by Jack Soren
“Roger that. Wait, we’re on our way?”
“I’ll explain when I get there,” Maggie said. “Say ten minutes.”
“Copy that. I’ll try to be ready for the upper deck when you get here.”
“Copy. Out.”
Jonathan put his radio away and knocked on the next door. Maybe these last few will go fast, he thought. He felt otherwise when the door opened.
“Hello, stranger.” Melinda, the cougar from the arrival deck said, still sipping on an apparently endless supply of margaritas. “Did anyone order a bucket of yummy?” she said mockingly to her roommates, two other wide-eyed drink-sippers who seemed to be having trouble getting to the door. Jonathan was going to blame the endless drinks, but then he felt the ship list, himself.
“C’min c’min,” Melinda said, stepping out of the way. Jonathan stood his ground, afraid if he went in there he’d lose more than time.
Think, Hall, you don’t have time for this.
He reached inside the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder and held up the injector gun. Their eyes got even wider, which seemed impossible.
“You guys want to party?”
After promising to return after the speech with a couple of buddies, Jonathan had injected the trio. He guaranteed them the trip of their lives from his home-brewed psychedelic. They couldn’t stick their arms out fast enough.
“Hurry back,” Melinda said, waggling her fingers at him as he backed down the hall.
“I will,” Jonathan said in the same singsongy way.
When the door finally closed, Jonathan shivered and marched toward the next door.
Maybe he was glad Lew wasn’t here, after all, thinking of the ridicule he’d be getting lambasted with right now if he were.
Miraculously, Jonathan moved through the rest of the rooms on the deck in record time. As he came out into the hall from the final room, Maggie and a tall, well-dressed black man came around the corner of the hall junction.
“Jonathan Hall, this is Alex Corsair, MI6. He’s been helping me. Alex, this Jonathan Hall, CIA. He’s . . . an old colleague.”
Jonathan shook Alex’s hand. He had a strong handshake but a strange look in his eye. Almost like the situation was amusing him.
“Where are we?” Maggie asked Jonathan.
“That’s the last down here. I’ve still got the two upstairs to do, but when I checked earlier, the hallway still had about a half dozen guards who didn’t look like they were going anywhere anytime soon.”
“That’s Morgan’s inner circle,” Maggie said. “His most loyal guards. And the most experienced mercenaries on the staff. It makes sense they’d be posted up there. Those suites are for the dignitaries.”
“Dignitaries?” Jonathan asked.
“The big money, darling,” Alex said.
“Money and government officials who can approve grants,” Maggie said. “If Umi wanted to wipe out the gerontology research field, she’d pretty much just have to take them out.”
“Right. Cut off the supply line, and the scientists have nothing to work with,” Jonathan said.
Just then, three guards came around the corner, practically bumping into them. Jonathan started to reach for the gun in his waistband, but Maggie stopped him.
“Everyone back to their . . . oh, it’s you,” the lead guard said.
“Just making some final preparations,” Maggie said. “You better get to your quarters before the speech starts.”
“Right. Let’s go guys,” the guard said. The others were glaring at Jonathan pretty hard, but eventually they left.
“I suggest we hurry before we run into anyone else,” Alex said.
Something was bugging Jonathan. The guards seemed to listen to Maggie, but they had actively ignored Alex. The way they’d blatantly ignored him reminded Jonathan of when Natalie used to not look at him when she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
“Right,” Maggie said. “Ideas for getting past the guards upstairs?”
“Why don’t you two head up this way, and I’ll head up the stairs at the other end of the corridor,” Alex said. “I’ll create a disturbance to attract their attention, and you can take care of our distinguished guests. Then we can figure a way off this ship.”
Jonathan and Maggie shared a glance, and he realized Alex wasn’t fooling her. She was playing him for some reason.
“Sounds good,” Maggie said.
Jonathan and Maggie were in position up at the top of the stairs, waiting for Alex’s diversion before he said anything.
“I don’t trust that guy.”
Jonathan peeked around the corner down the hallway. Two guards were posted at each of the two doors. Even if they came out shooting, it was doubtful they could take out all four without their getting a shot off. And the guards had machine guns slung over their shoulders. This was bad.
“That’s because you’re smart,” Maggie said.
“Then what are we doing here?” Jonathan asked as Maggie looked at her watch.
“Just giving him enough rope,” she said.
1:10 P.M.
ALEX PEEKED AROUND the corner again to be sure he hadn’t been followed. He had to get this message to Umi without being seen. Maggie might actually be able to get Alex off the ship if he helped her, but Alex had never been one to put all his eggs in one basket. If he could get back into Umi’s good graces, she’d be able to get him off the ship as well. Granted, that would mean going down to that death trap on the bottom of the ocean, but one step at a time.
“What do you mean ‘forget about my speech,’ Mr. Corsair?” Umi demanded over the radio. “And where have you been for the past hour?”
“I’m only going to say this once,” Alex said. “Things are not what they appear. Your little plan has been upended. Maggie isn’t ex-MI6; she’s here on assignment.”
“Assignment? What assignment?” Umi asked, sounding more than a little alarmed. “How long have you known this?”
