Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

Jack thundered along the steel grate, racing after the giant operator. Even wounded, the big man was fast as a feral cat.

Jack turned the corner, running past the giant ladle of molten steel crawling along on its track ten feet below him. Even from here, the searing heat made his skin tingle, like standing too close to a campfire on a cold night.

“Van Delden! Halt!” Jack shouted over the noise of the giant ladle motors grinding overhead.

Van Delden limped farther along, leaning heavily on the rail, one bloody, massive hand gripping his thigh. He finally stopped as Jack charged up behind him.

“Turn around, asshole,” Jack said, finally able to pull his backup gun, a striker-fired SIG P365 SAS micro-compact nine-millimeter.

The thick shoulders turned. On the dimly lit platform, the Dutchman’s rugged features glowed in the seething light of the lava-like steel approaching them. The backs of Jack’s legs itched with the heat through his trousers.

Jack pointed his pistol at the big man’s chest.

The Dutchman grinned.

“Afraid to pull the trigger, little man?”

“Oh, hell no. But I’ve got my orders.”

“Tough guy, huh?” The grin disappeared as he winced in pain, his trouser leg soaked in blood. He raised himself up to his full height—five inches taller than Jack. His broad chest was like an oak barrel, and his tree-trunk arms bulged beneath his shirtsleeves.

Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I won’t kill you, but if you make a move, you’re gonna be pissing through a straw for the rest of your life.”

The Dutchman’s eyes searched Jack up and down, calculating speed and distance to target.

“Clark, you copy?”

“I copy. You have the tango in sight?”

“I’m sitting on him. Hurry the hell up.”

“Almost there. You good?”

The air roared with the noise of the automated crane hauling the giant ladle just below them. Jack caught the glow of the white-hot steel in the corner of his eye.

“I’m good. But van Asshat is in a world of hurt.”

“Who sent you?” van Delden asked.

“Nobody you’d know.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You’re the link to an outfit we’re interested in.”

“Interested how? You are police?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you know who I work for?”

“Your outfit contracted for the Iron Syndicate.”

“The syndicate is dead.”

“I know. We’re the ones that rolled them up. It’s your organization we’re going to take apart next, thanks to you.”

“Ha! You really don’t know anything about us, do you?”

“No. But I promise you, within the hour you’ll tell me.”

Van Delden gritted his teeth, grimacing with a strange fuck-you smile at Jack.

“Something strike you as funny?” Jack asked.

The big Dutchman suddenly frowned, confused. He punched himself in the jaw. One, two, three times. Jack heard his teeth crack even above the noise.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Van Delden’s desperate eyes darted around—searching for some kind of a weapon or another way out. The Dutchman’s bloodied fingers tightened around the steel railing.

Jack suddenly realized that the much larger man could use the railing as leverage to throw his bulk at him, even on that bad leg. If one of those meaty fists clocked his jaw, he’d be lights out.

Jack stepped back. “Don’t move.”

Van Delden inched closer.

“Afraid, little man?”

Jack shook his head. “No one’s pointing a gun at my nutsack.”

The Dutchman smiled again, a sliver of sunlight in a storm cloud. But then it faded.

“What are you willing to die for, little man?”

“What kind of a stupid—”

In a single, vaulting leap, van Delden threw himself over the railing.

Jack lunged at the man to grab him, but he was too late.

The big Dutchman plunged feet first into the glowing ladle ten feet below. His massive frame barely rippled the blistering surface, the white-hot liquid swallowing his last, sharp cry.

Jack stood at the railing staring at the bucket of molten steel inching relentlessly forward as Clark, Dom, and Adara came racing up behind him.

“Where the hell’s van Delden?” Clark asked, leaning over the railing. “I told you we needed him alive.”

“I know,” Jack said, holstering his pistol. “But he had different plans.”

OCTOBER 18

1

ABOARD THE CONTAINER SHIP JADE STAR

Second Officer Luis Loyola stood outside on the starboard bridge wing, vaping a sweet menthol Juulpod. He admired the blanket of stars shimmering across the black velvet sky.

His seaman’s eye suddenly caught the breaking wake of what was probably a dolphin’s fin racing toward the hull far down below, then watched it dip beneath the blue-black water, night feeding. He smiled. Amazing animals. And always a good luck charm.

The ship’s bow surged toward a waxing moon blazing like a searchlight, illuminating the dark Pacific waters in every direction, all the way to the horizon, or so it seemed. Out here in the South Pacific, he couldn’t see the lights of any nearby ships of any size; his radar had indicated the nearest fishing vessel was some 140 kilometers away. He might as well have been on the surface of Mars for the solitude he craved tonight.

The ship was sailing on a smooth sea at fifteen knots—a little more than half its rated speed—to save expensive bunker fuel. The 102,000-ton (deadweight) vessel was powered by a 93,000-horsepower, two-stroke diesel engine thrumming far belowdecks. It was burning 90 tons of fuel a day at current speed as it drove the ship’s thirty-foot-diameter copper alloy, six-bladed propeller.

He cast a quick glance at the deck, stacked with red, blue, and green shipping containers. In fact, the Jade Star was fully loaded with 8,465 twenty- and forty-foot shipping containers, including South Korean industrial pipe and fittings, washing machines, refrigerators, car parts, rubber tires, X-ray machines, and, strangely, seven hundred liters of human blood.

The ship was also illegally carrying three hundred tons of ethylene and other combustible chemicals, used in a variety of manufacturing applications. The legal restrictions for recommended storage and transportation precautions were ridiculous and prohibitively expensive relative to the cost of the chemicals themselves. He wasn’t worried about their safety. As the ship’s administrative officer, he was duty bound to be aware of such things. But if stopped and searched, he alone would be the person charged with the crime.

But all of that was of little concern at the moment. He was off the clock now, and couldn’t give a damn about what they were hauling. His only concern was that his son’s birthday was yesterday, and as far as he knew, his puta ex-wife hadn’t bothered to give the boy the quadcopter drone he had sent him last week.

Loyola loved his life at sea, but he loved his six-year-old son even more. He was torn. It was the sea that had cost him his marriage, or so his wife said, blaming her whoring with every swinging dick in Lima on him not being around to satisfy her womanly desires.

¡Hija de puta!

He took a long drag on his Juul, then watched the breeze sweep the vapor cloud away into the darkness. If he didn’t quit the sea, he might lose his son altogether. Besides, he hadn’t had a pay raise in three years, let alone a promotion, and neither was on the horizon. He had thought about quitting many times, but as shitty as the non-union wages were, they were still better than anything else he could manage from a desk job back home in Peru. At least this way he could save up money for his son’s future, even if he missed his son growing up.