Читать книгу Scott Mariani 2-book Collection: Star of Africa, The Devil’s Kingdom - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 33

But if this was what it was like to be dead, it was the strangest thing. Jude blinked and gasped for air. He was stunned. He could feel the hard, cold, wet iron deck under him. He could hear noise all around him. Confusion. Men yelling. Guns firing.

No, he wasn’t dead. He craned his neck upwards to see what was happening.

A second explosion made the Andromeda quiver and rock as if an earthquake had struck it. A violent eruption of flame as tall as the ship’s superstructure shot into the sky, lighting the clouds. The pirate trawler alongside was lifted out of the water and ripped virtually in half by the blast. Its shattered hull crashed down into the foaming sea and disappeared amid a rolling mushroom cloud of flame and black smoke that poured across the deck of the cargo ship, so thick that the storm could barely disperse it. Pieces of wreckage rained down out of the blackness and spattered the deck like bullets.

Jude thought, Am I dreaming?

The pirates were in chaos. One lay on the deck, his legs separated from his torso where a piece of shrapnel had sliced him in two. The rest had been knocked flat, like Jude. Some of them were engulfed in the thick smoke. Others were back on their feet and discharging their weapons wildly and randomly towards the unseen enemy that was attacking them, no less stunned and disorientated than the cargo ship crewmen they’d been about to execute.

Jude staggered to his feet and saw Khosa. The General was clutching at the rail with one hand, the other still clasping the diamond. He was bent and sagging at the knees, as if the explosion had winded him. Without thinking, Jude charged him. Head low, shoulders bunched, like a bull. He rammed Khosa in the midriff and knocked him flat. Khosa let out a grunt as he went down, lashing out at Jude to bludgeon him with the rock. Jude blocked Khosa’s wrist with his knee, stopping the blow with enough force to make the African lose his grip on the diamond. It hit the deck and bounced towards the rail. Jude dived onto his belly and caught it before it went overboard and was lost forever. Khosa’s flailing hand gripped his arm. Jude pounded the diamond into the African’s face, once, twice, with all the strength he had in him, and felt the hand loosen on his arm.

Jude scrambled away without looking back, clutching the lump of rock to his chest as he skidded across the slippery deck. Guns were firing all over the place, muzzle flashes strobing through the smoke and the deluge of rain.

‘Come on!’ he screamed at Gerber and the others, waving crazily at them to get behind the cover of the container stacks. Then the fuel lines aboard the shattered trawler ignited and a second, even thicker pall of black smoke rolled up over the side to swallow him. Blinded, guttering, choking, he ran headlong into the solid steel wall of a container and fell back, knocked dizzy by the impact.

Khosa came storming through the blanket of smoke like a man possessed. Blood was streaming from a gash on his cheek where the diamond had cut him. He saw Jude lying on the deck and came for him with his teeth bared in a snarl. ‘I will KILL YOU!’ Then his hands were around Jude’s throat and his heavy body was crushing the air out of Jude’s lungs. Jude managed to get his knee up so that it pressed against the African’s chest, and shoved with all his might. Khosa went sprawling backwards and his head slammed into the corner of the container stack.

Jude started scrambling to his feet to escape.

But he couldn’t get away. Something was stopping him, tugging at the back of his trousers and holding him back. For an instant he thought he’d snagged his belt on one of the iron fasteners that held the container stack fast to the deck. But when he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw with a jab of terror that Khosa was no longer alone in the fight.

Still clutching Jude’s belt with one powerful fist, Zolani drew the machete from its sheath.

‘Cut off his arms and his legs!’ Khosa roared from the deck. He had lost his beret and he was bleeding from a fresh injury to his brow. ‘I want to see him crawl like a worm!’

Jude struggled frantically, so afraid that his heart felt as if it was in flames. But he couldn’t break Zolani’s grip. It was like being snared by a machine. As if in slow motion, he saw the machete blade rise up in the air, glinting like a living thing from the flames that squirmed and danced through the smoke. He imagined he could already feel it slicing his flesh. First one arm, then the other. Then his legs. Reduced to a trunk. Crawling like a worm. He cried out.

The machete came down.

And tumbled harmlessly with a clatter to the deck.

Zolani’s wide eyes stared into Jude’s for a second or two before they rolled back white. He swayed on his feet. His knees gave way under him and he crumpled and dropped like a demolished tower.

Jude hadn’t registered the gunshot and had no idea what was happening, until he saw that the top of Zolani’s head was blown away, pink cauliflower brains bubbling out of the hole. He scrambled away from the corpse on his elbows and heels, bewildered. Then he looked up, and his confusion doubled.

The surreal black apparition stepped out of the smoke and the sheeting rain. It was the figure of a man, but he had no face. He was covered from head to toe in gleaming wet black skin, like a seal, and festooned with belts and straps and tubes and armament. His eyes were hidden behind goggles, their lenses filled with fire. In his gloved hands was the stubby submachine gun he’d used to shoot Zolani.

The frogman moved as fluidly as the water from which he’d emerged. He stepped up to Zolani and his silencer coughed out two more rounds into the African’s head. Then he turned the weapon on Khosa, who was staggering to his feet, bloodied and unsteady.

For an instant, it looked as if Khosa was about to reach for the large revolver holstered at his right hip.

The frogman shook his head. Uh-uh, pal. Don’t even think about it.

Khosa did think about it, but only for a second longer. The hand that had been snaking its way down towards the holster stopped moving. The frogman shoved him hard against the container stack, spun him around and held the subgun to the back of his head as he relieved him of the heavy revolver and threw it overboard. Then Khosa was on his face and his hands were being secured behind his back with a cable tie.

In what seemed like a matter of seconds, the gunfire on board the cargo ship had dwindled, the sharp, sporadic crackle of AK-47s giving way to the muted BRRPP … BRRPP of silenced automatic weapons. As the rising wind parted the curtains of smoke, Jude saw two more frogmen striding over the deck. He saw pirates on their knees, weapons thrown down, hands in the air. The corpses of those who hadn’t surrendered sprawled here and there like dead rats, their clothing torn from bullet strikes and dark with blood and rain and seawater spray. The assault had been short, sharp and brutal, and now it was over. The ship was retaken. But that, for the moment, was all Jude knew.

‘Who are you?’ he asked the frogman. His voice came out as a thin, shaky croak.

The frogman reached up a gleaming black arm and peeled away his goggles. Jude stared into the glacier-blue eyes that locked onto his.

‘Ben?’