“They almost look like they’re on fire, don’t they?” said Komosa with a hint of awe.
Sophia smiled. “They will be soon enough.”
Lenard turned to her from the controls. “The autopilot has been set and locked, ma’am. The ship will follow the GPS waypoints to the East River, then turn for shore just before the bomb goes off. Even allowing for drift, it will be no more than fifty meters from land.”
“Good,” said Sophia. “The closer the better.” She turned away from the window. “I think it’s time we left. Captain, get the crew to the plane. Joe …” She smiled. “I’ve had a change of heart. Go down to the hold and kill Eddie.”
Komosa beamed back maliciously. “It’ll be my pleasure. What about the woman?”
“Leave her.”
He was surprised. “Really?”
“I want you to make Eddie’s death as quick and clean as possible,” she told him. “I owe him that much, at least. But her…I want her to suffer.” She raised a hand to the deep scratch across her cheek. “She can spend her last few minutes looking at the body of her dead love. I owe her that much.”
Komosa took out his silver Browning from under his leather waistcoat. “Consider it done.”
“Quick and clean,” Sophia reminded him as he left the bridge, sunlight gleaming from his piercings. “We take off as soon as the plane’s ready. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be,” he assured her with another diamond-tipped smile.
The timer reached 00:10:00, then continued its countdown.
“Well,” said Chase, “now would be a good time for any last-minute brainstorms.”
“Afraid I’m out of ideas,” Nina replied glumly. They had tried every way they could think of to get free of their bonds, with no results except cut and bloodied wrists.
Chase rattled his chain against the pipe. “I’m starting to wish I’d tried Sophia’s suggestion.”
“What was that?”
“Bite off my own hand.”
Nina managed a tiny smile. “Bit extreme.”
“It’s an extreme situation.”
“We seem to have a lot of those, don’t we?”
He nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been through quite a lot together, haven’t we? But…”
Something in his voice, an almost confessional tone, prompted Nina to sit up. “Something you want to tell me?” she asked softly.
“Well, now’s the time, isn’t it?” He flicked a hand at the bomb. “I just meant that, even though we had some problems … the last year and a half with you’s been the best time in my entire life. I just wish I’d appreciated it more instead of acting like a selfish arse.”
“Aw, Eddie …” She gave him a sad, sympathetic smile. “You weren’t the only one being selfish. I’m as much to blame. But we did have some really good times, didn’t we?”
“Yeah. We made a good team.”
“We were good matches.”
“Great matches.”
“Mm-hmm.”
They looked at each other for a moment. “I, uh…” Chase began.
“What?” Nina asked. “Nothing.”
“No, go on. As you said, now’s the time.”
“Good point.” Chase paused, gathering his thoughts. “There was a question I’d been thinking about asking you.”
Nina could guess what it was. “Since we made up?”
“No, before that. I mean, not while we were in the middle of an argument or anything. But it’d been on my mind for a while.”
“So… go ahead. Ask me.”
He gestured at the bomb again. “Well, there’s not much point now, is there?”
“I suppose not.” Nina sighed. “But…”
“What?”
“I think you know what my answer would have been.”
“I think I do.” He smiled, then let out a brief laugh. “What’s so funny?”
“Something just occurred to me. If we’d done it and decided to hyphenate our names, we’d be the Wilde-Chases. Sort of appropriate.”
“You only just realized that?” Nina said, laughing herself. “I thought of that a year and a half ago!”
Chase raised an eyebrow. “You were thinking about that right after we got together?”
“Well, it crossed my mind!” They both laughed.
And then the door opened.
Chase and Nina jumped to their feet as Komosa entered, gun in hand. “Not quite what I expected to hear,” he said with mocking disapproval. “But I can soon put that right.”
“You still here?” Chase asked. “Sophia dumped you already, has she?”
