The Emperor's Revenge

FIFTEEN

Pavel Mitkin’s teeth chattered as Rahul Sirkal strapped lead diving weights to his ankles. The terrified engineer couldn’t move because Seamus O’Connor held him down by the shoulders, and his hands were tied behind his back. Mitkin shivered in the wind coursing over the aft deck of the Achilles as it sped east toward Malta.

Nearly the entire crew of fifty had gathered to observe his punishment. Only Maxim Antonovich and the bridge officer were missing and both were likely watching on the closed-circuit TV system. The crew Mitkin could see from his supine position were the men and women on the balcony above. Their expressions ranged from anger to open curiosity to unrestrained excitement about what was about to take place. Some of them murmured to one another in hushed voices while a few jeered at him. Though his lip quivered, Mitkin held back the tears that threatened to stream out.

When the twenty pounds of weights had been secured to his legs, and another ten pounds had been placed around his waist, he was hoisted to his feet. Sergey Golov slowly approached him, appraising the job that Sirkal had done before looking Mitkin in the eyes. The captain shook his head in disappointment, then turned to address the crew. His daughter Ivana stood behind him with her arms crossed.

“We are supposed to be a team,” Golov said in English, the common language of the multinational crew. “We are supposed to support each other, protect each other, even die for each other, if it comes to that. By going on this journey together, we have made that commitment.”

Golov pointed at Mitkin. “But this man has betrayed us.”

Catcalls rained down on Mitkin until Golov held up his hands to silence them.

“Not only is he a deserter, but Pavel Mitkin is guilty of the most heinous crime at sea: mutiny. When he was caught, he tried to convince other members of this crew to rise up against the senior officers and overthrow our command of this vessel. Of course, the rest of you are loyal crew members and refused to take part. For his crime, Mitkin must be punished.”

Mitkin couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

“Don’t you all see what’s going on?” he cried out. “The captain is leading us all down a terrible path. He’ll get us all killed! Think of what Mr. Antonovich—”

Sirkal quieted him with a vicious backhand slap across the face. Mitkin’s knees buckled, but O’Connor kept him upright, with fingers digging into Mitkin’s scrawny biceps so hard that his hands were going numb.

Mitkin knew that Golov could have simply shot him in the head and dumped his body overboard after he’d been found slithering over the side during their layover in Gibraltar. But a public punishment was needed to show the crew what would happen to them if they had similar thoughts of betrayal. Mitkin had noticed that several crew members hesitated to restrain him when he had made his panicked plea to be let go. So had Golov. A demonstration of the captain’s authority was required.

“If there is anyone here who wishes to speak in Mitkin’s defense,” Golov said, “do so now.”

Mitkin scanned the crowd with a flash of hope, but it was dashed when his eyes settled on the Achilles’s chief engineer. The old sea dog sneered at him in disgust. No one uttered a word.

The fact that he was branded a traitor and mutineer by his fellow crew finally became real and the irony of the situation overwhelmed him.

He laughed, a chuckle that grew into a hearty belly shaker.

Golov cocked his head at Mitkin before speaking. “You see? He finds your loyalty amusing. He thinks you’re fools.”

Mitkin had realized that he couldn’t trust the other crew members, so he’d planned his escape while setting in motion the keys to exposing Golov’s plot.

Simply pointing the authorities toward the Achilles and its captain not only would have been discovered by Golov and Ivana but it would also have implicated him as a participant in the conspiracy. He’d been going for a more subtle tactic that would reveal their scheme while enabling his flight to freedom.

But all his plans came to naught when he was spotted shimmying down a rope as the yacht had been departing Gibraltar. He’d plotted everything down to the second, so it had been pure bad luck when the third mate had been wandering the deck and saw him, alerting the security team to retrieve him. Now Mitkin would pay for that bad timing with his life.

Golov walked toward him and stopped so that he was face-to-face with Mitkin.

“Pavel Mitkin,” Golov said, “you have been found guilty of treason and mutiny, both capital offenses. Your sentence will now be carried out.” Golov looked at Sirkal. “Extend the plank.”

Sirkal raised a section of the railing and pressed a button next to him. A diving board, normally used for water activities during anchorage, swung out from the deck. The ten-foot-long fiberglass plank extended over the water and locked into place.

Golov nodded to O’Connor, who shoved Mitkin toward his fate. Mitkin considered pleading with the captain, but he knew his appeals for mercy would fall on deaf ears. Even the lone remaining secret he’d been hoping to use as a bargaining chip wouldn’t save him now.

“Walk,” Golov commanded. Many of the crew joined in a chant.

“Walk! Walk! Walk!”

Mitkin took a breath and shuffled forward, his legs gaining strength from the realization that he had one last bit of control over his tormentors: his actions hadn’t all been in vain.

He stepped onto the diving board and inched his way forward, goaded by a long fishing gaff thrust at him by O’Connor.

The wind nearly knocked him off several times, but the rock-solid stability of the twin hulls kept the yacht from rolling and throwing him over the side. When he reached the end of the board, Mitkin carefully turned to face the crew, the board bouncing under his weight. He looked at Ivana, then Golov.

Mitkin summoned up all the courage he could muster and spoke in a trembling but clear voice. “You think you’ve defeated me. You haven’t. Because you don’t know everything I’ve done.”

O’Connor was about to jab Mitkin with the gaff, but Golov stopped him. “What do you mean?”

Mitkin smiled ruefully at Ivana. “You think you were so clever with your little Easter egg about ShadowFoe. You just couldn’t keep from bragging. Well, Interpol will soon find out all about ShadowFoe. I couldn’t lead them to you, but your online nemesis Whyvern might.”

Golov looked at Ivana in confusion and alarm. She avoided his gaze in embarrassment. Golov whipped around and stared at Mitkin in fury.

“Go get him!” he yelled.

O’Connor stepped onto the diving board and edged his way toward Mitkin. The board dipped farther toward the ocean, threatening to spill both of them over the side.

Mitkin didn’t harbor any hopes that they would free him because of this new information. They would torture him until he confessed everything and then kill him afterward.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Mitkin smiled, expelled what breath he had, and fell backward off the diving board. His last view of Golov was of the captain screaming to get him back.

Mitkin hit the water and plunged beneath the surface. He fought the good fight against the terror of drowning, but the desperation to breathe quickly overpowered him and he took in a lungful of seawater. With the weights dragging him down toward the ocean floor two thousand feet below, the light above quickly dwindled to twilight and then darkness.