Клайв Касслер - Marauder

He inserted a fresh magazine into his weapon, turned to the stairwell, and went in search of his quarry. Now it was just him against her.

SEVENTY

The Gator idled a hundred yards from the Centaurus , only its cupola poking above the surface. MacD was checking over the laser designator. It looked like a giant pair of binoculars, except with three lenses instead of two, the third being for the laser itself. MacD would hold it up to his eyes, and whatever he was looking at was what the rail gun would hit.

“The doors are moving again,” Linda said from the cockpit.

“What?” MacD said.

“The cargo bays are opening.”

MacD went forward and crammed himself into the tiny space with her. The Centaurus loomed like a leviathan, filling the window. Sure enough, the doors above the cargo bays closest to the superstructure were in the upright position.

MacD listened in as Linda tried to make contact with the bridge of the Centaurus .

“Eric, come in,” she said. “What’s going on up there?”

There was no response.

“Chairman, this is Linda. Come in, please.”

“Juan here.”

“We’ve lost contact with the bridge, and we can see that the cargo bay doors have opened again. They can launch the rockets.”

“We just heard from Polk. He claims that he got Linc, Eric, and Sylvia with the Enervum gas.”

“We didn’t see a rocket go up.”

“He must have used a grenade or smoke canister. But we’re locked into the citadel at the bottom of the ship. We’re trying to get out, but we’re not having any luck. This place is sealed tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Can we do anything? Should we try to get aboard?”

“No,” Juan said. “Stay put. We need you out there to target the Centaurus .”

MacD looked at Linda. “Ah’d rather go and fight.”

She returned his gaze with a resolute expression. “The Chairman knows what he’s doing.”

—

It was only when Sylvia had gone down two levels that she noticed that one of Polk’s rounds had nicked her leg. She’d left tiny blood droplets behind her, like a trail of bread crumbs, leading Polk right to her.

There was no point in hiding. In less than eight minutes, the rockets would launch unless she could stop them somehow. But with Eric and Linc paralyzed, and Polk in pursuit, it seemed hopeless. Even if she got another submachine gun from one of the other dead mercenaries, she wasn’t sure she could defeat a former police detective in a shoot-out.

Still, she had to try something. If he was following her blood trail, she might be able to use it to lead him to her.

There was a fire ax on the wall. She took it out of its cradle and got a feel for its weight. It was heavy for her, but she thought she could get in a solid swing.

Sylvia walked to the next corner and went around it. She put her back against the wall, the ax tight in her hands, and waited.

She kept the mask on in case Polk threw another grenade. She tempered her breathing so that the sound of her mask filter was as muted as possible. Polk would be breathing harder in his own mask because he was on the move, so she hoped he wouldn’t hear her.

She didn’t have to wait long for Polk. The distinctive Darth Vader wheeze of his breathing slowly grew louder as if he were taking his time stalking his prey.

She’d only get one swing, so she had to make it count. The awful breathing sound got closer and closer until it seemed like he was right around the corner.

Without waiting for Polk to show himself, Sylvia swung the ax as hard as she could at chest level.

A hand came up to deflect the handle, but in his shock at being attacked Polk misjudged the angle. The razor-sharp edge sliced across his wrist, cutting deep, before embedding itself in the wall.

Polk let out a scream as blood poured from his ruined wrist. His hand dangled uselessly.

In a fit of fury, he forgot the gun and lunged at Sylvia with his good hand. He grabbed on to the canister of her face mask. He yanked her toward him, his eyes wide with rage, a terrifying sight through the eyeholes of his own mask. With the rubber seal loose now, only the straps were keeping it on her head.

Sylvia strained to pull the ax free, but she couldn’t get it out of the wall. If Polk got any presence of mind back, he would let go of the mask and grab her around the throat to choke the life out of her.

She angled her head so that the straps came off, and she fell backward onto her rear. So did Polk, who landed on his wounded arm and let out an agonized shriek.

Sylvia took advantage of the distraction and ran for it. As she neared the end of the corridor, bullets whizzed by her, but Polk’s one-handed aim was wild.

She went down the next hall and realized she was near the mess and galley. Polk wouldn’t give up until he found her, so she decided to make it easy for him. After all, she wasn’t wearing a mask anymore, and he knew it.

SEVENTY-ONE

Eric woke with a start. His face felt like it was pressing against some buttons. He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying across the bridge control console. He racked his brain but didn’t know how he got there. Even worse, other than his head, he couldn’t move.

The last thing he remembered was tinkering with the lock pick set to try to abort the rocket launch. Then everything was a blank until this moment.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Linc lying on the floor. He was conscious and blinked at Eric, but he said nothing.

On the floor next to him was the cylindrical canister of a smoke grenade.

That’s when Eric realized they must have been gassed. In addition to paralysis, one of the symptoms was short-term memory loss. Murph hadn’t remembered losing consciousness, either.

Eric lifted his head as much as he could, but he couldn’t see Sylvia anywhere. The lock picks were where he’d left them, jutting out of the rocket control system keyhole. The display in the case’s lid was still counting down to midnight.

Movement on one of the bridge monitors caught his attention. He could see the Chairman and Eddie pounding at a door, trying to get it open. They were trapped in the citadel by the fire doors.

Eric tried to move his arms, but the best he could do was bang his hand against the panel. There was no way he’d be able to release them.

Then he made one other disturbing observation. The switches controlling the cargo bay doors had been destroyed since he’d been gassed.

He had to warn someone. Although he couldn’t form words, Eric could still move his tongue. He activated his molar mic to contact the Oregon .

The only thing he could do was click his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

—

I’m getting a strange signal over the comm system,” Hali said from his post in the Oregon ’s op center. “I thought it was static, but . . .” He sat up straighter, excited. “Wait. It’s Morse code.”

Max sat forward in the captain’s chair. “Put it on speaker.”

A series of tsking clicks tapped out a pattern of dots and dashes.

“That’s Eric,” Murph said, adding a “Woohoo” cheer for emphasis at hearing from his friend. Although all three of them knew Morse code, Murph spoke the words aloud as they listened.

“Eric here. On bridge. Linc alive. Paralyzed by gas.”

“So Polk wasn’t bluffing when he told Juan that everyone on the bridge was gassed,” Max said.

“What about Sylvia?” Murph asked, his brow knitted in concern for his sister.

“Not here. Where she?”

“We don’t know,” Max replied. “We haven’t heard from her.”

“Are cargo doors closed?” Eric asked.