“Copy. On our way. Over.” Ace said, then re-muted the system.
Line sixteen went silent. She checked the other lines. All were silent, except for line four, which hummed with a short burst of static and a few clicks. She glanced through the vent. Quan operatives on the casino floor were walking towards the bow of the ship.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They moved forward, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. The ship’s gentle roll reminded her that even though seas remained calm, they were still in a moving vessel. When they were further down the crawl space, almost to the next ceiling vent, a vertical entry panel rattled. Her mind raced through the ship’s schematics, approximating where the sound was coming from, as she and Ace froze. “Mid-ship service stairwell.” She glanced sideways, into Ace’s eyes. “Another area without surveillance cameras?”
“Correct. Get ready.” As he shifted sideways and unholstered his Glock, she reached over her shoulder and pulled hers out of its holster. “Company’s coming.”
Chapter Eleven
1:30 a.m.
Klunk.
Ace held up a finger, then four, indicating that the first of four screws had been removed from the access panel.
“Assumes we heard the first,” she whispered. “Staying where we are, or backing up? I vote staying.”
Her face was only a few inches from his. Distracted by a gleam in her eyes, he didn’t focus on her words. Instead, he thought about how she had looked in his arms as he’d tried to carry her out of their suite. Lifeless. In his core, he felt a strong premonition that her time was running out, as surely as gravity would pull the last grains of sand through the top of an hourglass to the bottom.
“Evans?” Her whisper was worried. Her eyes, doubly so. Her use of his last name underscored her concern that he was no longer thinking as an agent.
His mental detour had lasted only a second or two, but it was long enough to make him wonder what-in-the-name-of-hell he was doing getting so distracted while on a job that had gone sideways. He didn’t have to wonder for long, because he’d had four years of learning about the problem.
PTSD, rearing its ugly head in a way that it shouldn’t. Here I am, four years later, distracted by being in love when I’m supposed to be focusing.
He mentally shook his thoughts clear. “Yeah. Weighing options.”
He glanced over his shoulder. They’d entered through a similar panel, which was now a solid fifteen yards behind them. Getting out that way wasn’t an option. It would take too much time to backtrack. Dropping into the casino through the vent they’d been looking through, now five yards behind them, also wasn’t an option. With four Quan operatives beneath them, getting to it and unscrewing it would take too long.
“Staying. We’ll neutralize the immediate threat coming to join us. Move forward. Next vent. Double time.” The next vent that looked down into the casino, ten yards ahead of them, would give him a better firing position at the operatives on the casino floor. “Need to see action below us while we focus forward.”
Side by side, they crawled forward. Her movements were smooth, lithe, and super fast. More important than fast, she moved quietly. Quite a feat, considering they were in full battle gear, plus some, and the tubing and ductwork in the crawl space made movement a challenge.
Klunk.
She made it to the vent at the same time he did. Looking through the narrow slats of the panel, he spotted the four Quan Security operatives taking their sweet-ass time as they walked through the sea of bodies littering the casino floor. Presumably, they were looking to see whether the guests that Skylar had said were missing–the Blackwells, the Wens, or Chloe and Zack— were hiding among the dead. One stopped, using the barrel of his rifle to nudge a face for a better view.
If he and Leo had to fire at whomever was coming through the entry panel, their gunfire would resonate in the close quarters, even with silencers. Despite their nonstop chatter, intermittent laughter, and “O Holy Night” playing on the casino speakers, the operatives on the floor below them would hear the shots coming from overhead. Repetitive rounds from the QBZ-95s that the operatives carried would weaken, crack, then penetrate the stainless-steel crawl space. Which meant the four men needed to die before Ace and Leo fired their first shot.
“You take the panel,” he whispered, eye to eye with her.
She nodded.
“I’ll take the casino. Zero margin for error. These guys are wearing chest and back plates. If you don’t have a head shot, go for femoral, carotid, or brachial arteries.”
“You’re stating the obvious.”
