Devil's Gate

52

AFTER THIRTY MINUTES in the glider, Kurt was nearing the tanker. The little green readout on the HUD had his airspeed locked in at 120 knots, and things were looking good. He could even see the tanker in the distance lit up like a monument of white marble in a sea of black.

Two miles out, Kurt released the cowling-like cover that Joe had locked into place. It flew off behind him, and the smooth ride suddenly reverted to a wild one, like cruising the autobahn at top speed in a Porsche convertible.

He slowed to 90 knots, and actually crossed over the ship at thirty-five hundred feet. A silent blackbird in the dark of night.

He continued forward for half a mile, and flicked on a rudimentary autopilot that would keep the nose pointed forward and the wings level. Satisfied that he was far enough out, Kurt released his boots and hands simultaneously and was literally sucked out of the glider.

In an instant he was free-falling and popping his chute.

The glider would fly forward for another four or five miles before splashing into the sea and disappearing from sight. A scout with night vision binoculars wouldn’t see it touch down, but if he were watching the sky he might spot Kurt Austin dropping from the heavens.

To reduce that possibility, Kurt was clad in black, and his maneuverable chute was black. At two thousand feet, swinging beneath it, Kurt turned in a wide arc and locked onto the approaching ship. He had one minute.

Thirty seconds later he was a quarter mile from the ship’s bow, nine hundred feet above it, and in the process of realizing a giant flaw in his plan.

The ship’s blazing lights had seemed like a boon from long distance, making it easy to spot the ship and hone in on it, but Kurt suddenly realized it could prove disastrous now.

The blazing quartz lights reflecting off the white-painted deck were almost enough to blind him. And far worse than that, he would be spotted the minute he touched down like a giant bat landing on a lighted patio in the midst of someone’s outdoor dinner party.

Realizing his mistake, Kurt pulled tight on the chute’s reins, slowing his descent. He drifted to his right, the port side of the ship, and continued to drop.

He could see only one way to land on the ship without being noticed. The last section of the main deck out behind the superstructure was unlit. He would have to pass up a thousand feet of flat space, circle in behind the ship, and hope to keep up enough speed to reach the last few feet of the deck there.

It seemed almost impossible. But it was either that or splash down in the ocean, call for a pickup, and float around for several hours, hoping not to attract any hungry sharks.

He drifted past the ship, four hundred feet high and wide to port. He had twenty seconds. As he passed the superstructure, he could see a figure on the bridge but no lookouts. He doubted anyone on the blazingly lit ship could see him. Their night vision would be nonexistent in all that light.

He started to turn.

Turbulence from the accommodations block caught him and threatened to spill the air from his chute. He recovered, and swooped in behind the boat.

Below him he saw the end of the deck and the churning white water of the ship’s wake. Beneath that wake, a pair of twenty-foot screws would be spinning at a hundred rpms, like a monster-sized blender just waiting to dice him up.

He angled himself forward, picked up some speed, and began dropping fast. He pulled hard on the lines, but it was too late. The wind whipping around the ship blew him backward. He missed the deck, and dropped farther, headed for the white water below and a grisly death.

He tried to turn away, but the swirling wind reversed, sucking him forward like a scrap of paper swept along in the wake of a passing car. The surge of wind threw him toward the aft end of the ship. He saw a flash of huge white letters reading “ONYX,” and then he was tumbling into an open space between the main deck and a deck beneath it.

The impact jarred him, and then flung him forward, as the parachute’s lines caught on something around the opening. He landed flat on his back and was almost immediately yanked backward toward the rail. The turbulent air behind the ship had filled the chute again, which now threatened to drag him off the deck and back out once again.

Backward, forward, backward. Kurt had had enough.

He hit the instant release on his harness, and the parachute was sucked out over the water. It fluttered and faded and finally vanished in the gloom behind the great ship.

He was on board. Despite all risks and logic to the contrary, he’d landed safely on the Onyx. He thought about Joe’s long list of warnings regarding what could go wrong and almost laughed. None of those things happened. But Joe had never once mentioned lighted decks, wind shear, and getting chopped up by the ship’s propellers.

Looking around, Kurt had to wonder exactly what he’d landed in. The dark open space reminded him of the fantail at the aft end of an aircraft carrier, the huge area between the main deck and the hangar deck.

A few ladders descended toward the water. A pair of hatchway doors looked to be shut tight, and to his left were a few ratty deck chairs and a bucket filled with cigarette butts. Fortunately for him, no one had been sitting out there, having a smoke, as he came in for a rather ugly landing.

Fairly certain no one had noticed his arrival, Kurt pulled off his helmet and disconnected the oxygen bottle. With a hard fling, he launched both out into the night.

He heard no splash. The wind and the wake of the ship were too loud for that.

With those items gone he moved to the darkest corner of the unlit opening and dropped to one knee.

Kneeling in the dark, Kurt slipped a 9mm Beretta from a side pocket and began screwing a silencer into the barrel. His senses were on overload. He listened for movement.

He could hear little beyond the throbbing of the engines and the hum of machinery. But before he could move, the handle on one of the doors turned. The starboard hatchway opened, and Kurt pressed himself farther into the dark like a spider trying to hide in a cracked bit of concrete.

Two figures walked out illuminated by the interior light until the hatch door slammed shut.

They walked to the rail.

“I can tell that you’re impressed,” he heard a male voice say, a voice he immediately recognized as belonging to Andras.

Unable to believe his luck, Kurt’s hand tightened on the Beretta. But then the other voice spoke, and Kurt recognized it as well. A female voice. A Russian voice. Katarina’s voice.

“I don’t know how you people built such a thing without the world knowing,” she said. “But much as I hate to admit it, it’s rather an incredible design. I suppose I should thank you for the tour, and the food and the wine.”

“Now you understand why your superiors will be interested,” Andras said.

“Yes,” she said. “I suspect they will be fascinated with what I have to tell them.”

Kurt’s mind whirled as he listened to her speak. He certainly didn’t blame her for using any method she could think of to earn her captor’s trust and a chance at freedom, but the words she used made it sound like something bigger was in play here.

Before anything more was said, a crewman opened the hatchway door.

“Radio call for you, Andras,” the man said. “Coming in from Freetown. It’s urgent.”

“Time to go,” Andras said.

He led Katarina toward the door, guided her through first, and then followed. The swath of light widened and then narrowed and vanished as the heavy steel door clanged shut.

If there had been any doubt in Kurt’s mind before, it was gone now. The Russians wouldn’t be interested in a random supertanker. The ship had to be something more, which meant all the odd structures and anomalies probably had some purpose. Kurt was pretty sure it wouldn’t turn out to be a benevolent one.

Getting to his feet, he moved to the bulkhead door which Andras and Katarina had gone through a minute before. Silently, he applied torque to the handle. He moved it slowly until it clicked.

He cracked the door a quarter inch and looked down the passageway. With no one in sight, Kurt opened the door wider and slipped inside.