by Jack Du Brul
Trailing a dilating plume of oil smoke, they streaked past the eight-hundred-foot cruise ship. Like fans at a stadium, a wave of arms shot up along the ship’s rail as stunned passengers watched the JetRanger’s progress, then turned in unison as the two choppers chasing her came into view.
With a quick scan, Lauren checked the cockpit gauges and knew that they’d never make Gamboa. The only alternative was setting down on the water. They might be able to hover long enough for her and the men in the hold to get clear but Carlson would surely die when the blades hit. And then what? They would be stuck without cover while the gunship stood off and machine-gunned them one by one. There had to be another alternative.
She looked up just as another massive cargo ship rounded a corner in the meandering canal and Lauren knew what she had to do. “Carlson, there!” She pointed ahead.
The vessel lumbering through the canal was a utilitarian box set on an unstreamlined hull. Without porthole or window, she rose from the waterline to her top deck in sheer walls of steel-a height of 87 feet, making her barely wider than she was tall. Her single deck was an expanse of metal measuring 750 feet long by 106 wide, punctured by a one-story pilothouse hunched close to her blunt bows. Her hull was painted in rust-streaked green while the deck was a faded yellow. By the thick red band showing above the waves, Lauren could tell she was running near empty.
She’d spent enough time in Panama to recognize the ship as a car carrier, probably deadheading back to Japan or Korea from Europe. Within the enormous box of her hull would be between eight and twelve decks, connected by ramps, for her load of automobiles. Some of these ships, she knew, could carry up to seven thousand cars and their holds resembled the parking garage at an urban airport, only fully enclosed and capable of traversing the globe at twenty knots. There would be loading ramps at her stern and starboard midships that could be lowered like medieval draw-bridges to allow vehicles to be driven directly to their assigned parking spaces.
As they got closer to the auto carrier, she saw where the ship’s funnel rose like a pimple at the vessel’s stern. Near it was an access box for a staircase. If they could land close enough to the stairs they might make it into the steel confines before the gunship cut them down.
Another rattle of autofire hit the JetRanger and suddenly she could no longer feel Carlson’s hands on the controls. She looked over. The Aussie pilot had let go of the sticks and clutched at his thigh, his fingers already slick with blood. Contorted with pain, he met her eye and nodded.
“I have the controls,” she said.
“How bad?” Bruneseau asked over the intercom, leaning farther into the cockpit to check on his man.
“Leg,” Carlson panted. “Bullet’s still in there. Oh, Jesus.”
Mercer hadn’t seen what had happened. The gunship had swung across the side of the JetRanger right into view. He fired a full clip, joined by a long burst from Foch, who was still strapped in at the other door. The gunship broke off, turning her tail to gain distance before twisting back again, her door gun pounding.
“Where’s the Gazelle?” Mercer shouted, a fresh magazine ready to be slapped home.
“I don’t know!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lauren cut in as the struggling chopper clawed its way up to the deck of the car carrier. “Prepare for a crash landing.”
“Gather the weapons,” Bruneseau added. “Run for the stairs as soon as we hit.”
The engine coughed again as Lauren fought to gain enough altitude to clear the ship’s railing, still thirty feet above the helicopter. They were less than a hundred yards from the slab side of the car carrier, and it seemed the vector she’d chosen wouldn’t be enough. She goosed the engine again, wincing as it skipped, her concentration solely on getting them down safely.
Like a thoroughbred taking a fence, the JetRanger gathered itself at the last moment and flashed over the railing just as the engine quit. The rotor’s momentum gave just enough lift to avoid a fatal crash but the skids hit the deck hard enough to snap one strut and pitch them forward. Sliding across the rain-slicked surface, the aircraft hit a stanchion and stopped dead. Carlson managed to shut off the fuel as the men in the hold scrambled out into the storm. The Gazelle was closing fast from two hundred yards off, while the gunship was out of sight below the side of the ship.
