Piranha

by Clive Cussler

  The boat was trolling ten miles off the coast, four poles stuck in the rotating pedestal fishing chair, the well-used leather fighting belt hanging from its armrest. Juan and Max were the sole passengers on the luxurious charter. Captain Craig Reed, a garrulous Boston firefighter who’d retired to Montego Bay to start his fishing business, manned the conn and served as the boat’s only crew member. Juan and Max had nothing to do but savor the fine weather and beer until the next bite.

  “You know, Reed’s got the right idea,” Max said, and took another swig from his bottle.

  “The right idea about what?”

  “About how to retire in style.”

  Juan tilted his head at Max. “Thinking about leaving the Corporation?”

  Max shrugged. “Maybe not tomorrow, but someday. I’ve been on the water since I was assigned to that Swift Boat in Vietnam.”

  “And you love it.”

  “I do. That’s why buying my own fishing charter has its appeal.”

  “The Corporation doesn’t provide enough excitement for you?”

  “Too much, sometimes.”

  “It keeps you young.”

  “I just wish it did something for my weight,” Max said, patting his round belly. Julia was constantly on him to watch his diet, but Chef’s pasta was too tempting.

  “I could install a treadmill at your workstation in the op center.”

  “You do that and I’m definitely retiring.”

  “Then we have a deal. No treadmill, no retirement.”

  They tapped bottles and took another drink.

  “Well, what do you know?” Reed called down from his chair on the deck above them. “Looks like we’ve got some competition for this prime spot.”

  Another fishing charter cleaved the water as it raced toward them at full speed about a mile out. It looked to be a sixty-foot Landeweer, a high-end vessel that outclassed the Cast Away.

  “She’s coming on pretty fast,” Juan said.

  “That’s the Oceanaire,” Reed said, his brow knotted. “It’s Colin Porter’s boat. She’s a beauty, fully customized, the fastest charter in Montego Bay. Now, why is Colin out here? He told me this morning that he’d be trolling east of here.”

  “Seems odd that he would be headed straight for us,” Max said.

  “Let me ask him what’s going on.” Reed tried calling on the radio, but instead of a response, Juan could hear a sound like a high-pitched electric drill coming from the speaker.

  “What’s wrong with this thing?” Reed said, banging on the console.

  Juan looked at Max. “Does that sound like a jamming signal to you?”

  “It sure does.” Max narrowed his eyes at the approaching boat when he realized the implication of what Juan was asking.

  There was no use checking their personal cell phones. Even if they weren’t being jammed, they were far out of range of any tower.

  “Someone’s jamming us?” Reed asked. He followed their gaze to the Oceanaire. “Colin? That’s crazy.”

  Juan scanned the horizon. “There aren’t any other boats in sight.”

  “It has to be a malfunction,” Reed said. “He’s probably just coming over to say hi or tell us where the best fishing is.”

  “Has he done something like this before?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Seems like a strange coincidence, don’t you think? They’re coming at us full bore just after your radio went out?”

  “But jamming our signal? Why would he do that?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Max said.

  Juan leaned into Max and said quietly, “This seems all wrong.”

  “I’ve got the same feeling,” Max answered back.

  “If they have a portable jammer on that boat, it required some planning to bring it along. They didn’t find one in their neighborhood hardware store.”

  “Which means they didn’t want us calling for help.”

  “As far as I know, nobody even knows we’re here.”

  “Then I’d say better safe than sorry.”

  Juan looked up at Reed. “You know, you’re probably right that there’s nothing to worry about, but it might be prudent to take some precautions. I noticed you have a speargun mounted on the wall with the rods and tackle.”

  “That old thing? I don’t even know how to use it. I bought it because I thought some of my clients would want to spearfish, but nobody was ever interested. Now it’s just a conversation piece.”

  “Do you mind if I keep it handy? Just in case?” Juan’s combat leg was back on the Oregon.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I like to be prepared for the worst.”

  “Have you fired one before?”

  “A few times.”

  Reed gave him a dubious look, then glanced at the radio and nodded reluctantly. “Just remember that you can’t sue me down here, so be careful with it. I only have one spear for it. To tell the truth, I’m not even sure it works.”

  Juan ducked into the cabin and went to where the spare rods were lined up on the wall. At the very top was the five-foot-long Riffe speargun with a pistol grip. In the water, its effective range was little over twenty feet. Even though the air provided less resistance, the range wouldn’t be much greater, but it was better than nothing.

  Juan plucked the spear and its gun off the wall. The spear, which had a wicked notched steel tip, was propelled by three rubber tubes on either side of the teak shaft. Juan loaded the spear and cranked the tubes back until the clasp attached to the spear’s shaft. He didn’t bother with the spear’s retractable line. If he ended up using it, he didn’t plan on reeling anything in.

  He headed back up and saw that the Oceanaire was closing on them. He leaned the speargun against the bulkhead, out of sight but within easy reach.

  “Max, why don’t you join Craig up on the bridge?” If things got hairy, Juan wanted Max ready to take the wheel. Max climbed up and stood next to the controls.

