by Ian Walkley
They had the fortress isolated. Now to gain control.
The firing outside had stopped. Scotty must be preserving his rounds. Firing off a wild burst towards where Ibrahim had disappeared, he ran back around the crew quarters to find Scotty, hoping he hadn’t been hit by any of the volleys from Khalid’s men. He was unhurt, backed up against the wall of the crew quarters, and Mac handed him one of the submachine guns.
“Took your time, lad,” Scotty said, checking the weapon and magazine.
“I think I’ve secured the cave. You keep the guy in Khalid’s quarters busy. I think he’s the only one left. I’ll take out the bomb-maker and check the cellblock for the girls.” He handed Scotty the other Spectre.
“Done.”
Mentally checking Mai’s map, Mac knew he’d have to get past Khalid’s quarters to reach the other buildings. With Scotty firing cover, he darted behind the water tank. When Ibrahim peered out and fired a couple of rounds from a pistol, Scotty drove him back with a hail of metal. Taking advantage of the distraction, Mac rocketed past the maintenance building to the vault and punched in the four-digit master code that Bill had programmed to open any door in the fortress.
Inside, hundreds of crates of varying sizes were stacked from floor to ceiling. He recognised some boxes as the same as those in Paris that contained gold ingots. But there were many, many more here. Ignoring the treasure, he ran to the rear of the vault and keyed in the master code. The door slid open.
The bomb-maker sat alone, about ten metres away, holding several wires in his shaky hands. “Where is Masoud? I let the bomb off if you come closer!”
“Relax, brother,” Mac replied calmly in Arabic. “You’re safe now. Masoud will be here shortly. It’s just a practice drill. I’m here to test security. Just firing blanks. You did very well.” He lowered the pistol and leaned against the wall and smiled. “But there will need to be improvements.”
After a moment, the bomb-maker dropped his hands a little. “You are with Masoud and Ibrahim?”
Mac shrugged. “How else would I know the code to unlock the door? Just blanks. See?”
He brought up the pistol and fired twice. The bomb-maker’s head jerked back and the two wires flew out of his hands. They landed one on top of the other, fortunately not with the live ends touching. McCloud gently lifted the top wire clear and wiped the sweat off his face.
The first thing he noticed was two yellow cylinders with a radiation warning symbol on the side. Fuck! Ziad had mentioned nuclear canisters.
Two of the four canisters had been assembled into bombs, which fitted snugly into fifty-pound backpacks, each with explosives packed tight around the cylinder. The bomb-maker had used a cellphone trigger.
A Geiger counter nearby showed an above-average reading. They must be the real thing. Were these what Khalid was trying to sell for five hundred million dollars? Four dirty bombs?
They had to get these canisters out of play. Fast.
More firing outside.
Fuck!
Scotty would have to keep them busy a little longer. Keeping an eye on the door, he disconnected the cell phone from the two assembled bombs, then cut all the wires. There were sufficient explosives here to destroy the fortress, but Scotty would need time to properly rig them.
Another exchange of gunfire.
A shout.
Scotty.
He hurried to the door and cracked it open, pulling back as rounds peppered the building. Who had fired? There was no sign of anyone. They needed to stop Ibrahim getting into the control building and opening up the tunnel into the resort.
“Cover me, Scotty!”
No response.
Mac fired several rounds and sprinted across the gap to the water tank. Scotty was slumped against the tank, blood oozing from a bullet wound in his lower left side.
No!
Mac grabbed a submachine gun and fired off a volley, then dragged Scotty to safety behind the crew quarters.
“You okay?”
Scotty took short breaths. “I winged him, but he’s a sneaky bastard.”
Mac checked the wound. The bullet had passed right through. It hadn’t hit an artery, but it needed attention.
“You’ll be fine. We need to get you bandaged.”
Scotty shook his head. “I’m a fookin’ tough bugger. You have to stop him getting to the control building. Give me the pistol. I’ll cover this side.”
Mac handed Scotty the pistol and stormed around the side of the crew quarters towards the control building.
As he careened around the comer, he collided with another guard and the Spectre flew out of his hands. It was not Ibrahim, but this man was equally powerfully built. Mac grabbed for the man’s pistol. The guard bared his teeth and pulled the trigger, sending bullets ricocheting off the cave walls. Mac held on desperately as they wrestled for control. If he let go, he was dead. So was Scotty.
The guard rammed his forehead into Mac’s skull. Pain speared through his head, momentarily disorienting him. He kicked out as the guard hit him full in the face. Mac rolled onto his back, the momentum catching the other man off balance. To break his fall, he loosened his grip on the weapon, allowing Mac to snatch it away.
Mac fired. Click. Empty. The guard jumped on his ribs, and slammed his fists into his face. Blood spurted from Mac’s nostrils. The other man pushed his powerful forearm under Mac’s chin, forcing his head backwards over the raised lip of the walkway. With his powerful leverage, it wouldn’t take much more pressure to break Mac’s neck.
Mac reached for his ankle sheath, but his leg was trapped. He began to feel light-headed. His brain was telling him to relax and let it be done. He looked into the other man’s face—he was grinning.
