by Cap Daniels
We dropped anchor in the Matanzas River north of the Bridge of Lions in Old St. Augustine. As the sun was setting, we turned on the anchor light and hoisted a pair of chemlights, one blue and one orange, up the pennant halyard so we could identify our boat in the dark.
We took the dinghy ashore and had dinner at a Cuban restaurant where a salsa band was playing to a hoard of dancers, twisting and gyrating to the irresistible rhythm.
“Come on, Chase. Dance with me,” Skipper said.
“I don’t know how to dance.”
I guess she didn’t hear me. She pulled me from my chair and onto the dance floor, which was little more than an empty area surrounded by tables pushed out of the way.
She yelled over the music and grabbed my hands. “It’s easy! Just feel the rhythm and let your body do what feels good.”
It was awkward at first, but Skipper was amazing. She pushed and pulled, coiling our arms together in what felt like crazy tangles, but soon unwound us in time with the music. Her feet were a blur, and her hair flew around her head like a tornado. I soon caught on and started to feel the music instead of simply hearing it. My feet seemed to know what to do even though my brain did not. I’d never considered myself a dancer, but I was having fun.
The song ended and another began. We bumped into a couple dancing beside us on the crowded floor. The man was tall, thin, and Latin. He was the epitome of the exotic Latin lover most women dream of, and she was his perfect partner. Her dark skin, long black hair, and curvy physique gave her an exotic look that was impossible to ignore. They were obviously experienced salsa dancers.
He turned to Skipper, offering his hand, and she danced away with him, surely relieved to have found a better dance partner. The woman smiled and put her hands on my shoulders.
“Relax,” she said. “Salsa is about being sexy and loose. Let your body think about making love with me, all sweaty and hot. Now let’s dance.”
She didn’t move like Skipper. Everything about her was exotic and erotic. The way she urged me to move with her was intoxicating. I don’t know if we danced for two minutes or two hours, but I was exhausted and drenched in sweat when Skipper took my hand again. Our partners danced away together as if their night had just begun.
“I have to get a drink and sit down,” I said. “I’m exhausted. Who knew salsa dancing was so much work?”
We found a table and motioned for a waitress. Skipper leaned into me. “Can I have a daiquiri?”
I held up two fingers. “Two waters and two daiquiris, please.”
The waitress assessed Skipper, who was glistening with sweat and had her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
She returned a couple minutes later and placed the drinks on our table. “Both of the daiquiris are for you, right, sir?”
I handed her a twenty. “Of course.”
By the end of the night, I was doing pretty well. I’d never be a Latin lover, but I was no longer embarrassing myself. When we’d danced until we couldn’t dance another step, Skipper laced her sweaty arm through mine, and we headed back through the old city. Judging by the empty streets, it must’ve been after two a.m.
We hopped back into our dinghy and motored out toward the boat.
“Hey, the boat’s pointed in the other direction from when we anchored,” Skipper said.
“That happens when the tide turns. That’s why we only anchor from the bow and give plenty of room for other boats around us to swing.”
I could tell she was tucking away another tidbit of nautical knowledge. We climbed out of the dinghy, reattached it to the davits, and hoisted it out of the water.
I noticed the end of a line dangling from the cabin top near the door to the main salon. I didn’t remember the line being there when we left the boat, but I dismissed it. Skipper had probably tossed the line onto the cabin top instead of coiling it. I was being overly paranoid again, but I wasn’t going to let my paranoia ruin what had been a great day, and an even better night for us. We were doing a good job of keeping each other’s spirits up and remembering to live instead of merely existing.
“This was the best day of my life, Chase, and it’s all because of you. Thank you for everything.”
“It’s been a pretty great day, and you’re an amazing dancer.”
She gave me a playful shove. “You’re the dancer. You looked great out there, all sexy and hot. You’re a natural. Even the Brazilian hottie was checking you out.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Good night, Chase. I’m taking a shower and crashing. Do we have to get up early?”
“I’m doing the same. Sleep as late as you want. We have nowhere to be tomorrow.”
She frolicked down the stairs into her hull, and I limped down into mine. I was going to be sore by morning.
* * *
I was asleep minutes after my head hit the pillow. I dreamed of dancing with Anya like I’d danced with the dark-haired beauty earlier that night. I could hear Anya’s laugh and smell her hair. I could feel her on top of me and remembered how she moved when she surrendered to her desires and—
A sharp pain in my neck jolted me awake. I swatted at the stinging, and my hand struck flesh and bone. I struggled to see who or what had stung me, but my cabin was dark and my vision wasn’t clear. I grasped at the flesh I’d hit. It felt like a woman’s wrist, but my strength was fading, and the little vision I had was becoming blurred and tunneled. I was losing strength, and as my vision faded to utter darkness, I thought I caught a glimpse of a hypodermic needle. I tried to yell out to warn Skipper, but the words dissolved in my throat.
24
Interrogation
When I came to, Skipper and I were tied back-to-back. Our arms were pulled backward and our hands were tied across each other’s stomachs. Several wraps of line were around our necks, holding the backs of our heads together. My legs were secured together above the knee and at the ankle. I wasn’t going anywhere. Skipper was breathing behind me, but she was unconscious. I tried to gather my wits and assess our situation, but I was still groggy from whatever I’d been injected with. The boat was moving, and I could hear a diesel engine.
