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Maria’s jaw dropped, but only for aaround, she peered out the back , just catching a glimpse of the Bullet as it rounded the bluff into the Golden Horn

Turning back to the yacht’s captain, her eyes blazed with fury

“Turn us around at once,” she bellowed “We’re going back”

PITT BARELY KNEW where to start The forward port hold was like a rat’s s of ANFO were stacked everywhere, loaded in apparent haste Somewhere in the middle were hidden the powerful stores of HMX And attached to that, Pitt hoped, would be a readily apparent fuze and blasting cap

Pitt had told Lazlo that they had five minutes to locate and defuse the explosives Lazlo was siiven Pitt an on-the-fly explanation of what to look for Half the allotted time had already been expended by the time Pitt had worked his way to the center of the hold and discovered dozens of blocks of the plastic explosive stacked in several wooden bins With the seconds ticking by loudly in his head, Pitt hastily opened the bins one by one, tossing the explosives aside when no visible fuze was found inside It wasn’t until he reached the last bin that he found an electric ti cap pressed into a block of the plastic explosive With a hopeful nod, he quickly yanked the h the maze

Five minutes had already elapsed when he climbed the ladder out of the hold and stepped onto the deck Lazlo was just cli out of the starboard hold and sprinted over to Pitt, carrying a pair of ti cap, handing it to Lazlo

“I found this in the main cache of HMX,” Pitt said

“It’s no good,” Lazlo replied with a stern shake of his head “They’ve got hout the hold I inadvertently found this one tucked into a crate of the ANFO,” he said, holding up one of the timers “I’m positive there are more”

He looked at Pitt’s timer, then compared it to the two that he held

“Fourteenthe timers over the side rail “There’s no e can find them all”

Pitt digested his words

“Try to find the crew,” he ordered “I’ll get us turned back into the strait”

Pitt didn’t wait for a reply, taking off at a sprint for the bridge The deck beneath his feet rumbled and vibrated, and he suddenly felt the whole ship shudder Reaching a side stairwell, he took a quick glance aft, then wished he hadn’t

Bearing down on the tanker from the east was the blue yacht of Ozden Celik

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