Through the window in the upper half of the door, Sylvia saw two of the mercenaries looking at their handiwork. She knew that as soon as they saw she was unaffected by the gas, they’d kill her.
She’d only fired an MP5 submachine gun once in the Oregon’s armory, but it seemed simple enough. Literally point and shoot, with a minimal kick even on full auto. A QCW-50 was lying beside the dead mercenary. She hoped the Chinese weapon was just as easy to operate.
She picked it up at the same moment the two men saw her. She flicked the safety, put the gun to her shoulder, aimed its red-dot sight at the window and yanked the trigger, holding it down without letting go.
Bullets tore through the glass, hitting both men. She knew the weapon had a fifty-round magazine, but she was still shocked at how fast they were used up. The gun clicked empty just a few seconds later.
The door was pocked with bullet holes, but she seemed to have hit her targets. Both of them were down, which was fortunate since Eric hadn’t taught her how to reload.
She got to her feet, concerned about Eric and Linc, when she locked eyes with the man whose image had haunted her since the sinking of the Namaka.
Angus Polk pushed the door open, a look of anger on his face and a gun in his hands. Sylvia had a split second to sprint for the stairwell before his bullets started slamming into the bulkhead behind her. She dived and rolled down the first flight of steps to the landing, smacking hard onto the floor.
Despite the jolt of pain in her back, she willed herself to her feet and ran down the interior stairs without looking back.
* * *
—
Polk didn’t recognize the woman who’d just killed two of his men, but he’d soon find her. Based on how wildly she’d shot and the fact that she’d fired the entire magazine on full auto, she didn’t seem like a pro. He looked forward to hunting her down.
But first he had to open the cargo bay doors again. With eleven minutes left to launch, they were the only thing standing between the rockets and all of those citizens out there waiting to celebrate the new year.
As he walked to the control panel, movement on one of the monitors caught his attention. There were three intruders dressed in black inside the citadel, as well as four corpses of the men he’d sent to secure it.
One man was seated on the stairs, while a man and a woman were kneeling by the lockers.
They were rooting through his supply of the Enervum antidote, stuffing the packs into bags. The man had paused his work and seemed to be talking to no one in particular.
Polk looked at the intruder who was slumped over the bridge console and noticed that he was wearing a tiny earpiece. His friends in the citadel must have been wondering why they’d lost contact.
They wouldn’t have to wonder long, but they wouldn’t be going anywhere, either.
Polk brought up the fire control system on the touch screen and selected the option operating the emergency fire doors in that area of the ship. Thick fireproof panels began to slide together. The man in the citadel got to his feet and ran to the door, but he wasn’t fast enough. The room was sealed. Polk finished by locking out manual override at that location.
Now no one would be entering or exiting the citadel. It was secure, but not airtight. They would be gassed along with everyone else in the city once the rockets went off.
Polk activated the intercom to the citadel.
“Whoever you are,” he said, “your friends are unconscious and paralyzed by Enervum up here on the bridge. I hope you now realize what a mistake you’ve made coming onto my ship. Just hang out there. You won’t have to wait long.”
Once Jin arrived in the Marauder—and he still held out hope that she would—they’d go down with the Centaurus.
Even as the three captives listened to him, they began to pry at the doors. Let them try all they wanted, Polk thought. Those doors wouldn’t budge unless they had a jackhammer.
He still had to open cargo bays three and four. He pushed aside the unconscious man on the console to get at the switches. He flipped them, and the huge folding doors began to rise again.
Once they were in place, he pounded the switches with the butt of his rifle, hopelessly jamming them so they couldn’t be used to close the doors again.
Now that those tasks were taken care of, the rocket launch was assured despite the intruders’ best efforts.
He inserted a fresh magazine into his weapon, turned to the stairwell, and went in search of his quarry. Now it was just him against her.
SEVENTY
The Gator idled a hundred yards from the Centaurus, only its cupola poking above the surface. MacD was checking over the laser designator. It looked like a giant pair of binoculars, except with three lenses instead of two, the third being for the laser itself. MacD would hold it up to his eyes, and whatever he was looking at was what the rail gun would hit.
“The doors are moving again,” Linda said from the cockpit.