Page 149 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

The drone’s camera pumped images of the welding operation onto Callie’s monitor, the sparking arc light flared on the screen. The drone was making quick progress. She just wasn’t sure it was quick enough to finish the job before the bigger sub reached top speed and threw theSpook Fishoff the deck.

And even if it did, would the welds even hold?

?

Juan lay on the rocky staircase littered with dozens of spent shell casings. His ringing ears strained to hear the sound of the Vendor’s crashing steps escaping farther upward into the dark or the bark of more rounds fired his way. He heard neither.

He lay still, listening.

Nothing, he told himself, except the drip of water hitting stone a few steps above.

Cabrillo’s hopes began to rise. Had he killed the man he’d been chasing for so long? Or had the merchant of death slipped the noose again?

Juan slowed his breathing, hoping his ringing ears would clear. He needed to find out if the man was dead or if he had finally escaped.

Or lying in wait in the dark.

Cabrillo rose on unsteady feet, raised his P90, and engaged the weapon light. He hadn’t used the light before because he didn’t want to give his position away. But now in the dark it was his best friend.He flashed the passage up ahead. His heart sank. He hoped to see the Vendor’s bullet-ridden corpse draped over the stone steps, but he was long gone.

Juan’s anger flared, and he found a new burst of energy. He charged up the stairs, his battered ribs stabbing him with every slowing step. The staircase took a slight bend as it followed a seam in the rock. The passage suddenly opened up to a wide, irregular landing. An open doorway stood ten feet ahead. Beyond it were industrial lights and a workshop.

Cabrillo charged for the door, hoping the Vendor hadn’t found his way to an escape vehicle. Just two steps from the doorway, a steel door slid shut on powerful pneumatics. Cabrillo slowed himself, but couldn’t stop, and he slammed into it, dropping his empty P90.

“Mendoza! You meddler! Time to die!”

Dazed, Juan turned around just as the Vendor charged.

Cabrillo got his fight on, fast. He threw a blizzard of furious fists and vicious, barefooted kicks, each attack aimed to kill, not wound, the larger man.

But the Vendor blunted each blow with blazingly fast counterstrikes. Cabrillo sped up his attack, but the Vendor countered each thrust, laughing maniacally as if playing a child’s game instead of fighting for his life.

The Vendor pressed in, diverting or absorbing Cabrillo’s assaults, then unleashed his own relentless attack with a guttural “Kiai!”

Cabrillo gave as good as he got defensively, his own finely honed fighting skills blunting the Vendor’s iron-hard fists and bone-jarring kicks. But the Vendor’s incredible speed and power took their toll quickly. Cabrillo felt like he was fighting a rock-crushing hammer mill, each strike sending shock waves of pain into his aching limbs.

The Vendor stutter-stepped, feigning in one direction before twisting his torso like a coiled spring. He loosed a roundhouse kick into Cabrillo’s rib cage—in the exact place where the bullets had struck him before. If the ribs weren’t broken before, they were now. The pain radiated through his torso like a shotgun blast, and knocked the air out of him. He stumbled backward and crashed into the rock wall behind him, struggling to breathe.

The Vendor charged in just as Juan’s head cracked against the stone.

His bloodshot eyes flared with delight as his long fingers wrapped around Cabrillo’s neck. He pressed in so close their faces nearly touched. Worse, the Vendor’s more powerful body was pinned against Juan’s so he couldn’t throw any punches or kicks.

The Vendor’s eyes narrowed with grim determination as his grip tightened. Already out of breath from his broken ribs, Cabrillo felt his trachea collapsing beneath strong hands. Another surge of rage adrenalized Juan’s muscles and he struck as hard as he could at the Vendor’s arms to break his grip, but to no effect. The Vendor’s steely fingers were as unrelenting as an iron slave collar.

Robbed of oxygen, Juan’s strength flagged and his eyes began to dim. His fingers clawed at Hashimoto’s hands, but couldn’t get them to budge even a millimeter.

Cabrillo took his last, best shot.

He stomped his heel into the arch of the Vendor’s foot, discharging a 12-gauge shotgun blast out of the weapon hidden in his combat leg.

The Vendor’s foot was ground to hamburger by the double-aught buckshot. He absorbed the mind-shattering pain with a stoic grunt and his leg buckled slightly, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

But the shift in his weight was just enough for Juan to push forward on the Vendor’s weakened leg. He grabbed the Vendor’s shirt and pulled him farther in that direction, increasing the momentum.

With a final, exhausted shove with his bare foot against the wall, Cabrillo sent the two of them tumbling down the stone stairs locked in a death grip.

?

The drone’s arc welder sputtered out when the last encapsulated electrode was finally exhausted.