Dark Watch

24

CABRILLO stopped at his cabin on the way to meet the assault team. He changed out of his clothes, donning black fatigues, a Kevlar vest, and a combat harness. While most of the Corporation’s small arms were kept in a weapons locker, Juan kept his in an antique safe in the corner of his office, a relic from a long-defunct railroad’s Santa Fe depot. He fitted a pair of his FN Five-seveN pistols into kidney holsters, sacrificing a small amount of weight for the seconds he’d save not having to reload. Because he was leading a large force of seven operatives, they’d already decided to standardize their assault rifles. He grabbed up an M-4A1 and slid six spare magazines into the appropriate pouches. He didn’t bother carrying a second knife, just the four-inch Gerber hanging inverted from his shoulder strap.

He strapped on a pair of knee pads, flexing a couple of times to settle them properly, and slid his hands into fingerless gloves with thick leather patches to protect his palms. He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The determination and drive that had sustained him through the CIA and led to the creation of the Corporation was in his eyes, hewn flint-hard and focused. Game face, they’d called it, that single-minded convergence of training, experience, and will.

Once again Juan was going to step beyond himself, sacrifice for others by maybe sacrificing himself. He looked hard into his eyes, saw an unforgiving gleam, and abruptly laughed aloud.

Game face or no, Juan also knew he thrived on the danger. Why else would he be in this business? Adrenaline and endorphins were starting their siren song, humming at the base of his skull, giving him that high that only those who’d been there understand. Facing an enemy meant facing yourself. Conquering that enemy gave affirmation of what you always believed about who you are.

The boat garage was cold and clammy, crowded with men and women making final preparations. Rather than use a Zodiac, most of the garage was taken up with a SEAL assault boat, a rubber-rimmed polycarbonatehulled craft with a modestly protected central wheelhouse and twin outboard engines. The boat could handle any sea thrown at it and could reach speeds approaching fifty knots.

The lights in the garage had been dialed down to match the outside overcast, so everyone’s face looked drawn and pale. Their eyes, however, were bright and their motions swift and sure as they checked over each other’s equipment. The sound of magazines being slapped home and actions being cocked was a reassuring symphony to Cabrillo’s ears.

He caught Tory Ballinger’s eye across the room. She had agreed, reluctantly, to stay with the assault boat when the team hit the beach. The Corporation mercenaries had trained together more times than any of them could count and been under fire more than any wanted to remember. In combat they moved and thought as one by seeming to read each other’s minds. He made her realize that her presence among them would jeopardize that hard-won unit cohesion.

He couldn’t dissuade her from coming on the raid, and he hadn’t really tried that hard. He saw that she needed to be part of this because of her survivor’s guilt over the attack on the Avalon. Until she’d exacted some measure of revenge, that incident would haunt her for the rest of her life. And he planned to help by making sure she’d see a little action as everything unfolded.

Tory gave him a thumbs-up and a silent nod. He shot her a cocky grin that made her smile.

Cabrillo’s headset crackled. “Juan, it’s Max.”

“Go ahead.”

“Murph says the video is about to come online. I’m piping it down to you.”

“Roger.”

Juan vaulted the assault boat’s gunwale and flipped on the cockpit flat-panel display. Autostabilizers built into the camera mounts compensated for the constant pitching and rolling, and Murph was doing a good job zooming in on what was unfolding as the Oregon steamed into the bay.

The feeds flipped at a steady pace, first showing Juan an intense firefight near a large metal building built on a barge, then men who were clones of the pirates they’d taken out weeks ago attacking a tugboat that was in place to tow the barge; next he saw hundreds of Chinese workers running across the sloping moonscape of mud and boulders to get away from the expanding gun battles. He saw that the ships they’d picked up on radar were old cruise liners. All but one had settled deep into the beach, driven almost to their load lines by waves and tidal action. The lone exception might be a new arrival. Although the breakers that slammed her hull couldn’t make the vessel rock, she had yet to settle into the rocky beach. Finally Murph showed him a quick shot of the volcano in the distance. Its peak was wreathed in steam and smoke.

Cabrillo quickly sized up the tactical and strategic situation and began relaying instructions. His orders sent every member of the crew scrambling. Their shouts and calls echoed down the ship’s long passageways as they made their preparations. The Chairman had called for a desperation Hail Mary–type play, and for it to work he needed everyone at their sharpest.

A few minutes later the ship was close enough to the fighting to attract attention. The troops dressed in identical black uniforms, all of whom were Caucasians, ignored the Oregon, while the ragged-looking Indonesians fired hasty pot shots at the ship.

As soon as a pair of deckhands manhandled a large beam with lengths of chain on each end onto the assault boat, Juan ordered Eric Stone to turn the freighter away from the shoreline. While this presented a larger target to the gunmen, it allowed Cabrillo and the shore team to open the boat garage without being seen.

As the door rose smoothly upward, the shore team leapt into the assault boat, locking their arms through purpose-made restraining loops. Each team member called out as soon as they were secured. The driver, Mike Trono, fired the engine, and Juan nodded to the garage boat master. Like a giant slingshot, a series of hydraulic pulleys launched the boat down the ramp and out of the garage. The acceleration was brutal and got worse as Trono lowered the props into the water. The massive outboards bit deep, throwing a rooster tail of water back into the Oregon as the nimble craft came up to plane.

Cold air ripped at any exposed skin like sandpaper, and the sting of drops of water that hit them were cold enough to burn. The assault boat rocketed around the rust-streaked freighter, carving a fat wedge into the black sea. By the time anyone on the beach noticed the boat, they were moving at fifty knots, much too fast to accurately engage.

Trono constantly juked the boat across the sea as he made for the spot where Juan had indicated he wanted to land. It was in the shadow of one of the beached cruise ships, one that was so heavily grounded that workers had built a stone ramp up to the main deck. The area around the ship was strewn with trash too heavy for the surf to take away.

The boat arrowed through the breaking surf and had such a shallow draft that the team had only a couple of yards to wade to find cover on the boulder-strewn beach. Juan and Link dropped behind a house-sized chunk of stone that had been blown from the volcano during some prehistoric eruption. The assault boat had already worked its way back off the beach. Juan looked to make sure Tory had followed his orders to stay aboard, and his estimation of her rose another few notches as he saw her standing in the open pilothouse between Mike Trono and an ex-marine named Pulaski.

“What do you think, boss?” Linc asked.

“Looks to me we dropped in the middle of a little war here. I bet Singh is paying the Indonesians while Anton Savich’s guys are the ones in black.”

