Predator

by Wilbur Smith

  Congo’s reflexes were unimpaired, still so finely tuned that as Nastiya dropped back toward the floor, he reached down with both hands and grabbed one of her ankles in each great fist. He swung her around, head first and she smashed into the bulkhead. The blow left her barely conscious, robbed of any ability to fight, completely at Congo’s mercy.

  Up on deck, Erasmus couldn’t hear a thing, except for the rap. He walked up to the bows and looked into the darkness. There wasn’t much of a moon that night and clouds were scudding across the sky, obscuring its faint light. He was damned if he could see, or hear anything out there. Muttering curses at Babic for sending him on a fool’s errand, he walked along the port side of the yacht, which was facing toward the island they were supposed to be visiting in the morning.

  Erasmus reached the stern of the Faucon d’Or. He leaned against the rail, thinking how much he’d like to light up a Gauloise right now, rueing the fact that smoking was banned for all staff aboard ship. Then he saw something, out of the corner of an eye, something moving out on the water. He looked again and saw it, something low and black, as sharp and pointed as a dart, gliding across the water at extraordinary speed, coming straight at him.

  “Merde!” Erasmus muttered, and reached behind him for his gun.

  Dave Imbiss was leading the second group to board the yacht. That meant he had to cover the first. So he was standing on the bow of the Interceptor, roughly at the point where the for’ard weapons system would be mounted, with his C8 held across his body.

  He’d been watching the man at the stern rail, uncertain whether he was a combatant or not and, waiting for him to make a move. Then he saw him look directly at the Interceptor, and their eyes met, like lovers across a crowded room, except that there wasn’t the slightest shred of love in this first sighting.

  Imbiss saw the man reach behind him, he raised the C8 to his shoulder, and took aim.

  He saw the hand emerge with something clutched in it.

  He waited a fraction of a second to make certain what that something was.

  Then he fired.

  The bullet hit Erasmus in the throat and killed him instantly. Now the Faucon d’Or had no one to defend it against the men coming in from the sea.

  Zhenia was curled on the floor, still doubled up with agony, both her arms nursing her lower abdomen where Congo had kicked her. Already she was bleeding from between her legs, she heaved herself upright, her face grimacing at the effort and staggered over to protect her sister.

  Congo shouted with wild glee, “Yeah! Come get your head beaten in, you dumb bitch.” He swung Nastiya’s body like a club and Zhenia was unable to dodge the blow. She was hurled back against the bulkhead once more. Her fingernails scrabbled against the woodwork as she tried to keep her balance and prevent herself from falling. Blood was streaming from one corner of her mouth and dribbling down her naked chest on to the deck. Her knees buckled under her and she slid down the bulkhead and collapsed on to the floor, only half conscious, sobbing weakly with pain.

  “I ain’t done with you yet,” Congo told her, “gonna take care of this other one first. But you’re gettin’ every inch of what you need.”

  He swung Nastiya once more and this time when she hit the bulkhead her right arm, which was wrapped around her head to protect herself, caught the full force of the impact. The bone in her elbow shattered with a sharp crack, and she screamed.

  Johnny Congo dropped her on the bed, and stood over her breathing heavily. “Open up, sugar,” he grunted. “Papa’s comin’ in.”

  Even in her agony Nastiya tried to sit up, but with his left hand he shoved her back on to the mattress and forced his knee between her thighs. “Shit!” he muttered, looking down at his crotch. “Damn dick’s gone soft on me.” He took it in his right fist and with a few quick strokes restored its stony rigidity.

  Now he was ready to do his thing.

  The men from the Interceptor swarmed over the stern rail, stepped across Erasmus’s corpse and fanned out across the rear of the Faucon d’Or.

  There was no one else on the outside decks. Cross, O’Quinn and Sharman slipped like black wraiths past the whirlpool tub, across the deck where da Cunha, Congo and the Voronova sisters had taken lunch and into the main lounge.

