Ark Found

Chapter 12

Carter shook his head as he spied the enemy craft from a prone position at the back of the inflatable boat. “Looks like they kept that one gassed up the same as ours.”

“They don’t seem to have an ammo shortage, either,” Jayden said, as another gunshot boomed from behind them. The round was lost to the sea, but that didn’t make him feel any safer. For the past two hours, the Treasure, Inc. attackers had kept up a regular volley of shots, intended more to keep Carter and Jayden on edge than to have any real hope of hitting them. The tactic was successful, though, and while Jayden had done a good job of maintaining their lead, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. The squall that was promised on the Titanic site was finally materializing here in the middle of the North Atlantic. Whitecaps dotted the increasing swells, and the motorized rafts rode up and over each wave like rollercoaster cars over hilly tracks. At the peak of each roller was when they were most vulnerable to enemy gunfire.

“Carter, where’s our chopper? Where’s our ship?”

Hunt’s gaze scanned the skies, but the rain that had begun to fall made sighting anything up there problematic at best. Their ship had been out of sight since they left it behind, its top speed being slower than that of the inflatable, although sustainable for a much longer period. As Carter nudged the remaining gas can, after running the first one dry over an hour ago, he knew that they didn’t have long before the ship would catch up to them much quicker indeed. But so would their pursuers. Carter glanced back at them. One of them wore a headlamp, which made them easy to pick out against the rapidly darkening sky.

And then it happened. They heard the faint boom of a shot being fired — still audible at this distance but the meat of the percussive blast was lost to the howling wind and motor noise. But the truly frightening sound was the soft pfffft that came immediately after. As they took a sled-ride down the face of another big swell, Carter felt the tube on the left side of the Zodiac begin to soften beneath his arm.

“Bad news, Jayden: they hit our port side pontoon. We’re losing air.”

“Wonderful!” Jayden yelled as he struggled to keep the frail craft headed into the oncoming swells, lest they turn broadside and be swamped with onrushing water. “This wasn’t difficult enough already, I really needed more of a challenge!”

Another gunshot was the reply to Jayden’s sarcasm, but fortunately this round found only the ocean. Making matters doubly worse, water began to flood into the inflatable raft while the deflated side sagged and was unable to keep out the roiling seawater. Both of the experienced mariners knew that an inflatable boat wouldn’t actually sink, even with all tubes deflated, it would remain floating, but would become an unnavigable piece of drifting debris, offering no control of any kind. It wouldn’t take much for them to be swept off of it by a passing wave.

But their mercenary attackers kept coming, now rapidly closing the gap between the two boats as Jayden and Carter’s craft limped along, flooded with water. Carter began to look around for items with which to mount a last resort defense. “Flares, where’s the flares?” He scrounged around through the console cubbies, and then looked inside the small anchor hold, but found none.

“Figures, these guys don’t follow any laws, including those pertaining to maritime safety,” Carter muttered. Then, out of desperation as the enemy tender neared, he removed the small anchor from the hold. About the size of a large grappling hook, it was connected to a short length of chain which was in turn tied to a long length of manila rope.

He told Jayden to cut the motor. “It’s pointless to keep going, might as well try and mount a defense. Actually, try waving a white flag first. Let them take us alive if they’re willing.”

Regretfully, Jayden stripped off his white T-shirt, with a logo from Sloppy Joe’s, a well-known watering hole in Key West, Florida, and began to swing it around above his head. “All right, I’m waving the white flag of surrender.”

But the act seemed to make no difference, for another gunshot rang out and then the other pontoon began to hiss out the air that was keeping them afloat. Carter was in the process of looping the anchor rope around his arm while gripping the anchor in his other hand, when he realized it was hopeless. The enemy Zodiac pulled up alongside them, manned by four men, three of which pointed pistols straight at them. The boat pilot held a megaphone to his lips and addressed them:

“Nice day for a boat ride, eh?” He laughed along with the rest of his motley crew as a large wave steamrolled over the now deflated dinghy of Carter and Jayden while Treasure, Inc.’s air-filled craft was lifted harmlessly up and over the passing water. Then the sky split open with a crack of lightning, a booming explosion of thunder, and a torrential downpour began to fall.

