bilge. I figured they’d be safer there. He moved them.”
“I see that he did,” Speyer said. “Okay, I have the bastard’s gun. You can come out now.”
“What if he was telling the truth?”
Speyer motioned for Baumann to go across to the stairway on the port side of the ship in case Browne should try to get out. Baumann immediately understood what was required and he hurried away noiselessly into the darkness.
“We’ve come this far together without mishap. Like you said, I’m not a man who throws away a valuable asset.”
They heard a bump and then a splash as if a section of grating had been opened and something had been thrown into the bilge.
“Come on now, John, time is running out,” Speyer called.
Lane sprinted back to the starboard stairs and took them two at a time to the main deck, taking care to make as little noise as possible. The thwartship corridor was empty when he peered out. He dashed across to the forward stairs and slipped inside, leaving the door behind him open a crack so that he could watch what happened.
Seconds later Baumann emerged from the port stairwell, a Glock 17 in his fist. He rushed down the corridor and cautiously opened the starboard stairwell hatch. He listened for a few seconds, then disappeared inside.
It would take them only a minute or so to discover that Lane had gotten past them and come looking. In the meantime he had to get a message off to the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami, and then warn the crew that they were all about to be killed. But he still had no idea what Speyer’s real plan had been all along. He was sure that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Cuban government redeeming a bunch of Nazi diamonds. But he didn’t know what else it was. It depended on what was really sealed inside the box.
He stuffed the Glock into his belt as he hurried upstairs. He didn’t want to confront the crew until he’d sent off his radio message. If he ran into one of them while toting a pistol, questions would be asked that might slow him down. He was pretty sure that the crewmen were innocent, and he wanted to keep the casualties to a minimum.
&nbs
p; He had to cross a thwartship corridor at each level, but he didn’t see anyone. It was as if the Maria was a ghost ship.
When he reached the bridge deck he stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath. The bridge was forward, down a short corridor. To the starboard were the chart room, exercise room, and the radar power supplies and control units. To the port was the radio room. The cabins for the officers and guests were along the thwartship corridor here and one deck down, where the officers’ mess and galley were located.
From his vantage point amidships he could see straight down the short corridor onto the bridge and, through the windows, the star-studded sky. But he couldn’t see anyone.
Keeping an eye on the bridge, Lane went to the radio room door, listened for a moment, knocked once and let himself in. The room was in total darkness.
Finding the switch, Lane closed and locked the door and flipped on the lights. All of the radio equipment was dead. The switches were all in the ON position, but the dials and indicators were dark. The big circuit breaker panel on the rear bulkhead seemed to be intact, but there was no power to it either. The circuit had probably been cut below in the ship’s electrical generating plant adjacent to the engines.
But they were still sailing, which meant there still had to be power to the bridge.
Speyer lowered his gun when it was finally clear that Browne had slipped past them. “It’s up to you, Spiro. Either you’re with us or you’re not.”
“It was that bastard Zimmer—”
“I don’t care whose fault it was. What’s it going to be? We still need your help.”
Metaxas was a practical Greek. He glanced at Baumann, then back to Speyer. The wound in his side ached, but it had stopped bleeding. It was just a scratch. “What do you want me to do?”
“Good man,” Speyer said, and he handed the first mate’s gun back to him. “I’m going to retrieve the diamonds. You and Ernst are going to find Browne. I don’t want him killed unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Speyer gave Baumann a hard look. “You understand, don’t you, Ernst?”
Baumann nodded.
“He’s probably on the bridge deck trying to radio for help.”
“Power’s been cut to the radio room, and all the antenna leads have been cut,” Metaxas said.
“But the bridge still has power,” Speyer said. “As soon as you’ve taken care of Browne we’re going to blow the ship and take the captain’s launch out to the rendezvous point. We’ll sink it, too, so there won’t be any evidence.”
“Digging out Browne might not be so easy as all that,” Baumann warned.
“There are two of you,” Speyer shot back. “And as soon as I’m done down here I’ll come up to help out if need be. Just watch yourself. We’re almost home free.”
The bridge was deserted, but there was power to all the controls and panels, and both radar sets were up and operating. They were in the Gulf Stream off the Florida Keys where shipping was fairly heavy. Although he couldn’t spot any running lights out the windows, the were several targets on the radar screens.
Lane closed and dogged the hatch, then quickly studied the controls. The Maria was on autopilot, steering a course a little south of west, and making fifteen knots. The primary GPS showed the ship’s latitude and longitude.
Lane cranked the autopilot to a new course well north of west, which headed them directly across the shipping lanes toward the coast of Florida fifty or sixty miles away. If Speyer cut the engines now, or sank the ship, the course wouldn’t matter. But in the meantime they were headed in the right direction.
Power was still connected to the two VHF radios on the overhead. They were low wattage with a range of twenty-five miles or less, but there were ships that close.