  They found da Cunha pacing up and down, talking to himself, completely oblivious to their arrival until Cross was standing in front of him with a gun-barrel pointed right at his heart. It took seconds to immobilise his hands behind his back with cable ties and cover his mouth with duck tape so that he could not alert anyone else.

  Cross waited the few seconds it took for Imbiss and his men to arrive. “Jones, you watch this sorry bastard. Dave, Schrager, secure the bridge and take command of the vessel. Paddy, Sharman, we’re going below.”

  Sharman went aft toward the crew quarters. The first two doors he knocked open revealed sleeping men in bunks. White crew uniforms were hanging from hooks on the wall beside them. Sharman put a finger to his mouth to silence one of the men, who woke, propped himself up and peered, bleary-eyed at the intruder.

  Then Sharman came to the door to the crew’s mess. He could hear voices inside, men’s and women’s. From the way the men were talking, they did not know the women well. So they weren’t crewmates.

  Sharman kicked open the door. Three men were sitting at a table. The women, two of them, were standing a few feet away, clutching mugs, not wanting to get any closer to the men.

  That made Sharman’s life a whole lot easier. So did the Sig Sauer pistol lying on the table, the one that one of the men was reaching for.

  Sharman hit all three before any of them had got a bead on him. He stopped, looked, noticed one of the men stirring and hit him again. The echo of the shots reverberated around the cramped space. None of the men moved.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” Sharman said. “Best be on my way.”

  Cross and O’Quinn were heading toward the passengers’ staterooms, Cross leading the way. He came to a room with a partially open door, stepped up to the side of the door frame and indicated to O’Quinn to carry on to the next room.

  Cross counted three, silently in his head, then kicked the door fully open with the C8 at his shoulder, seeing everything through the gun sight as he looked left, then right and saw nothing. The room was empty.

  Congo’s attention was so completely concentrated on the woman between his legs that he did not see the black-clad figure that appeared silently as a ghost in the doorway that Nastiya had smashed open. He did not see him raise the slender long-barreled pistol to his masked face—but he sensed him. And he reacted.

  O’Quinn had Congo in his sights. All he had to do was fire. But then he saw Nastiya on the bed beneath his target. Beneath all his banter and blarney, O’Quinn was a true professional soldier. He was disciplined, calm, well used to fighting and killing men up close and personal. But this was too personal. The sight of his wife distracted him, made him hesitate. Only for a second, but that was enough.

  Congo rolled himself from the bed with feline speed for such a gigantic body, fired by an animal instinct that had saved him fifty times before; a prescience beyond normal human reasoning; an intuition forged in battle and mortal danger.

  He landed on all fours beside the bed and then sprang forward, straight at O’Quinn, his legs pumping, driving him across the cabin floor like an Olympic sprinter, bursting from the starting blocks.

  Congo had no idea who the man behind the black balaclava was and he didn’t care. He hit O’Quinn like an avalanche, knocking him off his feet. He got down on his knees, straddling the fallen body, and pulverised the faceless head with four sledgehammer blows to his temples, two on either side.

  O’Quinn’s C8 was trapped between him and Congo. The punches to his head left him dazed and concussed. His grip on the weapon loosened and Congo ripped it from his hands.

  Nastiya was in a world of pain and confusion, unable to make sense of what was happening. Zhenia was still curled up against the cabin wall.<
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  Congo got to his feet, the C8 in his hands. He pointed the rifle down at O’Quinn and fired three times at point-blank rage: head shots, blowing his head to pieces.

  Then Congo ran for the cabin door and went through it . . .

  . . . just as Cross was coming out of Nastiya’s cabin. He saw Congo’s naked form emerge from the other cabin, saw the C8 in his hand, realized he must have taken it from Paddy O’Quinn and then hurled himself back into the cabin as Congo raised the C8 and fired a second quick, three shot burst.

