Rogue Angel 46: Treasure of Lima (5 page)

7

The boat left Puntarenas and took a little over thirty hours to reach Isla del Coco. The first part of the journey passed without incident. Annja spent several hours reviewing the topographical maps of the island, tracing the route Claire had indicated her husband had taken inland before vanishing and trying to anticipate the obstacles that they might face, in turn, when they followed suit.

Thinking that perhaps Dr. Knowles had sought assistance from the Costa Rican park ranger that lived on the island year-round, Annja wandered back up to the bridge and asked permission to use the shortwave radio. Her earlier research had given her the ranger station’s frequency and call sign; it seemed only common sense to make use of them. If the ranger didn’t know Dr. Knowles’s current location, perhaps he could shed some light on what might have happened.

Unfortunately, she was unable to raise the station.

She had just replaced the microphone and was turning away from the radio station when her gaze fell across the radar plot. As if on cue, two blips suddenly appeared at the edge of the radar screen north of their position. Annja watched them and waited for the information from their transponders to come up on the screen, but it never did. The small boxes designed to display such information remained blank.

Whoever they were, they were coming on fast.

Annja glanced over and found the captain frowning at the screen in unconscious imitation of her own expression.

“Trouble?” she asked.

Vargas shook his head. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

But his expression remained thoughtful and a few seconds later he ordered a slight course change to take them out of the path of the incoming vessels.

No sooner had the
Neptune’s Pride
changed course, however, than the two blips on the radar screen changed course as well, putting them squarely back on a direct intercept.

An uneasy feeling rolled through Annja’s gut.

There were probably half a dozen legitimate reasons why another boat might approach them so quickly, but two? It just didn’t seem right and she could feel herself tensing up as the two blips drew closer to their position on the radar screen.

Vargas moved over to the radio position, standing almost exactly where Annja had been. Picking up the microphone in one hand, he used the other to double check that Annja had returned the set to the standard nautical frequency, which she had. Satisfied, he flipped a few switches and then brought the microphone to his lips.

“Attention approaching vessels, this is the Panamanian vessel
Neptune’s Pride.
Do you need assistance? Over.”

Vargas repeated the message in Spanish and then released the mike and waited for a reply.

None came.

He tried a second time, once more in both English and Spanish.

“I repeat,
Neptune’s Pride
to approaching vessels. Do you need assistance? Please state your intentions. Over.”

Still nothing.

The other two vessels were now roughly two miles away and closing in fast.

Vargas reached up, changed the frequency on the radio to an emergency channel and tried again. The lack of response must have been getting to him, for this time he was a bit more abrupt in his message.

“
Neptune’s Pride
to inbound vessels. You are on a collision course. I say again, collision course. Bear fifteen degrees to starboard immediately to avoid contact.”

If the other vessels could hear him, there was no sign of it. Their course remained exactly as it had been moments before. At this rate of speed, they would be on each other in less than five minutes.

Vargas swore in gutter Spanish, tossed the microphone onto the radio table and snatched a pair of binoculars from a stand to his left. He moved over to the window at the front of the bridge and brought the binoculars to his face, searching back and forth across the horizon for any sign of the incoming vessels.

Annja stepped up beside him.

“Anything?”

“No. Nothing yet.”

The minutes ticked slowly by.

Beside her, Annja felt Vargas stiffen. Then he handed her the binoculars, pointing slightly to the right. “There,” he said.

Putting the binoculars to her eyes, Annja adjusted the lens until the scene in front of her swam into view. At first all she saw was open water, but then the spray from the oncoming boats caught her attention and she focused in on her targets.

What she saw did not relieve any of her unease.

The radar blips turned out to be two interdiction-style patrol boats, similar to those used by the Port Authority Police in New York Harbor. Roughly forty feet in length, with a three-quarter wheelhouse sitting just aft of a bow-deck gun mount that, thankfully, seemed to be missing on this particular model, the boats were capable of extreme speeds over a fairly decent range.

Neither boat was flying a flag, which was another bad sign; if they were legitimate patrol craft, they would definitely have colors flying high, if for no other reason than to indicate their authority to those they were approaching. The boats were coming directly toward them and so Annja was unable to see if there were any markings or identification numbers on the hull of either craft, but she suspected there were not.

She could see that the boats were carrying at least half a dozen men each. It might even be more; she had no way of knowing yet how many were behind the wheelhouse itself. Those she could see lined the rails on either side, their attention focused on the ship before them. Something about the way they were standing bothered Annja, but they weren’t close enough yet for her to make out what it was.

Judging from how fast they were coming on, that wouldn’t be a problem for long, she knew.

Vargas hurried back over to the radio station and changed several settings on the control panel. This time, when he spoke into the mike, his voice was broadcast out across the water through the loudspeakers mounted on top of the bridge.

“
Neptune’s Pride
to unidentified vessels. Reverse course immediately or suffer the consequences. You have been warned.”

As before, the message was repeated in Spanish.

Vargas glanced over at Annja. “Anything?”

