The Bloodline Cipher (23 page)

Suddenly, the spotlights cut off. ‘Missed us,' Patch hissed triumphantly. The darkness grew absolute, and Jonah found it hard to tell where sea stopped and sky began.

‘Now's the time to get going,' Motti announced. ‘Where the hell's Con?'

‘Here.' She pushed open the door, dressed now in a black jumpsuit with her hair stuffed inside a black beanie. She was wearing fingerless leather gloves, and passed round three more sets. Tye eased off on the engines, holding them maybe two hundred metres off the port bow.

Con watched Jonah, Motti and Patch put on their own gloves. ‘We run through the plan once more now, yes?'

Motti nodded and drew them closer for their final briefing. ‘Me and Jonah shoot the hook and line and go up first. We take the deck. Any crew, we subdue.' Motti pulled out a large wooden baton from a locker. ‘Found this. Oughtta help.'

‘Any spares?' Patch asked.

‘Nope. But you can bet your ass the crew will be armed. We can always take their weapons.' Motti gripped hold of it as if for comfort. ‘So, once we've secured the area, me and Jonah signal for you two to come up. While you're climbing, we scout around for someone Con can put the 'fluence on to decoy the rest of the crew.'

Con nodded. ‘Got it.'

‘With everyone distracted, Patch gets us below decks. We locate Coldhardt's little gift, hope it ain't too big to carry, and radio Tye for pick-up. Then we keep going down till we reach the bilge pump at the base of the hold. Patch's exploding eyeball makes us a hole in the hull we can jump through, Tye pulls alongside in the tora-tora and gets us the hell out. Any questions?'

Patch put his hand up in the air. ‘Please can I go to the toilet?'

Motti cuffed him round the shoulder and turned to Jonah. ‘Geek, you can go tell Tye to take us in.' He paused, gave a tiny, knowing smile. ‘But be back out here inside sixty seconds, OK?'

Jonah nodded and ran to the cabin door. Tye was at the wheel. She turned as he entered. He ran straight over, put his arms round her waist. She grabbed him back and held him tightly.

‘I'm sorry I was a bitch,' she whispered.

‘You weren't!' he protested. ‘I was stupid.'

‘You're never stupid. I wish you
were
stupid.' She looked at him. ‘But don't be stupid up on that ship, 'K?'

‘I'll be totally sensible,' he promised. ‘As sensible as you can be scaling thirty metres of rust, anyway.'

‘You scared?'

‘God, yeah.'

She kissed him. ‘Me too.'

He glanced back at the door. ‘Motti says to take us in. Wish I didn't have to –'

‘Go,' she whispered, smiling. ‘It's OK. We'll pick up later. Promise.'

‘That's what I call an incentive.' Jonah pressed a clumsy kiss to her lips and ran out through the door, a swell of adrenaline rising through him.
Yeah. We're going to do this
, he thought, snatching up his grappling hook launcher.

He looked back at the closed cabin door.

We've
got
to do this
.

He heard the note of the engines change as Tye
opened the throttle and they rode the black waves, nudging closer and closer to the rusting stretch of the ship until it towered over them like a dark cliff. Motti shoved the baton through his belt and checked it was secure. Then he aimed his launcher up in the air and motioned Jonah to do the same.

At his nod, Jonah braced himself for the recoil and fired. With a click and a hiss the line disappeared up into the darkness. ‘Please, please, please,' Jonah murmured, bracing himself for the hook to come tumbling down on his head.

It didn't. He pulled down cautiously on the line and felt it grow tauter.

Motti yanked a lot harder on his. ‘If this comes loose while we're halfway up, it ain't gonna be pretty.' He gave one more tug then grunted satisfaction. ‘OK, then. Last one up kisses Patch's ass. Move.'

Jonah gripped the line, glad of his cushioning gloves, and launched himself into the air. His feet clunked loudly against the throbbing hull as he pulled himself up, one hand after the other. The grate of the huge ship engines, the hiss and churn of the swirling sea beneath him, his muttered prayers and swearing and the drum of his panicking heart all seemed to crowd in his ears. He kept looking up, dreading the sight of a Filipino face and a gun muzzle peering down at him. How long would it take to fall? Jonah drew comfort from the sight of Motti, a gangly shadow-spider matching him for pace as they scaled the side together.

