Clive Cussler: Devil's Gate

“You’re coming with us,” the leader said. “We’ll make sure you get off at the right stop.”

As the second thug laughed and glanced toward Cochrane, Revior attacked, slamming a knee into the man’s groin and tackling him.

Cochrane wasn’t sure what to do, but when the leader turned to fire, Cochrane grabbed his arm, shoving it upward. The gun went off, the shot echoing through the dark.

With little choice but to fight, Cochrane pushed forward, bowling the bigger man over and scuffling with him on the ground.

A backhand to the face stunned him. A sharp elbow to the ribs sent him tumbling to the side.

As he came up he saw Revior head butting the second thug. After putting him out of action Revior charged and tackled the leader, who’d just thrown Cochrane off him. They struggled for the gun, exchanging several vicious blows.

A thundering sound began to fill the background as the approaching train rounded the curve a quarter mile from the station. Cochrane could already hear the brakes screeching as the steel wheels approached.

“Alex!” Revior yelled.

The assailant had flipped Revior over and was now trying to get the gun aimed at Revior’s head. The old security specialist held the arm off with all he had, then pulled it close, a move that seemed to surprise the assailant.

He chomped down on the man’s hand with his teeth, and the thug whipped his arm backward instinctively. The gun flew out of his grip and landed in the snow beside Cochrane.

“Shoot him!” Revior shouted, holding the assailant and trying to immobilize him.

The sound of the train thundered in Cochrane’s ears. His heart pounded in his chest as he grabbed the gun.

“Shoot him!” Revior repeated.

Cochrane glanced down the track, he had only seconds. He had to choose. He targeted the assailant. And then he lowered his aim and fired.

Philippe Revior’s head snapped backward, and a spray of blood whipped across the snow-covered platform.

Revior was dead, and the assailant in the gray coat wasted no time in dragging him back into the shadows, throwing him behind a bench, just as the approaching train passed a wall of trees at the end of the station.

Feeling as if he might throw up, Cochrane stuffed the gun into his waistband and covered it with his shirt.

“You should have backed off,” Cochrane said.

“We couldn’t,” his would-be attacker replied. “No contingency for that.”

The train was pulling into the platform, stirring up the snow and bringing a rush of wind all its own.

“This was supposed to look like a kidnapping,” Cochrane shouted over the noise.

“And so it will,” the man said. He swung a heavy right hand and struck Cochrane on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground, and then kicked him in the ribs.

The train stopped beside them as both assailants pulled Cochrane up and dragged him backward toward the stairs.

Cochrane felt dizzy as they hauled him off, disoriented and confused. He heard a pair of shots fired and a few shouts from passengers stepping off the almost empty train.

The next thing he knew, he was in the back of a sedan, staring out the window as they raced along the streets through the falling snow.

Eastern Atlantic, June 14, 2012

THE WATERS OF THE EASTERN ATLANTIC rolled with an easy swell as the Kinjara Maru steamed north for Gibraltar and the entrance to the Mediterranean. This ship made 8 knots, half its maximum speed but the most efficient pace in terms of burning fuel.

Captain Heinrich Nordegrun stood inside the vessel’s air-conditioned bridge, his eyes on the radar screen. No weather to speak of and little traffic.

There were no ships ahead of them and only a single vessel behind them, ten miles off; a VLCC, or Very Large Crude Carrier, commonly called a supertanker. VLCCs were the largest ships afloat, larger than American aircraft carriers, too large to use the Panama or Suez canals, and often topping out at 500,000 tons when fully loaded. Though the vessel behind them must have been empty, based on the speed she was making.

Nordegrun had tried hailing the tanker earlier. He liked to know who else was out there, especially in questionable waters. Here, off the coast of West Africa, things were not as dicey as they could be on the other side of the continent, near Somalia. But it still paid to check in with other ships and find out what they knew or what they’d heard. The ship had not responded, but that was no real surprise. Some crews talked, others didn’t.

Dismissing the tanker from his mind, Nordegrun glanced through the windows ahead of him. The open water and the calm night made for good sailing.

“Bring us to twelve knots,” he said.

The helmsman, a Filipino man named Isagani Talan, answered. “Aye, sir.”

Such was the state of the world’s merchant marine that Nordegrun, a Norwegian citizen, captained a Bahamian-registered vessel, built in South Korea, owned by a Japanese company, and crewed mostly by Filipino sailors. To round out the worldly status of their voyage, they carried an African cargo of minerals bound for a factory in China.

An outsider might have thought it madness, but the only thing that mattered was that the players knew their jobs. Nordegrun had sailed with Talan for two years and trusted him implicitly.

The vibration in the ship changed as the engines answered the call. Nordegrun switched from the radarscope to a monitor that lay before him. It sat flat, resting on top of a block like the chart tables of old, but it was a modern high-definition touch screen. It currently displayed the waters around them and his ship’s position, course, and speed.

All seemed well from a distance, but by tapping on the screen Nordegrun was able to zoom in and see that a southerly current had pushed them five hundred yards off course.

Nothing to worry about, Nordegrun thought, but if perfection was possible, why not reach for it?

“Two degrees to port,” he said.

Talan was positioned ahead of Nordegrun on the bridge at the ship’s control panel. It also looked nothing like the setup of a classic ship. Gone was the big wheel and the image of a man whirling it to one side or the other to change course. Gone was the telegraph, the heavy brass lever that signaled the engine room to change speed.

Instead Talan sat in a high, pedestal-like chair with a computer screen in front of him. The wheel was now a small steel hub, the throttle was a lever the size of a car’s gearshift.

As Talan made his adjustments, electronic signals went to the rudder-control units and the engines in the stern of the ship. The course change was so slight that it couldn’t be felt or noticed visually, but the captain could see it on the screen. It took several minutes, but the big ship swung back onto course and settled in on its new speed.

Satisfied, Nordegrun looked up.

“Keep us on that line,” he said. “Since they’ve given us all this nice equipment, we might as well use it.”

“Yes, sir,” Talan said.

With the ship back on course, Nordegrun checked the chronometer. It was after ten p.m. local, the third watch was in place. Confident that the ship was in good hands, he glanced at the officer of the deck.

“She’s all yours,” he said.

Nordegrun turned to head below, checking the position of the tanker trailing them one last time. It had matched the Kinjara Maru ’s course change and, oddly enough, had accelerated to 12 knots as well.

“Monkey see, monkey do,” he mumbled as he walked for the door.

Stepping out through the door and heading aft, Nordegrun squinted into the gloom. He could make out the lights on the ship following them. A strange hue, he thought. They were a bluish white, like the high-intensity headlights on modern luxury sedans.