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“But you haven’t been able to remake it.”
Something smashed on the deck. Glass broke. Ethan held his breath. “I need her back!” Lazarus roared. “And I will get her. I have set events in motion that cannot be undone—only delayed. I knew this day would come. It doesn’t matter if the world has to wait four days or four years or four decades. You cannot stop it. You cannot stopme. I always come back. I always return. I. Am.Inevitable.”
“This looks like enough to kill the planet, maybe kill everyone a few times over. Is that what you want to do?”
“At first, all I wanted was to destroy America. It is poetic: betray the betrayer and murder her with her own weapon. But now there is no corner of the planet the United States hasn’t touched, hasn’t infected with her lies. To destroy her, I must eliminate everything that enables her global ruination. That keeps her going, allowing her vicious deceptions to endure. I must destroy the world.”
He was right in front of Ethan, hunched over a plank of wood balanced across the two screws that had held the long-gone anchor chain. He was an old man, wiry and lean, hunger-thin, with lank, stringy gray hair growing long down his back. But his hands were strong and steady, and his forearms were corded with sinewy muscle. He stared into the darkness, silhouetted by a vent hole above him.
Ethan melted out of the shadow, his rifle up and pointed at Lazarus’s skull. He shuffle-stepped forward, three quick moves. “Hands up! Now!”
Roaring, Lazarus swung with his right fist, bringing a shotgun up from under the table and aiming it at Ethan’s head. Ethan ducked and burst forward, tackling Lazarus around the waist and sending them both to the dark deck.
Glass crunched beneath Ethan’s kneepads. He rolled, trying to pin Lazarus down, but the old man slithered away, escaping with a twist and a crunching kick to Ethan’s ribs that left him breathless. He lunged forward, grabbed Lazarus’s ankle, and brought him down again.
Kilaqqi appeared in the light, his rifle aimed at Lazarus’s head. Lazarus snarled, spitting at Kilaqqi as he tried to kick Ethan off him. “You!” he raged. “You and yourfuckingpeople! I made sure to test everything I could on your fuckingkind. All my prototypes. I hope I fucking murdered your family!”
Kilaqqi’s eyes narrowed. He spun his rifle and slammed the butt down across Lazarus’s face, smashing his nose and cracking his front teeth.
Lazarus screamed. “Fuck you! Fuck you, you—”
Kilaqqi raised his rifle again.
Lazarus lashed out, quick as a viper, and ripped the rifle out of Kilaqqi’s hands. He rolled and brought it to his shoulder, pointing the barrel at the center of Ethan’s forehead.
Ethan dove for cover as Lazarus fired, a controlled burst of three shots that slammed into the rotted hull below the waterline. Creaking metal wailed as icy water rushed through the bullet holes. Steel screamed against the tons of pressure bearing down on the weakened hold, the whole of the ocean trying to punch its way in.
Frigid water sloshed against Ethan’s legs as he rolled and came up behind Lazarus’s desk. He saw Lazarus rising, spinning carefully in a three-sixty.Former CIA.And something else. He moved like a soldier, like a special forces operator.
Whoever he was, wherever he came from, none of that mattered now. They had to take him down.
Lazarus made a break for the hatch, sprinting faster than Ethan thought possible for the old man. “Luke!” he shouted into his radio. “Luke, he’s coming up! Stop him! We need him alive!”
Two chirps sounded in his ear.
He ran, Kilaqqi hot on his heels. Their boots pounded the deck, and they raced behind Lazarus down the central passageway. Ethan pulled his pistol and fired. Lazarus sprayed bullets behind him, chewing up the bulkheads. Ethan and Kilaqqi hit the deck as Lazarus barreled through the open hatch.
“Freeze!” Ethan heard Pete roar. “Don’t move, motherfucker!”
Thirty feet to the hatch. He got back to his feet. His wet clothes were freezing, ice sticking to the creases in his pants.
“Hands up! Hands up!” Blake shouted. “Drop your rifle!”
“Drop it! Now!” Welby.
The Grisha lurched, her hull buckling as the bullet-riddled steel finally caved in, too weary and damaged to hold back the ocean any longer. Waves crashed inside her, filled her belly and sprinted up the suddenly slanting passageway.
The deck upended beneath Ethan’s feet. He was running on a flat surface and then he was scaling a mountain. He fell to the side and rolled down the bulkhead on the wet deck, his feet slipping out of control.
Kilaqqi grabbed his waist. The shaman was braced inside a hatchway, his boots holding him firm as the corvette bucked and creaked.
“Thanks.” The hatch glowed, the gray light almost blinding him as he made his way out. Ethan raised his arm—
A bullet ripped through his biceps.
He fell forward through the hatch and hit the deck. His head bounced with a crack and the world spun, tilted over and around itself.
“No one come any closer,” Lazarus barked.
