by Jon Land
He rushed from the bridge.
The Timber Wolf had chosen an interior route to the bridge to stay out of the line of fire from the battle raging on the decks. The smoke had thickened even more and the fire alarm bells had begun to chime minutes ago. Trelana’s forces were in total control; he was sure of that much. The attacking boats continued their zigzagging past each other while firing a constant barrage into the already crippled cutter. The drug lord’s men had sustained casualties, but they continued to fight, obeying their orders to the letter. Corbano’s troops were functioning in disarray, many already abandoning the effort along with the ship.
The entrance to the bridge appeared up ahead, and Wayman never hesitated. He crashed through the door firing at anyone who might have offered resistance. When he stopped a single man sat beneath a radio console with his hands in the air. Wayman reached down and yanked him out, a grimace of pain stretching across the Timber Wolf’s face from the bullet wound in his side. He realized he was losing some blood and that a portion of it was soaking all the way through the white uniform he had donned over his own clothes.
“Where’s Corbano?” the Timber Wolf demanded, sticking the rifle barrel against the man’s chin. Out of control now, the cutter listed heavily to the left and began to flounder.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! He was here but—”
“But what? Talk or I’ll kill you!”
“He left. Just before you came in, he ran out.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know!”
But Wayman did. “The powder, where’s it stored?”
The man stayed silent, hesitating.
“Talk or you’ll die. Last chance.”
The man relented. “All right. Below deck. Storage hold number three. It’s marked. Clearly.”
“How do I get there?”
“Main stairs. You must have passed them on your way to the bridge. You can’t miss them. Go down as far as you can, then turn right.”
Wayman shoved the man to the floor. He had what he needed, but he didn’t have Corbano. The White Snake had several minutes’ head start on him now, plenty of time to begin the process of dumping the white powder overboard.
The Timber Wolf charged out through the door.
The third diver slipped in the pooling water as his flippers smacked the deck. He never went down all the way, but he lost his balance along with his grip on the spear gun. It slid to the deck and bounced once, ending up halfway between the diver and Drew.
Drew felt the agony tear through him as he tried for the weapon, fighting past all the pain to lunge forward with his leg dragging roughly behind him. He had almost reached the gun when the diver kicked it aside and cracked Drew’s face with the same foot. Then he went for it himself, but Drew managed to trip him up and the man went sprawling hard to the deck.
Drew pushed himself back against the cabin and used leverage to hoist his frame up, as the diver struggled back to his feet feeling for the underwater knife sheathed on his calf. Drew pushed the door open and started to pull himself inside the cabin. He got the door closed and locked just as the diver stripped his blade free and started coming. Drew pulled himself along the musty inside, nearly falling, eyes in search of a weapon.
The door crashed inward and the diver came forward. He was breathing hard and transferring the knife from his left hand to his right.
Drew looked back at him, lost his balance, and reached up to a galley table.
The diver stalked forward, seeming to measure his pace, wary now.
Drew slipped back to the floor, dragging something from the galley table with him. It was a lamp, a kerosene lamp. The man was almost upon him and the knife was lowering in line with his throat.
Drew crashed the lamp upward against the man’s chest. It smashed across his wet suit, splattering his face and shoulders with kerosene. The man screamed in agony and reeled backward. The knife slid from his hand.
Drew pulled himself up even with the table and grasped for a box of matches lying there. He struck three at once within a trembling hand and used them to set the entire box ablaze. The diver was charging him again now, bellowing with eyes red from the kerosene.
Drew hurled the flaming match box. The enraged diver rushed straight into it.
The flames swallowed his head and shoulders instantly, rapidly engulfing his entire torso. His shrill screams were the worst sounds Drew had ever heard, and the diver threw himself all about the cabin in a futile attempt to put out the flames that were killing him. Everything he struck, made of aged wood mostly, caught fire on contact, and by the time Drew pulled himself through the doorway, the entire cabin was drenched in flames.
