A Devil Is Waiting - Jack Higgins [100]
The pilot, a wild young man, looked angry, but Khazid put a hand on his arm. “Do as you are told and help me, Abdul, that’s an order.”
The pilot nodded reluctantly. “If you say so, Colonel.”
The gunplay so far had been with silenced weapons, so there had been no cause for alarm for Captain Ahmed, the three sailors and four policemen standing at the rail, watching the launch come in.
One of the sailors said, “The colonel appears to be bringing more police with him.”
“I don’t see anyone I know,” Ahmed said. “Who are they?”
It was at that moment that Abdul, the pilot, angry and dissatisfied with the turn of events in the launch, grabbed for the very light signaling pistol that hung by the open starboard window. He reached out, raised the pistol and fired, the flare soaring into the night sky, illuminating everything in harsh white light.
He shouted at the top of his voice, “They come for the English woman! Slay and his friends!”
Captain Ahmed ran away along the deck, and Holley clubbed Abdul across the side of his head, and, as he went down, Slay grabbed the wheel. There was still some way to go, and shots rang out, and a bullet punched through the windshield.
“Keep down,” he said to the others. “I’ll go in fast, then swerve up close. A couple of grenades might give them something to think about.”
“You’re on,” Dillon said.
They all crouched, Dillon pulling Khazid down, and Slay pushed the launch as hard as it would go, aiming for the landing platform, turning at the last moment so Dillon and Holley could lob over two pineapple grenades. There were cries of dismay, men running to get away from the carnage. Slay brought the launch in again, bouncing against the landing platform. Dillon and Holley jumped to the deck, guns blazing, cutting some of the police and crew down, while others, shocked by the ferocity of the attack, turned and fled. Slay leapt on to the platform, the painter in one hand, and looped it over a hook to hold the launch ready against their departure.
He turned to see Khazid cowering back in the boat and shouted to him, “Get up here—now!”
Suddenly Khazid was knocked out of the way by Abdul, the pilot, blood on his face and the signaling pistol in his right hand. As he raised it, Dillon, above him at the rail, fired a long burst with his Uzi that knocked him back over the side of the launch, the pistol discharging so that the flare glowed white hot under dark water for a moment before being extinguished.
Slay grabbed Khazid by the front of his tunic and said again, “Get up here.”
Khazid was half sobbing, and Dillon reached down and pulled him up. Someone was firing from along the deck, AK-47 shots that you could hear. “Together,” he said, as he scrambled up with Holley and Slay, and they loosed off long bursts, sweeping the decks clear toward the prow.
There was only silence up there now and Holley pushed Khazid in the direction of the stern. “You know where we want to be, so just take us there, if you want to live, that is.”
The sound of shooting had everyone at the dining table jumping to their feet, and Ahmed burst in through the door from the deck.
“Captain Slay is here—Slay from Hazar—with others. They say they have come for the English woman.”
A burst from Dillon’s Uzi drove him headlong to his knees at the end of the table, and the police there fired back with their AK-47s. One of them fell sideways to the floor close to Henri Legrande, who drew his Beretta.
He said to Owen, “I shouldn’t imagine we’d get anywhere shouting, ‘I surrender to these people.’ Are you armed?”
“I’ve never had to be.”
Henri leaned down and pulled a Makarov from the dead policeman’s holster. He passed it across. “Nine shots, make them count.”
At that moment, Slay, on the deck outside, fired through a porthole window, a sustained burst that hurled both men back across the table, killing them instantly.
Ibrahim was at the deck entrance with his AK-47, Ali Selim firing a pistol he had produced from under his robe. Seeing what had happened to Owen and Henri, he turned to Ibrahim, taking another