Instigator (Strike Force: An Iniquus Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  The drug still hadn’t worn off Christen. She had struggled against it, but Gator had convinced her to put her head on his shoulder and try to rest.

  He thought about Johnna Red. The drug had been absorbed into her body quickly. Blaze had said Karl was passing out medicine, and Red was puking. Blaze thought the time frame was such that, if she had accepted the drugs, she should have puked them back out. But she was in the same daze as Christen had been when Gator ripped the sheets and tied Red to her mattress. It had been hours of rain and wind by that point. It had gotten so bad that the captain had sent out a pan-pan alert, letting area boats know that they were in a state of urgency if not emergency. It let potential rescuers know they were in distress, but didn’t require them to stop everything and come to their aid.

  Gator wondered if that had turned to a mayday when the crew discovered two people missing from the yacht. Was the US Navy headed their way? There were a lot of ifs behind that thought. If they had been discovered missing by the yacht crew. And if there was a US Navy ship in the area. And if anyone besides Blaze would care that they were gone.

  Chances of anyone noticing and trying to do something about it—came down to almost zilch. Blaze, he’d be looking for them. Everyone else was drugged except the crew and the security, as far as Gator knew.

  Why would Karl pass meds like that? Did he mix them up? Did he think that sleeping through the event would be helpful? What the hell kind of drug would effect Christen like this? It was almost like she was roofied, or some such shit. Gator could see Karl as the kind of guy who would get off on drugging women, so he could be in control.

  Gator thought back to the boat and wondered who had thrown her over. Whoever those men were, they hadn’t taken Karl’s pills. Either crew (which made no sense) or security, or guests who were faking the medicinal effects. It wasn’t Blaze, him, or Johnna. It was a small playing field. Why, though? Why would someone throw Christen over the side? Who wanted her dead? They’d pulled off her life vest. It wasn’t a stunt. They were trying to murder her.

  All he had seen was black silhouettes against the inky backdrop. The satellites probably weren’t functioning in all this, but Gator still had his watch on his wrist. Even if he died, as long as he was floating in his life vest, the watch should send those last images on to Headquarters. Once the storm was lifted, Iniquus would put two and two together and be on the hunt for them. And he knew Lynx had already sounded the alarm. If she picked up the images of the little girl in the field with the goats, and could see better than he could that the black dots the child was watching were helicopters coming down, then Lynx would be living through this with him. Strike Force would be rallied. All hands on deck.

  “D-Day?” He needed to stop thinking of her as Christen. Their being in the water made it more important than ever to keep his guard up. He couldn’t be tempted to pour out his heart. If she’d finished the words she started in her drugged stupor, it could be—it was possible—that she felt the same way that he did. And those words could mean that they wouldn’t live to see their rescue. Or worse, that only he would live to see their rescue. That thought brought back the torture he’d felt under the holy man’s spell. The utter horror of living on… “D-day!”

  “Hmmm”

  “On Tuesday, before you left for this mission. You were deployed to the Middle East, there were two helicopters, One was shot down, one landed. You flew that mission.”

  She nodded against his shoulder.

  “There was a little girl. Red bandana. Roses on the hem of her dress and goats.”

  She nodded and snuggled closer. “Yes, that’s right.” She was shivering despite the warmth of the air and water. Even if the water was warm here, it was still cooler than body temperature, and they both stood a real chance of hypothermia and death. He’d have to rouse her soon; get her kicking to warm up.

  That last nod of her head was the affirmation he needed. He’d connected to her as soon as the mission was a go, and Johnna Red and Lula LaRoe were headed toward D-day’s FOB. He sent a message of thanksgiving to the heavens for all of the information, all of the warnings he’d been given. As much as he had hated the experience, it was still a gift. He felt a little better equipped to keep her alive.

  But who wanted her dead?

  The contact lenses might be their only way of knowing. He had lost his lens the second he hit the water. D-day, too, he was sure. But her eyes had opened when she was lifted, when she kicked and tried to get away. Whatever her lens picked up might have even better images on them than his would. Yeah. He wasn’t sure if her bracelet or his watch was up to the punishment they’d just endured, but there was a chance.

  Gator’s jaw trembled with cold and his teeth rattled.

  D-day moaned in his arms.

  “Help is on its way,” he whispered into her ear. “They know we’re in the water. They’re coming. We just need to hold on.”

  “Night Stalkers never give up,” she muttered it so quietly he barely heard. But Gator felt reassured. That must be the mantra that was circulating in her brain. Having that fundamental belief, that code, was imperative – it had gotten many a Marine and soldier through many an impossible situation.

  And if ever there was an impossible situation. This was it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Christen

  Saturday, (maybe?) The waters off the west coast of Sumatra (probably)

  It took a few awkward tries, but she and Gator had figured out how to lay on their sides and scissor kick and side stroke without hitting and kicking each other. They weren’t aiming toward anything. They had a vague idea, from where the sun was positioned low in the western sky, hidden by a thick blanket of clouds, that this was the direction of land. It had been a long day in the water. The waves still choppy, she had swallowed down her fair share of salt water and Gator had made her stick her finger down her throat and barf it back up. Still, her stomach cramped and seized. The drug had worn off, and Christen assumed that was the source of her killer hangover. Her head was a kettle drum being beat with a staccato constancy.

