Land, Jon

by [Kamal

  Brickland signaled her to stay behind cover and wait while he pressed on. His confident gaze assured her he’d be back, but on the chance he failed she knew it would be up to her to finish this.

  Only seconds passed before he returned, but time had slowed to a crawl. Danielle knew Brickland had eliminated the two posted guards, but he was barely even breathing hard.

  He gestured for her to follow him on.

  They reached the spot where the guards had been and crept into the mostly empty remainder of the shed. Brickland signaled Danielle to move to the right while he shifted to the left in search of Ben. If neither found him here in the shed, then they knew he would be on board the Muna Zarifa.

  Brickland spun away, Danielle following almost instantly. She curled around a line of empty cargo containers and pressed her back against one for cover. She was continuing her wide sweep of the shed around to the dock when a pair of the garage-style doors rattled closed, stealing a measure of the shed’s light. She turned that way and glided into the newfound darkness until gunfire froze her: shotgun blasts interspersed with rapid bursts of automatic fire.

  Brickland!

  She whirled into the open and sprinted toward the source of the shots, cutting across the darkness and dodging the light. More fire came from a different angle, followed by screams this time, and she veered that way down a narrow aisle between two long rows of weather-beaten cargo containers that looked like rusted hulks splashed bright by the sun. She swung left and saw a huge forklift piled high with individual brown bags coming straight for her. She turned to run, but the driver stopped short, hurling the bags from their perch. They crashed into her and she fell, scrambling free quickly and scampering to her feet.

  She stooped to retrieve the submachine gun she’d dropped when two men with rifles appeared amid the spilled bags, barrels angling straight for her.

  Danielle stood back up slowly with her hands in the air, and one of the men slammed her against the nearest container. A harsh search followed, netting them only the pistol she had jammed through her belt. The second man slapped her hard in the face and she felt blood trickling from her nose. Then he dragged her through an open bay door beneath a huge dangling crane toward the gangway leading up to the Muna Zarifa, while the other held his distance with a submachine gun trained on her back.

  Danielle moved stiffly, expecting Brickland to come to her rescue at any moment. She figured he was waiting until she was on the gangway, where the narrow confines would help swing the odds in his favor. Then they would rush the ship together, in a hail of fire, after Ben.

  To her dismay there was no sign of him as she reached the gangway’s midpoint, or even when she neared its close.

  Once on deck, she saw the freighter’s smoke stack blow out huge plumes of smoke, horn blasting to signal her intention to get underway. Where was Brickland? Had he been ambushed, killed? Had the Russians inside the cargo hangar been lying in wait for both of them?

  Danielle’s escorts kept shoving, pushing, and prodding her down into one of the freighter’s massive cargo holds, stopping only when they reached a hidden door impossibly built into the hull itself. Danielle shook the illusion off and realized she was looking at a secret compartment.

  A brief exchange followed and then they forced her inside, where she came face to face with Ben and the stocky Russian standing next to him.

  * * * *

  W

  e found hersnooping aroundthe hangar,”Ben heardone ofDanielle’s escorts tell Krechensky. “With these,” the Russian added, and produced a pistol and submachine gun.

  “She was alone?”

  “No. There was another man.”

  “One?”

  The Russian nodded. “He killed two of our men. Then I think we shot him.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “We haven’t found the body.”

  Krechensky turned to one of his massive bodyguards. “Tell the captain he is to get underway immediately.”

  The hulk grunted his acknowledgment and hurried out of the secret hold. Krechensky turned to Ben.

  “Others will be coming. We must put distance between them.”

  “With us still on board?” Ben posed, trying not to let his eyes linger on Danielle.

  “I call for helicopter once we’re at sea. Fun machine to ride. Just bought it last month.” Krechensky turned toward Danielle. “That way we can dump her body.” He looked at his two remaining hulks. “But first we have talk with her, see what enemies out there we don’t know we have.”

  The two giants took a pair of twin steps forward, mirror images of each other. Ben watched as Danielle remained stock still, not giving an inch. He was calculating distances and his chances of grabbing a weapon, when gunfire from the foredeck echoed through the Muna Zarifa.

  * * * *

  Chapter 63

  I

  n the moment of confusion that followed, Danielle and Ben found each other’s eyes and silently acknowledged what they had both realized:

  Frank Brickland was on board!

  Ben thought he saw Danielle nod, all but imperceptibly, and knew she was giving him a signal.

  Ben lunged. Krechensky didn’t even see him until the moment of impact that spun both of them against the bulkhead. Before the Russian could respond, Ben smashed an elbow into his throat and tore the big pistol from under his jacket. Krechensky gagged and grabbed his damaged windpipe with both hands as he fell to the floor.