Ignoring the plight of the others, Bruneseau ran for the staircase door. Lauren had already hit the quick disconnect on her safety harness, so when Mercer yanked open her door, she jumped down, ducking because the chopper’s lop-sided position allowed one arc of the turning rotor to cut just three feet from the deck. He pushed her toward where Bruneseau held open the stairway door and swung around to help Foch, who’d just eased the pilot out of the chopper.
Without warning, the gunship appeared over the railing. Her rotors kicked up a tornado whirlwind that drove sheets of rain across the deck. Because of the wall of swirling water, the gunner’s aim was off by a few feet. He had to muscle the.30 caliber to correct. Mercer was holding up Carlson’s right arm, which left his own right hand free. The range was fifty feet and even one-handed he couldn’t miss. He raised his FAMAS on its sling and began firing even before he had centered his aim. Sparks exploded along the ship’s railing in a trail leading toward the hovering chopper. The Chinese door gunner was almost set when the trail reached him. His body bucked against his safety straps and jerked like a marionette as Mercer poured in the fire. He only went slack when the gunship heaved itself away from the auto carrier.
“Come on,” Lauren’s alto sounded over the rain and the echo of combat. The Gazelle was fast approaching.
With Carlson between them, Mercer and Foch ran for the stairs, hunching under the rounds Bruneseau sprayed over their heads to keep the Chinese troop copter at bay. Once safely inside the stairwell, Mercer slammed the door. The stairwell was a steel shaft that dropped straight down for eleven decks, with scissor stairs that cut the distance in steep zigzags. Heavy doors led to each of the separate decks. Mercer passed Carlson off to Rene and reached for the fire ax clipped to the wall. He turned back and with one perfectly placed blow wedged the blade into the gap between the door and the jamb.
“That’ll hold them for a few minutes.” His breathing was already returning to normal as adrenaline drained from his bloodstream.
“I got us here, boys.” Lauren’s face glistened and her eyes shone with the triumph of her successful landing. “It’s up to you to get us out again.”
“There should be a lifeboat one deck above the waterline,” Mercer informed them, hoping the auto carrier was outfitted the same as the super tanker he’d once been on near Seattle. “It’s launched down a rail like a bobsled. If we can reach it we might be able to get away.”
“If the Gazelle lands, it won’t be able to take off in time to catch us before we reach shore, but what about the gunship?”
Bruneseau had a valid point. Mercer was about to say that he suspected the other chopper would clear out. The crews on all three ships that had witnessed the aerial duel would be contacting the Panamanian authorities. He didn’t think Liu could afford to answer the kinds of questions they would ask if his chopper was identified. Before he could voice his reply, bullets pounded the door and harmlessly bounced away.
“Later.” Foch rebraced Carlson and started down the stairs. “Let’s go.”
They’d descended just two decks when an explosion blasted down the shaft, a heavy wall of hot air that was immediately sucked back up due to pressure change. The door had just been blown from its hinges by a grenade or satchel charge. A dozen rounds were fired into the antechamber at the head of the stairs, and when the Chinese received no return fire, they’d come pouring down the stairs like banshees.
Burdened by the injured pilot, the team would never be able to stay ahead of the troops. They had to get out of the stairwell.
Mercer opened the next door they reached, waved them through and closed it gently behind them. All five of them stopped short whe
n they first encountered the cavernlike cargo deck, struck dumb by its enormity. In front of them stretched an enclosed space large enough to store eight hundred automobiles in rows marked on the floor like a parking lot. Yet the deck was empty, its uniformity only broken by support columns as thick as trees and structural baffles that shored the long walls like a cathedral’s buttresses. Because the area was one hundred feet wide and eight hundred long, its low ceiling felt unnaturally squashed, like some subterranean realm where untold tons of earth bore down on them. The few lightbulbs merely served to accentuate the shadows and add to the eerie claustrophobia. Only when their eyes adjusted to the dim light did they see a ramp amidships that descended from the deck above and curled around to connect to the next one down. Similar ramps were next to them at the stern. The air tasted metallic.
“Formidable!” Foch had never imagined such a structure.
A moment later, what sounded like a dozen feet raced past the door and continued down toward the bottom of the ship.
