Turning the crank with a smooth motion, he got the barrels to rotate. The shells were drawn in and a half turn later began punching holes in the night. Joe turned the weapon slowly and smoothly, not wanting to use up too much ammunition too quickly.
“Lower,” Kenzo said.
Joe tilted the weapon down and fired again, as the entire room filled with a cloud of blue smoke.
* * *
• • •
KURT WAS halfway across the parapet when the first stuttering shots from the Gatling gun sounded. Glancing back, he saw gun smoke billowing out of the window. Down below, a spread of bullets stitched a line in the water and across the bow of one of the speedboats.
The driver gunned the throttle, turned the wheel and sped off into the dark. At the same time, another boat moved forward, one gunman on the bow pouring suppressing fire into the atrium while a second man readied a grenade.
With sustained cover fire hitting the building, the Gatling gun went silent. Joe had been forced undercover, but Kurt had a shot. He rose up, aimed the crossbow over the wall and pulled the trigger.
The arms of the old weapon snapped forward and the bolt flew with surprising ease, but its feathers were warped from years of sitting around. It went off course, diving and turning like a badly thrown curveball. Instead of hitting the man in the chest, it plunged through his foot.
He cried out in pain and dropped the grenade. He stretched for it and shouted, but his foot was nailed to the fiberglass. His shouts were cut off as the boat erupted in flames.
Men in one of the other boats spotted Kurt and began firing his way. He dropped down behind the thick embattlements and listened as the shells pinged off the stone behind him.
“One down, three to go.”
* * *
• • •
JOE WAS on the floor, taking cover, when the explosion flared outside. He crawled to the window to get a look.
The speedboats were making high-speed runs now. Strafing the castle walls and peeling back.
He manned his gun and tried to hit them, but the old weapon was too heavy and too hard to maneuver to track the boats successfully. He fired, shouldered the gun into a new position and then fired again. Just as he reached for the second box of ammunition, the last speedboat raced out of view.
“Are they moving off?” Kenzo asked.
“Not off,” Joe said. “To the other side of the island.”
Almost immediately, the shooting began again. This time, from the far side of the castle.
“Now might be a good time to call the authorities?” Joe suggested.
“We don’t have phones.”
“Use the radio.”
Kenzo ran over to the old shortwave, tested the microphone and then switched to a channel used by Japan’s emergency services.
“This is Seven . . . Jay . . . Three . . . X-ray . . . X-ray . . . Zulu . . .” he began, using his officially licensed ham radio designation. “Request emergency police assistance. Armed men are attacking us. Repeat. Armed men are attacking us . . .”
They received no response. Nothing but static.
“The antenna,” Kenzo replied, pointing toward the shattered windows. “It’s out there.”
“Keep trying,” Joe said. “We can’t hold them off forever.”
As if to prove the point, a grappling hook flew over the wall and lodged with a metallic clang.
Joe realigned the Gatling gun and waited. The hook shimmied back and forth and a man appeared at the top. He climbed over the wall and crouched as a second man arrived. Joe raised the barrels and pushed the crank forward. The handle moved half an inch and then jammed.