Night Diver: A Novel (37 page)

She threw it out the open porthole.

Farnsworth goggled at her, his mouth opening and closing without sound.

Blindly she grabbed another piece, something heavy and solid—the mask. “Leave them alone or more goes overboard. How much is it worth to you to beat helpless people?”

The ship lurched into another swell. All that kept Kate on her feet was her one-handed grip on an open porthole and the piece of treasure hooked through it.

Farnsworth dug his fingers into Holden’s hair and brought the gun to his cheek. “How much is it worth to keep him alive?”

Slowly she brought her hand in from the porthole. She wanted to throw the heavy mask at Farnsworth’s head but was afraid of hitting Holden instead. At least Farnsworth was distracted from beating Holden. She would have to be satisfied with that.

Farnsworth went to her, casually kicked her legs out from under her and smacked the gun along the side of her head as she fell. He lifted her by her hair, saw the dazed look in her eyes, and dropped her.

“If I see you move, you’ll get more.”

She went slack on the floor only a few feet from Holden. Bitterly, silently, fighting the lines and the sticky neoprene, he separated and flattened his wrists. Then he slammed his back against his own chair and let out all his breath, giving Grandpa Donnelly every bit of slack he could, for the knot was on the older man’s chest. From the tugging and twisting of the lines, the old man was all but turning himself inside out to work a hand free.

Farnsworth ignored them. He seemed in a hurry now, sweating visibly as he pulled a beautifully made aluminum case from beneath the couch. Cases like that were created to protect weapons, delicate electronics, or anything small and portable that required coddling.

The ship lurched again. Hard. Lightning exploded and thunder instantly followed, deafening. Artifacts slid and skittered on the tabletop. A few bounced free to shoot across the floor. Farnsworth’s foot came down on some gold chain and he fell on his back. His weapon slammed onto the floor but didn’t go off. The metal case bounced and bloodied the knuckles of the hand holding it.

Cursing, he retrieved the gun, glared around the cabin, saw no one threatening, and dismissed everything but the treasure in front of him. He put his gun on the table and opened the case. Loose gems already gleamed inside, as though a rainbow had been captured and cut into jewels. Quickly he grabbed handfuls of jewelry from the table and dumped the glittering piles in the case.

The bilge alarm came on as the pumps shut down again.

Sweating, swearing, Farnsworth heaped wealth into the case until it overflowed. When he tried to latch the top, it wouldn’t close. He made a sound that was more animal than human and clawed frantically at the excess gold.

Holden hadn’t taken his attention off Kate since she had been kicked to the floor. She was only a few feet away from him when her eyes opened, dazed. Slowly they cleared. He saw her take in the room from her ankle-high view.

Stay down, Kate. Farnsworth is mental, barely one breath from losing all self-control.

The ocean itself shuddered and heaved beneath the storm, the ship a toy anchored in hell’s own washing machine. The
Golden Bough
rode it, but not gracefully.

“Can’t do it,” Grandpa groaned. “Joints too stiff.”

“Then give the slack to me,” Holden said in a low voice.

He wouldn’t be able to reach behind him to the knot on Grandpa’s chest or free his right hand to get his knife, but he could move his left hand enough to grab Farnsworth if he was foolish enough to step a little closer.

With the metal case securely closed, Farnsworth glanced around. When he saw Holden’s fierce golden eyes, Farnsworth closed the few feet between them, unable to resist the opportunity to rake the gun over the other man’s handsome face again.

Holden’s fingers shot up to lock around the pistol, shoving it toward to the ceiling. “Kate, go outside and hide! Don’t come back! Farnsworth is going to kill everyone he can see before he leaves.”

The slackened lines rode up on Holden’s bicep and bound tight. He thought he heard a metallic snicking from somewhere behind Farnsworth but lost it in the ring of the gunshot. Though the gun wasn’t a hand cannon like he’d seen in his time in the navy, the report was loud enough to set his ears to ringing.

Half stunned by the unfamiliar report, Farnsworth cursed and grunted, trying to twist free.

Grimly Holden held on to the gun. He felt a tug at his calf and swore silently. Instead of escaping, Kate had gone for his dive knife.

Farnsworth was smaller but had more freedom, leverage, and a leg that wasn’t immobilized by pain. Holden had only moments before he lost control of the pistol, and he hung on to each one.

Suddenly the lines around him went slack. He shoved off on his good leg and yelled at Grandpa to do the same while shots fired wildly around them. The knot was undone, but the loops of line were getting in the way of both men.

Inside and out, lightning flashed repeatedly, blinding Holden until all he saw were purple afterimages of the gun levering slowly down toward him.

“Give my regards to the AO,” Farnsworth said through clenched teeth as he managed to bring the gun to bear on Holden.

Kate lunged up off the floor and slashed at Farnsworth’s gun hand, trying to deflect his aim away from Holden. A shot came like thunder just as Grandpa shoved Holden to the side. Both men dropped in a tangle of orange line and blood.

There was a clatter of metal on metal followed by Farnsworth’s yell of shock and surprise as Kate’s knife scored across his knuckles. He knocked her off her feet, staggered as the ship took an unusually large swell over the bow, and aimed at Holden again.

In the silence between lightning and thunder came the dry sound of a trigger being pulled again and again.

Empty.

With a savage word, Farnsworth tried to bring the butt of the pistol down on Holden’s head, but tripped in the coils of safety line. When Farnsworth gave up and tried to grab Kate, she dove under the table and scrambled out of reach while the ship rose sullenly into another black swell.

Off balance, Farnsworth staggered. The metal case slammed into the rim of the table and white water rushed by on the deck like a cataract.

“Too soon!” he wailed, fear and anger fighting to control him.

