Free The Last Airship by Christopher Cartwright

that he was close to achieving
his goal. He clicked the “proceed” button, and the tool bar showed the time
remaining before the process was complete.
    Leaving
the laptop open to continue running its program, and confident that its owner
would be too focused on current events to return to it, the man casually
departed.
    The
smile never left his face until he was free.
    He
had done it.
    He’d
betrayed a man, and stolen something even more valuable than money.
    *
    Tom,
unable to move the hatch above him, quickly returned to the place where he’d
spotted the bomb. There was no identifiable timer, so he had no way to
determine how much time he had left.
    Tom
realized that it didn’t matter.
    He
was going to have to find a way of disposing of it. If he failed, the Hayward
Bulk was going to be destroyed,and everything they’d done to save the lives
of everyone within a thousand miles of the place was going to be for nothing. 
    To
the right of the bomb,he found a spool of heavy chain. It weighed a lot
and he was barely able to carry it to the steps above the bomb. Once there, he
unrolled it as fast as he could and lowered one end. He then wrapped the other
end around a bollard until it locked upon itself.
    He
then carefully descended the large chain links until he reached the bomb.
    It
was only comprised of two sticks of dynamite with a simple internal timer.
Someone from his unit probably could have disarmed it without thinking twice.
Unfortunately, he knew nothing about bombs.
    He
grasped it in his right hand and pulled gently.
    It
separated from the wall easily enough, and since he was still alive, Tom
thought that he was doing well so far.
    Although
he didn’t know much about the bomb itself, he’d seen enough explosives during his
time in the Corps to know that people didn’t usually rig these with long timers.
    He
carried it to the top of the stairs and affixed it to the hatchway door.
    If
it detonates before I get out of here, it’s going to create my escape route…
    Tom
returned to the bottom of the stairs and started banging  against the steel
dividing wall, which made up part of the ship's watertight safety compartments.
It was foolish to think that such a sound might be heard above the sound of the
cyclone, but it didn’t stop him from trying.
    He
found a fire extinguisher and used it to ram the side of the steel plate.
    After
banging away for ten minutes, Tom took a break, followed by another ten minutes
of banging. At the end of his fifth attempt, the resonance of his banging was
much louder than it had been at the start.
    At
first, he didn’t realize its origin; his ears still ringing and his head throbbing.
    When
he looked up, he realized that above him a ten foot hole could be seen where
the hatchway had been.
    He’d
found his exit.
    If
only there was enough time left to save the Hayward Bulk.
    *
    It
took half a mile and fourteen flights of stairs for Tom to reach the bridge,which was located at the very back of the boat, and raised high up off the
deck.
    “Captain
Ambrose?” Tom greeted the man, whose white beard and captain’s hat would easily
identify him as the very image of any sea captain anywhere in the world.
    “Yes,”
he acknowledged, his eyes looking Tom up and down, “and you must be Mr. Bower,
the pilot off the Maria Helena?”
    “That’s
me, and we have a serious problem.”
    “We
sure do, son. It appears that despite your valiant efforts, we’re going to hit
that reef and tear the hull of my ship open as if it was a sardine can.”
    “We’ll
get to that in a second.” Tom paused, he had no idea how close they were to the
reef. “One of the engineers who I transported on to this ship, a Mr. Malcolm
Ford, is not who he says he is. I caught him planting a bomb at the front of
the ship, and now I have no idea where he is.”
    “Christ,
my day just gets better and better.” The captain looked confused. “But why
would anyone want to destroy my ship?”
    “Most
likely because