So much for the coastguard.
One of the boarding team leaped across. Then another. Ben felt the thud as they landed on the Santa Clara’s deck and scattered. One crouched behind the tender while another raced up the port side-deck, the two of them quickly joined by another three MP5-toting crew from the launch.
Ben ducked down around the side of the wheelhouse as he heard footsteps thudding towards him. He counted: one — two — three — go. Straightened up and twisted round to point the shotgun, turning on the bright white Maglite beam and shining it right in the guy’s face.
Shoot or be shot. Ben dropped his aim a foot and squeezed the trigger without hesitation. His hearing disappeared in a wall of noise. The recoil of the heavy twelve-gauge load slammed the butt of the Remington hard against his right shoulder, sending a jet of pain through his side.
But it was worse for the other guy. The boarder took the blast in the chest and was lifted clean off his feet by the impact. His weapon flew out of his grip and splashed into the sea.
Before his man was even down, Ben was swivelling the Remington up and across. Another stabbing knife of pain through his ribs as he fired straight into the blinding glare of a spotlamp. Glass showered the deck of the launch. The spotlamp went dark. He was about to fire at another when he spotted a fleeting shape moving low along the deck beyond the wheelhouse. He chased the figure with the torch beam. The shotgun boomed and kicked — but in anticipation of the pain from the recoil he’d jerked the shot a little to the left, missing his mark and blowing a serrated bite out of the Santa Clara’s side.
The percussive rattle of fully-automatic gunfire sounded from the deck of the launch. Ben threw himself backwards as bullets punched into fibreglass all around him. He rolled behind the cover of the buckled wheelhouse, wedged the Remington tightly against its corner and blasted off four rounds as fast as his finger could move, the shotgun’s heavy boom drowning out the chatter of the MP5. There was a yell of pain from the launch and the splash of a body hitting the water.
Eight shots gone. Ben pressed himself tightly against the wheelhouse and started reloading the shotgun with spare cartridges from the ammo holder attached to the stock. He’d slid three rounds into the magazine when he heard the frantic commotion from the water. An instant later, a terrible bubbling wailing scream pierced the air.
The man who’d gone overboard let out another animal howl of terror as he tried frantically to reach the Santa Clara’s side and haul himself out of the water. His body jerked as something hit him hard under the surface. He opened his mouth to scream again, but before the sound could burst from his lungs, a powerful unseen force dragged him under.
For an instant the water boiled and turned red. The man’s bloody head and shoulders erupted from the surface, propelled violently from below. A glimpse of white teeth and an expressionless black eye; then the tiger shark dragged him back down into the churning bloody foam and tore him apart like a terrier shaking a rat.
Ben hadn’t been distracted for more than a second or two, but it was long enough for him to be taken by surprise as a dark shape flew down from the wheelhouse roof. It was the man he’d missed moments before, now leaping at him, knife in hand. With no time to finish loading the shotgun, Ben swung the weapon like a club and felt the whack of solid beechwood on human skull. The guy slumped senseless against the side of the wheelhouse. Ben kicked the fallen knife away.
‘Major Hope?’ said a voice from the shadows.
Ben whipped round, clutching the shotgun — but the pain in his side slowed his reaction time just a fraction of a second too long. There was a curious popping sound, and something hit him with a startling impact high up in the shoulder. His fingers lost their grip on the Remington and an uncontrollable wave of muscle tremors swiped his legs out from under him and sent him crashing to the deck. The sensation was like nothing he’d ever known before, filling his whole body with a terrible tingling agony. He struggled desperately to get up, but his limbs were gripped by spasms and wouldn’t respond to the commands from his brain.
Through a haze Ben saw a tall, thin man walk across the deck towards him. He was holding a taser gun in his hand, the curly wires connected to the dart that was embedded in Ben’s shoulder. With his other hand the man reached inside his jacket and flashed an ID card.
‘Jack Brewster, MI6.’ The voice seemed to echo from some indeterminate place a million miles away. ‘I’m sorry you’re being so uncooperative, Major.’ Another man appeared at Brewster’s side, holding a syringe.
Ben felt a sharp prick in his upper arm as the needle lanced deep into his flesh. He muttered something incomprehensible, then closed his eyes and went limp on the deck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ben awoke with a gasp. His arm shot out to grab the fallen shotgun that his senses told him was just a couple of feet away across the deck.
But something was wrong. It wasn’t the solid timbers of the Santa Clara under him, but the soft, dry fabric of a car seat. Shaking his head to clear his blurry vision, he looked up and dimly recognised the figure of Jack Brewster turning round to speak to him from the front passenger seat.
Only then did Ben register the presence of the other two men in the vehicle: the guy wedged up against him in the back, and the driver speeding the car along a dark road.
‘Sorry about the tranquilliser,’ Brewster said. ‘Couldn’t have you taking down any more of my men. The effects will wear off by the time we get you to the plane.’
‘Where are you taking …’ Ben managed to mumble before the drowsiness sucked him back under again. The next time he regained consciousness, he was being hauled out of the back of the car. Two men steadied him by the arms as they walked him across tarmac to a building. He felt himself being shoved through a door and made to sit at a bare table. The two men left the room and locked the door behind them.
It was inside that tiny, stark room that Ben’s senses slowly returned over the next thirty minutes or so. By the time he heard the door being unlocked and the two men came back to collect him, he was fully alert and on his feet.
‘I don’t suppose it would do me any good to ask where we’re going?’ he said as they led him down a corridor.
No reply. One of the men pushed open a door and Ben found himself looking out across a stretch of taxiway at a sleek white Gulfstream jet.
‘I forgot my passport,’ Ben said, stepping out into the night air.
‘Move,’ said the other man.
The jet’s passenger cabin was quite empty, and looked more like a long, narrow luxury conference room than the interior of an aircraft. The moment Ben was on board, his escorts disappeared. A smiling hostess offered him soft drinks, which he turned down, and motioned him towards one of the very few seats, which he grudgingly sat in. He’d given up asking where they were going.
Minutes later, the jet began its taxi towards the main runway. Ben felt the rush as the aircraft soared upwards, and watched the lights of Grand Cayman grow tiny in the porthole by his seat.
Once the plane had levelled off to cruising altitude, a curtain swished aside and Ben’s old friend Jack Brewster appeared. ‘You might like to follow me,’ he said with a lopsided smirk. ‘Someone wants to talk to you.’