Lane keyed one of the mikes. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the motor vessel Maria calling the U.S. Coast Guard Station Miami or any ship within hailing distance, we are sinking. Our position is twenty-four degrees fifty minutes north, eighty-one degrees twenty minutes west, heading northwest across the Stream. We have been hijacked by an unknown number of heavily armed men. Mayday, mayday, this is the motor vessel Maria.”
Baumann and Metaxas, their guns drawn, had positioned themselves on either side of the bridge door. They could make out Browne’s voice, though not the words.
“He’s calling for help,” Metaxas whispered.
“I thought you said that the antenna leads were cut?”
“They are. Nobody’s going to hear him. But he’s changed course. Northwest, it feels like. Toward Miami. Puts us across the shipping lanes. Means it’s not going to be such a good idea sinking this ship with witnesses.”
Baumann thought it out. He didn’t want to get caught and thrown in jail, not now that they were so close. He was too old to go to prison. “Is there another way out of there?”
“Captain Zimmer had me fix the port and starboard wing hatches so they couldn’t be opened from the inside in case we had trouble up here with the crew. This is his only way out.”
“Where the hell is the crew? I haven’t seen anyone since dinner.”
“Sealed in the crew’s mess. Four steel doors, all welded shut.”
“Jesus.” Baumann had always thought that he was tough, but this was way over the top.
“Don’t give me that look,” Metaxas said defensively. “It was your captain and mine who cooked up that scheme, not me. Besides, they won’t drown. When the plastic explosives go up they’ll all be killed instantly.” Metaxas grinned. “It’s more humane that way.”
“Captain Speyer is probably launching the gig. Get down there and tell him what’s going on. I’ll hold Browne here until you get back.”
Speyer and his wife were on the port quarterdeck swinging the captain’s gig over the side on her electric davits when Metaxas showed up. “Where’s Ernst?”
“He’s got Browne cornered on the bridge.” Metaxas explained the situation. Gloria looked at him as if he were something she’d found under a rock. He wanted five minutes with her, just five, and her attitude would definitely change for the better.
“Get back up there with a welding torch and seal the door. As soon as you’re done we’ll blow the ship and then get the hell out.”
“Don’t be late,” Gloria said, smiling. She was enjoying herself. “We wouldn’t want to leave without you.”
Metaxas shot her a dirty look, then hurried back up to the bridge deck. He pulled a small acetylene torch from the emergency stores locker and wheeled it back to where Baumann was stationed by the steel hatch to the bridge.
“He’s still on the radio,” Baumann said, eyeing the torch. “Hurry.” This was a bad business. He had developed a lot of respect for the South African. But orders were orders.
Metaxas cracked the gas lines, held the torch away from his body, and lit it with a scratcher. When he had the mix right he pulled on a pair of dark goggles. Holding a welding rod at the seam just above the door lock, he drew a couple of quick beads to hold the door from being forced open. Then he started the full weld from the top.
Baumann called from the other side of the door when the welding was done. “Sorry about this, John.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s nothing personal, just orders, right?” Lane said. He had checked both wing doors. They were sealed, too.
“Something like that. You would be in the way. You couldn’t be a part of our plans. Not this.”
“What about the crew?” The only way out of here was through the windows. But they were probably polycarbonate plastic, almost impossible to break. They were designed to take waves breaking over the decks.
“They’re going down with the ship, too,” Baumann said. “But they’ll be dead first.”
“I’m sure that’s a comfort for them,” Lane said. When Baumann didn’t reply, Lane went back to the door. “Wait a minute, Ernst,” he shouted. “Did you find the diamonds? Can you tell me that much?”
“We found them. Helmut fished them out of the bilge.”
“I�
��ve radioed for help,” Lane called, but there was no answer. “Ernst!” He put his ear to the door but there were no sounds except for the distant vibration of the engines.
He wanted to believe that there was no reason for the bastards to kill the crew. But if he was a man in Speyer’s position he knew that he would have to do the same thing.
Saving them was going to be impossible, but he would be damned if he was going down with the Maria. Speyer and company had not seen the last of him. Not yet.
Gloria was safely aboard the launch, Baumann at the wheel, when Metaxas emerged from the port quarter hatch, an evil grin on his face. “Three minutes,” he said.
Speyer, waiting by the rail, raised his pistol and shot the first officer in the face, knocking him off his feet.
He cocked an ear to listen, but he couldn’t hear a thing except for the ship’s engines. He’d actually done it; against all odds, and despite Thomas Mann’s warnings, he’d pulled it off.
Stuffing the pistol in his belt, Speyer dragged the first officer’s body back inside the superstructure, then closed and dogged the hatch. It wouldn’t do to have the odd body floating around out here. There would be debris, and an oil slick, of course. But by the time the authorities came out here to investigate, the Gulf Stream would have carried the evidence far to the north. Still, there was no need to take chances.
He hurried down the boarding ladder to the launch which was bobbing wildly on the waves streaming past the Maria’s hull and jumped aboard. He released the line and motioned for Baumann to head off.
“Where’s the Greek?” Gloria asked her husband.
“Unfortunately he won’t be joining us. He had a little accident.” Speyer caressed her cheek. “You did a good job for us, sweetheart.”
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