He turned and made for the stairs. “Only need one more.”
Chapter 44
The drizzle had abated by the time Lucas emerged onto the main deck. He gave Ruby a final quick hug and whispered to her as he released her, “If anything happens, take care of Sierra and Eve–”
She stopped him. “Just do what you have to do and get off this tub in one piece. An old woman’s no substitute for you, Lucas. Don’t even think like that.”
“Fair enough, Ruby. But it had to be said.”
“Not to me it didn’t.”
Lucas turned and jogged away, leaving Jeb to guide the women down the gangplank. The packs slowed him considerably, and between the weight of his flak jacket and the three backpacks, his upper body was screaming in protest by the time he made it to the front of the superstructure, where a pair of big guns jutted from a turret at the base.
He stopped in the shelter of an overhang and raised his rifle to his shoulder to study the turret with the scope. Lights blazed from the bridge, easily six stories above the guns, but he noted that if he stuck to the base of the superstructure, he’d be out of the line of sight of anyone unless they were deliberately watching the area.
If he was correct, all eyes would be on Astoria, where the battle might have been over, but not the aftermath. Gary and his men had been instructed to string some booby traps in town, using wire and grenades, and those would likely catch some patrols unawares and further disrupt the Chinese defense. But Lucas didn’t kid himself that his mission would be easy – at first glance he didn’t see anything resembling the hatch Sam had assured him would be there for maintenance and loading.
After a few moments, he lowered the rifle and hoisted the packs. If the hatch wasn’t on the front of the housing, maybe it was on the back, out of view. He took a deep breath and crept toward the mammoth encasement, easily the size of a large house, and worked his way to the rear, where he found a watertight door. He paused beside it, set down the two packs, and turned the wheel lock, which slid the bolt open with a groan. When he twisted the oversize handle, the heavy door swung outward and he looked inside the opening, the interior dark as a tomb. A metal stairway descended from a small platform with a conveyor system beside it, dropping down into nothingness.
Lucas slid the packs onto the platform and pulled the door closed behind him, and then felt for the light switch he’d spied when he entered. He flipped it on and two low-wattage bulbs illuminated the space, which appeared at least three stories deep and was filled with the loading system, conveyor, and stacks of shells in racks ready for automatic loading.
He carried the packs down the stairs and paused at the bottom, looking around for the best place to set them. Lucas estimated that there were at least two hundred shells in the racks, which he hoped would be sufficient when detonated simultaneously to mortally wound the ship, if not sink it outright. He spied a promising spot and moved toward it, and then pulled himself up until he was sitting on a ledge that was part of the storage and loading system. Lucas slid the straps of his backpack off and placed it in a cavity, and then returned to the floor of the chamber for the other two. He repeated his climb and opened the canvas flap on the first charge and regarded the timer.
Sam had explained to all of Lucas’s group how to arm and set the digital trigger, and he made short work of the three packs. He placed the first pack into the cavity, its red LED screen counting down from twenty, and quickly set the other two among the shells before dropping to the floor and glancing at his watch.
The stairs seemed far higher on the way back up, and his legs were heavy by the time he reached the door. He switched off the lights and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then eased the door open and stepped out into the faint drizzle.
Lucas locked the bolt and retraced his steps to the gangplank, and checked the time again – he’d burned eight minutes traversing the stairs and the ship’s length. He scanned the water with his rifle but didn’t see Jeb’s boat, and hoped the big man had heeded his words and wasted no time getting clear of the ship.
The trip down the gangplank reassured him when he saw only one boat at the water’s edge, bobbing gently in the swell. When he reached it, he checked his watch again and saw he’d used another three minutes on his descent. With only nine left until the boat blew, he’d have to make short work of his escape, and he was kneeling to untie the small shore boat’s stern line when a cry in Chinese sounded from the top of the gangplank, followed almost immediately by a flashlight beam playing down the slick ramp.
Shots rang out from above, but the timbre of the reports told him they were firing pistols, which posed no real danger to him from that distance. He freed the stern line and darted to the bow, but lost his footing on the platform and hit the surface hard, knocking the wind from him. More shots followed the first in rapid succession, and Lucas could make out the sound of running boots on the gangplank as men descended from the deck. He forced himself up, ignoring the burning in his lungs as he struggled for breath, and his hands fumbled with the bow line, which was cinched tight to a steel cleat. He jerked at the rope until it came free, and tossed it into the bow just as another flurry of shots peppered the platform, the Chinese shooters rapidly closing the distance.
Lucas climbed into the bow as the boat drifted lazily from the platform and crawled to the helm, trying to ignore the ping of slugs hitting the metal hull. He did a quick scan of the controls and then depressed the starter button as a ricochet whistled past his head, narrowly missing him. The diesel engine ground and the boat shook, but it didn’t start, and after five seconds Lucas abandoned his effort and swung his M4 toward the ship, where he could make out three sailors in white three-quarters of the way down the gangplank.
Two bursts cut them down, and he returned to the console, trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. He saw a toggle switch above the ignition button and flipped it, vaguely recalling something about diesel engines and preheating. Ten seconds later he depressed the ignition again and was rewarded with a roar from the stern as the engine sprang to life and then settled into an idle so rough it felt like the craft had been seized by a coughing fit.
