HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) (47 page)

Wump!

Something fell on her a split second before the heat did.

It was Forest.

Forest shielded her with his body. Heat poured over them. Erin felt it curling around Forest and searching for her skin.

 ‘Shoot him!’ she yelled, terrified as the entire deli seemed to fill with fire.

Why aren’t they shooting?

Then Erin realized.

The gunmen didn’t know the Marines had real firearms. For all they knew, the Marines still carried non-lethal weapons. Forest and King were luring them closer, forcing them to expose themselves.

The fire receded again.

Erin heard boots running into the deli. More gunmen. At least three more.

‘Now,’ hissed King.

Forest and King sprang up and fired.

Both men fired until they ran out of bullets, taking full advantage of their one and only surprise.

Erin covered her ears. In the confined space, the deafening gunfire stabbed into her eardrums.

The Marines ducked down again.

‘I’m all out,’ said Forest. ‘Did you get him?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied King. ‘I saw three go down.’

As King spoke, Erin heard a single set of boots charging toward the counter. She knew in her heart it was the cunning man with the flamethrower.

The man who’d set the trap.

He’d avoided King and Forest’s surprise attack.

Now he came rushing forward to spray the flamethrower right over the counter.

King reacted instantly.

He dropped his rifle and leaped onto the marble service counter in a single bound. His next step sent him sailing clean over the counter. While King flew through the air, Erin heard the flamethrower ignite.

King leaped straight over the flames.

The man tilted up the flamethrower, trying to burn King midair.

The flames barely singed King’s boots. King landed on the man, smashing him to the deck. The flamethrower bounced away.

Erin looked over the counter to see King’s giant hands encircle the man’s throat. King’s hugely-muscled arms tensed. He began squeezing.

‘Do you like burning people?’ King bellowed in the man’s face.

‘Do you think burning people to death is fun?’

Forest watched silently.

‘Do you want to burn me?’ King yelled in the man’s face. ‘Do you want to burn my friends?’

Crack.

Erin heard a horrible sound. The sound of bones being twisted beyond their tolerance.

King leaned back, letting go. ‘Well you can burn in hell now.’

‘How bad are you burned?’ Forest asked Erin.

Erin couldn’t take her eyes off King.

‘Erin!’ Forest barked. ‘Can you run? How bad are you burned?’

‘I’m...I can run.’

Forest pulled a can from his vest and sprayed the back of his neck and ears. He passed it to Erin.

‘This is an antiseptic and analgesic. Spray it everywhere you were burned.’

Erin did. The intense pain in her calves reduced, but still hurt a lot.

Forest salvaged all the gunmen’s ammunition, which wasn’t much.

Erin held up the spray.

‘Keep it,’ said Forest. ‘Your burns are worse.’

‘What about King?’

Forest shook his head. ‘He’s got other things on his mind.’

Bolton strode through the generators.

Among other vital services, the generators served the ship’s emergency pumps.

The pumps themselves were spread throughout the ship. He didn’t have time to sabotage them all.

Instead, he would sabotage the system that gave the pumps life.

The primary and secondary generators were located together for ease of servicing. As Bolton approached the primary generator, his gunmen retreated.

They stared at his plasma lance warily.

Bolton shook his head.

‘My father taught me that every motor needs two things. Spark and fuel. Take one away and the motor’s useless.’

His men looked relieved the plasma lance wasn’t necessary.

‘Just turn off all the fuel lines,’ ordered Bolton. ‘That’s all it takes.’

Bolton’s father had also taught him something about water.

Water hated ships.

It hated all watercraft.

Every molecule of water on the planet felt the same way. When water contacted a ship’s hull it instantly began searching for weak spots. Engineers called it ‘water pressure’, but Bolton knew the ocean was really a nasty bitch who wanted to sink ships and drown men.

She wouldn’t be content until every ship lay on the sea bottom.

He found it odd when people claimed that icebergs and coral reefs sank ships. Neither did. They just altered the constant battle between water and ship.

Whoever designed the
First Lady of the Sea
understood this. But they hadn’t counted on the water recruiting an ally in Bolton.

Christov’s voice came over Bolton’s radio.

‘Bolton. I don’t have the acid drive. You’ll need to postpone the detonation.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Bolton replied flatly.

‘What?’ spluttered Christov. ‘You don’t tell me what’s possible. Your job is to make this possible!’

‘I’ve done that,’ replied Bolton. ‘You asked me to sink the largest cruise ship in the world using just the equipment carried in two helicopters. That requires explosions set to the millisecond. Our timers are already set. It’s too late to reach them all now. This ship is going down.’

‘How much time do I have?’ demanded Christov.

Bolton checked his watch. ‘Fifty-six seconds.’

‘What?’ Christov barked. ‘Less than a minute? Give me options! What can we do?’