“She’s onto your plan, or part of it, at least. And she’s got the CIA involved,” Alex said. “Guarantee me passage off this death trap, and I’ll help you. And I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life on Ashita.”
“There’s no way the CIA could be on board without my knowing about it, I assure you,” Umi said.
“They’re not only on board, they’re steering your bloody ship!”
“Tanaka? That fool? That’s not possible,” Umi said. “The storm—”
“Is easing. He played you with a rigged automatic pilot. And your figurehead of security is running around—”
Alex felt the cold steel of a gun barrel against his neck.
1:15 P.M.
JONATHAN PRESSED THE barrel of his gun harder into Alex’s neck, then reached over him and took the radio out of his hand. He frisked Alex with one hand, taking the gun he found and sticking it in his belt.
“I always wanted to be a figurehead,” Maggie said, holding one of the zip ties that Jonathan had been using to “convince” the passengers who didn’t buy the flu story. She snapped it taut in front of Alex’s face as Jonathan kept his gun against Alex’s neck and relieved him of his cell phone.
“Suits you,” Jonathan said with a smile. He liked bantering with her. It felt familiar, but they didn’t really have time for this.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Alex finally said, seeming to get his composure back after being caught red-handed.
“Then why don’t you—”
Alex made a move to disarm Jonathan while he was talking with a back-swinging elbow, but Jonathan easily dodged it. Then, to his surprise, Maggie punctuated the escape attempt with a punch to the side of Alex’s face that came from her knees. Alex crumpled to the ground, out cold.
“Jesus,” Jonathan said.
“Now that�
�s what a proper figurehead would do. God, that felt bloody good,” Maggie said, rubbing her knuckles.
“You pulled your punch back in my room,” Jonathan said. He put his gun away, rolled Alex over, and put the plastic tie on his wrists.
“Not really. He just pissed me off more. What’s our time like?” Maggie asked.
“Less than fifteen minutes. Maybe,” Jonathan said.
“What do you mean, ‘Maybe’?”
“If Umi didn’t know you and Tanaka were onto her before, she sure as shit does now. If it’s an option, she could release the gas early,” Jonathan said as they muscled Alex’s body into a storage closet.
“Nothing we can do about that now. Let’s get these last four people inoculated, then we can worry about us,” Maggie said.
“It is on a timer,” Tanaka said from Jonathan’s implant. “I listened in on a conversation Umi and Morgan had. Being on a timer is the only way they can make sure all the gas gets released simultaneously. And you have exactly thirteen minutes left.”
“Right,” Jonathan said to both of them. He was still wondering what Alex had meant when he’d said to Umi, “She’s onto your plan, or part of it, at least.” What was the other part?
“So now that we don’t have a diversion, any ideas?” Maggie asked.
“No way we can take them from a single point, but if we came at them from both ends of the corridor at the same time . . .”
“Brilliant,” Maggie said. “I knew you weren’t just a pretty face. You head down the other end. Let’s synchronize our watches.”
“I’ll give you two minutes. And mark.”
“See you in two,” Jonathan said, hurrying down the hall. When he was far enough away from her, he tapped behind his ear. “Tanaka, you there?”
“It’s an implant, Jonathan. I’m always here.”
“Right. Then you heard our plan. I’ve just got a minute. Alex said something about the gas just being part of Umi’s plan. Any idea what he was talking about?” Jonathan reached the end of the corridor and took up position, keeping his eye on his watch.
“At first we thought the ship assault was her whole plan, but conversations I heard made it clear there was something else—something big—that comes after the gas attack. No specifics, though, sorry. If I hear anything else about it, I’ll let you know,” Tanaka said.
“All right. Watch yourself. Umi knows you’re with us, now. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who forgives betrayal easily.”
“You’re right about that. But in our favor, she’s got an ego bigger than her ship. I doubt she thinks anyone can beat her in anything.”
“Let’s hope she’s wrong,” Jonathan said, taking out his gun. He pulled the slide back and loaded a round into the chamber. Then he watched the final seconds tick by and rolled once so he was flat on the ground with the gun in both hands pointed down the corridor.
He squeezed off two shots at the two guards closest to him. One hit the first guard in the shoulder and the other caught the second guard in the hip. They both howled and dropped, but were still trying to raise their guns. Jonathan heard other shots but stayed focused on his targets.
“Drop your weapons! Now!” Jonathan shouted. The guard with the ruined hip complied, dropping his gun and falling back in agony. The other guard ignored the order and started firing. The ground around Jonathan erupted in destruction as the machine gun carved a path across the carpet toward him. The rapid-fire echoes stopped just before they reached him. The guard flopped forward with a gaping hole in his forehead, Maggie standing behind him, her gun still smoking.
Jonathan looked farther down the hallway and saw that Maggie’s guards were lying motionless on the ground, bullet holes in their foreheads, as well. He got up and moved down the hall toward the guard he’d wounded. Maggie was lining up a kill shot as he did.
“No, wait!”
Maggie stopped. “Why?”
“I’ve got some questions for this one,” Jonathan said, relieving the wounded man of his machine gun.
“Why would he tell you anything?” Maggie demanded.
