EDEN (43 page)

Bethany sat nearby, her brother on her lap. Hank guessed the kid as maybe seven or eight years old. Bethany held the boy as though he were her own, staring out to sea through the windows and watching the crew toiling out on the rain swept decks.

‘He lied,’ Sawyer seethed from behind the captain. ‘He’s hiding something.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Hank replied. ‘He could have written the coordinates down wrong.’

‘We’ll never be able to figure out where this Eden of yours is now,’ Sawyer uttered and smacked his hand down on the map table. ‘That idiot just cost us everything.’

Sawyer stormed out of the wheelhouse and slammed the door behind him. Hank watched him stagger unsteadily across the Phoenix’s heaving deck to talk to one of his henchmen, who were keeping watch on the crew and struggling to stand upright.

‘Do you think Cody’s telling the truth?’ Bethany asked.

Hank nodded slowly in reply. Fact was, Cody had nothing left to trade and wanted only to return to his daughter, presumably now his only remaining family. He had no reason to lie about the coordinates. That meant that they represented something else. Hank looked down at the map, at the patch of ocean some ten miles off the coast Massachusetts. Not far from Boston. He thought of Charlotte Dennis, of her father’s senate career and began to wonder whether the coordinates Cody had recorded might not represent Eden but something entirely different.

The distress beacons they had recovered from the Arctic were still broadcasting as they had been during the entire voyage down from Alert. If somehow Senator Dennis had tried to contact his daughter at Alert, then he would not have wanted her to attempt to get into Boston. He would have known how dangerous the city had become. Thus, he might have sent her coordinates that she would have understood.

Hank glanced over his shoulder to starboard. The city skyline of Boston dominated the horizon beyond the nearby docks. He could still see a haze of black smoke staining the sky above the city, the immense fire being fuelled by the nor-easter howling through the lonely streets.

He turned back to the ship. Drifting veils of sunlight beamed down onto the glittering surface of the ocean, turning the clouds ahead an even darker shade of blue grey. A white gull swooped across the ocean surface, brightly lit by the brief flare of sunlight. Their path looked ominous and threatening, the white gull free to escape it. Hank touched the crucifix at his neck.

‘Are you satisfied now?’

Bethany’s voice was small but filled with venom that stung Hank with unexpected force.

‘I have done nothing more, or less, than you have,’ he replied without looking at her.

Bethany’s smile was cold, empty. ‘Providence, isn’t that what you call it? Leaving the fate of others in the hands of a higher power?’

Hank gripped the wheel tighter, but his gaze was drawn to the child sitting just yards from where he guided the Phoenix away from Boston. Young, defenceless, dependent on adults for his own survival. We were all like that once, Hank realised. Where would he have been without his own parents? Could he have survived alone in this world, as it was now, as a child?

‘I can’t save everybody,’ Hank insisted. ‘Any more than you can.’

Bethany might have shaken her head, or maybe it was just rolling with the sway of the deck as the Phoenix heeled gamely into the waves. He couldn’t tell, but her voice reached him as though from afar.

‘I notice you didn’t take the chance of leaving your own escape to providence,’ she said. ‘Any more than I did.’

Hank’s guts twisted and he felt waves of anguish spill over him just as the waves outside crashed over the schooner’s bows. An image of a tiny five year-old girl wandering through the streets of Boston, followed by hungry dogs, filled his mind and sent a bolus of puke surging up into his throat.

And then he realised. Senator Dennis would not have left his daughter’s survival to Providence any more than Cody had. He would have arranged something. A single word flickered through his mind.
Rendezvous
. Charlotte Dennis’s words from months before echoed through his thoughts:
I used to sail with my father out of Cambridge Bay in his yacht.

Charlotte Dennis knew how to sail. The coordinates were a place to meet.

He saw Sawyer shouting at his men to keep their weapons trained on the crew, and as hate for the psychopath filled his veins he finally made his decision.

‘Bethany,’ he said. She looked up at him. ‘We’re going back. Hang on to something.’

Bethany grabbed the side of her seat and her brother as Hank braced himself against the wheel and then drove all of his weight against it as he hurled it to starboard.

The Phoenix heeled over as though she had been struck by a tsunami, the deck pitching and the topsails flagging and cracking like thunder as the wind spilled from them. The entire hull shuddered as though alive and a wall of white spray burst over the bows as she took the full force of the ocean across her hull.

