‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’
“Is that the ship’s PA system?”
He nodded. “Your brain’s still cloudy. Breathe.”
“I thought I was dreaming it.”
“The ship’s air filtration system was the perfect delivery vehicle. We were out for four hours.”
Raznick’s German wasn’t as perfect as his Spanish, but he still sounded calm and authoritative. The man was using the languages spoken by the guests. This was Leo’s first time to hear the instruction while awake. Leo didn’t speak German, but Ace did. The fact that she didn’t ask him for a translation told him the severity of her headache and disorientation.
She was pale, shivering, and showed no visible reaction to the jaw-dropping news that they were now four hours into a siege. She’d wrapped her arms around her legs and tucked her knees into her chest.
“Deep breathing,” he said. “Work on it.”
She nodded with another inhale.
Fiddling with his watch, he refreshed the comm system, then reset his comm to the open line. “Agents. Ragno. Report.”
Silence.
Bleary-eyed, she shot him a questioning glance. “I’m set on the open line. I should’ve heard that. Have you had any contact with anyone?”
“No.”
“How long were we out?”
He frowned when she couldn’t remember what he’d already told her. He swallowed his frustration. He couldn’t fault her for her ether-induced confusion. After all, his brain had been so addled that he’d had a flashback that had knocked him to his knees, when he was damn well past the days of flashbacks.
As a matter of fact, as a condition of his employment, he was supposed to report the occurrence of flashbacks or PTSD episodes to the Black Raven psychiatrists. He thought about the episode he’d just had, with her naked in his arms, when he couldn’t get off his knees. Full circumstances were typically relevant in flashback analysis.
Yeah. Details of that one aren’t making it to an evaluation.
“A little over four hours,” he repeated. “Take deep breaths.”
“It’s freezing out here.” She eyed him from head to toe, then glanced down, at her own nude body.
He was sitting about two feet from her. Keeping his ass planted next to the deck chair, he fought the urge to move closer to her, hold her, and warm her up. She wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. Plus, the cool air would help her shake off the noxious after-effects of the gas quicker.
“To think I was worried about…” As her words trailed, she shook her head. Drawing her knees tight to her chest, she clutched her stomach with one hand, while holding her forehead with the other. “…that damn zipper. Look at us now.”
It was hard not to look at her. She was turned a little sideways from him. He had a partial view of the curve of her right breast, the delicate slope where her waist met her hip, and the graceful lines of muscular thigh and calf. Realizing she was staring at his body with the same level of distraction, he felt a moment of relief. His immediate next thought was that they both needed to take in more fresh air, because there was no room for distraction right now aboard Imagine.
‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’
This time, the announcement was being repeated in English. She set her jaw as she listened intently, as though she was noticing the instructions for the first time.
“Let me guess.” Her gaze returned to his. Her tone remained shaky, but her words were less tentative. “We’re not walking into the Calliope Theater as Chloe and Zack.”
His worry over her condition eased a bit with her statement, which he took as a clear sign her brain was starting to reassemble. “Correct. We’re Ace and Leo from here on out.”
She shut her eyes and held her head in the palms of her hands. “Jesus. This pain needs to go away.”
“You have at least eight more minutes of it.”
As the strobe of the emergency lights continued, each illumination of her face revealed that she was shifting into agent mode. Some of the glaze of pain and fatigue left her eyes. Her jaw became set. Her eyes drifted over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t the door be better open, since we need to get in there and suit up? Noxious fumes take a while to dissipate.”
“I left it open a crack, but we should give the room a few more minutes to air out. Right now, keep breathing, as deeply as you can.” He paused. “If I gave it any more than an inch, the open door would be seen.”
“Ship’s cameras?”
As their pre-job preparation, they’d both studied camera positions. Outside starboard cameras were angled to encompass a view of the balconies. Onboard cameras wouldn’t reveal their current position on the floor of the balcony, nor would the cameras reveal a slight crack in the balcony door. If it wasn’t for her ether-induced confusion, Leo would know that as well.
He gestured with his chin toward the direction of the open sea and the other ship, but the solid balcony wall blocked her view. He lifted himself a bit and peeked over the railing. The red nav light seemed to be in the same position as before.
“We’ve got company cruising with us. Slightly behind, as though it’s following. I want to stay out of their line of sight.”
She nodded as though she was well on her way to shaking off the effects of the ether and absorbing the facts. “With our comms down, we should signal them. It might be our easiest way of making a Mayday.”
“Can’t tell whether they’re friend or foe. They’re a little less than a mile away. My gut’s telling me foe, because their position hasn’t changed. They’re cruising at the same speed as us.”
She absorbed the news with a nod. “That’s close enough to interfere with Imagine’s radar and electronics. It’s probably equipped with a jammer and is sending false signals.” She took a long-measured breath, then exhaled. “That could be why we can’t use our comm system. Ours is dependent upon the ship’s system.”
“Any chance you can restore comms without going to the radio room?”
“Doubtful. Under the floorboard, I have a laptop, tablets, radios. I need to access radio signals to figure out what’s jamming us. The radio room is probably the only place I’ll be able to do that. Plus, once I’m there, I could also disable the ship’s surveillance cameras.”
