Apocalypse

26

Ethan broke the surface of the water alongside the Free Spirit’s hull, just in time to see a ragged line of bullet holes burst through it and spray fiberglass chips into the water around him. Lopez came up beside Ethan.

‘What the hell’s going on?!’ she shouted as she pulled her respirator out.

Ethan saw a sleek speedboat roar past nearby, its powerful wake tossing him about on the waves.

‘Get aboard!’ Ethan hollered back, shoving her toward the Free Spirit’s stern ramp.

Lopez swam to the ramp just as Doug Jarvis appeared and reached out for her hand. He hauled her aboard with surprising strength before reaching out for Ethan. Ethan dragged himself up out of the water just as a deafening rattle of gunfire crackled out from the bridge.

Scott Bryson was on one knee against the port rail beside the wheelhouse, an automatic rifle pulled tightly into his right shoulder as he fired short, controlled bursts at the speedboat circling back toward them. As Ethan yanked off his diving equipment he saw the shots fall close around the speedboat’s hull, keeping it at bay.

‘Who the hell are they?’ Lopez shouted.

Jarvis hauled the heavy oxygen cylinders off her back.

‘More to the point, who do they think we are, and how did they know that we’d be here?’

From the bridge, Scott Bryson bellowed down at them.

‘How about we have this goddamned chat later and concentrate on staying alive?’ The captain turned and tossed the rifle toward Ethan. ‘Keep them off our ass!’

Ethan caught the rifle as Bryson leapt up into the wheelhouse and threw the boat’s throttles open. The Free Spirit surged forward and sent Ethan reeling as he struggled to keep his balance.

‘Incoming!’

Ethan heard Lopez’s cry of alarm and saw the speedboat rushing toward their port hull at full throttle, two men with rifles aiming in his direction.

‘Get down!’

Ethan hurled himself flat onto the deck, his fingers instinctively finding the safety catch and trigger with the same fluidity he had once possessed as a marine fighting in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora caves. The weapon came up into his shoulder even as he saw the first burst of muzzle flash from their attackers’ weapons and a lethal hail of automatic fire sprayed across the boat’s deck. Ethan, enveloped in a bubble of adrenaline-fuelled silence, ignored the bullets that zipped and tore into the deck around him as he breathed slowly and took aim. A marine instructor’s words drifted unbidden through his mind.

All the automatic fire in the world is useless against one well-placed round. Shoot slow, son, and you’ll shoot sure.

The shooter raked the Free Spirit as the speedboat turned away at the last moment amid crashing surf and shining metal. Ethan’s breathing stopped for a single second as he squeezed the trigger once.

The round hit the shooter low in his belly as the speedboat raced past and bounced on the churning waves. Ethan saw the man’s mouth gape open in shock as he folded over at the waist, his legs crumpled beneath him, and he tumbled back into the speedboat.

Ethan looked over the barrel of the rifle and saw at least four other men in the rear of the vessel. He turned to Jarvis.

‘We’re going to need help!’

The old man already had a cellphone in his hand and was shouting into it as he sheltered close to the wheelhouse.

Scott Bryson shouted down at Ethan from the bridge.

‘Nice shooting, boy scout! Now they’ll be really pissed!’

Ethan stood up and rushed to the bridge, keeping one eye on the speedboat as it circled out for another pass. The adrenaline was now pumping through his veins like a freight train powering through the night as he leapt up the steps two at a time and pointed at their attackers.

‘Turn the boat around,’ he ordered Bryson. ‘Head straight for them.’

‘Like hell, son, this boat’s my livelihood.’

‘We sure as hell can’t outrun them,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘And your livelihood’s no good to you if you’re dead.’

‘We can’t outshoot them, either,’ Bryson pointed out. ‘And you’re not Jack goddamned Bauer, so what’s the point of going down in a blaze of glory?!’

Ethan glanced out of the bridge windows to see the speedboat racing toward them again.

‘You of all people should remember what you were taught in the SEALs,’ he said. ‘Defense and offense. When attacked by a superior force, you do the last thing that they expect.’

