Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘This is not the first time I have been threatened on my own ship,’ said Trakas. ‘Now, Ana. Drop your gun.’ Her pistol clunked to the carpeted deck. ‘Good.’ He moved to her and kicked the fallen weapon clear, then shifted position to cover his guests. ‘Greece is a seafaring nation. We do not like pirates.’

‘Augustine, I swear I had nothing to do with this,’ said Lonmore, hands spread in entreaty as he stepped closer to his friend. ‘This wasn’t—’

He moved between Trakas and Eddie — and the Englishman responded instantly. ‘Nina!’ he yelled, grabbing the table and flipping it over. It hit Lonmore, sending him reeling into Trakas and Anastasia. Before either Greek could react, the couple had leapt through the broken window and run aft down the port-side walkway.

‘Where are we going?’ Nina shouted.

‘Off this fucking boat!’ Eddie looked towards the stern. The launch that had brought them aboard was still moored at the dock—

An armed crewman rounded the rear of the superstructure. The Englishman swerved, pulling his wife with him through a hatch. A narrow passageway lay before them, but he suspected it would lead back to the central corridor, and Trakas’s people. ‘Up here,’ he said instead, scaling a steep ladder to the deck above.

Nina followed him up into what turned out to be the bridge. It was unmanned, an autopilot apparently steering the yacht. ‘Ghost ship,’ she said.

‘Sounds like there’ll be more ghosts aboard soon,’ replied Eddie as gunfire erupted from the decks below. The crew were retaking the vessel. He looked around. The only other exit was a sliding door at the wheelhouse’s rear that led on to a long sun deck running the length of the superstructure, the mainmast rising from it like a gleaming redwood. ‘There’s a ladder at the far end — or worst comes to the worst, we can jump down.’ He threw open the door.

More crewmen rushed into the lounge, aiming at anyone unfamiliar. ‘Mr Trakas!’ one shouted. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Trakas replied. ‘Watch her.’ Even in the midst of a tense situation, he still gave Anastasia’s athletic wetsuited body a look of leering appreciation, which she did not fail to notice. Nor did De Klerx, whose lips curled into a snarl. ‘What’s happening? How many others are there?’

‘We saw seven as well as these two, but there might be more.’

‘Two less now.’ Trakas gave the dead men a dismissive glance. ‘Where’s Rouphos?’

‘On his way to the bridge.’

‘Good. We need to—’ He broke off as another exchange of gunfire from the deck below was accompanied by a detonation that rattled the floor. The shrill clamour of a fire alarm echoed through the ship.

‘What was that?’ gasped Lonmore.

‘The gas tanks!’ Trakas replied, concerned. ‘One of your idiots must have shot them.’

‘They’re not my idiots!’ the American insisted. ‘I’m telling you, I came here to negotiate as a friend, not—’

The Greek waved him to silence. ‘Later. Much later!’

‘We’ve got to get you off the ship,’ Axelos told his boss.

Trakas’s reluctance at abandoning his yacht was clear, but he nodded. ‘Okay. Bring them with us.’ He gestured at the four prisoners. ‘There are two more, a bald man and a woman,’ he told his crew. ‘Find them!’

Nina and Eddie raced along the upper deck. The mainsail’s long boom extended out over the water off the starboard side, the great canvas triangle pushed firm by the wind. ‘Christ, now what?’ said Eddie as a strident alarm sounded.

‘Great, the ship’s on fire!’ replied Nina. ‘Just what we need.’

‘At least there’s plenty of water to put it out— Shit!’ A crewman was scaling the ladder in the deck’s aft corner.

A rack holding several life vests was mounted on the side railings. Eddie snatched one up and hurled it at the crewman. The man instinctively raised an arm to protect his head. The impact of the flotation device knocked his gun from his hand, sending it clanging to the deck below. He cursed, glancing after it before realising that the approaching intruders were unarmed.

‘Get to the boat!’ Eddie called to Nina as the crewman reached the deck and rushed at them. She swerved clear as the two men collided. The Greek had hoped his charge alone would be enough to knock the other man down, but Eddie was prepared for it, dropping and twisting to take the impact on his shoulder while simultaneously driving a punch into his attacker’s stomach. ‘Go on, go!’

She hesitated, but while the man was much younger than her husband, he was also obviously a far less experienced fighter. Winded, he swung a couple of flailing blows at Eddie’s head, neither of which landed more than a glancing impact as the Yorkshireman drove him backwards. Now confident that the brawl would end quickly, she ran to the end of the deck.

The launch had been joined at the floating dock by the speedboat that had towed the parasailing Trakas. A choice of two — and no one else in sight. She hurriedly descended the ladder. ‘Eddie, come on!’

Above, Eddie whipped up his arm to deflect another blow before snapping a punch at the crewman’s face. The younger man reeled back, but didn’t fall.

He had to put the Greek down before he and Nina could escape. Fists raised, he advanced—

The crewman glanced past him — then shouted. Eddie was sure nobody could yet have caught up from behind, but the flash of hope in the other man’s eyes hadn’t been faked. He risked a split-second look back at the wheelhouse. A figure was visible inside. Rouphos. If he had a gun, the situation was about to get a lot worse.

Eddie made another lunge at the crewman, who hurriedly retreated. He followed, aiming to trap the sailor in a corner to bring the fight to a rapid end—

The deck rocked under his feet as the yacht made a sharp turn. Rouphos bellowed something in Greek.

Eddie hurriedly stabilised himself, expecting the crewman to make a counterattack, but he too had braced against the change of direction, dropping low. What had the captain warned about?

The answer came a second later as the mainsail’s swinging boom smacked against the back of Eddie’s head.

A moment of insensate blackness… then pain filled his skull to overflowing as he regained full consciousness. He forced open his eyes to find himself looking up at the sky, the crewman standing over him with a mocking smile. Rouphos arrived, handing his subordinate a gun and issuing a command before helping him drag the woozy Englishman upright. ‘If you were a sailor, you would have kept your head down around the mast!’ the captain said. Eddie tried to think of a comeback, but all he managed through the pulsing throb assaulting his brain was an irate groan.

Shouts caught Rouphos’s attention. Eddie endured a moment of nausea as he turned to watch him hurry to the aft railing — and beyond him saw Nina reach the yacht’s stern.

But the captain wasn’t looking at her, instead calling down to someone on the deck below.

Nina glanced back, hoping to see Eddie following her, but instead saw Trakas, Axelos and a number of the ship’s crew emerge from the superstructure. Spencer was with the burly Greek, his father and Petra being pushed along behind them with Anastasia and De Klerx. Rouphos stood at the end of the deck above, framed by a plume of dark smoke rising from the ship’s side.

Now she spotted Eddie behind him, but to her horror he was being held by the sailor. The fight had gone badly. And things were about to go the same way for her too, as Trakas’s bodyguards caught sight of her.