“Actually, she asked me to put you out of her misery.” Komosa moved to stand between Chase and Nina, just out of reach of either of them. “I’ll be leaving with her in a minute. She has a good vantage point picked out on Staten Island.”
“Yeah, you can see all the best landfill sites from there,” Nina told him sarcastically.
“So, Sophia’s finally let you come and kill us?” said Chase.
“No,” replied Komosa, pointing his gun at Chase, “just you. She wants Dr. Wilde to suffer much grief in her last few minutes alive.”
Nina’s defiance was swept away by a wave of cold horror at the thought, but before she could react Komosa continued. “But I have a better idea. I want you both to suffer—especially you, Chase. So I’m going to shoot you in the gut. You’ll spend the last few minutes of your life in unbearable agony—and you,” he added, looking back at Nina, “will have to stand there and watch.” He aimed his gun down at Chase’s stomach.
“Don’t I get any famous last words?” Chase growled.
Komosa smirked. “Only ‘aargh!’” He thumbed the chromed hammer back with a click—
Chase lunged at him, lashing out with his legs as the chain of his handcuffs rasped around the pipe. Komosa, caught by surprise, stepped back even though he was out of range.
He recovered his composure, took aim again, smiled— and lurched forward as Nina delivered a flying kick with both feet into his back.
She dropped hard onto the deck, cuffed arms outstretched above her head. Komosa staggered forward before regaining his balance—
Crack!
Chase leaped up and delivered a brutal head butt that split the giant’s lower jaw in two between his front teeth, a sharp edge of bone slicing through Komosa’s gum and lip.
The Nigerian screamed, his mouth gushing with blood as Chase landed, head level with his chest.
Chase clamped his teeth around the silver ring piercing Komosa’s left nipple and pulled back with all his might, dragging his opponent towards the pipe before the ring tore loose, ripping a chunk of bloody flesh out with it.
His own face streaming with blood from a deep gash on his forehead, Chase spat out the gory jewelery and swung around the pipe to grab Komosa’s gun with his cuffed hands, pointing it away from him as he tried to twist it from the other man’s fist.
But despite the pain, Komosa was recovering. Mouth hanging open, a revolting mix of blood and saliva drooling out over the now jagged line of his teeth, he lifted his arm …
And kept lifting.
Chase clung to the gun with both hands, but was powerless to stop himself from being hauled into the air, his chest thumping against the pipe as his feet left the floor. Tendons in the huge man’s arm strained through his skin like steel cables, veins bulging as Komosa let out a gurgling snarl of pure rage.
His other arm drew back to strike…
Chase realized he would never be able to wrench the gun out of Komosa’s hand—his grip was too strong, the steel clench of a vise.
Instead, he changed his hold, jamming his left thumb into the trigger guard over Komosa’s forefinger. With his wrists together, the handcuff chain was slack—he flicked it up with his other thumb as he forced Komosa’s finger harder onto the trigger—
Blam!
The bullet blasted the chain apart, pieces scattering across the hold.
Even though his han
ds were now free, Chase didn’t release his grip on the gun—the moment he did, Komosa would shoot him. Still hanging from the man’s raised arm, he slammed a knee up into his groin.
Komosa flinched back, the obstructing pipe preventing Chase from scoring anything more than a glancing impact. The blow from his other arm finally came. Chase tried to twist to avoid it, but the African’s knuckles plowed into his stomach with the force of a train.
He groaned, the sickening punch driving the wind out of him. His right hand lost its grip on the gun, setting him swinging wildly as Komosa abruptly moved back—
Chase’s head slammed against the pipe with a dull clong of bone against metal. Stars of indescribable colors went supernova in his vision, new levels of pain searing through his skull.
His left thumb clenched again—
On the helipad, waiting impatiently beside the tilt-rotor, Sophia looked around sharply as she heard the faint sound of another shot from below. Then she jumped into the cabin. “Take off! Quickly!”
The men already aboard looked at her in surprise. “What about Mr. Komosa?” asked the pilot.