Skipper began to wake and pulled at our bindings.
“Skipper, listen to me. We’ve been drugged and abducted. Try to wake up and listen to me.”
Her voice trembled with terror. “Chase, what’s happening? What do we do?”
My mind and vision were clearing, and I recognized that we were in the workshop on my boat.
I tried to sound calm. “I don’t know who did this to us, but they’re pros. They injected us with a drug to knock us out, and whoever tied us up knew exactly what he was doing. Are your legs tied together?”
“Yeah,” she said, still trembling. “They’re tied at my knees and ankles. What do we do?”
“Try to stay calm.” My brain spooled into action, trying to devise a plan. “They don’t want us dead or they would’ve killed us in our sleep. They know enough about us to know we’re dangerous. You don’t tie someone up this well unless you’re afraid of him. They probably know how long the drugs last and will be checking on us at any minute. The good news is they probably won’t separate us. They’ve gone to too much trouble tying us together. The bad news is they’re probably going to interrogate us. We—or more likely, I—know something they need to know. At least one of our captors will be aggressive—that’s how it works. So don’t resist. Every question they ask, tell the truth. They’ll probably threaten to hurt one or both of us. They’ll probably threaten you to get me to talk. I’m going to be defiant or I’m going to lie, but I won’t risk letting them hurt you.”
“I’m scared,” she whimpered.
“I know. It’s okay to be scared. Just tell them whatever they want to know, and don’t worry about what they do or threaten to do to me. Sooner or later, they’ll make a mistake, and we’ll capitalize on it.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
“The next few hours are going to suck, but I’m going to get us out of this. Emb
race the suck for a little while. It’ll be over soon.”
Her trembling body pulsed through my own.
I inspected the workshop to locate anything we could get our hands on to cut ourselves free, but everything was on or above the workbench. There was no way we could stand up, and even if we could, we wouldn’t be able to walk.
Footsteps drummed on the cabin sole outside the door. The latch on the door clicked, and the door swung open. The face peering through the doorway was Sara Anderson, Michael’s wife.
“Oh goody,” she said, “you’re awake. Are you comfortable? Can we get you anything? Perhaps a pinot noir in a champagne flute?”
Shit. I knew there was something about those two. I should’ve listened to my gut.
“Michael! Our guests are awake!”
Skipper’s back was to the cabin door. “Is that the woman from the charter?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on yet.”
I heard the engines slow to idle and Michael coming down the stairs. He pushed his way through the cabin door and placed his booted foot on my left kneecap.
I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself for the imminent pain that would come as soon as he put his weight on my knee.
Sara knelt beside me. Her breath floated across my neck as she whispered, “Where’s Anya?”
I’d prepared myself for as many questions as I could dream up, but not that one. Who were these people and what was their connection to Anya?
Even though I knew the pain was coming, I furrowed my brow, feigning confusion. “Who?”
Michael’s weight came down hard on my knee, and I bellowed in agony as I felt my kneecap grind into the joint.
Skipper screamed, “Stop It! Stop It! Don’t hurt him!”
Sara rolled a dish towel into a gag, stuffed it into Skipper’s mouth, and taped it in place. I could feel Skipper breathing in shallow gasps of air, so she could still breathe through her nose. After all the horrors she’d endured, it sickened me to know she’d been plunged back into the depths of Hell because of me. Even if I died doing it, I would ensure Skipper survived the ordeal, no matter what the cost.
“I guess you didn’t hear my question over all the screaming, so let’s start over,” Sara said. “Where is Anastasia Burinkova? She’s not reported in to Colonel Tornovich for several days. What have you done with her?”
Michael lifted a pair of pliers from the workbench and held them in front of my face. I was about to have a little dental work done.
I opened my mouth. “Would you mind starting with the molar on the bottom right? I think it has a cavity anyway.” I spat in his face.
Instead of probing into my mouth with the pliers, Michael was a little more creative. Without wiping my spit from his cheek, he jammed the jaws of the pliers up my nose and locked down on my septum. The blinding pain lit a fire that surged through my face and body. My impulse to writhe only deepened the torture, so I sat still, praying I’d pass out. I’d been hurt in a lot of ways by a lot of people in the previous few years of my life, but I’d never known physical pain like that.
He plunged the pliers deeper into my nose, and his knuckle pressed against my lip. I bit down on his knuckle with every ounce of strength I could muster, and I tasted blood, but I didn’t know if it was from his finger or my nose. I didn’t care. I kept biting, unwilling to surrender. When he could no longer withstand the pain, he opened his hand and dropped the pliers right into Skipper’s hands, which were still tied together at my stomach. I refused to release his finger from my teeth, knowing that was my only means of attack. I let go only when I saw a large black object rushing toward my head.
* * *
When I regained consciousness, Skipper was working violently at the bindings on her wrists, using the pliers she’d caught to grind away at the ropes.