“So the enemy of my enemy ain’t necessarily my friend, eh?”

“That’s the attitude I’m taking.”

The team worked their way up the hillside, keeping the cruise ship between them and the main area of combat. Dozens of wide-eyed Chinese workers lay on the ground, cowering. They didn’t know what to make of the armed patrol. Juan tried to urge them to find cover, but they were all paralyzed with fear, and he gave up.

If he hoped to rescue any of the Chinese, he knew they’d have to put an end to the fighting.

“Chairman, we’re ready,” Max called over the tactical net.

The Oregon had shifted position. The doors covering her Gatling gun were still closed, although the ship had maneuvered to give it a clear line on the two fishing trawlers lashed to the tug.

“We’re about set, too. Any luck finding Eddie?”

“Negative. Hali’s taken over the cameras from Murph so he can concentrate on weapons control. He’s getting good shots, but there are so damned many people on the beach that it takes a few seconds for the computer’s facial recognition software to sort through them all.”

“Check the area closest to the fighting. If Eddie’s in any kind of shape, that’s where he’ll be.”

“Good thinking. Hali?”

“I heard,” the Corporation’s comm officer said. “Shifting focus now.”

Cabrillo and his people reached a level strip of land several hundred yards above the beach. Further toward the center of the site was an area that had been heavily dug up. Water cannons for blasting the tough soil lay abandoned, their nozzles pointed skyward. The ground was littered with shovels and buckets. All the workers had fled, and their guards had gone down to join the fight.

They approached the workings cautiously, weapons held at the ready, eyes never settling on one spot for more than a second.

An explosion echoed up from below, a grenade blast behind the barge that momentarily drew their attention. The black-clad body of one of Savich’s men pinwheeled in a lazy arc before falling to the beach in a broken-limbed heap. At the same second came the chatter of an AK-47 firing at point-blank range.

Cabrillo dropped flat as clods of mud were thrown up all around him. He stitched the area around one of the water cannons in a reflex shot that emptied half a magazine. It was poor fire discipline but it forced the attacker to dodge for cover, and his gun fell silent.

Linc had a better bead. He fired a three-round burst that sent the Indonesian pitching backward into a coffee-colored retention pond. His body vanished under the surface while his blood stained the water. The team found cover behind an earthen berm as more Indonesians appeared out of nowhere. The sheer volume of gunfire made the air ripple.

“We don’t have time for this,” Linda Ross shouted over the din, changing out her magazine.

Juan looked down the hill. The assault boat was getting into position, and they would need the cover fire from the Oregon’s Gatling gun, but he couldn’t afford to remain pinned down. The oldest adage of warfare, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, had never felt more true.

He called the boat over his throat microphone. “Mike, can you hear me?” When there was no reply, he called again. The boat was still moving at fifty knots, enveloped in a cocoon of engine noise that made communications impossible.

He cursed and called up Mark Murphy. “Murph, we need you. There’s about fifty bandits above us. We’re pinned.”

“Mike’s about to hit the tug,” Murphy pointed out.

“And the longer you question me, the closer he’s getting.”

“Roger that,” he replied, then muttered under his breath, “Sorry, Mike.”

As soon as the last of the assault team jumped over the gunwales, Mike Trono reversed engines and drew the boat off the beach, maneuvering backward until he had the sea room to spin around.

He pulled down his headset to talk to Tory as the boat built speed. “Can I ask you something, ma’am?”

“Only if you promise to never call me ma’am again.”

“Sorry.” Trono grinned. “Force of habit.”

“What’s your question?”

“Do you know how to operate a boat?”

“I work for Lloyd’s of London. My entire life revolves around boats. I’m a licensed captain on anything up to twenty thousand tons, which includes your Oregon before you turned it into something out of Star Wars.”

“So this assault craft?” He stamped the deck.

“Seems to handle as well as the Riva speedboat I rented on my last holiday in Spain. Why the inquiry?”

“Because we have a little job to do, and I need you to man the helm while Pulaski and I take care of it.”

“I assume it has to do with that piece of steel that was loaded before we left your ship?”

“Captain’s orders. He thinks we can salvage a bit more than a bunch of immigrants from this nightmare.”

A smile lit Tory’s eyes, and her cheeks blushed more than what the wind caused. “Why am I not surprised?”

They had shot across the bay, circling behind the Oregon again for cover, and now were headed for the tugboat. One of the trawlers was drifting away from the tug’s flank, while the other remained tightly lashed. There were men scrambling all over the decks. Most were pirates, but a few were crewmen desperately trying to defend their ship. Some of the pirates had added another level to their butchery by switching to machetes to dispatch the last of the crew.

The timing was critical, but with Murph watching their back over the Gatling’s sights, the assault boat charged into the battle. They were twenty yards out when Mike remembered he’d taken off his headset. As soon as he settled it over his ears, he heard the shrieking scream of the six-barreled Gatling gun, and he goosed the throttles a little more.

The expected destruction as the 20mm shells ripped apart the pirates’ boats and cleared the tug’s deck never came. Instead, pirates began shooting at the lightly protected assault boat from over the tug’s railing. The boat ran into a steam of gunfire. Rounds from their AK-47s punctured the inflatable curtain ringing the craft, raked the deck, and ricocheted off the outboards, miraculously missing everyone. Trono tried to wrench the wheel to get away from the tug as fast as possible, screaming to Mark Murphy to find out what went wrong.

The ground between Cabrillo and the Indonesians exploded, churned up by five hundred depleted uranium bullets. A four-foot-thick layer of earth was stripped away by the onslaught, exposing the gunmen where they’d been hiding behind the rim of the pond. Those that weren’t hit directly were torn apart by flying rocks. The entire group was blown into an oblivion of bloody mist and debris.

Linc took point to check for survivors, and while his search was thorough, he also knew it was unnecessary. Nothing could have survived that.

“We’re clear.”

Juan drew his people together. “From here on out our element of surprise is blown, but we’ll stick to the plan, flank the fighting down below, and try to find Eddie. I only hope he’s built a level of trust with some of the other Chinese because if we’re going to save any of them, we’re going to need him.”

They started off down the slope.

