Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

The man ducked out of sight and then aimed his weapon through the opening, pulling the trigger and spraying lead around the bridge. Kurt threw himself against the bulkhead and kicked the hatch door, slamming it on the man’s arm.

The door rebounded after a sickening crack and the man bailed, falling backward and grunting in pain.

With nothing blocking the hatchway, Kurt forced it closed and slammed the handle down. As he sealed it tight, Ryland and Ober lunged for him.

They caught him at the waist, knocking into him and taking him down. He landed on his back as Ober climbed on him.

Unable to bring the submachine gun to bear, Kurt smashed its stock into Ober’s bearded face. Ober rolled away, grabbing his mouth.

Ryland reached up and gripped the barrel of the MP5 before Kurt could give him the same treatment.

The two of them fought for the weapon. Ryland got a second hand on the stock. Kurt tried to yank it free, but Ryland had reached the grip and ended up forcing Kurt’s finger to compress and hold down the trigger.

The gun erupted, firing on full auto. Bullets drilled into the ceiling and ricocheted off the walls. The captain, who’d rushed to the navigation panel to try to change the ship’s course, took a hit in the knee and went down.

Ober and Kurt were both hit by ricochets, while a line of bullets stitched its way across the windows fronting the bridge. One of them shattered and caved in. Cold wind began howling through the gap.

Kurt headbutted Ryland, stunning him just long enough to pull the weapon free and get his finger off the trigger. He then threw Ryland off, slid himself backward and fired at Ober as the man charged once more, bloody teeth and all.

Ober dropped to his knees and fell sideways.

With the odds back in his favor, Kurt jumped up and spun the knob on the navigation panel, turning the ship more sharply toward the cliffs.

As the Goliath rolled into the turn, the hatchway swung open once again and Kurt fired his last rounds of ammunition.

The intruders ducked back once more. But with the bolt on the MP5 locked in the open position and no ammo, Kurt’s ability to fight was suddenly curtailed.

With nowhere else to go, he climbed up onto the navigation terminal and dove through the shattered window.

—

Still in the pump room, Joe felt the Goliath turn once and then more sharply a second time. He sensed the ship’s list increase as the starboard side grew heavier and the port side grew ever lighter.

He’d transferred five million gallons of lake water so far and the pumps were still humming. By choosing the outermost tanks to empty and fill, he’d magnified the change in list to the greatest extent possible.

The ship’s outer right-hand side was now carrying forty thousand tons more than the outer left side. The ship was leaning ten degrees already and the angle was growing by the minute.

Finding some chains and a padlock, Joe rigged the setup to hold tight and then took the key with him. Moving back to the prisoners, he lowered the Norwegian sailor’s gag.

“What’s your name?” Joe asked.

“I’m called Björn.”

“Well, Björn, you seem like a smart man,” Joe said. “I assume you know what I’m trying to do here?”

“You’re making the ship unstable,” Björn replied. “You’re going to roll us over.”

“That’s the general idea,” Joe said. “Now, you can either be down here when it happens or watching it from a lifeboat at a safe distance.”

“We have no lifeboats,” the man said.

“There has to be something.”

“We have runabouts,” he said. “And inflatables.”

Joe pulled out a knife and brandished it. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d make my way to one of those.” He tossed the knife a short distance from where Björn sat. “Don’t waste your time trying to reverse what I’ve done. I’ve rigged it so that you’ll never be able to undo it. Just get off this ship before it goes over.”

With that, Joe walked to the hatch, opened it and ducked through.

Björn sat in shock for a second, staring at the watertight door. Only when one of his hog-tied comrades began grunting and nodding toward the knife did Björn spring into action.

Dropping onto his side, he inchwormed his way to the knife and then turned so he could get his hands on it.

Gripping it awkwardly, he got the blade onto the thin rope that bound his hands. He began sawing back and forth, happy to find that the knife was both serrated and extremely sharp. In ten seconds, he’d cut the rope and freed his hands. His feet took no more than a second.

Free of the bindings, he rushed back to his comrades and went to work on theirs.

The first man he cut loose was his assistant. “Free the others,” Björn said, handing over the knife.

As the assistant went to work, Björn rushed to the controls Joe had tampered with. The valves were chained in the open position. The pumps running full out.

Looking for some way to reverse what Joe had done, Björn found a length of pipe and tried to use the leverage from it to break the lock.

Leaning back, he put all his weight into it. But the lock held. And the pipe slipped. It flew out of his hands and landed on the deck, clanking loudly as it struck the metal plating and then began rolling away.

“Forget about it,” his assistant shouted. “We have to go.”

Björn took another look and gave up. Turning away from the pumps, he made his way across the tilted deck and joined his friends at the hatch. They pulled it open, stepped through and took off down the passageway.

As they moved away, a figure stepped out of the shadows.

Joe watched them for several seconds and then began to follow. If human nature held sway, they would run to the nearest boat. Joe would follow. Where there was one boat there was bound to be another.

65

Kurt dove through the forward bridge window onto a slope designed to make the superstructure look like nothing more than a raised part of the iceberg. He slid uncontrollably for seventy feet, careening downward like a skier who’d wiped out on a particularly steep slope.

Reaching the roof of the third deck, he slid forward, came to a stop and then jumped to his feet as quickly as possible. Bullets struck the ice around him, but dressed in white, running across the snow-covered hull in the middle of a storm, Kurt made an elusive target.

Reaching the edge of the third deck, he dropped over the side and landed on the roof of deck two. Pressing his back against the ice, he was now effectively out of sight.

With a second to breathe, Kurt rummaged in his pocket for the radio headset. Pulling it out, he placed it over his ears and switched it on. Swinging the mic close to his mouth, he switched the transmitter to the voice-activated setting.

“Joe, do you read?”

A few seconds went by.

“Come on, buddy,” Kurt said. “Pick up.”

—

Joe was following the men and women from the pump room as they raced down the passageway and charged up the stairs. They climbed five flights, gathered up a stray crewman they encountered and turned toward the stern.

Joe checked the corridor and followed.

By now, the Goliath was listing twenty degrees. Joe wondered how Kurt was faring and then remembered the headset.

He pulled it from his pocket and put it on.

Kurt’s voice came through almost immediately. “Don’t know if you can hear me, amigo. This ship is about to meet a rock ledge in the worst possible way. Get topside, if you haven’t already.”

“I’m heading aft,” Joe said. “Hoping they haven’t run out of boats at the local marina. Got my reservation in a little late.”

“I’m trapped on the low side near the bow,” Kurt replied. “If the rental line isn’t too long, come get me.”