The motor of Carter and Jayden’s boat sank beneath the waves, no longer supported by the airless tube. The two men now floated in water as if in a bathtub. They were able to support their weight on the submerged mass of rubber, but they were no longer dry. The boat pilot waved an arm at his crew.

“Cease fire, men. There is no need to waste any more bullets on these two. Shooting them would be too kind. Let them finish their boat trip out here in these friendly seas!” He looked up at the darkening sky as the rain drenched his face while another peal of thunder boomed around them.

“No, do not let them go or their ship could pick them up!” one of the crew protested.

“Our own ship is doing battle with them at this very moment! On our way back, we will distract them as well. Let these two scum drown, and it will look like an accident. All the better for us. Let’s go!”

He shot Carter a cold stare before putting the boat into gear and turning away from them, throwing a wake that flooded the stricken vessel even more, drenching Carter’s face with icy ocean water.

“Awesome,” Jayden said, legs floating out in front of him while his elbows rested on the bunched up mass of rubber that used to be their pontoon, as if he were relaxing in a hot tub. No longer wearing a shirt only added to the picture. “This is just great. Real pickle we’re in, Carter. Any ideas?”

The treasure seeker slowly shook his head while he searched his mind in vain for a plan. But the cold water made it difficult to concentrate. “It’ll be dark before too long…” he began, when he was interrupted by a faint sound to the east. He turned that way, coaxing his ears to magnify the noise, but it was lost to the wind and sea spray before returning a few seconds later, a tiny bit louder this time. And more identifiable.

“Helo!” he yelled.

“Hopefully that’s not Daedalus,” Jayden said.

“I have a feeling he’s checked into St. John’s premiere luxury hotel by now,” Carter said. “It’s got to be Buzz. It’s got to be…” He turned to silent prayer as they drifted in the freezing water while the sound of the rotors drew nearer. The running lights of the aircraft were the only distinguishable feature in the dim light, but when the spotlight brightened a circle of dark sea beneath the ‘copter, Jayden let out a whoop.

“It’s Buzz. He’s looking for us!”

“He sees us,” Carter confirmed, as the aircraft slowed and began to descend toward the ocean surface.

“And our friends over there see him, too,” Jayden pointed out. Near the edge of their visibility into the wind-whipped, salty gloom, the small boat made a wide turn back toward them.

“So much for leaving us to the elements,” Carter said.

“Well, to be fair, an Augusta Bell AB-212 helo is not exactly ‘the elements’, is it?”

“Do we have a light, anything to warn the pilot with?”

Jayden scrounged around the console for a bit before coming up empty-handed while shaking his head. “’fraid not. Maybe now’s the time for your anchor trick. Buzz might not know these guys are willing to shoot first and cover things up later.”

Carter nodded. “I’ll do what I can. You maintain eye contact with Buzz and guide him in.”

As the chopper neared the rotor wash stirred up the water to the point that their swamped raft was nearly impossible to stay with. “He’s waving us over!” Jayden said, and then a second later, the pilot’s voice was heard through a loud-hailer: “I can’t get any closer without blowing you away in the raft. Get out and swim to me, I’ll lower a ladder. Give me a hand signal if you understand.”

Jayden immediately held up his hand in the universal “okay” signal, thumb and forefinger held in a circle. “Ready, Carter?”

The Treasure, Inc. Zodiac was a stone’s throw away now and not slowing down as it approached them. It was obvious they meant to pass Carter and Jayden and assault the helicopter.

Carter responded with, “Jump in three, two, one… Go!” He stood in the deflated raft as best he could, and from his wobbly stance he wound the anchor at the end of the chain around in a loop like a cowboy getting ready to lasso a bull. He watched as the enemy craft cruised past their port side. When he heard the splash signaling that Jayden had launched himself into the open sea, Carter began the mental process of timing his anchor swings while watching the assailant’s boat speed past.

