Rogue Angel 46: Treasure of Lima (21 page)

37

Open
water

West of Costa Rica

It took her nearly two hours to overcome the
Pride
’s lead and then catch up with the vessel.

They were in international waters at this point, a long way from either Cocos Island or Costa Rica.

Which was good, given what she was going to do next.

She got close enough that she knew the pilot of the other boat, most likely Hugo, had to be aware of her now and so she reached up and flipped on the switch for the loudspeaker.

“
Neptune’s Pride,
this is
Sea Dancer.
You are harboring fugitives from justice and are ordered to stop and accept an immediate boarding. I say again,
Neptune’s Pride,
this is
Sea Dancer,
over.”

Annja began to steer the
Dancer
closer to the other vessel, crowding her, trying to get her to turn and heave to. The pilot of the other vessel recognized her tactics and continually tried to avoid her. They crossed paths several times and came alarmingly close to collisions along the sides and sterns of the ships but none of that slowed the other vessel down. When such jockeying for position didn’t work after nearly ten minutes, the crew of the
Pride
tried something new.

They stuck a rifle barrel out the back window of the bridge and fired upon her.

Annja threw herself to the deck as high-velocity bullets shattered the glass along the front-bridge windows and ricocheted around the command room.

From her spot on the floor, Annja called them a few choice names while the hail of gunfire danced about the room. Thankfully, none of it hit her or any of the important bridge controls. It would be pure luck if it did, but then again, luck hadn’t been so kind to her on this trip of late and she fully expected every vital part of the bridge to take at least one, maybe two, bullets right through it.

When the firing slowed, Annja reached up, grabbed the wheel and put the
Dancer
on a forty-five-degree angle relative to the
Pride,
sending the two ships apart from each other.

As the
Dancer
pulled away from the slower and less maneuverable
Pride,
Annja put it on autopilot and went back to dig through some of the gear they had down below. She was specifically looking for something that might help her get the other boat to slow down enough to allow her to board it.

She found what she was looking for in the ship’s locker.

It was known as a prop fouler, and devices like it had become popular as antipirate devices following their use by conservationists who used them to jamb up the propellers of the Japanese whaling vessels they were protesting against. It was basically a large weighted net made from Kevlar rope that was thrown into the wake of the propellers where it would be sucked forward into the blades of the ship, effectively jamming them. Earlier versions had been basic nets that were easily unwound from the propellers by simply putting the engines into reverse. The latest versions were not only made out of stronger material, but were weighted like this one to make them much harder to get off the driveshaft and propeller blades.

Annja intended to use it on the
Neptune’s Pride.

In order to do so, however, she was going to have to get close enough to cast it into the prop wash of the boat.

They, of course, would no doubt be shooting at her all the while.

Short of ramming the other vessel, however, she couldn’t think of any way to get them to heave to.

And then her gaze fell on the twin speedboats attached to the rear of the
Dancer
and she knew she’d found her solution.

* * *

T
WENTY
MINUTES
LATER
she added power to the engine and turned the
Dancer
back toward the
Pride.
The current course she’d set would take the
Dancer
right across the bow of the
Pride.

It was simply intended as a ruse. While Claire’s and her cronies’ attention was on the
Dancer,
Annja would do a drive-by of the rear of the
Pride
and unleash her prop fouler. Once the boat was dead in the water, she could board when ready, take out Hugo and Marcos, capture Claire and return with them to the Incan city hidden inside Mount Yglesias.

A walk in the park, she thought, but knew it was anything but that simple.

Satisfied the controls were set in the proper sequence and that the ship would respond in the manner she needed it to when she needed it, Annja abandoned the bridge and headed aft. She hadn’t taken ten steps before the
Dancer
heaved hard to port and began to speed up. By the time she reached the main deck, the engines were running full tilt and the
Dancer
was cutting through the waves as gracefully as its namesake.

Someone on the
Pride
laid on the ship’s horn, firing off a long blast to try to warn the
Dancer
off, and Annja knew that she’d been seen. Things would go more quickly now.

By the time she reached the motor launches at the back of the
Dancer,
her recorded messages began to broadcast from the bridge, adding to the cacophony of sound and motion that she was building to hide her true intention.

“
Sea Dancer
to
Neptune’s Pride. Sea Dancer
to
Neptune’s Pride.
Heave to and prepare to be boarded. You are in violation of the UN and UNESCO charters on World Heritage artifacts. The captain of this vessel is exercising her right as a...”

The message went on for nearly ten minutes, full of quoted statutes and legalistic phrases. It was all complete garbage; Annja had cobbled it together with the help of the internet not fifteen minutes before. It wasn’t supposed to stand up in court, only distract them with her constantly droning voice. While her recorded words blathered on, Annja fired up the motor launch and disengaged from the
Dancer,
standing in the ship’s shadow for the time being to hide her presence.

