Джек Марс - House Divided

“They gonna fight for it?” the first man said.

Eddie glanced around at his speedboats. Every one of them had six men on board, and every man was bristling with weapons – AK-47s and Uzis mostly, but also a couple of grenade launchers. Everyone had handguns, everyone had knives or machetes. The men themselves were rock stars, stone killers, and they looked the part. Kevlar body armor, wraparound aviator sunglasses, Stars & Stripes bandanas tied on their heads.

“Better not,” Eddie said.

Up ahead, maybe a mile away, was the object of their affection. An ancient freighter ship moved slowly, on a heading to the north and west. The thing was big, looming ten stories high, lumbering along like a derelict. It was an indeterminate color – mostly a mix of rust orange and the tattered remains of a dark green paint job it must have had decades ago. The speedboats approached from the rear, and thick white lettering was barely legible along the stern — LADY JANE .

Lady Jane was sitting up very high in the water indeed. To some, that would suggest the freighter was empty of cargo. But to others – people like Crazy Eddie Killem Dead – it suggested something else entirely. Lady Jane had been docked in an unregulated Congolese port for a long time. Now it was on the move with empty holds.

What was it carrying?

What sort of cargo found its way out of the lawless, war-torn bush in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and into the hands of smugglers on the coast? Precious metals like coltan and gold, certainly, but some things were even better than that.

“Diamonds,” Eddie said under his breath, not realizing he was going to speak at all.

“Yeah, baby!” the man next to him said. “Yeah!”

Diamonds were small, and they were light. A pocketful was worth a lot of money. A couple of pounds hidden inside a false wall on an old freight ship might be worth tens of millions of dollars. More than that? Eddie didn’t dream that big.

No. It would be a couple of pounds, if that. Getting the crew of the ship to show you where they were hidden – that was the trick, wasn’t it?

Eddie smiled. He had convinced people to talk before.

The ship loomed. Closer now, much closer. The speedboats slowed as they approached the massive freighter. The boat with the flying deck moved to the right, training the heavy machine gun on the upper decks of the Lady Jane . So far, there was no movement up there.

There was an emergency ladder bolted to the stern, about two stories above the water. Below there, the ladder had been cut away to discourage pirates – pirates like Eddie and his men. That was okay. Each one of these speedboats had an extendable aluminum ladder that would reach the bottom of the emergency ladder. From there, it was another two-story climb to the first deck. Easy, if the occupants were agreeable.

If not…

Eddie lifted a bullhorn to his lips. He flipped the ON switch with one finger, and a few seconds later, his voice boomed across the water.

“ Lady Jane , Lady Jane , lay down your weapons and prepare for boarding.”

On the very top deck, two dark hands appeared from behind a metal parapet. The hands waved a large white fabric – maybe a piece of bed sheet – meant as a surrender flag. Eddie didn’t trust that flag. Not yet.

“All unarmed men will be spared,” he said into the bullhorn. “Anyone who fights will be killed. Do not test us.”

A voice boomed from the ship. They had a bullhorn of their own.

“We have nothing you want.”

Eddie grinned broadly. Nothing?

“We will see for ourselves.”

If there was going to be a problem, it would happen now.

The first speedboat had tied up to the ship. Eddie watched from about a hundred yards away. The speedboat looked like a children’s toy next to the freighter.

A silver aluminum ladder extended from the speedboat to the sheared-off bottom of the freighter’s emergency ladder. The seas were calm – bounding a little bit, but easy enough for climbing.

One man went up the silver ladder, then another, both moving like spiders. By the time the first man reached the emergency ladder, AK-47 strapped to his back, a third man had climbed onto the silver ladder, and was on his way up.

Three men high in the air. Three men out over nothing, perfectly exposed.

“Steady now,” Eddie said into the bullhorn. “Don’t do nothing stu – ”

Suddenly, a man popped up from behind the low metal wall ringing the lowest deck. He leaned over the top of it with a machine gun. The ugly blat of automatic gunfire ripped through the quiet of the day.

DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH. DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH.

The two men on the silver ladder collapsed, their bodies falling to pieces. Their bloody remnants dropped into the ocean, food for the sharks.

The first man clung to the emergency ladder, trying to wedge his head and upper body beneath one of the iron rungs. So far he had been spared.

The man on the deck leaned way out, aiming to pick off the last climber.

Eddie pointed at the gunman.

“Kill that man,” he said into a black walkie-talkie.

Instantly, a burst from the heavy machine gun on the fishing boat shredded the man into Swiss cheese. No, that was too kind. It liquefied him. The recoil from the heavy gun made the fishing boat rock crazily, but the gunner was an expert. He tilted the gun up and down, training his fire on that deck. The metal of the low wall came apart like cardboard. Holes appeared in it, and an instant later, it crumpled like a tin can.

The first climber was still alive, once again inching his way to the top. Two more men had climbed from the speedboat onto the silver ladder.

“More!” Eddie shouted. “I want more men on that boat.”

Hell, he would go himself. Seeing his men murdered got his blood up. He shouted at his driver to approach the ship. The first speedboat was already pulling away. As his boat pulled in, the boat’s aluminum ladder began to extend. Eddie was on it before the boat was even tied up.

The ladder rose at a forty-five-degree angle to the freighter. He moved across it, climbing quick as a cat, even as the rickety ladder rattled and trembled. More guns sounded. He glanced to his right. The fishing boat was hosing the top decks of the ship with heavy machine gun fire.

“Good!” he shouted. “Rip them up.”

Eddie had almost reached the heavy steel emergency ladder. It was about four feet away, coming closer, then drifting away. He leapt across the gap, then started climbing again, this time straight up in a vertical line.

In less than a minute, he climbed two more stories. He took a deep breath and poked his head over the top. Three of his men were here – still alive and holding this corner of the deck. Very good. They could bring all the men up this way.

Eddie glanced down. Four more men were making their way up behind him. Eight heavily armed fighters would soon be on board, with more on the way. The smugglers on the ship probably never had more than a dozen men to begin with.

He slid over the railing.

His men were crouched at the edge where the walkway turned, staring back at him. Two smugglers lay on the catwalk, barely even corpses, their bodies eviscerated by machine gun fire.

Eddie barely glanced at them. Dark black men, small, Congolese, probably Hutus. Africans yes, but savages. Eddie Killem Dead was Kanuri. That was a heritage to be proud of. These men were trash.

“Let’s go,” he said to his own men. “Let’s finish it.”

He had an Uzi strapped to his back. He unslung it and turned the corner. Fifty yards ahead, a spray of bullets shredded the walls. The fishing boat was still strafing the side of the freighter. Two more men lay dead on the walkway. Beyond them was dizzying blue sky and dark sea.