Without warning

Jules shook her head as she spun the wheel to dodge what looked like a garbage barge barely able to stay afloat under the weight of seven or eight hundred people, all tightly packed onto the mounds of rubbish. They were throwing as much of the rotting, malodorous ballast overboard as quickly as they could, but the wake from her sudden turn set the flat-bottomed scow wallowing dangerously, and at least a dozen men and women went over the side. She nudged the throttles forward and tried to ignore their flailing figures. They wouldn’t be the last people to drown today.

A cacophony of horns, whistles, sirens and klaxons overlay the constant screaming and calls for help. The further out into the bay she took them, the worse it grew. Bodies began to appear in the churning water, some floating near capsized boats, and some of them obviously killed by gunfire. At one point she cut their speed back to allow a small pod of surf-skiers to paddle by. They saluted her with their oars before resuming their rhythmic progress.

‘How did they get this far?’ she said to nobody in particular.

Fifi appeared at her elbow with a couple of chilled Coronas. She watched the surfers for a moment before shrugging. ‘Surf breaks get pretty crowded. They’re probably used to it. Wanna beer, Julesy?’

‘You have to be fucking kidding… Oh… what the hell. Could you open it for me?’

Fifi popped the tops and passed one of the bottles to Jules, who kept one hand on the wheel while draining half the cerveza in a few long pulls. The crisp, icy-cold bite was like an angel’s kiss. Indeed, she couldn’t recall ever having enjoyed a beer this much. It was almost obscene.

‘You coulda waited, you know,’ said Fifi. ‘I cut up some limes.’

‘Only poofs fruit the beer, sweetheart. What’s happening below?’

Fifi finished her own drink and tossed the empty bottle overboard before answering. It crashed into the prow of a ferry, eliciting a raised fist and a long string of unintelligible curses from the skipper. She flipped him the finger. ‘Miguel’s got the mariachi band all stowed away down below,’ she replied. ‘They’re cool. No problemo. That fucking prom queen, though, and her brother…’

‘Theobe and Jason?’

‘Yeah, them. They’re already arguing with the banker and his boob job about who gets the big cabin.’

Jules squeezed her eyes shut for just a second. It was dangerous to have them closed for any longer. ‘As long as they keep it down there, I don’t give a rat’s arse.’

A deep, high-powered horn sounded off to starboard, where a large container ship had dropped dozens of lines over the side to pick up people struggling in the water. Another big ship, an oil tanker, was heading straight for it. Jules wondered why until she saw the telltale sparkle of gunfire around the tanker’s bridge.

‘Damn, Julesy,’ said Fifi. ‘Nobody’s in charge of that son of a bitch. You’d better haul ass. This ain’t gonna be pretty.’

Jules didn’t need encouraging. As Shah came hammering up the steps to warn them of the impending disaster, she flicked on the boat’s internal PA system. ‘Hey, listen up everyone,’ she began calmly. ‘Get down low and grab something. I’m going to have to lay on some speed and do some rally driving.’

Another long, shrieking blast on the container ship’s horn pounded at them, and all around it, those ships that could put on speed suddenly did so, leaping up at their bows and churning up white wakes.

‘You have seen?’ asked Shah.

Julianne pushed the throttles to three-quarter power and the sport fisher leapt ahead. ‘I’m on it,’ she cried out, over the rising clamour of horns and the screaming of thousands of people in the water and on nearby boats.

Stray rounds from the firefight on the tanker splattered against their vessel inches from Fifi’s head. She unlimbered the PKM and spat a stream of tracers back at them. ‘Fuckers!’

‘Get down and stop arsing around!’ Jules shouted.

Reefing the wheel to port, she narrowly avoided spearing into an old wooden yacht that looked a lot like the Diamantina. It was certainly of the same vintage and seemed to be crewed by three swimsuit models. Another sharp turn to starboard swept them around two more yachts, which had already collided with each other, and a bright yellow water taxi that was dangerously overloaded. The bow wave from her boat struck it amidships and the taxi went over.

Jules was sorry, but there was nothing she could do about it. Behind them the horns of both the tanker and the container ship roared in one long, deafening note.

Shah pointed her towards a stretch of slightly less crowded water and Jules opened the boat’s engines all of the way. The massive bulk of the sixty-foot power craft lifted even higher in the water and she gripped the silver wheel hard, concentrating on not running into anyone. A few blasts on her own horn began to scatter and clear some room up ahead, but then the warning was lost in a huge, world-ending uproar as the two giant ships collided.