Dark Moon (23 page)

At the top of the ladder he paused to inspect the hatch in front of him. Then, working as quietly as possible, he turned the handle that opened the cover.

oOo

Everyone’s tension grew as the minutes ticked by and there was no communication with the security chief.

“Did something happen?” Karen whispered. “I mean, what if he met more guards.”

“Let’s hope he’s still on track,” Emma answered, thinking that if he was out of commission, they’d have to go to plan B—whatever that was.

Finally they heard the flicking sound coming from the watch.

“Thank God,” Emma murmured.

“Get back,” Cole said in a gritty voice. Emma gave him a long look, but she couldn’t come up with an alternative to his drawing the guards’ fire.

 The women moved a few yards down the hall and into an alcove, with Anna facing in one direction and Emma in the other, each ready to fire if they saw someone coming.

Cole moved to the hatch and turned the lever, opening the door a crack. It creaked, drawing instant fire from the men inside the docking area. Bullets hit the door and bounced back.

Cole slammed the door and waited thirty seconds. When he opened it again, there was another burst of fire, but this time it wasn’t directed toward the door. The shots were going in the other direction.

Then silence.

After long tense moments, the watch began making the flicking sound again.

“He’s in,” Cole called out. As he reached for the door handle, Emma wanted to grab him, but she knew they couldn’t stay in the hallway forever.

As he disappeared inside, she felt her heart start to pound. She’d been shaken by the wolf, but the shock was over. What if something happened to him now?

The thought of going on without him made a wave of cold sweep over her. She’d just found out what they meant to each other and she ached to explore the bond she felt between them.

Her attention zinged back to the hallway when she heard stealthy footsteps advancing down the corridor. Somebody had heard the gunfire and knew the escape boat was under attack.

She and Anna exchanged glances. Anna nodded. Both of them stepped in front of Karen, faced in the direction of the sound. Emma risked a glance around the corner and saw two guards come cautiously down the corridor, machine guns at the ready. One was a tall, dark-haired woman.

Emma and Anna had never worked together before, but they had to do it now.

“I’ll take the woman,” Emma whispered.

Anna nodded.

Emma’s heart was pounding as she waited for the attackers to come closer.

“Now,” Anna whispered.

They both darted out, taking the assault team by surprise. Emma had never shot a woman, but she knew her life depended on doing it now.

As they fired, Cole charged back out the door, his face alarmed and his gun raised. But the guards were already lying unmoving in a pool of blood on the floor.

“Holy shit,” he whispered as he saw the woman lying on the ground. “It’s Stella.”

“The bitch who interrogated you last night?”

“I guess she won’t be doing it to anyone else.”

“There could be more on the way,” Anna said. “We’d better get out of here.”

Emma followed Cole through the hatch. She gasped when she saw five dead guards strewn around the metal deck. One of them was Greg, who’d first served them drinks on the hovercraft. A thousand years ago.

 Walker stepped out from behind a pile of containers. Relief flooded through her, until she saw blood spreading on the arm of his uniform shirt.

“Not an artery,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice as he took in her worried expression. “Everybody inside.”

Emma stepped back through the door, motioning to Anna and Karen who hurried to join her and the men.

“They know I’d try for the dock. Reinforcements will be coming,” Walker said as he slammed the door, then sent a spray of bullets into the control mechanism.

 “I guess it’s either the outer door or nothing,” Cole said.

It was wet and clammy inside the sea dock, making Emma shiver as she looked around. They were in a large open area, nothing like the passenger sections of the ship. The walls of the chamber were metal, with metal catwalks around three sides of a rectangular pool of seawater in the middle of which floated a sleek speedboat. Emma saw why they couldn’t take everybody who wanted to leave the
Windward
. There was room for maybe six people, if they arranged themselves like Vienna sausages in a can.

Walker strode to another control panel and pressed a row of switches.

“Shit.”

“What?” Cole asked.

“The sea doors won’t open.”

“That’s right.” The observation came from a television mounted high on the wall.

Emma gasped when she saw that Bruno Del Conte was looking down on them, a satisfied expression on his handsome face.

oOo

Bruno Del Conte’s anger flared as he looked down on the bastards who had locked themselves in the sea dock.

He’d left loyal men in there, but it looked like Walker and Mason had finished them off.

They thought they were in the clear, but they were sadly mistaken. He’d drown them, then escape from the
Windward
, and activate the explosive charges to blow up the ship when he was far enough away.

Contemplating the destruction gave him a few moment’s satisfaction—until he focused on Ben Walker again.

What the hell was he doing with Mason and Ray? Were they paying him to help them? Or was it something personal, something that Bruno didn’t know.

He studied the group again. It included that Asian woman from the beauty salon. And Karen Hopewell.

Had Mason and Ray come here to rescue her? Had that been their mission all along? And he hadn’t realized it.

Walker should have figured that out.

No. Forget Walker. He’d only been stalling while he played his own game.

Bruno had trusted his security chief. Relied on him. And look what had happened. Well, never again. He’d use security men in the future, but he’d never confide in them again.

That was for later. When he’d had time to regroup. For now, he had to clear his escape route. His mind considered contingencies. Maybe he didn’t have to wait for them to drown. Maybe there was a quicker way.

He’d had the ship modified to his specifications. Now he took a narrow passage downward which would give him closer access to the interior dock. For now, he had to keep them busy.

