CHAPTER 76
Cotton watched as Cassiopeia leaped from her perch down onto the ship. He was sixty feet away, equally as high as she had been a few moments before.
“What are you doing?” he said into the microphone.
“Westlake is down there and he has a gun.”
Alarm swept through him. Then, below where he stood, he saw a woman grab the gun the man he’d shot had dropped. She turned and headed back around the Vasa’s bow.
“Monica just got a gun here off the floor,” he said.
“Stop her. I’ll deal with Westlake.”
The bad guys on the floor being armed changed everything.
He tucked his own gun at his waist and leaped down, finding the shroud at the Vasa’s bow that the other guy had likewise located.
He gripped the thick hemp and inserted his shoes into the spaces formed by the crisscrossing rope, working his way down to the deck.
He then stepped over the petrified ancient planks to the port side and glanced down.
Monica reappeared from the starboard side of the ship and started firing.
Visitors were racing to get out of the building.
To his left, fifty feet away from Monica, John Westlake appeared.
Holding a gun.
Stephanie hustled from the security office and headed through a maze of corridors, finding a door that led out to the museum’s public spaces. She’d left the walkie-talkie in the office.
Big mistake.
She should return and get it.
Then she heard muffled bangs from inside the museum.
Gunshots?
Keep moving.
She opened the door ahead of her.
John was no stranger to weapons, mainly rifles and shotguns. Handguns? Not his thing. But he knew how to handle one, having learned in the military. He checked to make sure the safety was off and that there were still bullets in the magazine.
Six rounds.
Good to know.
Monica appeared about thirty meters away, around the bow.
She never hesitated or lost a step in her stride.
The first shot found its mark in Aleks’ body, which shuddered from the impact.
Two more also found flesh. A fourth shot was to another woman who had to be Monica’s source.
Both dropped to the floor and blood poured from the limp bodies, pooling on the tile.
So much was happening so fast.
“John,” Monica called out. “We have to go.”
Cassiopeia stood ten meters above Westlake, who moved in and out of view thanks to the Vasa’s bulging hull.
She needed to get down there. Fast.
But it was too far to jump.
So she hopped the railing and grabbed hold of a carved decorative post that extended upward on each side of the quarter deck.
Two overhangs extended from the hull planking, shielding windows that opened into the two lower decks.
She used them like steps and slid down from the top one to the bottom one, holding on to a wooden rail that projected beneath the overhang’s length.
The wood was petrified, but she kept reminding herself that it was also four hundred years old and had spent the majority of its time at the bottom of the Baltic.
The jump now from where she was perched to the second level was about five meters.
She leaped.
Cotton was high on the Vasa’s bowsprit.
A lot was happening thirty feet below at ground level.
Two people were down and Monica was calling out to Westlake.
So much for taking Aleks and Sandra alive.
But Monica and Westlake? They were still in play.
Off to his right at the main entrance he saw Koger entering the building, shouldering his way against the wave of people making a hasty exit.
He could not take a shot at Monica. Bad angle.
Then, to his left, back toward the ship’s stern among some of the exhibits, he saw a familiar face.
“Stephanie, what are you doing here?” he said into the mic.
No reply.
“What do you mean?” Koger said.
“Stephanie is on the playing field. With no radio and a gun.”
John saw Cassiopeia Vitt jump from the ship’s stern to the second-floor aisleway. What was she doing here? Was this a trap? Monica was right. They needed to leave.
“Westlake.”
He whirled to the left at the sound of his name.
Stephanie Nelle was twenty meters away, marching with a stern determination.
Right for him.
With a gun.
Cotton had no way of getting to ground level.
The distance from the Vasa’s deck down to the tile floor was a solid fifty to sixty feet. A bone-breaking drop. He could still see Stephanie, but not Monica or Westlake. Everything was happening fast. Koger was at least another sixty feet to his right.
“Cassiopeia, where are you?”
“Coming down the stairs to ground level. I’ll be there in a moment.”
Stephanie was now in view, storming across the ground floor among the exhibits with brisk, sturdy steps. He decided to try to find a better vantage point.
“Take Monica,” he said to Cassiopeia. “I’ll deal with Westlake. Stephanie is down there. Armed. But no radio.”
He heard the expletive Cassiopeia muttered into the mic and agreed, as he moved across the main deck toward the stern.
“Stephanie,” he called out. “Take cover.”
Stephanie realized that she may have made a mistake. There was a lot of gunfire happening, and though she was armed, this was not her forte. She heard Cotton yell her name and the warning to take cover, but the next few seconds happened in an instant.
One moment she was moving toward Westlake, raising her weapon and demanding that he surrender himself. The next she heard a bang, then felt the impact of a bullet that tore into her chest.
Cotton could not see Westlake.
The man was below him, and the Vasa’s curved outer hull was shielding him from any view.
To his horror he saw Stephanie stop her advance, her body jerking back in the distinctive move of somebody who’d been shot.
He tossed caution to the wind and followed what Cassiopeia had done, rushing to the stern and hopping the top rail, using the layers of external carvings, there for decoration, as handholds as he worked his way downward.
He made it as far as the top of the rudder and spotted Westlake below, aiming his gun at Stephanie and firing again with another loud bang.
He held tight with his left hand and dangled his body out, the drop down a good thirty feet. No need to let go.
Just fire.
John did not at first realize what had happened.
Something had slammed into his right shoulder, then into his chest. Which hurt. Bad. He’d shot Stephanie Nelle twice and saw her fall to her knees. Reacting on instinct he squeezed off his last two shots so fast the explosions blended together.
But the bullets scattered off toward the ceiling.
Another bang filled his ears.
His head exploded. Then he heard nothing.
And the world vanished.
Cassiopeia turned on the landing and headed down the last flight of stairs to the museum’s ground floor. She’d heard more pops and bangs. Cotton was dealing with something.
“Find Monica,” Cotton said in her ear. “Take her down.”
She searched and found the woman toward the Vasa’s bow heading around and moving toward the stern where Westlake now lay on the floor. Monica seemed focused on him and did not react when she came down the stairs. Cassiopeia never hesitated. She stopped, aimed, and called out Monica’s name.
The woman turned.
And Cassiopeia shot her twice in the chest.
Stephanie was trying to assess the damage.
The first bullet had stopped her mid-stride and caused her legs to buckle at her knees. A second round set her chest on fire.
Westlake had shot her.
She tried to raise her own weapon, but her arm would not respond. She saw Cotton, high up on the Vasa, firing down, shooting Westlake and ending the threat. She opened her mouth to speak, to call out, but a spasm ruptured something in her throat. Her chest felt warm. Almost comforting.
A calm swept over her.
Then as straight as a falling tree, she pitched forward.
And fell onto her face.
Cassiopeia lowered her gun.
Westlake, Monica, Aleks, and Sandra Koss all lay on the floor. Dead. Which mattered not. Her focus was on Stephanie and she ran to where she lay. Cotton remained dangling from the Vasa’s stern.
“How bad is it?” he called out.
Stephanie lay face down.
She rolled her over.
Blood poured from two chest wounds. Breathing was short and shallow, the chest rising and falling in waves.
A rattle filled the throat and the arms and hands trembled.
She was alive, but a fluttering, sinking feeling hit her.
This was not good. Then, nothing. No more breaths.
No movement. The eyes fixed open, unblinking.
She checked for a pulse.
None.
Her eyes closed at the hard realization. Then she glanced up to Cotton, shook her head, and said, “She’s gone.”