‘Find that acid drive,’ advised Bolton. ‘Because this ship is about to sink under our feet.’

‘Then you get your ass up here and help me,’ shouted Christov. ‘Help me kill these damn Marines!’

Bolton smirked at his radio. ‘On my way.’

Bolton’s men headed for the door, but Bolton didn’t move. Not yet anyway. He checked his watch.

...39...38...37...

Very soon his explosives would tear great gaping holes through the ship’s hull.

No sirens would wail.

No emergency lights would flash.

No automated warning messages would sound.

There would just be water.

Torrents and torrents of water.

He checked his watch.

...24...23...22...

‘Are we safe in here?’ asked a gunman.

Bolton pointed. ‘You might want to close that door so the pressure wave doesn’t rupture our eardrums.’

Two gunmen sprinted for the heavy steel door.

Slam!

Bolton checked his watch one last time.

...11...10...9...

He placed his palms on the ship’s hull. He wanted to feel the vibrations shudder through the ship like an earthquake. He closed his eyes.

...3...2...1...

The ship’s mighty engines were the explosion’s epicenter. Ripped from the deck, the engines tore straight through the ship’s hull.

As Bolton had planned, the precise timing and confined space of the engine room had amplified the detonation threefold.

Before the water even began rushing in, most of the hull surrounding the engine room was gone. As the water came surging into the ship, the engines that hadn’t been propelled through the hull were thrown around like bath toys.

And that was just the engine room.

With atomic precision, eighteen separate explosions tore through the
First Lady of the Sea
.

Every explosion occurred below the waterline, and every resulting hole was widened even further by the torrents of surging water.

In the ship’s winery, thirty thousand bottles of wine exploded as the pressure wave hit. On higher levels, thousands of glasses in restaurants and bars rattled in their trays.

On the highest deck of the ship, the canvas on the deck chairs all swung in unison as though feeling the first gust of an approaching hurricane.

‘Did you feel that?’ asked Forest.

King nodded. ‘Explosions.’

‘I think they’re sinking the ship,’ said Forest.

Erin shook her head. ‘We’d hear alarms if explosions had compromised the ship’s hull. We’d hear sirens on every deck.’

Forest agreed with King. ‘They could have disabled those systems. Just like they disabled the radios. We need to reach the helipad.’

King nodded. ‘What’s the quickest way?’

Erin didn’t look convinced they were sinking, but she nodded and pointed out their location on Forest’s map.

‘We’re here. At the back of the ship. The quickest way to reach the helipad is through the maritime museum.’

Forest folded away the map and set off, following Erin’s directions.

When they reached the maritime museum, Forest could feel the deck tilting under his feet.

‘I feel it too,’ said King, reading Forest’s mind.

‘Pass me your water bottle,’ Erin said.

Forest handed her the bottle.

Polished wood covered the floor outside the maritime museum. Erin poured a little water onto the wood.

The water beaded away quickly across the deck.

‘Sometimes it’s the waves,’ she explained.

After ten seconds she tried again.

The water rolled away in exactly the same direction.

Erin looked shocked.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘The ship is taking water. The stern is lower than the bow. But that doesn’t mean we’re sinking. We have anti-saturation measures. We might just settle deeper in the water.’

King shook his head. ‘No one uses explosives to
half
sink a ship.’

Forest nodded. ‘This ship is sinking, Erin.’

Erin looked stunned, as though she couldn’t comprehend the ship could really sink.

Forest needed her mind clear. He had no doubt that Erin’s knowledge of the ship had helped keep them alive this long.

‘Erin,’ he said, touching her wrist. ‘We need to reach the helipad. Are you ready?’

Erin nodded. She blinked a few times. Forest saw her determination return.

‘Through here,’ she pointed. ‘The museum stretches up over three decks. The top deck is close to the helipad.’

Forest scanned through the ornate wooden archway into the maritime museum. Like the deck under his boots, the entire museum seemed to be clad in polished wood.

‘Okay. Let’s go.’

Moving quickly, Forest barely glimpsed the artifacts on display. They ran past a long display of swords and flintlock pistols.

Erin pointed them toward a section devoted to Leonardo de Vinci’s earliest prototype submarines.

‘There are the stairs,’ whispered Erin.

A wide, ornately carved wooden staircase wound up to the museum’s next level. King dashed toward the stairs, keeping low, waving the others over after him.

At the top of the stairs, Forest heard something. He grabbed Erin and pushed King behind a display cabinet filled with carved whale bones.

He’d heard footsteps.

He glanced around the display cabinet.

Three men strode across the museum floor.

One wore old, faded overalls. He looked at least thirty years older than the other two gunmen. He carried complicated-looking equipment strapped to his back. He seemed unarmed, but clearly in charge.

The two men flanking him carried Scorpion Evo submachine guns.

The cameras must be down
, realized Forest.
They don’t know we’re in here.