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With the captain trussed up, Murph held on to him while Eddie opened the door MacD leaned out and swept the corridor with his crossbow When he had checked both directions, he nodded that it was clear

The four of thele file, with MacD in the lead and Eddie taking the rear MacD had reached the stairwell just as the radio on Murph’s belt crackled to life

“I hear the,” an accented voice said over the handheld unit

Someone else rasped, “I said radio silence, you idiot”

Eddie and the others froze The captain grinned wickedly at him He must have alerted while he was offscreen in the corridor before being captured

MacD backed into the captain just as one of the guards charged up the stairs, firing blindly with his automatic weapon

MacD and Murph dived out of the way The captain caught a round in his leg and went down, howling into his gag

Eddie fired back, taking out the guard with a well-placed trio of shots, but others were running up the stairs More footsteps were pounding toward them from the direction of the equipment room

“This way!” Eddie yelled Murph tried to drag the captain with him, but Eddie shouted, “Leave him!”

They reached the end of the passagehich had no exit door since they were two stories above the deck Eddie pushed into the room at the end of the hall, and Murph and MacD followed him in, as bullets plunked into the wall behind them

It was one of the crew quarters, with three bunk beds, lockers, and a metal desk Eddie wrenched the desk froainst the door

The guards outside didn’t waste any ti rounds into the door, but the bullets were stopped by the desktop Then the gunfire abruptly ceased

Eddie could hear the captain say, “I want them alive Get a tank of acetylene We’ll smoke them out”

A single, rectangular , only two feet wide, overlooked the deck below If the captain and his men funneled sh air to keep the

Still, the as the reason Eddie had chosen the room The free-fall lifeboat was cantilevered in its cradle outside, just twenty feet away and one story down