by Rebecca Deel
“Good luck with that. Where’s your steward uniform?”
Thomas sneered. “Charging me with theft? I’ll get a slap on the wrist. You can’t prove anything else.”
Sam leaned against the wall, satisfaction swelling in her gut. Their suspect was rattled.
A sharp rap sounded on the door. Chip poked his head in the room. “Got it, Chief.”
Winestock scanned the paper Chip handed him before giving it to Nico.
He snorted and stared at Thomas. “You couldn’t be more original with the name on your fake passport?”
Thomas paled. “How did you know?”
“Tom Smith is a common name. Ranks up there with John Smith.” Nico glanced at Winestock. “You want deniability?”
The chief’s eyebrows rose. “Do I need it?”
A shrug. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
“What do you mean?” Thomas demanded. His gaze darted from Winestock to Nico and back again.
Winestock shook his head. “I’ll stay.”
“Suit yourself.” Nico turned a chair backwards and straddled the seat. “Let’s talk, Thomas.”
The other man swore at Nico, hatred in his eyes, body tense.
Shadow’s leader flicked a glance at Joe who gripped Thomas’s shoulder near the neck, the hold unbreakable. “You don’t want to do this. My friend is skilled in interrogation techniques.“ Nico’s voice remained mild. “He enjoys inflicting pain. You sure you want to test him?”
“You’re lying.” The acrid scent of fear poured off Thomas. “I’m an American citizen. I have rights.”
Another glance at Joe. “Give him a demonstration.”
Sam’s partner clamped a hand over the prisoner’s mouth and changed the hold on his neck. Thomas’s eyes widened in shock. He uttered a muffled scream, fighting to free himself. He failed.
Nico looked at Sam. “Get your bag.”
“Yes, sir.” She left the security office and returned to the honeymoon suite. Within minutes, she reentered the interrogation room to find tears streaming down Thomas’s cheeks, skin pale and breath ragged.
“Let’s try again.” Nico signaled Joe to ease up. “What’s your real name?”
Still shuddering in the aftermath of the pain, the prisoner said shakily, “Thomas.”
When Joe laid a hand on his shoulder again, the man flinched away. “No, please. That’s my real name. Thomas.”
“Last name?”
His head sagged. “Ferguson. I’m Thomas Ferguson.”
“What’s your agenda, Thomas Ferguson?”
He shook his head and remained mute.
Joe grabbed Ferguson’s hair and leaned close to speak in his ear. “Why did you hurt the baby? What did you have against an innocent infant?”
The prisoner shook his head. “No, I didn’t do that. I swear. I like kids.”
Joe glanced at Nico, received a nod of approval, and pulled out his Ka-Bar. He tugged Ferguson’s head back at an uncomfortable angle and brandished his knife in front of the man’s face. “Do you know how much damage I can do with this?”
Winestock stirred as if he planned to intervene. Out of Ferguson’s eyesight, Sam motioned for the security chief to remain quiet. Face set in hard lines, he subsided though remained watchful.
“Don’t,” Ferguson pleaded, his voice hoarse.
“This is a Ka-Bar. The blade is full tang, one solid piece of steel. State of the art workmanship. The blade is razor-sharp and I can gut you like a fish or slice open your throat and watch you bleed out. One word from my friend and you’re dead.”
“You can’t.”
“Want to bet your life on that?” Joe leaned closer, his voice a low growl. “You could have killed the baby. Do you want to know what I do to people who hurt innocent children?”
Ferguson shook his head.
“Give us the right answers and you won’t find out. Lie to us again and you’ll wish you had never been born. The world will be better off without another terrorist who enjoys hurting the innocent.”
“I’m not a terrorist.”
Joe yanked Ferguson’s head back further and placed the edge of the blade against the skin of his throat. Red beads of blood welled along the shallow cut.
“Wait! I’ll talk. I swear.”
“Why did you target the baby?”
