Jack Du Brul - Deep Fire Rising

Trying to reach the service boat had been a desperate gamble, a last role of the dice for Luc Nguyen. With the Order’s sanctuary in ruin and the oracle destroyed, his only hope of achieving anything was to see the Cumbre Vieja destroy much of the civilized world and hope the Order’s well-protected financial resources would give him power to rule in the chaos to follow.

It had taken just a few moments to hijack the Petromax Angel . As soon as they tied up to the rig tender, one man had gone to the bridge, another to the engine room, and the third scoured the crew accommodations, herding everyone he found to the mess hall, where technicians from the Sea Surveyor were already being guarded on Mercer’s orders. Luc had been able to secure the deck spaces with help from Jim and Ken.

They’d been too late to prevent Mercer from diving with the weapon, although Jim had been confident the damage he’d caused to his NewtSuit would prevent him from even reaching much past where the ROV was blocking the tunnel.

So it came as a numbing surprise when Mercer had radioed that he was on the end of the towline Luc’s soldier had started reeling up from the bottom. No sooner had the call come through than Charlie Williams, pale and still weak, staggered into the control van. The Order soldier who’d rounded up the crew had left him unconscious in his cabin. He raged at Ken Bowers, accusing him of attempted murder for smashing a wrench over his head. Jim had remained calm, coaxing Mercer to the surface so they could use his ADS to retrieve the bomb and at the same time trying to maintain his facade of innocence.

It all fell apart when Spirit realized that Jim had personally vouched for Bowers. They were on deck then, waiting for Mercer to be hauled over the rail. As soon as Jim knew they had the suit, he’d ended C.W.’s rants with the pistol he’d kept with him since he first left California on the Sea Surveyor .

Now Mercer was gone, pushed over the side by Spirit in her last act of defiance. All that remained for the surviving members of the Order was to run and hope the nuclear bomb failed to prevent the catastrophe.

Luc, Jim McKenzie and Tisa stayed in the confines of the control van as the workboat raced from the weapon’s epicenter. Jim maintained contact with the navy and fed bogus updates to Admiral Lasko, buying them the time they needed. Tisa hadn’t said a word since Mercer fell from the stern and made no protests when her brother tried to console her by touching her hair or her shoulder or hip. Her only movements were to gently rub the place where once she wore the watch he had given her.

“How far have we come?” Luc asked.

McKenzie checked the GPS readout on one of the multiple computer screens. “Almost twenty miles.”

“Is that far enough?”

“To avoid the fallout, yes, but we need to keep going. There’s going to be a pretty big wave following the blast and we’re still inside the navy quarantine zone. Once we make it to the nearby island of La Gomera, we’ll hide there until things calm down. We still have two weeks to make our escape if the bomb fails and the main eruption splits La Palma.”

“How much more time?”

“I estimate ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Do you think they will ever stop hunting you?” Tisa asked, breaking her hour-long silence.

“They don’t know we’re running,” Jim countered. “They don’t know they have to hunt us.”

Luc smiled at her. “My dear sister can speak after all. I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

“I doubt that. I think you feed off destruction. You need it the way others need love.”

“I need love too, you know.”

“And even that is something you’ve managed to pervert.”

Jim shifted in his padded seat. He’d known of Luc Nguyen’s incestuous feelings toward his sister and the thought made him uncomfortable.

“Not pervert, Tisa. Purify. Think of it. The two children of the Order’s last lama. Think what we could create.”

“A monster for the monstrous new world you want to build on the ashes of the old.”

He looked at her sadly, but also with the knowledge that he would have what he wanted.

Out of nowhere, the thunderous roar of a helicopter shattered the relative quiet of the control van. Jim launched himself out of his chair and looked out the open container doors. A gray SH-60 Seahawk hovered over the Angel ’s fantail. Its side door was open and a soldier covered the workboat’s stern deck with an M-16. Behind him was the shadowy outline of another man. McKenzie was dumbstruck when the chopper turned slightly and the shadow passed. The other man was Philip Mercer.

Mercer saw Jim McKenzie standing just outside the container box, tapped the PJ on the shoulder and pointed. The M-16 spat and bullets sparked across the ship’s steel deck.

Jim dove back into the van. “It’s Mercer!”

“I told you they’d hunt you down.” Tisa never doubted that Mercer would come back for her.

Luc glanced out of the container and was driven back by fire from the Seahawk. He grabbed a walkie-talkie from his shirt pocket. “Everyone, get on deck! We’re under attack.” He checked the holster around his waist and racked a round in the chamber of the machine pistol he’d brought. As soon as his men appeared, they’d shoot the chopper from the sky.

He looked out again. The American helicopter remained over the stern, flying sideways so the gunman in the doorframe could cover the entire aft of the service boat.

“Paul, Pran, where are you?” he radioed.

“I’m on the bridge,” Paul Thierry replied. He was a boyhood friend from Paris who’d gone to Rinpoche-La with Luc when he’d returned to his father’s side. “As soon as I run to the wing I will have them.”

“I’ve just reached an exterior door on the main deck of the superstructure,” Pran, a Vietnamese cousin, answered. “I’m ready.”

“Gerhard?”

The young German had been recruited into the Order while in Nepal seeking life’s answers among the mountains and the opium. “On the port side making my way aft. A lifeboat is blocking their view. Give me a moment longer. Ja, okay, I am ready.”

“On my mark we all fire at once.” Luc jacked the slide again, mistakenly ejecting a live round. Tisa smirked at his nervousness.

“Now!”

He rounded the corner of the container again and fired as soon as his rifle barrel was clear. He’d cooked off half a magazine before realizing the helicopter had peeled off and paced the workboat fifty yards to starboard. “Damn it. Hold your fire. Wait until they return.”

From cover behind the drum of tow cable Mercer watched Luc shouting into the walkie-talkie. He’d leapt from the helicopter to the Angel in the few seconds between Jim’s frantic retreat into the container and the first time Luc Nguyen surveyed the scene. He cradled the second M-16 carried on the Seahawk and two spare magazines. He had no idea how many men Luc had brought.

When Luc gave the order to fire, Mercer counted four separate muzzle flashes: Luc’s, a gunman on the bridge wing, another on the starboard-side main deck near the superstructure and the fourth one deck up hiding behind the port-side lifeboat. He called in their positions with the tactical radio the PJ had given him.

“I can take the guy on the bridge wing even if he ducks inside. The guy by the container’s just going to hide again. Same with the guy at the door into the superstructure. I advise you take the one by the lifeboat. We’ll come in from the bow.”

“Affirmative.”

“Beginning our run, now. Hot guns!”

Mercer paused a beat as the chopper dove in on the workboat. As soon as the PJ opened up and Luc vanished into the van, Mercer rose from his position and dashed forward to get a better angle on the gunman under the port-side lifeboat. The man had spun so he could watch the helo rake the opposite side of the ship, concentrating its fire on the bridge.