Eddie Seng had remained hidden, watching to see how the fighters would react to the Oregon steaming into the bay. As he’d expected, the Russians ignored the distraction and continued to fight with skill and discipline. They had made a sizable dent in the number of Indonesians, but the sheer numbers were becoming overwhelming. Of the dozen who’d been caught in the initial ambush, four were dead and three were wounded, although they could still defend their position. The tide of Indonesians continued to hammer at the hillock the Russians had taken as a crude fort. The outcome of the gun battle was inevitable, and the Russians knew it. They weren’t fighting for their lives anymore. This was now all about dying with honor.

Something caught Eddie’s attention on the far side of the processing building. The range was extreme, but he thought he saw Jan Paulus emerge from the dormitory ship. It was Paulus, and he was starting to climb up to the helipad where Anton Savich’s helicopter sat idle. He was with another man, and by the way they walked it appeared that Paulus was holding a pistol to his head. It was most likely he had taken the contract pilot hostage to fly him out. There was no sign of Anton Savich, and Eddie wondered if the South African had already killed him.

Pursuing the mine overseer was a tactical mistake, but the flame of rage that ignited in Eddie’s chest blocked out any chance of rationality. The weeks of pain, starvation, and deprivation had exacted a toll on his soul that would take a long time to heal. Killing the sadistic miner would at least start him on the journey. He’d already told Tang to gather as many of the other workers as he could and head for the newly grounded cruise ship. Of any of the vessels littering the forlorn beach, it had the best chance of surviving the eruption if Juan didn’t think of a way out of this mess.

His body was in no condition to chase Paulus, and yet when he started after the man, Eddie’s legs felt as powerful as coiled springs and his lungs pumped air like a blacksmith’s bellows. He felt alive for the first time since turning over his life to the snakeheads back in Lantan village. If any of the fighters noticed him as he dashed around rusted shipping containers and other equipment left lying about, they quickly dismissed him as just an anonymous worker trying to save himself. He’d hidden the AK-47 under the loose shirt he’d scavenged from a dead guard.

Once he was beyond the worst of the fighting he stumbled across the motor launch that had been used to transfer the gold out to the tug. It was in a secluded bay well sheltered from the rest of the beach by massive boulders, and as he stepped into the open, eight pirates who had been making ready to launch the craft looked up in unison. They should have ignored him like the others, but one went for his gun. Eddie dashed to his left as a stream of bullets chiseled at the boulder near his shoulder. He unlimbered his AK, waited for the firing to stop, and stepped back around the corner.

The gunman had turned to laugh with his comrades at the sport of it all. The first three-round burst sent his lifeless corpse sprawling into the startled arms of his friend. The second blew that man to the ground. Eddie killed one more before they got organized and made to fire back. He ducked out of the way again, quickly slinging his rifle, and began to climb the slick side of the boulder.

It was only eight feet tall, but Eddie barely had the strength to make it. His arms quivered at the strain of lifting his own diminished body weight, and the AK-47 felt like a hundred-pound rucksack. The boat’s motor roared to life just as he reached the summit. He slithered over the rounded top of the boulder, trying to bring his weapon to bear. The engine’s beat changed as the prop dug into the surf.

One of the pirates must have guessed his intentions, because chips of rock were suddenly blown from the boulder as at least four guns opened up from below. Eddie clamped his hands over his head as stinging chips of stone struck his skin like he’d fallen into a wasps’ nest. They maintained their fire until the boat was so far away that they couldn’t keep the boulder steady in their sights.

Eddie chanced looking up. The pirates were headed for the tug where a SEAL assault boat from the Oregon was coming under heavy fire from gunmen aboard the large vessel. Whatever plan Juan had devised had seriously come part. There were only a couple of people on the assault boat. They needed cover fire from the Oregon if they were going to attack the tug, and yet the Gatling remained silent.

Then the multibarreled machine gun opened up. A ten-foot tongue of flame jetted from the weapons bay, and a section of hill where there were a bunch of retention ponds high above the beach vanished in a hammering volley that sent dirt flying thirty feet or more into the air.

Unable to warn the assault boat about the approaching tender, Eddie slithered down the boulder and took off again after Jan Paulus.

Firing with one hand while the other worked the wheel, Mike Trono added to the gunfire pouring off the assault boat as they countered the pirates’ initial barrage. Tory was hunkered low on the floorboards, firing precisely aimed shots at the pirates lining the tug’s rail. She had the accuracy of an Olympic marksman and the patience of a sniper.

The weapon felt perfectly balanced in her hands as she squeezed the trigger for a fifth time. Her target had ducked behind the railing’s metal plating, but the shot would keep his head down for a few critical seconds. Another gore-spattered gunman raised himself suddenly, hosing the sea with his AK-47 before homing in on the fleeing boat. Tory aimed carefully, her body anticipating the wave action, and she pulled the trigger. The light bullet sparked off the railing just in front of the Indonesian and ricocheted into his chest just below the sternum, lifting him high off his feet.

“Hold on!” Trono shouted. “We’re going back in. Cease fire.”

He twisted the wheel once again and set the boat on a collision course with the squat tugboat. Because they weren’t being fired on, many of the pirates stood up to draw a bead on the craft.

“Showtime,” Murph said over Trono’s radio.

The Oregon’s weapons officer shifted the Gatling from the hill and sent a few seconds’ burst into the drifting trawler. The boat was ripped to pieces in a hail of wood splinters and shredded netting. The pilothouse disintegrated. Seabirds gorging themselves on offal left to slop on the deck took flight as their world came apart. Then the stream of bullets penetrated the engine room, tearing the big diesel from its mount before puncturing the fuel tank. The resulting explosion sent a greasy fireball climbing into the sky, and the seas were raked with shrapnel.

What little remained of the trawler sank instantly, snuffing out the flames in a gout of steam.

The destruction on the tug was less dramatic when Murph pivoted the Gatling gun and gave the trigger another squirt. As though caught by a broadside of grape shot, the pirates were scythed down by the fusillade. A hundred ragged holes appeared in the big shipping containers lashed to the deck, and glass from the aft-facing secondary bridge, used by the crew to check their charges under tow, fell in a glittering cascade that further mutilated the corpses. Murph hosed the deck with autofire, making certain that no one was left alive.

“That should hold ’em,” Murph whooped.

Mike Trono danced the assault boat up to the lowest section of railing and turned the controls over to Tory. “Just hold it here. We won’t be a minute.”

“Why are you doing this, anyway?” she asked, standing aside while Pulaski and Trono manhandled the heavy steel girder onto the tug’s low deck.

He handed her his tactical radio and gave her a wolfish smile. “Chairman thinks there’s booty aboard, and not the kind a Hollywood hottie’s packing.”