  The Oceanaire slowed and turned so that it could come alongside. Less than a boat length separated it from the Cast Away. Both boats idled on the calm sea. Juan stood on the balls of his feet, his arms loose and unencumbered.

  Four men were visible, two on the bridge deck and two on the aft fishing deck. While the one at the controls was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, the three others were oddly out of place in pants and light jackets, not the attire Juan would expect tourists to wear. All of them stared intently at the Cast Away, not a smile to be seen.

  “Porter, what are you doing out here?” Reed shouted to him.

  Colin Porter, Oceanaire’s owner, had to be the one in the T-shirt. He looked at the man next to him as if he were contemplating how to answer. A muscular guy with close-cropped hair and a military bearing, the man stood with a posture that conveyed his status as the person in command. He had angular cheekbones, a jaw carved from marble, and a glare that could freeze molten lava.

  Who was he? Juan wondered. A local policeman? Someone in the Jamaican armed forces? Juan immediately discarded both those possibilities. Neither would use a radio jammer.

  Before he could speculate further, the Oceanaire’s engine died. Porter yelled at the top of his lungs, “Reed, they’re going to kill you!” He reared back and threw what looked like a set of keys overboard.

  The man next to Porter turned and without so much as a flinch shot him in the head with a pistol. Porter’s body tumbled over the railing and splashed into the water.

  While he was shooting the boat’s captain, his men snatched assault rifles from their hiding places in front of them and brought them to bear on the Cast Away.

  At the same time, Juan grabbed the speargun and aimed it at the closest gunman. They all fired simultaneously.

  The spear struck the aftmost gunman in the center of the chest, caus
ing him to fall backward as his weapon spewed bullets into the air over Juan’s head.

  The gunman next to him was aiming at the bridge. As Juan dived for cover, he could see Max shove the throttle forward. The sudden movement saved Reed’s life. A round hit him near the shoulder instead of in the chest. The remaining bullets stitched their way across the ceiling of the bridge.

  They kept their heads down as more rounds raked the Cast Away’s hull. In less than a minute, they were out of range and the shooting ceased. The Oceanaire was dead in the water behind them.

  Juan scrambled up to the bridge and found Max putting pressure on Reed’s shoulder with a rag that was already soaked with blood. Juan took over so that Max could pilot the boat.

  Reed was awake and alert. His shoulder was a crimson mess. He didn’t seem to be in shock. Probably had been through more dire situations as a firefighter.

  Juan inspected the damage. Reed winced but didn’t complain.

  “No exit wound, and the bullet seems to have missed any arteries,” Juan said. “You got lucky.”

  “Oh yeah,” Reed said through clenched teeth, “I feel like I just won the lottery.”

  “If it wasn’t for your friend, none of us would be alive. He threw the ignition key overboard to save us.”

  “I can’t believe Porter is dead. He was a good man, and that animal murdered him in cold blood. Who are those people? Why are they trying to kill us?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. First, we need to get you to a hospital.”

  “It’ll take us at least thirty minutes to get back to Montego Bay,” Max said. He glanced back at them, but his gaze settled on the ocean instead. The look on his face became grim. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve got thirty minutes.”

  Juan turned and saw that the Oceanaire was no longer stationary. Crests of water curled in front of its bow.

  The assassins must have figured out how to hot-wire the boat and now had the engine cranked to full power. Not only was the Oceanaire on a pursuit course, she was gaining on them.

  “Still no luck on the radio,” Max said.

  “We’re on our own until we can reach port,” Juan said, holding his hand on Reed’s wound. The injury was more severe than it originally appeared to be. The ex-firefighter was having trouble breathing, and Juan wondered if a bone fragment had punctured his lung.

  “I’d say we’ve got ten minutes tops before they’re in range to start firing at us. That was a great shot with the spear, but it was our only weapon.”

  “Do you have anything else that we could use?” Juan asked Reed.

  Reed, who was now ashen, merely shook his head.

  “There’s gotta be something we can defend ourselves with,” Max said. “Once they’re next to us, they’ll either mow us down from their boat or board us if we try to hide inside. Either way, I don’t like our chances.”

  “Then I’ll have to figure something out,” Juan said. He put Reed’s good hand on the rag. “Can you keep pressure on this?”

  Reed nodded weakly. Juan didn’t like leaving him there, but there was nothing more he could do for him until they reached safety. If they reached safety.

  Juan went downstairs and saw that one of the two remaining men on the Oceanaire was climbing out onto the open foredeck with his assault rifle while his companion drove the boat. He lay down and took aim at the Cast Away but didn’t fire, apparently not wanting to waste ammo until they were in effective range. Max similarly delayed taking evasive action until the shooting started. Doing so now would only allow their pursuers to catch up more quickly.

  The spent speargun rested on the deck next to the fishing chair where Juan had discarded it. Empty beer bottles that had fallen from their perches when Max gunned the engine now banged against the transom.

  Juan ducked into the cabin and searched for anything that might prove useful. The well-stocked galley had plenty of food and drinks, but nothing more lethal than a dinner knife. Juan had his own pocketknife, but it would only be valuable as a close-quarters weapon.