More gunfire rang out from the deck, but this time the short bursts and deeper tone told Lucas the Chinese were using rifles. Rounds fountained the surface of the water around the boat and slammed into the hull and deck, drilling through, whereas the pistol slugs had merely flattened. Lucas squeezed off a burst at the soldiers and then groped for the transmission. He mistakenly pushed the throttle forward and the engine revved into the redline before sputtering and dying. He cursed and emptied his rifle at the Chinese, and then shifted the throttle back to its idle position and restarted the engine. After a couple of shudders it responded, and Lucas pushed the transmission into gear with a clunk. The boat lunged forward and he goosed the throttle, but misjudged the torque and fell backward, nearly falling off the stern when he slammed into the deck, sending pain shooting through his spine. He gasped and blinked away tears as the boat began yawing to the right and carved a slow circle, threatening to take him back to the ship.
He struggled to his feet and battled against the momentum until he was at the helm. Gripping the steering, he brought the wheel under control and swung the bow back toward the bay, sprays of water rising around him as the shooters continued firing at him. He rocked the boat back and forth to make their job harder, and smiled when he passed out of rifle range. His relief was short-lived, though, when the smell of raw fuel coming from the bilge wafted to him. Lucas’s eyes roamed down the deck until he saw where several shots had punched through it – the obvious explanation for the stink of diesel being that one of them had hit the gas tank, accounting for the fuel in the bilge.
Lucas considered slowing and assessing the damage but decided to press on – the charges would explode in less than a minute, and he didn’t want to be within five hundred yards of the ship when they did. He firewalled the throttle and the bow rose as the boat surged
forward, now on a straight course for the mouth of the bay.
He was cutting across the channel onto the flat surface of the bay when a muted explosion from the ship was instantly followed by a deafening roar as the ammunition stores detonated, and he dared a look back at the massive fireball that blew toward the heavens, fragments of flaming superstructure and turret defying gravity in lazy arcs. Lucas swung the M4 around and inspected the ship through the scope, and saw that it appeared to have been broken in two, split forward of the superstructure like a dropped child’s toy, the bow pitched at an impossible angle, the bridge and forward section destroyed.
He allowed himself a grin of satisfaction before refocusing his attention to the helm as he entered the bay. Up ahead he could make out the dark shape of Jeb’s skiff working its way to town, and he throttled back as he neared, the smell of diesel stronger by the minute. Lucas put the transmission into neutral and allowed the boat to drift alongside, and then called out to Jeb, who had stopped rowing at the sound of the engine.
“Toss me your bow line and I’ll give you a tow.”
“How about we come aboard?” Jeb fired back.
“Got a hole in the fuel tank. No telling how far we’ll make it. Throw me the line and I’ll tie you off.”
“Hang on. I’ll bring it aboard myself. Just don’t make any moves until I say it’s done.”
“Suit yourself,” Lucas said, allowing Jeb that win, and waited as he made his way forward and then leapt onto the Chinese watercraft, the eyes of the women in the skiff shining at him like a pack of startled meerkats in the amber glow from the burning ship.
Chapter 45
San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Dale slumbered on his bedroll, doing his best to ignore the icy wind that blew down from the mountains with a vengeance, making the mercenary group’s nights on the trail as unpleasant as any he’d suffered, even compared to the winter he’d just endured in the foothills. At least then he’d been able to pick his campsites carefully to shelter from the worst nature threw at him, but on the trail of Shangri-La he had no such luxury, the group forced to make camp wherever it found itself come nightfall.
The men were increasingly truculent as more time passed and their rations ran out, forcing them to forage for whatever they could find but prevented from hunting using their rifles by Dale lest they alert their quarry of their pursuit. Each night had brought more grumbling from the mercenaries, but so far no overt rebellion, Chris’s execution sufficient deterrent to keep them in line.
But Dale knew that the gunmen wouldn’t follow him forever, and after as many days as they’d spent on their forced march, he would be tested again – the only question was when and how the trial would come.
A small campfire crackled in the center of the tents, providing scant warmth for the six mercenaries huddled around it, glad they weren’t sitting chilled to the bone on sentry duty at the edge of the camp. They talked in murmurs, Dale unable to eavesdrop to hear whether their discussion was mutinous, and he gripped his pistol under the horse blanket draped over his sleeping bag, preferring to make his bed beneath the stars on a clear night than inside a tent where he could be ambushed.
“I don’t care,” one of the men said, raising his voice before being hastily silenced by the others. They returned to their ruminations and Dale slowed his breathing, prepared for whatever was to come. An hour went by and nothing happened, and he was finally dozing off when the sound of hooves from the camp’s edge reached him. He started fully awake and sat up with his gun in hand to see what had spooked the animals.
The fire had died and the men were nowhere to be seen in the starlight, the number of tents conspicuously fewer than had been pitched earlier. Dale bolted to his feet and stared into the darkness, where the six mercenaries were leading their horses from the camp on foot, trying to make as little noise as possible. Dale edged toward them and, when he was fifteen yards away, called out in a commanding voice, “Where do you think you’re going?”