  Congo saw the second intruder disappear behind the cabin door. He didn’t stop to find out if he’d hit him too. He reached the companionway within three long strides and went up it, taking the stair treads four at a time. When he got to the top he glanced through the glass doors into the lounge. Da Cunha was on the floor, dead or merely disabled, Congo wasn’t sure. Another one of the masked men—by now Congo was figuring this must be some kind of Delta Force attack—was there. The man spotted Congo. This time he fired first and the glass shattered as the bullets hit them.

  Congo ran out onto the deck, heard a voice shout, “I have a visual on Congo!, heard a gun firing and threw his own away as he ran to the side of the deck, vaulted the rail and plunged down into the black Atlantic waters.

  Cross ran to the door of the other cabin and saw that O’Quinn was dead. For now that only registered as a fact: man down. The mourning and grief would come later.

  The two women looked like they were in bad shape. But they were alive and they were no longer in harm’s way. Not unless Congo survived long enough to attack them again.

  By the time he was on deck Cross knew that Congo was in the water. He spoke into his mike: “Man down below decks. Paddy’s dead. Someone go and look after the girls. I’m taking the Interceptor, going after Congo.”

  When Cross reached the boat, Darko McGrain was at the helm as he had been since they’d left Libreville. “Stand aside,” Cross ordered him. “I’m taking the helm.”

  One look at Cross’s face and McGrain knew that there was no point in debating the issue. “She’s all yours, boss,” he said.

  The water covered Congo’s head for a few brief seconds. Then he shot to the surface and struck out for the distant shore.

  The moon had emerged from behind the clouds and there was enough light in the sky to show the black outline of the jungle-covered hills of Malabo. That was where he was heading. His great bulk gave him buoyancy and he was a natural-born athlete and a tireless swimmer. He sliced through the water with powerful strokes of both arms and legs, keeping his head low and not breaking his stroke until he saw that the shoreline was already perceptibly closer.

  Congo rolled over onto his back for a moment to look back the way he had come. The Faucon d’Or was still brightly lit but the vessel was so far off that he could see only its superstructure. He felt a lift of relief that there was as yet no sign of pursuit. He rolled over in the water, put his head down and swam on with no diminution of effort or of speed. After another couple of minutes he paused again to draw breath, to tread water and to listen. He found that now he was short of air and there was a pounding in his ears. His chest was laboring. Age and good living had taken their toll. He desperately wanted another few minutes of rest.

  Then he heard something unusual. It was the sound of an engine running at high revolutions, almost the sound of an aero engine at take-off power. He turned in the water and looked back the way he had come and saw the beam of a searchlight suddenly leap out and begin sweeping the surface of the sea, lighting the crests of the wave tops like day but leaving the troughs in darkness.

  He realized that the beam of light emanated from the low and streamlined superstructure of a strange craft, which was dancing toward him across the surface of the darkling sea. His spirits quailed and he was possessed by a deep and sudden dread.

  He turned and pitted all his strength and determination against the promise of death that he knew was contained in that beam of dancing light.

  Now his thrashing legs kicked up a froth of luminous spray, and the beam of light fastened upon it. Congo glanced back over his shoulder and the light struck him like a physical blow, dazzling and blinding him. He turned away from it and swam on toward the land. Behind him he heard the engine beat of the pursuit craft rise to a shriek, like the hunting cry of the Black Angel of Death.

  Cross turned the wheel half a revolution to starboard, lining up the bows with the patch of broken water, and smoothly eased the throttles open.

  “It’s Congo, no doubt about it. I’m going to take him out.”

  “Hit him hard, boss,” said McGrain.

  “Count on it,” Cross assured him, and turned the helm fractionally to port, lining up the bows with Congo’s head.

  At the last fraction of a second before impact Congo duck-dived under the bows. He threw his massive legs high in the air and the weight of them pushed his head down swiftly below the surface. The Interceptor roared over the spot where he had disappeared just seconds previously.

  “Damn it to hell, I missed him,” Cross muttered. But as he spoke they all felt a sharp rap on the hull under their feet.

  McGrain gave a shout of joy. “No you didn’t, you tagged him.”

