Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 12

Gunfire rang out and Joe dove for cover. He gazed up at the side of the yacht as it swept by.

"We have a problem," he said.

"If you mean getting shot full of holes," El Din said, "I'd have to agree with you."

"Unfortunately, that's not the problem I was talking about,"

Joe said. "I'm afraid we need to get closer."

"Closer? Why would we want to get closer?"

"Because Kurt is clinging to the side of their hull."

From his position, the side of the hull, Kurt had watched the fishing boat coast to a stop. He'd felt the sudden surge of power through the hull of the Ma.s.sif as the gas turbine engines came on full bore and her twin screws bit into the warm gulf waters.

He'd hoped the boat with his friends on board would run for the shallows, but they'd turned and raced back toward him, pa.s.sing in clear view.

The two vessels were now caught in a stalemate. Like a grizzly bear being pestered by a yappy little dog, the big yacht could not turn with the small boat. But if the fishing boat tried to flee, the Ma.s.sif would use her great speed to run the small boat down.

When gunfire rang out, Kurt knew he had to go on the offensive.

As the yacht leaned into another turn, Kurt began a slow climb. He moved straight up, heading for the anchor and the hawsehole, where the chain came through the hull.

The higher up he went, the more angled the bow became. It was like climbing an inverted overhang. He had to be careful. If one of the magnets slipped, he might fall from his perch and hit the water in front of the ship's bulk. An image of his body getting crushed under the keel and then shredded by the propellers at the aft end flashed through his mind.

He shook it off. "I really have to learn to think positive," he told himself.

He made it to the hawsehole, squeezed through, and found himself on the foredeck just as the yacht whipped into another turn. With all eyes tracking their prey, no one saw him.

"Too bad this isn't the engine room," he muttered, thinking of all the damage he could cause back there. "But it'll have to do."

Another burst of gunfire rang out and the spotlights swung around overhead until they pointed down the starboard quarter.

Kurt scrambled to where the anchor chain was wrapped around a large capstan. A fierce-looking metal hook, known as a devil's claw, secured the chain.

A check of the control panel told him it was a standard type. He activated the power, eased the chain back, and unhooked the claw.

He considered dropping the anchor until it caught the seafloor. The average depth of the Persian Gulf was only a hundred fifty feet, and they had plenty of chain for that. But the anchor itself was a fluke type. With the yacht traveling at such a high rate of speed, it would literally fly once it hit the water like a kite on the breeze.

Even if it did reach the seafloor and catch, it would just rip out the capstan and pull free from the hull. And if it took the full length of chain-to what was known as the bitter end-it wouldn't even do that, as the last link was designed to break under such a load.

Despite the confusion it would cause, cosmetic damage wouldn't help his friends much. Kurt made some quick mental calculations and pressed the release b.u.t.ton. The chain began to play out, the fifty-pound links chattering loudly as they went.

The sound reached all the way to the bridge, and a warning light flashed on the control panel.

"Captain," the helmsman said. "We're losing the port anchor."

It was Acosta who replied, pushing past the captain. "What do you mean?"

"Someone's released it."

The anchor hit the water with a splash and slammed against the hull in the slipstream. The clang of the impact reverberated through the ship.

"The intruder is still aboard!" Acosta said. "That's why we couldn't find him. Get a spotlight on the foredeck!"

Acosta raced to the stubby bridge wing and watched as the spotlight changed its aim and lit up the foredeck. "There!" he shouted, spotting a shape on the deck. "Kill him!"

Two of his men opened fire. Sparks lit out around the man on the foredeck. But with the deck pitching, it wasn't an easy shot. None of the bullets found their mark, and the intruder quickly ducked behind the bulkhead.

Acosta turned to the captain. "Can you stop the anchor from here?"

"No," the captain said. "He's switched it to manual. But . . ." "But what?"

The captain had a perplexed look on his face. "For some reason, he's stopped it himself."

The ship began slewing to port, caused by the drag of the anchor on that side. Another tremendous clang rang out as the anchor slammed against a side of the hull farther back.

