She could shoot and dive. The Siren could evade the Roc’s weapons and escape in the depths of the sea. The sub and the women could disappear. They could live out their lives in safety, growing old and fat and happy.
Perhaps the prince would be chastened enough to desist from his plan. Perhaps their knowledge of what he intended would be enough to prevent him no matter what. If she stopped now, she might have accomplished much.
But the prince would live.
He would find another princess and elevate her to queen.
And when he had a bad day, as he surely would, he would beat her to death as he had done with Laila’s sister. As he had almost done with Laila herself.
He would never face the consequences of his actions.
He would win.
“Fire!” she ordered.
Chapter 52
White water fountained higher than the Roc’s top deck. The explosion pushed the front of the ship up. It crashed back against the water with a terrific boom. That torpedo had found its mark.
“Oorah!” shouted Marshall.
Bob, one of the other men on the sub, laughed.
They were treating this like a giant video game. But at least they weren’t running away.
Joe had set up his laptop on the bridge, back to the wall and eyes averted from the windows. He watched the sonar readout of the sub and the torpedoes in real time. In the drone footage, figures boiled out onto the Roc’s deck like ants whose anthill had just been damaged.
Joe glanced at the tiny green window on his screen that was dedicated to monitoring Vivian’s transponder. The window was silent. If she was out there, he couldn’t tell. He knew it was crazy optimism that kept him going. But crazy optimism was better than nothing.
Edison was unruffled by the explosions and yelling. He sat by Joe’s side, his head in Joe’s lap and his brown eyes locked on Joe’s face.
“It’ll be fine,” Joe told him. He hoped that was true.
The Roc had started to take on water and list to the side. People spilled over into the ocean.
“Can we get them?” he asked Marshall.
“Let the sub stop firing first,” Marshall called over his shoulder. “We won’t be doing them any favors if we get sunk, too.”
Joe saw the logic, but he wondered how many of those figures could swim and how many would survive long enough for his ship to reach them.
Another torpedo was loosed. Another explosion under the Roc, this time amidships. Water heaved the giant ship up and smashed it down against the surface of the sea like a giant hand. Smoke billowed out of a crack in the massive deck.
Joe imagined the women in the submarine must be cheering.
Except for Vivian.
The Roc lurched to the side and did not right herself. The massive ship was fatally wounded. She shuddered and wallowed. It was clear that she would not recover.
One red lifeboat launched from the vessel’s side and splashed into the sea below. The boat was fully enclosed, so Joe couldn’t even begin to guess how many people were inside. Certainly not everyone on the ship. But at least some of them.
In areas where the smoke had cleared, debris and bodies churned. Soon, the Siren would be satisfied with the Roc’s destruction. Soon, he and his men could help those bodies in the sea.
But not yet.
The Roc was wounded, but not yet helpless. She launched a pair of torpedoes at the Siren. On sonar, Joe watched them shoot through the water toward the round black submarine.
The Siren was already diving toward the edge of his sonar range. The torpedoes exploded deep underwater, but Joe couldn’t calculate if they had been close enough to damage the submarine.
The Siren headed for the bottom. He couldn’t tell if the sub was sinking, or if it was a cleverly controlled descent. Almost off his sonar, the sub kept falling. If Vivian was alive, she was beyond anyone’s reach now.
Joe closed his eyes and bowed his head. Edison whimpered. They had lost her.
Marshall steered them toward the sinking ship. The drone captured the ship, in two pieces now, slipping down toward the bottom. She would not shoot another torpedo. The Siren, too, was in full flight.
All that remained was picking up the survivors. As much as Joe had ached to help them before, now he felt only numbness. The person he wanted most to survive hadn’t. Vivian’s survival had been a remote hope, a foolish hope, but it died hard all the same.
“The helicopter!” Marshall shouted.
The helicopter lifted off the tilting front deck. It held only the pilot and a single man in the backseat. Empty seats that could have gone to survivors surrounded him. A man ran across the deck toward the helicopter and collapsed. A second later, Joe heard the gunshot. Whoever was on board that helicopter wasn’t interested in helping the others on the ship.
Joe’s drone footage showed another man atop the ship. He’d climbed to the top of the topmost deck, where he yanked at the EMP device. He smashed it with a metal device. Joe brought the drone in closer. The man was trying to pry the device free with a crowbar.
But why? It was certainly heavy enough to sink him. No other lifeboats had launched, so there was no chance he’d be able to bring it to one of them. Seemingly oblivious, the man worked doggedly. Even as the ship sank underneath him, he tore wires loose, pried at the edge of the coil.
He was ready to die to remove the device from the roof. Joe admired his single-minded focus, even as he felt the man would be better off trying to find a way to get off the ship alive.
Finally, the man worked the EMP device free.
And the helicopter rose to meet him.
No longer worried about being spotted, Joe flew the drone closer to the helicopter, hovering outside the side window. The drone shuddered in the prop wash, but before it was bounced away, Joe recognized Prince Timgad sitting in the backseat. The prince had shot the man who’d tried to board. They were hundreds of miles from shore, but maybe the helicopter’s range extended that far. Perhaps he would make it to safety.
The prince gesticulated to the man on the roof, and the helicopter closed in. The prince gestured for the man to throw the device, but the man shook his head. Eventually, the prince threw him a rope, and the man climbed aboard with the device tied to his back.
Joe expected them to make for the shore, but the helicopter didn’t. Instead, it turned toward the lifeboat. Maybe they intended to pick up survivors and fly them to safety. Maybe the king was in there waiting.
A series of splashes stitched the water toward the red lifeboat.
The helicopter was firing on it.
“Take over!” Marshall yelled to Billy. “I’m going to the gun locker.”
As if it had heard the words, the helicopter swung toward them.
Whoever was aboard that chopper clearly intended to leave no witnesses.
“Tesla! Take cover!” shouted Marshall.
Edison pushed up against Joe’s leg, trying to herd him out of the exposed bridge and back into the tunnel.
“Heel,” Joe said. The dog heeled.
Marshall would never get to the gun locker in time.
Joe picked up the crossbow.
He backed out of the bridge and into his makeshift tunnel. The canvas didn’t provide cover against bullets, but at least the shooter in the helicopter couldn’t see him.
Joe sprinted down the tube to the tent he’d set up mid-deck by the drones. He studied the helicopter’s rotors. They spun so quickly they were blurred into a single disk shape. He recalled from a long-ago video game that it was called the rotor disk.