Kronos (32 page)

That did it. All three men lost their tempers, and, feeling supremely confident that their three-on-one bulk would win the day, charged. Only two steps into his charge the first man fell. The second jumped over him just as Atticus rolled over the broad desk. When he came out of his roll, his hand came up with a snap. The second man fell as well, hitting his head on the desk in the process.

The third man ignored his clumsy partners and leapt like a linebacker about to sack the quarterback. The man’s forward momentum was impressive, but as a massive explosion rang out, the man snapped back in midflight, almost as if his foot had been tied to a rope. What had actually happened was much more messy.

Atticus stood, breathing hard, knowing that if anyone of the three had got in a good shot, he’d have been finished. As he scanned the floor where the men lay in a bloody line, he knew none of them would threaten anyone ever again. The first to fall had Atticus’s dive knife lodged in his throat. The second had a scimitar-shaped letter opener in his heart. And the third had a fist-sized hole in his back, where Atticus’s .357 magnum had punched through.

Ignoring the gore and the men’s faces, Atticus looked for some way to shut off the wall of surveillance monitors. The monitors behind him suddenly exploded as thunder rumbled through the office. A burning pain ripped through his body as a bullet pierced his flesh. Atticus doubled over in pain, but the motion spared him from being cut in half by the ensuing barrage.

As bullets wrecked the back side of the hardwood desk and punched holes through the monitors, Atticus took a moment to inspect his body. He found his left shoulder soaked with blood. The pain had dulled as endorphins kicked in, but he knew it would hurt like hell once his body’s natural painkillers wore off. He still had full movement of the arm, though not without pain; but at least that meant the bullet hadn’t severed too much muscle or hit the bone. While his fresh wound wouldn’t kill him, it made him realize just how out of practice he’d become. When the bullets stopped flying, the wall of security monitors smoked and smoldered, devoid of images and pocked with holes.

Well,
he thought,
took care of that.

The sound of clacking metal sounded as whoever had fired at him struggled to reload. The sounds revealed that his attacker lacked experience in conflict situations and didn’t truly understand the weapon—possibly a waiter or cook who’d been armed. And while Atticus might be out of practice, he’d be damned before letting a submachine-gun-toting maitre d’ get the best of him twice.

Grabbing his UMP from under the desk, Atticus stood and let loose a three-round burst toward the office door. His attacker dropped from sight, his weapon clattering to the floor. Atticus rose and contemplated his most recent kill, still twitching, before heading for the door.

But the sight that greeted him sent him running. Five men, all packing UMPs, took aim and unleashed hell. The floor at Atticus’s feet exploded as the five opened fire. The walls burst apart as bullets pushed through, searching for Atticus.

Knowing there was little chance of surviving a close-quarters gun battle with five men, Atticus fired his UMP at the long window. As it lost its structural integrity, the window disintegrated and fell to pieces. But before the shards of glass could fall away, Atticus threw himself through the wall of descending daggers.

48

The Titan

Taking the opposite approach to Atticus’s bold charge toward the bridge, O’Shea and Andrea, hoping to avoid any kind of confrontation, snuck along carefully. They entered a long hallway leading to a staircase that would take them to the priority guest deck, where O’Shea’s and Atticus’s quarters were located. Several hand-carved, wooden statues lined both sides of the hall.

Andrea couldn’t help but stare at the frightening, yet ornately carved statues, many of which were brightly painted. She recognized several as totem poles, but others were bears standing upright, stylized mountain lions, wolves, and birds. All had been carved by Native Americans, but only the totems looked familiar to her.

O’Shea noticed her attention on the statues. “They’re Native American,” he said.

“Obviously, but they’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because no one has seen them in many centuries,” O’Shea said, a hint of guilt in his voice. “They came from an excavation…I don’t know where exactly, but they were found inside a cave. The archaeologist said he believed they were the work of the first recorded Native American master artist.”

Andrea looked into the dark eyes of a supremely carved Kodiak bear, whose bared teeth looked real enough to sever a man’s head from his shoulders. “What happened to the archaeologist? How come no one knows about this?”

O’Shea looked back with a frown. “Sometimes people working in remote areas…get lost.” His eyes focused forward, as he knew that even a momentary glance might cause him to crash into one of the sculptures that made the hallway more of a slalom course than a walkway. “But more often than not, if archaeologists find something unique, somehow they meet Trevor. And if his offer of money in exchange for silence isn’t accepted, he can—”

“Father.”