“Go!” she screamed. “Get us out of here, now!”
The only reason for her to hear a second shot was if something had gone wrong—
The bullet smacked into the far wall. His nauseating dizziness worsened by the ringing in his ears, Chase was unable to resist as Komosa bashed his left wrist against the pipe, trying to break his hold on the gun and knock him to the floor.
Another blow. Something crunched. His fingers were slipping …
Through a haze of pain, he saw Komosa’s blood-streaked face. Go for his eyes, training and instinct told him. Too far. Komosa’s reach was greater than his own. Which only left—
With a desperate burst of strength, Chase whipped up his right arm to stab at the gun with his thumb.
Not at the trigger, but the magazine release button behind it.
With a clink, the magazine dropped out. Then Chase went for the trigger, squeezing his left thumb for a third and final time to fire the remaining round in the chamber. The Browning’s slide locked back.
Before the magazine reached the deck, Chase swung his foot and booted it across the hold. It hit the wall near Nina and clattered to the floor.
Komosa’s eyes bulged with anger. He smashed Chase’s wrist against the pipe again. This time, the pain was too much and Chase let go, stumbling and falling onto his back.
He was free of the pipe at last, but that was no consolation as the furious Komosa descended upon him.
The gun swung down at his head. Chase just barely brought his hands up in time to block the impact, but Komosa struck again, and again, the hard metal finally cracking against his skull. Chase’s head thudded back against the deck.
He groaned. Through the blur of his vision he could make out the bomb about eight feet away, the clock still couting down. From outside the ship he heard the roar of engines: the tilt-rotor taking off and rapidly peeling away.
Komosa got up, looking for the magazine. He spotted it and staggered towards Nina.
She saw Chase roll onto his side and crawl slowly, painfully, towards the bomb. Whatever he was doing, she had to give him more time.
She couldn’t reach the fallen magazine with her hands. But she could with her feet—
Using the pipe for leverage, Nina swept around and kicked the magazine just as Komosa reached for it, sending it spinning across the hold to bang against the far wall. He hissed something incoherent, blood bubbling from his cut lips, then kicked her hard in the stomach before shambling after the clip of bullets.
Chase reached the bomb. He gripped the vertical rails, pulling himself forward.
Komosa scooped up the magazine and slammed it back into place, the slide springing forward to load another bullet into the chamber. He turned to take aim at Chase—and found Chase aiming at him.
“Pierce off!” Chase snarled as he fired the bolt gun.
With an explosive bang, the six-inch steel rod shot across the room. Designed to penetrate metal, the bolt met almost no resistance as it punched through Komosa’s rib cage and heart before erupting from his back and slamming into the bulkhead. Pinned like a butterfly to a board, Komosa stared in shock at Chase before releasing a final bubbling wheeze. His head slumped forward, more blood running out of the neat hole in his chest to join the ooze dribbling from his broken mouth. The gun clunked to the deck at his feet.
“That was horrible,” Nina gasped.
“Fucker deserved it,” Chase said weakly, dropping the empty bolt gun and crawling towards her.
“No, I meant the pun.”
A noise escaped Chase’s mouth that could almost have been a laugh. “Are you okay?”
“Forget me, what about the bomb?” She squinted at it, trying to read the figures on the screen. “Oh my God! There’s only six minutes left!”
Chase changed direction, somehow finding the strength to push himself upright. Reeling, he went to Komosa’s body and picked up the gun. “You’ve got to get to the bridge, send out a Mayday—channel sixteen. Then turn the ship around, get it as far from land as you can.”
“What about you?”
“I’m gonna try and stop that thing from going off! Pull the chain around the pipe.”
She did as he said. “I thought you said it was booby-trapped!”
Chase placed the gun’s muzzle shakily against the chain, directing it as far away from Nina’s hands as he could. “I’ve got to do something!” He fired. The chain broke, Nina’s wrists springing apart. “Go on, get moving!”
