Prince Edward Island, South Africa
November 12, 10:01 A.M.
Grace did not push the knife into the small of Captain Tang’s back. His courage and willingness to give his life deserved consideration. More than that, she did not want to have to explain a revenge killing in her written debrief.
Or to revisit her own concerns about why she was tapped for Black Wasp.
She pushed him forward as she herself moved in on the console. She smashed the unit with the hilt of her knife then faced the others—before anyone had had time to move or even process what she had done.
She was about to go below in search of an inflatable raft and explosives when resounding fire erupted along the starboard side.
“They will sink us!” one of the engineers cried, turning to leave the bridge. Rivette was blocking his way.
“Get the hell back!” he said to the panicked officer.
The captain peeled himself from the instrument panel and turned to the engineers. “They will not. We have what is needed.”
The body, Grace thought. Goddammit. There wasn’t time. The gunfire was to rattle them, not the crew. She faced the second, calmer engineer. “Are there inflatable rafts below?”
“Yes, but you’ll never get away. You murdered two crewmembers. They will hunt you.”
He was right about that too. A bullet to the back of the head did not frighten her as much as the loss of face in a public trial.
“Let’s get everyone outside,” she told Rivette. “Maybe there’s still enough dinghy to float.”
Slipping past the lance corporal, Grace ran to the prow as, behind her, the sound and turbulence of the approaching corvette grew louder. Arriving at the railing, she looked down and saw the dinghy entirely underwater, hanging on by the mooring rope.
There was no way off except the water or a narrow isthmus of stone and ice to the south—and that led to a sheer wall over a hundred feet high. She was sure the corvette had the kind of inflatables that would bring a substantial landing party to the base of the peak.
No matter, she thought. When there’s only one way out you take it and chance the consequences. They would bring the doctor. The Chinese seemed to want him. This could well end up hand-to-hand.
If it was not a way out it was at least a way to die. To fail at a mission was shameful but to fail at dying would be worse.
She went to the side and waved at Rivette, pointed to the narrow causeway.
He nodded and, slinging the doctor’s arm over his shoulder, backed toward the rail. The .45 was back in his pocket but the QBZ-95 was pointed directly at the Chinese. He need not have bothered. As one, the seamen swarmed to the stern to try and signal the corvette. Grace came forward and swung herself over the railing. She dropped the five feet to the slippery rocks and Rivette—still pointing the rifle with his left hand—passed the doctor over the side with the right.
Grace grabbed the man’s legs, but he still screamed as he hit the ground and fell on his seat, the bandaged thigh having crumpled with the impact. Rivette fired a burst in front of the Chinese to back them up then slung the weapon over his shoulder, straddled the railing, and lowered himself down.
The three moved slowly forward across a surface of both ice and slippery seawater. The corvette continued to plow forward, Rivette keeping one eye on the rocks and the other on the vessel.
“That turret can rotate,” he said.
“They won’t shoot me,” the doctor said, wincing.
“Why? How’re you special?”
“I created the disease,” he replied.
Rivette looked like he wanted to punch the man in the temple. Maybe later, he thought. He might knock his mask off due to overenthusiasm.
Suddenly, when they were halfway to the sheer ledge, Grace saw what she was not expecting:
Salvation.
Van Tonder had watched the attack with hope and pride followed by sudden grave concern. The latter occurred when the 76mm gun turret unleashed a barrage just north of the ship, along the starboard side.
There were several people standing outside the long, narrow bridge. He could not see who they were or exactly how many, since the bridge and its twin satellite dishes and radar installation threw long black shadows across the deck. The commander had seen others go inside, though he could not tell what was happening—until the corvette fired and figures began to move.
One of them ran forward and looked briefly at the submerged and flopping dinghy. Then, in less than a minute, the three outsiders onboard were going over the side.
I can help, he realized.
Leaving the gun and racing back to the helicopter, van Tonder began pulling the rescue net from the back.
“What’s … happening?” Mabuza asked.
“Chinese closing in and we have allies stranded. Rest up. I’ll get them, then we figure out how to close that damn disease pit and send everyone home.”
The commander bundled the yellow vinyl package in his arm and hurried back. He knew the line would fall short—it was one hundred feet and it would take at least four or five feet of that to secure it to the ledge. But with a boost, two of them might be able to get up. A jump from a rock—maybe the third.
The line had a mesh basket at the end, a seat of sorts. It was designed to be suspended from a hook at the side of the AH-2. He and Mabuza had used it once, to pull a science team member from a rowboat that had been carried south by currents. There were several sharp, flat boulders on the ridge line: one of those would support the weight of a climber.
Skidding to a stop and selecting a rock with cracked edges, he ran the hook line through them and gave it one turn. Then he threw the rest of the line and the basket over the side.
The trio was about fifty feet away. If they did not look up they would not see the mesh. Grabbing the submachine gun, he fired a burst to get their attention.
The three stopped and looked up. They saw van Tonder and the line. The man with an SAN cap raised a hand as they moved forward. The others were too busy watching where they stepped. A slip would send them into the icy, churning breakers that struck the cliff and rolled back out to sea.
The basket was blowing side to side like a pendulum about three feet above Grace’s head. She feared it might rip if she tried to reach up and grab it. She was looking for flat rocks as the other two arrived. There was nothing to stand on.
“You go first,” she told Rivette.
“Nah, the doctor—”
“He can’t climb. You can. When I get him in you can pull him up and also cover us.”
“Ah, shit,” Rivette said, knowing she was right and moving to the face of the cliff. He was immediately struck at how the rock climbing they did was something of a fail: the gloves had gripping surfaces, there was no wind, and Chinese weren’t chasing them. Other than that, he felt a sense of comfortable familiarity as he grabbed a knob on the wall.
It was an easy transfer to the net. Standing, Rivette grabbed the line, though he was forced to wrap it around his hands to get a grip on the slender nylon. He went up, wrapping his feet in the rope as they’d trained to do.
Grace kept watch on the Chinese ships. The crew of the patrol boat did not go for any weapons. Two men had gone below, presumably to get the body … and the sample of the bacteria. She regretted not having disposed of that. This entire mission had been an inglorious flop in her mind. She disliked failure. She disliked it even more than the Department of Defense.
Rivette was nearly to the top when Grace began to consider how she would get the doctor into the basket. He was leaning beside her, against the wall, propping himself up.
“If I give your free leg a boost from the heel, can you reach the basket?” she asked.
“I’m thinking that’s probably the only way I’ll get there,” he said. “I can probably pull myself in if I get a grip. But once I do—the corvette has no reason not to fire on you.”
“You’re finally right about something, Doctor,” she said. Bending, she formed a stirrup with her hands as she watched Rivette. When she saw him disappear over the ledge, helped by van Tonder, she crouched near the injured man. “Go!”
Letting go of the wall, Raeburn allowed himself to be hoisted up by his good leg. Though the other leg gave out, he was able to stay erect long enough to thrust his fingers through the mesh. He closed them, holding tightly.
“I can’t pull up,” he said through his teeth. “Have him pull!”
There was no time to try again. Even as the doctor tried to pull his knee up into the basket, she was signaling the men above to pull.
The line and the doctor rose in jerking concert. Grace watched his dangling legs rise, saw two pairs of hands working above them in tandem. It would be another twenty or thirty seconds before they had him and could drop the line to her.
In case they were delayed, and not wanting that man to be the last thing she beheld in this life, Grace turned, drew her knife, and faced the corvette.
As she did, she thought she heard someone shouting. But the voice, if there was one, was swallowed by a loud, cliff-shaking roar directly above.