The Assassin's Wife Page 16

  “You crazy bitch, I’ll kill you.”

  Meg waved her gun at the others. “Any more heroes?”

  They both shook their heads. One of them stepped backwards.

  Meg ran down the hall with feline grace and pushed open the exit door, squinting her eyes against the blinding sun, which reflected off the water like a glittering field of light bulbs. She descended two flights of stairs down to the “D” deck and then two more down to “C” deck, where she pushed open a door and lunged into the superstructure. She saw a door that said Engine Room and was confused. How could the engine room door be so high up?

  She entered, closing the door behind her. Her feet clanked down flight after flight of metal stairs before she finally got to the bottom. It sounded like a freight train was roaring overhead.

  She was now in the very bowels of the ship. Huge machinery surrounded her. Whirs, hisses, clanking and pounding filled her ears. Heat radiated on her face, a shocking contrast to the cold on deck.

  Meg ran one direction but it took her nowhere. She sprang back and tried another walkway. She could see men several stories up coming down the same stairs she had. She fired a shot at one of them and this time wished she could have heard its sound.

  Another hall brought her to another dead end—generators and pipes and controls, machinery everywhere. She raced down another route, and it took her down into a dark nook where she found a ladder. She climbed up a chimney toward a manhole cover that had a thin ring of daylight shining around the edge. She pushed it open.

  “Up there.”

  The voice came from far below her, but she dove out of the manhole, half expecting to take a bullet in the stomach. Realizing that she was okay, she slammed the manhole cover shut and cranked the latches down quickly. Now on the main deck, she ran along the alleyway underneath the containers that were stacked up above, four stories high. Her feet clapped the steel as she passed huge rope cleats and massive support beams holding up the container superstructure above. The sun reflected off the sea, almost blinding her, but she shielded her eyes with her hand and kept moving.

  Meg passed a cross-wise alleyway. She stopped and considered cutting over to the port side, but just then two goons hurried past along the port rail, heading toward the bow. Meg walked the other way toward the helicopter pad.

  Since the alleyway she was following was below the container deck, she passed through shadowy areas, areas with lots of big machinery and huge winches.

  She heard the shouts of approaching men. Climbing up onto massive rope bollards, she reached up and jumped for the railing above on the container deck. She hung there for a moment then pulled herself up, climbing up over the rail and flattening her back up against the wall of containers. A few moments later, three men with assault rifles ran past on the alleyway below her. They did not look up, so Meg shoved her pistol back under her belt and climbed back down.

  She followed the hallway to the other side of the boat. Walking forward, she passed massive vertical support columns along the rail. Up ahead she saw a stairway. Then suddenly legs appeared as a man ran down the stairs. Meg fell behind one of the massive vertical support columns and held her pistol in front of her.

  The sailor ran past, but Meg could see his facial muscles tighten as he looked back. He raised his assault rifle as he spun around. Meg squeezed off three silenced shots that took the man in the chest and shoulder, spinning him around before he crashed to the steel deck. He tried to climb up onto his elbows, but collapsed.

  Meg lifted her foot, and her shoe came into contact with the side of his face. As his head snapped to the side, he grunted and sank down. Meg kicked his weapon away from him, and she headed up the alleyway.

  She walked slowly, deliberately. She flattened her back to the wall for a moment, swung her pistol around the corner, and aimed down the dim area of another passageway. Nobody was there. She sighed with relief. She hurried past the stairway up to the container deck. Huge chains hung down from above, and the bright sunshine still glittered on the water below.

  She passed a first aid box and a life ring on the wall. She raised her gun again as she came to the next corridor. She swung her gun around the corner as she had before, aiming toward the opposite rail. By the time she noticed the movement above her, it was too late. To her right was a wall of containers, to her left the main superstructure, but a man stood on a ledge above just waiting.