Unperturbed, he continued, “Might take more than one shot, if their anti-ballistic material’s as good as ours. Even ours isn’t impenetrable. Theirs won’t be, either.”
Sliding forward, she lifted her body over the ceiling panel, then crawled forward into a better position for firing. “Hey. Want to show me how to pull a trigger?”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. He deserved the pushback, because he was telling her things she damn well knew. And why? Hell if he knew. It might be because he was having a hard time simply thinking of her as an agent, and not someone he loved. As she glared at him, he realized that she evidently wasn’t having the same sort of difficulty. “Nah. Think you have that covered.”
Klunk.
“One more,” she said.
Imagine had departed Macau with sixteen Black Raven agents aboard. Those agents had consisted of Ace’s twelve-agent team, which included him and Leo, plus four agents in Tier Two security, as personal bodyguards to two of the guests. They’d just counted seven agents on the floor of the casino, and their vantage point didn’t give him confidence that their body count was complete. Despite that, he remained hopeful that some of their agents had survived. “It could be Black Raven agents coming through that panel.”
“Understood. Friendly fire concerns are present.” Leo’s whisper was low enough that he only heard it on his helmet comm.
“It could also be the Blackwells. Or, more likely, Ling Wen. His shipyard built Imagine. We have to assume he knows about this crawl space and how it avoids ship’s surveillance.
“Roger,” she said. “You handle your end. I’ll handle mine.”
He kept his gaze focused on the casino floor. “It would be damn helpful to talk to any of our remaining agents and ask if it’s them on the other side of that panel.”
“If they’re Black Raven, and if they’ve suited up,” she whispered, “helmet comms should work as soon as their heads break the plane of the crawl space. Steel walls are interfering with transmission.”
Beneath them, one of the Quan operatives eyed a stack of bodies. Another pulled a cigarette out of a pocket of his cargo pants. Yet another talked rapidly in Mandarin, waving his hands. The others listened.
“Are they saying anything helpful?” Ace asked.
After a second, she whispered, “No. Dumb guy stuff, which, under the circumstances, makes me really want to kill them.”
“Such as?”
“Jokes. Boobs, vaginas, and fucking someone’s mother. Can’t believe they can joke while walking through a killing field.”
His stomach twisted with anger over their callousness. He shifted position to keep the men, who were now backtracking, within his sights. It was hard to make a U-turn in the tunnel-like space, but he slipped off his backpack, compressed his body, and managed. Leo moved forward to make room for him as he swung around the vent. He and Leo were now facing in opposite directions. His left leg was pressed along her left side. To him, she felt small. Fragile. He knew better.
Relatively small, yes.
Fragile? Like a charging rhino.
Ace stilled his breath, forcing himself to ignore the repetitive clang of warning signals over their personal situation. More immediate issue: his kill order for the guys below him. First–skinny Cigarette Smoker, who was eyeing bodies as he walked slowly ahead of the others. Second–the asshole standing over Agent Ryan’s body
. Third and Fourth–the two nearby, eyeing stacks of chips on the craps tables. The distance between them didn’t shut them up. It only made the one whose turn it was to tell a joke talk louder. Which was working in his and Leo’s favor.
“Counting on your eyes on the entry panel. Good guys won’t be wearing camo.”
“Understood.”
“Assume casino’s surveillance cameras remain live. My gunfire will draw more enemy there.”
“Copy.”
“If I give you the order to abandon this scene and get to the radio room, move as fast as possible. Do not hesitate. Mayday is your priority. Leave while I draw their fire to me.”
For as long as I can.
Silence.
Yeah. I wouldn’t like that order from her, or anyone, either.
“Agent?”
“Copy,” she said, with tangible reluctance.
Klunk.
Through the sights of his Glock, he focused on the round head and jet-black hair of Cigarette Smoker, who was now walking further away.
“Panel’s removed,” she said. “Can’t identify. Yet.”
He drew a deep breath. Kept his trigger finger still, but ready.
“Not wearing camo,” she said.
“Need more.”