The men levered themselves onto the deck. Hard years of training forced them to visually check to make sure no one had survived. It was a gruesome task, something out of a horror movie, because the Gatling had minced the bodies into what Trono could only describe as a sort of chunky paste. Leaving the assault boat burbling along the tug’s flank, they hoisted the beam onto their shoulders and waded through the carnage toward one of the containers.

Trono pulled his Glock and shot the lock off one of them while Pulaski maneuvered the beam so they could drag it up to the top. The hinges screamed as Trono swung open one of the doors and just as quickly closed it again. Pulaski shot him a questioning look.

“Chairman’s right again.”

“Gold?”

“Gold.”

He hoisted himself up the container with a boost from his partner, and together they levered the two-hundred-pound beam to the top. Trono looked up as they began to thread the lengths of chain through the lifting hardpoints. A small runabout was racing out from shore, hidden from Murph’s vantage by the bulk of the tugboat. He counted a half dozen armed men bobbing in the craft as it crashed through the surf line and into smoother water.

“We got trouble.”

Pulaski looked over his shoulder. “Damn!”

The boat would reach them in seconds, not the minutes they needed to secure the beam to the container, but they weren’t about to abandon their prize. Mike shouted down to Tory, “We’ve got company. Bunch of goons in an open tender. Get the hell out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

“We’re not being heroic. We need you to draw them out so Murph can hose ’em with the Gatling.”

Tory understood and slammed the throttles to their stops. The assault boat shot away from the tug, turning sharply so she passed behind the ship. She’d forgotten about the thick tow cables still securing the tug to the barge on shore. With no time to maneuver she shot under the first cable, ducking as the thick steel tore the standing cockpit from its mounts. Had her reactions been an instant slower, the hawser would have decapitated her.

The boat flashed under the second cable, angling to cut off the approaching tender. She was going so fast that the men on the boat could only stare as she bashed her boat into theirs. One of the men tumbled over the tender’s side, and by the time any of them thought to reach for their guns, Tory was twenty yards away and accelerating like a greyhound.

She slalomed the assault boat as the men began firing on her. She was exhilarated by the adrenaline pumping through her veins. “I know, I know, bloody women drivers. Hit you then try to run away. How about you come and catch me, and we’ll exchange license and insurance information.”

She looked back to see if they’d taken the bait but was horrified to see they were intent on reaching the tug. She whipped Trono’s radio set over her head. “This is Tory. I’m with Trono and Pulaski on the assault boat.”

“Tory. It’s Max Hanley. What’s the problem?”

“There are six terrorists in a small boat about to reach the tug. Your guys are trapped on board with only pistols. They haven’t a chance.”

“Where are you?” Max asked in a reassuring tone to calm her down.

“On your SEAL boat. Mike wanted me to draw them away, but they weren’t having any of it.”

“Okay, just you hold on for a second. Pulaski? Trono? You there?”

The reply came in a faint whisper. “Max, it’s Ski. We’re on top of one of the shipping containers. The pirates just came aboard.”

“Do you think they know you’re there?”

“Negative. Mike grabbed a tarp just before they got here. Unless they check the top of the container, we’re hidden. And it doesn’t appear they’re searching the ship.”

“What are they doing?”

“It looks like they want to release the tow cables and get out of Dodge. What do you want us to do?”

“Help them,” Juan Cabrillo said over the open comm channel.

“What?” Max and Ski said in unison.

“I said help them. Ski, you and Mike hang tight. Max, I want you to cut the tow cables.” Juan’s radio carried the sound of the gunfight raging on the beach — the sharp crack of rifle fire, the staccato bursts from AK-47s, and the agonized screams of the wounded.

“I can do it with the Gatling,” Mark Murphy chimed in. “A direct hit on the big cable drums on the tug’s stern should do it.”

“But why?” Max asked.

“Because there are a thousand or more Chinese workers caught in the crossfire down here, and the longer this battle lasts, the more of them are getting killed. The Russians look like they can hold out for hours still. Right now that tug is the pirates’ only way off the beach, and if they see it’s about ready to make way, you can bet they’re going to forget all about their fight and hightail it over there.”

“Which gets them away from the civilians…”

“Which gives Murph the opportunity to hose ’em down,” Juan finished.

“What about the Russians?”

“We’ll give them a chance to surrender and get off this beach alive. If they don’t take it, you can take them.”

As if to underscore the urgency, a tremendous crack split the air. A fresh explosion of ash spewed from the top of the volcano, billowing ever higher like a nuclear mushroom cloud. Juan had no idea how long they had. Hours or minutes. They still hadn’t located Eddie, and if his plan to end the gunfight quickly didn’t work, he had to seriously consider evacuating his people from the beach and making a run for it.

Hali Kasim’s excited voice cut through Cabrillo’s grim thoughts. “Chairman, I found Eddie! He’s on the far side of the barge. It looks like he’s tracking two people, one of whom appears to be a hostage.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Up away from the beach. The range is pretty extreme, but I think they have a helicopter up there.”

“Take it out,” Cabrillo ordered, and then he and Linc exchanged a look. It was all the communication they needed. Linc was now in charge of the field team while Juan took off in a ground-eating run. He had only covered forty yards when his ankle caught on a loose stone. Had it been his real leg, the ankle would have broken or at least suffered a major sprain. All that happened was the chairman fell hard, but his clumsiness saved his life as the air above him came alive with automatic fire. He combat rolled a dozen times to find cover behind a pile of stones. The gunman was below him, hidden behind a pyramid of fifty-five-gallon drums.

Juan checked the load on the grenade launcher slung under his M-4, steadied the rifle against his shoulder, and fired. The weapon made a comically hollow sound, and a second later the grenade impacted behind the drums. The grenade’s primary explosion detonated the fuel. Three-hundred-pound drums were launched into the air like rockets, some exploding in flight, while others hit the ground and spilled their flaming contents across the beach.

Juan scrambled to his feet as a drum arced high and began to fall straight at him like a meteor. It landed five yards from him and slightly higher on the hill, so when it split, a burning lake of gasoline roared over him. He fought the instinct to run down the hill. He ran at a diagonal instead, flames licking at his knees and the heat enough to sear his lungs, but in just moments he was through the conflagration with nothing more than singed hair.

“Out of the frying pan…” he wheezed as he continued after Eddie Seng.

A one-second burst from the Gatling was enough to shred the steel tow cables, and the timing couldn’t have been better, because the pirates on the tug had just bumped the engines to high idle, sending a thick plume of smoke from her funnel. The reaction on the beach was exactly as Juan had predicted.

