Checkmate Read Online Free

running.
     
     
     
    IN the murky display of his NV goggles the deck was a flat moonscape broken only by the occasional stack of crates. He felt naked, exposed. However necessary, this dash in the open went against his every instinct. Don’t think, he commanded himself. Run .
    Halfway to the bridge, he glanced up and saw a shadowed figure standing on the port bridge wing. The figure turned and darted through the bridge hatch.
    “I’ve got company,” Fisher told Lambert. “Somebody’s on the bridge.”
    “Where there’s one, there’s more.”
    Maybe, Fisher thought. Maybe not . One possibility was that the ship was automated. If so, the man he just saw could be the fail-safe.
    “How much time, Grim?” Fisher asked.
    “Four minutes. The F-16s have gone weapons-free, waiting for the order to fire.”
     
     
     
    HE reached the superstructure, flattened himself against the bulkhead, and slid forward to the foot of the ladder. He glanced up through the slats, looking for movement. There was nothing. On flat feet, he started upward, taking steps two at a time until he was near the top, where he dropped to his belly, slithered up the final three steps, and peeked his head up.
    Through the open bridge hatch he saw the man hunched over the helm console, his face bathed in milky white glow of a laptop screen. He looked Middle Eastern. Suddenly the man slapped his palm against the laptop and cursed. Over the whistling of the wind, Fisher couldn’t make out the words.
    The man cursed again, then stepped to the ship’s wheel—a wagon-wheel style with spoked grips—and leaned over it, grunting with the strain.
    Fisher rose up, leveled his Beretta, and stepped through the hatch.
     
     
     
    “ STOP right there, Admiral.” Fisher called.
    The man whipped his head around. His eyes went wide.
    “Not even a twitch, or you’re dead where you stand.”
    The main straightened up and turned to face him.
    Fisher said, “Step away from the—”
    The man spun toward the laptop.
    Fisher fired once. The bullet went where he wanted it, in this case squarely into the man’s right hip. The impact spun him like a top. As he fell, his outstretch arm caught the laptop, sending it crashing to the deck. Groaning, the man rolled onto his side and reached for the laptop.
    What’s he —
    Then Fisher saw it. Jutting from the side of the laptop was a wireless network card. He was linked to something, controlling something.
    “Don’t move!” Fisher ordered.
    The man’s hand stretched toward the keyboard.
    Fisher fired. As with his first round, this one struck true, drilling into the the man’s right shoulder blade. He groaned and slumped forward, still.
    Except for his right hand.
    The man’s finger gave a spasmodic jerk and struck the ENTER key.
     
     
     
    INSTANTLY, the pitch of the Trego ’s engines changed. The deck shivered beneath his feet.
    Grimsdottir’s voice came on the line: “Fisher, the ship’s just—”
    “Picked up speed, I know.”
    He made a snap decision. The man’s frustration with the helm console was proof enough the wheel was locked down. That left only one other option.
    He started running.
    “Grim, I’m headed down the aft interior ladder. I need a countdown and I need on-the-fly directions to the engine room.”
    “Go down three decks, turn right to port passage, and keep heading aft.”
    The Trego ’s passageways were dark, save for the red glow of emergency lights. Pipes and conduits flashed in Fisher’s peripheral vision as he ran. He leapt through a hatch and called, “Passing the mess hall,” and kept going.
    Grimsdottir said, “Two more hatches, then you’ll reach an intersection. Go left. The engine room is at midships, aft side of the passage.”
    “Time?”
    “One minute, twenty seconds.”
    He reached the passageway outside the engine room and skidded to a stop. He had a plan, but whether it would work he didn’t know. As with all ships, engine spaces are the most vulnerable to