Free Crimson Waters by James Axler Page A

ruckus in the ville. As evidenced not just by the angry-seeming sweep of its searchlight, but by the pair of alert-looking pirates who stood at the head of the gangplank, one armed with a remade AK, one with an MP-5. A bearded man with wildly bushy dreads crouched behind the welded splinter plate of a battered Browning .30-caliber machine gun, sweeping its perforated barrel back and forth restlessly like an insect’s antennae.
    Only a skeleton watch had been left aboard the motor yacht while the captain and crew enjoyed shore leave. But it was more than enough to cut the fugitives to bloody shreds if they tried to force their way aboard.
    And they were definitely being hunted. Krysty could hear shouts and curses a few blocks away. The pursuers had lost their trail. Furious pirates and sec men combed the ville street by street.
    “Here’s the plan....” Ryan said.
    * * *
    J AK SWAM THROUGH SHADOWED water with strong, inaudible strokes, keeping his arms and legs fully beneath the rocking surface. The vibration of the big yacht’s diesel engine stirred his guts.
    The Gulf Coast bayous where Jak had grown up hadn’t invited swimmers. They were full of aggressive gators with a marked appetite for human flesh, not to mention monsters even more scary and less natural.
    But Jak had grown up not just a hunter but a bandit, fighting against cruel barons. He had earned the name White Wolf for both his appearance and his savage cunning.
    Jak didn’t know if people swam in NuTuga harbor, but by the smell he doubted it. The Syndics could write all the laws they wanted; a harbor just naturally attracted junk and spilled fuel and all kinds of nastiness. Not that Jak cared. It wasn’t as if the bayous smelled like hyacinth blossoms, either.
    The key thing was that the jacked-up rump crew on board the Wailer was focused entirely on repelling boarders coming at them from shore. It seemed triple-stupe to him. But he wasn’t one to question an advantage.
    He had slipped into the water quickly and without a splash in the shadow of a stone jetty forty yards behind the yacht’s stern. First, he swam straight out and found the nylon aft anchor cable. It was slippery, slimed with algae. Even he could tell Silver-Eyed Chris was as finicky about his ships as the Syndic families were about their pirate haven. But, as with the harbor itself, it was extremely difficult to keep the sea’s vigorous nature from asserting itself.
    As slick as it was, the thick rope gave him hand- and footholds. He broke water without so much as a whisper of sound and slithered straight up.
    He was barefoot, dressed only in sodden jeans and a vest that held his throwing knives. His current favorite blade, a Cold Steel Natchez Bowie with an almost-foot-long blade, was clamped in his teeth.
    Along with his boots, he’d also skinned off the loose T-shirt he wore beneath the vest. When the Monitors had searched him for weapons, he’d simply swept the vest halves back, along with the jacket, while they peace-bonded his Python and the bowie in their counterbalancing holsters on his hips. They’d never seen the leaf-bladed throwers.
    Peace-bonding. What a triple-stupe idea. He had naturally busted the sealant caps and untwisted the wires the instant they were out of the Monitor patrol’s sight and none of his companions was looking. Ryan would’ve gotten hot beyond nuke-red, of course. But Jak reckoned it was easier to get forgiveness than permission.
    Cautiously, Jak lifted his dripping head to peek at the afterdeck. A lone sentry stood fixated on events ashore, either on the billows of yellow-lit smoke from the random blazes Jak had helped set in trash bins or storage shacks, or keeping watch for intruders rash enough to approach the yacht despite the spotlight’s actinic sweep and the powerful machine gun mounted in the bow. He was skinny even by Jak’s standards, emaciated almost, with a huge mass of dreads stuffed into a knit cap. He carried a hunting-style