Matt Hilton - Dead Men's Harvest

As he’d been ordered to, Baron had led the woman up another set of steep stairs, taking her to the upper deck and the motor launch that the crew had prepped. Cain found the stairs and went up them, as nimble as a cat. Coming out on the deck, he found he was faced by the towering stacks of freight containers, and the loading mechanisms looming like misshapen giants against the night sky. Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t see Baron or his charge. The launch was to the front of the ship, and on the opposite side of the towers. He’d been below decks for some time now, and the cold wind tugging at his hair and clothing brought an unwelcome chill to his body. Overhead, the sky was shrouded by heavy clouds and he felt the first patter of rain on his upturned face. He shivered, thought back to the warm desert he loved and wondered why the hell he was here in this freezing, horrible place. Chaos: that was the answer. It had its way of upsetting the natural order of things. But he was a Prince of Chaos and it was also his ally. It would hinder his enemies more than it would thwart him. As if in agreement with his thoughts the clouds gave up their burden and rain lashed the decks.

He dodged between the freight containers, following narrow paths as though he’d wandered into the Minotaur’s labyrinth. There he was spared the fury of the rain, but there was no avoiding a soaking because mini-waterfalls teemed from the containers above.

Without power, the ship was at the sea’s whim, and it drifted on the currents, lifting and falling as the rainstorm kicked up whitecaps. All around him the containers moaned like living things, and he wondered if his short cut had been such a good idea. If any of those containers should shift, he’d be ground between them and all thought of revenge would be finished. He quickly slipped out on the port side of the ship, searching the deck for any sign of Baron and the woman. The storm was coming from the north-east, having skirted Virginia before sinking south-west again towards the North Carolina coastline. There, by the port rail, he was blasted by the wind shrieking across the deck, and had to bend his back to avoid being thrown off his feet. He shuffled along, eyes searching for movement ahead. Through the billowing spray he caught sight of an indistinct shape and, as he approached, it metamorphosed into the small group he’d been seeking. One of Grodek’s crewmen had joined them.

Jennifer read the menace in his features. She twisted past Baron to place him between Cain and herself. Baron grasped her by the neck of her blouse, pulling her back towards the lifeboat where the other crewman took hold of her, ready to throw her aboard.

‘Leave her,’ Cain said. ‘She’s not coming with us.’

The crewman was a tall, thin man with receding hair and pale blue eyes. Another Russian, Cain guessed. He wouldn’t understand his command, so Cain decided to show him instead. He stalked forward, lifting his Tanto, and went to grab at Jennifer, but came up short as Baron gripped him round the wrist. Cain stopped, and peered into the man’s bland face. ‘Release me or lose your hand,’ he warned.

‘Don’t do this, Cain.’ Baron’s voice too held a note of warning. His gun was only a second away from Cain’s gut. ‘You’re angry that Telfer hasn’t come. I understand that, but the woman’s worth far more to us alive than dead.’

‘Let. Me. Go.’

Baron slowly unfurled his fingers, but he didn’t step aside. ‘We can still use her, Cain.’ This time he tried to reason with Cain’s better sense. ‘Hunter and who knows who else is on board. We might need her as a shield.’

‘You still expect to use her as a bargaining chip? That’s finished with. If Walter Conrad sends anyone now, it won’t be John Telfer… it’ll be a full strike team.’

‘Hunter might be working under his own power. Who’s to say the CIA even knows he’s here? You can still use Jennifer to get what you want, Cain… but not if she’s dead.’

Cain fumed. ‘You know something, Baron? You’re right.’ He flicked a command to the Russian crewman. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Get her on the boat.’

Jennifer had taken the opportunity to move a few steps away while the men had been caught in the tense moment. Now, as the Russian turned for her again, she shook her head adamantly, refusing to get on the lifeboat.

‘Do not try me, woman!’ Cain roared. ‘Baron has just won you a reprieve. Now get on the goddamn boat before I change my mind again!’

‘Fuck you, Cain,’ Jennifer said with equal ferocity. ‘And fuck you, Baron. You aren’t using me to murder my husband!’

Then she threw herself over the rail and into the storm-ridden sea.

Despite himself, Cain lunged after her, but it was a fruitless task. She was gone and that was that.

‘No!’

The shout burst unbidden through the night.

But it wasn’t Cain’s yell of frustration, or that of Baron or the Russian.

Cain turned slowly, and watched the man materialise out of the pouring rain, a gun in his hand.

Going door to door, I checked every conceivable place that Cain could have hidden Jenny, but I had no luck. Part of me was relieved, because if she was in any of those rooms, then she would be dead already. No, Cain must have taken her with him. I was positive that it was his face I’d seen through the porthole just before the crazy man with the meat-cleaver attacked me. Seeing his opportunity, Cain must have ushered her away to another part of the ship. I doubted he’d go deeper into the bowels, now that he realised a rescue party was on board. A stronger likelihood would be that he had taken her up; to use Jenny as a hostage. That was the theory, but I’d still to continue my search.

A set of double doors opened into a galley. The place stank of spoiled food and unwashed bodies, and nicotine-laden stains coloured everything a deep tan. Though not somewhere I’d like to sit down and eat, it was still one of the cleanest rooms I’d come across on the Queen Sofia. My vision flashed to a stain on a distant table. Moving quickly, I went to check and saw something that brought bile into my throat. There was a fan of blood on the table, punctuated at the narrow end by a shallow nick in the tabletop. I could guess what had happened there, but didn’t want to think who had lost a digit to Cain’s blade. I had the sudden urge to kick the table over, to demolish it beyond recognition, but what purpose would that serve? Better that I go find the bastard who had made Jenny suffer.

My boot scuffed something: a severed finger. I scanned the floor and there was another. Over by the wall was yet another, and something tiny that could have only been a toe. In my time I’ve seen many horrific sights, but there was something so disturbing about the presence of those scattered digits that I almost vomited. I headed for the nearest door and was surprised to find a narrow vestibule, and a set of stairs leading upwards. On the third stair up there was a droplet of blood, more blood on the next step. It appeared that Cain had taken Jenny that way, and that she was still bleeding. The son of a bitch had hacked off one of her fingers, and my only grateful thought was that the other digits on the floor had been too thick and long to have belonged to her.

I went up the stairs warily, my SIG held poised to shoot. Last time we’d fought Tubal Cain he’d been in hiding and had ambushed Rink. Only Rink’s supercharged reactions had saved him from having his throat opened wide by Cain’s knife. The scar on Rink’s chin was a sore reminder of how close he’d come to death, though.

The droplets of blood led me upwards, like the breadcrumbs in some insane version of the Hansel and Gretel tale. In that story there’d been a cannibalistic witch plotting to devour children, but even the old hag was nowhere near as much of a monster as Cain. Throwing caution aside, I went up the stairs three at a time and banged out of a door and on to a rain-swept deck.