by Alex Archer
It was the move Annja had been waiting for. As the beast’s neck extended, Annja used her newfound dexterity to wield the sword with improved accuracy, slashing through the snake’s neck and severing its head.
36
Chatham Bay
Cocos Island
After shrugging off the snake’s corpse, Annja untied herself from the tree and swung down to the ground. The sun told her it was somewhere around 10:00 a.m., much later than she’d intended to sleep. Another consequence of her head injury, no doubt, and one she hadn’t thought to plan for in advance.
She hoped it wouldn’t cost her the race.
Annja wolfed down a quick breakfast of dried meat and fruit, followed it with some water and then shouldered her pack and got to her feet. The sleep had done her some good; her thoughts felt clearer and she wasn’t having as much difficulty seeing any longer.
None of which will matter if they beat you to the Pride, so get moving!
As she drew closer to the coast, the vegetation became a bit less tangled and she was able to make better progress. But she began to worry about running into Claire’s little band of thieves unexpectedly; they were all armed and wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet through her head. She began to move more circumspectly and keep her ears and eyes open for any sign of her former comrades.
She came to the river they’d followed upstream and cautiously moved along its bank until she reached the point where Dr. Knowles’s Kodiaks had been abandoned. When they’d first encountered them, Annja had thought they’d fallen victim to a crocodile attack. Now that she knew what was happening on the island, she suspected the damage had been done in a more intentional fashion. She just hoped she wouldn’t find their motor launches in the same condition.
It didn’t take long from that point to reach the beach where they’d started this whole disaster a few days before. Annja hung back in the trees at first, scoping out the beach before moving around to the point where they’d hidden the launches from the Pride.
That was when she got her first shock.
One of the launches was missing.
Fear that she was too late tried to overwhelm her, but she fought it down and ignored it. It would only be too late on the day they pried her sword from her cold fingers. Until then, there was always a chance.
She stepped out onto the beach, expecting the sniper’s bullet to reach out and touch her instantly, but none came. She hurried over to where the boats had been left and examined the ground. The slide marks indicating where the second boat had been slipped back into the water were partially filled with water but still held a fair bit of their cohesion. That meant they were reasonably new. She was just about to check the remaining launch when the sound of a boat’s engine caught her attention.
She looked out into the bay, toward the sound, and saw with dismay that someone had just fired up the engine to the Neptune’s Pride.
It wasn’t hard to figure out who that someone was.
They had beaten her to the beach.
Not by much, that was clear, but it might be enough.
Might be enough? You’ve got a functional boat right in front of you that can outrace the Pride over short distances. Get moving before you miss your shot!
Her examination of the launch killed that idea before it could get off the ground, however. The launch and the engine seemed intact; Claire was clever enough to know there was no sense in destroying a perfectly good boat when all one had to do was empty the gas tank.
Most of the precious liquid had seeped into the sand, leaving just dregs at the bottom of the tank. Those dregs might be enough to get her out to the Pride, but if she needed to do any maneuvering she’d be stranded in the open water.
Think, Annja, think.
Then she had it.
The Sea Dancer!
They had left it anchored in Wafer Bay, just around the promontory from Chatham. It wasn’t far, especially not by sea, and if the Dancer was still there, she shouldn’t have any trouble reaching it via the launch. If the Dancer wasn’t there any longer, she could always row into Wafer Bay and not be stranded out to sea as she might be if she tried to reach the Pride with what little gas was left.
Another glance out into the bay showed the Pride starting to move and that settled it for her. The Dancer, it was.
Annja moved to the prow of the boat and pushed it backward, out into the surf. She kept going until it floated free and then jumped aboard. She used an oar to get it turned in the right direction and then tried to start her up.
The engine coughed and then died.
“Come on, don’t do this...” she muttered and then tried again.
The engine coughed once, twice and then roared to life. Annja didn’t waste any time, just spun the wheel and headed the launch toward the mouth of the bay as quickly as she could.
She knew the sound of the launch’s motor wouldn’t be heard over the deeper, louder sound generated by the Pride’s diesel engines but she was worried someone might be looking back in her direction as she brought the boat out of the bay. All it would take would be a couple of decently aimed rifle shots and the boat would go from seaworthy to a crumbling wreck in moments. She kept herself down as low as she could, reducing the chance of taking a bullet, and only stood back up in the cockpit when she’d rounded the peninsula separating the two bays.
She had her fingers on both hands crossed as she raced into Wafer Bay, her eyes scanning the water ahead, searching for the Sea Dancer....
There she was, right where they’d left her days before. The sight of the expedition vessel bobbing in the gentle surf was one of the most beautiful things she’d seen in a while, Annja thought.
She turned the launch slightly to put it on an intercept course and gave it more gas.
The engine responded by sputtering several times, coughing once and then falling silent.
Annja pounded the instrument panel in frustration.