  Meg raised her gun, but the man had already jumped and was flying at her. She lunged out of the way, but his arms came down on her left shoulder. She crashed to the deck along with her attacker. Her gun clattered along the alleyway, and after taking an almost blinding shot to the head from a steel support beam, she scrambled dizzily on hands and knees after her Colt.

  Two hands seized her ankle and twisted. Meg shrieked in pain and rolled over to avoid this ape tearing all the ligaments in her knee. The man who she’d pistol whipped in the wheelhouse dragged her up onto her feet, and holding her by a handful of hair began to viciously beat her face. His blows came with brutal force, and Meg was drinking blood from her torn up cheeks.

  “Thought you could escape from Danny Boy, didn’t you? Think again.” Pulling Meg’s hair, he bent her backwards over the rail. “I ought to toss you overboard, but Carl wants the pleasure of your company.” His free hand smashed her across the side of her face and eye. A bolt of electric pain shot down her neck. Danny Boy now violently shoved her down onto her knees and said, “Beg me not to break your face.”

  Meg’s shoulder muscles hardened as she delivered a crushing backwards kick to Danny Boy’s knee. She heard a popping sound as he collapsed.

  Thinking that she only had a second, Meg scrambled for her gun.

  From behind her, she heard, “Now you die.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder, and despite a look of pure agony on his face, Danny Boy got up on his good knee and threw a hunting knife at her. Meg felt the blade tear into her calf muscle. She shrieked in pain as she fell. Her fingers wrapped around the handle of her gun as Danny reached for his shoulder holster. As she rolled over she swung her gun around, and she sent two powerful messages to her attacker. The man twisted backwards. A startled, awful change overcame him. Shock and wonder overcame his expression as his posture sagged, and he hunched forward falling flat on his face. Meg staggered down the alleyway, limping, blood soaking her right leg. She was passing a door when something reached out and caught her foot.

  Meg’s head hit the steel deck hard.

  How long she was knocked out she did not know, but a bucket of cold water revived her. She knew that the game was over.

  Two thugs hauled her onto her feet, but one of them said in a thick Bosnian accent, “I’m sorry about this, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” The other man said, “Carl wants you on deck. Let’s go.”

  Meg limped along and tasted the blood running from the cut under her swelling eye and dripping over her fat lips. Her tongue was covered with blood from her torn up mouth. The salty and coppery taste of her own blood did not concern her, though. The gaping wound on her leg did.

  She collapsed from the pain in her calf, but her escorts caught her and helped her along.

  CHAPTER 49

  Out on deck, the cold wind made Meg shake.

  The crew was waiting on deck—twenty men, half in radiation suits, a few smiling, most with morbid expressions on their faces as if they had just heard something horrible. They stood by a blue shipping container, and the container’s doors hung open. The crane’s cable dangled above the container, and its hook was almost hitting the metal roof as it gently swung back and forth.

  Carl’s arrogant look of triumph filled Meg with dread and fear. The two men shoved her into the container. Waiting inside, Lomax caught her in his arms. She looked at John for a moment then behind him at the car-size steel container marked “Radioactive Waste”.

  “Get those damn doors closed,” Carl said as he left to return to his office.

  The doors s
wung shut. The confined space got dark, but rust had eaten through the walls, leaving a few narrow holes where light filtered in. After a couple of minutes, Meg heard the whine of the crane, and then she felt the container begin to swing on the end of the cable. John hugged Meg tightly and gave her a kiss.

  “What are they going to do?” Meg said. She was violently shaking with fear.

  The swinging was especially wild because of the stormy weather. They braced themselves to keep from falling. The car-sized steel box of waste started to slide toward them. Meg screamed. The corner of the steel box got wedged into the grooves of the corrugated walls just before crushing them.

