Chapter 37 - Boarding the Leviathan
The rigid-hull inflatable boat tore out of the Cathedral Cave like a black missile, its twin muffled outboards roaring at full throttle as Marcus slammed the throttles forward. The bow slammed violently into the six-foot ocean swells, drenching Elena in freezing white foam as she braced herself behind the center console, an M4 carbine clamped firmly against her shoulder.
Behind them, inside the mouth of the cavern, Christian’s mercenaries unleashed a desperate volley of tracer rounds. The red streaks of light hissed harmlessly into the churning wake, splashing into the black waves as the inflatable boat accelerated beyond their effective range, cutting through the fog at forty-five knots.
Elena didn't look back at the burning cliffs of the Montgomery estate. Her eyes were locked onto the radar screen mounted on the console.
Five miles south, sitting anchored in the deep shipping lane just outside the harbor limits, the silhouette of Victoria’s superyacht—the *Leviathan*—lay waiting. It wasn't dead in the water. Despite Elena’s earlier cyber-attack on the missile silos, the ship's auxiliary generators were roaring, its deck cranes swung out over the water, recovering the secondary security teams Christian had scattered along the coast.
"The cutter with Julian is five miles past the yacht," Marcus shouted over the roar of the wind and the pounding hull. "If we hit the yacht, we lose him. He’ll make the international boundary line in twenty minutes!"
"We don't chase Julian," Elena yelled back, her eyes narrowing as the massive, five-deck silhouette of the superyacht emerged from the rain-swept darkness like an armored leviathan.
"What are you talking about?" Marcus barked, wrenching the wheel to skip across the crest of a breaking wave. "Julian has the offshore fleet codes! He has the liquidation passwords!"
"Julian has nothing without the central server on that yacht," Elena said, pointing the muzzle of her rifle toward the towering stern of the ship. "The black box isn't a vault key, Marcus. It’s an activation beacon. Julian didn't run to escape; he ran to wait for Christian and Victoria to finish me so he could claim the whole empire by default. He won't go anywhere if the mother ship goes down."
Marcus stared at her, the green glow of the radar screen illuminating the sudden realization in his eyes. "You're insane. That yacht has twenty-four armed security contractors, steel-plated bulkheads, and—"
"And it has the swim ladder on the port side," Elena interrupted, her voice dead and flat. "The exact same ladder where Victoria stood with her heels on my fingers while I begged her to let me live."
Marcus didn't argue. He spun the wheel hard to port, cutting the engines to idle three hundred yards out. The inflatable boat coasted through the heavy chop, sliding into the radar blind-spot beneath the yacht’s massive flared transom.
The ship loomed above them like a floating office building of dark glass and polished carbon-composite steel. Sea water surged against the massive hull plates, groaning with low, resonant metallic groans.
Above them, extending down into the foaming surf, was the stainless-steel diving ladder.
Elena didn't hesitate. She slung the carbine across her back, reached out, and grabbed the cold, salt-encrusted steel rung.
Her wedding day flashed behind her eyes: the white silk dress heavy with water, the diamond ring tearing off her flesh, the sound of Victoria’s aristocratic laugh drifting down from the deck above, Christian standing beside her with a glass of champagne, both of them watching her drown with the casual curiosity of children watching an insect die in a jar.
*I am not drowning this time.*
Elena pulled herself up, rung by rung, her wet boots finding grip on the textured metal. Marcus followed ten paces behind, his sidearm drawn, watching the catwalks above.
When Elena reached the top platform, she found the steel boarding gate unlatched.
Lying on the teak deck beside the railing was a half-empty glass of vintage Cristal champagne.
May you like
Victoria was already on board.
***