The boat had been moving at a good clip before the engine died so she let it coast in the proper direction while she tried to restart it. By the third attempt she knew her efforts were futile; the launch was out of gas and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Thankfully, the tide was going in and the launch was already moving toward the waiting vessel. With the help of an oar, she managed to get the launch over to the Sea Dancer with only a slight delay.
Once aboard, Annja went straight to the bridge and began firing up the engines. She’d been on enough boats of this size that it wasn’t long before she was hauling in the anchor in preparation to chase down the Pride.
Once that was stowed, Annja brought the Dancer about and pointed her at the open water to the east. It was roughly three hundred and thirty kilometers to the coast of Costa Rica. They would start to hit pleasure-boat traffic about one hundred and fifty kilometers offshore, which left her roughly the same amount of distance in which to catch Claire and the others in the Pride.
One hundred and fifty kilometers.
Didn’t seem like much but Annja was confident that she could do it.
And every passing kilometer brought her closer.
37
Open water
West of Costa Rica
It took her nearly two hours to overcome the Pride’s lead and then catch up with the vessel.
They were in international waters at this point, a long way from either Cocos Island or Costa Rica.
Which was good, given what she was going to do next.
She got close enough that she knew the pilot of the other boat, most likely Hugo, had to be aware of her now and so she reached up and flipped on the switch for the loudspeaker.
“Neptune’s Pride, this is Sea Dancer. You are harboring fugitives from justice and are ordered to stop and accept an immediate boarding. I say again, Neptune’s Pride, this is Sea Dancer, over.”
Annja began to steer the Dancer closer to the other vessel, crowding her, trying to get her to turn and heave to. The pilot of the other
vessel recognized her tactics and continually tried to avoid her. They crossed paths several times and came alarmingly close to collisions along the sides and sterns of the ships but none of that slowed the other vessel down. When such jockeying for position didn’t work after nearly ten minutes, the crew of the Pride tried something new.
They stuck a rifle barrel out the back window of the bridge and fired upon her.
Annja threw herself to the deck as high-velocity bullets shattered the glass along the front-bridge windows and ricocheted around the command room.
From her spot on the floor, Annja called them a few choice names while the hail of gunfire danced about the room. Thankfully, none of it hit her or any of the important bridge controls. It would be pure luck if it did, but then again, luck hadn’t been so kind to her on this trip of late and she fully expected every vital part of the bridge to take at least one, maybe two, bullets right through it.
When the firing slowed, Annja reached up, grabbed the wheel and put the Dancer on a forty-five-degree angle relative to the Pride, sending the two ships apart from each other.
As the Dancer pulled away from the slower and less maneuverable Pride, Annja put it on autopilot and went back to dig through some of the gear they had down below. She was specifically looking for something that might help her get the other boat to slow down enough to allow her to board it.
She found what she was looking for in the ship’s locker.
It was known as a prop fouler, and devices like it had become popular as antipirate devices following their use by conservationists who used them to jamb up the propellers of the Japanese whaling vessels they were protesting against. It was basically a large weighted net made from Kevlar rope that was thrown into the wake of the propellers where it would be sucked forward into the blades of the ship, effectively jamming them. Earlier versions had been basic nets that were easily unwound from the propellers by simply putting the engines into reverse. The latest versions were not only made out of stronger material, but were weighted like this one to make them much harder to get off the driveshaft and propeller blades.
Annja intended to use it on the Neptune’s Pride.
In order to do so, however, she was going to have to get close enough to cast it into the prop wash of the boat.
They, of course, would no doubt be shooting at her all the while.
Short of ramming the other vessel, however, she couldn’t think of any way to get them to heave to.
And then her gaze fell on the twin speedboats attached to the rear of the Dancer and she knew she’d found her solution.
* * *
TWENTY MINUTES LATER she added power to the engine and turned the Dancer back toward the Pride. The current course she’d set would take the Dancer right across the bow of the Pride.
It was simply intended as a ruse. While Claire’s and her cronies’ attention was on the Dancer, Annja would do a drive-by of the rear of the Pride and unleash her prop fouler. Once the boat was dead in the water, she could board when ready, take out Hugo and Marcos, capture Claire and return with them to the Incan city hidden inside Mount Yglesias.
A walk in the park, she thought, but knew it was anything but that simple.
Satisfied the controls were set in the proper sequence and that the ship would respond in the manner she needed it to when she needed it, Annja abandoned the bridge and headed aft. She hadn’t taken ten steps before the Dancer heaved hard to port and began to speed up. By the time she reached the main deck, the engines were running full tilt and the Dancer was cutting through the waves as gracefully as its namesake.
Someone on the Pride laid on the ship’s horn, firing off a long blast to try to warn the Dancer off, and Annja knew that she’d been seen. Things would go more quickly now.
By the time she reached the motor launches at the back of the Dancer, her recorded messages began to broadcast from the bridge, adding to the cacophony of sound and motion that she was building to hide her true intention.