He swallowed hard. Another shallow cut appeared. Blood slid over his skin. “I wanted the mother.”
“The baby was a means to an end?” Nico asked.
“That’s right.”
“Why did you want the mother?”
“She’s beautiful. I just wanted her.”
Sam frowned. Charlaine was attractive, but his words didn’t ring true. Charlaine’s beauty wasn’t why he targeted her.
Nico flicked her a look. She unzipped her mike bag and searched for the drug Nico had requested with a hand signal. She prepared the hypodermic and grabbed a packet with alcohol wipes.
When she straightened, Winestock’s gaze locked on her with the intensity of a heat-seeking missile. She hoped he remained silent. If Thomas didn’t believe the Fortress operatives would follow through on the threat, he’d remain silent.
“You’re a rapist?” Joe raised his voice, his tone harsh.
Good thing Ferguson couldn’t see Joe. Her partner played his role well. Only his eyes revealed the truth that he wasn’t as angry as he sounded.
“What? No!”
“You expect us to believe you drugged the baby to capture the mother’s attention? You got it.”
“Where’s the steward uniform?” Nico asked. “What did you do with it?”
Ferguson clammed up again.
“Let me kill him,” Joe said to Nico. “We can’t allow him to target other innocent women and children. No one will notice if we dump his body overboard after midnight and let the sharks have him.”
“You’re crazy.” Ferguson renewed his efforts to free himself from the chair.
A huff of laughter. “You just now figured that out? You’re not too bright, Thomas.”
More fruitless struggles and Ferguson slid his glance toward Nico. “Don’t let him kill me,” he pleaded. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“We gave you the opportunity to cooperate.” He shrugged. “You didn’t.”
“Ask me anything. What do you want to know?”
“Where is the steward uniform?”
“I got rid of it.” His voice rose to a shrill pitch as Joe shifted the angle of the knife and tightened his grip on Thomas’s head as though preparing to cut his throat.
“How?”
“I threw the clothes into an oven.”
“Why? What were you hiding?”
“I didn’t want security to find the clothes if they managed to track me down.”
“You stole a waiter’s uniform before going to the kitchen?”
He scowled. “How do you know that? I was careful. Security wasn’t lucky enough to catch me. I’m too good. But then you aren’t cruise line security, are you?”
Nico tilted his head. “We aren’t?”
“Not even close. The cruise line’s security people are men and women who couldn’t cut it in the military or police academies and now swagger around with a badge that doesn’t mean anything.”
No one spoke while Nico assessed their prisoner. “You’re familiar with Holllingbrook ships. You used to work for them, Thomas.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Joe mentally reviewed their conversation with Thomas and realized Nico was correct. Thomas wouldn’t have known about security and the cameras without inside knowledge. Joe believed another person was working with him, maybe one of the security staff. But that didn’t explain the fact Thomas moved around the ship like he was intimately familiar with the layout. He must have worked on another cruise ship of the same design.
“I didn’t say I was an employee.” Thomas jerked in Joe’s hold and ended up with another nick on his skin.
Joe rolled his eyes. Idiot
. If this clown didn’t stop flailing in the chair, he’d cut his own throat. Joe shifted the angle of the Ka-Bar.
“What did you do to the baby, Ferguson?” Nico folded his arms across the top of the chair back. “Before you lie to us, remember how much my friend hates those who prey on the weak. He also has a low tolerance for liars.”
Thomas drew in a shaky breath. “I gave him the medicine in the diaper bag. I figured it was safe for him if the mother brought the medicine.”
“Her,” came the mild correction. The look in their team leader’s eyes was anything but mild. “You didn’t bother to read the dosing directions, did you? She had to be treated for an overdose. You’re lucky the ship’s doctor helped her. She could have died.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her. Honest. I just wanted her to sleep so I could find the mother.”
Nico shook his head. “You’re still going with that story?” He glanced at Sam and inclined his head slightly toward the prisoner.
