Then he noticed the label on the adjoining container: M-76 grenades, and M-25 CS riot grenades, used by the military and police for crowd control. “Here we go,” he said excitedly, though restraining the volume. “This is exactly what we need. Now, do you know how to open these things?”

  She turned back toward him. “All we need is a bolt-cutter. These containers are high-security-sealed to prevent pilferage—they’re not really locked in any serious way.”

  The first container came open easily once the high-security seal was snapped off. The metal lashing gear crisscrossing the front end of the nine-foot-high container slid out quickly, and then a door opened. Inside were stacked wooden crates of grenades and other armaments: a veritable Aladdin’s cave of weaponry.

  Ten minutes later they had assembled a pile of assorted arms. Once they had familiarized themselves with how to use them and how to keep them from going off accidentally, Bryson and the woman began stuffing the smaller objects, the grenades and ammunition and the like, into the pockets of their Kevlar body armor plates. The larger objects, they secured to their shoulders and backs by means of makeshift holsters, rucksacks, and slings of rope; the largest ones they would simply carry. Each wore Kevlar helmets with attached face shields.

  Suddenly there came an enormous crash from directly overhead, then another. The screech of metal scraping against metal. Bryson slipped into the narrow gap between two containers and wordlessly signaled to the woman to do the same.

  A sliver of bright light appeared above as a trapdoor in the ceiling appeared to open, actually an opening in the hatchway covering this bay of the cargo hold. The light came from high-intensity flashlights, several of them, in the hands of three or four of Calacanis’s soldiers. Behind them, beside them, there were others, many others, and even from this angle, diagonally below, Bryson could see they were heavily armed.

  No! He was expecting a confrontation, but not here, not so soon! There had been no opportunity to formulate a strategy, to coordinate with the nameless blond woman who had for some reason become his accomplice.

  He seized the grip of the Bulgarian-made Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and slowly angled it upward, mentally running through his options. To fire at the men from here would be the equivalent of sending up a flare confirming his location. Calacanis’s men couldn’t be certain that Bryson and the woman were here.

  Then Bryson caught a glimpse of the array of large weapons that lay abandoned on the steel walkway floor. That told his enemies that they had guessed right, or rather, that they had accurately pinpointed the sounds from below—that their quarry was either here or had just been here.

  But why weren’t they firing?

  When you’re outnumbered, go on the offensive. His instincts told him to fire first, to pick off as many of his pursuers as he could, whether it gave away their positions or not.

  He raised the Kalashnikov, peered through the low-light, variable-intensity illuminated sight to zero the reticle, and squeezed the trigger.

  An explosion, followed instantly by an agonized scream, and one of Calacanis’s soldiers toppled from the ramparts above all the way down to the steel ramp a few feet away. Bryson’s aim was precise; the man, struck in the forehead, was dead.

  Bryson pulled into the shadows of the recess between containers, bracing for the full-automatic explosion of gunfire that he knew would be the response.

  But nothing came!

  There was a shout from above, a barked command. The men drew back and assumed firing stances, but did not fire!

  Why the hell not?

  Baffled, Bryson raised his weapon again and squeezed off two more carefully aimed shots. One of the men went down right away, dead; another sagged to his feet, screaming in pain.

  Suddenly Bryson realized: they had been ordered to hold their fire!

  They could not risk firing their weapons so near the containers! The corrugated-steel shipping crates were filled with the most explosive, highly flammable arms — not all of them, of course, but enough to make it dangerous. One misplaced round that penetrated the thin steel skin of a container might detonate a cache of bombs, of C-4 plastic explosives, or who knows what else, setting off a conflagration so immense that it might sink the vast ship.

  As long as he sought cover between containers, then they would not fire. Yet the instant he or the woman emerged and were safely away from the containers, a sharpshooter would attempt to take them out. This meant that Bryson was safe as long as he remained in position here—but there was no escape, no way out, and his enemies surely knew that. They could wait him out, wait for him to blunder.

