by Dale Mayer
“I can’t help her in here,” she said. “I can’t guarantee to cure her, but we’re getting incredible results now. That’s why Hinkleman put all this together and locked me up, so that he could steal my research and be the king of the cancer cure.”
Curly stared at her, undecided.
She shrugged. “Your choice.” Then she turned and walked over to Drayden. “So now what? This is your game now that the doctor, your nutty father, is out of commission. It’s all about you and your brother now.” She couldn’t believe all the people who had lost their lives for their mistake in becoming involved with this group. And for what? Just money? That seems to be all Jimmy, Stanley, and Tom got out of it.
Drayden sneered. “He’s my father, not my boss, you know? We were willing to work with him when the money was flowing, but he’s always been difficult. Now …” He shrugged.
She smiled and nodded. “Good thing because now you’ll have to figure out exactly what you’ll do with all of us. I presume about fifty people are on board this ship, counting everybody, whether working or drinking or sleeping?”
He nodded.
“It’ll look very suspicious when everybody aboard this one ship shows up dead or missing.”
“I’m just here for security purposes, to keep everybody in line and to make sure it’s going well. This was our father’s show.”
“So, are you letting us go or not?”
In response, he lifted the rifle and pointed at her. “Not.”
“Okay,” she said in that determined voice of hers. She turned her back on him.
Ballsy move, thought Kerrick. Might be time for some gunplay.
When she looked at Kerrick, she held up three fingers against her shirt, then immediately put one down.
He raised his eyebrows.
When she put down another finger, he sent a subtle hand signal to Griffin.
When her final finger was lowered, three people moved in concert: her, Kerrick, and Griffin.
All found their targets.
She stepped to the side of her gunman, pivoted, pulled the letter opener from her sleeve, and stabbed Drayden in the throat. Haran cried out as his brother collapsed.
Meanwhile Griffin took out one of the two civilian gunmen with one chop to the throat, while Kerrick did the same to Curly.
And, just like that, Amanda held a machine gun herself, facing off the rest of the real security team, as did Kerrick and Griffin, but from behind.
She coolly took stock of the other gunmen and asked, “So, what’ll it be? A bloodbath or will you lay down your weapons?”
The three remaining security officers, looking down the steady aim of her machine gun, turned just enough to see Kerrick and Griffin behind them. Armed too. They all stared at her in shock, slowly lowering their weapons to the floor.
Kerrick looked at her over the security team caught in the middle and said, “What the hell …?”
“My father taught me to stand up to bullies.” She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“If you ever pull a stunt like that again …” he snarled, but then he and Griffin knocked out the last of the gunmen. Kerrick stood, hands on hips, shaking his head, his stare locked on Amanda.
She walked up, kissed Kerrick gently on the lips, and said, “Or what?”
A high-pitched giggle came from behind the group of scientists who’d been holding Brandon back during the chaos. Released Brandon raced toward them and launched himself in the air. She held out her weapon to Kerrick, who snagged it from her hand. Then, she grabbed Brandon, picked him up, swinging him around.
He held on tight. Just then another voice cried out, “Not so fast.”
She turned to see a scrawny old man in the doorway, tentatively holding a gun. “Not again …”
Brandon looked at him and cried out, “Dad!” He ripped himself free of Amanda’s arms and raced over to the man.
The man stared as his son raced toward him, shock on his face. “Brandon?” He threw down his weapon, opened his arms, and crushed Brandon tightly against his chest.
It brought tears to Amanda’s eyes to see how well-loved Brandon truly was.
His father had tears dripping down his face as he raised his head from embracing Brandon to look at her. “I don’t know what the hell happened,” he said, “but thank you for bringing my son here.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile.
Kerrick spoke up, saying, “She rescued him from Hinkleman’s prison.”
The older man, his throat working hard as he held his boy tightly, nodded and said, “And I’m damn glad to see him. Even after kidnapping my boy, then setting fire to our home, to my place of work, I did everything I could—from groveling to blackmail to get my son back—but they weren’t having anything to do with it.”
“That’s because I’m special,” Brandon said, pulling back and looking up at his father. “But she’s special too.”
His father looked over at her and said, “Special?”
Brandon smiled. “She’s just like me.”
Brandon’s father reached out a hand and said, “My name is Willie, and you have my ever-grateful thanks.”
She eagerly shook his hand. “You’re welcome. He talked to me in Morse code,” she said with a big smile. “Not sure how many people in the world can do that.”
“He’s been talking in Morse code since he was a toddler,” Willie said. “The fact that you even understood him is a miracle.”
She turned and introduced Kerrick and Griffin. “And these are the men who rescued both of us.”
“We obviously have a lot of answers and information to share with each other,” Willie said to Amanda. “Why don’t we all gather in the boardroom?
“Griffin and I’ll get these guys secured and stowed away, and we’ll join you.”
“That works for me,” she said, watching Kerrick, who already had four of the six gunmen tied up and secured. She smiled at the others gathered in the lab and asked, “Shall we discuss science, or shall we discuss the future of the company, or shall we discuss both?”
“How many shares do you hold in the company?” asked one of them.
