Nikoli seemed to understand. He cautiously dragged his left arm from under him. The movement drained the color from his face. Linda was four feet away, well out of range, and she’d put a bullet through his brain if he made to throw the blade. He held the knife out as if he was going to toss it at her feet. Then before she knew what was happening, he plunged the blade into the plastic fabric. Under tension, the tiny puncture split like a seismic fault, and the Russian vanished, plunging eighty feet to the bottom of the hold.

Linda had no time to react as the rip grew. Her weight caused the fabric to sag, and the next thing she knew, she was on her stomach, sliding headfirst toward the expanding hole.

Chapter 11

11

LINDA pressed her hands against the fabric, trying to find purchase, but her gloves could do little to slow her inexorable plunge. As her fingers reached the edge of the tear she frantically tried to grab the frayed edge. Her momentum was already too great, and a second later her head was over the hole, then her shoulders.

There wasn’t even time to scream as her upper body slid through the rip and dangled high above the cargo hold of the drydock. Inside was pitch-dark, but she knew that she hung over an eighty-foot void. Her hips hit the edge of the tear, shifting her center of gravity. She was powerless as her body coiled under and her legs were lifted from the tough cloth covering.

Just as the top of her thighs slid over the precipice, strong hands wrapped around her ankles. For a precarious moment she continued to fall, and then she felt herself being drawn backward. She was plucked from the rent in the fabric and dragged back from the hole, not caring that the tough material scraped against the skin of her cheek.

Linda rolled onto her back and smiled into the face of the Zodiac driver. “Jesus, thanks. For a second there I thought I was…”

“For a second there you were.”

“The other guard?” Linda asked.

“Taken care of.”

“Okay, we only have another minute or two before these guys are going to be missed.” Linda removed her combat harness as she spoke. She unclipped the suspenders from the belt, then reclipped them in a way to create an eight-foot-long rope of sorts. “Team two, bring the body out here.”

“Roger.”

“Hand me your harness.” Linda worked this belt, too, doubling the length of her safety line.

She threaded an arm through a loop she had made, then secured a night vision monocle over her eyes. She averted her face from the perimeter floodlights to preserve her vision.