Black Flag - Страница 4

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He flashed me a thumbs-up, then went over backward, splashing into the ocean. I followed suit, located him under the surface and gave him a circle with my index finger and thumb, and we set out.

The water was pristine, with visibility out to a hundred feet, and it didn’t take long to find the anomaly. It was a boat, twenty-five to thirty feet long, lying on its side on the sandy bottom. Various artifacts were scattered in a circle around it, twinkling in the light like some giant hand had thrown them from the heavens to have them sink to the ocean floor, forming a wreath around the wreck. We were looking for a section of PVC pipe capped off on both ends, but nothing like that was lying in the sand next to the boat.

Knuckles pointed to the bow and I nodded, letting him take that section. I went to the stern. The first thing I noticed was a blackness all around the inboard engines, like the boat had caught on fire, then I saw a gaping hole in the rear of the engine housing. It didn’t look like something that would occur from having the bottom sheared off, especially if the boat had sunk immediately. It looked like the boat had blown up, then burned a little bit before going down.

I swam to the hull and saw that it did have a large hole in it, but it, too, was ringed with blackness, as if the hole had been caused by an explosive force instead of a kinetic contact at speed with a reef.

I heard metal on metal tapping and looked for Knuckles, knowing he was trying to get my attention. I located him and saw him pump his arm up and down, then hold up a section of PVC. He’d found the pipe.

He signaled that he was going topside, and I told him I was going to poke around a little bit more. He looked a little confused behind his mask and signaled once more that he was going topside. I nodded and signaled again that I was staying under. He shook his head and began to ascend.

I poked around the boat for another twenty minutes, finding absolutely no evidence that it had run aground on a reef, which I’d honestly been wondering about since we’d entered within range of Navassa Island. The reef in question was a good seven feet from the surface, which I suppose could have been halved during some tidal-type surge, but even so, this boat’s draft was probably two or three feet. It didn’t make a lot of sense.

I checked my gauge and saw I had just over 500 PSI left. That meant about ten minutes, given my breathing rate, which was inside my reserve threshold. I started powering to the surface, running the ramifications through my head.

The sea anchor had let our boat drift, so when I broke the surface I was a little disoriented. I did a circle and found it about twenty meters away. With Knuckles in the bow holding his hands in the air.

What the hell?

I said not a word and began swimming toward the boat, keeping my eye on my partner, wanting to see that I was mistaken. Instead, Knuckles punched one of the Romanians in the face, and I stopped my movement, treading water. He turned and dove over the side away from me while the other Romanian assholes started digging into a duffel bag they’d brought with them. They rose and started firing what looked like MP5s. I saw Dylan holding his arms over his head like a child, cowering on the deck, then I went under, clearing my regulator. I started swimming toward the location I’d seen Knuckles enter the water, seeing the rounds slice through the ocean. I went deeper.

Bullets lose killing capacity very fast in water, mainly because it’s a hell of a lot thicker than air, but they’re still deadly up close. I got under the hull and saw Knuckles stroking hard to get out of the range of the rounds. Going deeper and deeper like a free diver. What the hell he thought he was going to do once he was out of range was a mystery. He could stay under for only about four minutes before he had to surface.

I started powering my fins, overtaking his swim. He went to the right, near the reef, thinking he could evade the firing by hugging the coral. I jerked his leg and he swung around so hard he almost ripped my mask off. I ran my hand down my side and brought up my emergency regulator, attached to the octopus at the top of my tank. He shoved it in his mouth, cleared it, and took a deep breath. I waved my hand in front of his face in a cutting motion, then pointed to my gauge.

We had about five minutes of air left between us. I pointed to Navassa Island and he nodded. We started stroking, cresting the reef bed at ten feet and drawing more bullets from the air bubbles in our tank. We reached the island and looked for a way up.

Completely circled with limestone cliffs of about eight feet, the island had no beach to roll into. We poked our heads above the water and immediately drew a fusillade from the boat, all most likely from some type of 9mm submachine gun. The range was too great for any chance to hit us with a precision aim, but it wasn’t too great for a lucky break, and they were liberally trying to make that happen.

