This fortress, too, was an oil rig. But unlike the others, it had been completely retrofitted with towers over the platforms that once held a petroleum pumping station.
A hundred feet ahead, a dock extended outward from a platform a few feet above water level. On it, two helmeted Cazadores stood guard. Both were looking in his direction.
The vessel he was following ran up along the dock, and a man jumped out. He grabbed a rope and threw it to a man in the stern, who hitched it to the cleat. Now all the other sailors were looking his way.
One of them yelled, “Detenga su motor.”
X had a feeling they wanted him to shut his engine off, but he looked over his shoulder as if he hadn’t heard them. He would get only one shot at this.
When he looked back to the docks, the two men in armor held up their hands for him to stop. He did as instructed, killing the WaveRunner’s engine. In a smooth continuation of the same motion, he brought up the submachine gun. The automatic fire would attract others, but he would be long gone before they came.
The first trigger pull sent a three-round burst into the armored man on the left, spattering the next man with his blood. As the second soldier lifted his spear, the next burst shattered his helmet and the face behind it. Then X turned the submachine gun on the soldiers from the boat, who were still scrambling for cover. They had nowhere to hide. He cut them all down with short bursts.
In seconds, it was over.
X brought the WaveRunner up to the dock, grabbed his pack, and jumped off. Only one Cazador was still moving, crawling hand over hand down the dock, dragging his shattered legs.
A shot to the back of the head, and he lay still. X ejected the spent magazine, pulled another from his vest, and palmed it home as he trotted to the doorway at the end of the dock.
It swung open, and he halted in midstride as a man stumbled out, eyes widening at the submachine gun muzzle pointed at his chest. The blast sent him stumbling back into the staircase.
X limped into the passage, gun angled up toward the next landing. Finding it clear, he checked his wrist monitor again. Both beacons were still blinking. Mags and Miles were still alive.
Come on, old man!
He rushed up the first flight, adrenaline fueling his movements. Candles in sconces lit the way, but his injuries flared with every step. The bullet graze along the outer edge of his foot, the cut palm, and the old wound from the octopus—everything hurt.
He didn’t pause at any of the landing doors to check for contacts or even to rest. The sooner he got to the top, the better his odds of finding his friends alive.
About five flights up, he heard voices. He stopped at the next landing. Listening, he realized they were coming from above and below.
He kept moving, with the submachine gun pointed up the stairs. Two more floors up, footfalls echoed in the stairwell. He flattened against the wall and waited.
A Cazador man with a ponytail moved into view, and X shot him through the neck, painting the metal wall red.
Screams of horror rang out. But they weren’t male.
X moved his finger off the trigger as a woman and several children rounded the landing above. He bounded up the stairs with the submachine gun pointed at them, eyes scanning for weapons. None of the four women or three children appeared armed with anything but sharp teeth.
He considered expending a few more rounds, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill noncombatants, even cannibals.
Moving across the landing, he swung the gun up the next flight. Seeing no other contacts, he moved back to the group, with his gun on them.
One of the women knelt wailing beside the man X had shot. X felt the pang of empathy but quickly pushed it aside and grabbed the man’s rifle. He checked to make sure the magazine was full, then palmed it back in. He also had the blaster holstered on his thigh, loaded with two shotgun shells and a flare, and the fully loaded carbine slung over his back. Two pistols with fresh mags were tucked into his belt. He had a lot of firepower, and he had a feeling he would need it all.
But he also needed something more than bullets.
Looking the group over, he decided to grab one of the kids—a boy no older than Michael had been when he wore his twisty foil hat.
“No!” one of the women yelled. They hit at him as he pulled the boy away, until he brandished the submachine gun.
“Get the hell off me!” he yelled. “Back!”
The women and other children cowered on the landing, baring their sharpened teeth like cornered dogs. They were all filthy and reeked of sweat. Tattered clothing hung off their sun-bronzed skin, and bracelets of seashell and bone decorated the women’s necks and wrists.
He had started to retreat when a women pulled a knife from under her rags. As she lunged at him, X put a bullet in her thigh. The knife clattered to the floor, and he kicked it down the stairs.
Then he grabbed a fistful of the boy’s shirt and pushed him up the stairs. They climbed for several minutes, the kid squawking and biting at him.
Voices rang out below.
X was starting to lose his patience when he saw they were almost at the top. He didn’t like using a hostage, especially a kid, but it was the best he could come up with on the fly.
They stopped at the next landing, and X grabbed the doorknob. He put a finger to his lips, and the gun barrel to the boy’s head.
That finally did the trick.
“Don’t make me hurt you, you little demon,” X said.
The kid’s lip curled, showing pointy yellow teeth. Voices and footfalls continued below them, and X twisted the knob. It clicked—locked—and the kid lunged, biting X on the arm.
“Son of a…!” X shouted, nostrils flaring in rage. The boy took a piece of his forearm with the bite. Unable to afford any more tolerance, X punched him in the side of the head.
The boy crumpled to the landing, out cold.
X looked down at his bleeding arm. The teeth had sunk deep. He should get the wound wrapped before he continued, but the voices and footsteps were getting closer.
Ripping a strip from his shirt, he tied it over the wound. The unconscious boy was heavier than he looked, but X still managed to give the door a kick that sent a brilliant jolt of pain through his wounded foot.
But he had been hurt far worse before. These were just inconvenient flesh wounds, and he needed something to help.
X propped the boy against the wall and pulled out one of his favorite remedies: an adrenaline shot he had recovered from the Sea Wolf before swimming out to the WaveRunner. He jammed it into his left leg and exhaled.
Then he raised the submachine gun and gave the door a solid piston kick. The rusted metal broke open. Sunlight exploded into the stairwell, momentarily dazzling his eyes.
When his vision cleared, he was gazing at the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Trees rose toward the sky, their branches weighed down by ripening fruit. A pool of water sparkled between gardens of flowers and colorful foliage. Scents of fruit and nectar filled his nostrils.
But this wasn’t Eden, and it wasn’t God sitting on a throne amid the gardens—it was the devil in the flesh. Above him, a metal octopus the size of a boat hung from the bulkhead, its eight long arms reaching out in all directions.
A half-dozen warriors in armor contoured to resemble musculature came streaming out of the trees with spears and firearms leveled at X. He had time to grab the boy and pull him outside, using his flesh as a shield.
“Get back or I kill him!” X shouted.
The soldiers closed in, forming a phalanx around him. His finger moved to the trigger as the human noose tightened.