  He released his hold on the Kalashnikov, let it dangle by its strap at his side. From here he could see that the blonde was crouched between two containers twenty feet away or so, watching him, waiting to see what he would do. Bryson jabbed his thumb first to the left, then to the right, an unspoken question: Which way out?

  Her reply was immediate, also signaled by means of hand gestures: the only way out was to emerge from the shelter of the containers, and take the ramp back in the direction from which they had come. Shit! They had no choice but to expose themselves! Bryson pointed to himself, telling her that he would go first. Then he raised his other major tactical weapon, a South African-made Uzi submachine gun. At the same time he began to sidle out from the protective alley, keeping his back against one of the containers, until he was out in the open, the Uzi pointed toward the guards above. As swiftly as they could, given the burden of the load of weaponry they were saddled down with, they moved toward their only escape.

  Slowly the woman emerged, too, and now both of them sidled down the ramp, their backs against the enormous steel boxes. Several powerful, crisscrossing beams of light shone directly at them, in their eyes, illuminating their every move. In his peripheral vision Bryson could see several of the shooters shifting positions, aiming at them from oblique angles so they could fire at them without fear of striking the containers. But it would take precise marksmanship.

  And Bryson did not intend to allow them the opportunity.

  He shifted the Kalashnikov toward the shooters, and as he released the safety, he heard a loud clattering from behind. He turned quickly to look and saw men clambering out of the hatch that had been their escape route! These men, at much closer range, their aim therefore more reliable, might not be so hesitant to fire. Now they were surrounded, their sole means of escape gone!

  A sudden hailstorm of machine-gun fire. It was coming from the woman, who then ducked back between the shelter of two containers. There were shouts, screams, and several of the advancing men collapsed to the ground, wounded or dead. Taking advantage of the gunfire, Bryson reached into the pocket of his flak jacket, retrieved a burst-fragmentation grenade, pulled out the pin, and hurled it up toward one group of Calacanis’s men above. A chorus of shouts arose and the men scattered just as the grenade exploded, sending an immense shower of shrapnel everywhere, knocking several of the men out. Metal fragments clattered against Bryson’s own face shield.

  Another round of machine-gun fire from the woman, just as several of the men who had just emerged from the hatch advanced toward them, fanning out, pistols drawn. Bryson pulled out another grenade and hurled it upward; this one exploded much more quickly, with equally devastating results. He then fired a burst from the Uzi at the approaching soldiers. Several were hit; two of them, equipped with bulletproof vests, kept moving. Bryson fired at them again. The impact of the rounds even against the Kevlar vests was sufficiently powerful to knock one of them over. Bryson fired one long sustained burst and hit the other man in an exposed portion of the throat, killing him instantly.

  “Come!” the woman shouted. He saw that she was backing up farther into the narrow passage between containers, deeper into the darkness. She seemed to have another route in mind; he would have to trust her, take on faith that she knew what she was doing, where she was going. Wildly firing off another long burst of artillery as cover, Bryson dove out from his protective cover to the open ramp. As he ran he was firing all around him, seemingly crazily. But it worked: he made it to the passage across the way, just in time to see her disappear to the left in a crawlspace between the ends of several containers, dragging a long heavy object behind her.

  He recognized the weapon. Just before he turned, he pulled out another grenade and hurled it back toward Calacanis’s men—at least, those who remained standing.

  It was insanity! The woman was lugging this oversized, rifle-shaped weapon that was slowing down their escape!

  “Go on,” he whispered to her. “I can get it.”

  “Thank you.”

  He grabbed the weapon, swung it over his shoulder, pulling the canvas strap around his chest. Now she was climbing down a railing that led to the next row of containers below. He climbed down as well, then followed close behind as she shimmied between another set of containers. Now he could hear footsteps all around, though chiefly above and behind, and he deduced that their pursuers were splitting up into small teams. Where was she going? Why did she insist on their carrying this goddamned weapon?

