Piranha

26

The accommodation block ended at the halfway point of the Ciudad Bolívar, and the weather deck covering the ship’s back half was a flat expanse of metal ringed by exhaust vents. Juan and his group would have to traverse one of the vehicle decks during their journey. Maria stayed with them. Not only was it risky to leave her alone with Dominguez’s team scouring the ship but she insisted on coming.

The list continued to lessen, which was fortunate because climbing down to the engine room in the aftmost bottom deck using ropes would take hours they didn’t have. Maria knew her ship better than anyone else and she estimated that they would have ten minutes of relatively easy travel when the deck would be transitioning from thirty-five degrees aport to thirty-five degrees astarboard. If the pitch were any greater, they wouldn’t be able to keep their footing without belaying ropes.

Of course, everything would be moot if the draining procedure caused an unforeseen imbalance in the ship’s center of gravity or if one of the vehicles came loose and caused an avalanche of them to pile up against one side of the ship. Then the end could come so suddenly that they wouldn’t have time to find an exit. The Ciudad Bolívar would become their tomb two miles under the surface of the Caribbean.

As they picked their way down the staircase by standing on the railings, Maria said, “Do you think the risk of sinking unexpectedly will keep this Dominguez from sending men to the engine room?”

Juan threw a look at Linc. “Unfortunately, we’ve met the lieutenant before and he recognized Linc from an encounter where we made him look bad to his superiors, so there’s a personal angle. He’s the type who’ll want to make sure we don’t get out of here alive even if that means risking his own life to do it. If he returns with anything less, Admiral Ruiz will have his head on a pike.”

“Maybe literally,” Linc added.

Maria’s eyes went wide. “Admiral Dayana Ruiz?”

“You know her?” Juan said.

“I met her only once when I was serving in the Navy. She was three ranks above me. She’s a brilliant tactician, but she has a reputation for being ruthless.”

“Now you’re finding out just how ruthless. We think she’s been sinking your company’s ships to put it out of business and bankrupt the owner for her own political gain.”

“How do you know that?” Maria stopped climbing. “Wait a minute. You weren’t just on a passing ship. You knew this was going to happen, that my ship was targeted.”

“We tried to warn your company, but they wouldn’t listen, so we made the trip out here ourselves.”

“You’re American, but you’re not in the military. What’s the connection?”

“I can’t tell you that, but let’s just say that Ruiz and Dominguez are not too happy after our business dealings with them.”

Maria seemed content not to probe further, so they kept going down the stairs as the ship righted itself. When they reached the deck carrying the construction vehicles, Maria stopped them.

“It will be easiest to get there from this deck,” she said. “We can take the ramp at the far end down to the stairwell that leads to the engine room. Once I’m at the engineering station, it will only take me a few seconds to stop the ballast tanks from draining. Hopefully, it will be when the ship is upright.”

Although Juan was anxious to reach the engine room before Dominguez did, they waited to leave the stairs until the deck was walkable. Even with the ship listing at only thirty-five degrees now, they would have to be careful with their footing or they’d be somersaulting down a hill made of steel.

With his weapon at the ready, Juan took the first step out onto the vehicle deck. His rubber-soled shoes gave him plenty of traction, so he was able to take in the immense hold.

The hoistable deck above had been raised to accommodate the huge equipment. Bright fluorescent lighting allowed him to see the length of a football field in either direction. Only the interior loading ramps interrupted the view. Juan scanned the hold for a few moments but saw nothing moving. The immense space was eerily silent.

“All clear,” he said to the others. “Maria, show us the way. Eddie, keep a hand on her. Linc, you take point.”

Linc kept one hand on the deck as he came out like a roofer edging his way down slippery shingles. Eddie held on to Maria’s uninjured arm as he guided her out of the stairwell. Once they were used to the angle of the deck, they started moving toward the ramp. MacD followed, and Juan covered the rear.

Now that they were on a more expansive surface, Juan could easily sense that the ship was slowly leveling. In a few minutes it would be dead even.

The loading ramp was only twenty feet ahead. Once they reached it, they’d be able to lean against the ramp’s port wall for stability as they walked.

A clink from behind drew Juan’s attention and he turned just in time to see Dominguez and five of his men drop into the hold from a stairwell near the bridge about a hundred yards away.

Juan yelled, “Down!” a second before the Venezuelans opened fire.

Bullets careened off the metal and shattered glass windshields. Juan returned fire and found out for himself how hard it was to aim while digging his feet into the floor at such an extreme angle. He took a bead on Dominguez but Dominguez slid down to find footing on a bulldozer. Instead, Juan’s shot hit another man, who screamed and fell out of sight.

He looked ahead and saw his group unharmed. “Get down the ramp!”

Eddie grabbed Maria and scrambled forward behind Linc, but another volley of shots ricocheted off the floor next to Maria and the distraction caused her to slip.

She slid down the deck, but Eddie slid down below her, put his shoulder into her, and practically threw her to Linc, who enveloped her wrist in his huge hand and dragged her to him.

The effort caused Eddie to lose his own footing, but MacD wasn’t close enough to latch onto him. Eddie scrabbled for purchase, but he was already accelerating and there was nothing to grasp. He went zooming below the undercarriage of a road grader.

Linc got Maria to the safety of the ramp, where he lay flat to take more careful aim on Dominguez. Now their attackers’ shots were even more scattered.

Juan ignored the bullets pinging off the walls around him. He raced over to the road grader and braced himself against its wheel while MacD provided covering fire. Juan peered around the tread and was relieved to see Eddie clinging to a truck axle halfway toward the port side.

It would take him several minutes to climb back on his own. It was time they didn’t have.

“Toss me your rope,” Juan said to MacD.

“Ah’ll anchor it up here,” he replied, taking it off his arm.

“No, you and Linc need to take Maria to the engine room. If she doesn’t keep the ballast tanks from emptying, we’re all dead.”

MacD grimaced at the order, throwing the coils to Juan, who caught them and shrugged them over his shoulder. Linc laid down a barrage, allowing MacD to join him and Maria.

They took one last look at Juan, who waved them to go on. He was shielded, at least for the moment, by the blade of the grader in front of him.

Juan activated his throat mic. “How are you doing, Eddie?”

“I scraped myself up pretty well, but I don’t think anything’s broken. Is Maria all right?”

“She’s fine. I sent her ahead with Linc and MacD.”

“You want me to come up there?”

“No, I’m coming down to you. We’ll see if we can keep Dominguez occupied here instead of chasing after them.”

Juan knotted the rope around the road grader’s suspension so he could control his descent. It unspooled all the way to the opposite side of the hold. Eddie was able to put a hand on it and let go of the axle.

Juan kept his speed in check as he made his way down to Eddie. As he neared Eddie, he slowed more than he expected. But it wasn’t him. It was the ship.

The speed of the tilt’s correction had drastically accelerated. By the time he was under the truck adjacent to Eddie, the ship was undergoing a radical shift to starboard.

“I think we’re—” was all Juan got out before bullets caromed off the truck’s chassis and he had to take cover behind the wheel. Two of Dominguez’s men had crawled under the equipment to get him in their sights.

The ship would be at a level beam in seconds and that meant there was an immediate threat more dangerous than the men shooting at them.