  The Russian’s pistol was a forty-five caliber, old U.S. Army issue. Ben had never fired one before and when he started pulling the trigger it showed. He jerked the first shots hopelessly high, his ears numbed from the echo. But his eyes caught the two remaining hulks whirling to draw their weapons and the two workers who’d brought Danielle down here bringing theirs up. Instinct focused his aim on the hulking bodyguards and he began squeezing the trigger again.

  He saw the throat of one of them explode in a burst of red, that man’s gun lost before he found his trigger. The other looked as though he was being jerked backward by a rope, the big bullets punching into him before Ben dropped to a squat and turned to face the other gunmen.

  One of them was writhing on the floor, clawing at his eyes where Danielle had no doubt focused her attack, his submachine gun forgotten on the other side of the door. She was still struggling with the second, pummeling him with blows as he too kept trying to steady his pistol on Ben. The barrel flashed orange and a shot clanged through the steel hold.

  Then another bullet zipped by Ben’s head, fired from somewhere else. He felt its heat and swung back toward the second hulking bodyguard he had shot. The big man’s stomach had taken a forty-five round dead center, the shirt over it shredded and smoking from the heat of the round and escaping blood. Tattered material mixed with his ruptured innards, a wail of agony like a baby’s cry piercing from him as he slumped down the wall but bringing his pistol up again nonetheless.

  No, he couldn’t be!

  Ben resteadied Krechensky’s forty-five and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Eight bullets, and he’d used them all. Not fourteen or more, as in a nine-millimeter.

  How could I be so stupid!

  He was staring helplessly down the barrel of the dying hulk’s gun when the man’s head snapped sideways, blood pouring from his temple as he finally sprawled lifeless. Ben swung to his right and saw Danielle ten feet away with her finger on her assailant’s trigger, the smoking gun still grasped in his hand while they continued to struggle.

  ‘‘ AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!’’

  Ben heard a guttural wail an instant before Krechensky slammed into him. The Russian’s hands dug into his scalp and cracked his head into the steel container packed with drugs. Spittle ran from both corners of Krechensky’s mouth and his breath came in short wheezes thanks to the damage Ben had done to his windpipe. Krechensky pounded him against the container again and again to return the favor.

  Danielle was so focused on the gun loc
ked between her and her assailant that she only dimly recorded Ben’s struggle. The man made the mistake of trying to slam her into the bulkhead, opening up his face for an elbow that shattered his nose. The pain made him relinquish enough grip on the pistol for Danielle to tear it free and fire three shots into him. She was turning toward Ben when she saw the other man she’d temporarily blinded groping for a submachine gun that dangled over the doorjamb.

  It took two shots to drop him before he reached it and Danielle again swung toward Ben. She had sighted down her barrel on the stocky Russian when his third hulking bodyguard exploded back through the doorway and smashed into her.

  Danielle’s breath fled her like it had been sucked right out. She gasped for air, lost her bearings, and felt the hulk’s thumbs close on her windpipe. She heard herself gasping, bulging eyes recording everything before her in eerie surreal motion. The hulk drew his clenched hands upward, sneering, and Danielle was dimly aware of her feet dangling in the air.

  Across the compartment, something like a warm blanket had spread over Ben by the sixth impact against the steel container. His hands sought grasp on something, anything, to deaden the impact, and closed on a latch already weakened by the blows from his own body. It gave as soon as he grabbed it and he tore the loosened panel free with his fingers. It came away bent and jagged at the rear. He tightened both hands upon it. Then, when Krechensky jerked him backward yet again, Ben added his own momentum to the move and jammed the jagged side of the panel toward the Russian’s eyes.

  He felt the makeshift weapon dig home, Krechensky’s screech ringing in his ears. The Russian’s hands groped for his face as he stumbled away, wailing in agony, bouncing off the walls as he shook his head in all directions, fingers held as if to catch the blood running through them. Ben staggered and threw down his makeshift weapon, watching Krechensky slide to the floor writhing, head held between his knees.

  Ben swiped a sleeve across his face, clearing away enough of the blood leaking from his head wound to see Danielle kicking her dangling feet desperately. The hulk holding tight to her neck was shaking her, making her look like a rag doll as her features purpled toward death.

  Ben rushed him and pounded the man with a vicious series of wild blows. When they seemed to have no effect whatsoever, Ben swung toward the door and saw the discarded submachine gun propped up against the jamb.

  He scampered for the gun and was aiming even as he drew it to him. By the time he opened fire, Danielle’s hands hung useless by her sides. The switch must have been set on Semi, because the best the submachine gun would give him was single shots as quick as he could fire them. Ben started forward pulling the trigger, but the hulk seemed not to feel the bullets tear into him, refusing to let go his grasp on Danielle.

  Finally, in desperation, Ben pressed the barrel right against the man’s spine and fired again and again. The hulk’s whole body jerked as though he’d been shocked each time. But his hands still clutched Danielle’s throat, refusing to let go. Ben could smell the stench of burning fabric and could see the neat black charred holes in the hulk’s suit jacket that quickly reddened for each pull of the trigger.

