HAMMERTIME by Asher Wismer
Dirk Hammer launched his body into the air, using the taut canvas covering the lifeboat as a trampoline. Below him, the soldiers fired their muzzle-loading muskets; it flashed through his mind that he was extremely lucky that modern firearms were so rare in this part of the world.
As he passed over their heads, Hammer reached out and caught the second-tier railing that bounded the luxury ocean liner's upper deck. He vaulted it, recalling for a moment his two years as a circus acrobat, and slid into an open door. The click of the latch seemed very loud; Hammer knew he had only a minute before the soldiers regrouped.
"Ahem."
Hammer looked up from his kneeling position, his hand going to the hand-forged knife in his belt. The speaker was a woman, early twenties, wearing a dressing gown and curlers in her hair, just turning in her seat from the mirror. The small cabin was otherwise empty.
"Pardon me," Hammer said. "You'll want to keep your head down for a while; there are Navy ships coming and they'll make sure the passengers are safe."
"Was that gunfire I heard?" the woman asked. She didn't seem scared.
"You'll be hearing it a lot more in a few minutes," Hammer replied. He stood. "Would you mind standing?"
"You must be a mercenary," she said, getting up. "We were told this part of the world is dangerous; I didn't imagine we'd be exposed to it."
Hammer grabbed the chair and wedged it under the cabin door handle. Not a moment too soon; the door shook with blows, and Hammer turned to the woman.
"Is there another way out of here?"
"Through the inside door," she said. Her eyes were bright. "Are you a pirate?"
Hammer pushed past her. She followed, talking casually, as if he had stopped in for coffee.
"Joe and I signed up for the cruise back in April. I didn't really want to go, but he was so intent on doing one last round-the-world trip… he's retiring next month, did I mention? We've been seeing each other – dating, really – for almost a year. He was down in the lounge an hour ago, did you see him?"
Ignoring her, Hammer scanned the next room. He knew the soldiers would be at least familiar with the cruise liner's layout, and that meant that he had only a few minutes to either escape or hide. The Navy boats would protect the passengers, but Hammer himself wouldn't be so lucky.
The cabins on the upper level were large, opulent, and Hammer saw at once that this particular one stretched all across the deck to the opposite rail. Joe – whoever he was – must be enormously wealthy. Without looking back, Hammer said, "The other side of the ship. Are there lifeboats like the ones on this side?"
"Starboard? Sure, the whole liner's outfitted. We wouldn't want to end up like those poor fools on the Titanic, would we? Joe had his people check out all the safeties before we boarded…"
She prattled on. Hammer cracked the opposite door; so far, no one in sight, and the pounding on the wedged door continued. Any minute now… Hammer grabbed the woman's arm and pulled her out of the cabin. Shocked, she stopped talking, and Hammer led her over to the rail. Sure enough, there was a row of lifeboats, all secured and covered in heavy canvas. The deck was empty; all the other passengers, hearing the gunfire, had fled to their cabins.
"Come on," he said, as the woman began to pull away. "You don't want to be caught in there when those soldiers get through."
"The idea! I am a paying customer! They would never dare touch me!"
"You haven't traveled much, have you?" Hammer asked. He looked down over the rail; about five meters, give or take. The nearest stairs were easily twenty meters in either direction. Hammer said, "I'm going over. Follow me and you'll get out of this alive."
The woman said, "You can't be serious."
"I won't be able to come back up to get you, so come on!"
"I'll just get the purser. He'll know what to do-"
No time; Hammer could hear through the two open doors that the pounding had stopped.
In a single motion, he swept the woman off her feet and into his arms. As she began to shriek, Hammer took the railing in a single bound, and the breath whooshed from her body as they dropped five meters and landed, Hammer's powerful legs taking the impact with barely a tremor.
"How did you-"
Hammer put her down and ran to the lifeboat; she followed, hesitant. Around to the other side, he pulled his knife and slit the canvas just over the edge, where it tied off. He cut a two meter slit, pulled the canvas up, and said, "Get in."
"I will not – what are you doing?"
No time, no time! Hammer slithered into the lifeboat. He felt the deck shaking; the soldiers were coming the long way around, but they'd be in sight any second.
"Get in," he hissed to the woman. "Or you will be killed, I promise!"
She got in. Hammer stretched the canvas back over the edge of the lifeboat, and they listened, lumped together in the small space, as the soldiers rumbled past and around, shouting, searching.
"What are they looking for?" she whispered.
"Me, and what I have," he whispered back. "I stole something."
"So you are a pirate!"
"Shhh! No, it has nothing to do with piracy. There are some evil people who wanted to use this item for terrible ends. I don't know all the details, but I was sent here to retrieve it."
The voices outside grew louder as the soldiers milled around, confused.
"I got on board at the last port," Hammer continued, barely sub-vocalizing. "I think I saw you, actually; I was the waiter who saved your dress from that drunk's spilled drink."
"Oh," she said. "You have very good reflexes. By the way, how did you make that jump? Your legs should have been broken!"
"I spent four years studying Yoga and mountain-climbing in Tibet. If there's one thing you learn when trying to follow goats up sheer mountainsides, it's how to fall long distances without hurting yourself."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"You're alive, right? Stop worrying about the how and help me figure out how to get off this ship."
Incredibly, the woman smiled. "I think I can help you. My name is Diana, and I'm here for the same reason you are."
Hammer narrowed his eyes. The bright sunlight outside illuminated the small lifeboat space, allowing him to examine the woman – Diana – more closely. She was shorter than his own almost-two-meter frame, but now he could see the taut muscles in her arms, the hard lines in her face barely obscured by makeup.
"Diana Wilkox," she said. "InterPol. You're a mercenary?"
"No," Hammer said after a pause. "Dirk Hammer. The CIA hired me to retrieve the-"
"-Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám," Diana finished. "Yes, we both are, it seems."
"I hope this won't affect our new friendship," Hammer said, and smiled. "It seems I got to it first."
He reached behind himself, squirming in the tight space, and pulled out a flat package wrapped in oilcloth. "It wasn't hard to get it," he continued. "It's getting off this ship alive that's the problem."
"I understand." Diana moved closer to him, if such a thing were possible. The quarters were tight; she made them tighter.
"The code in the book is vital to International security," she said. Her voice had gotten deeper; her breath tickled his face. The confined space heated in the beating sunlight.
"Yeah, well, it's also vital to the security of the United States," Hammer replied. "There's only one copy."
"One copy. Do you think your people really need it? After all, InterPol is committed to keeping the entire world safe. Obviously your country would be included in that international blanket of safety."
Diana's robe had become loose. The skin underneath was evenly and deeply tanned. Hammer's eyes narrowed.