Unlucky 13 (25 page)

The kid’s feet shot out from under him, and as he slid down the steps on his ass, Brady got behind him and got his neck in the vise
he made with his right biceps and forearm.

The kid cried out and Brady tightened his neck hold, his forearm pressing against the kid’s carotid.

The kid tried to reach behind him, and Brady applied pressure, not enough for the kid to black out but enough for things to start to go fuzzy.

Then he let up just a bit.

The kid said, “What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

Brady asked himself the same question. Thinking that over the past half hour, he had crossed some defining line. Was this really the person he had become? Or would any man if pushed this far do the same damned things?

Brady said, “You want to breathe? Lie still. What’s your name?”

“Brian.”

“What’s Jackhammer’s name, Brian?”

The kid got it now. He was going to die.

He said, “Don’t do it, man.
Please don’t hurt me.” Brady applied some pressure and the kid grabbed futilely at his bulked-up arms. This kid was either a murderer or he was complicit in the many murders aboard this ship. But there would be no by-the-book interrogation for Brian. No Miranda rights.

Brady relaxed the hold and gave the kid a little blood to his brain, a little air.

He asked again, “What’s Jackhammer’s name?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know
anyone
. None of us do.”

“So why did you do this? Why did you take this job? You wanted to kill people? Ruin people’s lives? Why?”

The kid was exasperated as well as frightened.

“I don’t even understand your question. Look. Let me up. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

There was no way around this kid. None. Brady said, “I’m sorry, Brian. There’s no other way.”

He squeezed
the kid’s neck in the V of his arm, pressing his left hand to his right wrist to double the pressure. The kid passed out a few seconds later, but Brady held on until a couple of minutes passed and the kid stopped twitching.

He could think about this later. But not now. There was no time to do it now.

BRADY DRAGGED BRIAN’S
body off to the side of the landing and turned his mind to the Sun Deck layout, where more shit was waiting for him and there was less than a fifty-fifty chance that he’d survive the next ten minutes.

He’d been up to the Sun Deck a couple of times.

Before it had turned into a shooting platform.

There was teakwood decking fore and aft, lined out with lounge chairs.
At the middle of the deck was an eight-foot-wide running track, rectangular in shape, a hundred yards long by fifty wide and hollow at the center so that the sun could shine through to the Pool Deck below.

A railing ran around the inside perimeter of the track, making it a perfect catwalk and doubling with a first-class
gun rest for sighting the captives directly below. Like prison guards looking
down from the walls over inmates in a prison yard.

And now footsteps clanged against metal as the ship’s officers climbed toward him on the inside stairs. When they reached him, Brady, said, “I’m going out there first. After that, you all know what to do, regardless.”

The captain said, “Good luck to you, Mr. Brady.”

“And to you, sir. Everyone.”

Brady’s assault rifle hung from the strap over
his right shoulder, and he had a loaded pistol on his hip. He said a quick prayer and pulled the knitted mask down over his face. Then he turned the wheel that opened the lock and pushed open the door to the Sun Deck. He closed it behind him.

Squinting through the mask, Brady tried to see everything at once.

The rising sun was streaking the horizon with pink bands, backlighting mountains in
the distance and glinting on the railings at the bow.

There were three men on the track, two on the far, short side of the rectangle, the third guy standing by himself on a long side, fifty feet away.

Brady called out to that one, “Bro. Got a second?”

Without waiting for an answer, he set out along the composite rubber track toward the guard.

“I hope you brought me the beef taco,” the man
said. “I already had the chicken. Beef is better if there’s any left.”

Brady had considered using the knife, but he wasn’t that good or that fast. So he pulled the gun.

“I don’t know anything about the chow,” Brady said.

Continuing to walk toward the guard, he said, “There’s been a slight change in the rotation.”

The man was only a few feet away.

He said, “Don’t tell me I’ve got to go another
watch. I’m dead on my feet, already.”

The guard sensed something wrong in Brady’s posture or demeanor, or maybe he was close enough to see the gun.

He backed up, saying, “Let me see your hands, man,” while shouldering his rifle.

