by Rachel Grant
The man shrugged. “She’s new.” He glanced to the side, probably to be certain he wouldn’t be overheard. “She’s—”
Ian struck, taking him down with one smooth blow. He dragged the guard to the remaining tender and shoved him in the bow of the small inflatable, making sure the unconscious man wasn’t visible from the deck. Guard tucked away, he strolled up the stairs and headed toward Hill’s stateroom, praying he’d find Suzanne conscious and cooperative.
Cressida shivered as she waited on the dock with Trina. The wind had kicked up, meaning the ride would be rough and chilly. In the distance, she heard the whirr of a motorboat. Trina called Keith, who was with a team on a Zodiac in the middle of the Chesapeake, nearing the area Lee had identified as the most likely location of the yacht.
“The tender is coming,” Trina said and handed the phone to Cressida.
“We’ll be moving into position as you do,” Keith said. “We’ll lock on your coordinates as soon as you hit the panic button on your cell.”
“Got it.”
“Stay on deck if you can. The helipad deck is the most open, therefore the safest. It shouldn’t take us more than five minutes to slip on board. Even if Ian and Suzanne are inside, don’t go below deck unless you have no choice.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. See you soon.”
“See you. And Keith? Thanks. For everything.”
“Sure thing, doll.”
She gave Trina back her phone as the boat pulled up to the dock, then pasted a cheerful smile on her face and waved at the skipper.
Just like that, the mission had begun.
Chapter Forty-Four
Suzanne leaned against Ian as they made their way to the tender. “So sorry…” she mumbled. “This isn’t…” Her voice faded before she could finish the thought.
He lifted her, placing her in the boat. A quick check of the guard showed the man was still unconscious. He gripped the rail to pull himself into the boat beside Suzanne, when he heard a boat engine in the distance. He glanced at the empty cables for the second tender.
Who was coming?
“Raise your hands and step away from the tender, Boyd.”
Ian stiffened but kept his back to the speaker. He recognized the voice: Dr. Patrick Hill.
“Raise your hands,” the man repeated.
Ian had no choice and did as instructed. He turned slowly, facing Hill and one of his toadies, whom Ian had met earlier. What was his name? Oh yeah, Carlson. He hadn’t caught the guy’s first name and frankly didn’t care. All that mattered was the guy was as dirty as his boss.
Both Hill and Carlson held guns, which were trained on Ian’s chest.
“You really shouldn’t take off now, Boyd. Your girl is on her way,” Hill said with a snicker. “Things are just about to get interesting.”
Shit.
The engine noise grew louder.
“If she gives me the microchip right away, I might be generous and toss you in the bilge together before I kill you both, instead of after.”
Ian couldn’t hold back a growl.
Hill laughed. “And if she won’t tell me where the tunnel is, I’ll torture her while you watch. One of you is bound to talk.”
Ian curled his hands into fists. Cressida wouldn’t risk coming to the boat when the CIA was watching her every move. She must have hacked the chip and learned Hill wasn’t the good-guy-philanthropist-explorer everyone believed him to be.
Odds were, Hill had guessed that too, but he’d lured her here under a pretense that required her to play clueless. No problem. Ian knew when to call a bluff and when to let the pot build.
Hill had made a reckless bet, because Cressida had Raptor at her back, but dammit, Ian was horrified at the idea of her stepping into the line of fire. If she really did show up on the yacht, when this was over, he and the CEO of Raptor were going to have words.
Ian slammed the lever that controlled the remaining tender. The small boat dropped into the Chesapeake. At least Suzanne was out of the line of fire and couldn’t be used against Cressida.
“You’ll regret that, Boyd,” Hill said. He nodded to his minion. “Take his gun.”
Carlson approached slowly. “It’s too bad, the things that are going to happen to your girl. I liked Cressida when I met her last summer.” The man took Ian’s gun from the back holster and pressed it against Ian’s forehead. He flashed an ugly grin. “She’s got great tits.”
Ian would happily rip his face off.
“What do you think, Patrick,” Carlson asked, “should I shoot him?”
“Don’t be stupid, Perry. Without Suzanne, we need him alive to convince Cressida to talk. I doubt she’ll fret much if we torture Ganem.” Hill cocked his head, studying Ian. “Ganem tipped you off, didn’t he?”
Ian said nothing.
Hill plucked a radio from his belt. “Bring Ganem on deck when I question the girl.” He clipped the radio to his hip again and faced Ian. The engine noise had become a low roar. “Sounds like the party is just about to start,” Hill said.
The barrel of the gun pressed deeply into Ian’s forehead. He could think of no scenario in which he came out of this situation alive.
He had no problem staring death in the face, but fear for Cressida hurt more than any torture Hill could throw his way.
