Callsign: King - Blackout

20

It took several minutes for King to get within fifty yards of the nearest Zodiac, but his cautious approach evidently worked. There was no indication that the Spetsnaz men were aware that anything was amiss. He risked another quick glance and saw three figures-two of them merely black silhouettes, but the third revealing uncovered pale skin, silvery hair, and a white formal shirt that were all in stark contrast to the surrounding darkness.

King ducked back down, made a final course correction and opened the throttle wide. The noise of the engine revving at full power would carry across the water, alerting the commandoes to his approach, but at maximum speed, his boat would close the distance in a matter of seconds, hopefully before his foes realized the last boat no longer contained their comrades.

The bow rose with the sudden acceleration and the boat once more seemed to skim across the river’s surface, bouncing a few inches into the air each time it encountered a ripple from the wake of the preceding Zodiacs. King kept his head down and watched the frothy line of whitewater thrown up by his prey spreading out in either direction from the source in an inverted V, using it to guide him onward. As he got closer, the V all but disappeared and the chop from the other boat’s wake hammered through the fiberglass hull.

He gripped the ballistic knife in his right fist, and braced his feet against the back of the bench seat.

Right about…now.

There was a sickening crunch as the front end of King’s Zodiac collided with the stern of the other craft. Had he not been anticipating the crash, the sudden stop would have catapulted King headlong, but instead he absorbed the impact with his legs, bent his knees and kept his body low in the bilge space. The nose of King’s boat rode up and over the other boat’s engine cowling, and then with a lurch it tilted to the right. The Zodiac hung precariously from one side of the other boat, its outboard whining loudly as the exposed screws chopped only air.

King launched into motion, rolled over the upraised gunwale of his boat and dropped down into the other.

He caught a glimpse of a commando at the bow clutching frantically at the inflatable hull in an effort to avoid being thrown into the river. King pounced on the Spetsnaz operator, planting a knee in the man’s ribs. The commando’s breath left him in a whoosh, as did his ability to offer any resistance when King summarily heaved him over the side of the boat.

King whirled, ready to meet the expected attack from the remaining Russian, but instead he found himself facing the silver-haired form of Graham Brown.

In deciding to ram the escaping Zodiac, King had judged the possibility that he might injure or kill Brown as an acceptable risk; in fact, Brown’s fate was his single overriding concern. His mission had been to bring Brown back alive, but killing him was certainly preferable to letting the Russians have him or otherwise allowing him to escape. Brown however seemed to have come through the collision unscathed, a fact that King found strangely unsatisfying.

Brown squinted at him, trying to pierce the veil of darkness, and a look of recognition dawned. This wasn’t one of his hired guns come to rescue him but his mortal enemy.

King saw Brown’s hand dart into the pocket of his jacket and pull out something that reflected glints of the distant city lights-not a pistol or any other weapon, but something with the potential to be just as dangerous.

A cell phone. Not just any cell phone, but one of the quantum devices.

As King scrambled toward Brown, the latter held the phone close to his face and pressed a button. The gambler’s face lit up in the glow of the device.

King tried to snatch the phone away before Brown could press any more buttons, but even as he stretched out his left hand, something slammed into his chest, knocking him back into the bow.

A dark shape had emerged from beneath the bulk of King’s Zodiac: the second Spetsnaz commando.

King slashed at the man with the knife, but he was off balance, falling backward even as he tried to strike, and the man not only adroitly dodged the attack but managed a counterattack in the form of a rigid, open-handed chop to King’s forearm. King’s hand went instantly numb and his grip on the knife started to loosen. He clapped his free hand around his right fist, squeezing the deadened fingers tight, even as he reversed direction and tried to drive his attacker away with a backslash.

Once again, the Spetsnaz effortlessly evaded the attack, then he seized King’s wrists, twisting the knife around so that its tip was poised directly above King’s face. King couldn’t actually see the blade in the darkness, but he knew from the position of his hands that the blade was mere inches away. Something hard struck King’s abdomen, not a directed blow but a heavy object-the man’s gun, dangling from a nylon web sling. King ignored the bruising impact and focused all his energy into resisting the insistent pressure driving the knifepoint toward his eye. His opponent was powerful, with gravity working in the Spetsnaz’s favor. The man put his full weight behind the attack, forcing the knife closer by degrees. A desperate survival instinct gave King the strength to forestall the attack but little else. The Spetsnaz had all the advantages.

And then King felt the man’s fingers moving, creeping toward the stud on the hilt.