“What do we do now?” Sydney asked in a low voice.
“I guess we still need to find the hard drive, right?” AJ queried, hoping the answer wasn’t yes.
Sydney shook her head. “No, that’s not important now, we need to get out of here.”
Relieved, AJ laid out her best plan. “We sneak back out to the stern, drop the skiff overboard and jump in after it.”
Sydney nodded apprehensively. “Okay, and pray they don’t see us, right?”
“Correct, if we’re spotted, we’ll be a rowing boat with a tiny outboard against a trawler. I’d say they’ll run us over and move on.” AJ managed a weak smile.
Sydney forced a grin. “Par for the last few days. Well, doubt it’ll get better if we wait so let’s give it a go.”
They both rose to leave as the door to the cabin jerked open and a man stepped into the room.
All three stood motionless unsure what to do.
It wasn’t the Cuban she’d seen on deck so she took a guess. “Silvio?” AJ asked quietly.
The man looked puzzled. “Sí.” He softly closed the door behind him.
“Inglés?” she asked, stretching her own Spanish vocabulary.
Silvio shook his head. “No muy bien.”
Sydney touched AJ’s arm. “I speak Spanish, do you think he’ll help us?”
AJ shrugged. “Carlos said he might, tell him Carlos told us he was a good friend and would help us, see what he says.”
Silvio watched them carefully and it was hard to tell if he understood more than he’d let on.
Sydney addressed him in Spanish. “Silvio, Carlos told us you are a good friend and you would help us if we saw you. These Russian men are bad people, we need to get off this boat.”
Silvio listened carefully and nervously double-checked the door was closed properly before quietly replying, “Carlos has caused a big mess, you two shouldn’t be here. I don’t like these men either but I don’t know how I can get you off the boat, we’re way out to sea now.”
AJ tried desperately to understand odd words but they both talked too fast for her to recognise anything beyond names.
“We were going to drop the skiff in the water and take that, we just need to get back to it without being seen,” Sydney explained.
Silvio nodded slowly, clearly thinking it through. “Okay, wait here, let me see if it’s clear. I’ll be back.”
He turned to open the door but AJ stepped forward to stop him. “Wait, what did he say, what’s going on?!” She looked at Sydney for answers.
“It’s okay, he’s going to make sure it’s clear and he’ll come back,” Sydney assured her.
AJ relaxed a notch but looked squarely at Silvio, trying to read the man’s eyes, “You sure we can trust him?”
Silvio held up his hand for them to stay and put his finger to his lips for them to keep quiet as he opened the door.
A loud clanking noise came from the diesel motor and the boat shook violently. Silvio’s expression changed to panic and he hissed in Spanish, “Stay here, stay here, I have to fix the motor, I’ll be back as soon as I can!”
He shot out the door with the noise from the motor growing so loud it drowned out the thud of the door closing.
Chapter 78
Silvio stepped around the scuba gear at the base of the stairs and strode up the steps two at a time to meet an extremely upset Russian stomping out of the dining area.
“What the hell is happening with the engine?!” Anatoly yelled in his pidgin Spanish. “This is no time to break down, fix the damn thing!”
Silvio desperately wanted to point out he’d warned him about this before they left port but he knew it would only bring more wrath upon him. Instead he ignored the man and continued up the next stairs to the wheelhouse leaving Anatoly switching to his native tongue to deliver what he presumed was a string of insults. Rushing into the wheelhouse, Julio saw him coming and shrugged, stepping aside, letting Silvio see the gauges and take the wheel. The temperature was pegged in the red and the rpms were well down.
“This is bad,” Silvio mumbled. “These stupid Russians think because they demand things they can happen regardless of mechanics and physics.”
Julio rolled his eyes, “We’re gonna be stuck out here and we have a kidnapped girl on board. We’re all going to jail.”
Silvio glanced at him. “Two girls on board, that diving gear belonged to a friend of Carlos’s who sneaked on the boat to save the first one!”
