The gunman moved cautiously, patiently scanning the main deck for movement before climbing down from the steering deck. He descended one of two ladders that were mounted on either side of the rowing-deck companionway. To Pitt’s good fortune, the gunman climbed down the ladder closest to him.
Pitt held to the shadows until he heard the man’s shoes hit the main deck. He then raised his hand and flicked his wrist, tossing the quarter high into the air. The coin landed right where Pitt aimed, near the base of the skeleton, tinkling loudly across the silent deck.
The startled gunman instantly turned toward the noise, spotting the cloaked figure holding a spear. He immediately pumped two shots from his automatic pistol into the skeleton, watching in amazement as it disintegrated into a small heap. His surprise was short-lived, for Pitt was already on his feet, flinging the first arrow from twenty feet away.
Finding the ancient weapon surprisingly well balanced, Pitt was dead-on with his first throw, striking the man near the hip. The gunman grunted in pain from the penetration of the sharp projectile, wheeling around as the second arrow whizzed past his chest. Fumbling to remove the first arrow, he looked toward Pitt, only to see a third arrow flying in his direction. Too overwhelmed to shoot, he instinctively stepped to the side to avoid the incoming barb. Only there was no deck beneath his feet.
Falling where Pitt hadn’t, he plunged down the open companionway with a gasp. The sickening crack of breaking bones echoed from the rowing deck a second later, followed by a morbid silence.
“Ali?” cried Zakkar from the bow.
But there would be no answer to his query.
96
For the second time in as many minutes, Summer faced a life-or-death choice. Should she turn back or keep going? She had no idea how far back the ceiling had become submerged. It could be five feet or fifty yards. But swimming against the current, light as it was, could make fifty yards seem like a mile. Following her instincts this time, she made a snap decision. She would keep going forward.
Kicking and stroking, she propelled herself through the tunnel, her arms and head occasionally bumping into the surrounding stone. Every other stroke, she would raise an arm above her, hoping to break the surface into a pocket of air. But every time her hand would drag against immersed stone. She felt her heart pounding harder, and fought a sudden reflex to exhale, as a creeping sense of panic began to set in. How long had she been underwater? she asked herself. A minute? Two minutes? It seemed like an eternity. But whatever the answer, she knew the more important question was how many more seconds could she hold out?
She tried kicking even harder, but it began to feel like she was swimming in slow motion as her brain labored for oxygen. Her arms and legs felt an odd burning sensation as the effects of hypoxia sapped her muscles. The black water seemed to turn even darker before her eyes, and she no longer felt the salt water stinging them. An internal voice yelled at her to remain strong, but she could feel herself slipping.
And then she saw it. A faint green glow appeared in the water ahead of her. Perhaps it was just a trick of the eyes or the first stages of blacking out, but she didn’t care. Exhaling what little air was left in her chest, she summoned every last remaining reserve of energy and kicked hard toward the light.
Her limbs now burned with fire as her ears rung in a deafening tone. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest while her lungs ached to explode. But she ignored the pain, the doubts, and the urge to let go, and kept pulling herself through the water.
The green glow gradually expanded into a warm light, bright enough to show particles and sediment in the seawater. Just overhead, a silvery gleam caught her eye, appearing like a bowlful of mercury. With her energy failing fast, she kicked upward with a final, desperate surge of strength.
Summer emerged from the water like a show dolphin at Sea World, rising high into the air before tumbling back with a splash. Gasping and panting for air, she paddled to a nearby rock and clung to its barnacled surface while her oxygen-depleted body tried to restore order. She rested for nearly five minutes before regaining the strength to move. Then, in the distance, she heard muffled gunfire, and she remembered her father.
Taking her bearings, she found she was in a semisubmerged rock outcropping a hundred yards west of the cave. She quickly spotted the NUMA Zodiac, tied to the rocks beside two other small boats. Plunging back into the water, she circled around the rocks and began swimming toward the boats.
Her arms soon felt like lead weights, and several times the surf nearly flung her onto the shoreline rocks, but she managed to reach the boats without collapsing. The Zodiac didn’t carry a radio, so she dragged herself onto the deck of the first of the two other boats, a small wooden trawler that Zakkar had appropriated. Inside its tiny, open wheelhouse, she found a marine band radio and immediately hailed the
Dirk, Giordino, and Gunn were all on the bridge when Summer’s frantic voice burst over the radio.
“Summer, this is
“Rudi, we found the galley inside the cave. But three armed men showed up. I escaped, but Dad’s still in there, and they’re trying to kill him.”
“Take it easy, Summer. We’re on our way. Try to hide until we get there, and keep yourself out of danger.”
Kenfield had already turned the
“We’re six or seven miles away,” he lamented to Gunn. “We’ll never get there in time.”
“He’s right,” Giordino said. “Stop the boat.”
“What do you mean, stop the boat?” Gunn cried.
“Give us two minutes to launch the
Gunn considered the request a moment. Even to Gunn, Pitt was more than a boss, he was like a brother. If the tables were reversed, he knew exactly what Pitt would do.
“All right,” he said with reservation. “Just don’t get yourselves killed.”
Dirk and Giordino immediately bolted for the door.
“Al, I’ll meet you on deck,” Dirk told him. “I need to grab something on the way.”
“Just don’t miss the bus,” Giordino replied, then disappeared aft.
Dirk hustled down to the ship’s lower deck, which housed the crew accommodations. Sprinting to his father’s cabin, he burst in, stepping up to a small, built-in work desk. Above the desk was a shelf of books, and Dirk quickly scanned their titles. His eyes halted when he spotted a heavy, leather-bound edition of Herman Melville’s
“‘To the great white beast, Ishmael,’” he muttered, then tucked the book under his arm and darted out of the cabin.
97
Pitt had nearly forgotten about Zakkar, who had finally clambered over the bow and now shouted for his partner. Met with silence, the Arab flicked on Salaam’s penlight and aimed it at the aft end of the deck. The light’s beam played upon the figure of Pitt, who stood with a shield in his hand and an upturned grin on his face.
But Pitt was already diving over the other side of the mast when Zakkar’s Uzi barked, sending a burst over his head and into the raised steering deck. Pitt didn’t wait for his accuracy to improve, quickly snaking across the deck and launching himself down the companionway as Zakkar chased after him.
The body of Ali lay barely visible in the small patch of light that reached the lower deck from above. Pitt could see that the Arab’s head was tilted at an unnatural angle, his neck having snapped in the fall. Pitt quickly knelt alongside the body, searching the surrounding deck for the gun, but it wasn’t there. Let loose during Ali’s fall, it had bounced into one of the recessed rowing stations nearby. Pitt had left his flashlight on the upper deck while