I found an alcove and pressed into the rock. I looked over my head and saw a shallow niche rising to the island, a five-foot climb over limestone.

I spit out my regulator and said, “Great clients. I think we’ll really solidify your cover in Grolier with these assholes.”

Knuckles said, “Spare me. Can we get out of the beaten zone, please? Sooner or later, they’re going to hit us.”

I braced myself on the rock and ditched my tank, then scampered up the cut. I reached the top and was visible from the boat, drawing another fusillade. I dove into the dirt at the same time Knuckles made it to the top. I low-crawled through the vegetation for about thirty meters before stopping.

Where we’d surfaced was scrub, with bushes and trees that topped out at five feet. If we stood, we’d be visible from the coast, which forced us to snake our way forward like a couple of animals.

Knuckles reached my position, and we both focused on the boat, seeing it powering into our position. I said, “What the hell happened?”

He said, “I don’t know. I got back on the boat, pulled off my gear, and gave them the pipe containing the map. While they were all jumping up and down cheering, I saw an itinerary for a container ship out of Jamaica. It was a reservation for four rooms on the boat, and it was all of us, including Jennifer. Lying on top of the duffel bag full of weapons.”

“What are you talking about? Reservations on a cruise ship?”

“No, no. A freighter. One of those giant container ships. You can book passage on just about any ship crossing the ocean, and it’s pretty cheap, considering. Someone booked us passage on a container ship out of Kingston, Jamaica. When I saw that, they turned nasty.”

The boat continued toward us, but slower due to the rocks. I watched it inch forward and said, “They aren’t going to quit. We need to get the fuck out of here.”

I started duckwalking deeper into the island, finding a game trail and sticking to it, the vegetation ripping into my exposed skin. When we reached an expanse of flat terrain, I crouched and said, “I don’t know what you triggered, but they’ve got a plan. They’re going to come here and hunt us. You want to go separately or stick together?”

Knuckles said, “Splitting up is probably the best way to take these guys, since we have no weapons. Make them separate, then take them out.”

I said, “Okay. I’m sticking to this game trail. You go somewhere else.”

He looked at the intimidating rocks, sticker bushes, and other foliage, then at his bare feet and said, “Maybe we should stay together.”

“Yeah. This is going to be like the worst episode of Naked and Afraid.”

Chapter 5

Dylan knocked on the hotel door and dreaded what he was about to report, even though it wasn’t his fault. Why Nickolae brought the damn reservation confirmation with him was a mystery, but it certainly wasn’t because Dylan had ordered it. And it wasn’t Dylan’s fault that the Romanian, instead of trying to talk his way out of it, had turned immediately to violence. Like they always did.

It’s amazing they get anything done. What idiot would want to put up with this? Then he remembered that he was one of the idiots. He had gone to them, looking for muscle as insurance after he’d come across a man willing to sell U.S. military-grade semiconductors and microprocessors used in ballistic missiles. Something worth a great deal to the right buyers. The original plan had been fairly routine, with the contact placing the chips in with a batch of vanilla ones being shipped by the same corporation. Ordinarily hand flown back to the Department of Defense contractor working with the ballistic missile technology, these would now cross the ocean as boring, normal cargo. After all, who could tell the difference just by looking at them? Certainly not anyone who inspected shipping containers.

When they arrived in Charleston, Dylan was simply going to receive them in exchange for money. After the contact had placed the chips into the shipping system, he’d gotten greedy, threatening to back out and go somewhere else, and Dylan had learned what a mistake it had been to use the Romanians as muscle. Intending to cut the contact out and leverage his partners, they’d sabotaged a boat the contact used, and it had exploded right on time. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to either Dragos or Dylan, the partners had no idea where the chips were located on the giant ship and had no ability to make the transfer in Charleston. All they’d known was that the container information was in the boat Dragos had conveniently destroyed.