The Judas Strain - James Rollins [152]
Another man fired into the door. Rounds pounded through it.
But Devesh read the door’s sign: EMPLOYEES ONLY. It led to the cruise ship’s inner passages. The killer had surely fled.
Another cannibal.
The ship was under attack, its defenses breached.
Flurries of gunfire erupted elsewhere on the ship, echoing hollowly down to them. They were losing control of the ship. The Somalian leader stepped to Devesh’s side. The remaining guards stood ready, half facing forward, half backward, wary of all doors.
“Sir, we must get you somewhere safe,” the Somalian growled.
“Where?” Devesh half moaned.
“Off the ship. We can take a tender over to the island town and secure you there. I’ll gather another hundred men, along with stiffer armaments, and return to clean out the ship.”
Devesh nodded. Until matters were settled, he wanted off this boat.
The Somalian led them swiftly back to the stairwell. Alarm bells and rattling blasts accompanied them. They hurried down. They passed four bodies, fellow pirates.
When they reached the level of the tender dock, Devesh paused.
“Sir?”
“Not yet.” Devesh had grown angrier with each level he had descended. He would not abandon the ship without some reprisal. And he knew what to do. He headed down the stairs again.
Toward the ship’s bowels.
To where he maintained a special set of locked wards.
Before he left, he would make matters more difficult for those who sought to take his ship. To fight fire with fire.
The island was not the only source of cannibals.
5:22 A.M.
SUSAN STOOD AT the fringe of the jungle, staring toward the Mistress of the Seas. Alarm bells rang across the water, along with muffled blasts.
The assault was under way.
She held her hands clenched to her belly, scared, praying.
She heard stealthy noises in the forest around her: the slip of a wet leaf, the squelch of mud. Her escorts closed around her, drawn to protect their queen, but also curious, coming to watch the fireworks.
Just ahead, pulled up on the beach, a dugout canoe rested in the sand, ready to ferry her swiftly to Ryder’s boat.
If it should ever arrive.
The knuckles of Susan’s fingers ached as she squeezed.
Please let them come…
5:23 A.M.
BURIED IN HIS poncho, Rakao waited in his hidden blind. He stared through his infrared goggles, watching his team cinch the snare tighter.
He no longer had to wonder where the other escaped prisoners had gone. Minutes ago, another of his guards had spotted suspicious movement atop the cruise ship. Rakao had diverted his attention on his target long enough to roll aside and survey the ship. While he failed to spot any movement atop the ship, he did make out what appeared to be storm-loosened strands of the net weeping down toward the helipad.
Ropes.
With a silent curse Rakao knew what had happened.
An assault over the canopy’s bridge…
Rakao had lived on this island for a decade, rising through a series of bloody coups to assume the leadership of the pirate clan there, whose history stretched back a full century. But he had larger ambitions. Beyond even the spoils of a cruise ship and black-market slaves. There was a wider world to plunder, and the doctor offered him access to it, through an organization that stretched back far longer than a century. Where ambition and ruthlessness were recognized and rewarded.
So when he had discovered he’d been outmaneuvered, Rakao seethed, but he knew better than to lash out. He had the dried tongues of his predecessors nailed to the lintel above the door to his village house. He hadn’t climbed to his position by reckless actions.
Staying focused, Rakao had his radioman retreat thirty yards so as not to be heard, then contact the ship, to warn them of an impending attack. But as Rakao waited, shots rang out—followed by alarm bells. His warning had reached the ship too late.
So be it…
Rakao maintained his position.