by Rob Jones
“Hey, I was improvising. Work with me here!”
She shook her head but smiled. “I guess we do work kind of well together, but right now we need to get out of here. I hear men running on the deck above us.”
“Agreed,” Hunter said.
They made their way down the steps to the next deck. Hunter tried a door. “Let’s try in here.” He reached out for the cavity pull handle and slid the heavy door open. He waved Kirsten inside and then joined her, sliding the door closed behind them. They were standing inside a luxury suite set over two floors and decorated in pale blush pink and cream paint. Beyond a polished black baby grand piano, a mahogany staircase swept up to the second floor, and the entire space was dominated by a floor to ceiling window wall looking out on a calm ocean.
“Talk about an experience de luxe,” Kirsten said with a raised eyebrow.
Hunter pushed his ear up against the door. He heard the bodyguards trampling along the thick carpeted corridor outside the cabin and froze on the spot. “They’re running along the corridor. Give it a second, just to be sure.” He turned and checked out the cabin. “Whoa, this is something else. And look at the size of the bed.”
“It’s bigger than my first apartment,” Kirsten said.
Hunter looked at her with a grin. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That we should get going and rescue those two thieves before Canosa kills them?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
She frowned at him. “They rescued us, Max.”
“I know, but I’m not sure we’re strong enough to help them.”
“Don’t be so modest. You were an officer in the British Army for many years.”
“A guards officer and then a helicopter pilot, not a sodding commando.”
“Guards training is very demanding, plus the whole world knows all about your exploits working for UNESCO. You’re a famous daredevil, but apparently only when it suits your own ends.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you’d be happier saving their lives if I got some paparazzi in to record your selfless bravery?”
“It’s not like that at all.”
“Then we get the thieves first, and then the statue and map and get out of here, in that order.”
“What are you, my boss?”
She looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course, I am. You’re on a contract to authenticate the statue for the Rorschach Foundation. Does that make it clearer?”
He shrugged. “When you put it like that…”
“There’s no other way to put it. Don’t make me start calling you Dr Hunter again.”
He gave her a wry smile. “All right, we can go and get the thieves.”
“Good job, Max.”
He gently opened the door and peered out into the corridor. It was empty, so they made their way to the end and reached a door with a porthole in it. He looked through it and saw one of the bodyguards standing on the other side, at the bottom of a stairwell. He was flicking through his phone.
“God bless modern technology,” he said. “Years ago he’d have been on guard, but now he’s got bored and he’s cruising around on Facebook.”
“So what do we do?” she asked.
Hunter calculated the door’s swing area and the position of the man’s head, bowed down as he stared at the phone. “This.”
He kicked the door as hard as he could and smashed it into the bodyguard’s head. The impact of the steel door knocked him out cold and he fell back into the stairwell, tumbling down the top few steps.
“We do that,” Kirsten said. “Of course we do.”
Hunter stepped into the stairwell, hauled the man up off the steps and checked his phone.
“So, was he looking at Facebook?” she asked.
He tossed the phone down on top of the unconscious man and took his gun and two spare magazines. Checking the mag inside the grip, he said, “You don’t want to know what he was looking at. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
They ran to the top of the stairs and emerged on one of the higher decks. “I hear a chopper,” Kirsten said.
“Me too. Sounds like Vazquez might be planning on taking a flight with the goodies.”
“I’m just hoping he hasn’t already killed the thieves.”
“Considering they’re just a couple of lousy artifact smugglers, you seem to care an awful lot for them. Are you sure you don’t know them?”
Kirsten straightened up and swept some hair away from her face. “As I told Mr Davila, I have never seen them before in my life, and I resent the implication that…”
In a heartbeat, several bodyguards rounded one of the lifeboat tenders and saw them standing on the deck. Without hesitating, they raised their weapons and discharged a wild blaze of gunfire on them. Hunter elbowed Kirsten hard in the chest, forcing her back inside the corridor and then returned fire, emptying the magazine in three bursts.
The barrage of fire drove the men into the cover of the lifeboat and gave Hunter the time he needed to reload. “We’re not getting up to the helipad that way.”
“No shit… and that hurt by the way.”
“Eh?”
“When you pushed me!”
“Are you kidding me? I just saved your life!”
“I’ll probably have a bruise for weeks.”
He shook his head. “Are you for real?”
She put her hands on her hips. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
A bullet pinged off the top of the iron doorway and sprayed them in a shower of bright white sparks. “Maybe we could finish this conversation later?” he said.
“I see them!” Kirsten said, peering over the rail. “They’re down on the deck below.”
Hunter leaned over the rail and saw Gomez and Gabriela standing against the rail on the portside. They had their hands on their heads and were standing still while Diego Canosa and five other men stood in a line in front of them.
“What are they doing?” Kirsten asked.
“They’re a firing squad,” Hunter said, putting a new mag into the Makarov. “They’re going to shoot them and push their bodies over the rail. Here, take the gun.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to cover me. This isn’t a toy, Dr Anderson. It’s a Makarov semi-automatic pistol and when it bites it kills. Have you ever killed a person?”