The pirates almost instantly disengaged the Russian holdouts and began running for the shore. Some kept their weapons, but most dropped them as they plunged into the frigid water and began to swim out to the tug. Watching them reminded Linc of rats deserting a sinking ship. He and the rest of the shore party swept down from their position. There were a few gunmen so intent on the fight that they didn’t know their ride was about to leave.

Linc took out a pair of them with a grenade and had a bead on a third when what he thought was a corpse at his feet sprang to life. The pirate knocked away his M-4 and tried to ram a wickedly curved knife into his chest. Linc blocked the blade’s fatal thrust, but the knife sliced a long gash into his arm. He sank a fist into the pad of muscle under the fighter’s arm, paralyzing the limb for the second he needed to cross-draw his pistol and put a bullet between the man’s eyes. He ignored the torrent of blood streaming down his arm and continued his patrol.

Eddie realized he was never going to catch Jan Paulus. The burst of energy that had gripped him so tightly had now flickered to nothing. He was nauseated by hunger, and he couldn’t draw enough oxygen into his lungs, but still he pressed on, driven by raw emotion. Paulus and his hostage were a minute away from reaching the MI-8 helicopter, and no matter how Eddie willed his legs to move faster, he knew he was slowing. Then from out on the Oregon came the distinct pop from the 40mm autocannon. Five rounds went sailing high over the beach, passing directly over Eddie and blasting the area around the chopper. When the dust settled, Eddie could see that the cockpit had taken a direct hit. Flames licked from around the shattered Plexiglas, and the ground around the craft was littered with mangled electronics.

He looked back over his shoulder to give the ship a congratulatory salute and spotted a figure running toward him. There was no mistaking the distinctive silhouette: Cabrillo.

Paulus summarily shot his hostage as soon as he realized the helicopter was ruined and started running back down the hill, maybe thinking he could reach the tug and broker some kind of deal or maybe just in blind panic.

Knowing that Juan would have his back, Eddie started running after him, letting gravity do the work that his legs no longer could. They were thirty yards from the beach when Eddie skidded to a stop and threw the AK-47 to his shoulder. He was shaking so badly that he could barely see through the sight. He squeezed the trigger, and the rifle recoiled into his shoulder, but only one round had fired. Paulus turned at the sound, then continued on as Eddie checked the weapon. At some point he’d unseated the banana magazine from the receiver. He jammed it home, cocked the gun, and sprayed the remaining clip at the fleeing miner.

A feather of blood spurted from Paulus’s calf, and he staggered and fell. He was slow to get to his feet, giving Eddie the time to cover the distance. He crashed into the South African, sending them both sprawling across the rocks. Though injured, Paulus was a big man, used to the punishing life of mining, and could absorb a tremendous amount of pain.

“You’re going pay for that, mate,” he said through gritted teeth, goading Eddie to hit him again.

“Don’t bet on it.” Eddie used the moment of confusion at his American accent to whip the AK-47 at Paulus’s head. The miner ducked just in time but gave Eddie an opening for a brutal kick to the knee.

Paulus took the hit without even wincing and wrapped his arms around Eddie’s chest, squeezing with machinelike strength. Eddie slammed his forehead into Paulus’s nose, feeling the bone crackle, but the miner only seemed to redouble the pressure. Eddie hit him again, and this time the South African roared in pain, loosening his grip enough for Eddie to get one hand free. He grabbed the man’s ear and gave it a savage yank. Paulus let go. Eddie got one leg behind Paulus’s and shoved him back. Paulus reached out as he fell, taking a handful of Eddie’s shirt.

Hitting the ground with Eddie on top of him should have driven the air from Paulus’s lungs, but it didn’t. The impact had been cushioned. It reminded Eddie of falling on a waterbed. To his horror he realized they’d landed in a huge puddle of mercury.

Before Paulus could recover, Eddie rammed his knee into the man’s crotch at the same time he forced his head below the surface. Paulus involuntarily gasped at the pain, sucking in a mouthful the toxic liquid metal. He started going into convulsions, but Eddie stayed on him like a cowboy riding a bull. Paulus managed to wrench his head above the surface. He coughed up great silvery globs of mercury before Eddie jammed his head back under. It took a minute more for him to stop struggling. When Eddie got off the body, it rose back to the top of the pond. Paulus’s mouth and nostrils were little glimmering pools of mercury, and his eyelids looked like someone had already laid coins over them.

“That is definitely on my list of top ten ways not to die,” Juan said, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“For a while there,” Eddie panted, “I thought I had to take on all these goons by myself.”

Juan helped him to his feet. “What, and deny us a share of the glory?” He nodded at the corpse. “Anton Savich?”

“No, a South African hired to oversee this nightmare named Paulus, Jan Paulus.”

“Any idea where Savich is?”

Eddie shook his head. “Last I knew, he was in that big cruise ship down the beach. Paulus had Savich’s pilot hostage, so I think he’s already dead.”

“Damn.”

“Why? Saves us the trouble.”

Cabrillo went silent for a moment then said, “The fence.”

“Fence?”

“Like the guy who buys stolen goods from a thief,” Juan explained. “Until gold is properly assayed and stamped by an official mint, it’s worthless. No one legitimate will touch it. Savich had to know that before putting this caper together, which means he already has someone lined up to buy it from him. Someone who could get the gold authenticated and trickle it into the system. It has to be someone big to handle this much, a major banker with serious connections.”

“Sorry, boss, I’ve got no idea who it is.”

Juan smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll find the greedy bastard.”

Linc called Juan over the radio. “Beach is secure, Chairman. The Russians saw the writing on the wall and surrendered in exchange for a ride out.”

“It’s time for us to get out of here.” Cabrillo looked around. Hundreds of Chinese workers seemed to have materialized from the ground. They’d found cover among the boulders, and now that the fighting had stopped and the tug had motored a mile down the bay, they were milling around in shock. “All of us.”

Once Juan issued his orders it took only a few minutes for the word to spread that the workers were to board the newest ship to arrive on the beach, but it would take an hour or more for them to climb the only ladder tall enough to reach the ship’s rail.

Juan was waiting at the pier the trawlers used when Tory motored up in the assault boat. “Going my way, sailor?”

He jumped down into the deck and impulsively kissed her mouth, but the kiss was interrupted by another booming explosion from the volcano that sent foot-high ripples dancing across the water.

“My, my, you made the earth move.” Tory laughed huskily.

