He would have ample opportunity to consider that later, though. Right now he needed to buy Kealey and the others more time-and make sure these men stayed right where they were.
He glanced at Steiner, nodded for him to frisk the three while he covered him with his MP9. Steiner moved quickly from the SUV to where they stood, found a holstered Beretta under the lead man’s jacket, and shoved it into his pocket. The second man had the same weapon at his side-and a Walther PPK in an ankle holster. He handed off both to Martin, who tossed them back into the SUV while keeping his rifle leveled.
“Who do you work for?” Martin asked them. “Is it Saduq or his sailing companion?”
Cold stares in return.
“We already have a good idea why they came here,” Martin said. “Tell us the truth and it might help you in the long run.”
The lead man snorted loudly, then spat in Martin’s direction. Martin just smiled-it was more or less the response he’d expected. His greater concern was that a hurried glance over his shoulder had disclosed that the arms trader’s yacht still remained berthed at the quay. He did not know if it meant the American’s mad plan-if it truly could be considered one-had led to trouble for Abby and Brun, or if they simply needed more time. But he was hoping he wouldn’t have to find ways to buy it for them and stall the gendarmes from going aboard.
Steiner, meanwhile, had disarmed the third man, producing a Ruger semiautomatic from under his blazer. He backed toward the SUV with it as the sirens in the night got louder and closer. Within seconds the police cars appeared, their roof lights flashing, shooting past Saduq’s yacht as they arrived from the direction of the harbor.
It had not taken them very long, Martin thought, his back to the vehicles. But he had known their precinct house was close. Limbe was a small city, with its wealthiest citizens and visitors-and therefore those the police most diligently protected-concentrated here at the shore.
The patrol cars pulled up, their doors flying open, uniformed officers pouring out with their guns drawn. There might have been four or five vehicles. Martin was unsure of the exact number. He would neither lower his own weapon nor take his attention off the men on whom it was pointed to count them.
“Drop your gun!” one of the uniforms shouted.
Martin held out his identification in one hand. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Captain Justine,” the gendarme barked. “Your weapon.”
Martin spared the gendarme a glance. Tall and husky, he was holding his regulation Beretta out in front of him, aiming it at Martin in a two-handed police grip.
Martin tossed his ID holder at him, heard it hit the ground. “I’m with Interpol, Captain. Leonard Martin. Since you couldn’t manage to see my goddamned identification while I held it, feel free to pick it up for a better look.”
Justine bent to lift the holder from where it had landed near his feet, eyes quickly moving over it, then shifting to Steiner and the three men still standing with their hands up in the air.
“What’s going on here?” Justine barked.
Martin took a long, deep breath and held it, wishing he had the vaguest notion of how to explain.
Aboard the Yemaja, the two deckhands had been raising fenders and pulling in lines when they heard the scuffling below on the quay.
Leading the way up onto the boat, Abby and Brun behind him, Kealey came off the stairs to see one of the hands turning from the rail toward the master cabin. His MP9 holstered, Kealey took one running stride after him, another, and then grabbed him before he could run in under the tail of the flybridge, clamping his right arm around his throat and hauling him backward while jamming a knee into the base of his spine.
The deckhand groaned in pain but managed to take a decent swing at Kealey as he was unwillingly spun in a circle. Kealey easily ducked the blow, bounced up on his knees, and punched him hard in the face, smashing his nose with his fist. As the man’s legs folded, Kealey moved in to hit him again, taking no chances, delivering a second blow across his jaw, feeling it give at the hinge, then grabbing his sleeve and tossing him against the rail. The man slammed back into it before he crumpled to his knees, spitting and coughing up blood.
Kealey looked around to check on his teammates. He did not see Abby anywhere, but picked up Brun in close pursuit of the deckhand who’d been hauling the lines. The crewman ran aft outside the master cabin toward the stern and, to Kealey’s surprise, revealed himself to be armed, stopping in the main cabin just inside the entrance to pull a gun on the Interpol agent.
His assault rifle already in his grip, Brun pumped a short burst into the crewman’s midsection. Staggering backward, he somehow remained on his feet long enough to return fire, the round he had triggered catching Brun above the elbow, before he turned in a swoony half circle and dropped to the floorboards in a heap.
Kealey dashed back toward the rear deck. Enclosed by a paneled curve of glass, the main cabin ran the full beam of the yacht to form a luxury suite with leather chaise lounges and teak floors and furnishings. Hassan al-Saduq was on the other side of the window panels amidships, his gaze momentarily meeting Kealey’s before he hastened down a hatchway beside the cockpit to the lower deck. But Kealey saw no sign of the man he’d met at the hotel. And Abby? Where was she?
Kealey hooked through the cabin entrance to Brun, who stood just inside it, clutching his arm, bracing himself against a ladder running up to the flybridge.
“Shit,” Kealey said, eyeing his left shirtsleeve. “That doesn’t look good.”
“Just a nick,” Brun said through gritted teeth.
“You’re losing blood.” Kealey shook his head. “It won’t stop by itself.”
Brun waved him off with his right hand-the one still holding his assault gun. “I’m all right,” he said. “You’d better get on with things.”
Kealey expelled a breath. “Where’s Abby?”
Brun angled his chin at the ladder to the flybridge. “Up top,” he said. “She went after Saduq’s friend and-”
The yacht abruptly jolted as its engines thrummed to life below-decks, almost throwing Kealey off his feet. He simultaneously grabbed the rail of the ladder and reached out to steady Brun, then stole a glance at the cockpit. It remained unoccupied.
The captain, then, was also up on the flybridge. The boat would have a second pilot’s station up there. Kealey drew his submachine gun, gave Brun a nod, and scrambled up the ladder.
He was pulling his way up off its final rung behind an open-air banquette seat when he heard the crack of a gunshot, the bullet whistling past his ear less than an inch to his right. Raising his head slightly above the back of the seat, Kealey took in everything at once: The pilot’s station was up toward the bow on the port side of the sundeck, the captain at the throttles. His quarry standing behind it with a pistol in his hand and a brown rucksack over his shoulder. Farther toward the rear, Abby had taken cover behind a fixed stowage container near the starboard rail.
The pirate got off another shot at Kealey, but it missed by a slightly greater distance than the first. Instead of dropping down behind the banquette, Kealey heaved himself up over the ledge of the flybridge without a moment’s indecision, then squeezed a burst of fire over the seat back and scurried to his left. With Abby behind the single stowage container on the right side of the deck, and just the banquette between him and the gunfire, he would have far less protection here. But Kealey wanted to divide the pirate’s attention-and aim-by giving him widely separated targets.
“You have a large enough catch down below,” the pirate shouted. “Leave me and be satisfied with it.”
Kealey did not answer…but given their situation, it was hard to see what he meant. Leave me. Did the pirate think he could toss them Saduq in exchange for command of the boat? What good would that do him if they were all stuck on it together? Unless…