Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

“We didn’t win, Mercer. Remember when you tried to reach your FBI friend and were told communications were out because of the solar max?”

“Yeah, we figured it was Rath blocking outgoing signals.”

“It wasn’t. The solar max has killed all radios and satellite phones on the ship. Ira can’t call anybody. Nobody can. We’re cut off.”

Conversation outside the launch’s cockpit was impossible with her twin Saab turbo-diesels at full throttle. The sea was calmer than could be expected, so the forty-foot craft once stowed aboard the Njoerd shot across the low waves like a thoroughbred. Gunther Rath was in the throttleman’s seat while Dieter, the professional car racer, manned the helm. Greta Schmidt and two of Rath’s security people were strapped against the bench seat behind them. Because of the boat’s offshore capabilities, no one actually sat. Rather, they leaned into specially designed C-shaped cushions that allowed them to use their knees to absorb impacts.

Everyone was armed. Everyone was tense.

The Pandora box was secured in the forward cabin accessible through the low door between the drivers’ positions. With it were four “guests.”

Thanks to the confusion Mercer created, their escape from the Sea Empress had been relatively simple. Soon after the initial burst of automatic fire at the atrium, Rath understood Mercer’s intentions weren’t to kill, merely to spread enough panic to ensure he left the ship. The German knew he was being manipulated, hated it, but had little choice. Raeder would need just a moment alone with the cruise ship’s captain and Rath’s plans were finished. Once he’d taken his hostages, he and Greta raced for the marina, avoiding any area where gunfire was reported. After making certain the Njoerd ’s launch was fueled and ready, they wrecked the eight large shuttle boats stored in the garage by smashing holes in their fiberglass hulls with sledgehammers.

From the radar repeater on the Empress ’s bridge, Rath knew the Italian destroyer was eight miles south of the luxury liner, protecting her seaward flank, and would be unable to pursue the launch once they swung north toward Iceland, ninety miles away. With the solar max at its zenith and even the most powerful marine radios hampered to a few miles’ range, the Italians were deaf and mute.

Rath was making the best of the disasters that had befallen him and maintained optimism that they would be able to recover the sunken Pandora boxes and turn them over to Libya. If he couldn’t, he was confident that the single box in his possession would guarantee a financially secure future for him and Greta.

He figured he only needed a two-hour head start to escape Iceland once they reached its shores. It would take twice that time just for the Empress to get close enough to the island to report what had happened. By then Rath would have sent a chopper to the Njoerd, and he and Greta would be on a leased jet for a hop to Tripoli. He looked over his shoulder to where she huddled in her parka and offered her a reassuring smile. They’d be okay.

Mercer would have slammed down the phone if Rath’s unimpeded escape hadn’t been entirely his fault. It didn’t matter that the rest of his team had agreed with his assessment about the communications from the Empress . He’d made the call to let Rath go and radio the authorities afterward. And now the German was miles away with one of the boxes and there was nothing he could do to stop him.

Like hell there wasn’t. The idea came to him in a moment of clarity that overwhelmed his swelling feelings of defeat. “Erwin, put Raeder on the phone.”

“You’re on a speaker phone here in the bridge,” the president of Kohl said at once. “What do you want me to do?”

“Rath will be heading to Iceland. Turn the Empress northward and tell the captain to push the engines as far as they will go.”

“Herr Mercer, this is Captain Heinz-Harold Nehring.” The voice was accented but commanding. Mercer imagined a ramrod-straight veteran who’d seen and done it all. “The Sea Empress is capable of twenty-eight knots. We will never catch Rath. His boat is too fast. I recommend we alert the destroyer Intrepido with signal flares and, once we are close enough for voice contact, have them take up the hunt.”

“Where is she?”

“About eight miles south of us,” the captain admitted.

“It’ll take too long.” Mercer fought to keep frustration from his voice. “Every second we waste gives Rath that much more of a lead. We have the capability to go after him ourselves. Turn us to Iceland and start firing those flares. The Intrepido can catch up and you can tell them what’s happening en route. Does she have a chopper?”

“Yes, but it is down right now for a transmission problem.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can catch Rath.”

“How?”

“Turn the ship and let me worry about it.” Mercer looked at Ira Lasko. “How many guns do you have?”

“I dumped them all.”

“Father Vatutin?”

“So did I.”

Hilda had also returned to the cabin without her gun. “Erwin,” Mercer said into the phone, “get some weapons, MP-5s and pistols. Also a cell phone and a sat-phone. It may work when we’re closer to Iceland. Meet me in the marina where we first came aboard.”

“What are you doing?” Ira asked when Mercer cut the connection.

“Remember the Riva speedboats next to the Jet Skis? They’re ten or fifteen miles an hour faster than Rath’s boat. Rath’s going to beat us to the coast, but we’ll be right on his heels.”

Lasko made a sour face. “Those boats are thirty feet long,” he said doubtfully. “We must be a hundred miles from Iceland. They’ll never survive a race across the open ocean.”

Mercer was already at the door, forcing the others in the cabin to follow. “The boat will be fine. It’s us who may not survive.”

Ira got a sudden idea. “Wet suits?”

“Now we’re on the same page. They’re right next to the Aquarivas.”

Like a squad of soldiers bent on a one-way mission, they descended to the marina, grim faced and silent. While the alarms had been canceled, the public-address system repeated a call for all passengers to report to their rooms for a head count. The hallways were deserted.

Mercer’s body vibrated with tension, but his senses were on the hyperacuity he experienced whenever he faced danger. He felt he could almost hear the second hand of his watch.

He crashed through the doors to the marina and snapped on the overhead lights. The two Rivas were along the left wall, their polished forward decks gleaming under the fluorescents. The long stern decks hid a pair of 315 horsepower Mercruiser engines. Each had a leather-trimmed open cockpit behind a windshield that was more decorative than functional. They were expensive toys designed for running around secluded tropical coves, and he was about to take one out in the open north Atlantic on a chase her builders had never imagined.

He moved to the crane controls next to the glass office where Greta Schmidt had captured the others. “Ira, check the fuel status of the boat closest to the exit doors. If she’s full, dump out half the gas. We need speed, not range.”

“I’m on it.” He was already unclamping the rear hatch to get at the engines.

Mercer pulled an oversize wet suit over his stolen clothes. The garment was stiff and new, cutting his mobility, but he’d need it when the Riva approached Iceland’s wave-lashed coast. He and Ira were in for a wet, freezing ride. The boots had no treads, so he was forced to keep on his sneakers. The smell of spilled gas began to envelop the space. “Good job. Father Vatutin, monitor the gauges so Ira can change.”