Alexis flicked through the other screen views, passed on the option to watch Buzz, binoculars clamped to his face, scanning their wake for company, and then flicked to the bridge with an overhead view directly down at the consoles. Jonah, now dressed in the wetsuit, placed his hand on the finely-machined aluminum and carbon fiber joystick as he wordlessly piloted the yacht. According to the high-resolution digital nautical charts displayed on the consoles, the ship and her illegitimate crew were now well into the lawless Red Zone.
Earlier in the day, Jonah, Buzz, and Alexis had cleaned, loaded, and test-fired all of the weapons in the collection. They wouldn’t fend off an attack for long. She wished they could have picked up more weaponry at Anconia Island, but the security forces weren’t selling. Frankly, the crew of the Fool’s Errand were better set to defend a Chicago bathtub distillery than a megayacht.
In the surveillance screen, Jonah picked up the walkie-talkie from the console and pressed the button to talk.
“How we doing in the engine room?” Jonah’s voice, crackled over the speaker making Alexis jump—for a moment it sounded like he was right beside her.
“We’re five-by-five down here,” she said into her own walkie. “Barely ticking over. When you need power, you’ll have it.”
“Nice work, Alexis,” Jonah said.
Over the surveillance screen, Alexis caught Dr. Nassiri glaring at Jonah’s back. The doctor obviously didn’t appreciate the familiarity with which he’d spoken to her. What, was he jealous? An unbidden smile spread across her face. Flattering, yes, but the timing really sucked.
Jonah put his hand back to the joystick tiller and snuck a glance at the radar screen. Alexis pulled up the radar feed on her own system but saw nothing but coastline. Good. They were close, maybe just a few minutes away from their destination.
Jonah disappeared from the screen and Alexis flicked over to the dining area again. He walked into view and she watched as he programmed his dive computer and then went out to the back deck of the ship where he arranged his tri-mix SCUBA gear, including several tanks of different air mixtures, lift bags, high-intensity xenon lights, reserveair pony bottles, vest, weights, and multiple regulators. Since it was newly purchased from Anconia Island, he was triple-checking everything—even though she could tell it was all top-of-the-line and meticulously maintained.
Jonah had explained the plan. It was simple, he’d said, a 300-foot plunge to the bottom as fast as possible while using the transponder signal to stay on station. He called it a “bungee dive,” and said planes were easy to get into. Big sections of the thin carbon fiber skin were most likely weak or missing. He’d get inside, grab the transponder, hard drives, and whatever else he could find and stick it in the lift bag. Dr. Fatima Nassiri’s remains as well, assuming he could get to her. Maybe the other ones, too, but that would be seriously pushing his eighteen-minute bottom window. Just in case, he and Buzz cleared out enough room in the walk-in freezer of the Fool’s Errand to fit all five bodies.
Alexis hoped Dr. Nassiri was ready to see his mother in a bad way. A month on the bottom of the ocean didn’t do a body good. She’d seen it before, when the Conqueror assisted with a drowning recovery. She shuddered just thinking about it.
Dr. Nassiri appeared next to Jonah. Alexis could tell he was tense. The doctor began to open his mouth to ask something, but then—Alexis couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was just wrong.
She took a step back from the console. The engine pitch had changed. In fact, it wasn’t just the engine, it was the entire acoustic signature of the Fool’s Errand, a change so imperceptible Alexis could scarcely drag it into her conscious mind. Nothing on the radar—but something was still wrong.
Acting on instinct, Alexis changed the feed channel to an external view, flicking through the screens as quickly as possible. Nothing whatsoever, then—
Holy fucking fuck there it was, a shape just a hundred feet off the starboard quarter, a long, dark streak under the water paralleling the course of the Fool’s Errand. It resembled a shark or a whale, only much too large. The craft didn’t move with the flow of an organic creature; it moved unnaturally straight and parallel to the yacht. Alexis felt a sudden chill come over her, as if they were being stalked.