She pulled her head back and her mouth opened a little in shock. “No, I have not killed anyone! Who do you think I am?”
“I think you’re someone who might have to kill a man very soon and you’d better get used to the idea.”
“You really think there’s a danger of that?”
“Yes, and I think there’s just as much danger of you hurting yourself. Remember to keep the safety engaged just like I told you. Don’t take it off unless your life is in danger, understand?”
She nodded and hooked the gun down inside her belt. “Yes – they’re pointing their guns at them! We have to do something!”
Then, Canosa raised his gun and said one word that chilled their bones.
“Fire!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With no time to tell Kirsten what he planned to do, Hunter vaulted over the rail and landed on Canosa, crumpling the gangster to the deck where he landed with a thud. The aerial attack came out of nowhere and the Cuban fired his gun involuntarily out into the sea until half the mag was gone. The other men rallied and turned their guns on Hunter.
“Get off him!” one of them shouted.
Hunter climbed off the unconscious Canosa and raised his hands. Glancing at Gomez and Gabriela, both of them returned a silent nod of thanks. Seconds later, all of them jumped out of their skin when a series of shots was fired from above; bullets chewed into the deck and the men scrambled for cover.
Hunter stared up and saw Kirsten with the gun in her hand. She swept the muzzle across the deck and kept the men pinned down. “Don’
t just stand there, damn it!” she called out. “Get out of there! This thing’s only got eight shots!”
In the chaos, the men had forgotten to take Canosa’s gun. Hunter wrenched it from his unconscious grip and ran with Gomez and Gabriela away from the men to the cover of another lifeboat farther astern.
“Thank you for saving us,” Gabriela said as she slammed down next to him.
“Forget about it,” Hunter said. “You saved our lives and we saved yours. Now we’re even.”
Kirsten sprinted down the stairs and dived down beside them. “Way too hot up there,” she said quickly. “Vazquez’s men all over the place and I think the Bell’s about to take off.”
“Damn it,” Gabriela said. “He still has the statue and the map!”
“We need to worry more about ourselves right now,” Hunter said. “His men are regrouping and heading right for us!”
Vazquez’s bodyguards advanced along the deck, firing on them in controlled but aggressive bursts. Hunter fired back, unloading Canosa’s Makarov into the nearest man and killing him on the spot. He crashed down to the deck in a bloody heap as the other men dived for cover.
Hunter dropped the empty Makarov, snatched up the dying man’s weapon and checked the state of the mag. The gun was a Brügger & Thomet APC9 submachine gun and the mag was over half full. Smacking it back into the weapon’s body he spun around and sprayed Vazquez’s men full of lead.
The weapon jerked and bucked in his grip as he swept the muzzle from side to side and took out everyone in sight. Used by personal security details, it had all the firepower and accuracy he needed to get himself and the others down to the tender and back to the coast.
“More on the way!” Kirsten leaned half out of a bulkhead door and fired on another man, planting three shots in his chest and knocking him over the rail. He crashed into the deck below with a wet crunch, bouncing once and thumping to a rest. “But not anymore!”
Hunter gave her a double take. “Good shot.”
“Beginner’s luck, I guess,” she said, goofily waving the muzzle at him.
“Whoa! Point that thing to the ground!”
“Sorry.”
“Holy crap…” Hunter’s eyes rolled. “Listen, we should retreat to the stern before either they, or you kill one of us.”
“Hey!” she said.
“Agreed,” Gomez said, snatching an MP5 compact machine pistol from one of the dead men. “This way.”
The Cuban thief led them past a wine bar and a two-tier restaurant on the way to the quarterdeck, but when they turned the corner they found themselves confronted by ten more armed men. They were dressed like the rest of Vazquez’s personal security detail in smart black suits and polished shoes, and they were armed with concealed pistols.
“About time!” one of them shouted. “We’ve been waiting for you scum to steal a lifeboat tender for ages.”
Hunter moved to fire his weapon, reaching down and swinging the Brügger & Thomet up into the aim. He was stopped by the sound of Gomez’s MP5 as he opened fire on the men.
Kirsten took cover behind the stern of one of the tenders and joined him, firing on the men alongside Gomez until they had been reduced to a heap of shredded, blood-soaked clothes and shattered bones. Hunter took up a position of cover beside the cartographer and looked on with disbelief as the two of them killed every last man.
When the shooting had stopped, Gomez slung the MP5 over his shoulder and busied himself with the task of lowering one of the motorized tenders down into the sea. Hunter noticed Kirsten was trying to avoid him. “More beginner’s luck, right?”
“I suppose it must be,” she said. “The thief really did most of the work.”
“Are you sure Mr Rorschach hired you just for your cartographic skills?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“Quick!” Gomez called out. “More men on their way – they’re climbing down the stairs from the promenade deck forward of this position. We need to get in this thing right now.”
Davila was above them now, and casually dropped a grenade into the tender Gomez had lowered. When it exploded, it blasted the small boat into matchwood and embers.
“Shit,” Hunter said. “Wait here.”
“No!” Gabriela yelled.
“What the hell is he doing?” said Gomez.
