Deep Fire Rising - v4 (29 page)

Once through the bottleneck of the stairs, the crowd spread. Mercer and Tisa lost the cover they provided. Just a few feet away, another pair of men wearing the same windbreakers were studying faces, searching for their quarry. This time Mercer didn’t hesitate. He hammered the first with the butt of his pistol, a savage blow to the back of his head that dropped the gunman instantly. The second was angled away from the crowd enough for Mercer to ram the Beretta into his gut and pull the trigger without worrying about the bullet’s follow-through.

The shot was muffled by the man’s body, but not enough to prevent another stampede. An alert crewman hit the fire alarm and its piercing shriek added to the din. Mercer fought against the flow of the crowd, shoving and punching a path until breaking clear into a corridor.

“They’re trying to kill us,” Tisa gasped as they ran from the melee behind them.

“You just noticed?”

“But one of those men, up on deck. It was my brother, Luc.” She still couldn’t believe it. “He’d never hurt me. He, he, he loves me.”

Mercer didn’t know what to say, although he understood the bitterness in her voice when she talked about the schism within the Order. Her brother was on the other side and now felt that his beliefs meant more than his sister’s life. Who the hell were these people? he wondered. Obviously fanatics, but about what? Nothing Tisa had told him the night before made him consider this level of zealotry.

The only answer was that there were parts that she hadn’t explained yet, something that had triggered violence in a group that had remained passive for centuries. Fear or power, those were the only two motivations he could think of. They feared some upcoming event or sought power through their oracle. And considering what the oracle did, he could imagine what they feared.

“You have got to tell me what’s going on,” he said sharply, checking that a cross corridor was deserted before continuing his flight. “In Vegas they were after me. Now I think they want you.”

Tisa opened her mouth to reply when a shot passed between them an instant before the concussive roar of the pistol filled the corridor. Mercer fired a snap counter shot and pushed Tisa ahead of him as they ran down the hall. At a sharp bend in the corridor, Mercer paused to see who was behind them. The hallway was clear, but as he watched, Donny Randall ducked his head from around a set of double doors. Mercer fired two quick shots. As he turned to flee farther into the ship, he caught sight of another man behind Donny. It was the guy with the knife he’d seen on deck. Two things he knew right away. The first was that this was the same guy who’d indifferently tossed the woman over the balcony at the Luxor, and the second was that he looked like Tisa’s twin, not just a brother.

Tisa waited at an open hatchway, an access to the utilitarian parts of the ship prohibited to passengers. The lighting was flat and metallic, bare bulbs in wire cages. The walls were gray steel. A staircase as steep as a ladder descended into the gloom below. The air was hot and heavy with the stench of burned engine oil. Mercer stepped over the coaming and followed Tisa down.

Their lead would only last a few seconds before the confines of the stairwell became a slaughterhouse. Tisa nimbly danced down the steep steps, Mercer hot on her heels. When they reached the next landing, the level where the gangway was located, she tried the hatch only to find it jammed. She stepped aside. Not only couldn’t Mercer move the handle, he saw that long ago the door itself had been welded to the frame.

“Remind me to take this up with the captain,” he remarked offhandedly as he moved Tisa back to the ladder.

A shot split the air, a sharp noise that beat on their eardrums. The bullet sparked a half dozen times as it ricocheted off railings and walls. Barely in control of their descent, Tisa and Mercer plunged down one more level. Though his ears were ringing, Mercer heard the sounds of pursuit. He was too low on ammo to fire a delaying shot.

The next landing was the main car deck and also the bottom of the access shaft. If this door was welded too, Tisa and Mercer were as good as dead. The mechanism to unlock the heavy hatch was stiff and creaked like nails on a chalkboard. Mercer heaved the lever upward at the same time he pounded his shoulder into the steel. A thick crust of corrosion around the jamb held the door in place. He stepped back and launched himself again. The door crashed open and his momentum carried him onto the ferry deck. He fell and rolled into a parked Volvo hard enough to dent the driver’s door. Tisa already had the door closed behind them by the time he regained his feet. He helped her resecure the lock. A red fire ax hung from a rack nearby. Mercer wedged the handle into the mechanism to prevent it from opening again. Both he and Tisa fell against the wall, feeling safe for the first time since seeing Donny on deck. They’d run just a short distance yet panted like they’d completed a marathon.