“Is that—?” she started to say, as the conning tower of a massive, matte-black submarine sliced through the waves, parting a frothing white-foam bow wake. The submarine rose, revealing itself to be even longer than the Fool’s Errand, stretching well beyond the aperture of the surveillance camera. The bow broke from the water as one last wave crashed over the deck. A massive four-barreled anti-aircraft weapon grew from a rear-deck raised platform just behind the stage. This was no pleasure craft, the submarine was built to intimidate, every line deliberate and menacing, more than enough firepower to take on even the largest pirate mothership.
Alexis snatched the radio in her hands. Shit, she knew she had to call this in to the bridge. Shit, they were going to know she had access to the surveillance cameras. Shit. Shit-shit-shit.
“Unidentified contact!” she shouted into the radio. “Port side aft!”
Alexis opened the surveillance feed to the bridge on a secondary monitor, watching as Dr. Nassiri briefly froze, unsure. She could see behind his eyes as he dug into the dark recesses of his brain to remember which side was port and which was starboard. Jonah didn’t hesitate; he stuck his head out the window immediately, cocked it briefly, then returned to his station and snatched the marine radio.
“Unidentified submarine,” said Jonah into the microphone. Alexis heard the call over her systems. “This is the yacht Fool’s Errand. Please state your intentions.”
The radio crackled, but no answer returned. Alexis bounded up the main staircase, just in time to hear Jonah repeat his hail over the emergency frequencies. Hell, it didn’t even matter if the submarine could hear their radio calls or not … the pirates certainly could, and were no doubt already mobilizing to investigate the sudden electronic chatter deep within their territory.
“Who are these people?” she demanded, clad in her cutoffs and tank top and self-consciously smelling of highoctane marine fuel and engine lubricant. “Why are you breaking radio silence?”
“Alexis, I need you back in the engine room.”
“Why?” she retorted.
“Alexis!” shouted Jonah, loud enough that Alexis flinched. “Engine room! Now!”
Without another word, she turned and practically sprinted back down the stairs. She allowed herself a single backwards glance at the bow, where Buzz stood like a mermaid figurehead, his weird soviet SCUBA-gun in hand, leaning far over the railing as if pressing himself over it could somehow allow him further sight. Even with her limited knowledge of firearms, she knew the Russian weapon belonged in a museum, not on the deck of a ship plunging headlong into the most dangerous waters on the planet. At least Buzz looked scary as hell, with his scarredup shaved head and weirdo assault rifle.
Alexis threw herself back in front of her console station, just in time to see a single figure emerge from the top hatch of the submarine. She squinted at first, then realized what she was looking at. The man looked like one of the Anconia Island mercenaries, a welcome sight. An intense wave of relief washed over her as the soldier smiled and saluted the Fool’s Errand.
On the bridge, Dr. Nassiri smiled and waved. Jonah yelled at Buzz to stop pointing his ‘fucking rifle’ at the new arrivals.
Alexis allowed herself a little smile as her tension faded; the cavalry had made quite an entrance. It appeared Dr. Nassiri’s money went further than expected; this was a brilliant show of force. In fact, it probably didn’t even matter that Jonah had broken radio silence. If any pirates showed up, the mounted cannons could open up and it’d be over before it even started.
“Unidentified submarine, we’re happy to see you,” said Jonah over the radio. “Appreciate the escort, we will stop engines and stand by for instructions.”
“Roger, stand by,” co
nfirmed a harsh voice over the radio.
On the bridge monitor, Dr. Nassiri stopped his schoolboy waving, but kept the foolish grin plastered over his face. Alexis brought the engines to full stop, feeling the slight vibration as they spun down to idle.
Over the video feed, a single shaved-head mercenary, rifle slung behind him and armored vest heavy with equipment, removed the stoppers from the barrels and connected the weapon to an unseen ammunition feed in the deck. He swung the quad-gun back and forth towards the horizon, testing the articulation of the impressive weapon.
Alexis froze as the gunner suddenly swiveled around, training the massive quad-barrels on the bow of the Fool’s Errand.
“What the hell—?”
