And then the quake subsided, the sound fading even faster than it had grown. An uneasy buzz flew through the passengers, a few looked sickly pale, a few dismissed the moment with nervous laughter.
Mercer remained rooted in place, his knuckles white on the steel railing, the line of his mouth grim. Even before it had struck, Mercer knew Tisa hadn’t made up her story. She hadn’t lied about a single thing and the implications were beyond belief. The best minds in science, experts in geo-mechanics and fluid dynamics and other branches of geology, had been working for years to give citizens a few hours’ notice of an impending quake. Their efforts had failed miserably. They couldn’t give even a moment’s warning. And now here he stood with a centuries-old book that gave the exact time and place of an earthquake, a feat of prediction he couldn’t possibly explain. He was overcome by superstitious awe but also the thrill of the potential. He had to understand. He had to learn everything Tisa knew about the oracle.
As he turned to face her a figure striding across the crowded deck caught his eye. It took him a fraction of a second to understand who he was seeing, place him in context and react to the threat. He dropped the journal and tore at Tisa’s hand at the same instant the person closing in on them realized he’d been spotted.
Donny “the Handle” Randall shot Mercer a wolfish grin and reached under the left arm of his windbreaker.
Tisa glanced over her shoulder as Mercer pulled her from the rail. She didn’t recognize the big man who accelerated after them, but behind him was someone she did know, her brother, Luc. Her heart tripped like she’d just been shocked. In the stark illumination of the deck lights she saw the glow of a knife held flat against his leg.
At the top of the stairs leading into the ship, Mercer shouldered aside a pack of German students coming up from the cafeteria. Pitchers of beer went flying. One of the drunker ones cursed him and took an awkward swing at Mercer’s head. The blow missed and the kid punched one of his own friends, sending him down the metal stairway. Someone shouted and a panic began to radiate from the epicenter of the altercation. The surge of passengers slowed Randall’s rush across the deck.
“Give me my gun,” Mercer called as he dragged Tisa down the clogged stairs.
“It’s in my bag on deck!”
He gave her hand a squeeze as if to say that it wasn’t important while furiously thinking how to get out of this trap. No doubt Donny had backup. The slender guy behind him looked like he was part of Randall’s team. There would be others, too. They’d come after him with a half dozen men in Vegas, believing he would be trapped in his room. On board the ferry where he really was trapped they’d probably double the size of their team to be certain they got him.
At the bottom of the stairs was an open mezzanine stretching the width of the ship. Sickly potted palms lined the walls. To the left and right were corridors leading to cabins and passenger lounges. The whole area was jammed with people, some leaning against the walls or sitting on their luggage, others just milling around. A steady stream of passengers passed through the cafeteria doors. While no one paid him and Tisa any special interest, he knew Randall’s backup was coming. A second set of stairs across the mezzanine ascended to the top deck. Donny would expect Mercer to hide amid the twisting interior corridors, not double back, so he led Tisa up the stairs before Donny and the man with him could see where they were heading.
Back in the cooling breeze Mercer realized his body was bathed in sweat, although his breathing remained steady and his heart had slowed after the initial shock of seeing Randall on board. He cut through the crowd and scooped up Tisa’s bag from where she’d left it. Once the familiar heft of the Beretta was in his hand, he felt the odds had evened slightly.
The lights of Santorini were mere pricks against the darkening horizon. Between the ferry and the island, a white motor yacht seemed to be keeping pace with them, hanging a mere thirty yards or so from the side of the ship. Mercer doubted its presence was a coincidence. He looked beyond the cabin cruiser at the receding island. Estimating distance at night was notoriously difficult but he judged the island was too far away to swim to. They had to get off the ferry, and if they were to survive they needed a boat. The ship’s life rafts were inflatable and capable of carrying forty people. Each was encased in bulbous fiberglass capsules. Mercer briefly examined the complex tangle of wires and pulleys that launched them and knew he’d never get one overboard in the minutes he had before Randall found him on deck.
“What are we going to do?” Tisa’s eyes were wide with fright, but not for herself. Her half brother would never hurt her. She feared for Mercer.
With Tisa in tow he took off toward the ferry’s bow. “When we came aboard, I noticed a big chest near the gangway. The label said it contained a six-man inflatable. If we can get to it we can get off this tub.”
They cut past a circle of students ringing a young woman playing guitar and were a dozen paces from another stairway when a pair of men in matching nylon windbreakers came around a ventilator stack. Mercer paused for an instant, judging angles and distances, mindful of the passengers farther forward.
The gunmen gave no such thought. Automatic pistols appeared from under their jackets and the first shots exploded across the open deck. Amid the screams of panic from the teens behind Mercer came the higher keen of an injured woman. He dropped to the deck, shoving Tisa to the side, and fired intentionally above the gunmen to avoid hitting anyone on the far side. The assassins ducked out of view, giving him precious seconds to roll out of their line of fire.
The crowds still lingering at the rails had started a headlong stampede off the top deck. One person ended up going over the rail and into the black water below. Mercer and Tisa became caught in the tide of fleeing bodies, fighting to stay on their feet as the mass of people half ran, half fell down a staircase.
Once through the bottleneck of the stairs, the crowd spread. Mercer and Tisa lost the cover they provided. Just a few feet away, another pair of men wearing the same windbreakers were studying faces, searching for their quarry. This time Mercer didn’t hesitate. He hammered the first with the butt of his pistol, a savage blow to the back of his head that dropped the gunman instantly. The second was angled away from the crowd enough for Mercer to ram the Beretta into his gut and pull the trigger without worrying about the bullet’s follow-through.
The shot was muffled by the man’s body, but not enough to prevent another stampede. An alert crewman hit the fire alarm and its piercing shriek added to the din. Mercer fought against the flow of the crowd, shoving and punching a path until breaking clear into a corridor.
“They’re trying to kill us,” Tisa gasped as they ran from the melee behind them.
“You just noticed?”
“But one of those men, up on deck. It was my brother, Luc.” She still couldn’t believe it. “He’d never hurt me. He, he, he loves me.”
Mercer didn’t know what to say, although he understood the bitterness in her voice when she talked about the schism within the Order. Her brother was on the other side and now felt that his beliefs meant more than his sister’s life. Who the hell were these people? he wondered. Obviously fanatics, but about what? Nothing Tisa had told him the night before made him consider this level of zealotry.
The only answer was that there were parts that she hadn’t explained yet, something that had triggered violence in a group that had remained passive for centuries. Fear or power, those were the only two motivations he could think of. They feared some upcoming event or sought power through their oracle. And considering what the oracle did, he could imagine what they feared.