35
TWO MEN GRABBED THE
CHAIN on Kurt’s cuffs and yanked him back up to his feet. “I want
you to see something,” Andras said. He motioned for the motor yacht
to pull forward. A brief spurt of power did the trick, and as its
motor died once again the two boats knocked together. On the aft
deck of the larger vessel, a mixed group of thirty or more men and
women sat in cuffs and shackles with their backs to the far
rail.
As painful as the
split lip and wounded pride were, this sight caused a far deeper
agony. Kurt recognized them as members of the various science teams
sent to study the magnetism. Katarina sat among them, a dark bruise
covering the right side of her face.
Her eyes rose up to
meet his gaze and then looked back down at the deck, sad and
forlorn, as if she’d failed somehow.
Kurt spat a mix of
blood and saliva onto the deck. “What are you up to, Andras?” he
said. “What is this all about?”
“I’m flattered that
you recognize me at last,” Andras said. “Of course a little
insulted that it took so long. I thought I would have made a bigger
impression all those years ago. Then again,” he said, “I didn’t
recognize you either. But you didn’t have silver hair when I knew
you. I’d like to think I caused some of that.”
Kurt felt his body
tense, his instincts urging him to thrash and fight. The despair of
the scientists, the purple bruise on Katarina’s face, the arrogance
that oozed from Andras’s mouth like sewer water: all of it tested
his control.
If he could have
busted his chains, he would have lunged for Andras and fought him
to the death right there and then, but cuffed and disadvantaged he
could do little by antagonizing the man except act as a punching
bag.
Andras walked around
him in a wide circle, pontificating. Kurt had forgotten how much
the man loved to talk.
“Once I heard of this
NUMA,” Andras said, “I should have guessed you were involved. It
just sounds so Kurt Austin to me. All upstanding and forthright.
I’ll bet you say the Pledge of Allegiance to your flag every
morning, and you probably all have patches and jackets and matching
key chains.”
“Yeah,” Kurt said
through his teeth. “Maybe I’ll bring you some of our swag when this
is over and you’re serving a hundred years in
solitary.”
“Solitary?” Andras
said. “How cruel. At least when I commit you to the sea, I won’t be
sending you down alone.” He leaned closer. “And just to be clear,
when this is over, you will be fish food and I will be a
king.”
Andras smiled, and
Kurt found something odd in the words and the way Andras had
whispered them to him alone.
As a chill of fear
crept over him, Kurt wondered what malice Andras would visit upon
them now. He prayed it wouldn’t include Katarina. Despite those
prayers, Andras hopped back onto the motor yacht and walked right
toward her. He crouched down, put a hand on her bruised face, and
then stood.
“Put Mr. Austin back
in his little submarine,” he ordered.
Three men came over
to Kurt, two white, one black. They heaved him off his feet and
literally threw him into the Barracuda.
“Mathias,” Andras
ordered, speaking to the African man, “chain him to the lift
bar.”
Kurt stared at the
bar. It resembled a towel rack, mounted on the Barracuda’s hull just outside the cockpit. It was a
hard point on the hull, the strongest spot on the entire
submersible. Welded directly to the frame and made of carbon steel,
the lift bar was designed to hold the entire submarine’s weight
when she was pulled from the water by the Argo’s crane.
It was not a spot
Kurt wanted to be handcuffed to.
Mathias took a key
from around his neck and undid Kurt’s handcuffs. Immediately, Kurt
swung an elbow, catching one of the white men in the mouth. Almost
instantly the other white man slammed Kurt in the back of the head,
crashing his skull against the frame of the cockpit.
Kurt felt a moment of
dizziness. When his head cleared, he felt his arms draped over the
outside of the Barracuda’s hull, even
though his body was mostly in the cockpit. His cuffs had been
undone and recuffed around the lift bar.
“And the other one,”
Andras said.
Joe was thrown in
next to Kurt and given the same treatment. And while they sat there
helpless, Andras grabbed a shotgun.
“Slugs,” he
demanded.
A box was handed to
him, and he began filling the weapon with the solid projectiles.
When it was fully loaded, he pumped it and walked around to the
rear of the submarine. He fired two quick blasts into the impeller
and then a third into the starboard wing.
The Barracuda’s hollow wing began to take on water.
Andras raised the weapon and blew a hole in the port
wing.
Kurt could not
remember feeling so desperate. He knew they were about to go under,
a horrible death awaiting them, and his mind grasped for a way to
cheat it.
“You think drowning
us ends this?” he shouted. “We know about you. Our whole
organization knows.”
Joe said nothing.
Kurt could hear him breathing fast and deep, trying to pump his
lungs full of air. Kurt knew he should be doing the same, but he
couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t going out quietly.
As the water filled
the Barracuda’s wings, Kurt frantically
tried to shout something that might make Andras call a halt to the
proceedings. If he could just convince him they were valuable
enough to spare, even if it was just for a while, it would give
them a chance.
“We know about your
submarine,” he shouted.
Andras raised an
eyebrow. “Do you, now?” he said. “That’s more than I thought you
knew. But, at any rate, it’s not mine.”
Feeling the slightest
bit of traction, Kurt pressed. “We know what you’re up to. We know
about the energy weapon.”
This seemed to hit
closer to the mark. Something in Andras seemed to stir, and his
eyes began to light up. He stepped closer.
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s the spirit. I knew you wouldn’t give up.”
It seemed as if he’d
realized Kurt’s desperate gambit and was taking great delight in
being part of it.
“Come on, what else?”
he shouted
Kurt didn’t respond
right away, and Andras grabbed Mathias and yanked the key and its
rope from around the man’s neck.
“Come on, now,” he
shouted sarcastically, “You’re Kurt Austin of NUMA! Surely you can
do better than that. Give me some more. Give me something that will
make you matter.”
Katarina stood and
rushed forward as best she could. What she had in mind, Kurt didn’t
know—and most likely she didn’t either—but she didn’t get far. One
of the armed men grabbed her and yanked her back, flinging her to
the deck, and Kurt’s blood burned even hotter.
“Time’s running out,
Austin,” their tormentor said. He brought out the knife that he and
Austin had already traded twice and flipped open the titanium
blade. He locked it into place and tied the key’s lanyard through
one of the holes on the handle.
The Barracuda’s wings were awash now; any second the
cockpit would start filling. There were precious few seconds
left.
“We know about the
superconductor,” Kurt said, hating himself for being led along. “We
know who sold it to you,” he lied. “We know it was loaded on the
Kinjara Maru in Freetown.”
Andras looked down as
if thinking. He glanced briefly at Mathias and then turned back to
Kurt, smiling maniacally.
“Good enough,” he
said, moving forward with the knife in his hand. “Good enough for
half anyway.”
He leaned toward the
Barracuda, raised his arm, and plunged
the knife into the thin skin of her outer hull. The knife punched
though and lodged tight, just out of Kurt’s reach.
“Unfortunately, half
won’t save you both.”
The water poured into
the cockpit and swirled up around Kurt’s knees. They were going
down.
He glanced at Joe.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “follow my lead.”
Joe nodded as Kurt
filled his lungs, breathing deep and fast, as the Barracuda began to roll and pitch nose
down.
The water churned,
the nose of the sub disappeared, and the rest followed, dragging
him and Joe under. The last sound Kurt heard clearly was Katarina
screaming his name.