He crawled across the deck and was halfway to the gunwale when the flames leaped out from below, licking at the spare gasoline cans they had purchased from Captain Jack. This last bit of desperation fueling him, Drew reached the gunwale and grasped it to pull himself over. His lower body weighed a ton, his legs useless. He had gotten his midsection up and over the side when the blast came.
Drew felt more than heard it. The heat pounded his back with a pressure that lifted him into the air toward the water. He struck it head first and went under as the boat exploded in a final burst of fiery orange that swallowed everything and spit back shards and splinters.
Beyond that, there were only the black depths opening their mouth to embrace him and Drew feeling himself drifting into it.
Corbano swung back the latch on the third storage hold and yanked open the door. Such holds on board a ship the size of a cutter were understandably small since the ship was seldom called upon to handle merchandise or cargo other than that confiscated at sea. The third hold was ten-by-twenty, constructed within the hull beneath sea level.
Corbano knew what he had to do.
The white powder was sealed in five specially designed bags, which were both air- and watertight for obvious reasons. He could feel the ship teetering now, swaying out of control at the mercy of the currents, and knew it was only a matter of minutes before she ran aground and was boarded.
Corbano rested the portable rocket launcher he had grabbed from the armory against the wall. Next he whipped out a knife and went to work on the bags containing the white powder, slicing them down the middle and pouring their contents onto the cold steel floor after making sure it was perfectly dry. Attached to his belt was an oxygen-supplied mask that he would don as soon as the final stage of his plan was ready. A power boat had been hidden in the cutter’s stern for an emergency such as this and he would make his escape in it.
Once he was finished dumping the powder on the floor, Corbano planned to fire a rocket through the hull to allow floods of water to pour in and sweep the powder away with it. It would dissolve immediately and the deadly cloud would begin to form, the plan not in keeping with the original but a worthy improvisation. The East Coast would suffer just as it was supposed to and perhaps more of the country as well. America would fall rapidly, then the world. He would make his way back to Europe, prepared to seize the chaos for his own benefit.
Corbano had just finished dumping the contents of the third bag when the clicking of the door alerted him to danger. He reached for the pistol in his belt and spun fast.
The Timber Wolf lunged forward, managing to get one shot off just as Corbano did. They were upon each other quicker than either expected, each of their guns useless at such close range.
In fact, the initial collision separated the pistols from both and Corbano aimed a knee toward the Timber Wolf’s groin. But Wayman managed to twist sideways, avoiding the strike as he grabbed Corbano’s wrist in an iron lock and tugged viciously down and to the side.
They both heard the snap, but it was Corbano who wailed in pain from his cracked wrist. Wayman knew he had him now, what with the White Snake having only one hand to defend himself, and moved for the kill. His mistake was to concern himself only with Corbano’s good side because the blow lashing toward him came from the bad, from the
broken hand, in fact. At impact, it was hard to tell for whom the pain was greater. Wayman was staggered, dazed. Blood ran from a nasty cut along the side of his head, making him dizzy.
Corbano crashed into him again, this time to the side with the bullet wound, and Wayman howled in agony as the White Snake shoved him backward against the bulkhead. Wayman felt all his wind desert him. Corbano pulled his good hand back for a killing blow to the throat, and the Timber Wolf managed to duck his head in time. Corbano’s fist slammed steel and now it was his turn to scream.
Wayman tried to rush past him for the rocket launcher, not really sure what he was going to do with it, but Corbano tripped him up. Then, instead of continuing the assault, the White Snake charged for his stainless steel pistol, which shone in the dim light of the hold amidst the white powder.
The Timber Wolf registered this in time to rush for the door, half walking and half crawling. Corbano fired twice, heard a gasp, the signal that one of the bullets had found its mark, and moved cautiously to the doorway to complete the kill.
