Thomas Prescott Superpack (90 page)

I tracked the moving Tupac with Gilroy’s inhales and exhales, my gun moving up and down with the rise and fall of Gilroy’s chest. As his chest fell, I pulled the trigger twice.

The first bullet skimmed over Tupac’s head. The second bullet blew out his brains.

I let out a long exhale though my nose, dropped the gun, and rolled off Gilroy. A couple moments later, I felt a body kneel beside me. I craned my head upward and said matter a fact, “Hey sis.”

“Nice shooting.”

“Anybody get hurt?”

“Just those three assholes.”

Lacy began ripping the duct tape from the chair. A moment later she was joined by Frank, J.J., Susie, even Walter and Marge began helping rip away the tape.

“That was fucking awesome,” spat J.J.

“Glad I could entertain you.”

The tape was removed and Frank pulled me to my feet. He wrapped his huge arms around me. I hugged him back. Then pushed him off. There was no time for long drawn out man affection.

I scanned the room. All the hostages were staring at our little group. Most were dumbfounded. Not sure what to think about the mini OK Corral they’d just witnessed. I told Lacy I needed her to round up our lesbian friends. She nodded then headed to where they were seated.

Ganju was limping up the inclined aisle.

I looked down where Trinity was kneeling over Gilroy, caressing his face. I wondered if she knew he’d tried to sell her out. Probably not.

I ran to where the roll of duct tape was on the ground and ran back. I knelt beside Gilroy’s bloodied legs. Bone splintered through his shin and his knee looked like someone had smashed it in with a hammer. Blood continued to ooze from the wounds and I again wondered why this man still had a pulse.

Trinity looked at me and asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

“If we get him to a hospital soon enough, he should be. But we’re going to have to move him and we can’t risk him losing any more blood.”

I began pulling off long strips of duct tape and made two tourniquets. Each time I would wrap the tape around one of his legs, Gilroy would whimper. When I finished, I stood.

Ganju let out a long exhale and said, “Nice shooting.”

“You too.”

I looked down at his left foot. His shoe was red. I asked, “You get hit?”

“Just a scratch.”

Lacy returned with Berta and Reen.

J.J. asked, “So what’s the plan?”

I told them.

DECK 5

9:55 p.m.

Thapa made his way across the stage, hesitating slightly as he clumped past both pirates’ corpses. After he’d shot and killed the pirate on stage, he had turned to see that one of the pirates who should have still been near the door, had moved halfway down the ramp and was pulling his gun up. Thapa couldn’t risk a shot in the pirate’s direction, for if he missed, he would surely hit one of the hostages. As the pirate’s gun had come up, Thapa dove for cover, trying to roll under the curtain. He’d been successful, but the pirate had unloaded on him and one of the bullets clipped his left foot. Thapa had never been shot before, his worst injury having been a broken forearm, and his foot now felt like someone had dipped it in gasoline and lit it on fire.

For an instant, he wondered if what he felt at the moment was what his son felt every time he took a step. Thapa pushed his son’s crippled leg from his mind. There would be plenty of time for self-loathing later. Right now, he had a job to do.

Thapa clamored down the steps at the far back of the stage and down to District 9, then out the doors and to the galley that housed the food for both District 9 and a small cafe at the rear of Deck 5. He pulled open the enormous walk-in cold storage and stepped inside. Sadly, this refrigerator, one of a half dozen on the ship, was probably the safest place to be if the ship did explode. Of course, the ship would sink quickly thereafter, but nestled next to the hundreds of hamburger patties and the large plastic bags of chicken tenders, and cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, one might survive.

But Thapa wasn’t interested in the burgers, he was interested in the four tier wedding cake sitting on the wheeled table at back. Thapa had stumbled on the cake when he’d done a thorough inspection of the ship the first day. Atop the cake, were two small figurines. Thapa couldn’t help but notice both figurines were women. Maybe someone had goofed.

Thapa pushed the cart holding the cake from the walk-in and towards the elevator opposite District 9. As he pushed the cart—his left foot stepping, dragging, stepping, dragging—into the lobby, he surveyed the winding staircase. It had been blocked off with dozens of the large chairs from the show lounge. He imagined a giant wall of fifty or sixty of the large leather chairs. The pirates would not get to Deck 6 by stairway.

He wondered if they had started to lower the lifeboats. He hoped they were being careful. They were relatively safe from attack or gunfire from below, but one man with a gun on the above decks could lean over the railing and unload a barrage of bullets. But the only people above Deck 6 were Baruti and The Mosquito and the girl. They were at the opposite end from the lifeboats and they were preoccupied. Hopefully.

Thapa pushed the cart through two more rooms, then into the elevator shaft. This would be the elevator’s last voyage. The ride should have lasted only a couple seconds, but Thapa had a bit of cake redecorating to do, and it took well over a minute. The elevator door opened for Deck 2 and Thapa inserted a key, shutting all the elevators off.

He pushed the cart into the lobby and started towards Pretoria. As the two pirates sitting in chairs outside the restaurant doors came into view, Thapa gritted his teeth. As much as it hurt, he needed to walk as normal as possible. He couldn’t risk one of these guys looking down at his foot, which looked as though it had been dipped in strawberry syrup.

The pirates stood as he approached; one had short, matted, black hair, the other a red bandanna.

Thapa smiled and said, “I brought you guys a present.”

The two pirates smiled. The one without the bandanna took a step forward, dipped his finger into the top tier of icing and stuck it in his mouth.

Thapa hoped the two pirates didn’t notice the second tier of the cake was slightly lop-sided. He pointed to the spot where it appeared a fist had driven into the cake and said, “I’d stay away from there. I think they might have dropped that part on the floor.”