She brought the binoculars back up and looked out at the approaching patrol boats, now less than a quarter of a mile away. She could make out individual faces at this point and what had been bothering her about the way the men aboard the patrol boats had been standing was immediately obvious at this distance.

Each and every one of them was armed.

She could see several automatic weapons—a couple Russian Kalashnikovs and an Israeli Uzi—and a smattering of handguns. Those without firearms were carrying makeshift weapons of all kinds, from clubs with nails driven through them to machetes, their blades gleaming in the sunlight.

As if the presence of the weapons weren’t bad enough, several of the men carried coils of rope looped over their shoulders, and from where she stood, Annja could see that at least one of those ropes ended in a steel grappling hook.

Annja finally understood the unease she’d been feeling.

These men were pirates and they were going to try to board the
Neptune’s Pride.

8

Aboard the
Neptune’s
Pride

One hundred miles offshore

Annja was just about to let Vargas know what she was seeing when she spotted a man in the lead boat raise his automatic rifle and point it in the direction of the
Pride
’s bridge.

“Get down!” Annja shouted, throwing herself at Captain Vargas and tackling him to the floor just as the gunman opened fire.

Bullets struck the bridge windows, blowing them inward in a shower of shattering glass and blazing-hot lead. Annja curled up against one of the bridge consoles and tried to make herself as small a target as possible. She wasn’t worried about the gunman being able to hit her—she was below his line of sight, after all—but a ricochet could be just as deadly and she didn’t want to take any chances. Nearby she could see Captain Vargas doing the same.

Unfortunately, not everyone who was on the bridge had heeded her warning. One of Vargas’s crewmen—Annja hadn’t even had time to learn his name since she’d come aboard—took a bullet right through the throat and was dead before his body hit the floor. She could see him from where she lay, his eyes open and staring but not seeing anything.

Soon the shooting stopped.

Annja stayed where she was, waiting, even going so far as to yank Vargas back down to the ground when he started to get up. If the gunman had simply run out of bullets, he might start shooting again as soon as he swapped out the gun’s magazine, and she didn’t want either of them to be caught in the open when he did.

When nothing but the roar of the motor launches’ engines reached their ears, Annja scrambled to her feet and let Vargas do the same. Keeping as much of herself below the edge of the bridge controls as possible, she peeked out the now-shattered window.

The pirates’ boats were to the port side of their bow and would be on them shortly. The men aboard were cheering and brandishing their weapons, no doubt thinking they’d already won the battle.

Annja intended to show them there was lot more fight left in this opponent than they’d ever imagined.

“Keep your head down,” she barked at Vargas, when, glancing around for a particular item she knew had to be here somewhere, she saw him starting to get to his feet.

A quick burst of gunfire crashing through the now-open bridge windows convinced him of the wisdom of listening to her.

“What do they want?” he asked in a quavering voice.

“At a guess I’d say the ship.”

“My ship? They wouldn’t dare!”

They would dare and, in fact, had already done so. And if someone didn’t get out there and stop them before they could take things to the next step, they were in a whole heap of trouble.

Stealing the ship made sense, in a warped and twisted kind of way. Selling something like the
Neptune’s Pride
would be a challenge, Annja knew, but so would simply letting it sit and rot on the tide. At the very least they could strip her of useful equipment and then carve her up into smaller pieces, selling both the equipment and the scrap metal for a profit.

If they were smart, they might even do one better: they might keep the boat for themselves. A quick paint job and a few changes to the identification numbers would give them a ship that could be used to further their piracy efforts, particularly if they could get the vessel legitimately registered through some foreign nation that didn’t look too closely at where the vessel had come from.

That wasn’t what sent a shiver of apprehension up Annja’s spine, however. No, that was a result of the fact that she knew she and the rest of the crew, Captain Vargas included, would either be killed outright or kept alive just long enough for the kidnappers to receive a ransom, at which point they’d be killed, anyway. In order to survive this thing, they had to keep from getting captured.

That meant keeping the pirates off the ship for as long as possible.

All this flashed through her thoughts in an instant, helping her make up her mind. She turned and headed across the room toward the door.

“Wait! Where are you going?” he whispered frantically as he saw her getting ready to leave the bridge.

“Someone’s got to stop us from being boarded, right?” she replied, then slipped out the doorway onto the narrow walkway just outside. The sound of the engines was growing louder; it would be only moments before they were alongside. She could even hear the men aboard shouting to one another, but couldn’t make out what was being said. She hurried over to the steep set of stairs—almost a ladder, really—leading down to the main deck and raced down them as fast as she dared.

Just as she reached the main deck, she ran into Claire and Marcos coming up the stairs from below.

“What’s going on?” Claire exclaimed upon seeing Annja racing toward them.

“Pirates,” Annja told her. She didn’t have time to explain anything beyond that, for the patrol boats were closing in.

Thankfully, Claire didn’t need anything more. Annja could see the woman was practically bursting with questions, but Claire managed to hold on to them all with the exception of the most important.

“What do we do?”

“Keep them from getting on board,” Annja said. “No matter what. If they do, we’re all in even more danger than we’re in right now.”

