As fire stopped to starboard, Borgdanov looked over at the sergeant, who nodded, their thoughts identical. Borgdanov whistled softly to the others and leaned back against the casing, grenade ready.
“Doku,” Basaev said. “Shamil is in place. I am coming to cover you.
“Yes, Khassan,” Doku said as he prepared to rush aft.
“GO!” shouted Borgdanov as the gunfire died to port. The Russians lobbed grenades, pins in place, to clang on deck beside the terrorists’ hiding places. Death at their feet and unable to retreat, the Chechens broke cover just as Dugan and the crew also burst forth, each man screaming as they dashed into the open to trade hiding places with their partners, hurling their missiles as they ran.
The attackers were paralyzed by multiple targets and the clang of what they took for grenades on the deck all around them. From semi-concealment, the Russians dispatched the confused Chechens with single three-round bursts. When Basaev emerged on the starboard bridge wing a moment later, a burst from Borgdanov staggered him and drove him back.
The Italians reemerged cautiously, then cheered before being silenced by the captain, who stood smiling at a growing patch of open sea to starboard.
“Paulo,” he yelled to the second mate, “ La zattera! Subito! — The life raft — quickly.”
As the man moved to comply, the captain called orders to the chief mate and moved to Dugan’s side.
“We will miss the headland, I think,” he said, “but the current is tricky, and we can do no more. I ordered the rudder locked amidships and—”
“Commandante,” the chief mate said, “il Capo Macchinista viene.”
The chief engineer rounded the corner, handcuffs dangling from his wrist.
“Bravo, Directore,” the captain said, embracing the engineer before pointing him aft where the chief mate kept a tally as men leaped overboard to swim toward the bobbing raft.
The captain turned back to Dugan. “If the beduino lives, he will explode the ship. We should go, signori.” Dugan nodded and watched enviously as the captain moved to the rail to follow his men overboard.
Dugan turned to Borgdanov. “You think he’s alive?”
Borgdanov shrugged. “I know I hit him. How bad, I cannot say.”
Dugan darted from the shelter of the machinery casing to squat behind the Italian’s makeshift conning station. He looked down the starboard side toward Sultanahmet and tried to gauge the ship’s speed before dashing back to the Russians.
“I can’t tell how close we’ll pass to the headland,” Dugan said, “but my best guess is we’ll be as close as we’re going to get in five minutes. If the asshole’s alive and able to detonate, that’s when he’ll do it.” Dugan added, “My guess is he’ll stay on the starboard bridge wing where he can best judge the distance.”
“Good, Dyed,” Borgdanov said, starting up the starboard side, “we go.”
“Hold on,” Dugan said. “We’ll be exposed if you approach up the starboard stairway. Best go to port stairway to the bridge-deck level. You can attack through or around the wheelhouse.”
Borgdanov nodded and spoke to the sergeant in Russian. The sergeant started forward along the port side in a crouching run, Dugan close behind.
Basaev’s head ached where the Russian’s bullet creased his scalp. He wiped blood from his eyes and crawled on his belly to the back of the bridge wing to peer down over the edge. The deck was empty save for Shamil’s body. Streaks of foam marked the wake, and a raft bobbed astern, Italians pulling themselves aboard. Where were the Russians?
He knew. They were coming. They always came.
Basaev studied the now-straight line of foam marking the wake, then rose cautiously and turned toward Sultanahmet, mentally extending the track. The bow pointed to sea, but the current set the ship to starboard, and she might yet graze the shore. God willing, he would succeed. If he could hold off the Russians.
He put his assault rifle in single-shot mode and ran to the catwalk behind the wheelhouse. He rushed to port on the catwalk and then quickly walked backward, his gun pointed down, as he blasted the metal clips securing the aluminum grating. He retraced his route, ripping up sections of grating as he walked backward this time, tossing them over the rail to clatter on the deck far below. In less than a minute he had created a gaping chasm behind the wheelhouse, blocking the access to both the starboard bridge wing and the single ladder to the top of the wheelhouse.
Next he ran through the wheelhouse to the port side and slammed the heavy sliding door and locked it. They couldn’t come through, over, or around the wheelhouse now to get at him on the starboard bridge wing. The exterior doors into the deckhouse and the doors of the central stairwell were still booby-trapped on the upper levels, and if they tried to come up the starboard exterior stairway, they would be sitting ducks as he fired down at them through the open treads of the stairway. He could hold them off for an hour here. He needed only minutes.
Basaev positioned himself at the top of the stairway, facing ashore with his back to the wheelhouse. His eyes flickered between the stairwell and the crowded shore as Sultanahmet drew closer.
Dugan jumped at the sound of firing followed by metallic clanging from behind the deckhouse. “OK, I guess he’s not dead,” Dugan said.
“What is fanatic doing?” Borgdanov asked as the sliding door crashed shut two decks above them.
“I think he’s getting ready for us,” Dugan said. “Maybe it’s time for Plan B. Let’s try the stairs inside.”
Borgdanov nodded and spit out a stream of Russian. The sergeant moved to the deckhouse door and began to ease it open.
He froze and pointed to a thin wire visible through the narrow crack of the open door.
Borgdanov cursed. “Booby trap.”
“Can’t you cut the wire? Disarm it?” Dugan asked.
“Da,” Borgdanov said, “but it must be done carefully, and if there is one, I think there are others, and there is no time. We must go up. Now,” he said and started up the exterior stairs.
The crowd milled and pointed as the ship approached, the locals long accustomed to the nearness of ships, and the tourists following their lead. Basaev’s hopes of grounding died, stillborn, as water trapped between the bank and boxy hull cushioned the ship and she began to sheer away. He raised the detonator, and some in the crowd mistook it for a wave, but those nearest saw the bloody face and rifle and turned to claw through the crowd as his cry pierced the air.
“Aallaaahuuu Aak…”
Basaev’s wrist smashed the rail, and the detonator flew overboard. The pilot rolled off his arm and sank to the deck, back against the rail, smiling as he finished the cry, “Akbar.”
“What have you done, Excrement of Satan!”
“As you… advised… petitioned Allah. For… for… strength to stop murder… in His Name.”
Enraged, Basaev fired into the Turk’s face until no face remained. He looked back landward and watched the gap widen as ashore the fleeing clashed with the ignorant that were pressing forward for a better look. He reached for a grenade, then remembered Shamil took them all. He rushed forward and leaned over the wind dodger to spray the main deck with bullets, smiling as the rounds sparked through the maze of pipes, until his gun fell silent, magazine depleted on the Turk.