They were almost at the companionway leading back down to the lower decks. There was a muffled shout from that end of the corridor. She looked up. Then a shot; percussive and clanging. She froze. Sucre said something she didn't catch. Another shot. She was pushed from behind. The stairs were at her right.
Steve Orrick appeared, dressed in swimming trunks, holding a hand gun and an Uzi, from a cabin doorway right in front of her. She felt her jaw drop. His eyes went wide. He brought the gun up, pointing it over her shoulder. She was struck from behind, pushed against the rail at the top of the companionway, almost sending her over into the stairwell. She swung round and caught a glimpse of Orrick grimacing, clicking the trigger of the boxy-looking Uzi futilely. Sucre raised his own gun.
She kicked out with one foot, hitting Sucre's rifle. It blasted into the ceiling, filling the metal corridor with stunning noise. She had her balance back by then; she chopped Sucre across the neck, open handed, but he had started to move away. It was only the second time she'd ever hit somebody in anger. Sucre staggered, looking more surprised than anything else and stumbled against the far wall. Orrick was fiddling with the small gun. Then he ducked, and fired between her and Sucre, down towards the bridge. Her ears were ringing. The Uzi made a noise like heavy cloth ripping, magnified a hundred times. Fire sounded down the corridor; Orrick leapt back, into the doorway he'd appeared from. Something tugged suddenly at the hem of the yukata. She turned, glanced down into the stairwell, to see one of the venceristas pointing a gun at her. She dived across the corridor, into the cabin where Orrick was.
It was dark, blinds closed. The acrid smell of powder smoke filled the place. There was a dead man in the bed. Firing sounded behind her, making her flinch; Orrick knelt at the door, peeping out and firing.
She recognised the dead man. It was one of the men who'd guarded them during the night. The one who'd waved the Coke bottle at Bleveans. He was missing most of the left side of his head, and there was a huge patch of glistening darkness staining the white sheets around his midriff. The noise of gunfire resounded through the cabin, filling her. She felt bad, and had to sit down on the floor between Orrick and the bed. Orrick's broad, water-spotted back filled most of the doorway. The trunks had a little belt on them; attached to it was a big sheathed knife. She recognised his trunks, remembered them from a day they'd all gone picnicking on -
She shook her head. Orrick was firing with the pistol, the Uzi lying at his knee. She looked around the cabin. The Uzi magazines lay on the small table, in a pile beside an open copy of Hustler. She grabbed them, clattered them down on the floor beside Orrick and nudged him. She stood up. The Uzi's ripping noise started again.
The side of the superstructure at this level was flush with the deck beneath, but she leant over the bed and opened the blinds and looked out of the porthole to make sure. She wondered if she might squeeze through, and started unscrewing the wing nut securing the glass.
'Grenade! Orrick screamed, and fell back into the cabin. He tried to kick the door shut; half-succeeded. It burst open again in a cloud of smoke and a blast that seemed to reverberate through every atom of Hisako's body.
She'd fallen; she was lying on the warm stickiness of the dead man, blood soaking into the yukata. She struggled away from him, the cabin ringing like a bell about her. More firing behind as Orrick squatted once again at the door. She looked around, wild-eyed, saw the dead man's combat jacket. She took it, felt its heaviness and turned it round, searching. The grenades were there. She tore them from their velcro fastenings. Orrick was back at the door, apparently unharmed. She collapsed to her knees beside him, nudging him again and offering the grenades. He saw them, grabbed one, dropped the other, still firing with his other hand. He shouted something at her.
'- Out! — she heard. She felt as if she had road drills lodged in each ear. She shook her head. - go first! — Orrick screamed at her. He looked at the grenade he held, took the ring in his teeth and pulled; it worked. He threw it down the corridor towards the bridge, picked up the other grenade from the deck, and a magazine. He emptied the Uzi down the corridor after the first grenade, then leapt out, disappearing aft, astonishing her; a sudden increase in light from that direction, then dark again and a metal door slamming. Instantly the grenade detonated, a blast and clattering screech from forward.
A noise like a waterfall filled her ears. She found herself sitting on the floor. Her head buzzed; everything was going grey and watery, reality dissolving in the reeking smoke and the obliterating noise.
She felt herself start to tip back and to the side, but her arm moved in slow motion, as though it moved through treacle, while the rest of her body moved through air. She hit the floor.
Blinked.
She knew she was going to die. Perhaps they all were. At least Sucre had probably been the first. The others might not know she'd hit him.
She could see Sucre's face; so smooth and shining; the neat black fatigues — not as though they'd been in the jungle (jungle?) for weeks at all — the pert little beret with its chic little red badge; those black curls… His face seemed to swim in and out of focus above her. No beret, this time. Curls in disarray. He was looking down at her, mouth twisted.
He reached down, dragged her up. He was real, and alive.
That's it. I'm dead.
She was thrown out into the corridor, hit the far wall. Then she was pushed out into the sunlight. She stood blinking in the glare, blinded. The aft hatches of the Nadia lay below her; water sparkled beyond, holding the green shadow of an island. Sucre pushed her to the rail. Men were running along the aft deck, to the stern of the ship. They held guns.
At the rail, she looked down along the hull of the ship. A couple of men were leaning over the decks below, flying down into the water towards the stern. At the Nadia's landing stage, midships, a black Gemini looked limp and low and crumpled in the water, stern down. She remembered the hunting knife on Orrick's trunks.
The men running to the stern stopped and looked over the rail every now and again, pointing their guns down, sometimes firing them.
Sucre held her arm painfully far up her back, forcing her on tip-toes, grunting with the pain. He shouted to the men at the stern of the ship. They shouldered their guns and reached for their grenades.
She bent over the rail, easing the pressure on her arm a little. Yes, she could still see the ripples. Orrick must have jumped. Swam — probably underwater as much as possible to the stern, where the overhang would protect him from the guns. But not from the grenades.
She watched them splash into the waves around the rear of the ship. She looked up into the blue, lightly clouded sky. No sign of any plane. What a nice day to die on, she thought. Sucre was still shouting behind her. Men and their noise. Suddenly, in a dozen places around the stern of the ship, the water bulged and went white, like a series of giant watery bruises. The bruises burst; fluting and climbing, white stems exploding in the sunlight and falling back. There was hardly any noise. The ship rail under Hisako's sternum vibrated with each shock.
Sucre shouted again. Then there was silence. She felt the sunlight on her neck and forearms, could smell the distant land. An insect buzzed distantly, through the continual ringing in her ears.