  She was weaving a strange, jagged path—between containers, then climbing down the railing to the next level down. There were eight or so levels of containers belowdecks, below the hatch covers, and who knew how many rows, which provided a great maze. That’s what she was doing: she was trying to lose them in the maze! He was disoriented; he had no idea which way she was going, but she was moving quickly and seemingly with purpose, so he continued to follow her, his agility somewhat impaired by having to carry the weapon.

  At last they came to another vertical tunnel with a steel ladder mounted within. She vaulted up it almost as if running. Bryson was starting to feel winded. The additional thirty or forty pounds he was carrying didn’t help. The woman was in peak physical condition, he observed. This tunnel rose fifty feet or so and stopped at a dark, horizontal tunnel that was tall enough to stand up in. As soon as he had come through, she shut the hatch door behind him and bolted it shut.

  “This is a long tunnel,” she said. “But if we can make it to near the end, to the oh-two deck, we’re out of here.”

  She broke into a run, her stride long, hurried; Bryson followed close behind.

  A sudden loud, echoing, clicking sound, and they were instantly plunged into absolute darkness.

  Bryson threw himself onto the steel deck by force of habit, learned from long years of field ops, and he heard the woman do the same.

  The explosion of a gunshot was followed immediately by the sound of steel hitting steel as a round hit the bulkhead just inches away. The aim was too good, too close, to be anything but enhanced by a thermal night-vision scope. Another explosion, and Bryson was immediately struck in the chest!

  The bullet tore into his Kevlar vest with the impact of a powerful fist slamming him in the chest. Bryson had no night-vision; that had not been among the Aladdin’s cave of armaments they had managed to turn up in their quick forage through the shipping containers. But the Lebanese woman did.

  Didn’t she?

  “I don’t have it!” she whispered harshly, as if reading his thoughts. “I dropped it somewhere back there!”

  Now they could hear footsteps coming closer and closer in the blackness — not running but briskly walking, with great determination. The determination of someone who can see in the dark, can see his target as clearly as if it were high noon. The confident stride of a killer approaching in order to improve his sight lines.

  “Stay down!” Bryson hissed as he took out the Uzi and fired off a burst in the general direction of the killer. But it did nothing; the killer was advancing toward them steadily, Bryson could sense.

  In the left pocket of his flak jacket was a jumble of hand grenades. M651 CS teargas grenades, which would be a mistake, because in this contained space it would get them, too: they had no protection. M90 pyrotechnic smoke grenade dischargers, which generate thick smoke screens, would do no good either, since thermal scopes could see through it.

  But there was another one, he knew: a high-tech species of hand grenade that might do the trick.

  There had been no time to explain to the woman what he was about to do. He had simply grabbed a few of the weapons from Calacanis’s store. Now what? He needed to tell her without the killer, or killers, understanding.

  Just move!

  He found the grenade, identifying it by its unusual contours, its smooth body. Swiftly he pulled out its pin, waited the requisite few seconds, and lobbed it a few feet short of where he estimated Calacanis’s soldier had reached.

  The explosion was brief but blindingly bright, phosphorus-white, and it illuminated the killer in freeze-frame like a trick of the camera. Bryson could see the man, submachine gun hoisted in firing position, jerk his head up in astonishment. But the light disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, and Bryson could feel the air fill at once with burning-hot smoke. The killer was caught off guard, taken by surprise, and Bryson seized the moment to scoop up the long steel projectile and then propel himself forward, coming at the woman with great velocity. As he did so, he called to her in Arabic, “Run! Straight ahead! He can’t see us now!”

  Indeed, the American-made M76 smoke grenade, once detonated, had released a thick smoke screen laced with hot brass flakes that floated in the air and descended to the ground very slowly. It was a high-tech obscurant, specifically designed to block detection of infrared waves by thermal imaging systems. The hot metal fragments confounded the killer’s scope, so it could no longer distinguish the heat of the human body from the cooler background. Now the air was filled with a hot metallic haze; the assassin’s field of vision was now nothing more than a densely speckled cloud.