“You are dead, infidel!” he spat.
Mac got a surge of outrage. Arching his back to reduce the pressure and ignoring the pain, he grabbed the guard’s hair and dragged his face down. He clamped his teeth onto the man’s nose, tearing through the skin and cartilage like a rabid dog. The man howled in agony as his nose was torn away. Warm blood gushed over Mac’s face.
The guard pulled back, hands covering the hole in his face. Mac spat out the chunk of nose. He managed to reach his knife. He punched the blade into the man’s exposed gut. His face contorted with shock. Yet he wasn’t done. As Mac withdrew the knife, the guard grabbed his wrist. Mac forced the blade home again, pushing it up. Finally, the man’s strength left him and he collapsed on the blood-soaked ground, his body shuddering in its death throes.
Mac staggered to his feet. Throbbing pain racked his neck and his mouth was sticky with blood. He could hardly breathe. He bent down to pick up the submachine gun and retched up the contents of his stomach.
Looking around, he went back around the comer. “Come on, bud.”
Scotty tried to smile. “I’ll be fine. Find the girls, lad.”
He bent down to help Scotty to his feet. That was the last thing he remembered until he woke feeling light-headed. A bright light was shining on him from above. He was surrounded by people in blue, talking in a foreign tongue. Wearing surgical masks.
~ * ~
83
Sheriti glanced at the clock: 3:41 a.m. She slipped out of bed, watching for signs of Khalid waking. He was well out to it. With Jamila feeling better, the two of them had exhausted Khalid after the celebrations, and Jamila was sound asleep beside him. Sheriti pulled on her robe and listened. No talking or footsteps, but there would be men on guard duty. She moved cautiously down the internal stairs to her cabin in the women’s quarters, where she pulled on a black wetsuit and zipped it up, strapping a knife to her ankle. The pistol she’d taken from Khalid’s cabin had no silencer, so she’d use it only as a last resort. She opened the door a sliver and took a deep breath. Once she left her room there’d be no going back.
She opened an external door onto the deck and a blast of spray shocked her. The storm was almost upon them. All external lighting had been switched off. Seth had told her they never
used the security cameras at sea. She waited, listening, while her eyes adjusted, the vibrations of the ship’s engine prickling the soles of her feet like an electric massager.
She needed to get to the cargo hold. Everyone except the duty security men had been forbidden to go there. This, together with the enhanced security measures, suggested that the nuclear canisters were probably being stored there. Still, they needed to be certain.
During the day, she had carefully observed the deployment of weaponry—rocket-propelled grenade launchers on the foredeck and amidships, and a thirty-calibre machine gun on the helicopter landing pad. Her people needed to be warned. They would not be expecting such a powerful defence. However, she couldn’t risk sending a message, and in any case all communications had been shut down.
The rain and salt spray whipped at her face. The vessel powered forward, lurching up the back of a wave and sliding down its face, before ploughing into the next. She was pleased about the swell. But even though she could handle the sea, she had taken tablets as a precaution. Many of the security personnel were on their first voyage at sea and would be down below, wishing they were dead.
She turned the comer. A powerful shaft of light blinded her. She froze. A lighthouse beacon, warning of a nearby coral atoll, moved on and she was plunged into darkness again. Crouching below the rail on its next pass, she moved again, her breathing shallow, trying to hear above the crashing waves and snarling wind.
Boots. Clunking on the deck above.
She raced down the stairs to the stern deck and hid behind one of the jet skis secured by a crane in its canvas cradle. The cables flapped in the wind and made a haunting wail. One of the new Pakistani guards staggered down the steps, grasping the rail as the vessel troughed out the bottom of a thirty-footer.
She slipped out the knife. The guard was focused only on making it to the side, where he vomited what remained in his stomach. Most of it was blown back in his face. After wiping his face, he tried unsuccessfully to light a cigarette, his hand shaking as he cursed in words Sheriti didn’t understand.
It would have been easy enough to push him overboard. If he had lingered she would have. But after a few moments, he climbed back up the stairs. She doubted he’d return any time soon. She sheathed the knife.
Opening the hatch, she descended to the lower level, moving quickly towards the engine noise, alert for any threat. In front of her were two polished timber doors, both locked. With Khalid’s master key, she unlocked the door on the left. Her nostrils flared at the whiff of diesel that washed over her, causing her to breathe more shallowly as she opened the bulkhead to the main hold.
She waited, listening, until she was confident there was nobody else in the hold. There was an irregular clicking sound. She switched on her penlight and, shielding the beam with her hand, moved slowly through the cavernous space, staying close to the wall. She brushed against heavyweight coveralls on a hook. A radiation protection suit.
A Geiger counter was between two crates on the floor. The indicator gauge pointed to orange, meaning the radiation was higher than normal, but not dangerous. Radioactive material was nearby. The canisters were here!
There were dozens of crates. The ones containing the canisters must be nearby. She began to unscrew a crate when she heard a metallic clunk. The hatch was being opened. She killed the flashlight and crouched low. The lights came on and she closed her eyes, breathing steadily. The soft squish of rubber boots came closer. She quickly squeezed between two crates and quietly withdrew the knife.