“Sea Dancer to Neptune’s Pride. Sea Dancer to Neptune’s Pride. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. You are in violation of the UN and UNESCO charters on World Heritage artifacts. The captain of this vessel is exercising her right as a...”
The message went on for nearly ten minutes, full of quoted statutes and legalistic phrases. It was all complete garbage; Annja had cobbled it together with the help of the internet not fifteen minutes before. It wasn’t supposed to stand up in court, only distract them with her constantly droning voice. While her recorded words blathered on, Annja fired up the motor launch and disengaged from the Dancer, standing in the ship’s shadow for the time being to hide her presence.
Annja had hooked the proximity alarm to the intercom as well so that, too, filled the air between the vessels as the Dancer bore down on the slower Pride. She expected the alarm to cut off when the Pride turned out of the Dancer’s path, but as it continued Annja realized that the Pride wasn’t going to turn.
Hugo was playing chicken.
Annja laughed. Wait until he figures out there’s no one in the captain’s chair.
Satisfied that she’d created enough of a distraction to cover her run at the props, Annja eased the motor launch away from the Dancer and swung around the stern of the ship, beginning her attack run.
As she came out of the Dancer’s shadow, she got her first good look at the Pride. It was ahead and to the port of the Dancer and it was currently doing everything it could to make an emergency turn in the same direction.
She could clearly see that the captain had waited too long to start his evasive maneuvers and there was little to keep the two ships from colliding. The Pride had moved enough to keep the Dancer from impaling her on its prow, but it would still do some significant damage to the side of the vessel.
If she timed it right, she might be able to toss the prop fouler right at the moment of maximum confusion, when the two ships bumped into each other.
She just needed to get close enough.
Annja gunned the launch’s engine and nearly whooped aloud at the power beneath her feet. She sped toward the rear of the Pride, intent on ending this as quickly as she could. All she needed was one good throw....
Annja was expecting to take gunfire from the upper deck of the Pride, but no one noticed her kamikaze approach. She was able to steer right up next to the Pride’s stern and then throw the fouler with near-perfect accuracy into the churning water above the propeller blades.
As soon as she let the net go, she threw the wheel hard to port, cutting away from the big ship in a wide arc.
Seconds later the engines of the Pride went silent as the propellers seized, the fouler’s netting wrapping around the blades and driveshaft like a vise.
The larger vessel began to slow almost immediately.
Annja brought the launch around and headed for the side of the ship, intending to climb aboard as quickly as possible to end this fiasco once and for all. She was watching the upper deck of the Pride pretty closely as she approached, which was why she saw Hugo the moment he brought his rifle up and over the side of the ship.
Annja knew she was in trouble. She was totally exposed, just as she’d feared. With twenty-five feet to go before she reached the side of the ship, she’d never get there and get aboard before Hugo shot her. Nor could she hit the gas and escape; from his higher vantage point, he’d be able to shoot at her easily.
Hugo apparently assessed the situation in a similar way, for a wide smile crossed his face as he brought the rifle to his shoulder.
Annja did the only thing she could think of to do.
She dived overboard as the crack of a rifle shot filled the air.
38
Neptune’s Pride
East of Cocos Island
Annja heard the bullet zing by her shoulder as she dived into the sea. Images of frenzied sharks and blood in the water flashed through her mind.
She reversed directions as soon as she disappeared beneath the surface, swimming as fast as p
ossible for the safety that the hull of the Pride would provide. Dimly she heard more shots being fired and saw darting ghosts whip past her on their way to the depths as Hugo filled the area with gunfire.
Miraculously, none of the bullets hit her and she was able to reach the hull of the Pride without injury. That, of course, left her with a new problem—how to surface for more air without getting shot by Hugo.
A problem she needed to solve very quickly.
Her lungs were already screaming at her to open her mouth and breathe, despite the small issue of being submerged. Still, she knew she couldn’t hold out much longer. She needed a place she could surface and stay hidden.
But where?
The answer, when it came to her, was perfect. She just hoped she had enough air to make it.
She could hear more shots being fired as she turned and followed the line of the hull toward the rear of the ship, where the Pride’s motor launches were kept in hanging berths jutting out over the water.
Only one of the launches was currently aboard the ship—Annja had taken the other one to the Sea Dancer—and as she swam for the surface, her lungs screaming for her to breathe, she knew that she could be surfacing right into Hugo’s sights if the launch was docked on the other side of the ship.
Please let it be there...please....
Her head broke the surface of the water...and bumped into the underside of the launch hanging six inches above the sea. She opened her mouth and sucked in a great lungful of air.
She clung to the underside of the launch, catching her breath and deciding what to do next. She’d stopped the Pride as intended and sent the Sea Dancer motoring along. If she could get aboard the ship, she could deal with her three former companions in the manner they deserved.
The best way to do that, it seemed, was to swim for the back of the boat and climb up onto the dive platform, using that as an entryway into the ship. Now that she knew where she was, it should be an easy feat.