Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

Filipov throttled down, brought the boat in a circle, and backed the engine until they were stationary. They were within the Labrador Current, a sluggish, quarter-knot flow of very cold water coming down from the Labrador coast, with no wind and little swell. No point in putting out a sea anchor; the boat could drift.

The crew had gathered in the pilothouse, their faces illuminated in the dim-red light of the nighttime bridge. Filipov looked at Miller. The man had a special hatred of the FBI, and Filipov had decided to let him do the honors — along with Abreu, the engineer, who was built like a brick shithouse. That should keep them happy. When they had dispatched the fed and dumped him overboard, they would head to Canada. And then, just as soon as was humanly possible, Filipov would shake free of these losers and head to Macedonia, where his family was originally from and he still had relatives. He had plenty of money; he could lie low and see how things developed. But he wanted to make sure they all got out of Canada first, and that none of them balked and decided to try their luck staying in the States.

“Miller, Abreu,” he said. “You two go below, get the fed, bring him up. Be careful — he’s a dangerous one. Check your weapons.”

“Why don’t we just shoot the fucker down in the hold?” Miller asked.

“Leaving his blood and DNA everywhere and giving ourselves a ten-hour cleanup job? No: we lay out tarps on the aft deck and shoot him there, then we can wash everything out the scuppers with the raw water hose.”

Miller and Abreu removed their weapons, checked them, racked in rounds, and stepped out into the darkness.

Filipov turned to Smith. “Dwayne, cut twenty feet of half-inch chain and spread some plastic tarps out on the aft deck. The rest of you, rack rounds; I don’t want to take any chances with this guy. He looks like shit, but looks can be deceptive. Take positions along the gunnels.”

He reached down to the breaker panel and flipped on all the night floods, bathing the working deck of the boat in dazzling light. Then he stepped out of the pilothouse, hooking the door open. Smith was already laying out the tarps, held down by lengths of chain. The lazarette hatch opened and Abreu emerged, hauling Pendergast up by his two handcuffed hands, with Miller shoving from below. The man could hardly walk; he looked practically dead already. Still, Filipov wasn’t about to take any chances — he remembered the look he’d seen in the man’s eyes.

“Everyone, keep your weapons at the ready. You two, dump him on the tarp.”

Abreu half dragged the agent to where the tarps were laid out, then let him drop. He looked hideous, his face bruised from the recent beating. His eyes were slits, swollen like sooty holes in a lump of dough, blood crusted around the nose. His body flopped onto the tarp, his cuffed hands lying stretched out over his head.

“Let’s get this over with,” Filipov said. “Miller — you do it.”

“With pleasure.” Miller stepped over, right above the agent, raised his .45 in both hands, and aimed at the head. “Eat this, motherfucker.”

At that moment the fed’s eyes sprang open, sudden white spots in the black holes. Miller, startled, pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide as Miller simultaneously jerked sideways and fell. Filipov saw it as if in slow motion: the fed had swiped at Miller’s ankle, sending it skidding out from under him on the slippery tarp; and as he was falling the man rose up in a smooth motion, his face suddenly charged with a demon-like intensity; he snagged the .45 from Miller’s hand and shot him, then turned and fired at Abreu. It happened with incredible swiftness and yet, for Filipov, time seemed to have slowed into a kind of horrifying ballet. Pendergast kept rotating like a machine; firing next at the cook. One after the other, the tops of Abreu’s and the cook’s heads came off. Pendergast was swiftly moving on, swiveling toward Smith.

Filipov, shaking off his surprise and gathering his wits, began firing his own weapon, as did DeJesus. But they were caught off guard, panicked, firing too fast, and the fed evaded their fire by dropping and swinging sideways, scuttling to a place of cover behind the pilothouse. Now Smith began firing as well, and the three of them engaged in a terrific, useless fusillade that Filipov could see was doing nothing but peppering the empty space where the man had just stood.

Realizing his exposure, Filipov scrambled back, taking cover behind the pilothouse, joined immediately by Smith and DeJesus. They crouched behind the steel wall, near the rail, and a momentary silence fell.

“He’s on the other side of the pilothouse,” said DeJesus. “I’m going over the top.”

“No,” said Filipov, breathing hard. “We need a plan.”

“I’ve got a plan. I’m going over the top before he comes over on top onto us . That motherfucker killed my friend. He’s going to run out of ammo; Miller’s piece held seven plus one and he’s shot three. I’m going to smoke his ass.”

“He’s too fast. It’s just what I said: he’s been faking. Give me a second to think this through—”

“ Fuck thinking. I was special forces, I know what I’m doing. You and Smith go forward and come around the front — we’ll squeeze him in a pincer movement. Get him to start firing. He’ll go through his magazine — and then he’s fucked.”

Filipov saw the wisdom in the plan and stopped protesting. He watched DeJesus grasp the handhold at the edge of the pilothouse roof and, in one fast motion, pull himself up and over, on his belly, creeping forward.

DeJesus is right , he thought. Take the high ground. He motioned to Smith and they began creeping forward, crouching low. Where the pilothouse swept around to the helm windshields, he paused to listen. There was no sound at all. The fed was on the port side, no doubt taking cover around or behind the tied-down Zodiac. The three of them would draw his fire and he’d run out of ammo. They, on the other hand, had plenty of spare magazines.

He signaled to Smith to follow as he crept toward the corner. What was DeJesus doing? Strange that there was no sound.

And then it happened: a sudden, controlled burst of shooting, in groups of two. A pause, and then more shooting. DeJesus. He could hear the rounds hitting the Zodiac, hear the drum-like gasps of air as the pontoons were shot full of holes. The Zodiac was like butter to a .45 round — no cover at all. DeJesus was just going to riddle him. Or so Filipov hoped.

A third set of shots; DeJesus was on his third magazine.

Silence fell again. He crept forward. The man was dead, had to be, with DeJesus shooting down on him from above.

Just as he reached the far corner and crouched, hesitating, he heard a single shot; then a scream and a splash.

Silence again.

Filipov felt himself go cold all over. That scream had sounded like DeJesus. One shot?

With a jab behind he felt around for Smith. He signaled for him to turn around, and together they retreated to the other side of the pilothouse, crouching, breathing hard. Filipov had never been so frightened in his life. Smith looked equally spooked.

“What the fuck do we do?” Smith whispered, his voice cracking.

Filipov’s mind was racing. They had to do something, and do it immediately. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think what.

C ome on , Filipov told himself. Think. Think.

And then, suddenly, he knew what he had to do. He had to get the son of a bitch off guard.

Scuttle the boat. The water temperature was forty degrees. The bastard would fall unconscious and drown within fifteen minutes. If they could get into the cabin, they could pull on immersion suits, then scuttle. It was a steel boat; it would go down fast.