“I’m a thirty percent shareholder,” she said gently. “There could be a corporate takeover happening after this fallout settles.”
A lot of nods and murmurs of agreement followed as Willie ushered everyone else from the room, staying behind with Kerrick, Griffin, Brandon, and Amanda.
Kerrick laughed. “I can see you doing that too. Are you sure you want to run a boardroom?”
She gave him a horrified look. “Hell no. Absolutely no way. But I’d love to get back to my lab. Somebody else gets to run the company, not me.” She looked over at him with a cheesy smile on her lips. “Come on. How about you?”
“The only weapons I like in my hand,” he said, “are rifles. Or handguns. But never a pen.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “I did some research on my own, and you’ve got an MBA in business.” She didn’t mention the loss of his wife and daughter. They had time to discuss that in the years to come.
He shrugged. “Still don’t like a boardroom. I’ll take a shoot-out any day.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a smile. “As long as you stay close, I don’t mind.”
“But what if somebody else needs my help way across the world?”
She nodded. “Then you go. But you have to promise me that you’ll always come back.”
He gave her a special smile and whispered, “I can make that happen.”
Brandon followed the exchange like a tennis game, then turned to look at Amanda, then at Kerrick, and back at Amanda. His gaze landed on Griffin, and he said, “See? I told you.”
Griffin laughed. “You did, indeed.”
Brandon held out his hand. “You owe me.”
Griffin pulled his wallet from his pocket, selected a five-dollar bill, and said, “You will make a great con man someday.”
“No con about it,�
� he said as he tucked his winnings in his pocket. “You just gotta have the smarts.” He tapped his head and smiled, turning back to his dad. “I told you that you should get rid of these guys.”
His father nodded. “Well, maybe now that we have a new major shareholder in the company to deal with, we can make some big changes.”
And, with that, they all trooped to the boardroom.
But Kerrick grabbed Amanda by the hand and pulled her back. She spun so fast that she found herself in his arms, pressed against his chest. He looked down at her and whispered, “Meaning?”
She looked up at him, her eyes soft and gentle. “You’ve been in the cold for so long, I think it’s time that you found a way home.”
“And where’s home?” His tone was brisk, but she could see the vulnerability in his eyes.
She grabbed his hand and placed it over her breast. “Home is here. In my heart.” She nodded gently and whispered, “I knew as soon as I met you. That’s the problem with being smart. Sometimes I know things before others do.”
A slow smile stretched across his lips as something dawned in his eyes. He whispered, “No. I knew as soon as I saw your photo.” He gently tapped her lips. “I was hooked.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, once, twice, and then she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hungrily.
She whispered, “I’ll admit defeat as long as you stay with me.”
“Forever?”
“Forever,” she affirmed, reaching up and kissing him again, their bodies locked together, heart, mind, and soul. It wasn’t just him who had come in from the cold. So had she.
Epilogue
Griffin woke to an odd buzzing on his night table. He glanced at the clock—2:03 a.m.—then around at his surroundings. Still in the same hotel room stateside that he had been living out of for the last week. Like Kerrick, Griffin was at a crossroads. He needed a real home but had no idea where it should be. If he continued to work with the Mavericks, he could live any damn place. They’d fly him to his op. He had some ideas but …
His phone’s insistent buzz brought him to full awareness. He grabbed it and frowned. “What?” he answered.
“Your services are needed,” said the stoic voice on the other end.
“Again? So soon?”
“What can I say? The world’s a mess,” the voice said.
“Not sure if I want to do any more of these specialized jobs,” he said quietly.
“Understood, but you have a unique skill set.”
“And what’s that?”
The other end went quiet.
Griffin wiped the sleep from his eyes. “Am I going in alone?”
“You can choose one. You’ll have all the support you need in the background as usual. And, if you need more backup, you only have to ask.”
“What about Kerrick?”
The voice hesitated. “How about Asher or Jax?”
“Jax? Jax Darrum?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t realize he was part of the team.”
“We’re considering it.”
Griffin laughed. “Meaning, he hasn’t said yes, and you’re hoping that, if you can get me to work a job with him, it’ll be a yes.”
“Potentially.” There was a dry sense of humor in that voice. “Kerrick is around, but he’ll run communications on this one.”
“You mean, that mysterious chat window?”
A slightly muffled cough could have easily been a chuckle when the voice said, “And maybe a little more.”
Griffin frowned. “What’s the job?”
“You’re heading out in the USS Anzio.”
“Wait,” Griffin said. “I’m not going anywhere until I hear what the job is.”
A loud sigh traveled between the phones. “The daughter of a British media newspaper mogul has been kidnapped and is being held in Thailand.”
“And what’s stopping the military from going in and grabbing her?”
“We only have one garbled message, saying that she’s married now and that she belongs with them.”
“And what does she say?” he asked, frowning. “Since when did a marriage keep somebody prisoner?”
“In many countries, it does keep them a prisoner, which is why she couldn’t get the word out to us that she’s being held.”
“How long has she been detained?”
“Three days.”
At that, Griffin straightened up in bed and threw off his blanket. “Three days? And you knew about it all this time?”