Julio slapped the outside wall of the wheelhouse. “You have to be kidding? What the fuck is going on? This will end badly, we’re screwed!”
Silvio eased the throttle back to half, stepped back and indicated for Julio to take the wheel again. The engine noise reduced but still sounded like it was rattling to pieces.
“I have to go to the engine room and see if there’s anything I can do, keep it at half throttle for now.” Silvio turned to leave.
“What about the girls? Are they both downstairs? Does Anatoly know about the other one?” Julio blasted off a series of questions.
Silvio paused. “I told them to stay put and I would go back to help them.”
Julio looked surprised. “So you haven’t told Anatoly?”
Silvio shook his head. “Everything went crazy at once, I couldn’t think what to do.” He continued out the back of the wheelhouse to the stairs. “First I have to try and fix the engine.”
“Silvio!” Anatoly yelled at him as he crossed the back of the main deck level. He really wanted to keep going to the engine room but he also didn’t want Anatoly following down and seeing the scuba gear he’d brought in from the skiff. He had figured on stuffing it in his cabin but after checking on Sydney and finding the other girl all hell had broken loose. He stopped. Both Russians were huddled over one laptop Pavlo hadn’t packed yet and he could hear radio transmissions coming from the speakers.
Anatoly waved at him to come over, still listening to the radio message. “Can you fix the engine?” Anatoly asked quietly for once.
“I’m going to look now but it sounds bad, maybe we can limp along on low power,” Silvio offered, keeping his voice low so they could hear the radio. “But no way can we make Cuba like this, it needs a major repair.”
The transmission stopped and the Russians both looked troubled. Anatoly left the table and headed to the door to the rear deck. He looked out the window. “They’re catching us. Come on, let’s look at the engine and see if there’s any chance.” Before Silvio could catch up to him the Russian was bounding down the stairwell to the lower deck. He caught up with him at the base of the stairs where Anatoly had halted, staring at the pile of scuba gear.
“What the fuck is this?” he barked.
Silvio froze, his mind whirring through the options of how to respond and more importantly the ramification of each answer.
He stammered, “I found…” Before he could finish his sentence the engine made a final death throe of metallic clanking and grinding before stopping altogether. Silvio leapt past Anatoly and ran down the hall to the engine room door at the far end; flinging it open, he stepped inside the dark engine room only to be met by a wave of putrid smoke billowing out into the hallway. Behind him Anatoly coughed and sputtered as the fumes engulfed him. They both retreated, closing the door as fast as they could.
Silvio managed to wheeze out some words, “The big end bearings are fried, it has seized everything now, we’re dead in the water.”
They staggered back down the hallway, catching their breath. “My Spanish is not that good, I didn’t understand all of it, but I’m guessing you said we’re fucked?” Anatoly gasped.
“Sí,” Silvio nodded, “we’re fucked.”
He looked down at AJ’s dive gear still resting by the steps and knew he couldn’t dodge an explanation any longer. He had to decide on his story right now.
Chapter 79
AJ and Sydney huddled low on the floor in the tiny cabin. The fumes had leaked in around the old metal doo
r jamb but had risen to the ceiling and stopped coming in after they heard the door in the hall slam shut. Quiet hung over the boat now the engine had expired and they were desperate to not cough on the fumes and alert the men they could hear in the hallway. The small porthole was the only illumination in the room now the light in the ceiling had died along with the engine, but unfortunately it didn’t open to release the noxious gases. Sydney stood and, keeping her head below the slowly dissipating fumes, tiptoed over to the door. She gently put pressure on the handle but it didn’t budge at all. She turned and frowned at AJ. “He locked it,” she whispered.
“Maybe in case the Russian came down and checked?” AJ said optimistically.
Sydney nodded. “Maybe, I guess.”