The voice was a simple greeting, yet it threw O’Shea into a panic. He looked up with a gasp. Two men who he knew were kitchen workers, Reggie and James, walked toward him, each carrying a Glock 18C machine pistol. O’Shea held his breath as he was sure the guns would soon be raised and fired.

But nothing happened. When O’Shea failed to return the greeting, the men stopped. “You okay, Father?”

How were they not seeing Andrea?
he wondered. But they hadn’t, and he didn’t want to risk looking back for her. He clutched his chest and let out a deep breath, adding a little drama to the motion. “Good Lord, Reggie, you scared the dickens out of me. I thought for sure you were the escaped prisoners.” O’Shea widened his eyes, stretching them in mock relief. “That will teach me to pray while walking the ship.”

“You need an escort back to your quarters, or can you handle that?” Reggie asked, pointing to the UMP O’Shea had forgotten he was carrying.

“I’d be damned to hell for firing this at a human being, but it does provide some measure of comfort, doesn’t it? I’m sure I can make it to my quarters without incident though, thank you.” O’Shea smiled and stepped aside, allowing the men to walk past. “Keep safe.”

O’Shea let out a silent sigh of relief as the two continued on their way. His eyes began searching the hallway for some sign of Andrea. He found her as she stood up, moving silently, from behind the great bear carving. The men had walked right past her.

As O’Shea motioned for Andrea to hurry up, Reggie turned around. “Oh, Father, I meant to ask y—”

In that moment, that small slice of time, Reggie could plainly see Andrea and his mind made the quick mental connection that she and O’Shea were in league. He raised his Glock, but he was too slow. O’Shea had already taken aim with his UMP. The stream of bullets that issued from the UMP shot wildly through the hall. He’d never fired a handgun, let alone a submachine gun, and his aim was dismal. Of course, with a submachine gun pumping out seven hundred rounds per minute, perfect aim wasn’t a requirement. In seconds, the weapon jettisoned all twenty-five rounds. Of the twenty-five, four connected.

Reggie took three in his torso as the bullets strafed diagonally upward. The fourth hit, following the same diagonal path, struck the other man in the side of the head as he spun to bring his own weapon to bear. In the silence that followed, O’Shea could hear a distinct ringing in his ears, coupled with his heartbeat. Then the sound of distant gunfire caught his attention. Atticus was somewhere else on the ship, waging his own personal war.

Andrea grasped his shoulders. He spun to her, his eyes wide, his breathing quick and shallow.

“You did the right thing,” she said.

“How can killing be the right thing?” O’Shea asked.

“Because,” Andrea took O’Shea’s UMP, ejected the spent magazine, and slammed a fresh one home, “we’re the good guys.”

With that, Andrea ran down the hallway, making for the stairway. Andrea’s support did little to assuage O’Shea’s guilt, but it did feel good to be on the side of right for the first time in his life. He followed her down the hallway, hoping that, somehow, the gunfire had gone unnoticed.

Without meeting further resistance, Andrea and O’Shea reached his quarters. They entered quickly, locked the door, and headed for the laptops. They each took one, connected to the Internet, and accessed their individual e-mail accounts. Andrea wasn’t sure her message would be seen in time. While e-mail was certainly convenient, there was no guarantee that the addressee would see it soon enough to be of any assistance. As she typed her message, she hoped her commanding officer checked his e-mail like an addict.

O’Shea typed furiously, catching Andrea’s attention. “Who are you sending to?” she asked.

“I’m transferring my funds into a secure bank account.”

Andrea paused, incredulous. “What?”

“Just kidding,” he said. “I’m e-mailing
everyone.
”

Andrea signed her name, rank, and serial number to the e-mail, so there would be no doubt about its authenticity, and moved the cursor to the send button. As she depressed the button, the screen exploded. O’Shea’s computer was hit next. Both jumped back, bumping into each other. Andrea and O’Shea had put down their UMPs when they’d started using the laptops. She still had the Glock tucked into the back of her pants, but whoever had shot up the computers would have no trouble adjusting his aim to take her out before she’d freed the gun from her waistband.

