by Tom Wilde
I didn’t have to see to know that Rhea’s men were inching toward me, creeping on soft-soled boots like spiders moving in for the kill. I was trapped in the dark with my mind racing to find a way out. Then my ringing ears heard a new sound coming from behind me—a soft, hissing noise. I was completely blind as I eased back in the water, keeping one hand on the grip of my gun and the other on the rough, pitted hull of the Nautilus. When I was chest-deep in the cold seawater, I felt my hand come under a soft cascade of what felt like coarse dry sand. But one sniff told me the stuff pouring from the top of the ship was explosive black gunpowder. Those teardrop-shaped casks lined on the deck of the ship must have been bombs that got punctured by gunfire and were now leaking explosives. I had a sudden, insane idea.
I’d never make it back to the tunnel entrance past Rhea and her two men, and even if I did I’d be stuck inside a narrow shooting gallery and shredded to pieces with automatic gunfire before I’d make it out. That left the massive stone seaward gate, currently held up in place by the drawbridge chains. I felt for the button that activated the flashlight mounted on the rifle barrel and shot a beam out, zeroing in on the old wooden drawbridge gears that linked the iron chains and counterweights to the outer gate. I slipped the fire selector to “single shot” and started hammering bullets into the wrapped chains, striking sparks and making ear-splitting whines with every hit. I was just in fear of running out of ammunition when the mechanical gate lift collapsed in on itself as if crushed by a giant unseen hand. I heard a metallic sound like a train clattering along its tracks boom out from overhead as the chains were pulled along their iron moorings.
I held the gun up and triggered my last few shots over in the general direction of Rhea and her men, just as a spoiler to keep their heads down, then I heard a whooshing splash, like a rogue wave hitting the shore, as the sea gate fell open. I dropped the gun, unzipped my suit, and clawed my cigarette lighter out of my shirt pocket. If I could ignite the falling black powder I’d get a blinding flash followed by a cloud of smoke that’d let me disappear like a stage magician, covering my escape to the mouth of the cave. I snapped a fire and my hand and face were slapped by a sudden flash of flame that then hissed and sputtered, engulfing the side of the Nautilus. I shoved the lighter back inside my suit as I took a breath laced with burnt powder and dove under the water, swimming as hard as I could while having that nightmare feeling of running and not getting anywhere. The water warped a cacophony of sound—surging tide noise peppered with muted ripping pops of automatic weapons—until the world turned bloodred through my eyelids and a piercing shriek tore through my ears.
I broke water and flipped around to look back, and my body froze. Jets of flame shot from the Nautilus, lighting up the cave in strobing red glare while the ship screamed like a dying beast. A thought like a jolt of raw electricity shot through me as I realized that I’d set off a chain reaction in the ship’s bomb supply.
I whipped back toward the mouth of the cave, attacking the water with frenzied slaps and kicks as the sea pushed against me. Until a stuttering concussion hammered my entire body and drove spikes through my ears as I was blown through the opening of the cave like being shot from a cannon.
Everything was roaring chaos until the sea spit me out, only to let me crash back down and be swallowed under again. I was flailing in the dark, until my hand collided with a hard mass. I grabbed and clawed for life until I was hugging the rocky shore.
I gripped as hard as I could, afraid the sea would pull me back under as I coughed and gasped for air. I heard a clattering chorus of falling rocks and managed to raise my head until I could see the black outline of the watchtower’s mountainous crag looming above. I crawled the rest of the way out of the water and collapsed on the rocky shore while my head kept spinning and my body shivered uncontrollably. Then I heard someone call my name.
Of course, I thought to myself. After all I’d been through, I just crawled out of hell only to have one of Rhea’s remaining men kill me. God help me, I actually started to laugh, far too exhausted to do anything else.
“Monsieur Blake?”
It was the French honorific that finally penetrated my brain. I forced myself to look up and saw a shadowy form in the darkness. The man was cradling an automatic rifle and was dressed all in black, but I also detected the odd outlines of a helmet and other gear that Rhea’s ninjas didn’t come equipped with. “Yes?” I croaked.