Annja had hooked the proximity alarm to the intercom as well so that, too, filled the air between the vessels as the
Dancer
bore down on the slower
Pride.
She expected the alarm to cut off when the
Pride
turned out of the
Dancer
’s path, but as it continued Annja realized that the
Pride
wasn’t going to turn.

Hugo was playing chicken.

Annja laughed.
Wait until he figures out there’s no one in the captain’s chair.

Satisfied that she’d created enough of a distraction to cover her run at the props, Annja eased the motor launch away from the
Dancer
and swung around the stern of the ship, beginning her attack run.

As she came out of the
Dancer
’s shadow, she got her first good look at the
Pride.
It was ahead and to the port of the
Dancer
and it was currently doing everything it could to make an emergency turn in the same direction.

She could clearly see that the captain had waited too long to start his evasive maneuvers and there was little to keep the two ships from colliding. The
Pride
had moved enough to keep the
Dancer
from impaling her on its prow, but it would still do some significant damage to the side of the vessel.

If she timed it right, she might be able to toss the prop fouler right at the moment of maximum confusion, when the two ships bumped into each other.

She just needed to get close enough.

Annja gunned the launch’s engine and nearly whooped aloud at the power beneath her feet. She sped toward the rear of the
Pride,
intent on ending this as quickly as she could. All she needed was one good throw....

Annja was expecting to take gunfire from the upper deck of the
Pride,
but no one noticed her kamikaze approach. She was able to steer right up next to the
Pride
’s stern and then throw the fouler with near-perfect accuracy into the churning water above the propeller blades.

As soon as she let the net go, she threw the wheel hard to port, cutting away from the big ship in a wide arc.

Seconds later the engines of the
Pride
went silent as the propellers seized, the fouler’s netting wrapping around the blades and driveshaft like a vise.

The larger vessel began to slow almost immediately.

Annja brought the launch around and headed for the side of the ship, intending to climb aboard as quickly as possible to end this fiasco once and for all. She was watching the upper deck of the
Pride
pretty closely as she approached, which was why she saw Hugo the moment he brought his rifle up and over the side of the ship.

Annja knew she was in trouble. She was totally exposed, just as she’d feared. With twenty-five feet to go before she reached the side of the ship, she’d never get there and get aboard before Hugo shot her. Nor could she hit the gas and escape; from his higher vantage point, he’d be able to shoot at her easily.

Hugo apparently assessed the situation in a similar way, for a wide smile crossed his face as he brought the rifle to his shoulder.

Annja did the only thing she could think of to do.

She dived overboard as the crack of a rifle shot filled the air.

38

Neptune’s
Pride

East of Cocos Island

Annja heard the bullet zing by her shoulder as she dived into the sea. Images of frenzied sharks and blood in the water flashed through her mind.

She reversed directions as soon as she disappeared beneath the surface, swimming as fast as possible for the safety that the hull of the
Pride
would provide. Dimly she heard more shots being fired and saw darting ghosts whip past her on their way to the depths as Hugo filled the area with gunfire.

Miraculously, none of the bullets hit her and she was able to reach the hull of the
Pride
without injury. That, of course, left her with a new problem—how to surface for more air without getting shot by Hugo.

A problem she needed to solve very quickly.

Her lungs were already screaming at her to open her mouth and breathe, despite the small issue of being submerged. Still, she knew she couldn’t hold out much longer. She needed a place she could surface and stay hidden.

But where?

The answer, when it came to her, was perfect. She just hoped she had enough air to make it.

She could hear more shots being fired as she turned and followed the line of the hull toward the rear of the ship, where the
Pride
’s motor launches were kept in hanging berths jutting out over the water.

Only one of the launches was currently aboard the ship—Annja had taken the other one to the
Sea Dancer
—and as she swam for the surface, her lungs screaming for her to breathe, she knew that she could be surfacing right into Hugo’s sights if the launch was docked on the other side of the ship.

Please let it be there...please....

Her head broke the surface of the water...and bumped into the underside of the launch hanging six inches above the sea. She opened her mouth and sucked in a great lungful of air.

She clung to the underside of the launch, catching her breath and deciding what to do next. She’d stopped the
Pride
as intended and sent the
Sea Dancer
motoring along. If she could get aboard the ship, she could deal with her three former companions in the manner they deserved.

The best way to do that, it seemed, was to swim for the back of the boat and climb up onto the dive platform, using that as an entryway into the ship. Now that she knew where she was, it should be an easy feat.

Provided Hugo didn’t think of the same thing and end up waiting there for her.