  They had no idea where they were. Grey water filled the bottom of her visual field, grey sky filled the top. Three hundred and sixty there was nothing else to focus on. They were aiming west toward land. Neither of them had any hope of swimming that far.

  They were both dehydrated from vomiting on the yacht and almost twenty-four hours in the salt water. They had lapped at the fresh water from the rain as best they could, but that had ended. A blessing and a worry. Both were low on calories that they’d been burning to stave off hypothermia. Their muscles screamed and cramped from fatigue. This exercise in swimming was supposed to warm their blood up and keep them alive a little longer. Gator was worried because she’d stopped shivering.

  Gator swore to her that help was on its way. Swore that he had some kind of psychic connection with some chick back home named Lynx, and she would be tearing up the airwaves getting them help. He told her that Lynx was rabid about protecting those she loved and nothing that could be done would be left undone.

  Christen focused her will on staying alive for that rescue.

  They decided to take one thousand strokes and then rest. They agreed to carefully count each one. An occupied mind wouldn’t worry about sea wasps or anything else that might be lurking under the churning froth covered waters. An occupied mind wouldn’t formulate all kinds of vicious jealous feelings that Gator must be in love and possibly—probably—married to this woman whom he was so deeply connected to. Maybe he’d even fathered her children. Oddly, those thoughts seemed every bit as life-threatening as the waves that had crashed over her last night. As if not being able to love Gator could pummel her into the depths, and she might not resurface.

  She didn’t know anything about Gator, she argued with herself. Nothing. He’d taken her hand standing on the yacht’s deck…But that could be because he was a player. Or it was a weird moment. It might have meant nothing to him. It could have been friend
ly, and she was interpreting things through her own heart’s lens. That moment might have nothing to do with real feelings. Feelings like she’d been wrapped in since they met. She wasn’t going to ask him for clarification either. Though, he was right here, his face inches from hers. She needed to stay on mission. Her mission was to survive. Once she was out of the water, she’d face the next test. Right now, she needed to take stroke three hundred and thirty-four. Three hundred and thirty-five. Three hundred and thirty-six.

  “It’s going to be dark again soon. They’ll call off the search until morning,” she said, girding her loins, so to speak. It was going to be a bad ten hours or so. She’d been through bad before. Ten hours of bad was doable.

  “Okay,” Gator said. “We can easily make it until morning.”

  “Agreed,” she said. Three hundred and forty. Three hundred and forty-one. “I think I’m hallucinating,”

  “Do you see a boat?” he asked stopping mid-stroke, swinging his head.

  She felt the electricity of adrenaline move from his body to hers. He wrapped his arms around her as if to protect her. Then she felt a nudge against her back.

  “Shark,” she exhaled. She hadn’t been hallucinating.

  The bump came again.

  Gator thrust them deeper into the water, they were cheek to cheek as the massive shark swam straight at them, it suddenly turned and swam off. They pushed against the water to propel them back up to the surface. Christen sucked in a lungful of air. “What just happened.”

  It took Gator a moment to catch his breath enough to answer. “Guy I knew once told me that sharks hate eye contact, so if you’re ever attacked, try and stare ‘em down.”

  “And you believed him?” Christen laughed at the absurdity and her over-tight nerves.

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Her face lost the victorious grin. “There are more of them. Look here they come.”

  Gator reached into his BDUs and pulled out the sheet she’d been wrapped in the night before.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe if we get this around us and the fabric is floating out, it’ll confuse them.” He lifted his hands up as if donning a cape and wrapped the cloth around them, letting it drift. The sharks were still there. They weren’t circling. They weren’t bumping into them either. Maybe it was working. Or maybe they were just plotting.

  Gator and Christen bowed their heads until they touched.

  “You’re keeping me sane,” Gator said. “I couldn’t ask to go overboard with a better battle buddy.”

  “Same,” Christen said. But the words hurt. She thought of him as so much more than a comrade in a catastrophe. He didn’t feel the same or he’d have chosen different words. And there was that Lynx, chick. Christen was horrified at the return of those jealous emotions; she really had nothing but gratitude for anyone who might be laboring to pull them out of the water.

  Another night. Another night of darkness. The flashlight wasn’t working and Gator, had kept the shiny parts of it to use as a possible signal, but let the rest go. It was extra weight they didn’t need. Tonight would be pitch black. Sharks. Jellyfish. Cold and fear.

  She tipped her head back and with conviction shouted. “Night Stalkers never give up.” And that’s when she saw it. “I think I’m hallucinating,” she whispered.

  “Only one hallucination allowed every thousand strokes. We were at three hundred forty-two when we took the shark break. We still have a few more strokes before we get another hallucination, and then it’s my turn.” He grinned, but there was little energy to it. She could see in his eyes the toll that this was taking on his mind and body. Same as hers. They were in trouble.