He nodded. “Cameras definitely need to be shut down so we can move around the ship without alerting the powers that be. Since I doubt the ship’s coffee shop has a Wi-Fi hotspot—”
She chuckled, interrupting him, but her humor was short-lived. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and winced. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you’ve got the right idea.”
‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’
“Getting to the radio room seems like the most productive option. We don’t have a lot of time here,” Ace raised his voice to be heard over Raznick’s repetition of the instructions. “They’ll eventually do a cabin check.”
“Understood.”
“For now, we have to assume that the only fact that Ragno and headquarters know is that our comms are down. I’m betting the pirates have radar duping capabilities. Ragno probably sees a false radar reading.”
She nodded in agreement. “Which means even if we are off course, headquarters has no way of knowing where we’re going.”
“Okay then. Let’s get moving. The most direct route to the radio room will take us past the Calliope Theater.”
“No,” she said, with a firm headshake. “The theater’s on the Clio Deck. That’s two decks below us. The radio room is on the Erato deck. Two decks above.”
“Keep breathing. Your brain’s still cloudy. Due to the damn effective gassing, and because Raznick and whomever he’s working with are trying to corral all the guests in the theater, we have to assume we’re in a hostage situation. Which means we’ve got to avoid the ship’s cameras until we sabotage the surveillance system. Once they know about us, and perceive us as a threat—
“We look real threatening.”
He chuckled. “That’ll change soon.”
“
Anyway, once they see us as a threat, odds are they’ll start killing hostages to make us surrender.”
She closed her eyes for a second, then gave him a bleary-eyed nod. “Geez. Sorry. I know we can’t go straight there.”
“Correct. To avoid the surveillance cameras we’ll have to go down to go up. That plan works in our favor, because the only path that we can take will lead us right over the theater. We’ll get an eyeful of what’s happening there and plant a camera that will give us a view of the action. That way, when we do establish communication with Ragno, we know what to tell her.”
She gave a slow nod, then winced. “Still chasing my thoughts.”
“You need a few more minutes out here, because the room will have residual gas. Our O2 saturation levels need to be high.”
‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’
“I was…unnaturally tired before it happened,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t smell ether while we…were, you know…Did you?”
“No. Though it may have been taking effect while we were…otherwise occupied. God—” He couldn’t help but smile as he thought about being in bed with her. “That was incredible.”
She shifted closer to him, then kicked her heel into his shin. It didn’t hurt, but she used enough power to jolt the smile from his face. “Incredible? Really? We didn’t even speak in full sentences just now. How the hell will we write an after-action report?”
He chuckled. “Seems like your head’s getting clearer.”
“This job will be scrutinized from every angle. Imagine the look on Zeus’ face if he’d read an AAR with this sentence: ‘As Agent Evans and I were engaging in mutual oral sex, I started to smell ether. Instead of being alarmed, I continued sucking, because he had his mouth between my legs and it felt too good to stop.’”
Somehow, Ace couldn’t see Zeus laughing at that.
Leo pounded her fists on the floor of the deck. “Say something.”
“I didn’t have a warning, either.”
She kicked him again. “You’re missing the point.”
“Not at all. We’re on a three-day job. We were exactly where we were supposed to be. In our suite. Agents do things on a three-day job, like sleep, shower, sh—”
“Understood, though sex is an s-word that isn’t supposed to happen. We’re getting paid to work. Not have sex with each other.”
“Not all details make it into after-action reports. I know the bulk of your work has been in the cyber division, but—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. I know how to write an AAR. I’m not simply a desk agent—”
“My point is you’ve been in the field enough to know that some details aren’t relevant in an AAR, and our detour, as noteworthy as it might be in our lives, doesn’t need to see the light of day, no matter what happens on this job. How’s your head?”
“Bad, but thoughts are getting clearer.”
“Obviously.”
“I can work around the pain in my head. What we did, though…”
‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’
“Keep breathing. Your head will get better. We’re both intelligent. After this job, we’ll figure out what we need to do about our situation.”
“Don’t worry about our situation,” she snapped. “I know the fix for it. No matter how great it felt—”
“Pretty damn incredible—”
“You’re missing the point,” she said. “What we did in that bed isn’t happening ag—”
“It won’t stop our feelings for one another. It would be just like ignoring our kiss. If you’re honest with yourself, how effective was that?”
From the direction of the ship’s bow, maybe two decks down, a man’s harsh, guttural yell interrupted them. The man’s words, unintelligible, were followed by a pop-pop-pop of gunfire from an assault weapon. Leo’s eyes hardened and her jaw set. Just as quickly, he watched her eyes cloud with another wave of post-anesthetic grogginess. She needed more time outside, but they damn well had to get dressed and armed.
“Give me a few minutes inside to access the crawl space and our equipment. Take that time to clear your head. On my signal, follow me in. Shut the door behind you.”
“Roger.”
“When you’re gearing up, carry as much firepower as possible. Put on your gas mask first.”
“No need to state the obvious.”