Hunter broke cover and sprinted down the length of the deck like the devil, with the bullets of Vazquez’s bodyguards nipping at his heels. As he went, he raked each of the lifeboats with lead blasting chunks out of them and blowing holes through their hulls. When the last boat was wrecked, he returned the same way, under heavy fire, and crashed down into Kirsten.
“Dr Hunter!”
“Sorry,” he said, pulling his head out of her lap. “An honest mistake.”
“That’s the lifeboats all trashed,” Gabriela said. “So what do we do now?”
Hunter grinned. “We go down to the next deck and borrow Vazquez’s personal tender. Follow me.”
He ran hard and dropped down through a hatch to the deck below, the Brügger & Thomet gripped in his hand and pointing ahead. Swinging around, he saw the coast was clear. “C’mon!”
The others dropped down beside him and they made for the tender, moving swiftly through the humid moonlit night until they reached their destination. Kirsten climbed in first while Hunter and Gomez kept watch. Gabriela started to climb in next, but then a shot roared from above and shocked them all. Then another round, and then a full burst of automatic fire.
“No!” cried Gomez, surging toward Gabriela.
It was too late. The bullets raked across her upper body, ripping into her stomach and chest and heart and blasting an explosive cloud of blood onto the white-painted bulkhead behind her. The Cuban woman collapsed to her knees, the life slipping from her horrified eyes by the time she crashed onto the floor.
Hunter and Kirsten shared a look of incredulity as Gomez changed course and headed for Mario Davila on the deck above.
“Get back!” the Cuban gangster yelled, grinning. “Or I shoot again!”
Gomez froze on the spot, the terrifically loud gunshot still ringing out in the confined space. “That was murder, you bastard. You just murdered an innocent woman with two kids waiting at home in their beds.”
“She wasn’t innocent,” Davila said coolly. “She boarded this ship illegally and tried to steal my employer’s personal property. She was a thief.”
Gomez charged forward, but Davila raised the smoking gun once again, this time pointing it at his face. “I mean it, scumbag.”
“More men on the way!” Kirsten shouted. “We have to go!”
Gomez’s enraged face twisted with hate and terror as he moved his eyes from Davila to the dead woman on the deck. Suddenly, his head dropped and he made for the lifeboat, climbing in just behind Hunter who now hit the button on the davit crane and lowered it into the water.
“Kill them all!”
With the sound of Davila screaming above, they hit the water and Hunter fired up the outboard motor. Dropping the propellers into the water and turning away from the ship, his mind raced with what had just happened. He had lost the statue and the map and watched a woman’s brutal cold-blooded murder.
“They’re firing!” Gomez yelled. “Get down!”
Hunter increased the throttle and dipped his head down inside the tender’s hull. Peering back up at the ship, he saw a dozen or more men lined up on the deck firing automatic weapons at them. The rounds pocked the rising-falling surface of the black sea all around them, but they were a moving target in the dark and already hundreds of feet away.
“I think we’re away,” he said at last.
“And so is Vazquez,” Kirsten said.
Overhead on the far side of the ship, they saw Vazquez’s chopper swoop down over the sea and head back to the Cuban coast. “There goes the statue and the map,” Hunter said. “Damn it.”
“We failed,” Kir
sten said.
“And a good woman got killed,” Gomez said bitterly. “For this, Vazquez will pay with his life. I swear.”
“I never even got any time to study the damn thing.” Hunter smashed his fist into the side of the boat. “Just like with McCabe! And I doubt I ever will.”
“That’s not exactly true,” said a stern-faced Gomez, rummaging around in his pocket and pulling out a Sony RX011. The black digital camera was no bigger than a box of matches. “I have photos of the statue and the map on here, from every angle.”
Hunter was shocked. “When the buggering hell did you have time to do that?”
“In the strongroom,” he said. “Just in case something like this happened.”
“What the hell?” Hunter said. “Let me look at the photos.”
Gomez handed the camera over and the archaeologist held it away from the dashboard lights. He studied it for a few seconds as the boat rose and fell with Kirsten at the helm.
“El Salvador,” he said triumphantly. “Whatever this is, it’s in El Salvador. Specifically, the mountains in the east.” He swiped across to the pictures of the statue.
Amy saw his frown. “What’s the problem?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Something’s bothering me and I don’t know what it is. I’ll need to spend more time on it, but the map says El Salvador.”
“Really?” Kirsten said.
“Sure,” he said. “Don’t look so surprised. There are lots of important pre-Columbian archaeological sites in El Salvador, including, most famously Tazumal, but none exactly in the location on this map. Any one of them might be hiding the third Winged Guardian.”
“The question is,” Kirsten said, looking out across the water, “what the hell did the Nazis want with these statues?”
Hunter handed Gomez the camera, paused and then gave them each a crooked smile. “Listen, I know something is going on here that I don’t know about, and I think someone needs to start talking.”
Kirsten’s eyes were still looking across the water at the lights on the ship’s deck and then the moonlight bouncing and dancing on the black water all around them. Turning to Hunter, she sighed. “All right, but not here and not now.”