She stepped into Thomas’s visual range and made a production out of readying the hypodermic needle for use.
“No. Wait.”
Joe tightened his grip. “The truth, Ferguson. Last chance or we end your life now and dump you overboard in the dead of night.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“The truth. Why did you want the baby’s mother?”
“Payback,” he yelled.
“What did she do? Turn you down for a date? Cut you off in traffic? Spit on your shoes?”
Ferguson cursed. “I never saw her before in my life.”
Joe frowned. What sense did that make? “I’m supposed to believe?”
Nico signaled Joe to hold off. “If you never met her, why choose this woman for payback? Payback for what, Ferguson?”
“She was an easy target.” A cold smile curved his mouth despite the awkward angle Joe held his head. “Hollingbrook’s a cheat and a liar. He deserves to die.”
Nico’s eyes narrowed. “A cheat and a liar. Care to explain that?”
The ugly grin on Thomas’s face said the answer to that question was a resounding no.
A shrug. “Doesn’t matter. By the time we finish tearing your life apart, you won’t have any secrets left.”
The smile faded from the prisoner’s mouth. “You can’t.”
“When you realized the mother was away from the cabin, why did you take the nanny? You could have left the dinner and returned later for the mother. You chose to kill Bianca White. Why?”
“She would have recognized me and I still had a mission to complete.”
Sam turned toward Thomas, needle glinting from the glare of the overhead light. “What did you inject her with?”
“Potassium chloride.”
Joe’s stomach twisted. Simple but effective. The nanny hadn’t stood a chance once Thomas grabbed her. Joe tightened his grip. “What’s your agenda?”
“Bring down Hollingbrook.”
“You plant the bombs, too?”
A smug expression covered his face. “Had you scrambling, didn’t it?”
Nico glanced at Winestock. “You have questions for him?”
“You covered them. What now?”
“I’m still in favor of dropping him in the ocean,” Joe said. The world would be a better place without this man. Unless Thomas tried to kill him, though, Joe wouldn’t follow through on the threat. He had a lot of plans for his future. None included spending time behind bars for homicide. He had long-term plans to romance Samantha Coleman.
Nico lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We don’t need sharks. Your woman is skilled at her job.”
With those words, Sam set the hypodermic on the table in plain sight and ripped open the package with the alcohol wipe.
Thomas’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “I answered your questions.”
Joe chuckled. “Did you think we would let you go? You admitted to killing a woman and poisoning a baby, Thomas. We can’t let a menace wander around the ship.”
“If I cooperated, you promised I’d live.” His struggles renewed and intensified. “You promised.”
A mean smile curved Nico’s mouth. “Actually, I didn’t. You deserve no mercy.”
“I’ll do anything. Ask me something else. I’ll talk.”
Shadow’s leader stalked around the table to Thomas’s side. “Are you working with anyone else?”
The man’s gaze shifted down and to the left.
Joe shook his head, disgusted with the weasel.
Nico gripped Thomas’s arm and held it still for Sam to administer the shot. Joe clamped his hand over Thomas’s mouth. The man screamed as Sam inserted the needle in his vein and depressed the plunger. A moment later, the screams and struggles stopped and he went limp.
Winestock blew out a breath. “Tell me you didn’t kill the little worm.”
Sam capped the needle. “I sedated him. He won’t be any trouble for at least 24 hours.”
“Thank God. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Mr. Hollingbrook that a passenger disappeared in the middle of the ocean. What do you plan to do with him? We can’t keep him drugged for the next month.”
“Our friends at the FBI will have plenty of questions for him. I’ll contact Fortress and arrange for the feds to take Ferguson off our hands. We still have a job to do.”
Joe stepped back from the prisoner. “We need to find his accomplice to stop the attacks against Hollingbrook and the cruise line.”
“That’s only one of the tasks,” Nico said.
Winestock frowned. “You have another mission?”
“Someone is targeting female passengers from your cruise line, this route in particular.”