“Black Raven.” Leo’s tone was steady and certain. “Stand down. Agents. Acknowledge. Black Raven. Agent. Acknow—”
“Black Raven. Kamin. Copy.”
As Kamin’s voice registered through the speaker in his helmet, a loud clunk reverberated through the crawl space. Cigarette Smoker stopped walking, glanced up, eyed the ceiling in the vicinity of the entry panel, and cocked his head to listen.
Ace gave his trigger finger a little more pressure. Cigarette Smoker took a drag, then exhaled a long plume of gray smoke as he continued walking towards the door. Ace eased his trigger finger, slightly, but kept his aim focused until the four exited the casino.
“Gone.” As soon as the casino door shut behind them, Ace turned around to face Kamin and three additional Black Raven agents—Marks, Branch, and Scott—all in full battle gear, but without respirators covering their face. They were lined up on the left side of the crawl space.
Ace pressed himself against the right wall to address them, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t be overheard in the casino below, but loud enough to carry through the helmet mic.
Kamin, undercover as the ship’s engineer, had been the leader of Omega team. He’d started out the job as third in command, which now made him second. Within a minute, they’d traded information. Ace provided a few details of the massacre in the casino, the names of the Black Raven agents who were dead, and the names of the guests who remained out of Skylar’s grasp. Kamin and Marks had killed two Quan Security agents and hidden their bodies in Kamin’s stateroom. Like Ace and Leo, Kamin also had seen Follower. He reported that as of ten minutes ago, the smaller ship remained on the starboard side of Imagine.
“Sixty Quan Security agents were aboard at the inception of the cruise. Quan radio transmissions indicate that the Blackwells killed one and disabled another. Between us, we’ve killed four. Which means there are a minimum of fifty-four still standing. We also have to assume that there were other Quan agents among the staff and Tier Two security.”
Kamin had been thinking along the same lines as Ace and Leo. “Yes, sir. Agreed. Numbers aren’t in our favor, yet. We were using this crawl space to head to the forward service stairwell. We were hoping we’d come across Leo or Ryan.”
The dark-haired agent set his jaw after speaking Ryan’s name. Then he rolled his shoulders and shook his head, having to visibly force away his emotion. Ace knew how Kamin felt. He was damn sure they all felt the same way about the death of the young, smart agent with the nice, bright smile. And they were all friends with the other agents who had been killed. While Black Raven was an enormous company with plenty of agents, those agents who were considered elite—and all aboard Imagine fit that category—were part of a smaller subset. But no matter how they felt about their fallen colleagues, there wouldn’t be time for mourning until the job’s end. Ace, whose eyes were locked with Kamin’s, watched the man recover, with a hard glint in his gaze that echoed Ace’s thoughts.
This isn’t the time for grief. It’s the time to make the bastards pay.
“We were headed to the radio room,” Kamin continued. “I have rudimentary knowledge of how to establish a connection for a Mayday and how to disable the surveillance system, but Leo’s expertise far surpasses mine. Then we were going to start killing these fuckers.”
Ace thought through the ship’s schematics and the relative strengths and weakness of his team members. “This is how we’ll do it. All actions run concurrently. We have three immediate goals. One—send Mayday, restore our agent-to-agent comms, and take out ship’s surveillance. Two—reduce enemy numbers. Our presence needs to be undetected until the numbers are better. Once Quan Security knows about us, they’ll start killing hostages to make us stop. Three—disable hydraulics to halt any sort of evacuation to Follower.”
As he spoke, his agents returned his gaze with glances full of grimness and resolve. When he looked into Leo’s eyes, the foreboding returned. In a split second, he saw himself carrying Kat away from a battlefield. Instead of Kat, the person in his arms was Leo.
Fuck.
He cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders, and managed to shake off his misplaced personal concerns over Leo, her safety, and their future. For a second or two, he let his gaze run along the tubing and ductwork in the cramped space. As his resolve built, he focused his gaze on the other agents. “Keep in mind our ultimate goal is to free the hostages. Then we’ll work on gaining control of the helm. For as long as possible, we will try not to alert the powers that be to our presence. Innocent souls depend upon us. Trust your instincts, knowledge, and weapons. Improvise as needed. Let’s outsmart them.”