The men stopped, and one of them looked back at Dale. “We’re not getting anywhere. There’s no trail to follow, we’re out of food, and it’s freezing. We’re going back to Durango, and you can’t stop all of us.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Dale said, brandishing his pistol. “We have a deal. You finish the job and you’ll be rich.”
“That’s your story. Hard to spend nonexistent gold if you’re dead from starvation.”
Dale raised his pistol and drew a bead on the mercenary. “You speaking for yourself, or all of your buddies? Just want to know how many bullets I need to waste.”
“You can’t shoot everyone. Give it up. We did our best, but it’s over.”
Dale shook his head. “That’s not how this goes.”
A shot rang out from behind Dale, and it felt like he’d been punched between the shoulders. Pain radiated down his spine, and then the strength went out of his legs. He tried to turn to see who’d fired, but another shot shattered the night and the top half of his head vaporized from a big caliber dumdum mushrooming, fired at close range.
Dale pitched forward like a felled tree, and the mercenary who’d shot him spit on his corpse. He glanced at the others and nodded once.
“That’s enough of this crap. Now we can head back to Durango and collect our gold.” He paused. “Just have to be on the same page. Dale here and Chris were leading us over a pass when a rockslide took them out. The end. As long as everyone sticks to that story, we’re in the clear.”
He turned and called out to the tents. “You can come out. The wicked witch is dead. We need to powwow and agree on what happened so we can get paid and not have to look over our shoulders.”
More mercenaries rolled from their shelters and the six walked their horses back to the man who’d shot Dale. “Shame Mother Nature decided to take him out like that. Rock slide, huh? Ain’t that the damnedest thing,” one of the gunmen wondered.
“Happens too often. Pair of good men lost in the mountains. Crying shame,” another said with a grin.
Ten minutes later, there was agreement. Dale had been buried under tons of rock, as had Chris, and after continuing the hunt until the trail turned cold, the survivors had returned to Durango for their pay and to report back on Pagosa Springs being a ghost town. Lavon would accept the story, having no reason to doubt it, and each man would be three ounces of gold richer – and wiser than to accept another job from the Crew, whatever the price.
Two men carried Dale’s body to the edge of a ravine and unceremoniously slung it into the void, not bothering to look to see where it landed, the remains soon to be picked clean by the scavengers that would feast on it through the night. The mercenaries mounted up, preferring to put some distance between themselves and the camp, the strength of their number adequate to ensure they wouldn’t be ambushed on the road home.
Chapter 46
Colonel Hong looked up from inside the tent where he’d been sleeping just in time to see a flash of orange on the horizon. He’d been roused by a distant roar, an explosion of some sort, different from the thunder he’d grown accustomed to since beginning the march back to Astoria. He coughed as he blinked away fatigue, and cursed his flagging stamina. The sickness that had been eating at him had sapped his energy like a thief in the night even as it had claimed the lives of most of his surviving troops, Portland’s toxic legacy accompanying them on the long march back to Astoria and whittling them away.
Each morning as dawn broke, he’d counted the dead, until he’d given up the prior sunrise, there being no point now that his proud invasion force was only a handful of sickly wretches. He’d waited too long to leave; the radiation had done its damage, and he now didn’t even bother to bury the dead, his state having reduced him to only offering a prayer at the start of each day and committing the bodies to the water that had taken their lives – a fitting closure to the deadly circle that had started and finished with the river.
Hong squinted at his watch, his vision blurri
er than it had been yesterday, and wiped absently at a trickle of moisture seeping from his nose. He glanced at the back of his hand and then fished in the pocket of his jacket for a cloth handkerchief to clean away the blood. He’d seen enough of the effects of the radiation to know his hours were numbered, but he was hell-bent on reaching Astoria to report to his superiors before he expired, his duty finally discharged with honor, even at the end.
His fevered brain tried to imagine what could be the source of the explosion, and his thoughts turned to the base they’d heard about but never found. Perhaps the cache of explosives deep in the mountain had gone up, victim to a lightning strike or a spark caused by an intruder? Anything was possible, he supposed, in this hellish graveyard of the Pacific Northwest. Nothing would have surprised him – it seemed that the earth itself had rejected the Chinese, the region’s immune system launching an attack that mere humans could do nothing to resist.
“Sergeant Luo! Sergeant!” Hong called to the collection of tents, but nothing stirred. Irritation rose like bile in his throat, and then he remembered.
Luo had succumbed the prior night and was now resting in eternal sleep at the bottom of the river.
Hong lay back and felt for the two-way radio he kept by his side. His fingers found the hard plastic case, and he switched it on and brought it to his mouth. “Command. It’s Colonel Hong. Come in, please.”
He released the transmit button and listened to the static hissing from the speaker. The radio was tuned to the ship frequency, which would be monitored day and night. By his calculations they were only seven miles from Astoria now, so well within range. He’d hoped to surprise the generals the following morning, but the explosion was troubling…
The Day After Never - Perdition (Book 6) Page 23