Hartlaub shot the first man. I didn’t see it, just heard the bang of his gun and the corresponding howl and crashing fall. I was too busy dropping into a crouch while over-handing my Ka-bar at the man nearest me. Up the stairs the man furthest away brought his gun to target and fired. Luckily my drop had caught him out and his bullet went over my head, but my knife hit his friend in the gut. The wounded man forgot about his own weapon as he tried to pull the six inches of steel from his body. It was the opportunity I needed to snatch out my SIG and shoot him in the head.
Hartlaub fired again, but he was making sure the one he’d hit stayed down. I still had another armed man to contend with. He was yelling gibberish to my ears, what I guessed was a Russian curse of some kind. He fired, but he couldn’t decide which of us he wanted to kill and his bullets missed us both. I came out of my crouch, levelled my gun at his central mass and squeezed the trigger. The first shot took him in the solar plexus, and it would have proved fatal in itself, but I shot him two more times higher up in his chest. There was no more cursing after that, and the sudden silence rang in my ears as heady as the sharp tang of cordite in my nostrils.
That only lasted as long as it took for me to round on Hartlaub. ‘Jesus Christ!’ I hissed. ‘Do you think you can try to be a bit quieter in future? Cain will know we’re coming for him.’
Hartlaub offered a shrug. ‘Would you rather I’d let that punk get the drop on you?’
My anger was misguided. My frustration wasn’t at Hartlaub’s lack of subtlety but at the knowledge that any chance of getting Jenny free was now going to be a hundred times more difficult. That was if Cain didn’t slaughter her immediately. Judging by the screaming, he had started already.
Stealth now wasn’t the issue: it was all down to speed and aggression. I charged away from Hartlaub, heading for the back of the ship. The screaming had stopped abruptly, hopefully because of the intrusion of gunfire and not because Jenny was already dead. The corridor I followed ran straight as an arrow’s flight, doors on each side, but I ignored them all, just headed for the far end where I could see another door with a round window in it. For the briefest moment I thought I saw a face at that window, a pale blur. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but I wanted to find out quickly. My haste was almost my undoing.
A man came out of a door on my left. He was shorter than I, but stocky, with a weightlifter’s arms and shoulders. He wrapped me in a bear hug, lifted me off my feet and slammed me bodily into the door opposite. The door was no barrier and crashed open under our combined weight, and we spilled into a small cabin with a bunk and chair. His momentum carried us across the floor and we rammed up against the base of the bed. The man was on top of me and he bore down with his weight, crushing my shoulders to the ground as he raised a meaty fist to pound my head. Would have been fine if that was all he intended, but then I saw the meat cleaver. I snatched at him with my left hand, bucked up with my hips, making a bridge of my spine, and the man was bumped off me so that the meat cleaver veered away from my head and clashed on the metal floor. I still had my SIG but was in an awkward position to shoot, so instead I backhanded it at him and slammed the butt into his chest. A few inches higher and I’d have got his chin, but the strike to the chest still hurt.
He snapped something at me, and for the first time I saw that his pinched eyes had nothing to do with his anger, but with his heritage. He looked Mongolian, perhaps Siberian, with his round features, narrow eyes and dark saffron skin. Didn’t matter that he was a long way from the Russian steppes, he was determined to protect his territory with his life. He struck at me with the meat cleaver again. Luck intervened, the mattress on the bed having slipped off and got in the way of his aim. While he twisted the blade free of the mattress, I got an ankle under my opposite leg and flipped on to my side. He reared back for another cut and I jammed my right knee into his side. As he cut down, I dropped my gun and grabbed at his arm, even as I brought my left leg up and booted him in the chin with my heel. If he’d have reared back then he’d have probably got me, but he’d no real concept of ground fighting. Retaining hold of his arm, I pushed my left leg all the way past him so I could hook his throat in the crook of my knee, and I once again arched my spine. His arm was hyper-extended, and the fulcrum point of his elbow was over my pubis.
