Tell him I’m on my way.”
Drozdov said, “Go quickly.”
LB broke downhill for the left wing. Exiting the portal, he snared a flashlight and made his way down the rail to the Filipino manning the spotlight. The lit-up pirate skiff far below no longer snugged against the great hull but kept pace twenty yards off. LB instructed the Filipino crew to wait one minute, then take the searchlight beam off the skiff and move it forward along the hull, then back.
He flung himself at the exterior stairs.
LB could not fly down the six staircases. The Valnea tilted harder as she curved to the right, making the stairs treacherous. He moved as fast as he could, suspecting that every tick of the clock worked for the pirates.
Bojan greeted him at the last step. The Serb held his Zastava M21 ready at his waist. Behind him, the white girder of light from the wing shone down.
“Go inside, Sergeant.”
“Look.” LB showed the flashlight. “I’m unarmed, thanks to you. I just need to see something up close. I think we’re being deked.”
“I do not know this word.”
“Fooled, Bojan. Tricked. I don’t think these pirates are children. I’m betting they’ve got another skiff. Let me take one look.”
“You are medic. Please restrict your efforts to that.”
Ten years in Special Forces; LB wanted to bellow this in the Serb’s face. Instead, he said again, “One look.”
“One. Then back to the infirmary.”
LB leaned over the port rail, flicking on the flashlight. The skiff held its position off the hull, pacing the freighter’s speed exactly. The pirates made no menacing moves at the Valnea, only gazed into the dazzling searchlight with weapons up. No one fired. It looked like a standoff. LB feared it was not.
The Valnea’s big searchlight panned forward as instructed to the ship’s bow. No more boats lurked in the darkness against the hull where they might hide too close to reflect on Valnea’s radar.
Something stirred in the foam beside the hull. A slash broke the water, then dipped back into the black gulf, splashed again, skipped, and disappeared.
The searchlight returned to the skiff. There it was, a rope faring off the bow into the dark water.
LB’s balance shifted as Valnea continued her careening course, swaying back to her left. As the ship rose into the turn, the pirate skiff closed the distance to the hull.
LB bolted from the rail, downhill across the ship’s beam to starboard. Behind him, Bojan ran, shouting.
Reaching the gunwale, LB looked down behind the flashlight before the guard on starboard could intercept him. Another rope ran forward off this spotlighted skiff’s sharp bow. The long boat angled away from the hull just as the skiff on the opposite side bore in.
Bojan caught up. LB whirled on him.
“I got to go forward.”
“Inside.” Bojan motioned to his arriving guard. “Take him inside.”
“Listen to me. We’re on the same team here. Come with me. I got a hunch.”
Bojan moved closer. “Take your hunch and your ass inside, Sergeant.”
LB raised a hand into Bojan’s chest to stop the big man from laying hands on him first.
“Or what?”
“For your own safety.”
LB dropped the hand. He backed away.
“Yeah. That’s not really what PJs do.”
He spun on his boots, breaking into a sprint through the corridor. Bojan cursed and followed him, as LB wanted.
LB dashed into the dark and slanting companionway, dodging the many steel pillars, ladders, hydrants, and lashings in the way. While not nimble, LB was faster than the Serb with the heavy Zastava bouncing against his chest. He did not slow for the full length of the Valnea, did not look back at Bojan or over the night sea. LB ran flat out until he popped from beneath the long overhang, onto the bow, and under the first stars.
Weaving quickly between fat hawsers, he rushed to the tip of the bow. Leaning out with the glowing flashlight in hand, LB found what he’d come looking for.
Bojan grabbed him by the collar to yank him backward.
“Before you say anything”—LB held the flashlight out to the panting Serb—“take a look.”
“I will”—Bojan mustered the breath to finish his threat—”put you in brig.”
“Look first. Then brig.”
Bojan slung the Zastava over his heaving shoulders. LB bent over the rail to watch him train the flashlight on the rope looped around the Valnea’s nose above her giant bow bulb. The Serb played the beam left and right, following the cord along both sides until it disappeared into the breaking water.
“Impossible.”
LB patted the big guard on the back to return standing on