  He opened the hatch into the engine bay and climbed down to see what he could find. Although the smell of diesel fuel and oil was strong, the equipment looked well maintained. Juan discovered a tool kit, but it contained little more than a wrench and a few screwdrivers. Nothing that would stand up to an assault rifle.

  He was about to leave the engine room when the noxious odor made him stop. He realized that they did have a weapon: the fuel itself. He needed a way to launch it at the Oceanaire but didn’t know how until the memory of the empty beer bottles inspired a brainstorm.

  He hurried up to the outside deck and picked up four Red Stripes. He also took the portable bilge pump and went back down to the engine room.

  He uncapped the fuel tank and stuck the pump’s hose in. It took him only a few pumps each to fill all of the distinctive squat bottles.

  He took the bottles and the tool kit back up to the galley, where he rifled through the drawers until he found a cigarette lighter. Juan then retrieved a life vest from the storage locker, took out his knife, and cut the vest open so he could get at the foam inside. He quickly sliced off pieces of foam and jammed them inside the bottles, where they would dissolve, converting the diesel to a sticky jelly. Then he got some hand towels out of the galley to stuff in the necks. He turned each of the bottles over until their makeshift wicks were soaked with diesel.

  Now he had four Molotov cocktails. The next step was to figure out how to deliver them to the target.

  Throwing them was the obvious choice, but it would also expose him to gunfire. He might get one good throw before he was cut down, and the boats would have to be practically next to each other to assure a hit. He needed a launch mechanism with more velocity and suddenly realized the speargun gave him all the velocity he needed.

  Up on deck, Juan stole a glance behind them and saw the Oceanaire perilously close. The gunman took a couple of potshots, but the bullets had little hope of hitting a moving target at that range.

  “Whatever you’re doing,” Max yelled, “you better hurry!”

  “Two more minutes,” Juan replied as he placed the Molotov cocktails in the cooler for easy access.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  With the knife, Juan hacked the three elastic rubber tubes from each side of the speargun and tied them together to make a pair of longer tubes. With a screwdriver from the tool kit, he rapidly detached the back of the rotating fishing chair and dropped it on the deck. He tied each tube to one of the chair’s metal armrests. He lashed the other ends of the tubes to the leather fighting belt, which he could fold together to form a perfect pocket for gripping a beer bottle.

  His slingshot was ready. And because the chair rotated, he’d be able to aim anywhere in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. Now he could fire the Molotov cocktails without raising his head more than a few inches above the transom.

  Of course, that assumed the thing actually worked. Only one way to find out, but he couldn’t give away his element of surprise.

  Juan sneaked back up to the bridge.

  “Max, I want you to turn around.”

  Max was incredulous. “I’m sorry. I thought I just heard you say that you want me to turn around.”

  “Running away only delays the inevitable. I’ve got a little surprise for those pirates. Molotov cocktails, and I’m ready to launch them.”

  “That means we have to get them in close.”

  Juan nodded. “I’d say no more than fifty yards.”

  “Oh, good. I thought you were going to make this hard.”

  “I know you like a challenge.” Juan went back down to the aft deck as Max brought the Cast Away about.

  Juan would have two minutes at most before they were within range. He loaded an unopened beer bottle into the pocket of his slin
gshot and pulled it back until the rubber wouldn’t go any tighter without breaking. The well-oiled chair rotated easily when he moved the pocket back and forth.

  With the Oceanaire directly in front of them, it was unlikely their attackers would be able to see what Juan was doing. He took aim on a mountain peeking over the horizon, held his breath, and released the slingshot.

  The beer bottle rocketed away from the boat with a twang of the rubber tubing. It flew in a graceful arc and landed in their wake over sixty yards away. Juan practiced twice more until he had the hang of it. Now he needed a real target.

  “Get ready!” Max shouted.

  “Stay low!” Juan replied.

  He pressed himself against the bulkhead and lit the first Molotov cocktail as the Cast Away slewed around in another half circle. The gunman on the deck was already firing his rifle in the careful three-shot bursts of a trained soldier rather than unloading his magazine on auto. Bullets peppered the bridge, his primary target.

  The Oceanaire swung around on a pursuit course. When it was directly behind them, Juan placed the flaming bottle in the pocket and drew it back. He aimed and let go.

  The bottle soared into the air, but he immediately saw that he hadn’t compensated enough for the speed of the boat following them. The Molotov cocktail flew over the Oceanaire and landed harmlessly astern.

  Juan lit another and lowered his aim. The gunman, realizing that he now had a more important target than the bridge, adjusted his fire to just above the transom. If the water had been smoother, he might have been able to hit Juan more easily, but the small waves made his rounds impact the bulkhead above Juan’s head.

  Juan loosed the second cocktail and this time his aim was too low. The bottle smashed into the prow of the Oceanaire above the waterline, but the flames were doused by the spray of water.

  Either the driver of the Oceanaire didn’t see the Molotov cocktails or he didn’t care because he kept coming without deviating from his course. Juan had only two bombs left.