He emerged into the corridor good side first. It was deserted. No sign of the Timber Wolf. Corbano glanced down. A trail of blood was drawn neatly across the floor leading straight into storage hold number two. The door to it was still open, swaying slightly inward. The great Timber Wolf was probably looking for a quiet corner to die. Well, Corbano would just have to provide him with it. He lunged through the door leading with his pistol, eyes already searching out his target.
His mind had just registered that the hold was empty and that the trail of blood had ended at the door when an iron grip locked on his gun hand and stripped it from his grasp. The force spun him into the center of the hold, and he came around fast, rushing at little more than a shadow in the blackness. There was a flash before him and Corbano realized it was a gun bore in what seemed like an instant before the hot pain tore through his chest. The bore spit fire twice more and the White Snake found himself looking up from the floor without memory of falling to it. He knew he was dying, but he held life long enough to see a shadow pass over him.
“Almost like you did to me in Corsica,” the Timber Wolf said calmly. “Remember? Fuck you.”
And he fired three more times.
When he was sure Corbano was dead, Wayman rushed down the corridor to a storage bin where dozens of cans of emergency engine oil were kept. He figured two would do the job he had in mind and he carted them back to the hold containing the now scattered powder. He walked about the white granules, spreading the contents of the first can over them. When it was empty, he started with the second, finishing his sweep and then going over much of the floor a second time. He realized that the cutter’s engines had ground to a halt and he knew he had very little time now to escape himself.
The Timber Wolf backed into the hallway and raised his gun, pumping the trigger once and then again. The heat of the bullets turned the oil to flames and the powder made perfect kindling for it. The flames swallowed it, hissing and forming an oil-black cloud that filled the entire hold.
Wayman left the door open to be sure that the fire would continue to burn unimpeded until there was nothing left for it to swallow. A sudden list to the left slammed him against the wall, and he heard a grating noise indicating that part of the ship had run aground and was tearing itself apart. It didn’t matter because by the time water rushed into this part of the ship, no more of the powder would remain to loom as a threat. It was almost over.
But not quite. There was still escape to concern himself with, and Wayman yanked off his shoes to make sure that he brought none of the powder up to the deck with him. He could feel the heat of the steps right through his socks as he bounded up with as much speed as his wounds would allow. He turned onto a second staircase that would take him back to the main deck and a quick plunge over the side.
Upon reaching it, however, he found the smoke and flames had formed a barrier that was starting to extend down the steps he had just raced up. Wayman felt his breath flee as smoke filled his lungs and forced him to retch. He slammed against the bulkhead at the top of the stairs and started to slump.
No! Not now, not after this much!
The same incredible will to live, to survive, that had kept him alive so many times during the heyday of the Timber Wolf switched on again. He found the strength he needed to seize the only option he had left, which was to charge directly through the flames and hurl himself over the side. He tore off the white uniform shirt atop his own and covered his face with it. Then he was in motion.
It would seem later to him that there had been no flames, that a tunnel had opened up before him as he charged over the side. He felt wind and heat, but no fire.
He hit the water hard, feet first, going down deep into the cold and silent blackness, both welcome now. He rose to see the burning hulk that had been the Coast Guard cutter sitting dead in the water at a bizarre angle with the bow well below stern. A huge seagoing corpse giving up the last of her dead. Within her hull lay the last remains of a powder that would have claimed even more dead, an unimaginable number.
One of Trelana’s speedboats was coming toward him and Wayman raised his arms in a gesture of surrender as he tread water with his legs. He thought of Drew Jordan for the first time in a while and gazed across the water to find the rubble that had been their boat. Through all his elation, the Timber Wolf felt his heart sink.
He could almost forget Corsica now, but not quite.
Ellie’s first, fleeting impression was that she had died and that David had come to meet her. Then she thought her mind, resigned to the coming of death, had created an illusion to make the passage over easier.
But her eyes had not deceived her. The man above her was David Hirsch, the husband she had loved, a minister for the Israeli cabinet until he was forced to resign and later assassinated.
