Dark Watch

black hair under her watch cap. Juan gave her a look to catch her eyes. They were blue, steady and resolved, without a trace of fear. He had no idea what kind of training she had received during her career, but the way she’d handled her ordeal on the sunken Avalon and her current composure told him she was ready for anything.

The corridor ended in a ladder that rose to an overhead hatch. “So, Captain, I assume you have a plan?”

“My original plan didn’t include finding you and the goons who obviously followed you. I want to get past these guys without a firefight, then I’ve got a Draeger rebreather stashed out in the shed. Do you know how to dive?” Tory nodded sharply. “Then we’ll swim back to my ship.”

“I’m not leaving here until I know what vessel this is.”

Cabrillo caught the stubborn lift of her chin and knew she meant it. “We’re on a ship that shouldn’t be here called the Toya Maru. She was snatched while the pirates were attacking the Avalon. That big ship you remembered seeing was a floating drydock called the Maus. They concealed the Toya Maru inside her and towed her here. All the while under near constant surveillance by my people, I might add.”

“So why shouldn’t she be here?”

“Because the Maus is still a couple days out.”

A look of confusion swept across her beautiful face. “I don’t understand.”

Juan was growing frustrated. They had to get out of there, and Tory wanted to play twenty questions. But the truth was he was more angry at himself than her. Like everyone involved, he, too, had failed to anticipate the pirates’ cunning. “It means they knew they were being shadowed the whole time and waited for their chance to offload the Maru, which came when I had to call the Oregon away for a day near Taiwan. They put a crew aboard this ship and sailed her down here under her own steam, while my people followed the ballasted drydock. Gauging the amount of disassembly work they’ve already accomplished, I’d say they’ve had her in this shed for a few days at least.”

He touched her sleeve. “I’ll tell you everything, but later. We have to get going.”

Without waiting for a reply, Cabrillo tucked his pistol into his holster and climbed the ladder. The hatch wheel gave a chirp of protest as he broke the seal, then spun freely. He eased the cover up, got his gun in position, and ducked his head through to the next level. It was pitch-black and silent. He pulled his body through and waited for Tory. Once she was at his side, he risked using his light again.

He recognized the space as the main ballast control room. From here the crew could use a system of pumps to transfer their load from tank to tank in order to maintain trim. He briefly considered finding the sea suction inlet, a breach in the hull where seawater could be pumped into the ship for ballast, but it would take too long to find and open an inspection hatch. Plus there would be heavy mesh to prevent the pumps fouling on a large fish or kelp when it drew in the water.

Now that he had his bearings, he turned on his minicomputer and called up a set of the Toyo Maru’s blueprints. On the tiny screen the schematics were tough to make out, so it took him a few minutes to trace their escape route.

“Got it,” he said at last. “Okay, stay close and stay behind me.”

“Chivalry, Captain?”

“Practicality. I’m wearing body armor, and unless you dropped twenty pounds in two weeks, I know you’re not.”

She shot him a cheeky smirk. “Touche and lead on.”

Cabrillo checked the corridor outside the ballast control room and edged out. With no light to amplify, Tory’s goggles were useless, forcing him to rely on his flashlight and trust the guards would give themselves away before they saw it.

At the end of the hall they came to a set of steep stairs. Juan was halfway up when he heard voices and saw light from above. Without turning he stepped back again, feeling Tory right behind him. From the bottom of the stairs he caught a glimpse of two men armed with assault rifles passing by. He and Tory waited a full three minutes after the voices faded before making the climb again.

They had reached the level just below the main deck. Once they reached the outside, Juan planned to just jump over the side and find the rebreather. In the darkness Shere Singh’s men would never spot them.

From down the hallway came the unmistakable mechanical ratchet of a weapon being cocked. Cabrillo threw Tory to the deck as lights snapped on all over the place. His finger was working the trigger before he had a target, laying down suppression fire to maximize confusion. In the first seconds of the ambush he didn’t care about the danger of a ricochet. Getting out was all that mattered. Tory added her own pistol, an unsilenced 9mm that boomed like a cannon in the metal confines of the ship.

He wanted to get back down the stairs, but when he glanced over the landing, autofire ripped up from below so close he felt the heat of the bullets and the muzzle flash was like an explosion in his face.

He fired a blind shot at the downstairs gunman and crawled across the passageway, seeking cover where the hall turned ninety degrees. Once out of sight of the ambushers, he dragged Tory to safety. He hadn’t been hit, which was a miracle, and now wasn’t the time to worry about the Englishwoman.

He tossed his minicomputer out into the hallway. Immediately an automatic weapon opened up. Good. The guards were jumpy. He levered his pistol out into the hall and fired three shots, moving his body as he pulled the trigger so he was exposed by the time he pulled the trigger a fourth time. He spotted his target, a turbaned guard lying on the deck and cringing behind his AK-47. Cabrillo put a pair of bullets through the top of his head, then dashed for cover as another guard farther down the hallway unloaded his magazine in a wild sustained burst.

He grabbed Tory’s hand, and together they ran away from the ambush, all pretense of stealth forgotten.

Juan rounded a corner and saw the flicker of movement an instant before a rifle butt crashed into his skull. He fell flat, poleaxed, but didn’t lose consciousness as Tory came up behind him and double tapped the guard as he was recovering from the swing. The guard was blown back by the kinetic energy of her nine millimeter rounds and the wall behind him was painted in his blood.

His head feeling as fragile as glass, Juan let Tory help him to his feet. His vision was blurred, and blood oozed from where skin had been smeared from his forehead. It hung like a flap over his left eye. Juan ripped away the