With a worried look back at his bloodied face, Nina hurried from the hold.
Chase staggered over to the bomb. “Okay, what’ve we got?” The timer read 00:05:22. “Five minutes to stop a nuke going off. I can do that. Yeah.”
Leaning on the cap for support, he looked down into the heart of the steel base. The thick bolts that held down the uranium slug had retracted. He reached into the hole, hoping that he might be able to pull the slug out from the rails, but the fit was too precise for him to get even a fingernail’s grip around its edge.
If he couldn’t get the slug out, then maybe he could block its path…
Fragments of information from his SAS briefings surfaced through the roiling dizziness. In a bomb of this type, the two pieces of uranium needed to be kept at least ten inches apart to prevent them from reacting to each other and emitting radiation prematurely. That explained the gap separating the base and the cap.
So if he could jam the rails …
Winded, Nina entered the bridge.
As she’d expected, it was empty—everybody else aboard had left in the tilt-rotor. To her horror, the view through the wide windows was filled by the familiar outline of lower Manhattan: Battery Park a swath of green to the left with the glass block of the Freedom Tower rising beyond the older brick buildings; to the right the ferry terminal and the South Street Seaport, the financial district’s anonymous skyscrapers a sunlit wall behind the shoreline. The Ocean Emperor was making a slow turn, heading up the East River.
She ran to the wheel. The ship was obviously running on autopilot—if she could cancel it and turn back into the harbor…
The wheel spun in her hands, but the ship’s turn didn’t alter. The steering was operated electronically, not directly linked to the rudder, and the computer wasn’t giving up its control.
“Shit!” She looked for a way to release the autopilot. Nothing jumped out at her, just ranks of indecipherable monitor screens.
The radio—
That was easy to find, at least, a push-button handset on a coiled wire. She turned one of the dials until “16” appeared in an LED display and took the handset. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is the Ocean Emperor off lower Manhattan—there is a nuclear bomb aboard! I repeat, this is the vessel Ocean Emperor declaring a Mayday, there is a nuclear bomb aboard set to go off in four minutes!”
She waited for a response. Several seconds
passed with nothing but the faint hiss of static. She was about to try again when a rather irate man’s voice crackled from the speaker. “Ocean Emperor, this is the Coast Guard. I must inform you that making a hoax Mayday call is a federal crime carrying sanctions of up to six years’ imprisonment and a fine of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Fine, whatever!” Nina spluttered. “Get your ass aboard and arrest me—just make it quick, ’cause I can’t stop this boat!”
Another pause.
“Did you say …nuclear bomb?” the man asked.
“Yes! Nuclear bomb! B-O-M-B bomb! We’ve got Hiroshima in the hold and we don’t know how to stop it! Call Homeland Security, call the president, call whoever the fuck you need to call, just do it in the next four minutes!”
Somebody else spoke in the background before the transmission cut off. Nina shifted her weight anxiously from foot to foot. “Come on, come on, do something …”
Finally, a reply came. “Ocean Emperor, we are issuing a full alert,” said the man.
“Oh thank God!”
“But if you are telling the truth… there’s not really anything we can do in four minutes. It’s up to you to stop it.”
Nina stared at the handset. “Well, that helps! Thanks a lot!” She threw it down onto the console and ran back for the stairs. “Eddie! We have a problem!”
Chase heard the distant shout. “So what’s new?” he said to himself.
He had collected what few items he’d been able to find in the hold—Komosa’s pistol, the bolt gun—and attempted to wedge them inside the vertical rails to block the uranium slug’s path. But they weren’t enough. They could stop the slug from hitting the cap and achieving critical mass—but it would still get close enough to release a massive burst of radiation that would not only kill him and irradiate the entire yacht, leaving a huge piece of lethally radioactive junk adrift off one of the world’s most densely populated cities, but possibly be powerful enough to affect people on land as well.