His arms were shaking and he was hoarse for breath as he reached the top. With a final effort he
hauled himself through a gap in the safety railings enclosing the deck perimeter and dropped to the rusty floor. It was trembling harder than he was with the force of the engines.

Jonah got up stealthily, his eyes now fully adjusted to the darkness. The long deck was a rusty jumble of boom chains, vents, backhoes and huge spools of wire. There was no sign of any crew – but now Motti was clambering quietly through the railings.

‘No one around,' Jonah murmured, helping him up.

‘Let's be sure it stays that way,' Motti murmured. He leaned over the railing and signalled to Con and Patch. ‘You wanna scout ahead?'

Jonah nodded, and padded away through the muggy gloom, staying close to the rails so he could swing himself overboard if worse came to worst. He doubted the sea could make him any wetter – beneath the black linen shirt he was sweating like hell.

Suddenly, maybe ten metres ahead, he saw a tiny flare of yellow and froze. It was the flame from a cigarette lighter. Someone was having a smoke on deck. Jonah caught the dull gleam of moonlight on metal and realised a machine gun hung from a strap on the man's shoulder.

Cautiously, he turned and made his way back to the stern. But suddenly someone jumped out from behind one of the vents to his left. A man, little, black and agile, blocking his way and wielding a machete. Jonah barely had time to react before the man was swinging at him, babbling in an excited voice.

Willing himself to stay cool and focus, Jonah blocked the man's swinging arm and punched him in
the jaw. It shut him up but didn't floor him, so Jonah kicked his attacker in the balls and wrestled the machete from his grip. The man staggered back and tripped over a cable. But by now, the man with the cigarette was rushing towards him, swinging up his machine gun while reaching for the radio in his belt. Rather than run away and make a target, Jonah charged towards the man and brought the machete down on his gun, knocking it aside. Then he thumped the man in the stomach and shoved him against a lifebelt holder. Thinking fast, he grabbed the lifebelt and pulled it down over the man's head and shoulders. Now the man couldn't use his arms or reach his radio, so Jonah cracked him on the side of the head with the hilt of the machete. Silently, the man crumpled – the cigarette, improbably, still clamped in his lips.

Motti came running up. ‘Good work.'

‘There's another one back there,' Jonah told him. ‘Took your time, didn't you?'

‘Sorry. Had one of my own to take out.' Motti mimed hitting someone with his borrowed baton. ‘Patch found your man and dragged him off to Con. He should be nicely under by now.' He reached down and snatched the cigarette from the sleeping man's lips. ‘We better hide this sucker and regroup in case someone heard the fighting.' He took a deep drag on the cigarette then threw it overboard, while Jonah hauled the man across the deck, laid him down beneath an old rusted winch and draped some heavy plastic sheeting over him. The man's silver lighter had fallen out; Jonah scooped it up for a keepsake and headed after Motti.

Jonah and Motti found Patch and Con crouched in the shadows with a very docile guard.

‘Don't know his native language,' said Con crossly. ‘But at least he speaks some English – says there are ten men aboard.'

‘Three down, seven to go,' Patch muttered.

‘Have this guy tell his buddies to come running,' said Motti. ‘That he's found a grappling hook and someone jumping overboard. We'll hide him out of sight, let them scoot by and then get going.'

‘We hope.' Jonah looked over the side, scratching nervously at his neck. There was no sign of the boat – Tye had retreated out of sight again.

‘While the crew are looking for him, we should be able to get what we came for.'

Con looked into the little man's eyes and started speaking in some weird mixture of English and Tagalog. The man was nodding, so he must've understood some of it. He picked up the radio and started gabbling into it. Then he jumped up and hid inside one of the big coils of wire.

‘Like a self-basting turkey,' Motti remarked. ‘Pretty smooth sweet-talking, Con.'

She prowled away across the rusty deck. ‘Now we're here we should move, no?'

Jonah followed her lead, sticking to the thickest shadows and moving cautiously. If the crew really were to come running, they would make enough noise to be heard a fair way off. But so far, nothing.

Then suddenly, they heard the pound of footsteps approaching from out of the darkness, and low, urgent voices. Jonah ducked behind the vast square lid of a
cargo hatch, and the others joined him as five men hurtled past, each clutching an iron bar or an automatic.