“How?”

Excellent question. Just how were they going to keep the men from boarding?

“Are you or any of your men armed?” she asked.

Claire shook her head. “We’re carrying a pair of rifles as part of the expedition’s gear, but both of them are packed away with the rest of the supplies. There’s no way for us to get to them in a hurry.”

Annja had her sword, and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it when the time came, but it wasn’t going to do them much good against armed opponents. They needed something to keep the pirates at a distance; if they were close enough for Annja to need her sword, then she and the others aboard the
Neptune’s Pride
had already lost.

As the sound of the approaching motorboats filled her ears, Annja’s gaze fell upon the glass-fronted case mounted on the side of the ship. Inside was a long-handled ax and yards of coiled hose, both designed to be used in case of a fire on board the boat.

For Annja, the sight of them was like water to a man dying of thirst.

“Help me! Quickly!” she exclaimed, racing over to the case, Claire and Marcos on her heels.

Annja didn’t have time to locate the key, so she lifted one booted foot and kicked out sharply, driving her heel through the front of the case and shattering the glass. Reaching inside, she grabbed the ax and tossed it to Claire, who snatched it out of midair. Annja then grabbed the front of the fire hose, handed it to Marcos and ordered him over to the side of the boat with it in hand.

Marcos didn’t ask any questions, just did as he was told, trusting that she had a plan. They hauled the hose free of its moorings and, with Claire crouching by the lever that controlled the flow of water, hunkered down below the waist-high edge of the boat, waiting for the right moment.

The plan, if you could call it that, was simple. Annja intended to wait until the pirates were getting ready to throw the grappling lines she’d seen in their hands. Just before the lines were thrown, she and Marcos were going to pop up into view, holding the fire hose between them, and hit them with a blast of high-pressure water. Given that the stream of water would have more than two hundred pounds per square inch of pressure behind it, it should be powerful enough to knock the pirates right off their feet.

She hoped.

Only one way to find out.

The thrum of the
Pride
’s massive engines sounded in weird counterpoint to the throaty roar of the patrol boats’ smaller ones. Annja chanced a quick look over the side, knowing that they had to time this right if it was going to work.

Her glance showed her one of the patrol boats sliding in toward them while the second hung back by fifty feet or so. The pirates standing in the bow of the first boat were spreading out slightly, their weapons slung over their shoulders or resting on the deck at their feet as they prepared to use the boarding lines in their hands.

It was now or never.

Annja shouted, “Now!”

Claire threw the lever, releasing the hundreds of pounds of water held in the reservoir hidden behind the bulkhead at her back. At the same time, Annja and Marcos popped to their feet, the thick canvas fire hose supported between them, and pointed at the pirates standing exposed in the bow of their boat.

The stream of water shot out from the deck of the
Neptune’s Pride
and hit the pirates at about knee level, knocking them right off their feet. Several of them were thrown backward along the deck into their waiting companions but at least two were knocked right overboard without even knowing what had happened to them.

In response to the unexpected attack, the patrol boat carrying the would-be boarders veered sharply away from the
Pride
’s hull and Annja wanted to cheer. She knew it was only a temporary respite, that the pirates had been caught by surprise and would certainly try again, but it was a good feeling just the same. Claire grasped the lever controlling the water flow and it shut off again, allowing Annja and Marcos to drop back down below the waist-high bulkhead beside them, out of view of the pirates. Annja shot a grin at Marcos, who returned it with equal fervor.

Score one for the good guys.

The pirates weren’t going to give up easily, however, and they let the defenders aboard the
Neptune’s Pride
know it seconds later. Bullets thundered into the thick steel of the waist-high bulkhead next to Marcos and Annja and along the back wall, against which Claire crouched near the hose controls, sending sparks and hot pieces of steel ricocheting in various directions.

In truth, the position the three of them—Annja, Claire and Marcos—had taken was precarious, at best. All the attackers really had to do was keep the trio pinned down with constant gunfire while the grapplers threw their hooks and pulled themselves up the ropes to the deck above their heads. With bullets filling the air around them, the defenders would be unable to get the hose back into position and take another shot at them without revealing themselves to the danger of getting shot and the pirates would be able to reach the deck unimpeded.

Any decent tactician would have seen it.

Thankfully, the men in the boats were nothing more than common thugs who probably relied on simple violence or the threat thereof to get what they wanted. Tactics was not something they were schooled in, something they proved by emptying their guns at the spot where Annja and Marcos had been hiding.

The pair were no longer there, however.

As the bullets whipped and whined overhead, Annja signaled that Marcos should follow her, and the two of them crawled on hands and knees about fifteen feet or so away from their last position, leaving Claire to continue controlling the water flow.

As soon as the shooting stopped, Claire hit the water controls, the duo popped up a second time and again hammered the pirates with a stream of high-powered water.

This time, they knocked the man off the roof of the wheelhouse and even managed to shatter the glass in the wheelhouse windows before the boats veered off a second time.

It was at that point that the pirates made what Annja hoped would prove to be a fatal mistake.