The sound was enough to send shivers down Acosta's spine. But the next impact was worse.

The anchor was now trailing out behind the vessel like a streamer out the side of a speeding car, swinging back and forth in the current. As it swung in once again, it whipped itself around the stern and caught one of the propellers.

With brutal efficiency, the four-ton anchor snapped off the spinning blades. An instant later the chain fouled the propeller shaft and was pulled tight. It snapped against the side of the hull like a plumb line, shattering windows and gouging a diagonal crease in the hull.

The sudden braking action on the propeller shaft destroyed the transmission, and the yacht lurched and swooned to the right in response.

Acosta and the others were thrown against the control panel. The captain pulled back on both throttles immediately, and the yacht became controllable.

"What are you doing?" Acosta growled.

"Until we can slip that anchor and drop it to the bottom of the sea, we can't move at anything faster than quarter speed. Otherwise, we risk it swinging back up and destroying the other prop or punching a hole in the bottom of the hull."

Acosta's eyes bulged, the veins on his neck popped out. He turned to Caleb. "Get down there, kill him, and bring me his bullet-riddled carca.s.s."

"I will," Caleb shouted, eager to redeem himself. He raced for the ladder with two others following him.

"If you don't succeed," Acosta warned, "don't bother to come back!"

From the back of the fishing boat, Joe noticed the yacht losing ground. "They're slowing down," he shouted. "I think they're having some trouble."

"Can you tell what's happened?" El Din asked, craning his head around for a better look.

"No," Joe said. "But I'd bet Kurt had something to do with it."

The yacht was going off course, no longer following them. The spotlights seemed to be shining down on the foredeck.

"Now it's our turn," Joe said. "Bring us around wide and come at them from behind."

"Hold on," El Din said.

Joe grabbed the transom and held tight as the fishing boat made one more sharp turn.

On the foredeck, Kurt could tell his plan had worked. Now came the hard part: getting out alive. Each time he poked his head out from behind the bulkhead, a sniper up near the bridge took a potshot at him.

What he really needed was a way to take out the spotlights. But the Beretta was long gone, and the Colt he'd wrestled away from Caleb with the help of the magnets had been dislodged and tumbled into the sea when he'd crashed back into the side of the hull. After two more shots rang out, he saw the handle on the hatchway begin to turn. At the same moment, he noticed the fishing boat coming alongside. It was now or never.

He took off running, staying as close to the shelter of the bulkhead as possible. He raced past the hatch, slamming his shoulder into it just as it began to swing open. The heavy door closed on someone's arm with a sickening crunch.

Kurt only heard a fragment of an agonizing scream as he launched himself over the rail for a second time. This time he went headfirst, diving as far from the vessel as possible.

With perfect form, he knifed through the surface and went deep. Thin lines of bubbles probed the darkness like arrows as Acosta's men shot at him. The shots missed. Kicking hard, Kurt angled away from the yacht and down.

The yacht rumbled past, the anchor chain still fouled around the bent propeller shaft.

When the noise pa.s.sed, Kurt began to swim horizontally. He kept swimming until his lungs felt as if they might burst, then surfaced in the dark and looked back.

The yacht was already turning. Out ahead of it he could see his friends coming around.

He didn't bother to yell-all that would get him was a mouthful of water-but he made every effort to kick hard, swimming at an angle that would make it easier for them to get him.

As the small boat raced in, Kurt rose up and waved. They changed course and bore down on him, slowing at the very last second.

"Grab this!" Joe shouted, throwing out a cargo net.

Kurt grasped it and began to pull himself forward. He was almost at the transom when the spotlights from the yacht swung across the water and found them.

Joe hauled him in, and El Din wasted no time in gunning the throttles.

The small craft took off again as a ribbon of sh.e.l.ls skipped across the water, fired by Caleb and his mates from the bow of the yacht.