They sat back down on the cot and listened intently. They could hear two men talking quietly but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then footsteps up the stairwell. The echoed foot falls sounded like one person to AJ but she couldn’t be sure. She could hear movement on the main deck above them but it seemed like there were only a few crew on the boat and Sydney had said she’d only been aware of two and maybe heard a third. AJ wondered what they could do now, she felt even more helpless knowing they were locked in the cabin. At least before they tried the lock she had the idea that they could try and escape on their own. Now their fate was solely in the hands of this man Silvio. Carlos obviously thought a lot of him so she clung to the hope he’d return as promised.
“He’ll come back,” Sydney whispered, clearly thinking the same thing. “Carlos spoke well of him, said he can be grumpy but was a good man. Has a daughter he doesn’t get to see much but talks about all the time.”
AJ glanced at her dive watch. “Carlos should be raising the alarm about now anyway so hopefully there’ll be someone coming for us shortly. We’re dead in the water so we shouldn’t be hard to find.”
The key turned in the lock and the handle rotated down.
“He’s back,” Sydney said quietly, relieved.
AJ recognised the man that stepped into the cabin as the second Russian from the car and the skiff. In his hand and squarely pointed at her was a gun. Growing up in England, AJ had never even seen a handgun in person and had been shocked by their prevalence in America when she lived in Florida. Now, facing the barrel of one aimed right at her in a confined environment she was paralysed by the instant realisation of her lack of options. In the movies she’d sweep in and knock the gun aside or trick the man into pointing the gun away. But in this moment the glaring truth she faced was a trained professional who wouldn’t hesitate to take her life, and even on her best day she couldn’t move faster than a fired bullet. All he had to do was squeeze one finger. Pointed directly at her was a device efficiently designed for a singular purpose: killing. All the bravado and daydreams of being Lara Croft were out the window, her legs felt like lead and a wave of fear seared through her stomach.
Her moment to act would have been the second he opened the door but she hadn’t been prepared for an armed aggressor to step in. He on the other hand was fully prepared and showed no sign of fear or even concern.
“You came alone?” the man asked calmly in heavily accented English.
“Yes,” AJ heard herself say and immediately realised her next mistake.
The man looked around the room, seemingly assessing his options. AJ choked back the fear, her anger at not giving him the concern of others with her spurred her into action, if only in words.
“Why are you holding us here? We have nothing to do with whatever you have going on. Let us go, we can take the skiff and be out of your way,” AJ said hopefully, in the back of her mind thinking this was the part where the bad guy spills the beans on his intentions and makes his big mistake.
The Russian simply stepped back out of the room and locked the door without a word. She really needed to stop watching stupid movies.
“Hey!” Sydney shouted and banged on the door but they could hear his footsteps already on the stairs.
“Damn it,” AJ mumbled dejectedly. “I’m really sorry Sydney, I screwed this whole thing up.”
Sydney sat down next to her on the cot and hugged her. “You shouldn’t even be here, it’s Carlos and I that started this mess. I can’t believe you tried to save me. Seriously AJ, you’ve been amazing, I’m the one who’s sorry for getting you and your friends involved.”
Sydney’s words were nice but didn’t stop AJ feeling like a total failure. She should have gone to the police and not tried to do it herself with some half-baked plan. Now they were both in deep shit with whatever destiny the Russian bestowed upon them.
Chapter 80
Anatoly stood out the back of the wheelhouse at the top of the steps and focused the binoculars on the approaching boat. It was still probably two miles away but it was moving fast and was clearly a police boat. He stepped back in and faced Silvio and Julio, who were waiting curiously to know what the plan was now.
“Mikhail told me you have explosives on board?” Anatoly asked sternly.
The two Cubans looked at each other in surprise. “We have a little, yes, we had it for test blasts,” Silvio replied tentatively.
“Show me,” Anatoly snapped and stood aside for Silvio to show him the way.
Silvio didn’t much like the idea of anything being blown up anywhere near the boat but figured he didn’t want to see that gun of Anatoly’s pointed at him, so he’d better comply. He led Anatoly back down the stairs to the storage area through a narrow door behind the stairwell in the stern of the boat. The room was incredibly hot and steamy and reeked of a strange mixture of diesel, fish and decades of stale air. Various crates and old boat parts were scattered around the space lit by one porthole on each side. Silvio walked over to a wooden crate, leaned over and pulled out a smaller canvas bag.
