Ascendant

by Sean Ellis

  The first thing she did after capturing the mouthpiece was to press it greedily to her own lips, filling her lungs with a fresh breath of air. She could feel the desperate frogman, still captive in her embrace, holding his breath as his flailing hands tried to pry her loose and knew that he was still not out of the fight. A few yards away, the remaining diver was struggling to propel himself to his comrade’s aid, his viciously wounded leg trailing uselessly.

  Her immediate antagonist somehow seized hold of the air hose, beginning a tug of war with Mira for control of the business end. She fought back, succeeding only because her position gave her the leverage needed to overcome his superior strength. It was a battle she would ultimately lose if the man received assistance from the injured diver.

  Instead of fighting to keep the mouthpiece between her teeth, she spat it into her right hand and pulled hard, ripping it from her opponent’s grasp. Wrestling it over his right shoulder, she found the valve of his buoyancy compensator and after only a moment of fumbling joined the two. The bladders of the vest-like apparatus immediately filled with compressed air, causing the diver’s chest to swell like a balloon. The transfer of air from the compressed environment of the tank to the external air bladders of the buoyancy vest did not change his actual mass, causing him to shoot uncontrollably toward the surface, but it hampered his ability to resist what Mira did next.

  Slipping her knife from its sheath, she cut away his weight belt. She immediately felt the change in pressure as their shared buoyancy caused a gradual ascent. The hose and mouthpiece now dangled out of reach for both of them, but Mira ignored the urgent demand of her lungs for air, focusing instead on the end-game of her bold assault.

  Biting down on the back edge of the knife blade, pirate-style, she freed up her hands. She closed her left over the diver’s nose and lips and used her right forearm and elbow to lock her hold in place. The frogman, already desperately holding his breath, did not comprehend the danger he was in. Mira abruptly relaxed the grip of her legs and began kicking vigorously toward the surface.

  As they shot up through the water, ascending more than three feet per second, Mira steadily exhaled the breath she had been holding, sending a stream of bubbles skyward. If her foe now understood what she was doing, he was helpless to resist. As they left behind two atmospheres of pressure, the volume of air trapped in his lungs expanded in a matter of seconds, rupturing the fragile membranes of his bronchial tubes. She felt a tremor of agony pass through the doomed man and a final, silent scream shouted into her gloved hand, and then the man went limp.

  She stopped kicking as soon as her foe became motionless, but the momentum of her ascent was not so easily arrested. Snatching the knife from her teeth, she reached around and slashed the blade across the inert man’s chest, rupturing the pockets of air in the buoyancy compensator. The sudden release of air was sufficient to slow the deadly express ride. She soon had the unmistakable sensation of dropping once more.

  Releasing her grip on the lifeless diver, she swam a tight circle around his slowly descending form. Her fingers slipped capriciously on the quick release buckle of his waist belt, but once it was free, it took only a couple tugs on the shoulder straps to loosen the SCUBA gear.

  The gear she had borrowed from Muldoon was of an older generation than that being used by the unknown assault team. Her bib-style buoyancy compensator was considerably less effective than the vests used by the opposition. Nevertheless, a quick jet of air into the bladder, combined with a few gentle kicks, halted the downward plunge long enough for her to get her bearings.

  Through blurred vision she could just make out the last surviving diver, the one she had wounded in the leg, struggling to make his ascent. Too distant to pose a threat, she ignored him and focused on more urgent matters.

  The captured SCUBA rig was equipped with a digital depth gauge, which indicated that she had risen to four fathoms, missing an essential decompression stop. There was no way of knowing if she had expelled enough of the nitrogen from her blood stream to avoid the painful effects of decompression sickness. Hoping to take back some of what she had lost, she treaded water where she was for several minutes, breathing away the excess nitrogen and recuperating from the exertion of her battle.

  The hazy outline of Muldoon’s boat was visible overhead. The thirty feet of water separating her from the surface magnified the view, compensating for the blurring of the image. Harder to distinguish were the four small keels that bobbed just off her fantail. Too small to be boats, she ascertained. Jet skis?