“No, we only got intel that this was a possible kidnapping at midnight. We’ve been waiting to get confirmation.”
“Well, I have to get there fast then,” he said. “That won’t be a couple hours’ trip.”
“True,” the voice said. “We can fly you partway, but we don’t want you entering the country using any passports.”
He swore. “So my face isn’t to be anywhere?”
“No, hence the ship.”
“Sure, but going from California to Southeast Asia? That’s hardly a twenty-four-hour event.”
“True enough. But, as you’ll see, there are other ways to go from one place to another. Be by the docks at 0600 sharp.”
And, just like that, the voice rang off. Swearing silently, Griffin realized he had less than four hours to be there. He got up, quickly packed, then showered and dressed. He would need food, depending on what was going on with his transportation. He looked over at the Chinese food he’d had last night and shrugged. “Cold Chinese food. Yum. I’ve had worse.” He used food as a sustenance and an energy source, hence keeping a selection of protein bars in his ready bag.
But still, it wouldn’t be enough. Depending on what was happening on board ship—and whether he was there officially or secretly—he could or could not be fed. He quickly finished off the chow mein, tossed the empty containers, and stepped out of his hotel room.
He had called for a cab, but instead the vehicle that pulled up was black and military-issued. He stepped into the passenger side and looked at the driver, surprised to see Jax. “Wow,” he said. “They did convince you after all.”
Jax shot him a hard look. “A one-time deal,” he said. “And only because I know you’re the one going out on this op.”
“Not alone if you’re coming with me,” Griffin said, returning his friend’s hard look with one of his own. He knew Jax from several overseas missions. He was a good man to have in your corner but an even better one if it entailed night work. “Apparently, we’re supposed to get in and out without anyone knowing we were there,” Griffin said.
Jax shrugged his shoulders. “So what else is new?”
They parked as close to the wharf as they could. Each picked up their duffel bag and tossed it over one shoulder. Then the two men walked to the end of the docks. A Zodiac waited for them. The pilot looked up at them, nodded toward the back, and said, “Let’s go. We’re late.”
Shrugging at that, both men hopped into the Zodiac, and it took off without any fanfare. By the time they reached the cruiser, they were led to the top deck. And still, without anybody saying a word, they were taken to a separate room, a small sleeping area. With shades of Kerrick’s mission in his mind, Griffin walked in the claustrophobic room, dumped his duffel bag, and planted his hands on his hips as he stared around. “Do you know anything more about this than I do?”
“I know Jax shit,” Jax said with a grin at the play on his name.
“Well, I don’t know anything either,” Griffin said, his tone harsh.
Just then a single rap came at the door, and a red envelope was slid underneath. Griffin quickly opened the door, hoping to see who had delivered the letter, but nobody was in the hallway. Like this was some ghost ship. He snatched up the envelope and tore it open. Travel instructions.
“Interesting,” he said. “We’re supposed to be in Thailand by noon tomorrow. Thailand time.”
“So we’re flying parts of it then,” Jax said.
“Yeah, but I alread
y checked. Any commercial flight takes nineteen to twenty-five hours. We better be flying Air Force One to make Thailand by then. Right off the bat, we’re short like fourteen hours, just because of the time differences. Could be more like fifteen hours ahead, depending on which part of Thailand we’re dealing with.”
Jax groaned, then threw himself on the top bunk. “I didn’t get much shut-eye last night.”
“Who did?” Griffin muttered. Trouble was, he was hungry again. The leftover Chinese food hadn’t done the job. He quickly pulled out his phone to check if he had any internet. He did, since they were still in port. He sent off a message. Envelope received. Travel instructions received. No damn food. No coffee.
He put away his phone and dropped to the bottom bunk, an arm across his eyes. It was one thing to be part of a well-oiled Navy SEAL team on board a ship. They did constant training when they went out to sea. Everybody had orders; everybody had instructions, and everybody had a part to play. In this scenario though, Griffin didn’t know what part he was supposed to play. That had been the same problem for Kerrick. After all those years of disciplined navy life, Griffin found the freedom something to adjust to. But he’d do just fine.
Helping out Kerrick had been a hell of a way to drop into this Mavericks system. Griffin wasn’t even sure it’s what he wanted to do long-term. He’d been on the fence when he’d been tagged to help out Kerrick—who was going in alone—and, well, that wasn’t Griffin’s kind of a play. Nobody should go into these shitstorms alone.
And, if some woman had been kidnapped, … well, two men would have good chances of survival and success where they might need more than just backup. His phone buzzed, and an encrypted file popped up with a note. His eyebrows shot up at that. He quickly followed instructions to decode it and went through the file on Amelia Rose.
“That’s the daughter we’re supposed to find,” he said, raising his phone to flash her picture to Jax. “Except it’s beyond dated.”
“Is she really being held against her will?” Jax asked. “That’s one of the biggest issues here. Was it her who put out the cry for help, or was it somebody else?”
Griffin was still going through her file when he froze, looked at the date, and swore. “I’ll say it wasn’t her choice,” Griffin snapped, studying the data in front of him.