Hank leaped out from behind the wheel and charged the wheelhouse door as the ship pitched wildly over. He burst through it onto the heaving deck as he saw Sawyer and his henchmen tumble like skittles across the sodden planking toward the port bulwarks.

Hank’s voice thundered out to his crew, who had balanced instinctively against the wild gyration of the deck.

‘Take the ship back!’

Seth turned first, leaning easily into the ship’s steeply inclined deck as he turned and drove his forehead into the nearest of Sawyer’s henchmen. The man staggered as Seth grabbed his jacket and spun him around to hurl him down the deck toward the ocean.

Hank saw the man fly through the air and smack into the bulwarks with a dull thump, his eyes rolling up into their sockets.

Hank rushed upon another of the shaven-headed freaks as he struggled to his knees and swung his boot fully under the man’s jaw. The thug’s head snapped back as his neck broke and his teeth flew in a spray of blood across the deck. Hank grabbed at the man’s assault rifle and searched for Sawyer.

The psychopath was scrambling across the Phoenix’s deck, his pistol in one hand as he aimed at Hank.

A gunshot burst out as Hank dove to his right into the cover of the mainmast, Sawyer’s shot splintering wood from the giant mast as it narrowly missed Hank’s shoulder. The Phoenix surged in the rolling waves as she pitched back in the opposite direction, searching for her natural point of balance on the tumultuous seas.

Hank stretched out and fired at another of Sawyer’s men, hitting him square in the back as he fought with one of the crew. The thug fell to his knees in time for the crewman to swing a fire-axe into his skull and cleave off a huge chunk of bone and brain that skittered like a bloodied crab down the ship’s deck.

‘Hold your fire!’

Hank heard the screamed command from Seth coming from the bow, and saw the sailor pointing frantically at the midships. For a moment Hank didn’t get it, and then suddenly a raw fear surged through his body as he realised what Seth was pointing at.

Smoke was billowing from the main hatch.

‘We’re on fire!’ Seth yelled.

Hank leaped to his feet in horror as he stared at the thick grey smoke boiling from inside the ship. In an instant the fight turned to an uneasy alliance as the new threat presented itself and Sawyer broke from cover with his eyes fixed on the smoke. Hank whirled and pointed at Seth.

‘Get on the pumps!’ he bellowed. ‘Get a line down there, now!’

Hank turned and dashed for the wheelhouse, desperate to regain then wheel before the Phoenix was overcome by the towering seas. He was almost there when he saw Bethany standing behind the wheel, holding the ship steady and turning the bow back into the rolling waves as Sawyer’s voice rang out across the decks.

‘Kill the bastard! Kill Ryan!’

Hank turned as Sawyer’s remaining henchman staggered to his feet from where Seth had hurled him and plunged unsteadily down the main hatch toward the hold.

‘No!’ Hank yelled. ‘Don’t open the hatch!’

The henchman ignored him and vanished from sight. Seth staggered to the hoses as the ship’s deck levelled out again.

‘Get the lines down there!’ Hank yelled at Seth. ‘Flood that compartment right now!’

Hank shielded his eyes against the stinging smoke that spilled out from the ‘tween decks and began enshrouding the ship in a choking fog as Seth dragged the hoses toward the hatch.

*

Cody crouched in the darkness, his face pressed against the deck planking as smoke boiled and writhed in dense banks above his head. His eyes watered and stung, his breath rasping as the thick smoke penetrated his thin veil and poisoned his lungs as though somebody were forcing a heavy, hot blanket into them.

The writhing fire in the centre of the hold had spread, glowing through the thick smoke like a demonic lighthouse. Flames climbed the pillars and crawled like a living creature across the deck, reaching out to scorch anything in its path.

Cody breathed softly, struggling not to cough and fill his lungs further with the lethal black smoke. He was almost certain that he would pass out before Hank’s men rushed to contain the blaze when the main hatch suddenly burst open and one of Sawyer’s henchmen loomed in the light.

A rush of air swept into the hold and almost instantly the flames soared as though somebody had poured gasoline onto them. The blast of heat and flame sent the thug reeling backwards from the hatch. Cody burst upright from where he crouched and rushed forward, jumped up to grip the edge of the hatch and hauled himself up into the ‘tween decks.