“Once they realize we’re not down there,” Lauren said, “they’ll be coming back up to check each deck.”
“We should seek out the crew,” Bruneseau suggested.
Mercer looked at him sharply. “Negative. We involve them and they’re as good as dead. After what we’ve seen, the Chinese won’t hesitate to kill a few civilians to stop us.”
The agent’s face reddened, angered at Mercer’s presumption of authority. “What do you suggest?”
Looking around the echoing hold, Mercer sought inspiration and found nothing. All he knew was that standing by the door was the quickest way to get caught. “Follow me,” he said without a clear plan and began running toward the distant set of ramps.
The others had no choice but to keep up.
The equipment slapping against his uniform sounded like a one-man band to Mercer as he jogged to the amidships ramp, certain that the pursuers would burst through the door at any second. He started up the gentle slope. Carlson slowed the others so they reached him seconds later. They eased the injured man to the deck. Lauren looked at Mercer, her eyes at once quizzical and confident. She lifted a brow.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” he answered, peering farther up the ramp and wondering what lay on the deck just out of view. He strode up the rest of the way and his answer crouched before him in a spectacular shade of blue so deep that it seemed to absorb the light cast by the bulbs secured to the ceiling girders.
Appreciated by auto enthusiasts as near perfection in vehicle design, and by art lovers who responded to its low-slung crisp lines, the beauty of the Bentley Continental R was undeniable. It seemed unable to suppress its luxury in even these drab surroundings. With a curb weight of three tons, the English-built touring sedan easily managed a top speed of a hundred and fifty miles per hour thanks to a whisper-quiet turbocharged V-8. Unparalleled in safety, comfort, and style, the only thing keeping such a magnificent machine from every garage in America was its base price of $275,000.
Mercer had never considered himself a “car guy,” even if he did drive an XJS Jaguar convertible. But the smile that spread across his face as he gazed at the Bentley was one part desire and one part gratitude. He knew how to get them to the lifeboat and do it in style. He turned to motion the others up the ramp and strode to the Continental. The paintwork was like satin when he brushed his hands on the flared fender.
“Looks like someone in Asia is getting themselves a new toy,” Lauren said as she took in the car.
“They might not like the condition it’s going to be in when it gets there,” Mercer remarked offhandedly and stripped protective plastic from the windows. “Anyone up for a little ride?”
Foch stared at him. “It can’t be that easy.”
Mercer didn’t say a word, just swung open the driver’s door and eased himself into the leather seat. Because so many cars were stored on these ships, it was logical that the vehicles’ keys were left in the ignitions. Once he’d turned the key, the only indication the engine was running was the smooth jump on the tachometer. The Bentley purred.
He gave Foch a disarming smile. “It can be that easy. The Chinese will concentrate their search near the stern. We just drive down these midship ramps until we reach the deck where the side loading door’s located. From there we motor on down to the stern and hop into the lifeboat.”
“Why not just walk?”
“Screw that, mate,” Carlson said. His face was pale and clammy. They hadn’t had time yet to tie a tourniquet, something Lauren did now with the pilot’s belt, so he’d lost a lot of blood.
Bruneseau opened the rear door and slid in to help Carlson into the backseat without jostling his injured leg any further. Lauren passed around the front of the car and stepped in next to Mercer. Settling into the opulent car, she couldn’t resist saying, “Okay, James, once I’m done at the salon, I want to do a little shopping along Fifth Avenue before the cotillion.”
Mercer chuckled. “Is this rotten attempt at humor normal or a reaction to stress?”
“Drive on, or you’re fired,” she shot back haughtily. “And don’t dirty the seats with that unlaundered uniform of yours. I’ve warned you about that before, James.”
Tipping an imaginary driver’s cap, Mercer said, “Yes, ma’am,” and put the car in gear.
Reining in the powerful engine so he wouldn’t chirp the Pirelli P-Zeros, Mercer took them down the slope and around to the next ramp. Foch and Bruneseau lowered their windows so the stubby barrels of their FAMAS rifles poked over the sills. Around they went, corkscrewing down four more empty decks. At each landing, Mercer paused to study the stern of the ship, checking to see if the guards had yet doubled back up the emergency stairwell. So far nothing.
