Page 10 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

The young sailors cried out in terror with one voice. “Captain, turn around!”

Lanxi turned toward the Indonesian. His stern, unflappable face was pale with terror.

“What do you make of it?” Lanxi asked.

The Indonesian stammered, unable to form a sentence. He was raised on tales of demons and ghosts just like the rest of the crew.

His first officer’s terror unnerved Lanxi. He’d seen the man still as an iceberg in the middle of a typhoon that nearly swamped them. But now the surly Indonesian looked like a child about to soil himself.

Lanxi spat on the deck. Turning around was out of the question.

“Sir, what should we do?” the helmsman cried out from inside the bridge.

“Steady as she goes. We’ve got shark to catch.”

The eyeless demon raised her flaming sword on high.

“Lanxi, time to die!”

Cannons boomed in the distance. All eyes turned toward the pirate junk.

Seconds later, Lanxi’s ship rocked beneath an explosion of cascading water that slammed into the rusting steel. His men toppled over like bowling pins. Lanxi grabbed the rail before he crashed to the deck as well.

They had been hit badly. The old captain knew his ship had suffered a fatal blow. She was already beginning to list.

“Give the orders to abandon ship!”

The radioman hit the alarm and Klaxons wailed. The poorly trained crew scrambled for the lifeboats and whatever jackets they could find. Few of the men could swim, and most wouldn’t survive—the lifeboats were in disrepair and nearly worthless.

The Indonesian tugged at Lanxi’s arm, his hands welded to the railing. The bridge crew had already abandoned their stations and were racing for the lower decks.

The eyeless ghoul and her demon horde laughed above the cries of the crew.

“Captain, let’s go. There’s no time!”

Lanxi shook his head. “Go.”

The Indonesian didn’t argue with him. He turned and fled down the steps.

Lanxi would remain on the bridge and go down with his ship, now listing badly.

Whatever fate awaited him below the frigid waves was far better than the unimaginable cruelties his employers would inflict upon him.

5

El Salvador

The Zodiac’s electric motors cut off as the fiberglass hull hissed against the sand and the operators exfilled onto the beach. The crashing waves hid what little sound they had made and the dead light from a new moon blanketed their dash across the beach in a crouching run.

Lieutenant Rivas led the way up the narrow rocky trail, his men hot on his boot heels. A second squad signaled in his headset that they had already reached the front of the gate as Rivas and his squad took up their assigned position. He glanced around at the eager young faces in the dark. Their highly decorated unit had been handpicked for this perilous assignment by the battalion commander.

The risk was high, but the honor higher still.

Their mission was more than an assignment. It was a sacred duty to their people and to El Salvador.

Rivas turned to his corporal studying the LCD display of the drone flying high above the compound. Its infrared sensors illuminated the spectral figures of the guards standing watch inside the walls. So far, no surprises.

That was good. The first rounds of mass arrests across the country had sent a shock wave through El Salvador’s criminal underworld. But the coordinated Army and police actions had failed to snag all of thegangsters, especially the top brass. Most of the underbosses had fled the country, but those that remained had chosen to weather the storm inside their armed compounds.