One of the crew fired the first shot at the helicopter as it hovered, waiting for Carter and Jayden to swim beneath it. Carter let go of the chain with the anchor near the apex of its loop and aimed far ahead of the speeding raft. Carter knew he should start swimming as soon as he let the anchor fly, but it would only take a couple more seconds to see the results of his offensive move and the curiosity was overwhelming. He was rewarded with the sight of the boat’s driver suddenly being ripped off of the craft into the water behind it. The Zodiac then spun wildly to the left in an out-of-control turn.

Having seen enough to know that his stunt had proven as effective as he could have hoped for, Carter dove off of his crippled raft, knifing underwater in a dive so as to remain unseen on the surface for as long as possible. He found the relative quiet beneath the waves to be peaceful, a serenity that was shattered the moment he surfaced for air. His ears were greeted with the din of a helicopter motor and a boat engine, against a backdrop of thunder, howling wind, and a heavy rain splattering on the waves. He could see the chopper hovering about thirty feet away, but the seas were too chaotic to permit him a decent view of the water itself, so he couldn’t see Jayden or even the rival boat.

Carter began to swim as fast and hard as he could. He could feel the pull of a strong current and knew that he would need all his strength to make progress against it for even the short distance to the helicopter. Kicking with everything he had, he reached the peak of a swell and used to the opportunity to check the water around him. He spotted Jayden’s black-haired head beneath the chopper. Carter’s heart sank as he realized just how precarious their situation was. This helicopter was not some coast guard chopper equipped with a winch and rescue basket, much less a crew separate crew to handle those things. It was fast and light, designed for transport over relatively long distances for a ‘copter. But this meant the pilot would face the Herculean task of lowering the chopper close enough to the water for them to be able to grab hold of the skids, while avoiding the unpredictable rogue swells that cropped up all around them. And the enemy gunfire.

Carter bodysurfed down the face of the swell he was on and kicked hard until he felt himself rising up the next one. At its crest, he used the viewpoint to look back toward their abandoned and ruined inflatable boat. He was beyond surprised to see a man swimming only ten feet behind him, coming right towards him with a powerful crawl stroke. At first he thought his adrenaline-riddled mind might be playing tricks on him, that it was Jayden and that he had somehow gotten disoriented and turned everything around in his mind. But a quick 180 and visual check of the helicopter, where Jayden’s arm was swiping unsuccessfully for the skid, told him that no, it was someone else.

He realized with a start that it was the pilot of the Zodiac he had grappled overboard with the anchor. Coming after him in the water to exact his revenge? It seemed absurd, but Carter knew he didn’t have time to tread water and think about it. He kicked off toward the helicopter once again, hoping that at least Jayden would be aboard before he got there so he would be able to help pull him up and in.

But when he felt the rotor-driven spray on his face, he looked up to see that Jayden was, in fact, still in the water. The problem was that the chopper pilot was too scared get low enough for a person treading water to grab hold of the skids. Carter couldn’t blame him. It was possible for the entire aircraft to be engulfed and pulled underwater once the skids were submerged. But meanwhile the savage in the water behind him was gaining, and to make matters even worse, Carter spotted the lights of his boat drawing nearer.

The pilot lowered the helicopter once again, doing his best to time the swells. He lowered the craft into a trough, but had to pull up as a swell approached before Jayden was able to grab the skid. It was close, though, and Jayden gave him a hand signal that indicated he should try the maneuver again.

Carter called over to Jayden to let him know he was here. “Keep trying to get in, I’ll fight this guy off.” The enemy combatant swimmer reached them too, and the battle was on. Carter made a mental note to find out more about Daedalus ’ employee motivation program, because he couldn’t help but think that these guys were non-stop go-getters. Surely, they could have driven back to the ship after picking up their man overboard, and the boat chase, and no one would have said anything about a lack of effort. But here this killer was, swimming through a tempest beneath a helicopter to get at an ex-Navy man who had ripped him off of a boat after being shot at.

