Spyder Web

58

Downriver, Kang relaxed a little as Spitfire faded from view. He knew that he’d hit one of the snipers. Perhaps a lucky shot had found the driver of that devil boat. In any case, they had broken the pursuit and were now moving unopposed toward the ocean. Kang was just about to ask for Merlin‘s ship-to-shore phone when Parnell eased back on the throttle.

‘Why are you slowing down?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Parnell replied as he looked downriver, ‘but it appears that the floodgates have been closed.’

Both sides of the shore were illuminated by scores of police lights. Parnell could only imagine that many of the small figures lining the embankments had weapons trained on them as they approached. A pair of river patrol boats began moving toward Merlin. Before anyone said a word, he turned the wheel around and pushed the accelerator forward, leaving the ambush behind.

‘What are you doing?’ Kang shouted as Parnell turned his boat around.

‘They’ve closed the river,’ Parnell shouted back, stifling Kang’s complaint. ‘I can outrun their patrol boats, but we have to get ashore before it’s too late. There’s an abandoned dockyard a few kilometers back that we can use. With any luck, the police are spread so thin that we can escape by land.’

The closure represented by the wall of concrete and steel that tamed the river’s floodwaters caused a brief sensation of panic that Kang quickly suppressed. Parnell was right: It was time to get off the river. ‘Go. If we can evade our pursuers, my people will get us out of the country.’

‘What about Roe? We can’t leave her behind.’

‘I agree,’ Kang replied icily.

Upriver from Parnell’s boat lay the idle Spitfire. Stone’s wounds were tended as well as Kilkenny’s training and the onboard supplies would allow, and the three men waited for further assistance.

Kilkenny was still wearing Stone’s headset, monitoring the British radio traffic, when Mosley called out, ‘Kilkenny, you still there?’

Kilkenny switched the headset back into the send/receive mode. ‘Yeah, Cal. What’s up?’

‘Parnell caught a whiff of us and turned tail; he’s heading back in your direction. The British have a chopper and a pair of patrol boats keeping an eye on him. I want you guys to lay low and let him pass. We’ve got him bottled up, Kilkenny, so no more heroics. Understand?’

‘Loud and clear.’ Kilkenny flipped the microphone off and slammed his fist into the ship’s deck in frustration.

‘What did you find out?’ Stone asked.

‘They reached the blockade and have turned back. They’re heading our way, and Axton wants us to stand aside while his people try to chase them down. If Kang and Parnell are as smart as everyone thinks, they’ll dump that boat and disappear onshore.’

‘Where are we?’ Stone asked as he tried to peer, uncomfortably, over the ship’s side.

Kilkenny stood up but found no landmarks that meant anything to him. ‘Hell if I know — I’m not from around here.’

‘I’m afraid I won’t be much help, either,’ Yakushev added.

With Yakushev and Kilkenny’s aid, Stone stood up and studied the shoreline carefully, trying to get his bearings. ‘We’re in Essex, east of London proper. There are some old docks about a kilometer back. Parnell’s a local lad, like me, so he’s probably familiar with the area. If he’s going to abandon ship, he’s going to do it there.’

‘And he’ll make land before your people can run them down,’ Kilkenny concluded. Other than Spitfire, Parnell had the fastest boat on the Thames. The spies would be safely inland before the authorities could put anything near them by land or river.

Over the short period of time they’d spent together, Stone had taken his measure of Nolan Kilkenny and he already knew what thoughts were going through his mind. ‘Orders or not, we can’t let that happen.’

‘I agree with him,’ Yakushev said in defiance of Axton’s order. ‘We must intervene.’

‘I hate sitting around anyway.’ Kilkenny surveyed the river for Parnell’s boat. ‘We don’t have much time. Let’s get into position.’

Kilkenny piloted Spitfire to the center of the river before turning her perpendicular to the river’s flow, with the port side facing downriver toward the approaching boat.

‘How’s your shooting arm?’

Stone stretched and flexed his right arm; it felt weak. ‘It’s a bit wobbly, but otherwise fine.’

‘Good, because we’ll need all the firepower we can muster if we’re going to offer effective harassment. The plan is the same as before. We’re not going to try to stop them, just slow them down and keep them on the river until help arrives. I hope everyone’s ready, because here they come.’

Merlin rounded the slight turn in the river and came into view with a prominent fan of water issuing from the speeding boat’s tail. Yakushev and Stone crouched and took aim on the approaching ship while Kilkenny eased the throttle into low gear. As Merlin approached, Kilkenny hoped his opponents would assume that the drifting craft offered them no threat.

Merlin left the patrol boats far behind, and only the police helicopter kept up with the blue craft. Parnell showed no sign of veering his boat out of the main channel as it approached Spitfire.

‘He’s going to pass close, probably thinks we’re out of commission,’ Kilkenny whispered to his crew. ‘Let’s draw him in before we open up. On my mark, gentlemen.’

Merlin was almost upon them when Kilkenny shouted, ‘Now!’

All three opened fire on Merlin—bullets shattering the blue fiberglass hull as they struck. Kilkenny concentrated his fire on Parnell, strafing the bow deck and windscreen. Both Kang and Parnell ducked, but Parnell didn’t move fast enough for Kilkenny’s deadly aim. Three rounds caught Parnell in the right shoulder, shattering his collarbone and upper arm. The blow turned Parnell halfway around and nearly cast him overboard. His left hand, still clutching the wheel, pulled Merlin into a sharp starboard turn toward Spitfire.

Kilkenny dropped his weapon and slammed Spitfire‘s throttles forward. Too late.Merlin‘s upturned bow surged forward and struck them broadside, her keel driving deeply into the grinning shark’s mouth on Spitfire‘s tapered bow. The high-tech composite hulls of both ships exploded into a million tiny pieces. Kilkenny and his shipmates were flung overboard as Merlin plowed deeper into Spitfire, trying to capsize her. Merlin‘s hull, now locked into Spitfire, broke in two as the green ship’s reinforced keel rolled up from below and, like an ax, struck it amidships. The stern half of Parnell’s vessel, carried forward by the engine’s momentum, catapulted over the capsized boat into the river.

The captain’s chair that Roe was lashed to broke free from its base, ejecting her into the water, seat and all. Kang hit the water clear of the largest pieces of the broken vessel.

Merlin‘s stern crashed down on Parnell and the fractured fiberglass hull tore into his clothing and skin. Parnell’s pain gave way to sudden panic as the back half of his precious Merlin grabbed hold and dragged him down. He flailed vainly to free himself from the wreckage, clawing hopelessly at the water, but each second that passed found him another foot beneath the surface.

At ten feet, Parnell could hold his breath no longer and he coughed the oxygen-depleted air from his lungs. He gagged on the first trickles of water that ran down his throat as he inhaled the river. Each involuntary spasm, his body’s frantic search for air, sent another mouthful of the river into his rapidly flooding lungs. Twenty feet down, he was no longer aware of the brown-black world that surrounded him. Parnell’s mind had closed in upon itself in the final moments of consciousness.

The broken stern of Merlin spiraled silently downward into the silty river with the body of Ian Parnell impaled upon its fractured end. A few scattered bubbles sprang loose when the wreckage struck bottom, tumbling upward to the surface. The weight of the stern pushed Parnell’s body down into the soft river bottom.