  From the onset of the attack, she had been subconsciously working through two scenarios. The first, admittedly difficult to accept, was that Muldoon had double-crossed her, sending his buddies down to finish her off as soon as the treasure was revealed. She hadn’t really considered that to be the case; it was more of a niggling suspicion without any basis in reality. In fact, the more she saw, the less she believed that the crusty old Aussie could have possibly marshaled the commando-style attack force. No, if Muldoon had ever had access to divers and equipment of that caliber, he would not have waited twenty years for her to come calling.

  No amount of rationalizing could absolve her from the inescapable conclusion. The unknown conspiracy that had slain Walter Aimes, and perhaps stolen the first Trinity from the museum exhibit, had found her. Worse, they had played her. The stolen map was just so much cheese at the end of the maze, an obvious puzzle that she had counted herself clever for solving. In winning over Muldoon she had bridged the final chasm that prevented them from capturing the second Trinity.

  What they hadn’t counted on was a mouse with teeth. She still possessed this new Trinity and perhaps with it the element of surprise.

  Impatient to get to the surface, she skipped the last thirty seconds required by the standard decompression tables and began kicking for the surface. The current had not carried her too far from the bow of Muldoon’s boat, and she broke the surface thirty feet from the vessel.

  Wiping the seawater from her eyes, she got her first clear look at the boat since losing her mask. Four brightly colored Yamaha Wave Runners drifted on tether lines from the aft railing, but there was no sign of movement aboard the vessel. If the divers had utilized the personal watercraft, one rider for each, then perhaps they had left the boat unguarded. Nevertheless, she was wary, and something told her that this wasn’t over yet.

  In capturing the diver’s SCUBA gear, she had also liberated another harpoon gun to replace the one she had lost, along with half a dozen barbed spears. Before surrendering the tanks and apparatus to the deep, she cut the quiver loose and looped the spear gun over her shoulder. The single-shot weapon was a poor substitute for a firearm, but it was better than nothing. Her Beretta, secure in her backpack in Muldoon’s office, wasn’t going to do her any good.

  Keeping her head above the waterline and her eyes on the boat, she side-stroked quickly to the fantail, threading her way past the dormant Wave Runners. Before ascending the short ladder onto the bow, she kicked off her flippers. With any luck, she wouldn’t be swimming again for a long time.

  She raised her head slowly until just one eye peeked over the gunwale. There was still no sign of activity. Emboldened, she hefted the spear gun and rolled over the rail, dropping into a crouch. The deck lay more or less completely exposed. A few paces away, a descending gangplank led below decks, and right beside it a ladder rose to the flying bridge. Mira thought she could see the top of Muldoon’s head over the backrest of the captain’s chair. She crept forward, waving the gun back and forth, her finger tense on the trigger. This was a trap and she knew it.

  Mira felt her dread increasing by degrees. She crept toward the ascending ladder then quickly climbed to the flying bridge. At the top, she spun around, covering the deck once more with the harpoon gun, but there was still no sign of activity. A backward step brought her abreast of Muldoon. She knew without looking that he was dead. The cause of his death was not immediately discernible, but his sightless ey
es bespoke the agony that had preceded it. His assailants had tortured him; perhaps his heart had given out.

  “Damn you,” she whispered, kneeling before him. “He was a harmless old man.”

  “He kept the secret to the bitter end, for all the good it did him.”

  The unexpected voice chilled her like another immersion in the deep. She rolled back from Muldoon’s corpse, scanning for the unseen speaker. It had been a woman’s voice, and Mira had a pretty good idea of who it was.

  “Rachel Aimes, I presume.” She spoke in a low tone, but loud enough to be heard on the deck in the area immediately below the bridge.

  Menacing laughter was the only answer. Mira eased forward, staying low. Rachel’s minions had not hesitated to use lethal force below the waves; it was doubtful that she would meet with anything less above. They had already killed one innocent man, or two if Walter Aimes was included, to achieve their goal. Now that Mira had done all the work, there was no reason left to keep her alive.