  Bryson rushed onward, the woman racing just ahead of him. By the time their enemy recovered a few seconds later and began firing madly, indiscriminately, Bryson and the woman were well beyond him down the corridor. Artillery exploded everywhere, clattering against the steel bulkheads aimlessly.

  He felt a hand reach out to make contact with him: the blond woman was guiding him through a hatchway, pulling him up onto a steel ladder until he had his bearings and was able to make his way up the rungs in the utter darkness. From behind he could hear another hailstorm of bullets as the soldier fired away blindly, and then the barrage abruptly stopped. He’s out of ammunition, Bryson thought. He’ll have to reload.

  But he won’t have time.

  The woman opened a hatch cover, and suddenly he could see. In the same instant as he felt the welcome, cold night air hit his lungs, he saw that they were outside, in the open, on a small, starboard section of deck. She closed the hatch behind them and slid home the deadbolt. The sky was dark and starless, cloudy, but it seemed almost bright by contrast.

  They were on the 02 deck, one level above the main deck. Bryson noticed that the Klaxons had ceased; the alarms had stopped ringing. Nimbly making her way around several large piles of greasy cables, like tangles of snakes, the woman took several quick strides toward the bulwark.

  She knelt and untied a cable from a pelican hook, which released a boom, a davit arm, which now swung outward. Secured to the davit cradle was a twenty-seven-foot-long rescue boat, a Magna Marine patrol craft, one of the fastest speedboats made.

  Then the two of them climbed into the boat, which swayed unsteadily on its bridle rig. She yanked at a line, releasing the brake, and abruptly they plummeted downward, the boat crashing into the water, free of all restraints.

  She powered it up and the motor came on with a throaty roar, and then the boat lurched forward, almost flying over the surface of the water. The woman took the steering wheel while Bryson maneuvered the long steel tube, the immense missile he had lugged throughout the ship. They barreled full-throttle ahead at a speed of around sixty miles per hour. Calacanis’s immense ship loomed as large as a skyscraper, its tall black hull ominous.

  The loud noise emitted by the Magna patrol boat seemed to have alerted Calacanis’s security forces, for suddenly the black sky was lit up with blindingly bright beams of light, thunderously loud explosions. Security men now ringed the bulwarks, standing on the railings and various other perches, their submachine guns and sniper rifles blazing. They were ineffective; Bryson and the woman were out of range.

  They had escaped, and they were safe!

  But then Bryson noticed the rocket launchers being hoisted onto the deck, targeted directly at them.

  They’re going to blow us out of the water.

  He became aware of the whine of an outboard motor, which crescendoed into a powerful roar. Directly ahead, coming around the ship’s stern, was a Boston Whaler patrol boat, twenty-seven-foot Vigilant class, with mounted machine guns. This was no Spanish coast guard vehicle; it was clearly private.

  And as it raced toward them, growing closer and closer, its machine guns were firing nonstop.

  The woman heard, then saw, and she didn’t need to be prompted. She opened the throttle even further, accelerating to maximum speed. The boat they were on had no doubt been chosen by Calacanis for maximum speed, but so had the approaching patrol boat.

  They were speeding toward the shore, but there was no certainty that they would win any contest. Now the pursuing patrol boat was almost within firing range, its guns blazing all the while. It was a matter of seconds before it overtook them. The sea was flecked, churned, by the hailstorm of bullets from the machine guns.

  And the huge rocket launchers on board the Spanish Armada were clearly about to fire; the missiles were within range.

  “Fire it!” the woman shouted. “Before they blow us up!”

  But Bryson had already raised the Stinger to his shoulder, the gripstock in his right hand, launch tube in his left, canvas strap around his chest. He peered through the sight, squinting his other eye. The Stinger’s super-advanced software made for extreme accuracy, using a passive infrared seeker. They were well beyond the recommended minimum distance of two hundred meters.

  Bryson aligned the target in the optical sight, hit the override on the Identification Friend or Foe interrogation function, then actuated the missile function.