52
AFTER THIRTY MINUTES
in the glider, Kurt was nearing the tanker. The little green
readout on the HUD had his airspeed locked in at 120 knots, and
things were looking good. He could even see the tanker in the
distance lit up like a monument of white marble in a sea of
black.
Two miles out, Kurt
released the cowling-like cover that Joe had locked into place. It
flew off behind him, and the smooth ride suddenly reverted to a
wild one, like cruising the autobahn at top speed in a Porsche
convertible.
He slowed to 90
knots, and actually crossed over the ship at thirty-five hundred
feet. A silent blackbird in the dark of night.
He continued forward
for half a mile, and flicked on a rudimentary autopilot that would
keep the nose pointed forward and the wings level. Satisfied that
he was far enough out, Kurt released his boots and hands
simultaneously and was literally sucked out of the
glider.
In an instant he was
free-falling and popping his chute.
The glider would fly
forward for another four or five miles before splashing into the
sea and disappearing from sight. A scout with night vision
binoculars wouldn’t see it touch down, but if he were watching the
sky he might spot Kurt Austin dropping from the
heavens.
To reduce that
possibility, Kurt was clad in black, and his maneuverable chute was
black. At two thousand feet, swinging beneath it, Kurt turned in a
wide arc and locked onto the approaching ship. He had one
minute.
Thirty seconds later
he was a quarter mile from the ship’s bow, nine hundred feet above
it, and in the process of realizing a giant flaw in his
plan.
The ship’s blazing
lights had seemed like a boon from long distance, making it easy to
spot the ship and hone in on it, but Kurt suddenly realized it
could prove disastrous now.
The blazing quartz
lights reflecting off the white-painted deck were almost enough to
blind him. And far worse than that, he would be spotted the minute
he touched down like a giant bat landing on a lighted patio in the
midst of someone’s outdoor dinner party.
Realizing his
mistake, Kurt pulled tight on the chute’s reins, slowing his
descent. He drifted to his right, the port side of the ship, and
continued to drop.
He could see only one
way to land on the ship without being noticed. The last section of
the main deck out behind the superstructure was unlit. He would
have to pass up a thousand feet of flat space, circle in behind the
ship, and hope to keep up enough speed to reach the last few feet
of the deck there.
It seemed almost
impossible. But it was either that or splash down in the ocean,
call for a pickup, and float around for several hours, hoping not
to attract any hungry sharks.
He drifted past the
ship, four hundred feet high and wide to port. He had twenty
seconds. As he passed the superstructure, he could see a figure on
the bridge but no lookouts. He doubted anyone on the blazingly lit
ship could see him. Their night vision would be nonexistent in all
that light.
He started to
turn.
Turbulence from the
accommodations block caught him and threatened to spill the air
from his chute. He recovered, and swooped in behind the
boat.
Below him he saw the
end of the deck and the churning white water of the ship’s wake.
Beneath that wake, a pair of twenty-foot screws would be spinning
at a hundred rpms, like a monster-sized blender just waiting to
dice him up.
He angled himself
forward, picked up some speed, and began dropping fast. He pulled
hard on the lines, but it was too late. The wind whipping around
the ship blew him backward. He missed the deck, and dropped
farther, headed for the white water below and a grisly
death.
He tried to turn
away, but the swirling wind reversed, sucking him forward like a
scrap of paper swept along in the wake of a passing car. The surge
of wind threw him toward the aft end of the ship. He saw a flash of
huge white letters reading “ONYX,” and then he was tumbling into an
open space between the main deck and a deck beneath
it.
The impact jarred
him, and then flung him forward, as the parachute’s lines caught on
something around the opening. He landed flat on his back and was
almost immediately yanked backward toward the rail. The turbulent
air behind the ship had filled the chute again, which now
threatened to drag him off the deck and back out once
again.
Backward, forward,
backward. Kurt had had enough.
He hit the instant
release on his harness, and the parachute was sucked out over the
water. It fluttered and faded and finally vanished in the gloom
behind the great ship.
He was on board.
Despite all risks and logic to the contrary, he’d landed safely on
the Onyx. He thought about Joe’s long
list of warnings regarding what could go wrong and almost laughed.
None of those things happened. But Joe had never once mentioned
lighted decks, wind shear, and getting chopped up by the ship’s
propellers.
Looking around, Kurt
had to wonder exactly what he’d landed in. The dark open space
reminded him of the fantail at the aft end of an aircraft carrier,
the huge area between the main deck and the hangar
deck.
A few ladders
descended toward the water. A pair of hatchway doors looked to be
shut tight, and to his left were a few ratty deck chairs and a
bucket filled with cigarette butts. Fortunately for him, no one had
been sitting out there, having a smoke, as he came in for a rather
ugly landing.
Fairly certain no one
had noticed his arrival, Kurt pulled off his helmet and
disconnected the oxygen bottle. With a hard fling, he launched both
out into the night.
He heard no splash.
The wind and the wake of the ship were too loud for
that.
With those items gone
he moved to the darkest corner of the unlit opening and dropped to
one knee.
Kneeling in the dark,
Kurt slipped a 9mm Beretta from a side pocket and began screwing a
silencer into the barrel. His senses were on overload. He listened
for movement.
He could hear little
beyond the throbbing of the engines and the hum of machinery. But
before he could move, the handle on one of the doors turned. The
starboard hatchway opened, and Kurt pressed himself farther into
the dark like a spider trying to hide in a cracked bit of
concrete.
Two figures walked
out illuminated by the interior light until the hatch door slammed
shut.
They walked to the
rail.
“I can tell that
you’re impressed,” he heard a male voice say, a voice he
immediately recognized as belonging to Andras.
Unable to believe his
luck, Kurt’s hand tightened on the Beretta. But then the other
voice spoke, and Kurt recognized it as well. A female voice. A
Russian voice. Katarina’s voice.
“I don’t know how you
people built such a thing without the world knowing,” she said.
“But much as I hate to admit it, it’s rather an incredible design.
I suppose I should thank you for the tour, and the food and the
wine.”
“Now you understand
why your superiors will be interested,” Andras said.
“Yes,” she said. “I
suspect they will be fascinated with what I have to tell
them.”
Kurt’s mind whirled
as he listened to her speak. He certainly didn’t blame her for
using any method she could think of to earn her captor’s trust and
a chance at freedom, but the words she used made it sound like
something bigger was in play here.
Before anything more
was said, a crewman opened the hatchway door.
“Radio call for you,
Andras,” the man said. “Coming in from Freetown. It’s
urgent.”
“Time to go,” Andras
said.
He led Katarina
toward the door, guided her through first, and then followed. The
swath of light widened and then narrowed and vanished as the heavy
steel door clanged shut.
If there had been any
doubt in Kurt’s mind before, it was gone now. The Russians wouldn’t
be interested in a random supertanker. The ship had to be something
more, which meant all the odd structures and anomalies probably had
some purpose. Kurt was pretty sure it wouldn’t turn out to be a
benevolent one.
Getting to his feet,
he moved to the bulkhead door which Andras and Katarina had gone
through a minute before. Silently, he applied torque to the handle.
He moved it slowly until it clicked.
He cracked the door a
quarter inch and looked down the passageway. With no one in sight,
Kurt opened the door wider and slipped inside.