  “We offered him money,” Rachel volunteered, the voice definitely coming from the starboard side of the boat. “But that just convinced him that the treasure was worth even more.”

  Mira crawled forward to the lip of the ladder then risked a quick look in all directions. No one. With as much stealth as she could manage, she gripped the ladder, holding her insteps against the outer railings, and slid down. As soon as she landed, she spun around, ready to fire the spear gun.

  “It’s ironic really. He trusted you and ended up leading us right to what he protected for so long. A sucker for a pretty face, and it cost him his life.”

  The voice hadn’t come from the same place. Rachel was moving as she talked, stalling, trying to lure Mira into an ambush.

  Forewarned is forearmed, she thought grimly, then risked an answer. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

  Rachel’s manic laughter echoed in peals off the ocean’s surface, just around the edge of the cabin on the port side. “No. But I wanted to.”

  Mira somersaulted forward toward the sound of the voice, coming up with the harpoon tip aimed at the place she imagined Rachel to be, but her opponent had already fled. She caught a glimpse of Rachel’s blond hair trailing around the forward end of the superstructure.

  A premonition told that she had indeed fallen into the trap. She threw herself to the right, twisting about and firing the harpoon. At the same instant, the deck ahead of the place where she had been a moment before erupted in a spray of splinters.

  Her harpoon sailed over the head of the target that her eyes had not even seen. Had the man been standing, her spear would have struck dead center in his chest. Of course, given that the bulky mercenary she had encountered twice before in New York usually took the precaution of wearing Kevlar armor, better marksmanship probably would have counted for little. He was not, however, standing, but lying prone in a sniper’s crawl, wielding the familiar AK-47 assault rifle.

  The unexpected resistance startled the mercenary, causing him to relax his finger on the trigger of his weapon for only a second. Without time to reload, Mira simply hurled the useless spear gun at him. When he threw up his hands to prevent the metal tube from striking his face, she leapt into motion.

  Using her legs like coiled springs, she launched herself backward into a shoulder roll, spinning one hundred eighty degrees on her back as she went, so that when her feet touched the deck, she was again facing away from the gunman. Rising up into a sprinter’s crouch, she rounded the corner of the superstructure before the mercenary could find the trigger of his weapon. She heard his primate voice cursing as he struggled to rise and give chase.

  Suddenly her path was blocked. As Mira skidded to a halt, nearly stumbling in the oversized diving booties, she found herself facing Rachel Aimes. The statuesque blonde stood four inches taller than Mira, slender and athletic, but without a trace of femininity in her stance. Like her comrade, she wore a one-piece black wet suit. Rachel’s suit was also far less cumbersome out of the water than the antique Mira was wearing. Yet it was not the superior maneuverability of her antagonist that caused Mira to stop dead in her tracks, but rather a Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW—a nine-millimeter submachine gun that was a favorite of anti-terrorist operatives and SWAT teams—held in a two-handed grip, ready to fire.

  A humorless smile touched Rachel’s full lips, a death’s head grin on a runway model, then her eyes dropped to the mesh bag slung over Mira’s shoulder. “Give it up, sister dear. You can’t win.”

  Mira’s eyes narrowed defiantly. She heard the thumping of footsteps behind her as the Rachel’s companion closed in to complete the trap. Defenseless and caught between two heavily armed opponents, she had only one answer for the woman demanding her surrender.

  “Guess again.”

  SIX

  Rachel’s smile slipped a notch. Their trap had backfired. Turner, the leader of the mercenary group that had, in spite of considerable but acceptable losses, pulled off the museum job, had now stupidly placed himself directly behind the target. She could not fire at Mira without hitting him, nor could he make use of the assault rifle, of which he was so fond, without killing his employer in the process. Her indecision unconsciously translated into a slight relaxing of the muscles in her arm, and the barrel of the machine pistol dropped imperceptibly.

