James Axler – Way of the Wolf

“Turn slowly,” a man commanded.

Ryan turned.

“Drop your weapon.”

Ryan lowered the SIG-Sauer to his side, keeping it in his fist. He saw Krysty in front of him, the mustached man standing just behind her, the corridor of flickering lights extending behind him. The little black pistol in the man’s hand looked quite capable of blowing her head off.

“To the ground.”

“No,” Ryan said in a quiet, deathly voice. “If you wanted her chilled, she’d already be chilled. Means you realize it’s only to your advantage that you keep her alive. I’d like to keep you thinking that. If I put my blaster down, mebbe you get too brave, do something stupe. I keep mine, keeps you honest. Gives us common ground.”

“I’ll take her head off,” the Russian sailor said.

Ryan spotted the gold braid on his shoulders. “Captain Vitkin, isn’t it?”

“Da.”

“You’re in command of this situation. Up to you how you handle it, but if you chill her, I chill you next. That’s a damn promise. Right now I’m in a position to give you something you want. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.”

“I’m not asking. I’m demanding.”

“Sure.” Ryan faced the man, reading his features, reading the fear in the man over dying. “But going down in this ship, that’s not a fate I’d want to wish on any man. You hurt her, I’ll shoot you in the legs, let you see if you can float free somehow. Don’t think you can manage it, but mebbe. Guess we’ll see.”

“I want a boat.”

“Get out there soon enough, mebbe you’ll find one. I’m not bringing you one.”

“You have to.”

“No,” Ryan said calmly, “I don’t. You should have just taken your chances, not grabbed the woman. Same as every other mother’s son out here. Right now I’m wondering if that steel bulkhead behind you will ricochet a bullet into your back.”

With an inarticulate cry of rage, the Russian frigate captain pulled the trigger.

Only Krysty wasn’t there when the bullet cut through the air.

Applying pressure at the proper point, she snapped his gun arm with ease, pushing it away from her. She rotated the arm again, snapping the wrist, as well.

The Russian screamed in pain.

Ryan shot him through the mouth, dropping him in his tracks as his brain and his spinal cord emptied out the big hole in the back of his head and neck.

Water ran into the corridor from outside. “Got to go,” Ryan told Krysty as the frigate dropped through the ice again.

Together they ran outside. Glancing over the side of the frigate, Ryan saw that the water had risen over the top of the iceberg, looking three and four feet deep in places. The deck tilted again as the stern dropped more deeply into the water.

“Ryan!” Mildred called.

Swiveling his head, Ryan saw the rest of the companions and Albert in a black rubber raft below them. He helped Krysty scramble through the railing and drop into the boat, then followed her.

It was impossible to stand in the rubber boat and hard to hear over the throb of the powerful outboard motor mounted at the rear.

“Hot pipe, Dad!” Dean said. “Isn’t this a great boat?”

“Raft, son,” Ryan replied. “And it might be great right now, but for crossing the ocean, I’d rather have one of those lifeboats Harlan and his people have.”

“Never be able to get back to the mat-trans unit in time with one of those,” J.B. said. “This raft gives us the best chance for that.”

“There’s no guarantee that the access tunnel will be above the waterline when we get there,” Mildred cautioned.

Ryan looked across the black water drinking down the iceberg as the Armorer steered them away from the sinking frigate. Harlan and his Inuit tribe had boarded the lifeboat. The quarters were close, but they all fit. He didn’t know if the man had found the girls he’d come after.

“Got two choices,” Ryan said. “We trust the Inuit and see what kind of shake we get with them, or we go back to the redoubt and see if it’s still above the ocean level. I don’t like the idea of trying to stick it out here if the redoubt could be open. This is far away from the places we know. Don’t know who’s who out here, or even how to live off the land properly.”