At least he’d told her he loved her. He just wished he’d said it a thousand times in those last hours they had together.
Cressida recognized a boat identical to the one she rode in floating in the water not far from the massive yacht. She nodded toward the aimless boat as they neared the docking platform and asked the skipper, “What’s going on?”
The man shrugged and eased the boat to the platform. “My job is to drive the boat.”
She slipped her hand in her pocket and pressed the panic button. This didn’t feel right. But she’d insisted on this plan, so whatever happened from here on out was her own damn fault.
The skipper tied the bow to the platform, and she said a small prayer as she stepped aboard and climbed the ladder to the first deck. Her head popped above the side, giving anyone lying in wait an easy target, but no one was on the lowest deck that ringed the yacht.
She continued upward to the next deck, surprised neither Hill, Suzanne, nor one of Hill’s sycophants were there to greet her. Finally she reached the uppermost deck, coming face-to-face with the silent helicopter. Everything was eerily still.
Something was terribly wrong.
“Suz?” she called out. “Dr. Hill?” Ian? But his name was her private, silent scream.
Footsteps sounded, and she turned to see Dr. Hill climbing the stairs from a lower forward deck. “I’m afraid Suzanne has left us,” he said.
Cressida’s heart lurched. What the hell did that mean?
“She took off in one of the tenders. It’s just as well,” the man continued. “I’ve been thinking of breaking up with her.”
Cressida shrugged, unsure what reaction he wanted from her. “Oh…kay?”
Hill crossed the deck and stopped a few feet in front of her. “I have bad news for you. After some thinking, I’ve decided to deny your grant request.”
At that, Cressida let out a sharp laugh. She couldn’t help it. “My grant request? You mean the one I haven’t even written yet?”
“Yes. I received a similar proposal from Todd Ganem. And I’ve decided to go with him.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you did.”
At that moment, a door opened, and Todd was shoved onto the deck. His face was bloody, and he moved slowly, painfully, as if he’d been beaten within an inch of his life.
Dr. Hill’s eyes scanned her from head to toe with an assessing gaze. “On second thought, I’m willing to give your proposal another look, on one condition.”
She gritted her teeth. He wasn’t playing innocent, as they’d all hoped he would. This mission was, as Sean would say, FUBAR squared. She had to buy time until Keith’s team could get here. She turned away from
Todd, unable to face the obvious hell he’d gone through—an inkling of what she faced if Raptor couldn’t save her.
“What’s the condition?” she asked.
Hill turned and ever so casually shot Todd in the stomach. “Give me my microchip.”
Horror rippled through her, but she maintained enough semblance of sanity to say, “Your microchip?”
“Yes. Mine.”
Todd groaned, a low grunt of pain that told her he was alive but suffering.
“Hejan told Ian the microchip was intended for the leader of his organization.”
“Yes. Exactly. Me.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Carlson nudged Ian in the spine with the gun. “Get moving.”
No way would Raptor let Cressida board this boat alone. It was only a matter of time before the crew started disappearing like bimbos in a horror flick. Ian needed to get to Cressida’s side before all hell broke loose.
He flinched at the sound of the gunshot and hurried up the steps. On the deck above, Cressida faced off with Hill while Todd lay on the deck, slowly bleeding out.
It took all of Ian’s willpower to move slowly, not to rush up the last steps. He stepped firmly on the steep metal rungs, catching Cressida’s attention. Her eyes widened as she met his gaze.
Damn, she was more beautiful than he remembered. How the hell was that possible? How could he love her more now than he did this morning?
But most important, what would he do if he failed her now?
Cressida returned her gaze to Hill, not sparing a distracted glance for Todd or Ian, and he again saw her tapping into that magnificent iron will, as she had several times on their journey when she was backed into a corner. “If you’re the leader, then why didn’t Hejan just hand the chip to you? In the bar in Antalya?”
“Hejan didn’t know who the leader was, and I was hardly about to reveal myself to him. We were following our usual money-transfer protocol—the only difference was I’d picked you to play courier for the first leg. So now we have a happy convergence. You were supposed to deliver the data to the separatist leader, and here we are.”
“And my job was to follow the courier and identify the leader,” Ian said as he stepped onto the deck with Carlson and his gun at his back. “Isn’t it fun when the mission comes full circle?”
Hill met Ian’s chill gaze with a cold smile of his own and reached for Cressida as she pulled her own gun. “Pull the trigger, and your boyfriend gets shot in the family jewels.”
“Harm him, and I’ll never tell you where Hejan hid your nine million dollars.”
Ian did a double take. Nine million?
Oh, Hejan, you sweet vengeful bastard.