The man placed a hand up to his chest and said quietly to an unseen audience, “Oui, c’est Blake.” In English, he asked me, “Can you walk?”
When I realized that this French-speaking storm trooper just might not have come to murder me, I made my tortured limbs hoist me up until I was on hands and feet, holding on to the side of the steep, rocky shore. “If you can call this walking,” I answered.
The man took my arm, and between the two of us we managed to not let me slide back into the sea. I crawled more than climbed up the stony incline until I reached the summit and was allowed to collapse against the rounded stone side of the watchtower, where I slid into a sitting position as the balmy Mediterranean breeze cooled down my overheated body. Another commando came and knelt beside me, opening up a black pack. “I am a medic, monsieur,” the man said. “Are you injured?” Then I heard another voice, a voice that chilled me to the bone.
“Goddamn, Blake,” Smith said with obvious admiration. “You’re just harder to kill than a cockroach, aren’t you?”
I raised my head and saw Smith outlined against the dark sky with his long coat waving in the wind. It took me two breaths to say it, but I replied, “Come down here and we’ll see if the same is true of you.”
“Slow down, boy. You’re a little behind the curve here. I’ve been on your side all along. Vanya’s men here are all dead. I called in the French ‘Division Action.’” Smith put a hand to the medic’s shoulder and said, “Give us a moment here.”
The medic looked to me, and I nodded. As he moved off, I said to Smith, “So we’ve been rescued by the French?”
“And man, was it beautiful,” Smith enthused. “They came gliding in on parachutes like bats. I swear, they shot every single one of Vanya’s men before they hit the ground. I take back everything I ever said about the French. But I got to admit, it was a little nerve-wracking, wondering if someone wasn’t going to mistake me for a bad guy in the dark.”
“Bad guy? But, you and Rhea…?”
Smith came and hunkered down beside me. “Rhea just thought she had her hooks into me. She and I came across each other years ago during a joint mission. I later let her think my loyalty was for sale. Unfortunately, she’s not the trusting type, and I was never able to get the evidence we needed through her. But what the hell happened to you just now? One minute I’m watching the French paratroopers clean up, and then ‘boom!’ The whole place shakes and there’s a god-awful fireball shooting out of the water.”
I leaned my head back against the cold, rough stone, seeing in my mind’s eye the fiery death of the Nautilus. “All I wanted to do was get away,” I heard myself mumble.
Smith laughed as he said, “Like I said before, we leave you on your own, and you’ll blow up half of Europe. But man, I wish I could have gotten a better look at your face when you thought I was a traitor. It must have been priceless!”
“So you and your boss just played me for a sucker?”
“Name of the game, my man. If you knew I was involved with Rhea, you could have spilled the beans. But the real problem was that Rhea kept me in the dark about a lot of Vanya’s operation. That’s why we needed a man on the inside. Once Vanya took you in, we were hoping you’d get the goods on him.” Smith looked around to be sure we were relatively alone then leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Now tell me quick: Did you get anything solid on any biological weapons?”
“It’s worse than that—Caitlin’s back on his island and he’s infected her with his Pandora plague. Everything Rhea said about the genetic virus was true. Caitlin’s be
ing used as a test subject, and Vanya’s got the only cure.”
“You certain of this?” Smith asked with heat.
“Yes. And Vanya couldn’t have missed hearing that big bang just now; he’s got to be spooked.”
“Damn!” Smith hissed. He pulled out a phone and then held the device straight overhead like he was firing off an invisible distress flare. He slipped the phone back into his coat and said softly, “There. I just sent a signal out. In less than an hour, U.S. troops will be storming Vanya’s island.” Before I could comment, Smith looked over my shoulder and said, “Uh-oh. Better let me do the talking.”
Another armed, black-clad warrior appeared on my other side and knelt down next to me as Smith announced, “Blake, this here’s Captain Reynard, French Special Operations. Captain, this is our man, Blake. He’s the one who infiltrated this terrorist cell.”
