Jack Du Brul - Deep Fire Rising

Just as the Seahawk shot along the length of the vessel, breaking wide in case Luc or Pran counterfired, Mercer put two rounds into the back of Gerhard’s head. The German pitched over the rail, hit the top of the main deck railing and tumbled into the water. Mercer reached cover beside the container they’d used to store the NewtSuits.

“One down,” Mercer reported.

“Call it two,” the parajumper corrected. “And we’ve got six minutes.”

Mercer looked at his watch. The nuke.

“Roger. Give me cover fire on the control van. I need to reach the superstructure.”

“You got it.”

The chopper wheeled again and came back at the Angel , carefully aimed shots plinking around the container, sparking off the roof and keeping those inside pinned.

Mercer raced forward, keeping to the port side of the ship, and found an open hatchway. He could see clear across the ship and hoped to have outflanked the third gunman, but the man had changed positions. Instead of hunting the soldier, Mercer went for the mess hall. The door had been secured with a chain around a standpipe. He shot off the padlock and whirled, making sure the three-round burst hadn’t drawn the missing gunman.

The door to the mess flew open. The first man out was the third officer, Seamus Rourke. “Mercer! What the hell is going on?”

“No time. The bomb goes off in four minutes. The men who took over your ship stupidly headed due east. You have to turn us about. When this side of the island collapses it’s going to produce some monster waves and we’re right in their path. If we’re not facing them, we don’t have a chance.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“There are two men outside with machine pistols. One in the control van. I don’t know where the other is. Also, Jim McKenzie is part of the hijacking and I suspect his assistant is too.”

“Gawd.”

“I need volunteers to distract them.”

“I’ll get one of the lads to handle the ship. Oy, mates,” he called into the mess. “We need a hand getting this scum off our boat. Who’s with me?”

A dozen voices joined in a resounding chorus of rebellion.

Mercer led them back out the way he’d come. There was still no sign of the third gunman. “Seahawk, this is Mercer. What’s happening?”

“No movement,” the pilot reported. “The container doors are closed. The jumper saw at least three people inside. One he swears is the woman you told us about.”

Mercer wasn’t surprised. Luc would want to keep his sister close. The third person was Jim, so that meant Ken Bowers was still lurking around too. “Roger. Keep them pinned. I just released the crew. A helmsman is going to turn the ship around to face the blast. The rest are with me. We have to flush out the third soldier and I believe one more hijacker who was already on the ship.”

“Just so you know, we’re down to our last two magazines. Then it’s pistols, which are about as worthless as shooting dirty looks.”

A dozen sailors crowded the hall just inside the exterior door, waiting for Mercer to give the word. All of them were facing out so none saw Paul Thierry sneak up from a stairwell leading to the engineering spaces. He laid down a scathing wall of fire, mowing down men like wheat with a scythe. It only ended when his clip ran dry.

Four sailors were dead, three wounded, and the others went after the Frenchman with the savagery of attack dogs. They caught him halfway down the metal stairs and helped him the rest of the way by pushing him headfirst into the steel decking. The blow was enough to kill the hijacker, but not enough to satisfy the crewmen. When they were finished, Thierry’s corpse was a bloody ruin that was nearly unrecognizable as having been human.

Mercer stood at the top of the companionway. Seamus Rourke climbed up from the dim engine room, blood smeared across his face and dripping from his hands. “You get your woman and get yourself clear.” His voice was eerily calm. “We’ll look after our own on the ship.”

“You’ll be okay?”

“Aye. If the Angel can take the worst of what the North Sea serves, she can take anything.”

Mercer shook his hand. “Good luck.”

He retreated back outside, feeling a small measure of sympathy for what would happen to Ken Bowers when the crew caught up to him.

The control van sat squarely in the middle of the deck, a small fortress immune to fire from Mercer’s M-16. He had two minutes before the blast and five before the tsunami. He also had no idea how to get Tisa out of the box.

Then he’d take the whole thing with him. “Seahawk, what’s your lifting capacity?”

“Forget it,” the pilot radioed. “I know what you’re thinking. That container weighs a couple of tons empty. No way we can lift it if it’s full.”

But with the door tightly closed, Luc and Jim didn’t know what was happening. “Lower your safety basket and hover directly over the container anyway.”

“I told you we can’t lift it.”

“You don’t need to.”

Mercer ran for the stern and the A-frame crane that towered over the fantail. The controls were on a seat mounted a few feet up one of the steel supports. Mercer climbed into the seat and quickly recognized the function of the knobs and joystick. The diesel generator that gave the crane power chugged away softly. He increased the power and dropped the crane’s arm back over the ship, paying out line as it descended. He halted the arm above the container and paid out more cable until the steel hook lay on the top of the box. With the chopper thundering overhead there was no way anyone inside could hear what he’d done.

Keeping the M-16 at the ready, Mercer reached the side of the container and climbed its integrated ladder. The top of the box was flat steel, but eyebolts had been welded to the four corners so it could be lifted on and off the ship if necessary. Mercer dragged the heavy hook to one of the lifting points at the back of the container and snapped it through.

He climbed back to the deck, cursing the seconds lost by not being able to jump. He was operating on nothing but adrenaline now. At the crane controls he brought his radio to his lips. “Okay, take yourself up a few feet, change the pitch of your rotors. Make it sound like you’re working.”

He pulled back on a control lever. The diesel bellowed as the crane hoisted the back corner of the container off the deck. Mercer rotated the A-frame, lifting the box even farther. He locked the controls and jumped from the crane, the M-16 pulled tight to his shoulder.

The van’s door swung open, rocking in time with the roll of the ship.

The first person to stumble out was Jim McKenzie. He dove for the deck as if certain the container would be snatched off the ship at any moment. Mercer kicked him in the chest, flipping him onto his back and sending his revolver sailing. As much as Mercer wanted to put a bullet between his eyes, he didn’t. He pressed himself to the side of the container and waved his hand over his head for the pilot to lower the safety basket right to the deck.

Luc Nguyen exploded from the van, firing his machine pistol in a wild spray. He vanished around a winch housing before Mercer could fire. The two traded bursts, neither able to get an angle. Ricochets filled the air. One struck McKenzie in the leg as he lay sprawled. Jim screamed as blood erupted from his severed femoral artery. He’d bleed out in minutes without treatment.

Twenty miles to the west, two hundred feet under the sea, the vent was nearly choked with lava that spurted from rents in the tunnel’s walls. Enough water remained in the shaft to prevent the molten rock from flowing so the whole chamber was simply being sealed off.

None of the tremendous heat or increased pressure affected the suitcase-sized box so meticulously placed inside the mountain. The timer clicked to zero.