Was it the power of the ark? The strange thought sprouted in Carter’s historian brain even as his primal systems readied themselves to brawl. Carter wasn’t worried too much about the fight. Though Jayden had been the SEAL and not him, he was still extremely comfortable in the water and a trained fighter as well. He took a deep breath as the peak of a swell was about to reach him and ducked below the water. Opening his eyes despite the cold sting, he locked onto the blurry form of his adversary and angled up toward him from below. Like a shark, Carter thought. From below and behind. Take him out…

But as Carter’s right hand reached out to drag his opponent beneath the waves, the foe was suddenly yanked up and out of the water. No way could he propel himself like that, Carter thought. So, what….he surfaced in time to see the undercarriage of their helicopter — its engine roaring in his ears with the close proximity — lifting away…

… with Jayden gripping onto the skid with both hands — and Daedalus ’ thug holding onto his ankles, also being lifted into the stormy sky.

“Jayden, kick! It’s not me!” Carter screamed, in case Jayden wasn’t aware who it was that was holding onto him. He saw the former Naval warrior glance down, and a bolt of lightning illuminating his shocked face told Carter that his message had not been in vain. In a feat of sheer strength befitting an ex-SEAL, Jayden raised his knees until the adversary latched onto his ankles was within striking distance. Holding onto the skid with only his left hand, Jayden clocked the thug in the jaw with a powerful right, knocking him back into the water. He landed right next to Carter, nearly on top of him.

In a lucky break for the hired goon, his Zodiac pulled up next to him at that moment. Carter had been listening to Jayden scream something at the helicopter pilot, but the engine droned out the words, as well as the sound of the small boat’s motor, which was why he didn’t hear it approach. Carter felt his stomach leap into his heart as he turned around and saw the rubber tubes of the inflatable mere feet from his face. The attacker who had just fallen from the helo was being dragged aboard by his associates-the two, that is, who were not either driving the boat or pointing the gun at Carter.

He whirled right, knowing his movements were slowed in water but needing to get out of the gun’s sights. He barely heard the pop of the pistol over the chopper engine noise, which grew louder as the ‘copter lowered itself over the boat. Carter saw his chance and took it. He was a sitting duck in the water. He ducked underwater to cloak himself while moving to another part of the boat, forward of where his adversary was being pulled back in following his ordeal. He scissor-kicked up to launch himself from the water and took hold the grab line that was strung around the boat’s sides. Using this he was able to swing his right leg up and over the tube and roll into the boat even before his adversary was helped aboard.

Even so, he knew he had all of about a single second in which to act before he was gunned down and tossed back overboard. The chopper was so close he instinctively brought up an elbow to shield his face when he looked at it, but then he realized this was Jayden’s doing. His friend was now standing on the skid, one hand gripping the door frame, waving Carter up, mouthing the word Jump!

Carter took the not-so-subtle-suggestion and, with a running start, bounded off the pontoons at the bow of the small craft, basically trampolining himself up toward the hovering helicopter. His jump was a good one, and he was able to wrap both hands around the skid. As soon as he did that, he looked up and saw Jayden, head turned toward the pilot, waving at him to move.

In the boat, his takes-a-licking-but-keeps-on-ticking attacker was somehow back on his feet and rampaging toward Carter once more. Carter saw him by looking down through his legs, but was much more concerned about the crewman standing in the rear of the boat aiming the gun at him. There wasn’t much he could do about that, and he now felt terribly exposed due to his elevation above the other people on the raft. But a rolling wave crested beneath the boat at that moment, and as luck would have it, tipped the boat enough to throw off the shooter’s aim, causing him to miss all three rapid-fire shots.

At the same time, the chopper lifted off in earnest, with Jayden yelling at the pilot to go, go, go. By the time Carter began to lift himself into the chopper, he was out of realistic range of the guns. Still, the boat pursued them for a short distance, and more shots were fired as evidenced by the tiny orange muzzle blasts visible against the dark sea in the distance, but they had eluded their pursuers.

For now, Carter thought, kneeling at the edge of the open door while Jayden steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He knew Daedalus wouldn’t be satisfied until all threats to his illicit enterprises were neutralized. He watched the heavy rain fall while the angry sea surface faded into obscurity until Jayden pulled the door closed.

For now.