Scott Bryson looked down at him for a long moment, and then for the first time he smiled at Ethan.

‘You advance on their position.’

With a flourish, Bryson span the wheel and the Free Spirit heeled gamely over, turning to face the speedboat until they were on a head-on collision course.

‘Take them down the left side!’ Ethan shouted as he jumped back down to the deck.

Ethan ran low to the stern of the boat, sliding onto his belly and aiming across the port stern. A crackle of gunfire snapped across the wind as he slowed his breathing. The speedboat soared past, two men firing their weapons from the hip with aimless abandon in the hopes of catching a lucky hit. A salvo of bullets splintered the hull close to Ethan’s shoulder and showered him with debris.

As the boat thundered by, Ethan aimed at one of the shooters, taking advantage of the low-aspect movement now that the speedboat was moving almost directly away from him. Despite the pitching of the boats across the waves, the target was easier to track. Ethan held his breath and fired two rounds, double-tapping the trigger as he aimed for the man’s torso.

The first round missed, hitting the deck low and to the man’s left, but the second round hit him straight through the neck, a fine mist of blood spraying into the wind as the man was hurled backwards to sprawl on the deck in a tangle of writhing limbs and spilling blood.

Ethan rolled over and shouted to Bryson above the wind.

‘Turn her around!’

Bryson responded without argument this time, the Free Spirit wheeling around on the churning surface of the ocean as she chugged her way toward their attackers.

Lopez struggled across the heaving deck and hurled herself down alongside Ethan.

‘We can’t keep this up forever,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later one of us is going to get hit.’

Ethan nodded and looked at Jarvis, who was huddled down behind a bulwark alongside the pressure suit, as he held a hand to one ear and his cellphone to the other.

‘We’ve got to hang on until he gets the cavalry here.’

Lopez nodded and then clapped Ethan’s shoulder.

‘I’ve got an idea, be ready to shoot again.’

Lopez staggered across the heaving deck as a wall of spray hissed over the boat’s bows. Bryson had aimed directly for the speedboat this time, and the psychological effect of their actions was already forcing their enemy to hang back and circle beyond weapons range.

‘They’re coming back!’ Bryson shouted, as the speedboat suddenly turned hard into them and rushed head-on once again.

‘Bring them down the starboard side!’ Ethan heard Lopez shout to the captain.

Ethan shifted his position slightly as he heard the speedboat’s powerful engines growling and the familiar rattle of gunfire as the men aboard opened up once again. Ethan risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw Lopez hefting an oxygen cylinder onto her shoulder as she balanced against the pitch and roll of the deck.

The speedboat thundered by and hurled a wall of spray up against the Free Spirit as Lopez took two paces forward and threw the oxygen cylinder in a graceful arc across the open water. She crouched down on the deck with her hands over her head as bullets hammered the deck around her.

The silvery cylinder slammed into the back of the speedboat, crashing through the legs of one of the shooters and flipping him over onto his back. As the speedboat turned away Ethan aimed once again and fired three shots at the cylinder. The second shot hit it even as he pulled the trigger and let fly the third round, and the cylinder wall ruptured. A blast of high-pressure oxygen burst out with the force of a jet engine’s exhaust and the heavy cylinder flew across the speedboat’s deck and smashed into the back of the pilot’s legs, shattering them with a metallic clang that Ethan could hear even above the Free Spirit’s laboring engines. The cylinder spiraled crazily across the speedboat’s deck as the pilot collapsed in agony, trailing a cloud of vapor as it crashed into the engines before shooting into the air and spiraling into the ocean thirty yards away.

Ethan saw a thick cloud of black smoke billow from both of the speedboat’s engines as a limp body toppled over the taff-rail into the ocean in a tangle of flailing limbs. The speedboat began turning lazily in circles, its idling engines spitting flames that began to burn their way along the hull.

‘That’ll do,’ Ethan smiled grimly as he stood up.

‘We’re not out of trouble yet,’ Bryson called out.

Ethan saw the big man pointing out toward the horizon, where two more speedboats raced toward them on an intercept course.