longer. Ja, okay, I am ready.”
“On my mark we all fire at once.” Luc jacked the slide again, mistakenly ejecting a live round. Tisa smirked at his nervousness.
“Now!”
He rounded the corner of the container again and fired as soon as his rifle barrel was clear. He’d cooked off half a magazine before realizing the helicopter had peeled off and paced the workboat fifty yards to starboard. “Damn it. Hold your fire. Wait until they return.”
From cover behind the drum of tow cable Mercer watched Luc shouting into the walkie-talkie. He’d leapt from the helicopter to the
When Luc gave the order to fire, Mercer counted four separate muzzle flashes: Luc’s, a gunman on the bridge wing, another on the starboard-side main deck near the superstructure and the fourth one deck up hiding behind the port-side lifeboat. He called in their positions with the tactical radio the PJ had given him.
“I can take the guy on the bridge wing even if he ducks inside. The guy by the container’s just going to hide again. Same with the guy at the door into the superstructure. I advise you take the one by the lifeboat. We’ll come in from the bow.”
“Affirmative.”
“Beginning our run, now. Hot guns!”
Mercer paused a beat as the chopper dove in on the workboat. As soon as the PJ opened up and Luc vanished into the van, Mercer rose from his position and dashed forward to get a better angle on the gunman under the port-side lifeboat. The man had spun so he could watch the helo rake the opposite side of the ship, concentrating its fire on the bridge.
Just as the Seahawk shot along the length of the vessel, breaking wide in case Luc or Pran counterfired, Mercer put two rounds into the back of Gerhard’s head. The German pitched over the rail, hit the top of the main deck railing and tumbled into the water. Mercer reached cover beside the container they’d used to store the NewtSuits.
“One down,” Mercer reported.
“Call it two,” the parajumper corrected. “And we’ve got six minutes.”
Mercer looked at his watch. The nuke.
“Roger. Give me cover fire on the control van. I need to reach the superstructure.”
“You got it.”
The chopper wheeled again and came back at the
Mercer raced forward, keeping to the port side of the ship, and found an open hatchway. He could see clear across the ship and hoped to have outflanked the third gunman, but the man had changed positions. Instead of hunting the soldier, Mercer went for the mess hall. The door had been secured with a chain around a standpipe. He shot off the padlock and whirled, making sure the three-round burst hadn’t drawn the missing gunman.
The door to the mess flew open. The first man out was the third officer, Seamus Rourke. “Mercer! What the hell is going on?”
“No time. The bomb goes off in four minutes. The men who took over your ship stupidly headed due east. You have to turn us about. When this side of the island collapses it’s going to produce some monster waves and we’re right in their path. If we’re not facing them, we don’t have a chance.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“There are two men outside with machine pistols. One in the control van. I don’t know where the other is. Also, Jim McKenzie is part of the hijacking and I suspect his assistant is too.”
“Gawd.”
“I need volunteers to distract them.”
“I’ll get one of the lads to handle the ship. Oy, mates,” he called into the mess. “We need a hand getting this scum off our boat. Who’s with me?”
A dozen voices joined in a resounding chorus of rebellion.
Mercer led them back out the way he’d come. There was still no sign of the third gunman. “Seahawk, this is Mercer. What’s happening?”
“No movement,” the pilot reported. “The container doors are closed. The jumper saw at least three people inside. One he swears is the woman you told us about.”
Mercer wasn’t surprised. Luc would want to keep his sister close. The third person was Jim, so that meant Ken Bowers was still lurking around too. “Roger. Keep them pinned. I just released the crew. A helmsman is going to turn the ship around to face the blast. The rest are with me. We have to flush out the third soldier and I believe one more hijacker who was already on the ship.”
“Just so you know, we’re down to our last two magazines. Then it’s pistols, which are about as worthless as shooting dirty looks.”
A dozen sailors crowded the hall just inside the exterior door, waiting for Mercer to give the word. All of them were facing out so none saw Paul Thierry sneak up from a stairwell leading to the engineering spaces. He laid down a scathing wall of fire, mowing down men like wheat with a scythe. It only ended when his clip ran dry.
Four sailors were dead, three wounded, and the others went after the Frenchman with the savagery of attack dogs. They caught him halfway down the metal stairs and helped him the rest of the way by pushing him headfirst into the steel decking. The blow was enough to kill the hijacker, but not enough to satisfy the crewmen. When they were finished, Thierry’s corpse was a bloody ruin that was nearly unrecognizable as having been human.
Mercer stood at the top of the companionway. Seamus Rourke climbed up from the dim engine room, blood smeared across his face and dripping from his hands. “You get your woman and get yourself clear.” His voice was eerily calm. “We’ll look after our own on the ship.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“Aye. If the
Mercer shook his hand. “Good luck.”
He retreated back outside, feeling a small measure of sympathy for what would happen to Ken Bowers when the crew caught up to him.
The control van sat squarely in the middle of the deck, a small fortress immune to fire from Mercer’s M-16. He had two minutes before the blast and five before the tsunami. He also had no idea how to get Tisa out of the box.
Then he’d take the whole thing with him. “Seahawk, what’s your lifting capacity?”
“Forget it,” the pilot radioed. “I know what you’re thinking. That container weighs a couple of tons empty. No way we can lift it if it’s full.”
But with the door tightly closed, Luc and Jim didn’t know what was happening. “Lower your safety basket and hover directly over the container anyway.”
“I told you we can’t lift it.”
“You don’t need to.”
Mercer ran for the stern and the A-frame crane that towered over the fantail. The controls were on a seat mounted a few feet up one of the steel supports. Mercer climbed into the seat and quickly recognized the function of the knobs and joystick. The diesel generator that gave the crane power chugged away softly. He increased the power and dropped the crane’s arm back over the ship, paying out line as it descended. He halted the arm above the container and paid out more cable until the steel hook lay on the top of the box. With the chopper thundering overhead there was no way anyone inside could hear what he’d done.
Keeping the M-16 at the ready, Mercer reached the side of the container and climbed its integrated ladder. The top of the box was flat steel, but eyebolts had been welded to the four corners so it could be lifted on and off the ship if necessary. Mercer dragged the heavy hook to one of the lifting points at the back of the container and snapped it through.
He climbed back to the deck, cursing the seconds lost by not being able to jump. He was operating on nothing but adrenaline now. At the crane controls he brought his radio to his lips. “Okay, take yourself up a few