The pirates laughed.

“Why don’t you go get your buddies,” said Thapa. “I’ll watch over things for a while.”

The pirate with the red bandanna nodded, pulled Pretoria’s large double doors open and walked in. Thapa stared through the doors at the dejected people huddled around the tables. He made an oath to himself every person in that room would survive.

Thapa walked to the door and peeked inside. There was probably a minute to spare. Maybe less. Two pirates were walking in his direction, cutting through the tables. Both looked excited at the promise of cake. A moment later, they strolled past Thapa and joined the other two in their gluttony. The pirate with the bandanna was across the room talking to the two pirates on the opposite side. Neither pirate appeared enticed. So either these guys didn’t like cake or they were a bit wary of what was going down.
And since everybody likes cake...

Thapa counted the seconds as the pirate with the bandanna wended his way through the tables. Thapa couldn’t help but stare at the two large pirates across the room. They would be a problem. But there was no turning back now.

Thapa was starting to get antsy. The clock in his head was down to thirty seconds and the pirate with the bandanna was still at the halfway mark of the room. It was going to be a close call. With ten seconds left, the pirate was only steps away. He said, “They no want.”

Thapa force a smile. “More for you.”

The pirate nodded, then joined his three buddies whose hands were covered in the thick yellow cake. Thapa began pulling the doors to the restaurant closed. He didn’t want any of the hostages to end up with a head or an arm on their table. When the doors were about to close, one of the pirates yelled, “Yo food.”

Thapa turned.

The man pointed down with the cake in his hand and said, “Food.”

Food? Did he mean the cake?

Thapa looked down. Not
food.
Foot.

All four pirates were looking at his left foot.

“One of your buddies shot me,” Thapa said calmly.

The pirates looked at one another.

“But don’t worry. He’s dead now.”

Thapa pulled the doors closed. Then dove to his left. Before he hit the ground, he heard the earsplitting explosion of the timer-grenade. The heavy doors shook as sixty pounds of cake and the bodies of four men were torn to pieces.

ZULU PRISON

10:00 p.m.

Gina pressed her ear to the inside of the hut. She could hear the drumming coming from the heart of the village. She could picture the natives dancing, the women’s breasts bouncing wildly as they thrashed their bodies to and fro, the men circling around one another, preparing to wrestle.

She wondered if the two boys were there. Watching the spectacle. Or perhaps even taking part.

Gina turned back around. She loosened her arms from around her knees, which she had
pulled tightly to her chest, and brought her hand to within an inch of her face. She tried to make out the outline of her fingers, her palm, or even her wrist, but she couldn’t. Pitch dark was an understatement. It was as if light simply did not exist.

She’d been able to see for the first few hours. Tiny specks of light poking through an insignificant hole here, a crack there, the faintest of clefts over there. There were five small cots, arranged on one side of the enclosure. Although Gina could neither see nor hear them for they didn’t make any noise, she knew there were two men across from her.

Gina wasn’t sure if either man was alive. Both were bone skinny, eyes shut, lying face down. She thought she’d seen the rise and fall of one of their chests, but she wasn’t sure. The doctor in her wanted to attend to the men. Help them. But both men were covered in oozing sores. Not from AIDS. They had been lashed and the wounds had grown infected. Possibly from sitting in their own feces. Or from festering bugs.

All of these of course, accounted for the stench.

It was horrific. A porta-potty baked in the sun for eight months. Gina was lucky she had her vial of Mentholatum with her. And even still, she kept her nose buried under her shirt, and only allowed herself to breathe every so often.

A noise coming from the entrance startled Gina. She couldn’t help thinking optimistically they had come to release her. Drag her from the village and tell her not to come back. And she wouldn’t. She would get as far away as possible. She did not belong here. What did she think would happen? That these people would look blindly as she invaded their village and took three children. Yes, the village was more of a hospice than a village, but it was still theirs, and they did not know otherwise. She was an intruder. No, the more she thought about it, she would not be released. She would die here.

The noise intensified and Gina realized it was the sound of the enormous boulder being moved.

Soft light shone into the cavernous room. A man poked his head in. He was holding a primitive tray with three bowls. There was the tiniest of candles burning in the center. He set the tray just inside the entrance, then exited. The boulder was rolled back in place.

Gina looked at the two men across from her in the soft light. One man hadn’t moved. The other had opened one eye, then quickly closed it. It was almost as if he knew the food wasn’t going anywhere. When he wanted it, he would get it. There was no rush.

Gina crawled forward on her hands and knees, until she was hovering over the bowls of white, oatmeal like mush. She didn’t know how hungry she was, thought she was too scared to be hungry, until she’d seen the food. She hadn’t eaten since that morning. She had a couple of energy bars in her day-pack, but the men had taken it from her.

She thought about her options. If there were any chance of her escape, she would need her energy. And it wasn’t like the food was going to kill her. She had eaten worse things for the past three years in Bolivia. She dipped her finger into the mush and stuck them in her mouth. It was bland, but not unpleasant.

She crawled back to the edge of the hut and slowly ate the food. Twenty minutes later, the candle flickered, then died.

Gina silently crawled back to the tray and grabbed a second bowl.

USS NEW HAMPSHIRE

2204 HOURS

“Bring us up to periscope depth.”

Royal looked up at the speaker the voice had resonated from, then stared at his brethren sitting against the walls. One by one, they slowly began to climb to their feet. It was go time. There was a knock at the door and Commander Fuller entered. With no preamble he said, “We’re three miles out. I tried to convince the Captain to get us closer so we wouldn’t have to use the submersible at all, but this is as close as he’s willing to get. He said we should be at depth in three minutes. Then we rock and roll.”