She knew that everyone in the place was armed. A shootout in here could end only one way, and Kerry Kent had no intention of dying for anybody’s cause except her own. She ran. As she charged past the York control equipment she snapped off a shot into the main monitor and saw glass shatter, then she was flying out the door as fast as her legs would take her, the controller right behind.
One of the guards with an assault rifle tried to block her exit. She shot him in the chest and ran into the crowd before anyone else could get off a shot.
The main ladder to the belowdeck spaces in China Rose was in a thwartship passageway abeam the gangway. It was more of a staircase than a ladder. Jake Grafton eased himself down to the deck and looked as far as he could along the passageway. There were lights on down there and he could hear that television coming up the stairwell. It seemed to him probable that this passageway ran aft to the lounge where the television was located. Stateroom doors opened off both sides.
On the other side of the thwartship passageway was a closed hatch with a porthole in it. That probably was a ladder that led belowdeck to the crew’s quarters and engine room spaces.
Okay.
He stood, grasped the long handle that rotated the dogs of the forward hatch, and put pressure on it.
The dogs rotated and the hatch came loose, ready to open.
As carefully and quietly as he could, he opened it, took it to its full one hundred and eighty degrees of travel, and hooked it over the latch that held it open. Yes, there was a regular ladder down.
He listened.
Voices.
And he was going to have to go down this damn ladder feet first!
He grasped the submachine gun with sweaty hands.
Maybe he should do the other side first.
Come on, decide, goddamn it! Callie is on this boat and her life — and yours — is on the line.
Forward. Then aft.
He stepped in, put his right foot on the first rung of the ladder.
The good news was that he had climbed ships’ ladders all his adult life.
With his heart in his mouth, he went down as quickly as he could, swinging the gun barrel as he dropped below the overhead.
A short passageway with two doors off it, one port, one starboard, then another ladder down, and a door leading forward. He went to the open hatch and looked. Lights. Voices. The engine room spaces.
But first these compartments. Callie just might be in one of them.
The port door opened as he twisted the knob. A small stateroom, empty. The door to a tiny head stood open and he could see in. Also empty.
He tried the starboard door.
Locked.
He put the silencer right against the doorknob and pulled the trigger once. A ripping sound as the bullet smashed through the innards of the door lock.
He twisted the knob savagely, and it opened.
Another empty compartment. But wait!
The bunks were made up in this one.
He went back to the port compartment. Two messy bunks, wadded-up blankets… blood!
Had they held Callie here?
The door leading forward, this had to lead to the owner’s stateroom. Please God, let Sonny Wong be there right this very second.
Grafton put his ear to the door and heard nothing.
Now he turned the doorknob.
Locked.
He used the gun on the lock. Instead of one shot, he accidentally triggered three.
This was the master stateroom, all right, complete with four portholes — two on each side of the ship — a king-sized bed, and Jacuzzi, but the stateroom and adjoining bathroom were empty.
Goddamn these sons of bitches.
He sensed that time was running out.
Hurrying, he descended the waiting ladder into the engine room.
Two men were fifteen feet aft, and they turned their heads as he came down the ladder. He hosed half a magazine at them, dropping them both.
Turning, going forward, hustling along, through a door into the accessories compartment.
Empty!
Aft again, running, checking for people…
There were another two men working on something on a workbench between the large diesel engines in the extreme after end of the ship. They saw him running toward them between the fuel tanks. One dove sideways to cover and the other pulled a pistol.
Jake managed to drop the gunman before he pulled the trigger.
A burst of Chinese came from the alcove where the other man had taken shelter.
Grafton didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t leave people alive behind him, or he and Callie and Wu and Carmellini would not leave this ship alive. He squirted a burst into the alcove as he ran by, then stopped and fired again, emptying the magazine in the gun.
Changing the magazine, he stalked forward, back through the engine room, past the bodies of the first two men he had killed. Even though he didn’t want to, he looked to ensure they were dead. His stomach churned as if he were going to vomit.
Up the ladder he went, gun at the ready.
Jake Grafton saw the shadowy figure in the thwartship passageway as he climbed the ladder and almost shot him. At the last second he realized he was looking at Carmellini, who was swaying as if he were drunk.
“What happened?”
“Ran into an old colleague. He damn near killed me.”
Blood was running down Carmellini’s blackened face from a cut on his scalp.
“I’ve been forward and into the engineering spaces,” Jake whispered. “Callie has got to be aft, down this staircase.”
Carmellini wiped at the blood flowing from his scalp, then used a bloody hand against a bulkhead to steady himself. “Let’s go,” he muttered.
They descended the staircase together. The passageway at the bottom led aft to a swinging door, two actually, hinged on each side, with windows in each. There were doors — probably to staterooms or storage compartments — on each side of the passageway.
Motioning for Carmellini to hold his position, Jake walked the length of the passageway and peered through the window. He was looking into the dining facility. Four men sat there over bowls of Chinese food, smoking and watching a television mounted high in one corner. Beside Jake was a door to a refrigerated compartment. On the aft end of the dining hall was the door to the galley.
She had to be in one of these rooms off this passageway. Jake turned, went to the first stateroom door, and put his ear to it.
Nothing.
Voices at the next one, speaking in Chinese, it sounded like.
The next one nothing.
Carmellini motioned to him. He was checking the starboard doors. He was pointing to one. He came to Jake, whispered right in his ear. “English, a woman’s voice.”
“Chinese in this one,” Jake said and pointed.
He went to the door Carmellini pointed out, and Carmellini took the door with the Chinese speaker. They looked at each other, then both turned the knobs at the same time and opened the doors.
The first thing Jake saw was Callie, facing him across a table. A man sat facing her with his back to the door. Otherwise the room was empty.
He couldn’t shoot the man in the back because he might hit Callie.
The look on her face galvanized Yuri Daniel into action. He rose, spinning, reaching for a pistol in his belt, all at the same time. And found himself staring into Jake Grafton’s face.
The Russian got the pistol clear of his belt when a burst from the submachine gun caught him under his chin and knocked him backward. Another burst, this time full in the chest, caused Yuri Daniel to collapse across the table.
“Oh, Jake, thank God! They have Wu in the—”
He had her then, jerking her through the door into the passageway, in time to see Tommy Carmellini empty a magazine through the open doorway of his compartment.