“Here.” He handed the bag to Anatoly. “This is everything we have.”
Anatoly opened the bag and examined the contents: eight black and yellow cartridges with protruding wires, a control box and a large coil of thin wire.
“What are you going to use that for?” Silvio cautiously asked.
Anatoly looked at him as though he was simple. “Sink this piece-of-shit boat, and we need to do it now so you and your helper better gather up anything you want to take with you, you’ve got three minutes.”
Silvio was stunned into silence. Anatoly hustled out of the storage room with the bag in his hand. Over his shoulder he added, “And we’ll be leaving in the skiff so whatever you bring better fit on your lap.”
Silvio had no great love for the boat but he had spent many days and nights aboard her and the thought of scuttling her didn’t sit well. He pulled himself together and left the storage room. Anatoly was opening the engine room door and ducking under the smoke as it wafted out. Silvio could hear the girls banging on the cabin door and shouting at the person they could hear in the hallway. He wondered what Anatoly’s plan was for them, but he already knew the answer to that question. He crossed himself before grabbing his small kit bag from the tiny cabin he shared with Julio, stuffing it with a few personal items and rushing up the stairs.
Julio was pacing around the wheelhouse when Silvio came in. “What’s going on? What are we doing?” Julio asked as soon as he saw him.
“Get your things from our cabin right now, we have to get off the boat,” Silvio told him, out of breath.
Julio looked out the window at the vast sea around them, “Leave and go where?!”
“Quit asking questions and grab your gear unless you want to stay on board when they blast this thing apart!” Silvio snapped.
“Holy Mother… They’re blowing up the ship?” Julio blurted out, dumbstruck and still not moving.
“Yes, now hurry or I swear they’ll leave you here,” Silvio persisted.
Julio’s jaw dropped open. “What about the girls?”
Silvio shook his head with a pained expression. “They’re not our problem Julio, get your stuff or you’ll end up with them.”
Julio turned and banged his fist on the steel wall. “This is crazy Silvio, we’re not killers, I don’t want any part of murdering anyone, especially women!”
Silvio grabbed him by the shirt. “Listen you fool, do you think I want their blood on my hands? But I want to see my daughter again and if we don’t go along with the Russians we’ll end up on the sea floor, or in jail back home. And by the way, we’re in two thousand feet of water right here so what goes down will be lost forever which I’m sure is what they’re counting on! Now go grab your bag and meet me at the stern.”
“Okay, okay, you know I don’t want to make any trouble,” Julio reluctantly succumbed, grumbling and swearing all the way down to the lower deck.
Silvio went down a level and almost ran into Pavlo, who was lugging his cases out the door to the stern deck.
“Get those other two,” Pavlo ordered and nodded towards a couple more cases in the dining area.
Silvio obliged and followed the Russian to the skiff still hanging from the davit in the stern. Silvio looked at the little boat and then the pile of gear cases. Four adults plus this gear was not going to fit but Pavlo starting lifting the black waterproof cases into the skiff seemingly determined.
“Don’t just stand there you idiot, help me load these,” Pavlo snapped, sweating in the humidity.
Silvio helped lift the remaining cases in without a word and then grabbed the wooden ladder and draped it over the side, hooking it to the railing. Walking over to the davit controls he turned a switch and pulled a lever to raise the arm. The motor whined and very slowly lifted the arm.
“What’s wrong with it?” Pavlo demanded.
“It’s running on the battery which is draining now the engine isn’t charging it,” Silvio answered absentmindedly as he wondered if there was enough power to get the skiff over the railing. He thought about telling Pavlo his stupid cases were weighing it down too much but wisely refrained. Julio appeared through the door and dropped his bag on the deck, closely followed by Anatoly, who was streaming with sweat and running out wire all the way.
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