‘That's most of 'em,' breathed Motti, and the second they'd gone by, he was edging out on to the deck walkway again. ‘So far, so good.'

Jonah followed close behind as they made their way towards the prow of the ship, where the front decks would be found, a stack of state rooms, bridge and wheelhouse above and with stairway access to all decks below. He wondered how long they would have before the angry crewmen discovered their hypnotised buddy and went raging in search of the intruders. The thought made him quicken his step and edge past Motti, taking the lead as they rounded a large storehouse.

Which meant it was him who first saw the two guards blocking the entrance to the front decks.

And him who became the target for their M16s a split second later.

‘Two, armed!' Jonah yelled, throwing himself to the deck as the Filipinos raised their guns to fire. But forewarned, Patch had produced one of the spare grapnel launchers and fired it now – sending the miniature anchor smacking into the chest of the nearest guard. The metal missile slammed the man back into the doorway and the gun flew from his flailing arms.

Even as he fell, Con was circling round behind his startled companion. By the time the man glimpsed her foot flying towards the side of his face, it was lights-out time.

‘Nice decoy, geek,' said Motti, offering Jonah a hand up which he gratefully took. ‘Patch, do your stuff.'

Patch had already pulled out his torch, shining it over the locking mechanism on the bulkhead door just to the left of the main entrance. ‘Looks like a time-delay mechanism twinned with digi-combination lock …'

‘Lemme see.' Motti took a look himself, ready to assist. ‘Jonah, Con, get up to the bridge and take care of the captain. Could be a useful guy to have on our side – or a useful hostage, whatever's easier.'

Cranked up on adrenaline, Jonah pushed open the door to the bridge complex and flew up the stairs with Con. The wheelhouse was on the third floor – Jonah guessed as much when a wiry Filpino man in a stained white vest and a peaked captain's hat jumped out from inside. He had a revolver in his sweaty hand, pointing right at Jonah. He barked at them, his face twisted with fear and rage.

But Jonah wasn't stopping. By the time his brain kicked in with a yell of
This is a really dumb idea
he was scaling the final staircase, closing on the captain fast – racing towards a loaded gun aiming at his face. He saw the man's finger twitch on the trigger, twisted aside desperately even as he threw himself up the last steps. He wound up headbutting the captain in the groin. The man yelled and the gun went off harmlessly at the ceiling. Jonah rolled clear, as Con arrived. She kicked the captain clear out of consciousness.

‘Prop him up,' she murmured. ‘I must mesmerise him.'

‘He won't be awake for ages, you nearly took his head off.'

‘He nearly took off yours.' She smiled as the
captain started to moan softly. ‘Ah! You recover already. What a strong specimen you are, Captain. I think we could use such a man on our side. You hear me …?'

The captain stared at her, too dazed to struggle.

‘You
are
on our side, the side of the intruders,' Con went on. ‘Listen to me, my ally. Anyone you do not recognise on this ship – why, these persons are your greatest friends, no? And you will do all in your power to aid and protect them. Yes, listen to me …'

As Con's voice grew deeper and softer and strayed into other languages, Jonah staggered inside the wheelhouse, his whole body trembling. The room reeked of stale BO and cigarettes. He gazed out over the shadows of the sea. The skinny moonlight in the water glittered like some precious treasure was just beneath the surface. ‘What the hell am I doing here?' he whispered. Then he pulled out his walkie-talkie and radioed Tye. ‘It's Jonah.'

Her voice crackled back at him, terse and urgent. ‘D'you need me?'

Yes I do
, he thought, as the giant ship thundered on into the widest, darkest night, with no one at the helm now. Out of control.

Back on the tora-tora, Tye shook the radio. ‘Jonah? Please copy, are you –'

‘I'm here. It's OK.' Even through the crackle of the radio set, Tye could hear something in his voice that suggested it wasn't. ‘Con is brainwashing the captain and Patch is breaking in downstairs.'

She bit her lip. ‘We need to keep this frequency
clear, Jonah. Give me the word when you're ready and I'll move into range. The blast will give me visual of where you are. Just jump and I'll catch you.'

‘Sounds good.'