They turned toward the door and found a lopsided grin on the scarred face of Remus. As usual, he wore shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, but the joyful clothing stood in stark contrast to the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun he held. “Got this from your boyfriend,” he said to Andrea, motioning to the weapon. “He kept it up nice for me.”

Sweeping the weapon back and forth between them, Remus entered the room. “It’s funny,” he said, “all the locks on the ship seem to open for anyone.” He smiled. “Too bad for you.”

Remus took aim at O’Shea. “Can’t say I’m too surprised about you. I told Trevor not to trust a priest.”

Like a striking cobra, Remus swept his aim back to Andrea. “And you…I’m going to have some fun with you.” Remus paused for a moment. He squinted his eyes. “Your gun. Wherever it is, lose it now.”

Andrea complied, knowing there was no other choice. She had a feeling that Remus wasn’t going to shoot them yet, and that meant they still had a chance, however small, of escape. O’Shea wasn’t much bigger than she was, but they were two to his one, and most definitely smarter. As a child she’d once defended another girl from two bullies. Both stood taller and had more muscles than she did, but she outclassed them mentally. She avoided a full-on brawl by throwing sand in their eyes. Of course sand in Remus’s eyes would only enrage him, not send him away in tears. More than that, the only sand to be found was hundreds of feet beneath the hull of the
Titan.

Andrea turned her back to Remus so he could see her take out the Glock and drop it to the floor.

“Kick it to me,” he said. Again, she complied.

Keeping the MP5 trained on them, he circled the U-shaped table holding the destroyed laptops, collected the two UMPs, and moved back to the door. He kicked the Glock out of the room and dropped the rest of the weapons to the floor. He turned with a fiendish grin, closed the door behind him, and hummed a Hawaiian tune.

49

The Titan

Atticus landed amid a shower of glass after falling ten feet. He grunted as the blunt impact knocked the wind out of him and sent shards of the broken window into his right arm, torso, and upper thigh. Though the cuts burned, he managed to hang on to his weapon and his wits, though the .357 fell over the side, disappearing on the deck below. He rolled onto his back and fired a spray of bullets across the shattered window. He didn’t see anyone, but a scream of pain confirmed a hit.

He fired a second burst as he pushed himself to the side of the five-foot panel. He wasn’t sure what room lay beneath him, only that he needed to get off the open roof and back inside. Atticus slid over the glass. It scratched at his back and stabbed his bare feet with every shove, all the while keeping the UMP aimed at the window above.

A shadow slid across the window, triggering a quick burst of gunfire from Atticus. There was no scream this time. Just a dull thud as a body hit the floor. He doubted anyone would be stupid enough to stick his head out again and double-timed it to the edge of the platform. Upon reaching it, he glanced over the edge. He was two stories above the next platform. But it wasn’t the height that held his attention. It was the entryway below; it led to the bridge.

The bridge door opened, and an armed guard stepped out. Another one of the Cerberus crew. The man seemed even bigger than the other three, and his weapon of choice was an AK-47, the conventional weapon that had claimed more lives worldwide than any other. Atticus used his arm to sweep a pile of large glass shards to the edge. All at once, he pushed the glass over. Deadly glass rain poured down toward the security guard.

Atticus didn’t watch the glass fall, just in case the guard got off a lucky shot, but the wailing scream from below told him that his target had been on the receiving end of a shard or two. Atticus peeked over the edge and saw the guard, flat on his back with a six-inch slice of window embedded in his face. Atticus cringed. He’d seen the dead man’s eyes staring up at him.

After wrapping the UMP’s strap around his neck, he swung his body over the edge, sending down more glass. His wounded shoulder and arm protested at the strain, but he managed to hang on. Two feet below his toes was a pipe, painted white to match the rest of the
Titan
’s hull. He lowered himself as far as he could go and released his grip. His toes hit the pipe and momentarily stopped his downward motion. Prepared for the jolt, Atticus stayed upright and fell straight down again. He grabbed the pipe with his hands as he passed, but the jolt strained his injured arm beyond the point of endurance. His fingers slipped away, but his descent had been slowed enough to prevent too hard a landing. As he fell, Atticus twisted his body so he’d land on his left side to avoid burying the glass deeper into his arm. He hit with a thud, but a thick, soft object broke his fall.