Page 36 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

“We’ll never get a tuk-tuk at this hour,” Joe said.

Kurt felt the same. But there were other options. Up ahead, a number of small boats tied to a dock rose and fell with the tide. He pointed toward them.

Half swimming and half running, they made it to the dock and found a boat with a small, pull-start outboard motor. As Joe climbed in, Kurt heaved Five over the edge, and then pulled himself up and in.

The motor sputtered to life on the third pull, releasing a cloud of blue smoke. Kurt cast off the line and pushed them away from the dock.

With the outboard buzzing, they sped off, but their pursuers werenot far behind. They climbed onto the dock and followed Kurt and Joe’s example, splitting up and taking two boats instead of one.

Joe twisted the throttle to full while Kurt and Five moved forward to keep the boat riding at its most efficient angle.

Joe looked back. “They’re gaining.”

“Head along the beach,” Kurt suggested. “Try to lose them in all the junk.”

Joe cut back into the shallows, weaving around rusted outcroppings of machinery and anything else that might rip open the bottom of the boat. At low tide, all the unwanted junk and debris sat out in the open, an eyesore upon an eyesore, but at high tide much of it was hidden. Or partially so.

“Cut right,” Kurt said.

Joe pushed the outboard to the left, causing the boat to bear right. They narrowly missed what looked like an engine block the size of a locomotive.

“Left,” Kurt shouted seconds later.

Joe pushed the motor to the right, but the helm didn’t answer as quickly as he hoped. They hit the object—whatever it was—skipped across it, and landed back in the water.

Joe had managed to pull the motor up and save the prop, and the boat was intact, but the jarring impact had left them wary.

“What was that?”

“Not sure,” Kurt said. “Stack of hull plating, maybe.”

“At least it was flat.”

Joe glanced behind him. The shallows were no safe haven. The other boats were closing in once again. One of them pulled alongside. Joe swerved into it, but the impact was slight. A second attempt was less successful still, as it gave one of the cruel brothers a chance to jump the gap. He landed on his hands and knees and went after Five. Kurt jumped him before he could get a hand on the terrified youngman. He got the man in a headlock and trapped one of his arms. It was an awkward way to do combat: on their knees in a speeding boat. All Kurt could really do was keep the man from breaking free.

“Left turn,” Kurt shouted.

Joe swerved left as Kurt hurled the man to the right. He went over the transom and out into the water, vanishing with a splash as the two boats raced on.

“Trouble,” Five said, looking ahead. “Trouble.”

Joe saw it. They were coming up on the remnants of the smaller freighter. The one Kurt had seen from the balcony that had basically been cut in two. With its bow and stern in separate pieces, most of the middle was long gone.

Joe sped into the gap between the two pieces and then turned sharply right, pulling into the rusted stern section. Cutting the throttle, he waited for the other boats to speed past, but they didn’t come through right away.

Kurt could hear their motors on a lower power setting. “They’re circling around.”

He grabbed a small oar and paddled them backward until they were deep within the hull and completely hidden in the dark. It was like hiding in a metallic cave. Sections of torn bulkheads stuck up out of the water like the roots of trees in a mangrove swamp. Tentacles of wiring and rusted pipes hung down from above, creaking eerily as the waves nudged the ship back and forth. The remnants of the ship’s massive sixteen-cylinder diesel engine could be seen sticking out of the water like a rusted work of modern art.

Five looked around in the silence, awed by what he saw. “Is this NUMA?”

It brought a smile to Kurt’s face. “This is definitelynotNUMA,” he said.

“And it’s not a place we can hide for long,” Joe added. “Any chance you’ve come up with that plan B yet?”

Kurt looked at his watch. The timing was just about perfect. “Yep,” he said, “but you’re not going to like it.”

He told Joe his idea, and Joe agreed emphatically that he did not like it, but they were all out of options. The sound of the other boats trolling for a way in was getting closer.

---