People familiar with the reverse cross-body lock know to hook their extended arm with their opposite hand and to power their opponent off the floor. They then dump their opponent on the crown of their heads and put them out of the picture. This man had no understanding of ju-jitsu and made the mistake of attempting to fight the pressure with brute force. I torqued my body so I was facing the floor and now my entire weight was centred on the fragile make-up of his elbow joint. There was no contest. The joint was wrenched apart and the cleaver flew from his hand. My opponent pitched belly down on the floor, writhing in agony. I held the position, levering up on his forearm for good measure. The man screamed and I pulled free with my legs to give him a couple parting shots with my heel as I scrambled away from him and snatched up my gun.
As I came to my feet, there was movement behind me. Hartlaub had finally caught up. ‘Here. Let me.’
Before I could do or say anything to stop him, Hartlaub fired a single shot into back of the man’s skull. Life went out of the Russian like a doused candle.
‘Looks like saving your ass is becoming a habit.’
Heaving air into my constricted lungs, I said, ‘I had him.’
‘Sure you did.’
Pushing past him, I rushed out of the room. ‘Stay close, Hartlaub. I might need you again before I’m finished.’
Back in the corridor I headed for the door where I’d seen the face. There was a rumble of movement from behind and I spun to see Hartlaub dropping to one knee and aiming his gun back the way we’d come. He fired twice, but there was a corresponding volley of bullets from the far end. Hartlaub swore, went over on his side. He was still shooting, and now I could see another man running at us. He was a scrawny little thing, but the gun made him dangerous. He fired as he came and that was a mistake. If he’d held his position, aimed and fired we’d probably both be dead, but his running steps only caused his bullets to hit the walls and ceiling. I drew a bead on him, squeezed the trigger and my SIG barked. The man went down.
Taking a quick glance over my shoulder I checked for movement beyond the circular window. Couldn’t detect any, so I ran back to Hartlaub and hauled him over.
‘Goddamn it! I’ve been hit!’
Hartlaub had one hand slapped over his left hip. Blood was leaking from under his fingers. There was no sign of an exit wound, which was a very bad sign. It looked like the shooter had been using soft-nosed slugs. The bullet would have flattened on impact, split into shards and then ricocheted round inside his pelvic girdle. There would be untold damage to his internal organs.
Cursing under my breath, I pulled his hand from the wound for a better look, but without ripping off his jumpsuit I couldn’t make a decent inspection. I grabbed his hand, pushed it hard on the hole. ‘Keep pressure on it or you’ll bleed to death.’
Hartlaub went through another round of curses, but he could be forgiven the bad language. ‘Shit. I’m not going to die, Hunter.’
‘We need to get you help.’
‘No. I’m not going to fucking die.’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘No, you still have a chance. C’mon.’
I helped him to stand, which wasn’t the best idea because it would only help him bleed out all the sooner. But I couldn’t leave him there in the corridor like that. Not when other crew might come across him at any second. Injured, he’d no way to defend himself. Propping his arm around my shoulders, I supported him to the door and he grunted with every step. Taking a quick glance through the window, I saw only an empty hall. I shoved through the door, searching for targets with my gun, but luckily no one was in sight. The hall here was very similar to the one we’d just come from, only the doors were heavy metal things with letterbox-sized slots, like you see in some old jails. This must be where the women were confined when the boat was at sea. There were at least half a dozen holding rooms, but the doors were open and none contained any occupants. I wondered if Jenny had been held here, and didn’t like what I saw: a chair from which hung leather straps.
I was concerned about Hartlaub, but my focus shifted back to Jenny. When he’d come along on this mission Hartlaub knew that injury or death had been a probability, whereas my sister-in-law had been an unwilling participant from the word go. There was a tenet of the armed forces that I’d been raised upon, though: you don’t leave a colleague behind. That made things very difficult for me.
Hartlaub must have guessed what I was thinking. ‘I’m only gonna slow you down, Hunter. Go on. Forget about me. I can look after myself.’
‘Thanks, Hartlaub,’ I said. ‘But no can do. I’m getting you somewhere safe first.’
