Not three minutes had passed from the moment I unfolded the sail till we set up the dummy in the cockpit of the Corinth. While Prit slipped back around the corner, I cut the line that held the Corinth to the dock.
In one smooth motion, the sailboat began to slide toward the harbor entrance. The rudder was locked in place so it would hold its course for a few minutes—more than enough time. Trying not to make noise, I let myself down into the water between the Corinth and the dock. The water was really cold, but I didn’t even notice. As the hull slid up against me, I took a few deep breaths and dived.
Diving relaxed me completely. I could make out the black silhouette of the Corinth as it pulled away, and beyond that, through the rushing waters of the port, the Zaren Kibish’s waterline.
I gently began to swim for shore, trying not to create lots of bubbles. Less than ten yards from the shore, I ran out of air. Angry with myself, I kicked a few more times. Finally, about to pass out, I surfaced at the dock, right where we’d tied up the Zodiac the first time. Prit was waiting to hoist me out of the water.
Breathing hard, we ran to the imposing Seguritsa warehouse. Dripping wet, I peered around the corner of the deserted dock, to where the Corinth had been just minutes before. At the edge of the dock, sparkling in the midday sun, lay the black Samsonite briefcase, the object of so much trouble.
Swaying as if a drunk were at the helm, the Corinth sailed slowly toward open water. Before getting off the boat, I’d caught up the sheets in the most visible way possible, trying to draw the attention of the sailors on the freighter. Now I was afraid I’d tightened them up too much and the sail would rip.
It was too late to worry about that. A barrage of automatic weapons fire from the Zaren’s bow splintered the Corinth’s deck into a thousand places. The dummy’s head rocketed through the air. Wood chips and pieces of carbon fiber flew everywhere as hundreds of bullets pierced the boat’s hull and rigging. A man stood on the bridge with an RPG-7 on his shoulder. The Corinth swayed and drifted less than two hundred yards from his position, making it an easy shot.
With a roar, the grenade hit the sailboat in a cloud of smoke and a blinding flash. The impact was devastating. A huge column of fire shot up through the hatches of the Corinth. The hull disintegrated into a million pieces.
As thousands of gallons of water flooded the injured vessel, another shell hit the deck. A jet of fire and smoke rose from the bowels of the Corinth, now a roaring inferno. A piece of mast spun in the sky and fell back into the water. With a gurgle, the battered hull sank to the bottom amid the explosions.
Pritchenko and I didn’t hang around to watch the show. We ran like hell down the alley to the idling van. As the last explosions on the Corinth thundered all over the port, Prit gently accelerated and headed for the exit.
In the backseat, a fat, happy orange cat was perched in a mesh cage, contentedly eyeing his owner and a small mustached man who drove as if the devil were carrying him to hell.
Prit and I smiled. Not only had we danced with the devil, we’d gotten out alive. Nestled between the two seats sat a black Samsonite suitcase sealed with red tape, identical to the one we’d left on the dock.
ENTRY 77
April 15, 9:08 p.m.
Everything was going too well. And that was the problem. We got too confident. We let our guard down. We acted like heroes out of a damn action movie, and we paid the price. The world today is dirty, mean, tough, and terribly dangerous. If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned. Burned. Fuck. That’s ironic. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
When we drove away from the rubble of the port, we were euphoric. We were alive, healthy, with a car full of supplies and weapons. And we knew where a helicopter was, so we could get out of that hole. Everything was going smoothly.
Prit drove like a madman through the deserted streets of a Vigo suburb. Out the window I saw luxury villas, most of them locked up tight. Some had boarded-up doors and windows. Those safeguards suggested that it was one of the first neighborhoods evacuated in an orderly and systematic way.
After several months of neglect, the area was starting to look really bleak. The houses peeped out from behind overgrown bushes and weed-choked gardens. On one driveway, a fire-engine-red tricycle lay on its side, gradually being consumed by hedges. With all the humans gone, nature was reclaiming its place. Almost no cars were abandoned on the shoulder. Maybe their owners had fled in them, trying to escape the inevitable.
There were dozens of undead in that area. Their occupation of the city didn’t seem to follow any pattern. There were wide avenues where you only saw a couple. Then, around a corner, you stumbled upon dozens, even hundreds, of them, wandering around or staring off into space, waiting for prey. What motivates them or draws them to one place or another is a mystery to me.
That neighborhood was a hot zone. There were dozens of those things at every intersection, in every garden, some in good shape, others horribly maimed or disfigured. I’ve gotten used to them; their smell doesn’t even disgust me. I know what they are, and they know what I am. Period.
Prit zigzagged, dodging undead. He drove awfully fast, as usual. With each turn, the tires screeched, shaking us around like peas in a can. The undead appeared in greater and greater numbers. Prit performed heroic feats behind the wheel to keep from ramming them. We had to slow down, and the mob pursuing us was more abundant. It didn’t look good.
Out of the blue, a middle-aged guy appeared suddenly in the middle of the road. He was about fifty, heavyset, his shirt open to the waist, wearing lots of gold chains around his neck. Half his face was a bloody, tattered mess; he was deathly pale like the rest of them. We didn’t have time to dodge him.
Just seconds before, Prit had swerved to avoid a group of undead crowded together in the middle of the road. What happened next was inevitable. He didn’t see the guy until we were on top of him. With a loud thud, the monster’s body struck the front of the van and was thrown to the side, completely limp, leaving a clump of putrid blood on the windshield. Prit swerved like crazy, trying to regain control, but the heavy van skidded out of control, dragging several of those monsters in its path as ominous noises came from its engine.
Doing a spectacular 360, our car finally stopped in the middle of the road, enveloped in the acrid smell of burning rubber. For a moment there was silence. I exhaled; I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath. Once again I was glad to have the very talented Ukrainian at the wheel. He’d kept us from crashing and made sure the van didn’t stall. That would have been absolutely fatal.
But the motor sounded like it was falling apart. A thin trickle of steam wafted through a gasket mangled by the impact. The radiator had a leak—and not a small one. That motor’s days were numbered. It was a miracle it was still running.
Slowly putting the van in gear, Prit got us going again, this time more slowly. We weren’t laughing it up anymore. If the engine broke down in that infested area, with all the houses closed up tight, we’d be doomed to a certain death in seconds.
The next twenty minutes were endless. Both tires on the right side had blown out, so we inched along through the subdivision, wrapped in a cloud of smoke, with the temperature light on. We were forced to slow down to a lousy ten miles an hour as dozens of hands pounded on the sides of the van.