Cody leaped to his feet, the belaying pin heavy in his hand as he swung it at the militiaman’s face with cold blooded rage.

The heavy iron pin punched through the thug’s eye socket and burst his eyeball like a water balloon. The thug screamed in agony and fell to his knees as Cody swung the pin again, this time down on top of the man’s exposed skull. The blow shuddered through Cody’s arm as the pin stove the skull in with a muted crunch. The thug slumped onto his back, his body twitching as though a live current were surging through his limbs.

Cody dropped the belaying pin and grabbed the dead thug’s assault rifle. He turned amid the thick smoke and flames that leapt out of the hold and scorched the ship’s timbers around him.

Figures appeared in the light shafting down into the ‘tween decks from the main hatch, obscured by the smoke filling the deck. Cody swung the rifle around and aimed at them as he saw Seth and another crewman pulling a thick hose and what looked like a hand pump.

Seth cried out as he saw Cody through the swirling smoke, the killer’s tattoos stretched taut across his panicked face.

‘Wait up Ryan! The ship’s on fire and we’re going to…’

Cody squeezed the trigger and saw the muzzle of the rifle spit flames that flickered in the half-light shimmering through the deck. Seth screamed as bullets thumped into his chest. A round smashed into his tattooed face and hurled him backwards into the hull.

Cody held the muzzle of the rifle down and turned even as Seth’s shipmate dropped the hose and ran for his life. Bullets hammered into the man’s back and sent him sprawling onto his belly on the steps, crying out in pain and fear as his life blood spilled from his body.

Cody screamed as he charged the main hatch and ran up the dying man’s back.

*

‘Clear the hose!’

Hank yelled orders at his remaining two crewmen as they dropped the other end of the hose into the water alongside the ship and began pumping with all of their might. The hose bulged as it sucked seawater up from the ocean toward the blaze inside the ship.

A rattle of muted gunfire hammered the air from below decks and Sawyer turned to face the smoke billowing out into the blustery air.

‘Pump harder!’ Hank yelled.

He rushed to the pump to help his men as Sawyer dashed for the main hatch.

‘Leave it!’ Hank yelled at Sawyer. ‘Get on the pump!’

Sawyer ignored Hank as he ran at the hatch and down into the smoky gloom within.

Flames licked and spat all around him, and in an instant Sawyer saw the bodies of Seth and another member of the crew writhing in bullet-ridden agony at the bottom of the steps. Sawyer raised his pistol in the darkness, but was too slow to bring it to bear as from the thick smoke and writhing flames a hideous image rushed toward him.

Stripped to his waist and with his face splattered with blood, Cody Ryan screamed as he ran straight at Sawyer, an assault rifle pulled into his hip. Sawyer swung his pistol around at the muzzle of the rifle as he leaped to one side.

Both weapons discharged, bright muzzle flash illuminating the writhing banks of smoke around them. Cody’s shot went wide as Sawyer’s pistol smacked into the rifle’s muzzle, his own shot going down into the deck as Cody ploughed into him and sent them both sprawling off the side of the steps to crash down onto the deck.

Sawyer landed hard and the back of his head cracked against the unforgiving planks as his vision starred. He saw Cody land next to him and then spring upon him like a wounded animal, the scientist’s features twisted with something so primal that it sent a pulse of terror through Sawyer’s guts and for one terrible moment he froze, unable to move.

In that awful moment, he knew that he would die.

Cody landed upon Sawyer’s chest and the blows from his bloodied fists crashed against Sawyer’s face like cannonballs, his nose collapsing and blood filling his mouth and eyes as Ryan pounded him as though he were trying to bludgeon him through the ship itself and into the ocean beyond. Flames roared and felt hot against his skin, blood spilled around his face and felt wet beneath his hair.

Sawyer reached blindly down to his belt, hauled out his sabre and swung it at Ryan.

The blade sliced into Ryan’s flank and wedged against his ribs, but to Sawyer’s horror Ryan’s screams did not cease and he simply grabbed the silvery blade and wrenched it from Sawyer’s weakened grip, blood from his fingers spilling down the bright steel. Sawyer, short of breath, numb and barely able to see, saw the ship vanish as it was replaced with a flash of bright metal and then a pair of eyes that glared down into his with a fearsome, incomparable fury.