The Navigator

From the deck of the Leif Eriksson, the task Austin had set for himself had looked difficult but not impossible. But the Ocean Adventure was as long as a skyscraper placed on its side. Even worse, this skyscraper was moving. As Austin looked up at the fortress-steep ramparts he hoped to scale, he wondered whether he had bitten off a bigger mouthful than he could chew.

He pushed the dangerously distracting thought from his mind, crawled up to the boat’s prow, and dug his fingers into the slippery-wet surface of the rubber pontoons. When he was ready, Austin lifted one arm and signaled Zavala to make his move. Zavala angled the inflatable in toward the ladder. The rolling white water knocked the boat back like a cow brushing away a fly. Zavala had to play catch-up again.

Austin clung to the bow as Zavala tried to keep pace without going broadside to a sea that could easily flip the boat over. Cold spray stung his eyes and blurred his vision. The noise created by the rush of water, the outboard motor, and the ship’s engines made communication, and even thought, nearly impossible. Just as well. If Austin thought about what he was about to do, he would not do it.

He was starting to tire from the constant beating. If he didn’t make a move soon, his biggest obstacle would be sheer exhaustion. Pluck and determination would come off second best against the simple laws of physics.

A voice crackled over his walkie-talkie.

“Kurt. Come in.” Captain Dawe was calling him.

“No can do,” Austin shouted into the mouthpiece. “Busy.”

“I know. I’m watching you. Just heard from the rig. The last anchor line is tangled. A collision looks like a sure thing. You’d better move away from the impact area or you could get caught up in a hell of a mess.”

Austin made a snap decision. He pointed at the containership and shouted over his shoulder.

“Oil rig’s stuck, Joe. We’re going in.”

Zavala gave him a thumbs-up and smoothly cranked the tiller to move the boat within yards of the ship. Once more, the small craft was buffeted by artificial surf. Zavala kept the boat riding the roiling hull wash like a Hawaiian surfer until it was slightly ahead of the boarding ladder.

The rope ladder had become entangled in the “man lines,” the safety ropes that hung down from either side. Zavala brought the motor up to full throttle and went in at a shallow angle. The boat tipped on its side like a heeling sailboat. Zavala and Austin threw their body weight on the higher side. The boat rode the rushing water until it was within reach of the ladder slapping against the side of the ship.

Austin felt like a salmon swimming upstream as the boat danced on the churning water. With the ladder finally in reach, he wedged his feet under the pontoon sides of the inflatable, slipped out of his flotation vest, and rose in a semicrouch. He needed full freedom of movement, and the vest would be of little use if he screwed up. He would have only one chance and if he missed he would land in the water, get swept back alongside the ship, and likely be ground to pieces in the ship’s propeller.

He felt the boat falling away and he reached up, his fingers still inches from the bottom of the rope. He was extended out over the bow, clawing for air. The chasm that yawned between his fingers and the ladder was widening beyond the point of no return. Then the rope snapped closer, and he grabbed the bottom rung like an acrobat in flight.

As Austin’s fingers closed on the rung, Zavala swung the boat back away from the ship to avoid flipping over. Austin dangled at the end of the ladder, reached up blindly, and grabbed the next rung. The hard rubber step was slippery with seawater. He almost lost his grip when a wave washed up around his waist and dragged him down, but he held on and pulled himself higher.

The ladder had stabilized slightly with Austin’s body weight on it, but the double rope was still twisting on itself. He almost let go when his hand scraped against the steel hull. His knuckles felt as if they had been dipped in acid. He had no choice but to ignore the pain and keep climbing.

He tilted his head back to see how far he was from the gangway that angled against the hull. He was encouraged by what he saw. He was halfway up the ladder. Only a few more rungs and he’d be able to reach the small platform at the bottom of the metal steps.

He grabbed on to a couple of rungs, pulled himself higher, and glanced up again. Someone was peering at him from between two thin metal posts that extended vertically from the deck where those climbing the ladder could use them as handholds. A crown of unruly hair framed the dark-ski

The face disappeared, and an arm reached over the side. The hand at the end of the arm clutched a knife whose long blade was sawing through the rope ladder.

“Hey!” Austin called out, for want of anything more appropriate.

The knife hesitated, but went back to work and quickly severed the rope. The rope ladder dropped a short distance. Austin was slammed against the hull. The impact almost jolted his hands loose from the ladder. He held on and looked up again. Aw, hell, he muttered. The knife was sawing the second ladder rope.

He reached for a man line that had blown free and was twisting in the wind and got both hands on it as the knife went through the second rope. The severed ladder dropped into the crushing sea and instantly disappeared.

Austin’s head slammed against the side of the ship like a clapper in a bell. Galaxies whirled before his eyes. He clung tenaciously to consciousness aware that a single swipe of the knife blade against the line would send him to his death. He reached over and grabbed the bottom step of the gangplank, then swung under the platform, where he hoped he would be invisible to the happy knifeman.

He stayed there for a few moments. When he could hold on no longer, he pulled his body onto the platform and crawled on his hands and knees up the steps until he was at the opening in the deck rail. He leaped onto the deck in a clumsy defensive stance and was glad to see that no one was waiting in ambush.

Austin waved at Zavala, who was ru

The captain’s frantic voice crackled in the walkie-talkie. “You okay, Kurt?”

Austin felt like newly ground hamburger, but he said, “Finest kind, Cap. I’m on the ship. How long do I have?”

“You’re about five miles from the rig. You’ll have to allow time for the ship’s momentum to stop or turn.”

Austin sprinted for the sterncastle, but a terrible sound stopped him in his tracks. Coming from a space between container stacks was a woman’s scream, and there was no mistaking the terror in her voice.

Chapter 12

CARINA HAD REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS only minutes before Austin had climbed aboard the ship. Her return to the land of the living had some drawbacks. Her head throbbed with pain. Her vision was squirrelly. Waves of nausea sloshed around in her stomach.

The ache and discomfort kept her from sliding back into oblivion, and she became aware that she was still in the container, her body lodged between packing crates. Her arms were bound tightly behind her back. In their haste, the hijackers had left her legs untied.

Combining sheer force of will with a lean physique strengthened from hours of working out at the UNESCO gym, Carina rolled onto her belly. Using her tight abdominal muscles to the max, she leveraged her body into a kneeling position. She stood on wobbly legs and waited until the dizziness passed. Then she backed up to a packing crate and rubbed the duct tape binding her wrists against the corner.

Splinters stabbed at her skin, but she ignored the pain. After a few minutes of self-inflicted torture, she slipped one hand free. She was prying the tape off her wrists when a figure appeared in the opening the hijackers had cut into the container.