“No need to be sensitive. Sorry if I sounded patronizing. It wasn’t intended that way. Stating the obvious helps me think.”
“I didn’t take it as patronizing. I took it as overprotectiveness. I thought maybe what happened earlier between us was getting in the way of proper agent to agent interaction.”
“It won’t.”
“Good. Don’t let it. Act like I’m a guy. Like you always did before.”
He’d been turning to the door when she dropped that verbal bomb. He glanced back at her. She’d dropped her head to her knees and folded her arms over her shins, a sure sign that she was in more pain than she was letting on. “Never thought I was treating you like a guy. I was just treating you like…you.”
Chapter Seven
12:44 a.m.
A minute earlier than they’d planned, his second-in-command stepped into the stateroom with two additional men. They wore camo-gear and carried assault rifles. Their gas masks, firmly in place, answered whether he should remove the mask he’d put on more than four hours earlier.
On the ship’s manifest, his second-in-command had been identified as Chad Ting. In their real-life world, the tall, pale-skinned, dark-haired man, of mixed Asian heritage, went by Skylar. The executioner. He planned to retire with his share of the proceeds from the job.
It was good to have a highly motivated co-conspirator.
Skylar stepped forward. His two men stayed behind him, at the door. They stood with their backs erect, their beefy arms dangling at their sides.
“Roundup of guests and security?” he asked, tuning out the repetitive bomp-bomp-bomp of the emergency signal and the directions that followed.
“Proceeding as planned.” Skylar said, nodding coolly, seemingly dismissive of the violence that was part of their ‘roundup’ plan. Casino guests were integral to the operation, for a while. Everyone else was immediately expendable.
Despite the violence that the plan required, he felt no remorse. No excitement. If anything, he felt relief that the operation was finally underway, with underlying anticipation of how wealthy he’d be after the next four hours.
Skylar apparently felt the same. The glint in his dark eyes was just as hard and humorless as ever. There was no sweat on his brow, or anywhere else that he could see. Showing no outward signs of nerves, the man appeared just as cool as he had in any of their lengthy planning meetings. For that, the man was worth every dollar of his steep fee.
“From here on out you and I will communicate through our mics,” Skylar said. “Testing. Line four.”
“Copy,” he answered, hearing Skylar though his ear mic, loud and clear. He dropped his voice to a low whisper. “Testing.”
“Copy,” Skylar said. “Our encryption’s in place. Be careful when around others. Take off your mask.”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s early for free breathing.”
“The gas has almost dissipated,” Skylar said. “You won’t inhale enough to pass out. A bit of sickness will help you stay in role.”
He unstrapped his gas mask, removed it from his face, and breathed air that smelled sickly sweet. When he moved towards the door, Skylar’s firm grip on his forearm halted his forward progress. “Mess up your tuxedo. Trust me, none of the other guests look so cool and crisp. Scared shitless is in order. When you’re around the guests, you need to act like one.”
Chapter Eight
12:45 a.m.
When Ace indicated, Leo began the trek back into their room. Trying to ignore the bomp-bomp-bomp of the emergency signal, and Raznick’s repetitive instructions, Leo stayed on her hands and knees. Using her foot, she shut the balcony door behind her
. Her head still throbbed, but the sharpest spikes of pain had diminished. While her brain fog hadn’t fully dissipated, she was managing to put together more and more thoughts.
Ace had removed a floorboard near the vanity. He stood, visible from the hips up in a crawl space, one of several possible ways for them to exit their suite undetected. He’d dressed in a tight base layer of black body armor, made of material that provided anti-ballistic protective coverage. Fibers in the clothing made it almost impervious to small arms fire.
“Catch.” Ace tossed her a full-face mask, with an attached safety helmet, identical to the one he wore. Strapping it on, she breathed in filtered air through the respirator, then started crawling his way.
Moving on autopilot, inch by inch, she stayed on all fours until she was away from the sight line provided by the balcony’s glass doors, just in case anyone on the nearby ship could see.
Ace paused as he fitted a bulletproof chest plate into the pocket that covered his chest. Nodding in her direction, with a slight smile, he said, “See? You’re not shy at all.”
Through the comm system built into the helmet, his voice resonated. For a second, her murky thoughts didn’t give her a clue as to what he was talking about. Then she remembered she was naked, but for the helmet and respirator, and he was gloating, because he’d been correct earlier. She wasn’t modest. Not in the least. There’d been good cause for him to call her out when she’d been shy about getting into an evening gown in front of him. “Be professional, Agent Evans.”
He chuckled, then refocused on assembling gear. All agents on board had access to the cache of weapons and gear that had been stowed in the crawl space under ‘Chloe and Zack’s suite, prior to boarding, by a Black Raven ‘crew member.’ It was one of two such stashes Black Raven had onboard. The other was in Agent Kamin’s room, on another deck, on the opposite end of the ship.
“Others should be showing up here for weapon power.”
“Yeah. It’s odd that no one has come yet.” In the illuminating strobe of the emergency lights, the shift in their relationship was reflected in Ace’s eyes, easily visible through the polycarbonate lens of his respirator mask. His gaze as he glanced her way to check her progress was…
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