All this happened in the space of a few minutes and now new gunfire erupted from the direction of the customs control house. Scores of dock security in blue-kevlar suits came running toward the hovercraft. Frightened mothers herded their children away from the loading area and the threat of gunfire. Biggs dragged one of the half-conscious assailants sprawled on the tarmac up the gangplank, signaling to Flip and Gila to pick up the package. He ordered the hawsers cut. On nimble legs, Choko raced up to the pilot cabin and pointed a gun at the captain’s head. “Break away from the dock! Now!” The propeller engines roared in response. With massive creaks, the heavy craft nosed away from the docks.
Regers edged back from the port railing, cursing his luck that he had no weapon. Two long seconds and ears deafened by blasts had cost him the advantage. He peered around with glittering eyes, saw Marise quivering. He flashed her a grim look. Only a boat hook, fifty yards out of reach passed as any form of a useful weapon.
Flip dragged the strange package onto the deck. He let it drop with a thud.
“Be careful with that thing, you idiot!” snarled Biggs. “It’s worth more than your worthless hide.”
“Yeah, take it easy, Biggs,” said Flip, scratching at his bloody ear flattened to a nearly shaved skull.
The hovercraft jetted out to sea while the air raid siren from the dockside grew fainter and fainter. Figures still milled there, gesticulating wildly, firing intermittent shots at the hovercraft, now out of range.
Flip and Gila trained guns on the fifty or so passengers huddled on the port deck while Biggs knelt on the chest of the prisoner he had dragged up. He ground the muzzle into the gunshot wound into the man’s left ribs. “Who sent you, bastard? Who tipped you off?”
“Dunno, man, agh!—” the dying gunman choked out a stream of blood.
“Answer me, you stupid fuck! Eh? Eh?” Biggs twisted the muzzle deeper into the wound.
“Zoral.” That was his last phlegmy word before he died, eyes staring up in mockery of having escaped Long Hair’s torture. His tongue lolled. Blood seeped from multiple chest wounds.
“Damn that Zoral,” hissed Biggs. He rose and kicked the corpse while wiping his bloody hands on his thighs. “How the hell he sniffed word of this is anybody’s guess.”
“Cost us big time,” said Gila. “Hamand’s dead. Everything’s gone to shit, Biggs. We’ll have half the coast guard on us soon.”
“All’s not lost,” said Flip. “We got these RPGs and the package.”
Biggs seemed not to hear. The man seemed lost in thought. Regers watched in eerie silence as the lead thug contemplated his next move. Regers’ merc mind, though dazed, worked at double speed, but came up with nothing.
“Flip, get them seated and secured,” Biggs said at last.
Flip herded the passengers into the covered glass hospitality area through the hovercraft’s port entrance. Regers saw the boat had a layout similar to a cross between an aircraft and a ferry. Rows of imitation white-leather seats faced forward with a wide aisle separating them up the middle. Tall bay windows peered to either side; a games room at the back with billiard tables and bar and glass-enclosed smoking area. Passenger decks ranged to port and starboard, and the cockpit and pilot cabin to the foredeck.
Gila jabbed panicked women and their husbands who moved too slowly with the muzzle of his machine gun. Regers pushed out his palms, protecting Marise. “Whoa, there, amigo. Slow down.”
“Back the fuck off, asswipe. Get over there with the others.” He smacked Regers in the shoulder with his gun barrel and shoved him into a seat. Marise went flying over his lap at the swift thrust of the thug’s boot. Regers grunted. He reached over to pull her to the other side of him to shield her.
“Okay, listen up, people,” the lead thug called, holding his hand high, gun slung over his left shoulder. His three men fanned out to cover the hostages, leveling barrels at their backs. “This is a takeover. Relax and all will go well. Some nasty stuff has gone down. True, unforeseen and unintended. Some people were killed. More will die, you can guarantee that. Anyone who gets too cute, or tries to run somewhere or rush my men, gets fried.”
One curly-haired drunk stood up, venom in his voice, “We’ve done nothing wrong! You can’t keep us here like—”
Biggs leveled his gun and blasted the idiot’s arm. He sagged in a whimpering heap. “I said settle down, asshole. Which part of ‘cute’ didn’t you understand?”
The man rocked in his shredded seat back and forth, gritting his teeth, holding his bullet-torn arm.
“Any questions?”
Eyes stared in rapt terror.
Chapter 9
Biggs trained a cold glance at the hostages cowering and gibbering at the fresh blood. “I’d better set the captain straight, before he gets some crazy ideas too. Flip, Gila, hold the show.” He marched up the aisle, kicking open the door leading to the foredeck.
Regers sensed an opportunity. While Flip was heckling a flustered middle-aged man trying to console his sobbing wife, he ducked down in his seat and cat-crawled past astonished people’s legs. Crawling flat on his stomach, he made it down the aisle to the back of the passenger area, then he slipped out down the corridor through which Biggs had disappeared.
Regers drew a deep breath, tempered the heart beating in his throat. One false move and he was rat bait.
He approached the half open door to the pilot cabin. Raised voices drifted his way: Biggs, Choko and two others. Sneaking a peek, he saw captain and navigator sitting rigidly before a modern dashboard of LCD screens, sensors and radar equipment. Choko and Biggs stood behind them, guns pointed at their backs.