A self-assessment determined how much more torture I could survive—I knew more was coming. I only hoped I’d be able keep Skipper alive. My head ached as if I’d been hit by a truck, and my face was on fire. I could taste the blood dripping from my nose. I tried to flex my knee, and it moved without unbearable pain so it probably wasn’t broken. Michael must’ve hit me with the fiberglass emergency tiller lying on the cabin sole. It had a nasty blood stain on the fat end. If Skipper could manage to cut through her bindings before Michael and Sara came back, and if my knee would support my weight, I’d have a fighting chance against the two of them when I got my hands on that emergency tiller.
“Skipper, I’m okay. Keep working on those ropes.”
The engines were back up at cruising RPM, so I assumed Michael and Sara were taking us to rendezvous with another team.
Did Sara say Anya hadn’t reported to Colonel Tornovich? Why would she report to him?
It hit me like a freight train. Anya was still working for the Russians. She’d been reporting every move we made back to Colonel Victor Tornovich, her SVR handler. I’d been sucked into a gorgeous, blonde honey trap, and Anya had played me like a Stradivarius. The Russians had perfected the honey trap, in which an irresistible operative would seduce both the body and mind of an American, leaving him to feel, hear, and believe only what the seductress wanted. All her talk of honeymoons and babies in the future was line for line, right out of a script. The SVR now knew everything Anya knew about me. I’d willingly given her the keys to the castle, and she’d passed them right along to Tornovich. How could I have been so naïve and stupid? How could Anya have been so convincing when she lay in my arms and told me she loved me? I’d been played. I felt like I’d been gut-punched by a demon, and I could taste the bitter bile worming up my throat.
As the rage in me boiled, I felt Skipper’s hand break free. She untangled her arms from mine and pulled the tape and gag from her mouth. Blood dripped from her fingers where the handles of the pliers had torn into her skin as she twisted and ground against the ropes. “Are you all right, Chase?”
We didn’t have time to talk about how not all right I was.
“Reach up with your right hand. There’s a knife on the corner of the workbench. Cut my hands free and give me the knife.”
I knew she was capable of cutting us free, but I wanted the knife in my hand if Michael or Sara came back through the door. I cut the ropes binding our necks and abdomens. When we were free from each other, I sliced my leg ropes and turned to do the same for her. She’d found a box cutter from the workbench and cut the ropes from her legs before I got to her.
“Do you have any guns on the boat?” she asked.
“I do, but not on this side. I’d have to cross the main salon to get to it.”
“When this is over,” she said, “I really want one on my side of the boat.”
I didn’t know what happened inside her head in the preceding few minutes, but she’d gone from terrified, crying little girl, to badass in a flash.
Our situation had improved, but we were still on a boat with two Russian operatives who were highly skilled in the art of torture and interrogation. I was certain they were armed, so taking back our boat wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. We needed to know Michael and Sara’s location, and how well-armed they were. I feared we might learn the latter an instant too late.
25
I Missed!
There was going be a fight. There was no chance Michael and Sara would give up the boat without fighting for their lives, so Skipper and I had to embrace the same mentality. I searched the workshop for anything we could use to help even the playing field, or at least tilt it in our favor.
I found a flare gun and six flares, and I handed them to Skipper. “This has to be a last-resort weapon. If we fire these and they stay on the boat, we’ll have a big fire to deal with, and there’s almost nothing worse than a fire on a boat.”
“How about two assholes with guns and a knot-tying fetish?” she said.
“Okay, maybe that’s worse.”
I kept searching for anything we could use as a weapon—and I found it. It was a forty-eight-
inch speargun designed for shooting fish under water. I’d never fired a speargun out of the water, so I didn’t know if the shaft would fly straight and have enough energy to stop a human, but I guessed we’d find out.
Skipper tucked the flare gun into the waistband of her pants. I handed her the speargun and showed her how to load the shaft by attaching the elastic bands and pressing the tip into the cabin sole until it locked in place.
“You need to be very close to Michael when you pull the trigger. With three bands, the shaft will probably keep sinking until it comes out his back or it hits a bone. Either way, he’s going to be hurt. Try to shoot him in the center of his chest.”
“Why do I have to shoot him? Why don’t you do it?” she asked.
“I’m the one he’s going to be watching when we go up on deck,” I said. “I’m the one he’s afraid of. He thinks you’re just a hostess, and he’ll never be expecting you to have a weapon. But don’t get nervous and shoot me.”
“What about the woman? Why aren’t you worried about her?”
“I am worried about her, but I’m stronger than she is, and I don’t think she had a gun. At least she didn’t have one when she was kneeling beside me. Michael’s stronger and probably better armed. If we can eliminate him, our chances of coming out of this alive go way up.”
I picked up the emergency tiller from the deck and realized how much it felt like a baseball bat. I’d swung a few baseball bats and hit more than my share of homeruns in my days on the field. My confidence level was increasing.
“Chase, when this is over . . . are you going to explain what’s really going on?”
I slid my hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to me. “I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as those two assholes are off our boat.”
The sound of the engines quieted and the boat slowed.
“They’re coming back,” I said. “We have to change our plan.”