he swam.
The pirates had stopped shooting, finally realising their bullets couldn’t penetrate the water. But they were heading straight for him, picking out his shape through the shimmering waves.
The
He swam deeper, passing beneath the survey ship.
Nina didn’t have time to return to her hiding place. All she could do was dart into the locker, hunching down and pulling the door almost shut.
The pirate entered the lab. It was the third man, the one who had been rebuffed by his leader. Nina watched through the crack of the door as he glanced furtively round the room, then picked up the underwater camera.
‘Thieving son of a bitch,’ Nina whispered. She waited for him to leave. But now that he had one valuable piece of equipment, the thought had entered his head that there might be others. His gaze darted calculatingly over the room’s contents.
He regarded the locker. Frowned. Nina knew why.
When he left the room, its door had been open.
Her hand groped through the cramped space, searching for anything among the loose items that she might be able to use as a weapon.
The pirate advanced on the locker. He gripped the handle, pulled it—
Nina blasted a spray of astringent powder into his eyes.
He shrieked and reeled back, clutching at his face with his free hand. His AK came up in the other. Nina leapt from the locker and slapped it aside. It fell from his hand - but the strap tangled round his arm. She couldn’t wrest it from him.
Instead she raced for the door. Behind her, the pirate shouted as he fumbled for his rifle.
Back up the passageway, reaching the storeroom, sparks still popping from the damaged wiring—
Running footsteps ahead. Another pirate was coming back.
She barged open the storeroom door. A cramped chamber, packed with stacked wooden crates and maintenance gear and large paint cans. A porthole on the opposite wall, two .50-calibre bullet holes flanking it.
The porthole was too small for her to fit through.
Trapped.
She slammed the door shut behind her and yanked a crate down to the deck, jamming it against the entrance.
But it wouldn’t hold them for long.
She looked back at the equipment. The twin cylindrical tanks of an oxy-acetylene torch were secured in a rack. But she didn’t know how to use it, or even light it.
Come on, think,
A metal box about the same size as the sonar case turned out to contain a piece of gear she couldn’t immediately identify, some sort of heavy-duty grinder or cutter. But simply hiding in the box wouldn’t save her—
The door banged against the crate. The pirates were outside.
Chase surfaced on the
Sudden noise to his right. The speedboat rounded the
Looking for him.
Chase didn’t wait to be seen, powering back under the surface, scraping against the barnacles.
He heard the chug of the .50-cal—
The huge bullets were even less effective at penetrating the water than the 7.62mm ammo of the AKs, smashing apart as they hit the surface. But the impacts alone slammed at Chase like miniature grenade explosions. Barely able to endure the assault on his eardrums, he swam back under the ship.
The two pirates didn’t risk shooting through the metal door for fear of ricochets. Instead, they kicked at it until the crate finally broke.
A strange smell was the first thing they noticed as they burst in. The second was a loud hiss. Both came from the same source: a pair of metal cylinders propped against an angle grinder.
The valves on both tanks had been fully opened, the red and green hoses whipping about like enraged snakes as the gases escaped, filling the room, reaching the corridor outside . . .
The electrical cables sparked.
And the acetylene gas, mixed with pure oxygen for maximum combustibility, ignited.
The fireball rushed back into the confined storeroom, instantly engulfing both men in flames as the gas canisters hurtled across the room on a jet of scorching blue fire. One of the pirates was smashed against the door jamb with bone-cracking force. His companion hit the wall across the corridor, the blunt ends of the cylinders crushing his sternum before spinning away like a monstrous Catherine wheel.
The fireball dispersed. Nina flung open the box and jumped up, one arm covering her face to protect it from the dancing fires as she stumbled over the dead pirates. Looking right, she saw the flaming gas cylinders still whirling on the deck.
No way out that way. She went left, passing Lincoln’s body before braving the smoke to find a way into the open.
Head ringing, Chase surfaced once more. He was back by the floating dock. The speedboat was still on the other side of the ship - but it wouldn’t take long to reverse its course.
He pulled himself up, about to run to the nearby gangway - when he realised that there were men about to come down it. The pirates were leaving the ship.
All he could do was dive back into the sea and hope they hadn’t seen him.
That hope barely lasted a second. AK fire kicked up the water above him. He swam deeper, already hearing the speedboat coming back.
5
Nina’s eyes were watering from the smoke, but she finally saw daylight ahead. But she could also hear gunfire, and shouting. She held in a cough as she cautiously looked outside.
Several men were on the starboard side of the main deck, some clomping down the gangway to the dock, others firing at the water. The pirate leader shouted a command. His men stopped shooting and hurried after their fellows. The leader was the last to go, casting a satisfied look at the smoking superstructure before following them to the dock.
Nina emerged, moving in a crouch towards the empty port-side boat hoist. When she was sure the pirates had gone, she stood.
Big mistake.
A shout came from her left. She whirled to see a motor yacht off the port bow, a man in its bridge pointing at her - and another pirate whipping round a huge machine gun.
‘Shit!’ She threw herself to the deck, scrambling towards the starboard side as the gun opened up—
The hammer-blow clangs of bullets pounding into the side of the hull and up through the decking were almost deafening. Debris showered her as machinery and deck fittings were torn apart. A hole the size of her fist exploded through the painted floor just a foot from her head, another bullet striking a thick metal cross-beam beneath the deck with a piercing bang. She screamed and moved faster towards the starboard hoist, the boat in it rocking and jolting as bullets peppered its hull.
The firing stopped. Maybe the gunner thought she was dead, or had run out of ammo. Nina didn’t care,