For Juan the mood had already passed. They were in a fight against the clock, and every second counted. Tory correctly read his expression and gunned the throttles.

On Cabrillo’s orders, Max had swung the Oregon around so her stern pointed at the grounded cruise liner. Deckhands had run out the ship’s own towing cables from recessed hatches under her fantail. Using a pair of Jet Skis, thick ropes attached to the cables had been transferred to shore where a hundred of the most able-bodied Chinese immigrants were in position to haul the big hawsers to the cruise ship.

“Max, you reading me?” Juan called over his radio.

“I’m here.”

“What’s the situation?”

“They’re about ready to haul the cable over to the cruise ship. Her name’s Selandria, by the way. Linda and Linc are over there directing everything. She says the bollards are nothing more than mushroom-shaped rust, so we’re going to thread the cable around her anchor capstans. They should be able to handle the strain.”

“Okay. I’m almost back. As soon as they have the cable secure, I want all our people back on the Oregon.”

“I’m going to have to sit on Doc Huxley. She wants to take a team over there right now and start helping the worst of the Chinese.”

“Then sit on her,” Juan snapped. “If this doesn’t work, the grim truth is we’re going to leave those people behind and pray we can get some help up here before the volcano blows its top.”

“On that front, once the fighting stopped I tried to raise the Russian Coast Guard, but the mountain’s pumping out a lot of electrical interference. All our communications are out except the short-range tactical net.”

“We’re on our own.”

“’Fraid so.”

“I want you to stay in the op center. I’ll be up on the flying bridge. Have someone meet me there with some clean clothes.” He shot Tory a glance, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Some for Tory, too.”

Juan stripped out of his filthy battle jacket as he made his way through the ship, feeling bad that the housekeeping staff was going to have a hard time getting his muddy boot prints out of the plush hallway carpets. He reached the flying bridge just as Maurice stepped off the elevator from the op center. He was pushing a silver mess trolley. He handed a bundle of clothes to Juan and another bundle to Tory. Tory stepped into the radio shack to change while Juan undressed where he stood.

“That feels better,” Juan said.

Maurice pushed back the trolley’s gleaming cover, and the aroma of hot food made Juan’s mouth swim. “Shredded jerked beef burritos and coffee.”

Around a mouthful of the spicy, foot-long Mexican specialty Juan said, “Maurice, you just doubled your salary.”

The elder waiter then tipped a flask into Juan’s coffee cup. “From my stock of brandy. Just enough to take the edge off.”

“Tripled it.”

The storm they had raced up the Sea of Okhotsk had caught up with them. Rain began to pound the windscreen, and lightning crackled overhead. From under the trolley Maurice pulled out a matching pair of rain suits, baseball caps, and Juan’s rubber sea boots. “I had a feeling, sir.”

Juan slipped into the slicker as Tory came out of the radio room. She wolfed half a burrito in just a couple of bites. “God, I didn’t know how hungry I was.”

“Chairman?” Max was calling through a walkie-talkie.

“Go ahead.”

“They have the cables across. Linda says she needs ten more minutes.”

“Tell her she has five. This storm’s about to hit, making a tough job near impossible.” He stepped out onto the flying bridge and into the gale. The wind had picked up to force five, and volcanic ash mixed with the storm so clots of mud fell from the sky. He looked aft. The heavy cables had been fed through the Selandria’s fairleads, and all looked in order — except that the Oregon had drifted in the wind and wasn’t straight on to the cruise ship. He called a correction down to Eric Stone and looked to see the swirl of water at the bow thruster port.

“That’s good. Stations keeping, Mr. Stone.”

The assault boat roared off into the choppy sea to pick up the shore party, her rubber pontoon flexing as she crashed through the waves.

“Think we can do it?” Tory asked, joining him out in the open.

“We can generate the horsepower of a supercarrier with our engines, but if that hulk is stuck fast, we’ll have the classic dilemma of immutable force and immovable object.”

“Would you really abandon them?”

Juan didn’t answer, but that was answer enough. Despite what he’d said earlier, she could see the determination in his eyes and knew he’d tear the guts out of his beloved ship and risk his people for the chance of saving even one of the Chinese immigrants.

A couple of minutes later the SEAL boat pulled away from the beach, loaded with the last of the Corporation people left behind. Juan waited until it was clear of the tow cables before bringing the walkie-talkie to his lips.

“Okay, Eric, put some tension on those cables.”

The Oregon crept forward, and the cables slowly rose out of the sea, sheeting water as the bundles of wire clamped tighter and tighter.

“That’s it,” the helmsman reported. “Speed over the bottom is zero. We’re at full stretch.”

“Dial us up slowly to thirty percent and hold it.”

There came the distinctive whine as the magnetohydrodynamics spooled up. The angle of the tow and the power of the engines made the Oregon settle heavier into the sea so that waves split over her bow in raging sheets.

“I’ve got movement,” Eric cried. “Gaining five feet a minute.”

“Negative, we’re just stretching the cable a bit more.” Juan had spent a summer on a tugboat during college and knew how easily cable stretch could look like they were already under way. “In a minute you’ll find we’re sliding back. When that happens bring us up to fifty percent.”

Juan watched waves slamming into the Selandria, trying to see if she was riding them or just being punished by them. There was some movement as walls of water passed under her bows, but each time the foreward section of the ship rose up on a wave meant her stern was being ground deeper and deeper into the beach.

“Fifty percent,” Eric announced a moment later. “No movement.”

“Bring us to eighty.”

“I can’t recommend that,” Max Hanley warned. “You’ve beat my babies pretty bad already.”

Theoretically there was no limit to the power output from the magnetohydrodynamics, but there was a weakness in the system: The high-speed pumps that kept the banks of magnets cooled to superconductive temperatures with liquid helium. The extreme cold played havoc on the impellors, and after the prolonged abuse they endured to reach Kamchatka, their failure weighed heavy on Max’s mind.

“Those engines are maintained by the best engineer afloat. Bring us to eighty.”

The Oregon dug in even deeper, allowing waves to wash over her railings. The water at her stern became a boiling caldron as the pump jets forced hundreds of tons a minute though the tubes.

“Nothing,” Eric reported. “She’s stuck fast. We’re never going to haul that pig off the beach.”

Juan ignored his pessimism. “Give me full starboard lock.”

Eric complied, wrenching the controls so the Oregon sheered off a straight line like a dog straining at a leash, adding a couple more tons of pressure to the tow.

“Port lock!”