She took a deep breath and dived beneath the surface.

She kept one hand on the hull of the ship above her head, using the other to help propel her along toward the rear of the vessel. It wasn’t far—twenty feet at most.

When she felt the dive platform above her head, she slowly surfaced, doing what she could to not make noise as she broke the plane of the water.

The platform was dimly lit but even in the low light she could see that it was empty.

She grabbed it with two hands, pulled her body up and then stood.

Hugo stepped out from behind the rack holding the scuba tanks and put the barrel of his rifle in the center of her forehead.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said.

Annja didn’t hesitate; she moved her head sharply to one side, getting out of the line of fire, and called her sword at the exact same moment, thrusting it forward even as it emerged from the otherwhere.

Hugo’s eyes bulged, his rifle went off and blood poured out of his mouth as three feet of hardened steel punctured his chest just beneath his rib cage, rose diagonally through the body cavity above that point, to emerge from his back just shy of his neckline.

He opened his mouth as if to say something and died.

One down,
Annja thought.

She gave a tug, realized she was not going to be getting her sword out that way and simply let it vanish into the otherwhere so that she wouldn’t have to spend precious minutes trying to free it from Hugo’s corpse.

She brought it back immediately. Feeling as if she’d just been reunited with her better half, Annja moved to go in search of the others and then paused.

She looked back at Hugo’s body.

If someone stumbled upon his corpse, it would be immediately obvious that there was an intruder on board, Annja thought. But if he just happened to disappear, they couldn’t be sure.

What the enemy thought they knew was often more dangerous and more beneficial to their opponents than they sometimes realized. If she could get Claire and Marcos doubting what Hugo was up to, she would put them off their game and gain an advantage, even a slight one, when the time came.

To that end Annja opened up the dive locker where all the scuba gear was stored and removed two weight belts. One would probably be enough but no sense taking chances.

She slipped the belts around Hugo’s waist and secured them both. Satisfied, she dragged the corpse over to the diving pool that provided access to the ocean outside the ship through a narrow vertical tunnel kept at positive pressure, then dumped the corpse into it.

As expected, it sank like a stone and quickly disappeared from sight.

She found a bucket and used some water to sluice away the blood from the deck. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a whole sight better than it had been five minutes before. It would have to do.

Satisfied, she turned her attention to locating the other two.

She crept through the lower deck, barely able to hear anything thanks to the proximity of Hugo’s last gunshot. She knew her hearing would come back to her, but she didn’t know how long it would take and without it she felt like a sitting duck. She couldn’t afford to wait it out; she had little doubt that King Tupac would happily slaughter Knowles and any of his team Annja had left behind in retribution for the death of his son.

Annja moved quietly to the middle of the ship, where she found the stairs rising to the next deck. She stopped there, torn with indecision.

Should she continue forward and check the rest of the lower deck, be certain that they weren’t down there, or should she continue up to the next level and hunt there? If she did stay on this level, how would she know if they came down and went aft while she was in the forward compartments? And if that happened, what if...?

Don’t overthink it. Go forward; clear one deck at a time. Make sure you are not leaving the enemy in your wake with the potential to harm you.

She did so without finding anyone and then returned to the stairs. She stood at the base of the steps and listened, straining to hear anything from above, but she was hampered by the fact that her ears were still ringing from the gunshot.

Unable to make out anything beyond the norm, Annja started up the steps.

She reached the middeck and slowed to look forward and then aft. Most of the aft portion was given over to storage rooms and machinery, everything from the machine shop to the bilge-equipment room. Forward, however, were more of the living spaces for the crew and guests—staterooms, labs, the galley and general wardroom.

Marcos seemed the type who hated the trivialities of day-to-day work, so if he was on this deck he’d most likely be forward rather than aft.

So check the aft compartments, cross them off the list and then move forward. Let’s move; time’s wasting.

She did just that, moving through the compartments as quietly as possible so as to not give away her position. She kept waiting for someone to discover some evidence that pointed to her battle with Hugo, but so far no alarm had been raised. It helped that there had only been three of them on the ship to start with, now reduced to two.

When she had checked the aft section of the middeck without finding anyone, she returned to the stairs and headed forward. For all she knew both Claire and Marcos were holed up in the bridge high above the main deck, but she wasn’t going to take the chance of being wrong and allow them to strike at her from behind.

Annja was checking one of the staterooms when she thought she heard something coming from one of the rooms farther along the row. Cautiously, she moved closer.

As she stepped through the door, something came whistling toward her at eye level.

She didn’t wait to see what it was, just let her instincts take over, diving forward, underneath the blow, and somersaulted on landing so that she came back up facing the door she’d just left.