  The shipping container made long swings as the crane swung it on the cable, and Meg dropped to the floor to keep from slamming against the side. The huge steel box slid back and crashed into the wall at the far end, but the shipping container swung back the other direction. At the height of the arc, the big steel box broke loose and slid at Meg with all the force of a huge meat tenderizer. Ready to be crushed against the steel door of the shipping container, she screamed. As the big steel box slid, it turned. Again the corners of the steel box got wedged between the corrugated interior walls just before it crushed her and Lomax.

  A loud smacking sound confirmed Meg’s worst fears. They were sinking the container into the ocean. Being crushed by the big box was no longer a concern because the swinging had stopped. But now she realized that she must die a slow death, drowning in freezing water. She could hear the waves lapping against the corrugated steel sides. Water poured in through the cracks around the doors and through corroded areas on the lower portions of the walls.

  The shipping container sank slowly, and freezing water poured in. When the water got to her knees, it made her bones ache from the low temperature and stung the stab wound on her calf. When the liquid got to her chest, it had her breathing rapidly from its frigidity and a massive dose of adrenaline. She was vigorously treading water now with her head only inches from the roof.

  The water rose. She took a last deep breath as the container filled completely. She held her breath for maybe a minute, but it felt like an eternity of torture.

  Air come back. Air come back.

  Meg’s lungs clung to her breath, desperately wanting to expel the air and inhale more, but her mind would not allow this. Meg had the thought that she should stay calm or she’d use up what little air she had, but relaxing was an almost impossible feat due to the extreme cold water. Her natural reflex to the frigid assault was to move and move violently—her body telling her to get out of the water fast. She pushed her body up against the wall and her face against the ceiling. She vigorously felt for air with her hands, but could not find any.

  The sharp blade of pressure pushed into her ears. What began as a dull ache built into pain. Her brain had taken the lead now. It pumped frantic thoughts through her consciousness—find air, find air. She swam, but ran into Lomax.

  She could feel the frantic and jerking motions of his body. Instinctively, she pushed him away and swam to a corner. In his own primordial fight for survival, Lomax had become dangerous to her. It flashed through her panicked mind that there was air in his lungs. If she could pry his lips apart and suck out the air, then she could get a breath.

  Thoughts of the crewmen above entered her tormented skull next. They had air in their lungs. Those bastards had air in their lungs and she did not. She must get air.

  Meg’s lungs burned as flesh under a scorching brand iron. She desperately wanted to inhale, but water surrounded her lips, numbed her face. She clawed at the wall, trying to tear through the rust, but even in her desperate state, she quickly realized that the wall was completely solid. Still, her lungs screamed for more air. She clawed at the container wall and felt flesh tear away from her fingertips.

  Now, she thought. I need air now.

  Meg pounded against the wall. She felt Lomax brush up against her as he pushed off from the wall and swam back to the other side, fighting his own battle for survival. Meg continued to hold her breath until the breathing reflex became unbearable. In a moment of panic and terror, she realized that she had tried to breathe.

  I’m going to die.

  Freezing seawater filled her airways. She tried to cough up the water, but this only caused her to inhale more. She felt the searing cold water enter her stomach.

  Meg convulsed spasmodically, fighting an unseen enemy.

  Her fighting ceased, and she floated in and out of consciousness. She entered a pleasant state of submission, a euphoric state of peace where she no longer fought against greater powers.

  Why had she fought? Submission was heavenly.

  As her body rolled over, her hand came out of the water. She felt air, but thought she was hallucinating. Heavenly dreams of air. But to breathe water was even more pleasant.

  A river swept her away, and her body rolled out onto the deck of the Sturgeon. It was all a sweet dream.

  Then the pain returned with a vengeance. Meg flailed on the hard steel deck like a fish. Her body heaved and moved in ways that she could not control as she vomited sea water over and over.

  “Let her get it out,” the man with the Bosnian accent said.

  Meg became aware of a distant pounding sound.

  The coughing came in fits, and Meg involuntarily got up onto her knees to try and get more of the water out. She coughed vigorously, and pain spread through her chest and stomach.

  She heard coughing between her own fits. She forced her eyelids open and saw Lomax lying next to her.

