Clive Cussler - Plague Ship

Brute force it is, he thought.

The wrench he grabbed was at least eighteen inches long and weighed ten pounds. He hefted it like a surgeon taking up a scalpel, fully knowing his capabilities with the instrument. He had gotten into his first real fight as a teenager when a strung-out junky brandishing a knife had tried to rob his uncle’s gas station. Max had knocked out eight of the would-be thief’s teeth with a wrench identical to the one he carried now.

He moved cautiously across the garage, finding cover where he could and stalking slowly because the human eye’s peripheral vision is adept at picking up movement. Any sound he made was drowned out by the radio.

One of the mechanics had his face covered by a darkened welder’s shield to protect his eyes, so Max concentrated on the second, a tall, lanky man in his thirties with a bushy beard and greasy hair tied in a ponytail. He was bent over the engine compartment, running his hands over a bundle of hoses, so he never felt Max’s presence behind him until Max brought the wrench down with a measured swing.

The blow dropped the mechanic as if he’d been poleaxed, and the egg it left on his skull would last him weeks.

Max turned. The welder had sensed motion and was just straightening, reaching to pull off his mask, when Hanley stepped forward and, like a batter in the all-star game, swung the wrench. At the perfect moment in his swing, Max let the wrench fly. The case-hardened tool smashed the plastic visor, which saved the welder from having his face torn off, while the power of the throw tossed the man bodily into a nearby rolling toolbox. The blowtorch, on its long rubber lines, dropped at Max’s feet, the blue jet flame making him step back when he felt the heat on his bare feet.

A third mechanic who had been hidden on the far side of the truck suddenly appeared around the front bumper, drawn by the commotion. He stared at the unconscious welder sprawled against the toolbox before turning toward Max.

Max watched as confusion became understanding and then anger, but before the man could give in to his flight-or-fight reflex Max scooped up the still-burning torch and tossed it in an easy underarm throw.

Another instinct took over, and the mechanic automatically grabbed for it as it came at him.

At over six thousand degrees Fahrenheit, the tongue of burning oxygen and acetylene needed the briefest contact to char flesh. The mechanic caught the torch with the nozzle pointed directly at his chest. A smoldering hole opened in his overalls instantly, and skin and muscle sizzled away to reveal the white of his rib cage. The bones blackened before the massive load of shock made him drop the brass torch.

His expression didn’t change in the seconds it took his brain to realize his heart had stopped beating. He collapsed slowly to the concrete floor. The smell made Max want to retch. He hadn’t intended to kill the hapless mechanic, but he steeled himself. He had to save his son, and, unfortunately, this man stood in his way.

The welder was the closest to his size, so he took a moment to strip him out of his coveralls. He had to take the third mechanic’s boots because the others were hopelessly small. He did so without looking up from the man’s feet.

With a pair of wire cutters, he moved to the two trucks and opened the hoods, cutting the wires that sprouted from the distributor caps like black tentacles. As he started for the quad bikes, he saw a coffee machine set up on a workbench. Apart from filters, mugs, and a plastic container of creamer powder, there was a box of sugar. Max grabbed it, and, rather than waste time messing with the Kawasakis’

electronics, he unscrewed their fuel caps and dumped sugar into their tanks. The bikes wouldn’t run for more than a quarter mile, and it would take hours to clean out their fuel lines and cylinders.

A minute later, he was astride the one idling four-wheeler he hadn’t tampered with and pressed the button that opened the garage door. It was night, and wind-ripped rain lashed through the opening. Max couldn’t have asked for better conditions. There was no point closing the door. Kovac would know he was gone and how he was making his escape.

Slitting his eyes against the rain, he twisted the throttle and shot out into the unknown.

CHAPTER 24

KOVAC’S ORDERS HAD BEEN SPECIFIC TO THE FIVE men he’d dispatched to watch over the dismantled Responsivist facility in the Philippines. They weren’t to interfere with people investigating the building unless it became apparent that they were going to breach the underground sections. In the weeks they had observed the site, the only interest shown had been a couple of Filipinos on a well-used motorcycle. They had remained only a few minutes, looking over the building to see if there was anything worth looting. When they realized everything had been stripped, they had roared off down the road in a cloud of blue exhaust.

The way the two approached today had put the guards on immediate alert, and when the blast echoed across the open field they knew their caution had been well founded.

AMID THE TUMULT of crashing cement, Juan fell through the hole Linc had created, landing solidly on his feet on a flight of steep stairs. The air was an impenetrable wall of dust, forcing Cabrillo to run blindly down the steps, trusting that Linc had cleared out of the way. A piece of cement the size of his head hit his shoulder with a glancing blow, but it was enough to throw him off his feet. He tumbled the last few steps and lay dazed on the landing, as more debris rained down all around him.

A powerful hand groped for the back of his bush shirt and drew him into an antechamber and out of what was becoming an avalanche.

“Thanks,” Juan panted as Linc helped him to his feet.

Both men’s faces and clothes were a uniform shade of pale gray from the dust.

The timber scaffolding that supported the weight of the concrete plug gave way entirely, and tons of cement and broken wood crashed onto the staircase, completely filling the entrance to the antechamber with rubble. The darkness inside the chamber was absolute.

Linc pulled a flashlight from his haversack. The beam was as bright as a car’s xenon headlamp, but all it revealed were clouds of concrete dust.

“Remind you of anything?” Linc asked with a dry chuckle.

“Little like Zurich when we sprang that banker awhile back,” Juan answered with a cough.

“What do you think of our reception committee?”

“I feel like an idiot for thinking it was going to be that easy.”

“Amen, brother.” Linc flashed the beam across the choked-off doorway. Some of the concrete slabs had to weigh half a ton or more. “It’s going to take a couple of hours to dig our way out of here.”

“As soon as we open even a small hole, they’re going to gun us down like fish in a barrel.” Juan purposefully engaged his pistol’s safety and slid it into his waistband at the small of his back. “Outgunned and most likely outnumbered. I don’t fancy clawing our way into an ambush.”

“Wait them out?”

“Won’t work. We’ve got one canteen and a couple of protein bars. They could sit out there from now until doomsday.” As he spoke, Juan was fiddling with his satellite phone.

“Then we can call in the cavalry. Eddie can have an assault force here inside of forty-eight hours.”

“I’m not getting a signal.” Cabrillo turned the phone off to conserve its battery.

“All right, you’ve shot down all of my suggestions, what’s up your sleeve?” Juan took the light from Linc’s hand and played it along the downward-sloping tunnel that had been bored into the earth decades ago. “We see where this leads.”

“What happens if they come in after us?”