  “Okay,” she said. She turned her head and rested it on Gator’s life jacket and watched the phantom ship chugging toward them. It was the fifth ship that one of them had seen. They’d call out and point, the other would turn and see nothing. Once the illusion was so strong, the desire so big, that they both saw a canoe paddled by two boys, and they took out after it. But when they got to the side, it vanished.

  This time it was different. This boat had lights. It also made noises. “This is a pretty good hallucination, I’m having.”

  “Copy that,” Gator replied.

  “I’m going to tell you what I see, and you tell me what you see at the exact same time – let’s test the possibility that I might not have gone completely insane.”

  “Wilco. Count of three. One. Two.” The descriptive words that came out of their mouths were almost exactly the same.

  “It might be real,” Christen said, in shock.

  She glanced around, and the shark fins no longer traced through the water. “Quick! Quick! We need to unhitch ourselves, so we can spread the sheet, and they can see us.”

  They both tried, but their shaking waterlogged fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

  They spread the sheet into the current as best they could, held up a section as high as they could and yelled their heads off, buoyed by hope.

  Bells and commotion told them that they’d been spotted, but the two didn’t take a chance that what they were perceiving was their wishful hopeful brains making up illusions. They continued screaming and waving as they saw two men dive into the water and swim their way. They screamed as the rescuers discovered they’d been locked together and devised a way to haul them back to the boat. They screamed and yelled while they were plucked from the water and hauled onto the deck, while knives cut their lifejackets from around them. They screamed and yelled until the crew said. “We’ve got you. You’re safe.”

  They clutched at each other, a habit now, while warm blankets were wrapped around their trembling bodies, and water bottles were pushed into their hands. “Just a little sip. Not too much. There. Nope. Stop. Only a tiny bit at a time.” And that’s when they both finally registered the miracle of their rescue. They were safe. They’d been found. They rolled into each other’s’ arms and sobbed at the enormity of their gratitude.

  ***

  The crew on the aptly named “Fortune’s Wheel”, a tourist boat run by a seventies-era surfer-dude from New Jersey, were stellar.

  “We got the call. They were looking for boats willing to go out as soon as we deemed it safe. It was still dark last night, when I gathered my crew. I told ‘em get ready, as soon as it’s light we’re going to find these two. I believed…” he choked on the end of that sentence and swiped at a tear. “I was supposed to go to a funeral today. My buddy, Larry, he had a heart attack on the water, and they couldn’t get him in to medical help fast enough. I surfed with him for decades. A real loss. He loved the water.” He stopped, and his focus went inward. “I prayed on it. Prayed to Larry. I told him that I could go to his damned funeral and toss some dirt, or I could get in my boat and go save you. I had a feeling you were alive. I knew it. They told me you were both elite soldiers. I’ve read about what that takes. Yup, I knew you were out there, fighting.” He laid his fist on his heart. “Yup, I said to Larry that’s what I was going to do, in honor of him. I said, ‘Larry, point the way. You can see clear now. You know where they’re at; I just need a nudge, see?’”

  He looked up as one of his men came in with a tray of mugs filled with hot soup and passed them around. “Yup, I was watching the coconuts, and they were pulling hard to the north,” he continued. “You two floated almost a hundred kilometers from where they said you went over. How the hell you lived through that… my hats off to you.” He raised his mug in their direction.

  Christen wasn’t sure she had the strength to even get hers to her mouth. She wanted to sleep but they wouldn’t let her. They were slowly warming them, slowly hydrating them and giving them nutrients. They said to do otherwise would shock the body.

  “I was heading to where I thought I might intersect with you.” He tapped a finger on his chart. “And I swear to god, I felt Larry reach over and adjust my hand on the wheel, turned me a good three degrees. If that adjustment hadn’t happened. I nev
er would have seen you. Never.”

  He stood up and reached in the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of rum and three glasses. “I’m just giving you a drop. It would kill you to take a shot. But I’d like to give a salute to Larry.”

  “To Larry,” they said.

  Christen threw back the alcohol. It burned her parched throat to the point she had to stifle a scream behind her fist.

  “Drink your soup. Then, I think you two should get some sleep. I’ll let you know when we reach the harbor. It’ll be a while. Your company, Iniquus, will have an ambulance waiting to take you to the hospital. They want us to take you back to Singapore. They said they need to speak to you as soon as you’re able. They also said you aren’t to communicate with anyone else until you get up with them. I ain’t prying into your business, how or why you found yourself floating in the northern reaches of the Malacca Straight. I’m not asking….” He looked up at them with puppy dog eyes.

  Christen thought he should have something to satisfy his curiosity. She turned and looked into Gator’s eyes, “Just happened to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. But thankfully we were together.” And as she said it, Gator slowly closed his eyes and crossed his arms over the bright yellow t-shirt donated by one of the crew. It felt like he was pulling his energy back away from her. It felt like a retreat from a battle he didn’t want to win.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Christen

  Monday, Singapore

  They had been cleared at the hospital. The guys on the boat had done an outstanding job getting them warmed and rehydrated. The doctors said they’d followed protocol to the letter. “Go home. Get some sleep. Give your bodies some time to recover. If you’re having trouble sleeping, or with anxiety. I encourage you to see a mental health care professional.” He shook their hands.