Chapter 9 - The Edge of the Abyss
“Move!” I roared, grabbing Claire by the harness of her drysuit and dragging her toward the bridge exit.
There was no time to negotiate the interior companionway, no time to descend back down to the moon pool. If the fuel tanks in the lower hold were vented, the moment the automated vessel slammed into the hull, the internal atmosphere of the ship would ignite like an aerosol bomb.
We burst through the starboard bridge door onto the exterior catwalk.
The wind hit us like a solid wall, cold and saturated with the smell of heavy diesel. Fifty feet below, the black, churning water of the harbor was obscured by the swirling tendrils of fog.
Through the mist to our port side, a blinding pair of halogen spotlights tore through the darkness.
The automated patrol boat—a forty-foot steel-hulled harbor vessel—was bearing down on the *Sovereign Ghost* at terrifying speed, its twin bow waves throwing up massive walls of white spray. The roar of its turbocharged diesel engines sounded like an oncoming freight train.
“The crane!” Claire shouted, pointing toward the forward deck.
A heavy knuckle-boom cargo crane was mounted near the bow, its boom swung outward over the water toward the adjacent concrete pier.
We sprinted along the narrow catwalk, our heavy rubber-soled boots pounding against the steel grating. Behind us, the remaining mercenary we had bypassed on the lower deck appeared at the end of the corridor, his submachine gun barking in a furious, uncontrolled burst.
Bullets chewed through the aluminum superstructure of the wheelhouse, sparks showering into the night. A high-velocity round grazed the shoulder of my drysuit, tearing through the vulcanized rubber and scoring a white-hot line of agony across my trapezius.
I didn't stop. The adrenaline surging through my system was a toxic flood, deadening pain, narrowing the world down to a single objective: *Survive. Get to Emily.*
We reached the base of the cargo crane just as the patrol boat struck.
The impact was cataclysmic.
The steel bow of the incoming vessel drove ten feet deep into the port flank of the *Sovereign Ghost*, directly beneath the vented fuel reserves. The sound was not a mechanical crash; it was an apocalyptic tear of metal, followed a microsecond later by a deafening, concussive *CRACK* that threw us both violently off our feet.
A massive fireball, orange and violent, erupted from the lower decks, rolling upward into the night sky like an erupting volcano. The shockwave shattered the bridge windows into a million glittering shards and blew the remaining mercenary clear off the catwalk into the burning harbor below.
The entire four-hundred-ton ship groaned, listing violently to port as thousands of gallons of sea water rushed into the torn hull.
“Jump!” I screamed, grabbing Claire’s hand.
We didn't aim for the water, which was already slick with burning diesel. We launched ourselves from the listing starboard rail toward the concrete pier twelve feet below and eight feet out.
We hit the concrete with a bone-jarring impact.
I rolled, tucking my shoulder, absorbing the shock as my knees slammed into the industrial stone. Claire landed beside me, crying out as her ankle twisted beneath her weight, her suppressed pistol skittering across the wet concrete into the darkness.
Behind us, the *Sovereign Ghost* was enveloped in a roaring tower of flame, secondary explosions rocking the hull as ammunition lockers cooked off in rapid, rhythmic snaps.
I hauled Claire to her feet. She leaned heavily against me, her face pale, teeth gritted against the pain in her ankle.
“Narragansett,” she gasped, coughing against the thick, black smoke rolling off the pier. “Daniel… he’s going to the warehouse. He’s going to kill her.”
“Not before we get there,” I snarled.
At the end of Berth 4, parked near the security shack, sat a dark-gray Ford F-250 maintenance truck, its engine idling, yellow warning lights flashing on the roof. The driver had apparently abandoned the vehicle to run toward the dock when the explosion occurred.
We broke into a limping sprint.
I tore the driver’s door open, shoved Claire onto the bench seat, and climbed behind the wheel. I slammed the shifter into drive, stomped the accelerator to the floorboards, and the heavy truck launched forward, tires smoking against the wet pavement.
We crashed through the lightweight aluminum security gate, shattering it into twisted shards, and rocketed out onto the harbor access road.
I pulled out my cell phone, tossing it onto Claire’s lap.
“Call Marcus,” I ordered, weaving the heavy truck through the dark, winding coastal roads at eighty miles an hour.
Claire dialed with shaking fingers, putting the phone to her ear.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings.
“Pick up, damn you,” she wept. “Pick up!”
*Click.*
The line connected. But it wasn't Marcus Reyes’s gravelly voice that answered.
It was the cold, cultivated baritone of Julian Vance.
“You’re too late, Helena,” Julian said softly.
The background audio was dead quiet, save for the faint, terrifying sound of a little girl sobbing.
*“Daddy… Mommy… where are you?”* Emily’s voice drifted through the speaker, small, terrified, and shattered.
“Vance!” Claire screamed, her fingernails digging into the dashboard until they cracked.
“The salvage operator put up a respectable fight,” Julian said dispassionately. “He took three of my men before we neutralized him. His sister is unconscious. And your lovely daughter is currently sitting in the passenger seat of my car.”
“Julian, please,” Claire sobbed, breaking down completely, pressing the phone to her mouth with both hands. “Take me! Kill me! Do whatever you want to me, but let her go! She’s an innocent child! She had nothing to do with Leo!”
“Neither did Leo,” Julian replied, his voice turning into ice. “Leo had nothing to do with your father’s treason. Yet you put a bullet through his heart and left him like garbage on a hospital stairwell.”
Julian paused. The sound of an engine accelerating could be heard on the line.
“I’m at the scenic overlook,” Julian said. “The bluffs above the Narragansett lighthouse. The drop is two hundred feet down into the rocks. You have eight minutes, Helena. Come watch your daughter learn how to swim.”
The call ended.
I slammed my fist against the steering wheel, a roar of pure, unadulterated primal rage tearing from my throat.
Eight minutes.
May you like
I pushed the accelerator down until the needle buried itself past ninety, the truck sliding violently around the wet curves of the coastal highway, hurtling toward the edge of the world.
***
