“She is a registered nurse. Trained at Mt. Sinai. Really. Good cover.”
“Christ.”
“Yes. We are highly trained. We spend years learning how to weave threads into the fabric. Once we strike, we move on to another town and begin again.”
“Schoolchildren, Kerim. Babies, damn you!”
“My people have suffered, too. This is blood vengeance. We seek only justice.”
“You call it justice? Your mother poisons children. Your sister slaughters a mother and two children sleeping in their beds. Bloody hell, boy, it’s murder!”
“I—saw them in that house. The children. It was horrible. I believe that—I am sorry for what my sister did. Truly sorry.”
“Beyond nauseating what now passes for evangelism. Religious fascism. Talk fast, Kerim. Tell me what you and your father are doing on this boat. Now.”
“We have—a bomb.”
“Bomb. I assumed as much. Where?”
“Up in the bow. He packed TNT up there. Almost half of a ton—”
“Who dies for righteousness this time? The good citizens of Nantucket Island?”
“No. You, Mr. Hawke.”
“Me? I’m hardly worth the effort.”
“Our plan is to go along beside your boat. Pretending to have engine trouble. Then explode the bomb.”
“And you’re just along for the ride.”
“My father, he knows my true feelings. He made me wear the belt always so I would not warn Chief Ainslie what we were—there is a lock on the belt. I cannot remove it. He has a remote detonator always. He says he will sacrifice me if—if I try to…”
The boy was whimpering now, rocking back and forth with his arms around his knees. Pitiful, if not pathetic.
“Christ. The TNT, Kerim, focus on that. Is it on a remote as well?”
“No. A timer.”
“Where’s the timer?”
“Up there. Wired to the explosives.”
“Don’t move,” Hawke said, “I’ll be right back. Try not to blow yourself up while I’m gone.”
Blackhawke was completely vulnerable right now, Alex thought, feeling his way forward, moving as quickly as possible in the tight quarters of the dark engine room. Good Christ Almighty.
Security levels were at full alert, well and good, but a million-dollar lobster yacht with a Maine hailing port in gold leaf on her transom just might be sufficiently far-fetched to get through.
He found the half-ton of justice neatly packaged in waterproof oilskins, enough to level a city block. The water flowing outside the hull was moving faster. They would be getting close to Blackhawke now. Christ. He’d never find the timer in time. Hawke scrambled back to the love-struck terrorist.
“We’re all out of time, Kerim. The explosives are definitely on a timer, not an impact detonator, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When is it set to explode?”
“At exactly four a.m.”
Alex looked at his watch. Less than six minutes! They were drifting now, floating with the current towards Blackhawke. Suddenly, a powerful searchlight swept across Running Tide, lighting up her engine room. He heard the muffled voice of one of his own crewmen, hailing the disabled vessel over a loudspeaker. The voice lacked the authoritarian harshness of a direct challenge. They were clearly buying this act. It would be a close thing. Looking feverishly about, he saw the outline of a small door in the aft bulkhead. It must lead to the crawl space beneath the after deck where he’d boarded. There were two access hatches there, aft of the pilothouse, opening directly up onto the outside deck. He’d seen them when he first boarded.
“One more question, Kerim. Who sent you and your family to America? This Emir?”
“No. Another man. He is called by some the Dog.”
“Is this Dog still alive?”
“I believe that he is, yes, sir.”
“What is his real name?”
Silence.
“You dare not speak it, or you don’t know?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’m going to get us out of here. It will most likely be necessary for me to kill your father. Do you want to come along or not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do what I tell you, then. You say you can’t get rid of that bloody vest?”
“No, sir. It’s locked to my body.”
“Christ. Let me take a look. Good God, it’s…”
“Secured with a metal pin through my pelvis. My mother implanted it.”
Hawke looked at the boy’s punctured hip, unable to speak. What kind of mother could do that to—he heard voices above. Time to move. “All right, Kerim. Let’s go.”
“Ahoy, Running Tide!” came the muffled voice of one of his crew. “Captain! Do you require assistance?”
No reply.
The door, fitted into the bulkhead and leading aft, was, as Alex had prayed, not locked. Hawke went through first, followed closely by Kerim. They crouched in the semidarkness of the crawl space, listening. One of the two hatches above was forward of the spot where the boy’s father was now standing.
Hawke drew a breath. The boat’s stern had dipped ever so slightly. The terrorist’s weight had just shifted aft. He must have climbed up onto the transom. Hawke could almost see him, waving his hands, his face a mask of embarrassment and abject apology. The question was, would Tom Quick recognize the Middle Eastern inflection in his voice or would it be lost in the wind? The man’s speech patterns were definitely not Down East Maine.
Hawke pressed one hand up against the underside of the hatch cover and applied pressure. It moved.
“Kerim,” he whispered, looking at the glowing numerals of his dive watch and then at the dark figure crouched beside him. “I’m going up through this hatch. Give me thirty seconds, then you use the other hatch. Come up fast and roll to either side. No matter what you see, just get yourself overboard and swim away from this boat as quickly as you can.”
Hawke wouldn’t wish seeing your own father die on anyone. He’d been there. He saw it still. He would always see it.
Kerim said nothing, just stared at Hawke with an unreadable expression. Alex looked at the sweep second hand of his watch. Coming up on four minutes before the hour. Bloody hell, it might already be too late.
Hawke coiled his body, squatting deeply to get as much leverage out of his legs as possible. He reached up and placed both palms on the underside of the hatch cover, filled his lungs with air, and then exploded upwards in a single fluid movement.
He heaved the heavy cover out of the way as he rolled left across the deck. Kerim’s father, now disguised in the dead man’s yellow slicker, stood atop the transom shouting to a crewman aboard Blackhawke. The gleaming black side of her massive hull loomed above the small yacht’s deck. There were perhaps twenty feet of water remaining between the two rapidly closing vessels.
The hatch cover landed with a thud and the Arab jerked his head around, astounded at the sight of Hawke rolling across the deck. He glanced hurriedly at his watch, then looked back up at the crew lining the rail above him, clearly unsure of which way to play this out in the time and distance remaining.
Running Tide now lay directly alongside Blackhawke’s towering hull, dwarfed by the yacht. A crewman above was throwing down a line as the terrorist pulled a pistol from inside the yellow slicker and swung the muzzle of the gun towards Alex, who was now rolling right. He squeezed off two shots, the rounds ripping into the teak deck less than a foot in front of his target. Hawke scrambled to his feet, raised the Browning, and put two rounds through the terrorist’s heart. The wallop of the parabellum hollow points slammed the dead man backwards, pinwheeling him
