Vixen 03 (Dirk Pitt 5)

"This is the captain," Fawkes snapped angrily.

"Ah, Captain Fawkes himself. How convenient. I was beginning to fear I had missed connections. You were not on the bridge, as I supposed."

"Identify yourself!" Fawkes demanded.

"The name is Emma. Not very masculine, I admit, but it serves the purpose."

"Stop this foolishness and let us pass." Fawkes made a move up two steps when the Hocker-Rodine hissed and a bullet zinged past his neck. He froze in midstep. "Good God, man, what is it you want?"

"I admire a no-nonsense approach, Captain." Emma paused, and then said, "I've been ordered to kill you."

Slowly, unnoticed by Fawkes and, he hoped, by the man on the landing, Pitt slipped down to his stomach on the steps, shielded by the shadowy bulk of the captain. Then, fractionally, he began slithering up the stairs like a snake.

"Ordered, you say," said Fawkes. "By whom?"

"My employer does not matter."

"Then why all the prattle, damn you. Why not shoot me in the chest and be done with it?"

"I do not operate without purpose, Captain Fawkes. You have been deceived. I think you should know that."

"Deceived?" Fawkes thundered. "Your foggy words tell me nothing."

An alarm began to sound in the back of Emma's mind, an alarm honed by a dozen years of cat-and-mouse existence. He stood there silently, not answering the captain's question, his senses probing for a sound or a movement.

"What about the man behind me?" asked Fawkes. "He has no hand in this. No need to murder an innocent bystander."

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"Rest easy, Captain," said Emma. "My fee is for only one life. Yours."

With agonizing slowness, Pitt raised his head until he was eye level with the landing. He could see Emma now. Not in detail-the light was too dim for that-but he could make out the pale blur of a face and the outline of a figure.

Pitt didn't wait to see more. He could only guess Emma would blast Fawkes in the gut during the middle of a sentence, after lulling him with idle conversation. An old but effective trick. He dug the balls of his feet into the steps, took a breath, and lunged, going for a vicious impact with Emma's legs, his hands clawing for the gun.

The silencer flashed in Pitt's face, and a stabbing pain slammed the right side of his head as he grabbed for Emma's arm. After the haze of sudden shock he swam into unconsciousness and began falling, falling. It seemed to take forever before the abysmal void swallowed him and there was nothing.

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Goaded on by Pitt's flying tackle, Fawkes charged up the steps like a maddened rhino and threw his great weight against the bodies of both men. Pitt went limp and fell off to one side. Emma struggled to bring the gun to bear, but Fawkes slapped it away as though it were a toy in a child's hands. Then Emma went for Fawkes's crotch, clutched his cock and balls, and squeezed ruthlessly.

It was the wrong move. The captain roared like thunder and reacted by swinging both his massive fists from over his head down upon Emma's upturned face, crushing cartilage and tearing skin. Astoundingly, Emma maintained the pressure.

Though his groin felt as if it were bursting in white-hot agony, Fawkes was wise enough not to try knocking away the hands that held him like a vise. Calmly, purposefully, like a man who knew exactly what he intended to do, he gripped Emma's head and began pounding it into the metal deck landing with every ounce of strength in his tree-trunk arms. Merc

ifully, the pressure eased, but shrouded in his pain-lashed rage, he kept smashing away until the back of Emma's skull turned to pulp. When his fury was finally spent, he rolled over and gently massaged his groin, cursing.

After a minute or two he rose stiffly to his feet, took the coat collars of the two inert men, and dragged them up the stairway. One more short flight, a few yards down a passageway, and he came to a cargo-loading door in the upper starboard side of iheIowa's hull. He cracked the door enough to let in daylight and examined Pitt's wound.

The bullet had scored Pitt's left temple, causing, at worst, Fawkes figured, a nasty gash and a concussion. Then he checked Emma. What skin that was visible through the mask of blood on the assassin's face was turning blue. Fawkes went through his pockets and found only a spare clip for the Hocker-Rodine pistol. Strapped around a heavy woolen sweater was an inflatable life vest.

"A nonswimmer, hey?" Fawkes said, smiling. "I don't guess you'll be needing this anymore."

He removed the vest from Emma and tied it around Pitt. Reaching into his own coat pocket, Fawkes took out a small notebook and made several notations with the stub of a pencil. Next he took his eelskin tobacco pouch, emptied the contents, inserted the notebook, and tucked the packet snugly under Pitt's shirt. The cord to the CO2 bottle was yanked and the vest hissed as it inflated.

Returning to Emma, Fawkes grabbed the corpse by the front of the sweater and pulled it toward the open hatch. The weight was too much for the angle of Fawkes's grip and the sweater slipped over Emma's head. Something around Emma's upper torso caught Fawkes's eye. It was a nylon binding that tightly circled the chest. Entranced, Fawkes undid a tiny clasp and the nylon fell away, releasing two small rosebud-tipped mounds.

For a moment Fawkes stood petrified.