The gunner fired, blinding the security camera with light, noise deafening as the four barrels of the anti-aircraft weapons lit up in succession and laser-like tracer rounds ripped through the unprotected engine room of the Fool’s Errand. Fire blasted apart the thin carbon-fiber skin of the yacht and cut the supporting rib structure to pieces as Alexis held her hands over her ears and screamed. Overhead florescent lighting flickered and died as daylight streamed through the Swiss-cheese hull and deafening ricochets tore through the upper structure of the megayacht. Alexis instinctively hit the deck as a hail of broken glass, splintered fiberglass and red-hot aluminum shrapnel rained down around her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move, her entire adrenaline-compromised perspective a grey, gun-slit view of her own hands as the console behind her exploded in a shower of flames and molten glass. The monitor bank on the console tipped and fell, slamming into the unyielding metal grating with a flash of electrical arcs.
The live feed from the bridge continued to play. Dr. Nassiri curled up in a fetal position soundlessly screaming on the monitor.
Oh great, thought Alexis. I’m going to die watching television.
In slow-motion, Jonah scrambled to his feet, trying to reach a walkie-talkie as a second barrage tore through the bridge.
From the bow feed, Alexis watched as Buzz jumped to his feet, Soviet rifle already shouldered as he stood on the extreme end of the bow, possibly the most exposed position on the entire ship. The submarine crossed their bow, firing as Buzz leaned over the bow railing.
“Run!” screamed Alexis at the security feed. She realized she could scarcely hear her own voice in her blastdeafened ears.
On the bridge, Jonah tried in vain to impart the same message. Find cover, you stupid fuck, he mouthed, waving his arms, oblivious to his own safety.
Buzz didn’t hear Alexis, didn’t hear Jonah, could not have possibly heard them. Alexis saw the Moroccan man in fragments, tiny mosaics as the engagement played out. Buzz’s face, dripping blood from a massive cut across his forehead and scalp. His hands, grainy specs over the security feed, aiming his strange rifle at the submarine’s conning tower. Buzz pulling the trigger, firing a single ineffectual burst towards the man at the quad gun.
He held down the trigger, muzzle climbing as the continuous burst of fire danced across the hardened steel skin of the submarine, missing the anti-aircraft gun entirely and spilling bullets ineffectually into the ocean. The mercenary turned—those reflexes—and took aim.
Pulling his own trigger, the gunner emptied bullets into the bow of the Fool’s Errand, obliterating it. It was almost as if Buzz had said, and for my next trick, I will disappear as he was enveloped in a cloud of fire and pink mist. And that was that, he was just gone, along with the entire bow of the ship, both taken off the face of the earth as if they’d never existed.
At least Jonah still appeared to have his faculties. Alexis saw him find the pearl-handled handgun with one hand and jam it into the belt of his wetsuit. And then he called her over the radio.
“Full power to the engines!” he shouted. She noticed a brief silence—as far as the mercenaries aboard the submarine were concerned, the Fool’s Errand was a burning, shattered hulk. The one remaining console to her right flashed bright red; half of the compartments on the port side were taking on water as one critical system after another died in a cascade of technological failure.
The turbine engines roared to life, propellers supercavitating seawater into frothing bubbles as they spun up to a screaming pitch. Perhaps the Fool’s Errand had a trick or two yet—the props bit into the sea, throwing Alexis to the deck of the engine room as the yacht leapt forward, narrowly cutting across the stern of the attack submarine, full power to the engines, lazily wallowing to starboard as seawater rushed into the lowest deck.
The Somali coastline loomed in front of the bow feed as hurricane-force headwinds and roaring seawater ripped through the bullet-shattered hull of the engine room. Behind them, the submarine took lazy potshots against the stern of the vessel, forcing Alexis to duck as they ripped through critical systems.
She wrenched valves and switches, bodily throwing herself at the remaining hydraulic controls, trying to correct for the highly compromised hydrodynamics of the rapidly leaking hull.
“Come on you bastard!” she screamed at the controls.
Just moments, that’s all she needed. Just moments to get them close to the coastline, away from the submarine. And then probably get captured and executed by pirates. Goddamn fantastic.
The massive turbine engines of the Fool’s Errand sputtered once then caught again. Shit, fuck, shit shit SHIT! The coolant system was shot to pieces, no pressure, the engines already reaching critical temperatures. If one or both of them went—well, the resulting explosion wouldn’t just leave them dead in the water, it would turn the entire stern of the Fool’s Errand into a smoldering ruin.
