I swung my taped-together ankles over the edge of the bunk and sat up. By working my heels one against the other I managed to ease one of my shoes down so that it hung suspended from the toes of my right foot There was only going to be time enough for one try. I swung my legs from the knees tentatively a couple of times, then kicked up and out as hard as I could.
The loose shoe left my foot and spiraled up through the air. It seemed to move in slow motion as I watched it arc toward the target. The heel of the shoe hit the fluorescent tube dead center with one of the most beautiful little crashes I had ever heard.
The stateroom was plunged into darkness, and I hopped across the floor to where I heard the glass shards fall. Squatting and groping behind my back I found the thin pieces of glass. They were sharp enough, but most were — too small. Scrabbling through the fragments, I finally found one big enough to hold between my thumb and forefinger and saw at the tape on my wrists. As I worked with the curved piece of glass, my hand suddenly went slippery wet. I knew I had cut myself, but my hands were too numb to feel the pain.
When I had at least a notch started in each thick-ness of tape I wrenched my wrists apart and they ripped free. Still working in the dark I tore the adhesive from my ankles.
“That’s done it,” I told Rona. “Say something so I can find you.”
“I’m over here,” Rona’s voice said from the darkness.
I got to my feet and was moving toward the sound of her voice when I heard a foot scuff the deck outside the cabin door. Then the latch rattled.
With a leap toward the bulkhead I flattened myself next to the door. The door opened, light spilled in behind Gorodin, who hesitated a fraction of a second. It was a fraction of a second too long. I hit him with a straight right to the hinge of the jaw that sent shock waves all the way up to my shoulder.
I caught him around the waist as he sagged and dragged him out of the doorway. I plucked the stiletto from Gorodin’s belt, and slipped Hugo back into my forearm scabbard. There was enough deck light to locate Wilhelmina, and I repossessed the Luger too.
Now I stepped to the bunk where Rona sat patiently waiting, and ripped the tape from her wrists and ankles.
“Let’s go,” I hissed, tossing her what was left of her blouse. “Stay close behind me and I’ll try to get us over the side. It’s our only chance.”
We stepped into the passageway. I tried to get my bearings. At each end of the passage I could see a flight of narrow metal stairs. I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing which direction would be safe. I made my choice and ran for the stairs, with Rona right behind me.
I’d made the wrong choice.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard the approaching sound of heavy feet. I drew the Luger and fired upward at the men coming down.
With my free arm I swept Rona out of the way as a body hurtled past us and smacked the deck. It was one of the Slavic seamen. We heard the sound of feet thundering down the passage on the deck above.
I wheeled around and, with Rona in my wake, raced for the stairs at the other end of the passage. I could see that we were on a lower deck, and I knew we had to go two levels higher before we could get to the rail.
We rattled up the metal steps and reached the next deck just as a bunch of Gorodin’s men charged around the corner. I took a pot shot in their direction that slowed them down just long enough for us to sprint up the next flight of stairs. Down below somebody got his gun unhitched and fired two booming shots. The slugs sang off the steel bulkhead as we leaped onto the next deck, out of range.
Down this passage were the doors that led out to the lifeboat area. I had no thought of freeing one of the boats, but there were life jackets stored along the bulkheads there, and if we could grab a couple of those, we might survive in the water.
As we burst through the doors into the outside air, three crewmen stood between us and the rail. One of them carried a rifle. He raised the weapon to fire, but I already had Wilhelmina in my hand. I sent a bullet crashing through his forehead and he pitched forward onto the rifle. One of the other crewmen tugged at the rifle to free it from the dead man while the third dug a hand gun out of his clothing and got off a wild shot in our direction. Wilhelmina answered. The gunman grabbed his chest and staggered backward into the rail, cartwheeling over the side to splash into the black Caribbean below. The survivor gave up his attempts to free the rifle and bolted toward the stern.
I jerked the lid off a wooden container stencilled Life Jackets, but found only one inside. I tossed it to Rona, and she shrugged into it, pulling together the remains of her blouse as best she could.
There were harsh shouts now and feet running toward us along the deck from both directions. Time to bail out. I made an up-and-over motion to Rona with my hand, climbed the rail, lowered myself to the narrow outside ledge, and dived.
In the furious shoot-out to escape, I had forgotten the raw wound on my clobbered skull. I remembered it well when I hit the salt water with a massive jolt.
Then the lights went out. But I soon came around, coughing and blowing water like a broken radiator.
The Gaviota had steamed a couple of hundred yards, but now she was coming about, her searchlights playing over the water.
There was a brisk wind and the sea was choppy. It would be difficult for them to spot us in that churning desert of ocean. The water was warm, but full of unfriendly types with sharp teeth — and it was lonely.
Lonely! It came to me that I hadn’t seen Rona since we went overboard. Had she actually dived with me? I couldn’t be sure. I paddled in a wide circle, submerging when searchlights swept toward me, but I couldn’t see Rona.
The Gaviota was ploughing slowly toward me now. She looked huge and menacing from my water-level viewpoint. Some fifty yards from me the ship churned to a stop and the lights began to sweep methodically back and forth over the water.
Something white bobbed for a moment on the waves between me and the ship. I couldn’t risk calling out. Over the water the sound of my voice would carry easily, and the ship’s engines were now silent. I struck out in a crawl toward the object in the water, but stopped abruptly when my hand struck cloth and flesh.
It was not Rona. With a mixture of relief and disappointment I found it was the body of the crewman who had plunged over the side after I shot him.
In a blinding blaze, the long finger of the searchlight found us. I dived instantly, leaving the dead seaman afloat above me. Underwater, I stroked in the direction of the ship. I could hear the muffled rattle of gunfire and the choong of bullets knifing into the water.
When I surfaced, the hull of the ship loomed before me like a white steel wall. They were still shooting up on deck, and I heard the sound of a boat being lowered. I made my way back along the hull to the stern where I tucked in as well as I could under the overhang. Here I was out of range of the searchlight and would be hard to see from a boat unless it nearly ran over me. Unfortunately there was no place to get a handhold, so I had to tread water to stay close to the hull.
The boat splashed down amidships and the oarsmen struck out for the silver patch of water where the searchlight was holding steady. They reached the spot with a few powerful strokes and dragged the sodden body into the boat. Somebody cursed, then stood up and hailed the Gaviota through a bull horn.
“It is not Carter or the woman! It is one of our own!”
After a moment of steaming silence, Gorodin’s voice boomed, “Come back aboard. We will search again when it is light.”