The Hatching (The Hatching #1)(34)

But he was wrong. Near the back of the plane, in the gloom and ash, there was a small stirring.





The Indian Ocean


He slid the two rifles onto the deck of the boat and climbed up the ladder. The .40 cal Smith & Wesson was tucked into his waistband.

“Okay,” he said, picking up the rifles and carrying them over to his wife. “They still coming?”

She shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”

He handed her the .22 caliber rifle. She couldn’t handle the Winchester. Maybe a .22 wasn’t ideal for stopping power, but he’d made her practice with it until she could put three bullets in an inch circle from fifty feet out. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to that, but he didn’t have a good feeling. He put the binoculars up to his eyes. Two years of sailing and they’d had only one close call with pirates, off the coast of Africa. They’d been lucky.

Until today.

No question that’s what this boat was. You don’t see a Zodiac where they were, out in the middle of the ocean, unless it was working from a mother ship. And this was a big one, stripped down for speed, with a bunch of men hunkered down in it. As soon as his wife had glassed the boat with the binoculars and then shown it to him, he’d put out a Mayday and run belowdecks for the rifles and his pistol. He knew how it worked. They both did. It was part of the risk of sailing in certain parts of the world. Help would come. Eventually. Maybe. They were on their own for now, and what people read about every now and then in the news was only part of it. Best-case scenario, they’d end up being held for a ransom that they couldn’t afford to pay. Worst-case scenario, he’d end up dead, and his wife . . . Well, that was a thought he would hold on to when his finger was on the trigger and he was trying to figure out if he should fire. But his wife was right: something was off.

When he first saw the Zodiac, the eight or nine men in it had been leaning forward, as if their bodies could make them get to the sailboat more quickly. But now, as the boat cut across the calm water, the men were rising from their seats.

He hadn’t even bothered trying to outrun the Zodiac. In the small community of sailors who had cashed in to retire early and spend their time at sea, their boat was neither the most ostentatious nor the most threadbare. In Madagascar they’d made friends with a couple who had been in technology whose boat was almost entirely custom-made, and off the coast of Sri Lanka they’d had dinner aboard a vessel that was so threadbare his foot had gone through a rotten plank on the deck and he’d needed to get ten stitches. Their sailboat was in good shape, but they’d bought it used and hadn’t been able to afford to spend much on cosmetics. It was fast, though. Sure, it wasn’t a racing boat, but for a cruising sailboat, it could move. Not that it mattered now. With the high buzz of the Zodiac coming at them, he’d known right away he and his wife couldn’t outrun the pirates.

It was weird though. The men weren’t even looking at them anymore. They were scrambling away from the bow, and one of the men was flailing around. It looked as though he was having a fit and the other men were scared. Wouldn’t that be something? If they were saved from pirates because one of them was an epileptic and the rest were superstitious? That would be a funny story, he thought, certainly funnier than he and his wife being kidnapped or killed. Or worse.

He lowered the binoculars and turned to his wife. “Remember what we talked about,” he said. “If you’ve got to shoot, shoot. We’re not in Charleston.” What he didn’t say was that, if it came down to it, the reason he had the pistol was to make sure he had a bullet left for each of them, just in case.

He looked back at the water, and even without the binoculars, he could tell that something really was different about the boat. It had veered off course, no longer headed toward them. Instead of knifing across the water, it was arcing gracefully away from them, a large and gentle circle. And the men inside were . . . Fighting? It almost looked as though they were pulling some sort of a dark cloth from the body of the man who’d been having a fit.

He turned to his wife. She held her rifle tightly. He knew she was scared, and he reached out and cupped his hand around the back of her neck, kissed her, and then put the binoculars back to his eyes.

What the f*ck? The boat was headed straight again, toward their sailboat, but there were no men left in the Zodiac. Instead, it was full of some sort of dark liquid. It looked like oil. He watched it for a few more seconds until he was able to understand that it was not a liquid at all, but something that seemed to move of its own accord. He dropped the binoculars and raised his rifle.

He took two shots, aiming for the air tubes, before he realized it was a bad decision. Even the smallest Zodiacs had three air tubes—one on each side and the bottom—and though he didn’t know how many a big one like this would have, it was probably more than three. But even if there were only three to hit, the bigger problem was that he’d brought his Winchester Model 70. He loved his Winchester. It was accurate as hell, but it held only five rounds. Hunting deer? Sure. Hunting pirates or trying to sink a Zodiac? Not ideal. An AR-15 with a couple of thirty-round magazines would have been ideal. He could have sprayed the boat, changed the clip, and kept firing until the f*cker sank. Instead, he had three shots left.

But he didn’t have to sink it. With nobody left to steer, he just had to get it to veer off course, to turn away from them. If he popped an air tube on one side of the Zodiac, that would make it drag and turn. They wouldn’t have to outrun the Zodiac, just outmaneuver it. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, looked through the scope then hesitated. The Zodiac was close. Maybe a hundred yards away now. It was headed straight at them, so the speed of the boat shouldn’t be a problem with his aim—he’d always been a good shot—but he had doubts about popping the air tube. Maybe it wouldn’t just deflate. Maybe it wouldn’t drag into the water and turn the Zodiac away from them. Maybe he’d fire his last three bullets and then have to stand and watch the Zodiac crash into them.