  In a blur of motion, Mira spun, throwing a roundhouse kick that hit the other woman’s jaw with an audible thud. Rachel’s head snapped to one side, followed immediately by the rest of her, and the MP5 clattered to the deck.

  Turner had barely restrained himself from emptying the AK-47 as he rounded the corner, and now suffered from the same hesitation that had given Mira the advantage over his boss. But with Rachel down, he had a clear field of fire. Bracing the stock of the rifle under his arm, he pulled the trigger, spraying the transom with 7.62mm ammunition. Mira was already gone, however, having sprung over Rachel’s dazed form and out of his line of fire.

  Turner released the trigger and ran to the edge of the deck just in time to see Mira arcing gracefully out over the water. He swung the AK-47 over the side and pulled the trigger at the same instant she pierced the gently rippling swells, vanishing again from his view. The water erupted in a sprinkling of impact splashes until the magazine went empty and gun clicked in silent impotence.

  With the target lost from sight, Turner knelt to assist Rachel. His actions might have seemed more chivalrous had she not been paying him so well. The dazzling blonde woman did not look quite as lovely with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. There was a rough abrasion on her cheek where Mira’s foot had connected, a dark bruise would later color her jaw line. She stared uncomprehending for a moment, then her eyes widened in rage. “Where is she?”

  “Over the side.”

  They both rose and stared across the gunwale into the place where Mira had dived. The blank serenity of the spot was shattered as one of the Wave Runners roared along the side of the boat, the rider instantly identifiable by her spiky auburn hair.

  Turner reflexively raised the assault rifle, but he had forgotten to reload and the trigger simply refused to move. Helpless, he turned to his companion.

  “After her!”

  Rachel’s strident voice put both of them in motion. Ignoring the fleeing Mira, they rushed to the stern of the boat, ready to mount the remaining watercraft and give chase. Even before they arrived however, they could see the three Wave Runners adrift, more than a dozen yards off the fantail.

  Rachel drew up short, turning to stare in the direction Mira had gone. In a voice that dripped with cold menace, said simply: “Call our friends.”

  When high-velocity bullets strike the surface of water, they react the way they would if striking concrete. The lead is disfigured by the impact and often fragments completely. Once in a while, they might continue on for a few feet or so, but their lethal properties are almost completely negated in the liquid medium.

  Mira’s dive took her deep enough to avoid Turner’s parting barrage,
though that consideration was only incidental. She had another goal and immediately turned back toward the boat, staying about a fathom below the keel until she reached the fantail. She could hear the voices of her foes, only beginning to recover from her desperate escape and reckoned that time was on her side.

  She contemplated starting up all of the Wave Runners and sending them away under their own power, but the mini boats were specifically designed to turn in circles if no one was at the controls. She had to settle for simply cutting them loose and giving each a good shove, trusting wind and sea to do the rest. Only when all four of the craft were bobbing free of their tethers did she risk firing up the engine on the one she had chosen to ride.

  Keeping her stance low to avoid being thrown from the craft, she opened the throttles to full and roared away from the boat. She caught a brief glimpse of Rachel Aimes and the hulking mercenary that accompanied her, but did not look back.

  Once out of the lee shadow cast by the boat, the chop increased dramatically, causing the deck of the Wave Runner to bounce violently under Mira’s feet. She kept her knees flexed, riding out the jolts like a skier in mogul field. Leaning to her right, she angled the watercraft toward shore, carving a ninety-degree turn that put her on a direct heading for Muldoon’s harborage.

  The larger geographical details of the coastline, the fjords, crags and even the snowy skyline of the Andes, were easily discernible, but the smaller details were a blur. Trees were indistinguishable from shadows; specks in the foreground floating on the surface could have been rocks or anchored fishing boats. But as the separating distance decreased, the clarity of her vision improved. She could easily make out the three small shapes, and another that dwarfed its satellites, rocketing out of the inlet on an intercept course.