Chapter 10 - The Sinking Trap
We cut through the crossfire like a scalpel, Reed laying down relentless cover fire while I slid across the steel deck, coming up behind the generator housing where two unbadged operatives were reloading their magazines.
Before they could bring their weapons to bear, I put two rounds into the deck plates between their boots. “Drop your weapons! Hands on your heads, now!”
Both men froze, exchanging a quick glance before slowly dropping their carbines to the floor and interlocking their fingers behind their necks.
“Reed, secure them!” I ordered, spinning around to check the aft stairwell.
Marcus Vance was already halfway up the iron steps leading to the main deck, clutching a hard-shelled waterproof briefcase against his chest, sprinting toward the open sea-air.
“Marcus!” I yelled, breaking into a dead sprint after him.
By the time I burst through the aft hatch onto the main deck, the rain was coming down in sheets, blurring the lights of the distant Coast Guard cutter. Marcus was already untying the painter rope of a waiting inflatable dingoy bobbing against the ship’s rusted hull.
“You’re too late, Avery!” Marcus shouted over the roar of the wind and rain, hoisting the briefcase into the boat. “The data packets are already uploading to an offshore relay. Even if you kill me right now, the truth goes live in five minutes!”
I raised my sidearm, aiming straight down at the outboard motor of his dinghy, my finger tightening on the trigger.
“Captain! Don't shoot!” a voice screamed from the companionway behind me.
I glanced back for a fraction of a second. Brock Sullivan stumbled out onto the deck, his face pale, holding his pistol out—not at Marcus, but frozen in sheer panic as the ship beneath us gave a sudden, violent lurch to port.
The Orion’s Star groaned horribly, its aged ballast tanks rupturing from an underwater explosion we hadn't heard over the storm. The entire deck tilted at a sickening thirty-degree angle.
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Marcus laughed maniacally as his inflatable boat dropped away into the dark, churning swells below.
And as the ship continued to sink beneath our feet, my phone buzzed in my tactical vest with an automated alert from Department of Defense Cyber Command: Global network broadcast initiated. Origin point: Unverified.