Cigarette smoke drifted into her nostrils. The guard was moving close. She held her breath, not daring to glimpse around the crate. The man let out a long, flaccid fart and a second, shorter pop, followed by a contented sigh. Squeezing her eyes tight and clenching her teeth, her mind switched to the body she’d seen Ziad’s men dump overboard last night. No fingers. Empty sockets where the eyes had been. Cuts all over the body. It was not the first time she had seen them dump a body at sea.
She was mentally committed now. But just as she readied herself to rise up and plunge the knife into the guard, his footsteps began to recede. A few moments later, the lights were switched off and the bulkhead door closed. Silence. She released the breath she’d been holding for what seemed like hours and rose to her feet. The Geiger counter and the radiation suit were evidence enough. It wasn’t practical to search every crate. She needed to warn the others. She peered out the bulkhead door. No sign of anyone. She raced along the corridor to the hatchway. It was all or nothing. She opened the hatch onto the stem deck.
Two men were hurrying towards the hatchway in the driving rain.
She fired point blank. The first man dropped his flashlight as he slumped to the deck. Behind him was Ziad. Reacting surprisingly fast, he lunged forward and rammed the hatch against her arm, causing her pistol to clatter onto the deck. She gritted her teeth in pain as her forearm was mashed between the metal rims of the hatch. Not broken, thankfully, but it felt like her arm was on fire and it would be badly bruised later. Ziad! There could be no bluffing now. Her cover was blown, regardless. But in that instant she realised she could make this an opportunity. It was against orders to kill Khalid or his key people, but she would plead that she’d had no choice but to kill the psychopathic monster.
Sheriti grunted, exerting every muscle to shove the hatch open. Unarmed, she flew at Ziad and kicked his arm as he brought up his pistol. He managed to hold onto the weapon and fired. The bullet pinged off the superstructure as Sheriti grabbed his arm, twisting, tossing him over her hip onto his back. He fired again, this time harmlessly into the air. She stomped on his armpit. Ziad yelped. The pistol skittered across the deck with Sheriti leaping after it. Recovering quickly, Ziad scrambled over and disappeared through a hatchway. If others hadn’t already been alerted by the shooting, Ziad would raise the alarm. She had maybe thirty seconds.
She picked up the pistol just as a guard appeared on the deck above with his weapon. She shot him twice and he tumbled over the rail into the ocean. Sheriti returned her aim back to where Ziad had fled inside, for a moment considered going after him.
No time.
Scrambling across the heaving deck to the crane, she released the cleat that held the jet ski in place. Using the joystick, she manoeuvred the watercraft over the side until it was swinging in its cradle above the waves.
Another two guards appeared. One yelled at her. She shot at them as the Princess Aliya bucked down another wave. Missed.
One of the men fired but the shots sprayed the deck nearby as the vessel came out of a trough. Sheriti let off two more rounds and pulled the release bar. The jet ski seemed to hover for a moment before it plunged into the roiling sea nose-first, disappearing in the white flurry of wake.
A guard fired as she put her foot on the rail and jumped.
~ * ~
84
On the bridge, with its masculine smell of tobacco, leather and sweat, the Second Officer Abdul Siddiq was at the helm. Captain Jergah was no doubt sleeping very soundly as usual, Khalid assumed, as he bent over the radar screen, fully alert now, watching the white dot edge ever closer. His irritation at being woken by gunshots and finding Sheriti gone from his bed had been distracted by news of this mysterious vessel creeping up on them from behind. Was it a pirate vessel? Or was it Israelis, as he suspected? Khalid had ordered his two security commanders, Ziad and Captain Khan, to the bridge to explain why their men were shooting this late at night, possibly alerting the trailing vessel of their defences. Was one of the crew practicing night firing, or perhaps simply celebrating someone’s birthday in the traditional way? Either way, someone had been contravening his orders.
The radar operator, Hareem, pointed to a small white dot on the round screen, which flickered slightly as it refreshed. “It has closed to four kilometres, Highness.”
The door opened and Captain Jergah joined them on the bridge, adjusting his uniform. “My apologies, Highness. I didn’t know you were here. They just wok
e me and told me there has been a shooting.”
Khalid waved off his apology. “Perhaps you could enlighten me. I’ve only just got here myself. Abdul doesn’t know what happened, and we can’t risk putting on the lights, so the cameras are useless. Khan and Ziad are on their way. Look at this...” He pointed at the radar. “I believe it may be Israelis. Call battle stations if the vessel gets closer.”
The door swung open and Captain Khan appeared, his forehead split with a deep frown as though he’d received news of a close relative’s death. “Highness, Captain Jergah, I have to report an incident. Two of our men dead, and Dr. Gammal is treating another for a serious wound. Sheriti...”
The mention of his fiancée’s name jolted Khalid and he turned from the radar screen. At the same moment, the door opened and Ziad entered, accompanied by a biting cold gust from outside as the Princess Aliya rode over the top of a wave. “Highness. Sheriti’s gone. She shot several men and jumped from the stern. She has a jet ski.”