Клайв Касслер - Marauder

Sinduk and the other man reached the stairs and sprinted up after them. Crowds of riders streamed past them down the main stairway. Luckily, Sinduk was so focused on his goal that he ignored the easier targets.

Raven got to the stairway moments later and took the stairs two at a time. There was a gap between the switchback stairs, allowing her to see Sinduk two stories above her. She stopped and took aim as they rounded a corner. She had Sinduk in her sights and fired.

The shots didn’t hit him because the other terrorist stepped into the path of the bullets. The man went down without a sound.

Sinduk pointed his weapon over the railing and sprayed the stairway with rounds. They pinged off the metal, but Raven was able to duck back in time to avoid being struck.

When the hail of bullets stopped, she leaned back and saw that Sinduk had continued up, but he made sure not to present himself as a target again. Raven kept running.

When she passed the dead terrorist on the sixth level, she saw drops of blood spattered on the stairs leading to the top. She must have hit Sinduk. There was still a chance to catch him.

When she was on the eighth level, she saw him just above her, limping from a bloody wound on his thigh. He was wrestling his way through frightened guests pushing and shoving to get into one of the eight tubes of the waterslide and flee from the gunfire underneath them.

She bounded up the stairs, trying to reach Sinduk while he was distracted. She was still a flight down as he stepped onto the loading platform at the top.

When Raven turned the final corner, she saw that Sinduk had stopped and was pointing the gun at his quarry. The employees had long vanished, and the few remaining guests were piling into one of the eight tubes gushing with water. Oliver Muñoz shielded his daughter Elena while Emily Schmidt frantically pushed Kyle toward the waterslide.

The Senators’ families were only a few steps away from him.

Raven couldn’t take the risk of shooting with so many innocents in the line of fire.

In Sinduk’s other hand was his phone. He tapped on it and dropped it to the floor.

“Death to America,” he shouted in English, raising his weapon.

At that moment, Raven hit him in the back with her shoulder using all the power she could muster. The blow knocked them both to the floor. Sinduk dropped his weapon, and it went skittering into one of the waterslide tubes.

He leaped onto Raven, trying to snatch her gun away. Muñoz made a motion toward them, but Raven thought that was a good way for him to get killed.

“Go,” she yelled. “Get out of here.”

As Raven wrestled with Sinduk, Muñoz shoved Elena and Kyle into a tube, followed by Emily Schmidt and finally Muñoz himself.

Sinduk roared in fury as he saw his targets fleeing. He pried the gun from Raven’s hand, sliding it away from them before slamming his elbow into her chin. Raven rolled away, shaking her head from the powerful jolt.

They both got to their feet, him on his bleeding leg, her with a swollen jaw. They faced each other with the gun lying halfway between them.

“Who are you?” he snarled in Arabic.

“I’m a guardian of decency,” Raven said, drawing the ceramic dagger from its sheath that she had stuck into the knot of her sarong.

She could see the gears turning in his head. If he reached down to get the gun with his bad leg, she’d be able to stab him before he could get back up. But he needed that weapon to complete his task.

He sneered at her. “You don’t realize it, but you’ve already lost.”

Instead of trying to pick up the gun, he reached out with his foot and kicked it into the waterslide tube where the Schmidts and Muñozes had gone down. In the same motion, he dived in after it. Raven didn’t hesitate and plunged in headfirst right behind him.

The slick course twisted and corkscrewed down, with the translucent tube filtering the sunlight into a diffuse green glow.

Sinduk was only inches ahead of her. He clawed at the submachine gun that was sliding through the water just out of his reach.

Toward the bottom, as the slide leveled out, Sinduk was finally able to grasp the handle and pull it to him. He flipped on his back and pointed the gun behind him at his pursuer. There was nothing Raven could do to dodge the shot.

She didn’t have to. As Sinduk pulled the trigger, he dropped into the pool at the end of the slide. Bullets tore into the sky until he was dunked under the surface.

Raven pitched into the water, the knife held out like a spear. It sank into Sinduk’s chest, and he stared at her wide-eyed as blood billowed out into the pool. The life drained from his face, and the gun dropped from his hands.

Raven withdrew the knife and sheathed it back in her sarong before picking up the gun. She emerged from the water and realized that it was only three feet deep. As she stood, she scanned the area and saw the Schmidts and Muñozes scrambling out of the pool, seemingly unharmed.

Raven, however, knew they weren’t out of danger yet. Sinduk said she had already lost. He had to be referring to something he’d mentioned to her at the van.

The terrorist leader had a backup plan.

FIFTEEN

The Ocean Land security guards hadn’t presented much of a challenge. MacD, however, was miffed that it had taken him a couple of seconds longer to free himself than it had the jihadist. He sprinted after the terrorist and caught him ascending the Crazy Eights.

MacD snagged the back of the terrorist’s shirt on the third level and yanked him backward.

The terrorist wheeled around with his fist cocked. MacD was ready for him. He easily sidestepped the punch and leveraged the man’s momentum to heave him over the railing. The terrorist fell still when he struck the pavement below.

MacD spotted Raven climbing out of one of the lower pools with a submachine gun in hand. Scarlet spread from a motionless body in the clear water.

Raven went straight to a group of three people huddled around a fourth. Oliver Muñoz tended to his teenage girl, Elena, who was coughing like she had swallowed water, while Emily Schmidt and her son, Kyle, watched. They recoiled from the gun Raven was carrying, but whatever she said to them put them at ease.

“MacD, do you read me?” came Eddie’s voice in his ear.

“Ah’m on the waterslide.”

“We’re coming out of the Raging Rapids.” MacD saw Eddie and Linc jogging out of the rafting ride construction zone. Both of them were dripping wet. “Where is Raven?”

“She’s at the bottom pool with the Schmidt and Muñoz families. All four of them look all right, and we’ve eliminated all the terrorists we spotted, but there may be more.”

“Understood. We’ll meet you there.”

MacD sprinted down the stairs when a geyser of water erupted from one of the pools below him, followed by a concussive blast. A few seconds later, another one hit. Then a third.

MacD had experienced enough explosions to know that it was mortar fire coming from somewhere.

Raven and the families dived to the ground. MacD could see that the shells were closing in on them. He looked out from his high perch. His eyes were drawn to puffs of smoke emanating from the fishing boat out in the channel between the islands.

He saw Eddie on his phone and heard what he was saying.

“ Oregon , we’ve got incoming mortar fire.”

MacD didn’t hear the reply, but he saw the result.

A rusty old cargo freighter with four cranes was rounding one of the islands at a leisurely pace. MacD recognized it instantly as the new Oregon .

He knew that the chameleon-like paint scheme that allowed the ship to change appearance from a brand new vessel to a decrepit tramp steamer at the push of a button was not her only upgraded feature. The Oregon was less than two miles away, and MacD could see a turret rising from the bow deck. The barrel of the ebony gun rotated until it was pointed at the fishing boat.