“Alexis, what is happening down there?” shouted Jonah into the radio. Over the bridge security feed, Dr. Nassiri was on his feet, shell-shocked, staring empty-eyed at the gaping maw that was once the bow.
“It’s bad!” she yelled into the radio.
She realized she sounded scared, terrified. Not the impression she wanted to convey. He could probably hear the screaming mechanical distress of the engine room over the radio. Jonah would know whatever was happening down here couldn’t be good.
“Report!” he shouted.
“We’re shot to pieces!” said Alexis, her own voice distant over the sound of the wind. “All coolants systems are gone; we’re taking on water fast. I’ve bypassed every safety system just to keep us moving but we’ll be dead in the water in seconds.”
Silence over the radio as Jonah weighed his options. No lifeboats; but they’d just be floating orange target practice anyway. The submarine wasn’t here to take prisoners, that much was clear.
Jonah hadn’t released the transmit button on the walkie, and Alexis could hear Dr. Nassiri on the marine radio, screaming out a jumbled distress signal for anyone who would listen, anyone who would help. He pleaded with the submarine to stop the attack, to take mercy on the mortally wounded ship. Alexis could see he wasn’t even transmitting, the marine radio had taken a stray bullet, spilling the electronic guts of the device halfway across the shattered bridge.
“Give me one last burst of engine power,” growled Jonah over the radio. “Anything she’s got left I’ll need over the next fifteen seconds.”
Jonah thrust the joystick to port, bringing the Fool’s Errand around in a violent buttonhook, throwing Alexis to the deck again.
Last stand, thought Alexis. There wouldn’t even be anything left to bring to Texas, she’d just be some dumb American girl who disappeared from a godforsaken part of the world she was never meant to be in the first place.
With immense calm, Alexis bypassed the last of the safety measures and set the engines to full power. She dropped to her knees as the Fool’s Errand thrust forward, ruined bow pushing upwards into the sky as the turbines howled with fury. The Fool’s Errand completed the turn as unrelenting thrust accelerated the burning hulk forward.
It was funny how the mind remembered the little things in a time like this. Like when she first stepped foot on the Conqueror. A few days after walking up on
stage to get her diploma for a masters in mechanical engineering with a focus in naval architecture. She’d read about the ship porting in Galveston, so she drove her shit-box car there, stepped on board, demanded to see the engineer and told him she could increase the power of the engines by 8.5%. The moxie got her an interview; an 11.3% improvement got her the job. She wondered if her car was still parked at the dock, rusting and moldering away unattended, windows clouded with dust, tires flat, batteries long since dead. She probably should have sold it.
The Fool’s Errand bore down on the submarine, gaining speed. Her instincts were right. Jonah was not a man who liked to lose. Over the video feed, she could see him crouched by a console, Dr. Nassiri at his side.
Surprised by the suicidal act of its cornered prey, the fire from the submarine stopped as the gunner took stock of the changed situation. The moment was all Jonah needed as the Fool’s Errand surged toward the submarine, passing sixty knots in speed, bearing down like a freight train.
“Brace for impact!” shouted Jonah over the radio, his voice echoing through every compartment of the stricken ship. Dr. Nassiri crumpled into a ball and rolled underneath the nearest console as tracer fire arced over the ruined bow and lit up the bridge and engine room with brutal intensity, raining sparks and metal fragments onto Alexis as she tried to find a position where she could survive the coming crash.
The destroyed bow of the Fool’s Errand dropped as the yacht reached hydrofoil speeds, the ship skipping across the water as it zeroed in on the submarine. The gunner froze as the Fool’s Errand threw her keel across the platform, a symphony of destruction. The impact hurled Alexis forward, smashing her face and head against a bulletriddled console.
For a brief moment, all was silent as Alexis struggled to remain conscious. Her gray, swimming vision lied to her, and she stumbled as she reached for something to hold on to. Her fingers tapped across the deck grating, touching burning lubricant and broken glass. The acidic smell of leaking fuel filled her nose and lungs. Nevermind that … the entire ship had shattered itself across the back of the submarine just aft of the conning tower, large scarred patches of the matte-black steel skin of the sub showing through gaping holes in the Fool’s Errand’s hull.
The Wrecking Crew Page 11