Captain Reynard’s face was shaded in dark camouflage war paint and hidden under his helmet. With a precise voice born of experience, he said in softly accented English, “We’ve eliminated six enemy combatants. Are there any more down below?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There were six of us down there altogether. Wait. One of them died from a booby trap.”
Captain Reynard started to speak, but Smith cut him off. “Hey, give my man here a break. You saw the size of that explosion. Hell, it felt like an earthquake up here. It’s a miracle Blake is still among the living.”
Captain Reynard was undeterred. “Booby trap? What was it you found down there? My men have reported that it looks like a cave has collapsed under the waterline.”
While Smith clamped down on my arm like he wanted to squeeze my throat shut by proxy, I leaned my head back against the watchtower, wondering how to answer the captain’s questions without speaking of France’s greatest general, an ancient glass sarcophagus, and two-hundred-year-old submarines. I was saved from this task when we all heard the roar of engine noise coming from down below the slope. Captain Reynard and Smith shot to their feet as I used the wall of the tower as a crutch to join them. From down at the waterline, twin stuttering spurts of fire lanced out toward the sea as one of Vanya’s motorboats powered away like a seaborne rocket.
Captain Reynard’s hand went up to the side of his helmet. “One of them got away,” he reported. “And wounded one of my men.”
We could still hear the boat, but all I could see under the cloud-mottled mass of stars were the ink-black outlines of the islands out to sea and the lone lighthouse beacon that blinked in the distance. I then spoke the last thing that I ever wanted to say: “Rhea.”
Captain Reynard was quick to ask, “Who?”
“One of the leaders of the terrorist group,” Smith said quickly. “Oh, Christ. If that really is her, and she makes it back to the yacht…”
“She swims like a seal,” I said, remembering a long-ago conversation on a bridge over the Seine at midnight. If Rhea got back to Vanya and told him that military troops took out his men on the Iles Sanguinaires, and if his people back on his private island radioed that they were under attack, then Vanya could panic. If he did that, he could take the whole world with him.
Smith spoke with urgency. “Captain, you’ve got to attack that yacht.”
Reynard’s exasperation was palpable. “With what? If you and your government had been more precise with their information, we might have been prepared. As it is, I had to scramble my men for this operation. My orders were to secure this area, nothing more.”
“But the leader of these terrorists is on that ship! You’re letting them get away!”
Reynard held a pair of binoculars up to his eyes. “By the time we can muster a response, that yacht will be beyond our territorial waters. If we act then, we’ll be committing an act of piracy.” Reynard dropped his binoculars down from his face and said, as if to himself, “And we have not had such good luck with operations involving ships in the past.”
I didn’t know what Reynard was talking about at the last, but something he said caught my ear. At that point I knew, with a sinking certainty, what I had to do. “Well,” I announced. “You heard the man, Smith. Let’s get to it.”
“Get to it? Get to what?”
I looked out beyond the midnight-black water as I said, “Piracy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“You are going to die.”
Smith uttered those words as he and I were standing on the wave-lapped, rocky shore talking quietly to each other while two of Reynard’s men were hip-deep in the water, holding on to the remaining powerboat from Vanya’s yacht. I was busy making certain I’d managed to conceal the paltry few devices that I’d scavenged. The tight-fitting diving suit didn’t offer much in the way of hiding places. As I patted myself down, I came across a familiar lump and dug out my cigarette lighter. I handed it to Smith. “Here. Hang on to this for me.”
“What’s this? Your good-luck charm?”
My mind flashed back to the sight of the Nautilus as it was engulfed in flame. “No. But keep it for me anyway.”
“Look, I told you I’ve got a helicopter and some of my own troops on standby. They could be here in minutes.”
“And then Vanya would just blow them out of the sky. I told you, he’s got machine guns, rocket launchers, and God knows what else on board. And if he feels he’s in a trap, he could just send a signal that’d release a worldwide plague, if he hasn’t already. But if I can take his own boat and reach the yacht, they may think I’m another one of the crew that got away and give me a chance to get aboard.”