He pushed himself upright and clawed his way to the outer door. It clanged against the wall, letting the storm pour in. With a desperate lunge, he disappeared.

The ship tilted and the door slammed shut.

“Kate,” Holden said as he rolled out from underneath Grandpa. “Are you all right?”

“You have blood all over you,” she said, horrified.

“Your grandfather took the shot meant for me.” As Holden spoke, he began checking the older man for injuries. “Neoprene split over the ribs.” He probed lightly. “Bloody, but no entry wound.”

Grandpa batted his hand away. “Help me to my feet. I have to get to the engine room and see what’s wrong with the bilge pump. I don’t like the way the ship is riding.”

The sound of the speedboat’s engine thrummed above the storm.

“I’ll check the pumps,” Kate said.

“Wait,” Holden said, grabbing her wrist. “Farnsworth said he left a little puzzle for me. From other things he said, it’s clear he had access to my files. I want to be certain the puzzle isn’t the kind that blows up.”

“You’re paranoid,” she said.

“I’m alive. Cut Larry free and see to your family.”

“Tools are in the storeroom right next to the engine room. Faster to go through the stern deck entry.” She pointed to another door. “I’m leaving Larry where he is. He’s too sick to keep himself on the couch without the ropes.”

“Go start the engines,” Grandpa said to her.

“No,” Holden said from the doorway. “Don’t touch any buttons or levers until I’ve checked things out.”

Rain hit him like fists and wind tried to shove him off balance. He used the rail as a crutch while he worked his way to the engine room. The footing was uncertain and the hatch handle slippery, but he managed to wrestle the hatch open. He went partway down the ladder, using the strength of his arms more than anything else because he didn’t want to use his bad leg until he had to.

He pulled the hatch shut. Light gleamed weakly behind him.

Thanks for leaving a light on, Farnsworth. Wanted to make it easy to find, didn’t you.

The corridor was narrow enough for Holden to brace himself with his hands, sparing his leg. Since walls, ceiling, and floor were in constant, unpredictable motion, he was grateful for the support. The engine room door was open, latched to the side wall, yellow-green light spilling out the doorway. A gray canvas satchel of tools lay where Farnsworth had left it. Ear protectors were perched on top.

He really enjoyed setting this up. I can practically hear him giggling at his own cleverness.

Holden ignored what could have been bait. The generator rumbled like the workhorse it was. The room was warm with the small engine’s heat. If the main engines had been running, it would feel like the deafening anteroom of hell.

Without moving any closer, he braced himself in the doorway and surveyed the area. Even if Farnsworth had brought a device from shore, he hadn’t had time to set up anything elaborate before Holden and Kate arrived. While they were underwater, Farnsworth must have spent most of his time rounding up the lift sacks. Whatever he had devised for Holden couldn’t be too intricate.

The device will be placed where an explosion could take out the fuel system or controls.
Holden knew he could drop a match into diesel and the flame would just go out. Given a cold day and a steady hand, he could do the same with gasoline. So to be effective, the device would have to have both an explosive and an accelerant for the diesel.

Ignoring the shift and slide of the ship, he stood and looked for something irregular in the twin giant engines, something tucked among the long cylinders and wires and tubes. His eyes darted between the engines, comparing them, seeking any anomaly.

There.

The fuel pump on the port engine was a translucent plastic dome filled with diesel swirling around a large conical filter. The device was a small brick of paper-wrapped explosive, studded with a series of wires, some attached to the detonator cap, some leading to a gutted clock radio.

Internet special,
Holden thought.
Any twit with a computer can find the directions. Hope that C4 isn’t homemade.

I hate amateurs. Ninety percent of what they make doesn’t work.

But finding out if this device was part of the murderous ten percent took time and the kind of careful attention and probing that a ship at anchor being tossed around by tropical storm didn’t allow.

It will take time, a lot of time, and I’d be as likely to set off the device as to disarm it.

He looked for anything that could receive a radio transmission. Garage door openers were a favorite.

I hope Farnsworth is stupid enough to try to activate it at a distance. The atmospherics of the storm and all the metal of the hull and the engine room will baffle any simple means of reception.

Easing closer, bracing himself against the boat’s constant, eccentric motions, Holden studied the device and remembered Farnsworth’s cheerful voice telling everyone that they would be able to get to shore, even if they had to swim the last bit.

Like everything Farnsworth worked on, the bomb was anal-retentive perfect. The device could have come from a textbook for anarchists and jihadists. Every weld was signed with a teardrop of solder. The wrapping for the C4 retained its sharp corners. It certainly looked like one of the ten percent of devices that would actually explode.

The amount of C4 is smallish. Yes, it could kill any luckless chap standing next to it, and would likely blow out the fuel system, but
. . .

For a few long moments, Holden frowned. The device didn’t make sense, and the silvery tube that was part of it kept nagging at him. Then he understood.

Thermite.

Holden’s Pashto phrases competed with the other sounds in the engine room as he cursed Farnsworth and his ancestors back to the beginning of time. Thermite would transform diesel into a raging demon. No place to go. Nowhere to survive. A fast death by flame or a slower death by drowning.

The bastardized timer isn’t counting down in any obvious way, but that doesn’t mean anything. Flashy timers are for the cinema.

Farnsworth wasn’t in a hurry to get away from anything but us, and there was no way to predict how long recovery of the lift balloons would take, so he must have a wide margin of safety built in for his escape.

Mentally Holden went through the steps he would take in defusing the device, but he found it hard to concentrate. Something Grandpa Donnelly had said kept picking at him, demanding that he add it to the equations of device and ship and storm and time.

Bilge pumps.

Sinking
.

The ship staggered in a series of big swells. It met each one more sluggishly than the last, as though the
Golden Bough
was slowly, slowly settling deeper into the sea.