The security chief stiffened. “That doesn’t have anything to do with us. I’m not responsible for passenger safety when they’re off the ship.”
Joe folded his arms across his chest. “You have a human trafficking ring targeting passengers, buddy.”
“Those women wandered off into areas that aren’t recommended for tourists.”
Joe pulled out his cell phone and brought up the picture of the man he’d noticed on the dock in San Diego. He turned his phone toward the security chief. “Recognize this man?”
Winestock glanced at the screen. “Nope. Should I?”
“He’s a scout for the Maldonado human trafficking ring. He took pictures of women boarding the ship in San Diego.”
“Maybe he was seeing a friend off.”
“He took pictures of several groups of women and left without acknowledging anyone on board the ship.” Nico frowned. “Don’t lie to yourself, Winestock. He’s trolling for merchandise for the Maldonado group.”
“You knew and did nothing about it.” Sam glared at him over her shoulder before turning to store the used needle in her bag. “Why didn’t you warn the women to stay in groups and stick to the safe areas at the ports? You left them to fend for themselves in a hostile environment with no idea they were being hunted.”
“I’m not responsible for passengers once they leave the ship,” he insisted.
“Keep telling yourself that and you’ll be looking for another job,” Nico said. “Part of our mission is to evaluate you and your security team. Your department is understaffed with people not trained to handle what’s happening on the Pacific Star. Hollingbrook is to blame for the number of people in your department. The blame for inadequate employee training sits squarely on your shoulders.”
Winestock grimaced. “I need this job. I have a kid going to college next year. What will you tell the owner?”
“The security teams on Hollingbrook cruise ships need better training. Fortress has a training facility in Otter Creek, Tennessee. Personal Security International. We train bodyguards and security teams to handle crime and terrorist threats. We’ll teach you what you need to know if you’re willing to learn.”
The chief whistled. “You don’t pull any punches, Nico.”
“What’s the point
? If I don’t tell you the truth, you and your team could end up dead along with hundreds of passengers. Now, is there a place we can dump the prisoner until we dock at the next port?”
“We use a cabin across the hall for detention. One of my people has to stay with Ferguson at all times until the feds take him.” His lips curved. “We’ll be more shorthanded than before. Will your men supplement my workforce?”
Nico inclined his head. “We still have to find Ferguson’s partner. Working security gives Ben and Trace a chance to roam the ship without arousing suspicion. They’re excellent at blending in. The rest of us will be more visible.” He turned to Joe. “Cut Ferguson loose and we’ll take him to the detention cabin. We need to make an appearance before people question our disappearance.”
“Rumors must be circulating as it is.” Sam hoisted her mike bag over her shoulder. “Although we hustled Thomas off the pool deck, many swimmers and sunbathers saw me dump a drink on him and the guys escort him off the deck. He wasn’t shy about voicing his displeasure.”
Nico chuckled. “You used the Columbian maneuver. Nice. Bet Ferguson never saw the real Sam. He won’t be the last man to make that mistake.”
Sam shrugged and opened the door as Nico and Joe each draped one of Ferguson’s arms over their shoulders and maneuvered the unconscious man across the hall to the other cabin.
Chip followed them into the room and closed the door. “What’s the story with this one?”
“Thomas Ferguson killed the nanny, poisoned the baby, started the fire, and planted the bombs.”
The security employee scowled. “Did he say why?”
“Revenge against Hollingbrook.”
“We’ll find out the motive behind the attacks,” Joe said as he and Nico laid the man on the bed and zip-tied his wrists to the iron rail of the headboard. Ferguson wasn’t going anywhere unless someone freed him. “Don’t let anyone inside this cabin except the Fortress team, your buddy Caleb, or Winestock.”
Chip blinked. “Why?”
“You have another traitor on board. We need to find that person before someone else is injured or dies.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I want to check on Kayla and Ferguson,” Sam told Joe as they walked from the dining room.