Ace looked at the two agents who had entered the crawl space last. “Branch. Scott. You’re now Omega team. You’ll work the stern area, in the aft service stairwell. Take out as many Quan Security personnel as possible. Without detection.”
Ace explained the potential for immediate live action in the stern area, as Skylar had directed Wendt and Yang to assist another team there in their search for the Blackwells. “Obviously, Wendt and Yang haven’t shown up, so other Quan operatives will soon be doing recon. Plus, Leo and I left blood splatter in the aft service stairwell when we were there, which could draw more Quan operatives to the area if it’s noticed. We have to assume it will be. Move elsewhere as needed. Remember, until we disable the system, once you exit that stairwell, unless you’re in a crawl space, you’re likely under camera surveillance. Once our comms are reestablished, we’ll reassess positioning. Go.”
Branch and Scott eased past the other agents, nodding as they belly-crawled past him. He glanced over his shoulder at their progress, watching them pause briefly at the first vent they came to that provided a view of the casino floor. They didn’t linger.
He refocused on the remaining agents. Marks. Kamin. Leo. Of the three, he saw only one. She was looking over her shoulder at him as she waited for his order.
“Kamin and Leo. You’re Delta team. Your goal is to get to the radio room, where you will make a Mayday call, then reestablish agent-to-agent comms. Disable the ship’s surveillance.”
“Yes, sir,” Kamin said.
“Yes, sir,” she echoed.
Ace couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on her, as a flash of ‘I’ve got this’ lightened her caramel-colored eyes. Before she turned away from him and started moving forward, she gave him a confident, cocky nod that made his breath catch and his heart sink.
It’s as though she thinks she’s goddamn invincible.
Her confidence didn’t bother him one bit. Her cockiness made him want to pull her back to him and tell her that odds were against them. That she was human. That she wasn’t infallible. But those were things that she already knew, and
the fact that he felt an urge to say them now told him something about the possibility of a future for the two of them that he wasn’t ready to admit.
And he sure as hell didn’t have time to dwell on it now.
Chapter Twelve
1:45 a.m.
Leo and Kamin paused at a vent, looking through the slats into the theater. They were positioned above the tenth row of seats, towards the left of the stage. Ceiling height varied as the floor sloped towards the stage. They were a little more than twenty feet above the floor, with a view of two-thirds of the theater, from the middle rows to the stage. A syrupy version of “White Christmas,” playing on theater speakers, provided low background music that juxtaposed a layer of surrealism over the drama unfolding below them.
Her hand slipped, as one of the wiring tubes that ran along the floor of the crawl space rolled from her weight and the ship’s movement. She readjusted her body, using her forearms for balance and her core strength to stay still.
The theater had seating capacity for two hundred. Plush, forest-green drapes, with gold trim, were drawn across the stage. A cluster of three blue spruce trees, flocked lightly with a dusting of white snow, stood in a grouping at center stage, on platforms that could be moved as needed for performances. Golden bows, sprays of holly, and twinkling, star-like lights made the trees picture perfect. Ornaments in varying sizes, all red, green, gold, and white, reflected the lights.
Guests sat in burgundy-velvet, theater-style seats, looking smaller than they had when they’d been in the casino. Most wore the cocktail clothes they’d planned to wear to the opening night’s festivities—glittering, low cut gowns, and tuxedos. Some wore casual clothes they’d worn in their rooms as they dressed for the night’s festivities. Others wore plush, cream-colored robes that had been in their staterooms. Some were pale. A few were crying. All had their attention focused forward, towards the stage.
Eight men in camouflage stood in the orchestra pit, with QBZ-95s hoisted and aimed at their captive audience. Five more armed men roamed the aisles, their weapons pointed at the guests.
Imagine (Black Raven Book 4) Page 12