“So he can kill you then.”
“Hopefully not before I can talk some sense into him. Besides, this may be Caitlin’s only chance. Vanya’s the only shot we have of finding the plague cure. If he gets word that your soldiers have stormed his island, he might start his apocalypse anyway.”
“Then let me come with you, or at least take a damn gun!”
“Sorry. You’re not dressed in the right uniform. And if I have a gun they might get unfriendly.”
In exasperation, Smith turned toward Captain Reynard and called out to him. “You’re sure there’s nothing you can do?”
The captain shrugged. “My men and I are not officially here. Therefore, while there’s nothing we can do, we certainly cannot stop you from committing whatever acts you intend out on the open sea.”
“Would it help if I told you that the man on that yacht is harboring biological weapons of mass destruction?”
“Really,” Reynard said with Gallic indifference. “Now, where have we heard Americans tell us that one before? Now, you gentlemen must hurry; my superiors cannot keep the local authorities away from this place forever.”
As Smith mumbled invective under his breath, Reynard continued. “But may I say for myself that I hope you are successful.” Then he added, “Partout oú nécessité fait loi.”
“Yeah,” grumbled Smith. “Vive la France to you, too.” Smith consulted his phone. “Okay, according to satellite tracking, Vanya’s ship is on a heading due south.”
I waded out to the powerboat. “Got it. Keep an eye out.”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Good luck with Operation Trojan Sea Horse.”
I didn’t reply as I pulled a diving hood over my head—taken from one of the dead men laid out in a neat row next to the ancient watchtower. I pulled myself aboard the boat with the grace of a wounded hippo. Reynard’s men gave me a shove toward the open sea as I took over the controls. I checked astern to make sure I was clear and then fired up the engine. There was a hearty roar and the thing damn near bucked me off when I touched the throttle control. I got a better grip and fed the beast more fuel, and soon I was riding high in the water, flying through the night.
I gave the Islands of Bloody Men a wide berth, sighting on the lighthouse beacon until I was certain I was in deep water, and then I checked my heading and opened the boat up full throttle, skipping across the water like a flat-thrown stone while gritting my teeth against the pains lanc
ing my side. I had the lights of Corsica on my port side, looking like a belt of stars, and the great, wide blackness of the open sea ahead. The thought didn’t escape me that I was in all likelihood charging headlong to my death, but I knew this was the only way to try to save Caitlin’s life. If I were riding a horse, I would have spurred it on.
The lighted compass on the panel led me south, but all I could see was an expanse of black under a waning moon that sailed overhead through the clouds. Vanya had his ship running without lights, and I was starting to worry that I’d miss it altogether, until I saw the wake of a ship cresting ahead and I followed in the path between the foaming waves. I was finally getting close enough to her stern that even without night-vision goggles, someone keeping a lookout would have spotted me. I braced myself to be ready to make some evasive maneuvers in case anyone opened fire, but with all the armaments I had seen on the ship, I knew I’d probably be blown to bits before I could turn and run.
Over the whine of my engines I heard the deep-throated roar of Vanya’s Phaeton. I throttled back as I saw a light break out from the starboard side of the ship. The hull panel was lifting open like a single wing of a monstrous albatross. As I pulled up even with the stern of the yacht I waved to the shadowy figures inside the boat bay, then kept my head down as I piloted my motorboat alongside. Two men, dressed in the same form-fitting black wet suit I was, jumped aboard, one on my bow and the other in the narrow stern, and attached cables to the boat as I shut off the engine. Once hooked, an electric winch hoisted the boat slowly out of the water, and then metal arms retracted and brought the boat inside the hull of the yacht. I was busy keeping my head down and trying to look like I knew what I was doing as I hopped aboard, only to hear a voice I could never forget say to me, “Oh, Blake. Did you really think you could just walk in here without being noticed?”