As he struggled to calm his breathing, Mercer surveyed their surroundings. The ferry’s car deck stretched from stem to stern, a forty-foot-wide steel tunnel with a twenty-foot ceiling of support girders. The paint had been yellowed by years of exhaust and neglect. The air reeked of diesel fumes. The steel decking was covered in a nonskid material that had long ago become smooth.

The hold was divided into three rows, automobiles flanking the inner lane, which was reserved for heavy trucks in order to maintain the ferry’s stability in rough seas. With massive cables holding them closed against the rush of the sea, the tall loading doors at bow and stern resembled the drawbridges of a castle.

The cavernous space vibrated with the power of the engines, which had to be nearby. Thick exhaust stacks rose along the wall from floor to ceiling. Waste heat made the hold uncomfortably hot.

This close to the waterline, the steady whoosh of water rushing along the hull had a lulling resonance that drowned out nearly all other sounds. Mercer tightened his grip on the Beretta to remind himself they weren’t out of danger yet. More than likely Donny had enough men to cover all the exits from the hold. He could then take his time hunting down him and Tisa.

The clank of steel on steel was muffled by the heavy door. Mercer whirled, bringing up the Beretta, ready to meet Randall’s charge if he somehow broke through the hatch. A second passed and then a few more. Nothing happened.

“Hey, Mercer, can you hear me?” Donny shouted from inside the access shaft.

Mercer scanned the ranks of vehicles looking for movement. He suspected Randall would try to keep him talking while his men gained entry to the hold from another direction. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

“Come on, buddy. I know you’re there,” Donny called. When Mercer remained silent, Randall continued. “No matter, bud, I’ll do the talking. See, here’s the deal. In about ten minutes a lot of folks are going to die because you had to survive the flood in the mine back in Nevada. Ironic, huh? You got more lives than a cat and the people on this boat have to suffer for it. I can’t blame Luc for underestimating you at your hotel. Hell, we both done that.

“Not this time. Luc figured you and his sister would be here tonight to watch that earthquake. Hey, hell of a thing, being able to predict quakes, huh? Anyway, we been on this boat since it left the mainland. Had us plenty of time to make certain, ah, preparations. Soon as we took off from Santorini, my men secured all entrances to the car deck except this one. If we couldn’t get you topside, the plan was to force you down here, and we gotcha good.

“Now you tell that girl with you that Luc didn’t want her hurt, but hey, shit happens.”

“Cut the crap, Donny, and tell me what the hell you want.”

“I knew you were there,” Randall crowed.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a master strategist, Donny,” Mercer spat. “Congratulations. What do you want?”

“I want to watch you die, but that ain’t gonna happen. Instead I’m going to get off this tub and about five minutes later explosives are going to blow the bottom out of her. I bet you’ll be the first to drown.”

Mercer and Tisa exchanged a stricken look. “You sick bastard, why are you doing this?”

“ ’Cause you missed your chance to die in the mine, buddy.”

Swamped by feelings of responsibility, Mercer didn’t hesitate. “If you only want me then open the goddamned door and get me. Leave Tisa and the other passengers out of it.”

“No can do. I already busted the lock on this side and my finger’s real itchy to trigger the fifty pounds of ’splosives we stuck down in the engine room. When the water finally closes over your head and you’re about to suck it into your lungs, I want you to think about how this was all your fault.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Mercer raged. The blood pounding in his ears blocked out any other thoughts. “I swear to God I am going to reach down your throat and pull out your heart.”

Randall laughed. “Two little problems there, Mercer. One, you ain’t gonna get out off this ship alive, and two, you should know by now I don’t have a heart.”

“Randall!” Mercer shouted, pounding his fists against the hatch. “Hey!”

Randall was gone.

“Mercer?” Tisa called, touching his arm, trying to calm him. “Stop, please. There must be another way out of here, a ventilator shaft or something.”

He slapped the door a final time, certain he heard Randall’s laughter as he climbed up the stairs. “Okay, you’re right.” He took several deep breaths, purging his anger, turning it into action. “You take this side. I’ll check along the port side.” He looked into her eyes. “We’ll get out of this, I promise you.”