  At last the hulk sank to his knees. Danielle collapsed to the floor, his hands still locked on her throat until Ben pried them free. She was unconscious and breathing shallowly. Ben felt the pulse in her neck as he lifted her to him. Her weight buckled his knees and they dropped together, Danielle ending up in his lap, her face still deeply discolored. Ben just sat there holding her, unable to move, when he felt a sudden shift of motion. He tensed, feeling the floor was being separated from him. Then his shoulders came to rest again against the bulkhead as the entire hold yawed.

  The Muna Zarifa had gotten underway.

  * * * *

  Chapter 64

  I

  t was the sound of Danielle’s breathing against him that snapped Ben alert. He looked at her and realized only one of his eyes was working.

  He probed a hand up fearfully, expecting to touch an empty socket where the eyeball used to be. But what he found was merely blood left over from the cracks Krechensky had given his skull.

  Krechensky!

  He remembered him just before an angry wail preceded the stocky Russian’s charge across the hold. Ben thrust Danielle from him and jammed a hand under the final hulk’s smoldering jacket for the pistol he’d glimpsed there.

  By the time he found it, Krechensky was reaching for him. Ben’s first bullet blew the Russian’s knee apart. Momentum carried him sideways and he crumpled near Danielle. He had swallowed her face in his huge hands, intending to slam her head into the bulkhead, when Ben wheeled and stuck the pistol against his skull. He pulled the trigger and the muffled splat of the gunshot was followed by a sound like mud hitting a wall. Ben felt a back-blast of skull fragments bite into his cheek and jaw and turned away from the spray of gore sliding down the steel bulkhead toward Krechensky’s near-headless corpse.

  The sounds of gunfire brought Danielle back to consciousness. She willed the strength back into her legs and tried to hoist herself to her feet, rasping out dry heaving coughs as if something was stuck deep in her throat. She couldn’t speak yet and was desperately mouthing words when Ben moved along the bulkhead to join her.

  They embraced and the slight sway reminded them the ship was in motion, reminded them they, too, had better move. The stench of bitter gunsmoke, pungent blood, and death itself assaulted them relentlessly as they started back for the door and the outer hold beyond. They were almost there when a shape rushed through it.

  Krechensky’s driver, a pistol rising in his hand. Ben threw himself in front of Danielle, heard the shot, felt something thud into him.

  Opened his eyes.

  The driver lay facedown at his feet, a blotch of red spreading across his back.

  Colonel Frank Brickland stood in the doorway to the secret hold, smoking pistol in hand. He stepped inside, looked around, and shook his head.

  “What a fucking mess.”

  * * * *

  I

  leave you alone for a few minutes and look what happens. ...”

  Ben had pressed part of his jacket against his skull to stanch the flow of blood. Danielle tried to take a step, stumbled, and fell over into Brickland’s arms.

  “Come on, ma’am, come on. I’m gonna need you. I’m gonna need both of you.” His breath smelled like stale cigars.

  Ben lowered his jacket and looked at him.

  “We ain’t waiting for the Coast Guard,” Brickland told them.

  * * * *

  B

  ack in the outer cargo hold, Brickland readied a submachine gun in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

  For Ben, the next few minutes became a blur of bodies and bullets. Brickland led the way down a narrow corridor atop a floor formed by a steel grate before starting the trek upward for the deck. Each step, it seemed, brought more gun-wielding crew members into their path. Brickland dealt with them impassively, barely slowing his pace as he rotated his fire between the submachine gun and the shotgun, turning the Muna Zarifa into a labyrinth of blood-splattered death.

  Brickland started up a steep, almost ladderlike staircase just before a pair of crew members’ footsteps clamored downward. The reverberations from the quick shotgun blasts in such narrow confines deafened both Ben and Danielle. Brickland waited to cover them, as they climbed over the corpses.

  They had reached the last sublevel before the main deck and had swung into the shaft of another narrow stairwell when a barrage of fire sprayed down at them. Ben brought Danielle to him, watching the colonel bound up the stairs firing his submachine gun in a constant scream. Bullets clanged everywhere around Ben, the dull screeches peppering his already weakened eardrums. A chorus of screams punctuated the end of the gunfire and then Brickland poked his head down into the shaft.

  “Coast’s clear,” he called. “Let’s go.”

  Ben could see daylight now and climbed anxiously toward it, Danielle slumped against
him again. Brickland reached the main deck first and had squatted to help Ben hoist her up, when a bullet caught the colonel in the thigh. He spun away and fired with both weapons as he toppled backward down through the hatchway. Ben caught him, cushioning his plunge, then eased Brickland carefully to the floor.

  “Shit,” Brickland rasped, his leg giving out under him. “And to think I was gonna push you two overboard, finish this myself.”