  Cross throttled back and circled the disturbed patch of water in which Congo had disappeared. The beam of the searchlight caught patches of bright crimson where blood was rising to the surface. Suddenly Congo’s head appeared above the water.

  The propellor had sliced off Congo’s left foot like a meatcleaver. His face was contorted in pain, but that only intensified the hatred with which he glared at the Interceptor. His agony and defiance came together in a single, wordless bellow, then he fell silent again, waiting like a wounded bull before the matador for the coup de grace.

  Cross circled back and then looked beyond Congo. “What’s that?” he asked, but there was no need for an answer as the searchlight picked out a dark triangular shape knifing across the water toward Congo’s bobbing head.

  Cross scowled. “Sharks! I’m not going to let those greedy bastards kill him before I do.”

  He opened the throttles of the Interceptor and the boat surged forward once again. Congo could barely keep his head above water now, let alone take evasive action. The boat smashed straight into him, driving him deep below the surface. Cross circled back and cut the engines. They drifted over the bloodstained wake until slowly Johnny’s corpse floated to the surface upon its back, and stared up at the dawn sky through empty sockets.

  The sharp bows of the Interceptor had parted his skull down the center to the level of his chin. Both of his eyes were dangling loosely from their sockets; popped out of his ruined skull by the impact.

  “D’you want me to haul him out, boss?” McGrain asked.

  “No, I’ve finished my business here. The sharks are welcome to him now.”

  It seemed like only seconds before the first gray reef shark came scrounging down the trail of fresh human blood. It drifted down below the floating corpse and came up beneath it to sink its multiple rows of triangular teeth into Johnny’s buttocks and worry off a mouthful of his flesh.

  Soon the water was boiling with the long sleek bodies and black-tipped fins and tails. They fed until the last scraps of Congo’s body were devoured and then they gradually dispersed.

  Cross felt no sense of triumph. He had done all this for Hazel. But it struck him now that Congo’s death had stripped away the last traces of her existence from his heart, for she had somehow been kept alive, in spirit at least, by Cross’s desire to avenge her.

  “He’s gone,” Cross murmured to himself.

  “Aye,” said McGrain. “And he’s no’ coming back again, either.”

  They took Paddy’s body back to Libreville aboard the Glenallen, stored in one of the ship’s walk-in freezers: better that than have him rot in the tropical heat.

  Early the following morning, Cross arranged for a doctor to be flown up from Cape Town in a private jet to look af
ter Nastiya and Zhenia once they reached dry land. He spent the rest of the day by the sisters’ bedsides. With the passage of time, Cross’s grief at Paddy’s death deepened along with his guilt. He had planned and led the assault on the Faucon d’Or. Therefore the death of one of his men was his responsibility, and the fact that Nastiya, battered and bereaved as she was, insisted that it was not his fault only made Cross feel all the more culpable.

  Paddy had been his brother in arms and his dearest friend. And so, through a long night on the water, Cross sat around a table with Imbiss, and the other Cross Bow team members. One bottle after another was added to the clutter on the table in front of them as the men let their emotions pour out. They veered from one extreme to another at bewildering speed, from wild laughter as they competed to tell the most outrageous stories of Paddy’s madcap exploits, to bitter tears as the reality of his passing hit home. Cross was the last man to weep. But when the dam burst and the tears finally came, he was inconsolable.

  When they arrived in Libreville, the two women were examined in hospital. The doctor assured Cross that neither had suffered any lasting injury: with time and rest both would make a full and relatively speedy recovery.

  Cross still had work to do. The Faucon d’Or had yielded a treasure trove of evidence—phones, laptops, a mass of printed material—which he handed over to the Gabon authorities, who immediately prepared for da Cunha’s extradition to Angola.

  Cross took his leave of da Cunha at the quayside. The would-be President of an independent Cabinda was a sorry sight: unwashed, unshaven, still dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing when they’d captured him. The cable ties had been removed from his wrists, but only so that they could be replaced by handcuffs.