Splinters of wood flew in all directions. Kurt felt a bullet sc.r.a.pe his arm. But in seconds they'd pa.s.sed out of the fire zone and were hightailing it into the dark.

The wounded yacht could not keep up. The gap widened by the moment, and after a few minutes the yacht began to turn away.

"We made it," El Din said.

Lying on the deck, exhausted and half surprised to be alive, Kurt looked around at his rescuers. "Is everyone okay?"

El Din nodded. Joe flashed a thumbs-up. "We're fine," Joe said. "What about you?"

"Never better," Kurt said.

"You're bleeding," El Din pointed out.

Kurt checked the wound. It was superficial. Another crease in the sheet metal. "Cut myself shaving," he joked. "Have to be more careful."

Joe laughed. He was glad to see Kurt's sense of humor had returned. It had been missing during his three months of recovery. "How'd it go on the yacht? Did you enjoy the party?"

"Not really my kind of people," Kurt replied. "But I can't say it was boring."

Kurt looked back. Far behind them, the lights of the Ma.s.sif were blinking out one by one. She was resuming her original course, taking whatever secrets Kurt had failed to pry from her into the night.

Questions about the evening reverberated in his mind, beginning with the ident.i.ty-not to mention the sanity-of the dark-haired woman he'd run into.

He wondered what she'd meant by the quips she'd thrown at him. Could she really have seen him somewhere before? Or was it just a ploy to distract him? What was she doing there in the first place? What could she possibly mean by saying he was early?

In some ways he owed her for shooting Acosta's thugs. On the other hand, they wouldn't have found him without her screaming. He wondered if she'd escaped the yacht during the commotion. More important, he wondered who she'd been talking to on the phone and what they were up to.

"No luck finding Sienna," Joe guessed.

"She wasn't on board, as far as I could tell."

"Any idea where she might be?" El Din asked.

"Not sure," Kurt replied. "But I overheard a phone call referencing someone they were calling 'the American woman.' Whoever she is, it sounds like she's been delivered into the hands of a guy named Than Rang."

"Who?" Joe asked.

"Korean industrialist. Probably some well-connected guy who could cause lots of trouble if he wanted to."

"When has that ever stopped us?" Joe asked, laughing.

"Never," Kurt said. "And it's not going to this time either. But something bigger is going on here. Something bigger and more complicated than a simple abduction."

"Any idea what?"

"Nope," Kurt said. "But I heard them talking about 'breaching the American Wall.' Whatever that means, we need to stop it from happening."

"Than Rang is a stone-cold killer, not the kind of man you want to tangle with on a whim."

The words came from Dirk Pitt. They were spoken via an encrypted linkup that ended in the display screen of Joe's computer.

"Not going off on a whim," Kurt said. "If Sienna is out there, this guy Rang has her. And based on what I saw on that computer, he's gathering up a small stable of topflight hacking talent."

"I believe you," Pitt said. "The question is, why?" "What's his background?" Kurt asked. "Maybe that will tell us something."

"He's the head of a South Korean chaebol. His corporation works in mining, waste management, and energy."

"Can you give us some details?"

"Than was born in '49, right before the Korean War. His family fortunes were already in decline, but because the North ravaged so much of Seoul and the surrounding area when they occupied it, the decline of the family businesses intensified. At some point, his father got involved with underworld elements to keep the cash flow going. By the time Than was sixteen, the company did more smuggling and laundering than anything else. When his father died, a war broke out within the ranks. By the time it ended, Than had murdered all those who opposed him, wiped out the criminals who'd funded him, and killed every family member who disagreed with his leadership."

"A palace coup," Joe noted.

"And then some," Pitt said.

"Why didn't the government go after him?"

"Friends in high places," Pitt explained. "Most people forget that South Korea was basically a military-industrial dictatorship from 1951 to 1979. All emphasis was on growing the economy and doing so by any means necessary. They needed wealth to build a military and prepare for the next invasion by the North. Crimes had a way of being forgiven or ignored if they centralized power, brought about order, or increased industrial production."