“Did you really think you could get away so easily?” he asked. “You’re all going to drown in there, like the rats you are.”

oOo

Emma’s chest tightened as she heard a clanking noise and saw the water level in the pool begin to rise. The
Windward
’s owner must be in the control room, and he was flooding the compartment. She looked up, seeing the metal ceiling above them. When the water rose to that level, there would be no more air to breathe in here.

“Maybe not.” Cole raised his Uzi and shot the television screen, shattering Del Conte’s view of the dock. At least he wasn’t going to see them drown.

The water was lapping at the top of the catwalk as Walker and Cole conferred.

Cole turned to Emma. “You can handle the boat’s controls, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then get the women into the craft and start the engine.”

Emma looked from the women to the boat and back again. They could ride the water level up. But then what? Trusting that Cole and Ben had a plan, she pulled on one of the mooring lines, guiding the boat to the metal walkway where water now sloshed.

The two other women scrambled in. Emma followed and examined the controls. The key was in the ignition, and she turned it, holding her breath until the engine caught.

She could see the two men moving along the catwalk, sloshing through water. How long before the whole enclosure filled up?

oOo

“Do you think Del Conte can hear us?” Cole asked.

“Don’t know,” Walker answered. “Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

From the other side of the locked door, they could hear hammering.

“Guys trying to get in?”

“Sounds like it.”

The hammering was replaced by a spray of gunfire. But Del Conte had designed the room so that entry wasn’t going to be easy.

“Won’t the guards out there get slammed against the wall by a big wave if they break through.”

“Their problem.”

Cole looked from the hatch to the outer bay door. “I take it we can’t shoot through there either.”

“The metal’s bulletproof. You might be able to shoot out the windows.” He pointed to high, narrow panes that let in slivers of light. Unfortunately, not enough water can get out of those to do us any good. But there’s an alternative.” Walker gestured toward a ladder in one corner of the enclosure. Lowering his voice, he continued, “Tricky Bruno has a lot of contingency plans. They weren’t for public consumption, but I was able to break into his computer files and poke around. There are plastic explosives up there we can use to break out.”

“Yeah, I guess he can get anything he wants. What else does he have up his sleeve?”

“He’s got charges set that can blow up the whole ship if he wants.”

“Christ.”

“If he’s got the nerve to do it.”

“Maybe he still thinks he can get away.”

 Walker sloshed to the ladder and began to climb, wincing as he used his bad arm.

Cole followed, looking back to see Emma watching intently. If he didn’t get her out of here, he was going to kill Frank Decorah. Except that he couldn’t because he and Emma would be dead.

Above him, Walker opened a compartment and handed down a packet to Cole. He took it and started for the catwalk. There was already two feet of water on the deck, making it hard to walk.

He’d had some experience with explosive charges, but then he’d been trying to break in somewhere. Now he was racing against time—to get out of this death trap.

Walker joined him, and they conferred at the metal doors, deciding where to set the charges, well at the sides.

Looking back he saw that the boat was rising toward the ceiling. If they didn’t blow the doors soon, it was all over.

He and Walker each took a packet of plastic explosives and molded them against the door, then set the detonators and turned back to the escape boat.

They had to swim for it now, Walker awkwardly with one arm disabled. But the two women in the back helped haul them in.

“How long? Emma asked.

“Three minutes. Already counting.” A lifetime, under the circumstances. Was the water rising faster, or was that his imagination. And was he imagining that the air was getting harder to breathe?

Raising the Uzi, he shot some holes in the glass panels of the metal door, hoping that would help the oxygen situation.

“Get down,” he told the women, moving to shield Emma from the blast.

A clanking in the ceiling made him look up toward a hatch he hadn’t seen before.

More rasping followed, and he tensed as a metal plate slid to the side, then dropped into the water with a splash.

The women in the back of the boat screamed as a grinning Del Conte loomed directly above them, an AK47 in his hand.

“Got ya!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Del Conte was so focused on his tricky move that he didn’t realize his fatal mistake. His grin faded when he realized how close the boat was to the hatch.

As the ship owner began to fire on the people below, Cole surged upward, grabbing the barrel of the gun and giving a mighty yank.

Del Conte stopped shooting and switched his effort to stopping himself from tumbling through the hatch. Maybe if he’d let go of the gun, he could have backed up, but he kept up the tug of war with Cole, who had the greater strength and the advantage of gravity. The ship’s owner lost his footing, tumbling downward through the hatch and into the boat, still clutching the gun.

He and Cole were struggling for the weapon when Karen surged forward, a metal first aid box in her hand. She crashed it down on Del Conte’s head, and the man went limp. Then she kept hitting. Raising and lowering the box, turning the side of his head into a bloody pulp.

“Enough,” Emma called, staring at the young woman.

As Karen stood in stunned shock, Walker and Anna pitched the
Windward
’s owner out of the boat.

“Thank God,” Anna wheezed, seconds before a tremendous boom filled the confined space. As it blew the doors off the dock area, it knocked the passengers off their feet and they fell together in a heap in the bottom of the boat. All but Emma who was holding tight to the wheel.

“Hang on,” she screamed as she struggled to keep the craft steady while a wave of water surged toward them, slamming them against the back wall, then propelling them forward toward the ragged hole where the doors had been.