“Look around. They don’t have masks with them,” Jonathan said. “He’s going to tell us everything we want to know. Because if he doesn’t, we’re going to tie him up right here and let the gas have him.”
“What? You wouldn’t do that. Come on!” the guard said in English between winces over his wound.
“Try me,” Jonathan said, turning to walk away.
“Wait! Fine, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Anything. Just don’t leave me here!”
“So much for seasoned mercenaries,” Maggie said.
“Look at him. He’s a kid. I doubt he’s ever seen any action before,” Jonathan said. The guard didn’t correct him. “The others are the same. Look.”
Maggie looked as confused as Jonathan felt. “If these guards aren’t Morgan’s inner circle, then where the hell are they?”
“My money is on wherever Umi and Morgan are. Sub, maybe? But first things first, you go take care of these last four passengers,” Jonathan said, handing Maggie the injection gun.
“Why me?”
“They were locked in their rooms under guard and they just heard gunshots outside their doors. Even if they would have listened to me before, they sure won’t now. But they’ll listen to you. You vetted them, reassured them of the security measures and safety of the conference. They know your face.”
“Right,” Maggie said. She headed for the first door, knocked and in less than thirty seconds was inside talking with the dignitaries. Jonathan crouched beside the wounded guard.
“What’s your name?”
“Darren Pirkl, sir,” the kid managed.
“Okay, Darren, tell me about Ashita. And I’d make it fast if I were you,” Jonathan said, tapping his watch with his gun and making a face like he was choking. Darren didn’t find it funny at all.
“They don’t tell me much,” Darren said, wincing. “I know the old lady is going down there before the gas attack.”
“Down there?”
“They’ve been taking stuff somewhere with the subs for months. Someplace called Ashita.”
“There’s more than one sub?”
“Well, there used to be. One of them broke down. It’s off to the side of the moon pool behind some partitions. You’d have to know it was there to even see it. They’ve just been using the other one, lately.”
“You haven’t been down there?”
“No, only Mr. Morgan’s elite guards go down.”
Maggie emerged from the stateroom.
“Two down, two to go,” she said hurrying to the other door. “You get anything out of him?”
“Oh, yeah. We’ve learned that a sub is broken and there might be a place called Ashita ‘down’ somewhere.”
“In other words, nothing,” Maggie said. The next two dignitaries finally opened the door but it took Maggie almost a full minute to get them to let her in.
“You heard her, kid. You’re not telling me anything that’s going to make me want to get you out of here.”
“That’s all I know! I swear!”
“Have it your way,” Jonathan said, standing up and heading away.
“Wait! Uh, the big guy. I saw some big guy climb out of the moon pool wearing scuba gear!”
Jonathan’s chest tightened, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “What big guy? Describe him.”
“He was big, like I said. And blond. Only wearing wetsuit shorts after he took off his gear. And he was . . . all scarred up.”
“What else did you see? Where did this guy go?”
“He didn’t go anywhere. He looked real tired. Then Mr. Corsair snuck up behind him and hit him with a pipe. Knocked him out. Or killed him. I don’t know, which.”
Jonathan couldn’t
believe what he was hearing. Lew? On board?
“How’d you see all this?” Jonathan asked. He partly wished the kid was lying but also knew that if Alex had seen the kid, he’d probably be dead by now. Darren looked away, like he didn’t want to say any more. Jonathan lunged at him, grabbing a fistful of his uniform. “How’d you see it!”
“Okay, okay! Me and a couple of the other guards used to go into the busted sub to smoke weed. We made a bong out of one of the rebreathers. And the sub keeps the smell from getting out. We were in there when we heard the big guy flop out of the moon pool. I stuck my head out and peeked around the partition. I saw the whole thing.”
“Where is he now? The big guy.”
“Mr. Corsair put him in a big crate, then had a couple of the other guards load him in the working sub. He told them to take him there.”
“Take him where?”
“To Ashita. If he’s alive, the big guy is on Ashita. That’s all I know. After they left, we took off and swore each other to secrecy. We knew what Mr. Corsair would do to us if he found out we were there.”
“Do to you? What exactly is Corsair’s job?” Jonathan said. The guy was obviously not MI6, or if he was, he was dirty. But the way Maggie had talked, Corsair had only been on the ship as long as she had.
“I don’t know about official job, but he’s Ms. Tenabe’s enforcer. You do something to cross him, and you disappear. One of the guards told a story about seeing Corsair on deck with one of the scientists a few weeks ago. He shoved a knife in his neck and tossed him overboard like he was flicking a cigarette butt away. He’s crazy.”
“How long has he worked for her?”
“He was here before I was. At least a year. Now how about getting me out of here?”
“Corsair,” Jonathan said between clenched teeth. He let go of Darren, stood up, and headed for the end of the corridor just as Maggie was coming out of the final suite.
“And we’re done. Hey, where are you going? Jesus, what’s wrong, Jonathan?” Maggie said.
“No time. Zap the kid. I’m going to have a little chat with our asshole in the closet,” Jonathan said.
He grabbed the door to the closet and threw it open. The closet was empty. Alex was on the loose.