Becky’s screams were lost in the commotion on the deck, but even in the gray dawn, Yuki saw that the passengers were fighting back with guns, knives, and glass shards—whatever they could throw, swing, or stab with.
Yuki looked for something she could use to arm herself. There was a bottle of champagne deep in the back of the bar and she grabbed it by the neck. She found a paring knife in a drawer, and slipped it into her pocket.
She looked for Brady. He’d been right there! Suddenly, a hand in her hair pulled her from behind the bar. She kicked out, dropped the bottle, and punched air, and then she was dragged to her feet.
It was Brady who yelled, “Put her down!”
The voice belonging to the man who held her asked, “Is this your wife?”
Yuki recognized the voice: It was Jackhammer’s.
The realization rose in her from her feet to her throat, as if her body had filled with frigid water. She wasn’t going to be saved. This was her last moment on earth. She looked at the pink line of sun rising over the railing. She thought of her dead mother, Keiko, holding out her arms to her.
She looked at Brady for the last time.
She focused on her husband’s eyes and heard Jackhammer say into her ears, “Here’s my little volunteer. Just in time.”
Chapter 95
Captain George Berlinghoff ran out onto the deck from the Luna Grill at the bow, four of his officers behind him, men who’d never been in battle, men with wives and children and aspirations.
Maybe they thought of the ones they loved as they stared out at the chaos and the bloodshed, the downed passengers crawling, trailing blood, the nearly dead and the clearly dead, innocent people in pajamas, many of them fighting back with fists and bottles and whatever they could find.
As the captain of a tourist ship, he was going by Brady’s plan and a lot of old war movies he’d seen from his couch. He waded into a battlefield, armed with one of the dead commandos’ assault rifles.
He did what Brady had said to do.
He assessed the situation and he looked for opportunities. And then he saw Brady, frozen in place right at the foot of the stairs.
Incongruous music from the speakers in the bar wafted across the deck.
As Berlinghoff tried to put the scene together, he saw that Brady was advancing on the overturned bar. Actually, he was coming toward one of the terrorists, who was holding a woman in front of him, using her as a shield.
He heard the gunman shout at Brady, “Is this your wife?”
Berlinghoff slung the AK and pulled his handgun from his belt—the old revolver with one round in the chamber.
Jackhammer was occupied with Brady and didn’t see or hear Berlinghoff come up from behind. Berlinghoff looked over the gun sight to the back of the commando’s neck. He was too close to miss.
He had his finger on the trigger—when suddenly shots rang out and his gun spun from his hand. Blood spurted from his wrist, and he shouted, “Damn!”
He gripped his wrist but blood pumped out between his fingers. More bullets punched into him.
Mother of God. He was hit.
Chapter 96
Bullets chattered across the Pool Deck. Pop music blasted out of the bar speakers. But despite the terrifying and discordant sights and sounds, Brady’s focus was on Yuki in Jackhammer’s headlock, staring at him as though she was already a ghost.
Jackhammer had pulled Yuki tight to his body and he leaned over her shoulder. Brady thought he was talking to her.
Like he was telling her that she was going to die.
Brady saw that his only way to save Yuki was to shoot her himself. He would aim for her shoulder or her hip and hope that she would drop and Jackhammer would lose his grip on her.
Could he fucking shoot straight?
Please, God, help me.
As he was taking aim at Yuki’s shoulder, Brady saw George Berlinghoff come up behind Jackhammer, unseen. He was holding his one-shot revolver pointed at the pirate’s neck.
Brady saw what would happen. Berlinghoff would kill Jackhammer. He could not miss. And then Brady would come in quickly and swoop Yuki up before Jackhammer hit the ground.
But, it didn’t happen.
In the split second before Berlinghoff pulled the trigger, there were shots from Berlinghoff’s right-hand side and the revolver spun out of his hand.
The captain yelled, “Damn!” and Brady saw him grab his wrist. More shots hit him, sending blood spurting across the captain’s white uniform as he fell.
Jackhammer was distracted by Berlinghoff’s shout. He swung his head to see Berlinghoff’s falling body, and in that instant, Brady yelled at Yuki, “NOW!”
Yuki seemed to come back to herself. She twisted in Jackhammer’s grip and kicked him in the knee. Then she pulled something from her bathrobe pocket and punched out at Jackhammer’s gut.
Jackhammer grunted and relaxed his hold enough for Yuki to wrench herself free.
As she ran to Brady, Jackhammer aimed at them. Brady saw that he was steady enough to stand, and he knew that the bullets would cut both of them down.
But, no. Jackhammer was switching out his empty magazine.
Brady shoved Yuki away from him. He dropped to his knee and fired the last rounds in his AK’s magazine at Jackhammer’s legs.
The terrorist-in-chief dropped his weapon and went down screaming.
Chapter 97
Brady scrambled to his feet, tossed Jackhammer’s weapon away from him, and then bent close to the man’s face.
He said, “I’d happily kill you, you son of a bitch. But you have to answer for all of this.”
Brady shouted out for help, and passengers brought belts, sashes, and strips of torn clothes. Brady rolled Jackhammer onto his belly, tied his hands and bleeding legs, cinching tourniquets above his wounds.
Yuki stooped beside him.
“The shooting stopped,” she said.
Then she pulled up Brady’s shirt and saw where the blood was coming from.
“I’m lucky,” he said. “That was close.”
She touched his right ear, just above where the lobe had been shot away.
“Oh, Brady,” Yuki said.
He took his wife in his arms. Bottles were being cracked open. Passengers were drinking, and the stinking sound system was shut down.
“It’s not over,” Brady said. “Counting Jackhammer, that’s thirteen men down. The other six… they could be retrenching.”
Brady heard Brett Lazaroff call out from the rail.
“Brady, Yuki. Come and look at this.”
His broken ribs were killing him, but Brady leaned on Yuki, and they joined Lazaroff at the port side of the Pool Deck.
Following the line of Lazaroff’s finger, they saw moving specks coming from the eastern shore of the passage.
“Whales?” Yuki asked. “Is that a pod of Orcas?”
“Boats,” said Brady.
A dozen zodiacs were motoring toward the FinStar, and within minutes they pulled up to the hull. Grappling hooks were fired. Men in ballistic gear began climbing the ropes.
Lazaroff’s voice cracked when he said, “Those are Navy SEALs, my friends. That’s the United States Navy.”
Chapter 98
It was evening, in the thick of rush hour. Joe and I were in his Mercedes, heading out to San Francisco International Airport, as the sky turned a rich cobalt-blue. Two black SUVs with government plates and flashers bracketed us in front and behind, helping to speed our way.
After a news blackout of two full days, word had exploded over all media channels at once: The surviving passengers of the FinStar were returning home.
Yuki and Brady, along with about a dozen other San Francisco residents who had been aboard, were arriving by Air Canada at a yet to be disclosed time and I definitely wanted to be there when that plane landed.