The ship swung around, straining the cables so they vibrated with tension. A haunted moan escaped from the Selandria as her hull pivoted on the rocks and then came a rending scream of metal as she shifted farther.

“Come on, baby. Come on,” Juan urged. Tory had her hands to her mouth, her fist clenched so tightly her fingernails were a bloodless white. “Anything?”

Eric sent the Oregon careening back to starboard before answering. “No. Speed over the bottom remains zero.”

Max interrupted. “Juan, I’ve got temperature spikes showing in engines three and four. The coolant pumps are starting to go. We’ve got to shut down and try to get as many of those poor souls aboard as we can.”

Juan looked back. The Chinese had been warned to stay off the deck — a tow cable parting under tension would whip back with enough force to cut a man in two — however, the Selandria’s bow was a sea of pale, frightened faces, huddled and shivering in the cold rain. A rough count put the number of immigrants on the liner at over three thousand. The Oregon could take maybe a third of that number. “Okay.”

Max must have had his hands on the engine controls because they wound down to low idle the instant the word left Juan’s mouth. Free of the strain, the Oregon bobbed up, shedding water like a spaniel.

Tory gave Juan a sharp, disapproving look, a stinging rebuke at his giving up so easily, but she hadn’t let him finish speaking.

“Take the tension off the cables and spool out another hundred yards. Creep us ahead and prepare to weigh both anchors.”

“Juan, do you really think…”

“Max, our anchor winches are powered by four-hundred-horsepower engines,” Cabrillo pointed out. “I’ll take every pony we can muster.”

Down in the op center Max used computer keystrokes to disengage the clutch on both cable drums, allowing them to run free while Eric Stone engaged the engines again to move the ship farther out into the bay. When they reached the hundred-yard mark, Max let go the anchors. They sank quickly to the bottom, which was only eighty feet deep.

“Now back us gently and set the flukes,” Juan ordered.

The big Delta kedging anchors dragged along the rocky bottom, cutting deep furrows in the loose rock and boulders until their hardened steel flukes snagged bedrock. A computer control automatically adjusted the tension on the anchor chains to keep them from slipping.

“We’re ready,” Max announced, but his tone was less than enthusiastic.

“Tension the tow cables, then bring us up to thirty percent.” Juan snapped a pair of binoculars to his eyes, purposefully avoiding looking at the men at the Selandria’s railing. Waves continued to pound the ship’s bow, causing her to saw up and down, grinding her stern ever deeper.

“Thirty percent,” Eric announced. “No movement over the bottom other than stretching the cables.”

“Ramp it up to fifty,” Juan said without taking his eyes off the cruise ship. “Anything on the anchors?”

“Zero recovery on the winches,” Max answered. “Heat’s already building in three and four. We’re thirty degrees from red line and automatic shutdown.”

The forces acting on the tow were titanic, brute horsepower against twenty thousand deadweight tons of steel that had been pounded into the beach. Pulled taut by the cables, the Selandria’s bow stopped responding to the waves, so water washed under her, causing volleyballsized rocks to dance back and forth.

“Anything?” Juan called.

“No recovery on the winches,” Max said grimly, “and zero movement over the bottom.”

“Eighty percent!”

“Juan?”

“Do it and take the safeties off the engines.” Juan’s voice was charged with anger. “Bury them past the red line if you have to. We’re not leaving those people.”

Max complied, typing a few commands that told the computer to ignore the heat building up in the massive cryo pumps. He watched his screen as the columns indicating temperature turned red and then climbed above the safety limit. He reached out deliberately and shut off the computer monitor. “Sorry, my darlings.”

Juan could feel his ship’s torment through the soles of his boots as she fought the tow. The vibrations were tearing her apart, and each shudder sent a lance into his chest.

“Come on, you bitch,” he snarled. “Move.”

A rumble built across the bay, so deep and resonant that it was a feeling across the skin rather than a sound that hit the ears. The top of the mountain was hidden by a dense cloud of ash, and the ground shook so strongly that the beach seemed to become a liquid. This was it. The main eruption. The volcano was going to blow like Mount Saint Helens, and a wall of superheated ash and gas would tear down from the summit in a deadly avalanche that scientists called a pyroclastic flow, one of the most destructive forces on earth. Juan had gambled all and was about to lose everything. It was too late to go back and save any of the Chinese. Tears stung his eyes, but the firm line of his jaw never slackened.

“We’ve got to cut the tow,” Max said.

Cabrillo said nothing.

“Juan, we’ve got to go. We need a couple of miles between us and that volcano if we’re getting out of here alive.”

He didn’t doubt the words. The pyroclastic flow would reach far out to sea in an enveloping noxious cloud that would smother anything in its path. But still he remained silent.

“Movement!” Eric shouted. “Port winch is recovering, five yards a minute.”

“Must be slippage,” Max countered. “She’s dragging across the sea floor.”

It was as if the sun had been eclipsed. Darkness came so swiftly that it left Juan’s eyes swimming. He could barely see the Selandria through the swirling ashfall. Hot ash stung his bare hands as he held the binoculars to his face. He just couldn’t tell if the liner had moved or whether Max was right and the anchor had slipped.

No one spoke for what felt like an eternity. Stone’s eyes never left the speed indicators, which remained stubbornly at zero.

Then over the sound of the eruption, the Selandria screamed, a mortal, almost human sound, as if she could no longer endure the tremendous pressures of tow and storm.

“Got her,” Eric shouted as his speed indicators tickled ever so slightly.

Max turned his computer screen back on. “Recovery on both winches.”

“Speed over the bottom is ten yards a minute. Fifteen. Twenty.”

As more and more of the ship’s weight felt the buoyancy of her natural element, the speed continued to increase. Tory clutched Juan’s hand as they watched the Selandria get drawn back to the sea, her hull plates shrieking in protest as she was dragged over the rocks. And when a particularly large wave pounded the beach, she gave it a squeeze as the ship rode up its face, her stern coming high in her first moment of freedom.

“She’s free,” Juan called down to the op center and heard a roar of approval from his crew. Someone, probably Max, who was a rank sentimentalist under his tough veneer, sounded the ship’s horn — a keening celebratory note that echoed and echoed.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Juan said and led Tory back inside the bridge. They descended into the op center. Another cheer rose from the throats of his people, and his back was slapped black and blue.

Now that the Selandria was refloated, Juan ordered the power output cut to fifty percent and had the view from the aft-facing cameras brought up on the main screen. Already water frothed along the liner’s waterline as the Oregon continued to accelerate down the bay.