Her smile was genuine. “I know we will.”

Mercer crossed the deck at a sprint, zigzagging around cars and trucks until he reached the bow. This side of the ferry was identical to the opposite, steel walls ribbed by structural girders. He found two doorways, but as Donny had promised, the locks wouldn’t budge, even when he used another fire ax as a lever. He swept farther aft. There were a couple of vent grilles, but they were too small for even Tisa and her contortion skills to slip through. The hold’s main vents were on the ceiling, hopelessly out of reach and also too narrow to allow them to escape.

He met up with Tisa at the stern loading ramp. “Anything?”

She shook her head. “What time is it?”

“Jesus, Tisa, not that again.”

She wasn’t stung by his tone and said gently, “No, I mean how much time before he detonates the explosives?”

Mercer didn’t bother looking at his watch. “It could come at any time.” He hopped onto the hood of the nearest car, an old Audi, then climbed onto the roof. He scanned the hold, looking for the safest place to wait out the explosion. To plant charges that would blow out the bottom of the ferry, Donny must have gained access to the machinery spaces below the car deck, like he’d boasted. Logically there would be areas at the very bow and stern he couldn’t reach, nor would he need to. Enough plastique near an amidships fuel bunker would turn the ferry into an inferno. Surviving that was their first priority.

He jumped off the car and looked into other vehicles. A nearby Fiat was unlocked. He opened the rear door. “Inside, quick.” Mercer shoved the front seats forward and motioned Tisa to fold herself onto the floor. He got in after her and covered her body with his own. “Keep your eyes shut and your mouth open — it will keep the pressure wave from blowing out your eardrums.”

Mercer knew the wait would be intolerable. The minutes would drag by like molasses as the inevitable approached, not knowing if the initial blast would erupt right below them.

But it wasn’t. They waited only seconds before the ship lurched under them, a jarring rattle that shoved the Fiat into an adjacent ten-wheeled tanker truck. Then a second explosion rocked the ship, a brutal onslaught much worse than the initial blast. A fuel tank? Mercer wondered, even as a third charge detonated near the ferry’s bow.

After the roaring echo died away, he chanced opening his eyes. The lights high in the ceiling had gone out, leaving the hold in the muted glow of emergency lamps. There was no fire he could see, no telltale flickering. For that he was thankful, yet over the chorus of car alarms he heard something just as deadly when he levered open the Fiat’s door — the unmistakable rush of water pouring into the ferry. Fire alarms had gone off and several red strobe lights pulsed urgent warnings in time with the Klaxon.

He stepped from the sedan and knew the ferry was doomed. Mercer had to give Randall credit for placing his explosives at the bow. Traveling at fifteen knots, the vessel’s forward motion would act like a pump to force seawater into her bilges and engineering spaces. Against such a torrent, there was no way to swim out through the torn hull plating. If they waited for the ship to equalize enough to make their escape, the ferryboat would likely be resting on the bottom of the Aegean.

“What are we going to do?” Tisa asked as she stood at his side.

“I’m working on it,” Mercer said absently as the merest outline of a plan formed in his mind. He slapped the polished steel tank of the fuel truck parked next to the Fiat. It returned a dull ring. Full. Plenty of mass.

The stern door was twenty-five feet wide and nearly as tall, covered with horizontal ripples to improve traction for vehicles struggling into or out of the boat. The large hatch was held closed by tension maintained on cables connected to large drum-shaped motors mounted high on the wall. Although the ship had lost power, the cables remained rigid. In theory, it would be possible to force open the door if Mercer could cut the cables. The doors had reminded him of castle gates and he thought the fuel tanker would make the perfect battering ram.

The driver had left the cab door unlocked and Mercer swung himself onto the seat. Already he could feel the ship tilting toward the bow. The truck reeked of stale cigars, sweat, and garlic. A porn magazine lay open on the passenger seat. The key wasn’t in the ignition or atop the sun visor. Mercer reached under him to feel along the floor, then checked the glove compartment and the small trays built into the plastic dashboard. Nothing. There was a map pocket built into the door panel. He reached in and came out with a hand covered in dark, sticky goo.