Marcos stood to one side, a thick piece of metal with a vicious-looking steel hook on one end, a kind of makeshift fishing gaffer, in his hand.

It had been the end of that hook that she’d heard whistling toward her head just seconds ago.

When Marcos’s attention shifted for a split second to pulling his hook free from the wall it had sunken into when it had missed her, Annja called her sword to hand and stood ready.

Marcos looked back at her and blinked. “Where you’d get that pigsticker?” he asked, perhaps even genuinely curious as he hadn’t seen her with it just seconds before.

Annja opened her mouth to reply, but Marcos was on her in an instant, trying to use his bigger size to overwhelm her with the sheer ferocity of his attack, his gaff lashing out again and again. Slash and parry, cut and jab. Back and forth they went, neither of them gaining any significant advantage, their weapons ringing every time they came into contact with each other.

They broke apart for a moment, both of them breathing heavily.

Annja tried circling to her right, watching Marcos closely to see if there might be some opening that she could exploit in the midst of their next exchange, but the big warrior had spent too many years in the military to give away a tell like that. He stood his ground, letting her use up her energy while he conserved his own.

Suddenly Marcos exploded toward her, the hook on the end of his gaff swinging in toward Annja’s midsection in a vicious strike.

Annja dropped the point of her sword and met the long, narrow arm of the gaff with the edge of her blade, letting the power behind Marcos’s strike dissipate elsewhere. Even as she did so, she twisted her own weapon around in an arc that was aimed to gut Marcos where he stood.

But the former soldier was already gone by the time the blow had landed, dancing back out of range on nimble feet.

Back and forth they went across the wardroom, blow after blow, twisting and turning, each of them striving to gain the upper hand and deliver the winning blow.

So far neither of them came close.

Marcos came in again, swinging the gaff, but something about his tactics was different this time and Annja wouldn’t be drawn in so easily. She understood why a moment later when he made a surprise strike with his opposite hand that immediately followed a missed strike with the gaff and a wickedly curved knife narrowly missed her hip.

There was more to his abilities than first appeared, it seemed. She would do well to remember that.

Marcos broke away again, putting some space between them. Annja wasn’t completely surprised—she needed a break, too—but then Marcos turned and ran from the room, disappearing into the maze of rooms beyond.

It was going to take some time to flush him out, especially on her own, and time was something she really couldn’t spare.

Marcos had headed toward the galley and food storage areas, so there were plenty of hiding places up ahead that she was going to need to be watchful for.

At the door through which Marcos had disappeared, she paused to listen. She didn’t hear anything that might give his presence away, so she reached into the room, searching for the light switch.

“Looking for me?” came Marcos’s sarcastic voice in her ear just before he drove his ham-size fist right into the side of her head, concussed only two days before.

Blinding white light filled her senses. Annja’s world spun and she was vaguely aware of someone vomiting nearby. It took her several seconds to realize that someone was her and there wasn’t anything that she could do about it. Her hands were empty, her sword seeming to have vanished back to the otherwhere.

Marcos seized her by the shoulders, lifted her off the ground and smashed her against a wall.

Even through the pain she knew he was coming for her and she tried to push herself up, tried to get to her feet, but her head was screaming, the pain mesmerizing in its ruthlessness, and all she managed to do was a kind of stumbling half crouch. She tried to summon her sword again, tried to will it back into her hand like she’d done so many times before, but the pain was so intense that she couldn’t seem to connect.

This time he grabbed her by the back of her shirt and the waistband of her pants and hurled her across a crowded counter. The sound of metal clanging made her think of her sword again and she tried to call it to hand. She could feel it in the otherwhere, straining to answer her summons, but she was dizzy, and it was like trying to see through cloth, hazy and indistinct.

Had her head injury done something to her? Had it cut off her connection with the sword?

Panic swelled and her hands shuffled fearfully about the countertop, searching for something that she could use to defend herself with as Marcos stalked closer.

“I told you,” he mocked as he came toward her. “Told you that you’d get your own. Now it’s time for you to understand just who’s in charge of this expedition!”

He grabbed her and spun her to face him, which was precisely the kind of targeting she needed. With him directly in front of her, she couldn’t miss.

Her arm came up and the paring knife that she’d scooped up off the counter came thundering down into Marcos’s shoulder.

He howled and then backhanded her across the face, sending her stumbling across the room to the launch’s industrial-size oven.

His blow had either knocked something into place or else the effects of his original strike were finally wearing off, for the pain in her head began subsiding. The thick blanket that had wrapped itself about her senses was fading, and as she stood there, arms braced on the stove, head hanging down, she realized that she could see. Those scratched and bloody things attached to her arms? Those were her hands. And if she could see her hands...