By the Council of Ten, she had thought.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he told her softly, gun held low by his hip. “I truly am.”
Ellie struggled for breath with which to speak. “The Council of Ten,” she muttered, blood sliding from her mouth.
David Hirsch nodded knowingly. “Yes, Ellie, I am its leader, even before it became necessary for me to ‘arrange’ my own passing. I founded the Council as it exists now. I built it up from the raw foundation of another organization that possessed initiative but lacked sufficient vision. You see, the Council has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. But the time had come for a different order to take command, one that was of single mind when it came to purpose and would stop at nothing to achieve that purpose.”
“Why?” Ellie mouthed.
“You made it hard on yourself, Ellie,” David Hirsch, leader of the Council of Ten, said instead of responding. “You had ample opportunities to die easily and swiftly, but you dragged things out and insisted on invading our very home. I could have had you killed this afternoon, should have probably, but something soft in me resisted. I wanted to see how far you could get, thought I might be able to persuade you to join us once you knew the truth. But all that was for naught.” He leaned over close to her. “It all seems so futile now, Ellie, doesn’t it? All the bullets, all the blood. Lying here with the certainty of your own death looming. Such is the price you must pay for your pursuits. Such is the price all must pay who come too close to us.”
Ellie knew she was looking at and listening to a madman. It made the whole of her life seem so vacant. She was going to die, and everything was meaningless, nothing accomplished, all ideals wasted. Still she had to know.
“Why?” she repeated.
“So many questions they all had,” David said, more to himself. “So many fronts I had to put up for all of them. Our marriage was a front, Ellie. The Israelis had to be satisfied. I was a mole for the Soviets. They helped me attain my position and then I doubled for the Americans and they helped me rise. But neither of these powers, nor Israel itself, was capable of running the world as it must be run. Dissatisfaction led
me out on my own. I used my position to seek out others who felt as I did. Eventually, the Russians disowned me for my views, the Americans and Israelis, too. But I had the company of these other outcasts, powerful men and leaders all. I faked my own death, my execution because I had discovered the means they needed to link their causes together. We formed the Council and laid the groundwork for a new order to control the world.”
“The destruction of America,” Ellie rasped.
“Only of her people. The discovery of the white powder permitted us to spare her vast land and resources for ourselves. Don’t you see? We will resettle the nation with the followers of our own causes. The transports will begin flying in a week and even now thousands of our American supporters are gathering in shelters that will keep them safe through the duration of Powderkeg. America’s few other survivors will be enslaved to do our menial bidding. Peasants they will be, useless scum living off the memories of the world they once controlled, a world we will have taken over. America’s missiles will be aimed at any country that dares stand against us, and if this is not enough, there is always the white powder to hold them in check. We will be in a position to hold all the world hostage as we ourselves have been held hostage through the years. Everything was functioning perfectly.”
David Hirsch’s expression changed as he gazed up at the ruined command center. “I knew as soon as the trouble started that it was you and moved to a place of safety because I feared my troops could not stop you. Until today, I underestimated you, Ellie, underestimated your obsessive quest for vengeance against those you thought were my killers. I suppose I should have been grateful as I watched the folly of your pursuits. I never imagined you could get this far. And now, thanks to my error, a perfect plan has been disrupted. Just disrupted, Ellie, not destroyed. An inconvenience and nothing else. Where I found these outcast leaders, I can find hundreds more. And the powder is still out there, my people waiting across America for the signal to come. And it will come, Ellie. There is a backup system only I am aware of. Only I. You see I am the key, Ellie. It is I who hold the means with a clear vision of the end. You have failed by letting me survive. Take heart, for I failed by not killing you sooner. But America was to be home for the new Council of Ten and so it shall be someday soon. I will rebuild the Council to its predestined number to rule the world as we see fit. Destroy our headquarters, kill my underlings, but leave me to do what I must.”