“Ritter, locking up,” Moshe said from the entrance.
“Right, sorry.”
The Israeli medic teased open the cut running along Ritter’s jawline and irrigated it with distilled water. Ritter’s eye twitched with the pain, but he held still.
“Some dirt there. Don’t want an infection,” the medic said.
The infirmary was small, the single bed taken up by the gut-shot Israeli, who had an IV dripping into his arm. Ritter sat on an exam table while the medic poked around the storage cabinet.
“What is word for ‘painkiller’ used by dentist?” the medic asked.
“Novocain,” Ritter said.
“Yes. No-vo-caine. Ah, here.” He took a glass vial from the cabinet and stuck a syringe into the rubber top. “I know Israeli word in script. Different.”
Ritter heard muffled words from the medic’s earpiece. He looked down at his control set. His radio was on, set to the right channel, but he didn’t hear anything. Why was the medic on a different channel? More words came from the medic’s earpiece, slow and measured. Like counting. The medic gripped the syringe body like it was a knife handle.
Ritter reached into his cargo pocket and grabbed the Korean’s pistol, keeping it hidden in his pants. He undid the safety with the flick of a thumb and tilted the barrel toward the Israeli.
The counting in the medic’s ear stopped, and a blast shook the infirmary. The medic twisted around and lunged at Ritter with the needle. Ritter fired the gun and hit the medic in the center of his chest. He slapped the medic’s hand aside as he fell forward.
The medic stumbled against the exam table, hands over the hole in his sternum. Ritter pushed himself off the table and slammed a knee into the medic’s head. The medic’s skull whacked the edge of the table, and he collapsed onto the floor. Ritter finished him off with a stomp.
He swung the pistol at the injured Israeli, who remained unconscious. He took a pair of zip ties from his armor and bound both of the Israeli’s arms to the runners alongside the bed. He wouldn’t hurt a helpless man, but he could make sure he stayed helpless.
Ritter almost keyed his radio to talk to Mike, but that line had to be monitored.
He swung his armor on and stepped into the passageway. One hand held his pistol out and ready; the other clicked through the channels on his radio.
Nothing. They must have abandoned the radio after the medic failed to report killing Ritter.
What now? Ritter thought. The dhow? It had been running on fumes before it reached the ship. A lifeboat? Not without Mike.
Mike would be on the bridge with Moshe. Was he even alive? Why had the Israelis turned on them?
Ritter ran for the stairs, dashing up the outer hull of the superstructure leading to the bridge.
Ritter heard gunfire rattling through the deck just below his feet. Either Mike or the crew security were still fighting. A bullet burst through the deck and bounced off a bulkhead. Ritter ran faster and took the stairs two at a time up toward the bridge.
On the next deck, he found a Russian security guard and an Israeli lying on the deck. The Russian had been shot in the back of the head; the Israeli had a knife stuck in his chest. He heard someone stomping up the stairs on the other side of a hatch. Ritter stepped to the side of the hatch and let it block the view of whoever was about to open the door.
The hatch opened, and Shlomo skidded to a halt when he saw Ritter’s pistol leveled at him.
“Don’t move,” Ritter said.
Shlomo raised his hands.
“Back. Against the railing,” Ritter said. Shlomo walked back to the railing, the view behind him nothing but an ocean and blue sky stretching to the horizon. He bumped into the railing, and his hands shot back to hold onto it.
“Eric, I can explain,” Shlomo said.
“Go.”
“You, me — here on the second deck with Netzer dead. It must look bad, right?” Shlomo said.
Ritter cursed his stupidity. The TRANSMIT light on Shlomo’s radio was on. The rest of the Israelis had just heard Shlomo give them his position. Of all the Israelis, Ritter thought he and Shlomo had become friends. And he sells me out in a heartbeat, Ritter thought.
“Turn around. Hands on the bar, and you’ll—”
Shlomo’s hand darted behind his back, and Ritter shot him in the forehead.
A knife clattered to the ground, and Shlomo reared back. He tumbled over the railing and into the ocean below.
Ritter ran for the hatch and pointed his gun up the stairway. There was smoke, but no one else. The crew’s safe room was up one level, the bridge one more beyond that. He buried his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow and went up the stairs.
He ducked low beneath the smoke, which smelled of explosives and ozone, and looked inside the safe room. Black streaks marred the steel floor and walls outside the vault door protecting the crew’s safe room. A small hole, the diameter of a quarter, was on the door, with reddish copper residue around it. The Israelis had used their M4 antitank mine to launch a bullet into the safe room, killing the crew before they could be a problem.
The bridge level was eerily silent. An Israeli was lying across the hatchway, blood running down an extended arm.
Ritter stepped over him into the bridge. He found two more Israelis slumped against control panels, gunshot wounds to their torsos. A third man lay on the flying bridge beyond the hatch. He clutched a Tavor in his lifeless hands.
Ritter shoved his pistol into a pocket and picked up the rifle. It had an almost-full magazine and a hot barrel. That was eight Israelis out of twelve accounted for, none of them Moshe.
A hatchway below on the main deck burst open, and a security guard ran out onto the deck, clutching a bloody arm against his side. He stumbled and fell against a cargo container. Two Israelis followed him out, weapons trained on the guard.
Ritter heard the guard’s protests and saw him hold out his good arm to surrender. Ritter brought the rifle to his shoulder and drew a bead on the trailing Israeli. He waited for the inevitable.
The Israeli closest to the guard leveled his weapon and shot the guard with a blast of bullets. Ritter fired a fraction of a second later, and his target fell to a knee, then on his face.
The other Israeli whirled around toward to his dead companion, then looked up at Ritter. Ritter hit him with two shots and sent him to the deck. He squeezed the trigger again, but the weapon clicked empty.
“Ritter,” Moshe’s voice crackled from the dead men’s radios.
Ritter pried a radio off a corpse and put the headset on.
“Moshe,” he said.
“I have Mike. If you want him to live, you come to the bomb,” Moshe said.
Ritter pulled the Korean Makarov from his waistband and slid the magazine from the pistol. There were two bullets in the mag, one in the chamber. Every shot would have to count. He made his way down the stairs, peeking around the corners in case Moshe, or the last Israeli, was waiting to ambush him.
Mike sat next to the open container leading to the Club K, his hands bound with a zip tie, a gun pressed against his head. Moshe had the gun; most of his body was safe inside the cargo container. He pulled the gun back from Mike’s temple as Ritter neared but kept it pointed in a lethal direction. Mike sat with his head held low, blood dripping from his face unto his wrists.
“That’s enough,” Moshe said.
“How’d you know it was a bomb?” Ritter asked.
“We were the buyer, schmuck. The Koreans screwed up the delivery, then you and that bitch Shannon did us a favor by finding it. Got us the bomb and the delivery system at no cost. Mossad thought it must be God working in our favor,” he said.