Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

targets on the pier. They’d made it aboard. Gun raised, expecting to see a shooter at the stern, she ran, sprinting for the side of the boat. Ropes had been holding the vessel in place, but those fell, severed from the deck. The icebreaker was manoeuvring slowly, and was over a metre from the jetty when she jumped for the ladder. Her left hand caught the rung, but her gun-hand slammed against metal. The pistol fell from her grip as her elbows, and then her knees, slammed into the ship, but her feet found the rungs. Below, the sea frothed, and not just from the engines. A fin cut through the waves, speaking of a horror below as visceral as that on deck.

A familiar pain rose from her hip, joined by newer aches from shoulder and knees, but one rung at a time, she hauled herself up, pausing only when a distant explosion rocked the island. Hoping it was just a cannon shell, she gripped the top rung. Leaning back, she brought her feet up further, then launched herself over the side, rolling into a crouch as she landed on the deck.

An axe was running towards her, its wielder barely a metre behind. The axe swung up while the gangster pounded down the gangway. Experience told her there wasn’t time to draw her knife, so she dived, tackling the man at the knees, pushing up and off, and throwing him over her shoulder, over the side of the ship into the shark-infested waters below.

Barely had she time to regret the guilty flash of satisfaction when an anvil slammed into her chest. She fell back to the deck, rolling again, and beneath the shadow of the deck-crane even as she gasped for air. Shot. She’d been shot. Right in the vest. And someone was shooting still. Bullets pinged off the deck-crane around which she sheltered. A large crane made of thick steel, with even thicker steel panelling running around the base, but with a control unit close to her head.

She pulled herself upward, every breath an agony. The shooting had ceased, so the shooter was approaching, wanting to confirm the kill. This ship was ready to depart. How ready? The crane controls had a shed of levers and a star-scape of lights, but one of the recessed red buttons was marked emergency release. She slammed her hand down. The lock disconnected, the cable unspooled, and the hook slammed into the deck. Not as hard as she was expecting, but if she’d not been holding herself upright, she’d have fallen. The shooter hadn’t been expecting it. The shooter had fallen.

As Tess swung herself around the crane, and while the uncoiling cable lashed around the deck, she saw her enemy, the woman who’d been in the back of the convertible. She was prone, on all fours, at the base of the ladder, but already pulling herself back up. Tess staggered onward, drawing her knife, while the woman wasted time looking for her fallen gun.

The shooter bent to pick up a dropped revolver. Tess lunged, just as the ship rocked, adding its motion to her weight, as the blade plunged into the terrorist’s side. Hot blood washed over Tess as she pulled the blade out. The woman grabbed Tess’s arm, but her grip was weak, and growing weaker. Tess pushed her away, down to the deck. It was easier than killing a zombie. Far easier. Tess grabbed the dying gangster’s revolver, and hauled herself up the steps towards the bridge. Behind her, the clack of the winch was replaced by a slithering groan as the loose cable slid across the deck.

Not her problem. No, hers was on the bridge, because someone must have been aboard the icebreaker, getting this ship ready for departure. But the bridge was empty.

Tess staggered to a halt against the console. Through the window, she saw empty ocean as the boat churned through the waves, still picking up speed.

Her eyes tracked from one control console to the next until they settled on the familiar sight of a radio.

“Te Taiki, this is Tess Qwong on the icebreaker. Can someone tell me what a ship’s handbrake looks like?”

Chapter 44 - A Long Way from the Outback

Corn Island, Nicaragua

With a wrenching effort, Tess removed her vest, in which two slugs were still embedded. She didn’t remember the second shot. Her ribs were bruised, but probably not broken, and she was, remarkably, alive.

It took twenty minutes for the helicopter to arrive overhead. By then, following Captain Adams’s radioed instructions, Tess had cut power to the engines. Three sailors jumped from the helicopter, which took flight almost immediately, returning to shore. Leaving Lt Renton to turn the ship around, she began the search for the last terrorist.

He was easy to find, as he’d taken refuge in the captain’s cabin which he’d then secured from the inside. She put a sailor on guard, and limped back to the bridge, only pausing to examine the bullet marks in the bulkhead and bloodstains on the deck.

By the time they reached the shore, the battle was over. Clyde was waiting on the jetty. She waved him up to the deck.

“There’s one last cartel killer in the captain’s cabin,” she said. “Can you find some cutting gear?”

“I’ll try talking first,” Clyde said. “Can I offer him a deal?”

“No, but you can tell him we want to know what happened here. If he wants to pretend he’s a victim, that’s fine, so don’t mention any prisoners we’ve freed. What’s happened ashore?”

“We won,” Clyde said.

“Good to know, but are there any specifics I should be aware of?”

“They stuck two bricks of C4 with a timer beneath the runway’s fuel tanks,” Clyde said. “Found it before we refuelled the helicopter.”

“That’s good,” Tess said. “And it’s good there’s fuel for the helicopter. And that it didn’t blow up.”

“I think