Reaching the seventh deck they found it half full of BMWs of every size and color, a glittering array that sparkled like jewels. As Mercer began to twist around to keep descending, he saw two figures dash from around a car. He stomped the gas and the rear end of the Bentley twitched before traction control took over. A shout reverberated off the hold’s steel walls followed by the buzz of the Chinese type-87 assault rifles. The unexpected confrontation had left their aim off by several dozen feet but served to alert the rest of the team scattered throughout the huge ship. Bruneseau didn’t have time to fire back.
Mercer fishtailed the sedan around the corner, popping the brakes with his left foot while gunning the throttle with his right. The heavy vehicle bottomed out on the end of the ramp, leaving a shower of sparks as he repeated the trick and threw them into a four-wheel drift that cooked rubber from the tires. Stomping the accelerator again he almost had them down another level when a second two-man patrol near the stern spotted them and fired a wild barrage. The Bentley twisted out of sight.
Carlson whimpered with each violent turn.
“They know where we’re going,” Rene said as Foch prepared to fire out the window when they hit the bottom of the next ramp.
“No shit!” Lauren shouted back in a tone that sounded defensive of Mercer and derisive of Bruneseau. “What’d you expect?”
Mercer ignored the exchange and concentrated on his driving. Not knowing how many troops the Gazelle carried, he decided to get off the ramps and make a run for the stern on the next level.
The undercarriage scraped the deck again. Using his control over the pedals he managed to keep the Bentley in a low gear as he shot between rows of Volkswagens. The engine began to wind up, and when he took his foot off the brake the automatic transmission shifted and suddenly they were accelerating past forty miles per hour. Ahead was a wall of steel and a line of Jettas facing outward. So many years playing with his Jag in the crazy traffic around Washington taught him how to judge distances and speed better than most and he twisted the wheel at the precise moment. The car drifted closer to the little Volkswagens but missed them by inches as he lined up for the stern ramp. A lone soldier was at the bottom of the slope and looked up just in time to see the Bentley bearing down on him. He dove o
ver the edge of the ramp and had almost vanished from their view when Foch put two rounds into his body.
Mercer turned at the next deck and had to drive around the lifeless body sprawled across the hood of a Mercedes ML-320 SUV. Unlike the other decks, which had eight feet of headroom, the ceiling here lofted at least twenty feet. Halfway down the length of the vessel, Mercer could see the drawbridge door cut into the starboard side of the auto carrier. Next to the larger stern ramp was a symbol indicating the lifeboat station was one deck closer to the waterline.
He also noted that this level was nearly full of cars. Only two long alleys running toward the bows allowed any kind of movement. He suspected that the next deck down would be even more fully loaded to keep the ship’s center of gravity low. He braked at the stern ramp. “Everyone out.”
“We have one more deck to go.”
“Use the stairs. I don’t think we’ll have any room to maneuver the car down there.”
Lauren reached for the door then noticed Mercer hadn’t shut off the engine. “Don’t even think about it,” she said sharply, a strong hand on his wrist ready to pull his hand from the steering wheel.
He didn’t meet her eye. “If I don’t distract them, you’ll never get clear.”
“We stay together,” she snapped.
“On the midship ramp!” Foch pointed with his rifle to where two men ran at them. He was about to fire but Mercer reached behind him and pushed off his aim.
“Get going, the car’s blocking their view.” Behind the idling Bentley was a door to the stairwell. “Keep sharp but it should be clear. I think the gunship’ll be gone by now.”
“What about you?” Lauren’s eyes had dilated.
Fear or concern, Mercer mused. “I have no intention of sacrificing myself. Just be ready to pick me up.”
“How are you getting off?”
Mercer pointed to the upright loading door in the distance. “I’m going to fly.”
“Are you out of your-”
He cut her off with a shove when Foch and Bruneseau reached the staircase door with Carlson. Reluctantly she joined them and Mercer took off with a squeal of rubber.