Brady aimed, squeezed the trigger, and fired twice, hitting the guard in the throat and chest.

Immediately shouts came from the men on the far side of the track.

Brady dropped his handgun, gripped the automatic rifle, and fired across the open track. The bullets made the gun’s signature
pop-br-br-br-br-br
report, hitting the gunmen who were running toward him like cartoon commandos in a video game.

The men flailed and then dropped.

Brady heard the tinny voice of a radio in the shirt pocket of the man lying near his feet.

“Pool deck four to track one.”

Brady picked up the radio and, what the hell, said into the dangling mouthpiece, “Yeah, track one. All secure.” Then he went to the hatch door and tapped on it.

The door swung in, and Brett Lazaroff, George Berlinghoff, and three of his officers, including the hotel manager, dashed out onto the track.

Berlinghoff went directly to the locker with the small lot of weapons. He shot off the lock
and his officers emptied the box, then pocketed what they could as others collected guns from the dead gunmen before returning, as planned, to the crew staircase.

Brady was standing with Brett Lazaroff on the track when gunfire exploded upward through the center of it. They propped their AKs on the railing, aimed at the muzzle flare, and returned fire. Then there was a break in the shooting.

Brady said, “Lazaroff. You ready to roll?”

YUKI WAS SCRUNCHED
up against the overturned wet bar outside the Spa when gunfire opened up from the track deck. There had been shooting before, sporadic blasts of automatic-weapon fire meant to scare the prisoners who had already become zombies from unrelenting, paralyzing fear.

The spate of gunfire was worse now, more sustained. Purposeful. There was a spray of gunfire and a gunman
near the pool grabbed at his neck and went down, toppling half into the pool.

What was happening?

Were they being rescued? Where was Brady?

Music was blasting from the speakers across the deck.

Bullets rained down from the track. Passengers screamed,
scattered, and tried to hide under lounge chairs. Gunmen took cover and fired back.

Yuki moved aside as three passengers converged on the wet
bar, looking for protection from the gunfire.

“We’re going to storm the Spa,” one of the passengers said to her. He grabbed her hand, briefly and said, “Good luck.”

Then he was gone.

There were shouts and the sound of breaking glass. Everything was happening fast.

Automatic weapons fired from the bow sent people running toward the stern, where Yuki was crouched near the barricade. Then a movement
on the staircase over the Spa caught her eye.

A guard jogged down the steps from the Sun Deck. He stopped outside the Spa’s shattered doors and pulled off his mask. White-blond hair spilled onto his shoulders.

Brady. Oh, my God, it was Brady.

He’d been shot. Blood ran down the side of his face and the shirt he was wearing was dripping red. He didn’t see her.

Brady shouted, “Passengers. I’m
a passenger, too. The crew is now
armed
. Lie flat. Keep your head down.”

The double doors opened out from the Spa and the Luna Grill at the same time.

Men in whites ran out and took positions where they could find them. They were ordinary men, pot-bellied, gray-haired, and some of them were holding rifles, others handguns. Yuki recognized them as ships’ officers.

Looking around, she saw six
men in fatigues, all of them finding cover. There was shooting, and people yelled and cursed. Glass shattered. Bottles flew through the air. Yuki squatted behind the bar, hands over her ears when Becky grabbed her arm.

“Yuki. Come with us.
Run!
”

Yuki said, “That’s Brady. My husband.”

But Becky was already heading for the Luna Grill, her arm around her ten-year-old son, her husband corralling
them from behind. A blast of gunfire came from a gunman kneeling beside the bandstand outside the Grill, and Becky’s husband went down.

Becky’s screams were lost in the commotion on the deck, but even in the gray dawn, Yuki saw that the passengers were fighting back with guns, knives, and glass shards—whatever they could throw, swing, or stab with.

Yuki looked for something she could use to
arm herself. There was a bottle of champagne deep in the back of the bar and she grabbed it by the neck. She found a paring knife in a drawer, and slipped it into her pocket.

She looked for Brady. He’d been right there! Suddenly, a hand in her hair pulled her from behind the bar. She kicked out, dropped the bottle, and punched air, and then she was dragged to her feet.