“Dear God.” Tory gasped.

The top of the mountain had been vaporized. A solid black wall of ash was pouring down the mountain, a swirling, choking mass that seemed alive. Everything before its fury was cut flat. Trees that had stood for a hundred years were ripped from the ground and tossed like matchsticks. A second later the sound of the explosion reached the ship, a painful assault on eardrums that was the loudest yet.

Workers on the Selandria scrambled to get back inside the ship as the pyroclastic flow finally reached the surf line in an explosion of steam, and still the ash roared onward, spreading outward so it swallowed the other ships left abandoned on the beach. One of the smaller ones was blown onto its side, while the barge carrying the processing plant was flipped completely upside down.

“Hold on,” someone said unnecessarily as the ash enveloped the Selandria and completely filled the camera’s view.

It hit the Oregon like a sledgehammer blow, a hurricane of ash and pumice that shattered windows and heeled the ship over so her starboard rail was buried into the sea. But she kept driving, shouldering aside the fresh onslaught of nature’s fury until she burst out of the cloud and into shadowy daylight.

No one moved or even breathed as they watched the screen. Seconds dribbled like molten lead. Then suddenly the bow of the Selandria emerged through the curtain of ash like a ghost becoming real. Her hull was covered in clinging dust, but she’d never looked more beautiful. But still the crew waited, watching. A tiny movement caught everyone’s attention. Mark Murphy quickly zoomed in as a door on the upper deck opened tentatively. A small figure stepped out, looked around, and then motioned at someone inside the ship. In seconds there were a dozen people on the deck, kicking up clouds of ash in a spontaneous game to celebrate their survival.

Maurice appeared in the op center as if by magic. The tray in his hand held a trio of Dom Perignon bottles and enough cut crystal flutes for everyone on duty.

Amid the raucous celebration, Tory whispered into Juan’s ear, “So who was the bitch?”

“Huh?”

“When we were on the flying bridge you said, ‘Come on, you bitch, move.’ Who was the bitch you were talking about? The Oregon or the Selandria?”

“Neither.”

The corner of her mouth turned downward as she thought about his answer. And then her lips parted in a beaming smile. “Max is right. You are a crafty bastard. You were talking to Mother Nature.”

He couldn’t keep the satisfied smile from his lips. “I knew there’d be a major earthquake just before the main eruption. Water-saturated soils undergo what’s called liquefaction. Basically, the shaking causes the ground to turn into quicksand. That broke the suction that had built under the Selandria’s hull and allowed us to drag her off.”

“Cutting it awfully close, weren’t you?”

“You only get the big rewards when you’re willing to face the big risks.”

“Chairman.” Mark Murphy was still at his weapons station. “I’ve got a radar contact six miles dead ahead, moving at seven knots.”

“The tug,” Max said.

“Speaking of rewards.”

Even with the Selandria in tow it took the Oregon only fifteen minutes to come within visual range of the fleeing tugboat. Juan scrambled the deck crew to get in position as he ordered Eric to take the squat tug down the port side. There were only a handful of pirates on the tug, so they were almost on top of them before anyone realized they weren’t alone. Two of them raced out onto the tug’s flying bridge with their AK-47s, but they quickly ran for cover when Murph opened up with one of the gimble-mounted fifty-calibers housed in hidden bunkers on the Oregon’s deck.

“Mike, Ski, can you hear me?” Juan called over the radio.

“I thought you’d forgotten all about us,” Pulaski replied over the tactical communications channel. “Mike and I were thinking we were in for a long cruise vacation.”

“Sorry, boys. You’re not up for leave for while yet. I can see the two containers on the tug’s stern. Which one are you on top of?”

“The rearmost.”

“And the lifting assembly?”

“Ready to go.”

“We’ll be alongside in about one minute.” Juan then addressed Murphy. “Disable the tug’s rudder assembly, would you please.”

“With pleasure.”

He called up the Bofors 40mm autocannon, waited for the weapon to be deployed from its concealed bay, and put a half-dozen rounds under the tug’s fantail. Her speed dropped off instantly, and a trail of oil began to seep from where her hull had been penetrated.

Eric Stone kept his hands loose on the controls as he brought the Oregon alongside the tug, slowing to match speed as the gap between the two ships shrank to just a few feet. He used rudder and bow thrusters to keep the vessels in virtual lockstep. Murph never took his eyes off his cameras, waiting to provide cover fire if any of the pirates showed themselves.

Up on deck, a pair of deckhands swung the boom of the Oregon’s main derrick across the gap, feeding out line so the hook dangled scant inches above the shipping container. Trono and Ski finally emerged from under the tarp and attached the hook to the beam they’d secured to the metal box. Mike made a circular gesture with his hand, and the crate came free of the deck.

Mohammad Singh, Shere Singh’s second-eldest and therefore second most trusted son, had survived the initial assault on the tug because he’d hidden in a cabin while his father’s men fought and killed the crew and were later gunned down by the Gatling. Fighting was something that his father paid others to do. However, when he saw the crane swing over the side of his ship, he immediately understood that someone was trying to rob him. He raced down from the bridge, brandishing a pistol, and burst out on the afterdeck, screaming curses at the top of his lungs.

Mark Murphy saw the man dash across the deck but was a fraction too slow training one of the .50 calibers.

Singh leapt for the container just as it began to pendulum from the wave action. He scrambled to find a grip and was forced to drop his pistol in order to hold on tight.

The winchman drew back cable so the container cleared the railing and had just started to pivot the boom back over the Oregon when a heavy rolling wave surged past the two ships. Stone did an excellent job of keeping the vessels from crashing against each other, but the deckhand couldn’t stop the container from arcing across open space and slamming into the tug’s bridge with a wet slap. When it swung back, all that remained of Mohammad Singh was a meaty red stain.

Most of the crew not on duty assembled in the hold where the container had been lowered once the Oregon was well beyond weapons range of the floundering tug.

Ski and Trono doused everyone with a cascade of champagne froth when Maurice handed them each a bottle.

“It’s kind of anticlimactic,” Juan shouted over the revelry, “because these two clowns had to sneak a peek on the tug, however…” He drew the word out as he swung open the big doors.

The lighting in the hold wasn’t particularly conducive for examining treasure, but the golden reflection that radiated from the container was the most beautiful color any of them had ever seen.

Juan hefted one of the bars, pumping it over his head like a trophy, while around him the men and women of the Corporation went wild.