  It then became clear to her that they had been hauled back on board.

  Meg groped for a lungful and then greedily expelled it for another—bigger this time. Air was a luxury. She could see the air and feel the air. Her chest heaved as she took bigger and deeper breaths between fits of coughing.

  She coughed up more sea water. The container rested on the deck, having been craned back aboard. Meg was hauled onto her feet and pushed over by the Bosnian. She looked around at the amazed and fascinated faces of crewmen. The pounding sound in her ear grew.

  Carl stormed back out on deck. “Why did you bring it back up, Rene? I told you to let it drop. I thought I told you never to question my orders.”

  “Shut up,” Rene said. “Greatness requires boldness and foresight.”

  A soft whirring sound filled the sky.

  Carl looked up. “Who’s that?”

  Meg tried to focus her eyes on a black spot in the sky. The pounding in her ears became deafening. Then the blurry ink spot became a helicopter. She looked over at Lomax. He was smiling and then she remembered Fogerty. Lomax must have signaled his mercenary friend to come get them before Carl threw him in the container.

  Hanging out of the Kiowa Warrior helicopter door with a grenade launcher, Jeffrey fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the ship, creating a moment of chaos. A fireball erupted in the wheelhouse. Glass rained down on the main deck. Crewman ran and dove for cover as a second grenade screamed in through the wheelhouse’s blown out windows and exploded.

  Meg and Lomax ran, fleeing amidst the confusion. At the stern, Meg swung herself over the rail and descended the boarding ladder to a shore boat tied up below. Lomax was right behind her. She sparked the engine into action and shoved the gas lever ahead. The boat’s front end lifted up as it took the waves.

  From above, the swells hadn’t seemed half as intimidating as they did from sea level. The boat rose on every swell and then dropped down into the following trough where Meg couldn’t even see the distant island due to the walls of water surrounding them.

  Unfortunately, once they left the wind protection provided by the massive ship, the waves were white-capping in the pounding gusts. Cross seas ran at them from the port side, creating havoc on the ocean’s surface. At three hundred yards out, confused swells heaped up and dumped barrels of Bering Sea into the shore boat. Lomax looked frantically for something to bail with, but found no bucket.

  “Will we make it to th
e beach?” Lomax said. As if to answer his question, nature thrust up an uncaring rogue wave, dumping a heavy load of the sea into their bilges.

  The engines didn’t stall, but the boat was barely making headway now. She was nearly swamped, and the Alaskan water froze their limbs all over again.

  “We’ll have to swim,” Meg said.

  Lomax clung to the wheel and shook his head negatively. “In these currents, we won’t have a chance.”

  As the boat dropped into the next trough, Meg felt sure it would never rise again, but it did. On the next crest, she looked back at the ship, actually hoping that they were giving chase. She actually wanted to be captured now, but all she saw were a few men crouched down at the rails, watching the spectacle of their doom.

  Meg pointed. “Look.”

  “Fogerty,” Lomax said. “Come on, you slacker. Get your ass over here.”

  The helicopter had flown over the island and turned for another pass. As it flew overhead, Meg said, “My God, he doesn’t see us.”

  The chopper buzzed the ship, and another grenade exploded, this one on the main deck. In answer, a few gunmen fired at the helicopter, which banked left and swooped back toward Meg and Lomax, who were knee deep and getting ready to swim.

  The whirlybird hovered above them as a rope dropped down. Even with a sack of sand attached to the harness, the wind thrashed it around. After a few failed attempts, Meg snagged the rope. She climbed into the harness, and as the winch lifted her, Lomax hung onto the rope. As they rose out of the wave trough into the open air, the wind hit them and sent them swinging wildly and spinning in mid air. At the same time, the chopper roared toward the island and she was hoisted onboard by Fogerty.

  “Ma’am, you stirred up a hornet’s nest something nasty.”

  CHAPTER 50