It was Brady who yelled,
“Put her down!”

The voice belonging to the man who held her asked, “Is this your wife?”

Yuki recognized the voice: It was Jackhammer’s.

The realization rose in her from her feet to her throat, as if her body had filled with frigid water. She wasn’t
going to be saved. This was her last moment on earth. She looked at the pink line of sun rising over the railing. She thought of her dead mother,
Keiko, holding out her arms to her.

She looked at Brady for the last time.

She focused on her husband’s eyes and heard Jackhammer say into her ears, “Here’s my little volunteer. Just in time.”

CAPTAIN GEORGE BERLINGHOFF
ran out onto the deck from the Luna Grill at the bow, four of his officers behind him, men who’d never been in battle, men with wives and children and aspirations.

Maybe they thought of the ones they loved as they stared out at the chaos and the bloodshed, the downed passengers crawling, trailing blood, the nearly dead and the clearly dead, innocent people
in pajamas, many of them fighting back with fists and bottles and whatever they could find.

As the captain of a tourist ship, he was going by Brady’s plan and a lot of old war movies he’d seen from his couch. He waded into a battlefield, armed with one of the dead commandos’ assault rifles.

He did what Brady had said to do.

He assessed the situation and he looked for opportunities. And then
he saw Brady, frozen in place right at the foot of the stairs.

Incongruous music from the speakers in the bar wafted across the deck.

As Berlinghoff tried to put the scene together, he saw that Brady was advancing on the overturned bar. Actually, he was coming toward one of the terrorists, who was holding a woman in front of him, using her as a
shield
.

He heard the gunman shout at Brady, “Is
this your wife?”

Berlinghoff slung the AK and pulled his handgun from his belt—the old revolver with one round in the chamber.

Jackhammer was occupied with Brady and didn’t see or hear Berlinghoff come up from behind. Berlinghoff looked over the gun sight to the back of the commando’s neck. He was too close to miss.

He had his finger on the trigger—when suddenly shots rang out and his gun spun
from his hand. Blood spurted from his wrist, and he shouted, “Damn!”

He gripped his wrist but blood pumped out between his fingers. More bullets punched into him.

Mother of God. He was hit.

BULLETS CHATTERED ACROSS
the Pool Deck. Pop music blasted out of the bar speakers. But despite the terrifying and discordant sights and sounds, Brady’s focus was on Yuki in Jackhammer’s headlock, staring at him as though she was already a ghost.

Jackhammer had pulled Yuki tight to his body and he leaned over her shoulder. Brady thought he was talking to her.

Like he was telling her
that she was going to die.

Brady saw that his only way to save Yuki was to shoot her himself. He would aim for her shoulder or her hip and hope that she would drop and Jackhammer would lose his grip on her.

Could he fucking shoot straight?

Please, God, help me.

As he was taking aim at Yuki’s shoulder, Brady saw George Berlinghoff come up behind Jackhammer, unseen. He was holding his one-shot
revolver pointed at the pirate’s neck.

Brady saw what would happen. Berlinghoff would kill Jackhammer. He could not miss. And then Brady would come in quickly and swoop Yuki up before Jackhammer hit the ground.

But, it didn’t happen.

In the split second before Berlinghoff pulled the trigger, there were shots from Berlinghoff’s right-hand side and the revolver spun out of his hand.

The captain
yelled, “Damn!” and Brady saw him grab his wrist. More shots hit him, sending blood spurting across the captain’s white uniform as he fell.

Jackhammer was distracted by Berlinghoff’s shout. He swung his head to see Berlinghoff’s falling body, and in that instant, Brady yelled at Yuki,
“NOW!”

Yuki seemed to come back to herself. She twisted in Jackhammer’s grip and kicked him in the knee. Then
she pulled something from her bathrobe pocket and punched out at Jackhammer’s gut.

Jackhammer grunted and relaxed his hold enough for Yuki to wrench herself free.

As she ran to Brady, Jackhammer aimed at them. Brady saw that he was steady enough to stand, and he knew that the bullets would cut both of them down.