No wonder Hill was in knots, acting without thinking and without a viable plan. He was so far down the rabbit hole, he hadn’t realized there was no card he could pull that would save him. He was in the ultimate no-win situation.
When buying arms from former Soviet dealers, a missed payment meant death.
Hill couldn’t kill Cressida or Ian without Raptor informing the feds. And if Cressida knew about the nine mil, sure as hell Curt Dominick knew.
Ian caught the exact moment the situation sank in for Hill. With a roar, he backhanded Cressida, knocking her into the side of the helicopter with the force of the blow. Her gun flew from her hand and clattered across the deck.
Watching Hill strike Cressida sort of unhinged Ian, who took down Carlson with a swift strike to the head. He lunged for Hill, but the underwater explorer grabbed Cressida by the hair and pulled her backward. He wrenched open the door of the helicopter and shoved her into the cockpit.
A gun fired, breezing by Ian’s ear, and he twisted toward Carlson, kicking outward as he turned. He caught the man’s hand, dislodging the gun. More of Hill’s men poured from the stairs, heading straight for Ian.
He grappled with Carlson, trying to shake the man off so he could get to Cressida.
The wind whipped up on the deck. Ian took a blow to the jaw and spun to see Hill in the cockpit of the helicopter, at the controls. He’d fired up the engine.
Cressida grappled with the passenger door, trying to get out. Hill punched her in the jaw, then returned his attention to the control panel. The helicopter lifted from the deck.
Ian shoved Carlson back and lunged for the skid, grabbing on as it rose. The copter leaned and shifted, flying out over the cold, dark Chesapeake Bay. Ian clung to the skid, grappling to get his leg over the bar, knowing that if he lost his grip, Hill would escape, and Cressida would be tortured and killed.
The copter soared ever higher into the night sky, as his fingers began to slip.
“Are you insane?” Cressida shouted as the helicopter dropped with a stomach-churning lurch.
“That should take care of Boyd,” Hill said with smug satisfaction. “Your spy is probably drowning in the bay along with Suzanne.”
She gripped the phone in her pocket and again pressed the panic button. It would log GPS coordinates for where Ian fell. If he’d fallen. She couldn’t let Hill’s words get to her. He wanted to throw her off. Take away all hope. She wouldn’t let him win. “I’ll never tell you where the money is if Ian and Suzanne die.”
“Sweetheart, where I’m taking you, you’ll tell me everything I want to know. I’ve got people in the Middle East who’ve refined torture to an art form.”
The Middle East. He planned to take her back. He was just rich and powerful enough to pull it off. She had no doubt that if he could fly this helicopter to his private jet, he could easily smuggle her onto the plane and fly her back to Turkey or Syria, or wherever his Middle Eastern allies were located.
Unless Curt had read the list and grounded Hill’s private jet. She still had hope.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was Ian. Had he survived the drop?
The door beside Hill lurched open, and Ian grabbed him by the throat. The copter pitched sideways and dropped in near free fall. Cressida slammed against her door. The bay loomed just outside her window, then the copter righted moments before crashing into the water.
She reached for Hill, to help Ian as he grappled with the man for the controls. But before she gained purchase, Ian slammed a fist into the release on her door, which flew open. The helicopter tilted sideways again. She slid toward the opening.
She grabbed Ian’s arm to stop her fall. He glanced at her hand and met her gaze. “I love you!” he shouted, then he twisted his arm, breaking her grip, and shoved her toward the open door.
She plunged backward, into the abyss, dropping at least two stories into the Chesapeake.
The water was a cold, abrupt shock after the fast fall. At impact, she sucked in seawater and sank into the depths. Disoriented, she forced herself to pause and feel for bubbles that slid along her face, pointing the way to the surface. She twisted to orient herself, then kicked, surging upward. She surfaced and coughed and gasped for breath in the cold water. Above her, the helicopter lurched left, then right. The fast-moving rotors stirred the water, kicking up salt spray and making it hard to see. Hard to breathe.
With a roar of the engine, the bird slanted sideways and flew a short distance, then plunged nose first into the dark water.
Chapter Forty-Six
Cressida watched in horror as the helicopter broke apart. The bay surged and chopped with the impact. A wave engulfed her. Smothering her.
Ian. She had to get to Ian.
The copter bobbed at the surface, then sank.
She kicked with all her might, swimming with a ferocity she’d never experienced, grateful for her hours of dive time that made her a strong swimmer. She reached the debris field and scanned the water’s surface, searching for Ian. He hadn’t been harnessed inside. A door floated beside her. It had broken off.
There was hope he wasn’t inside the rapidly sinking helicopter.
She located Hill first. He floated facedown in the water. She flipped him over but didn’t waste another moment on him as she searched for I
an.
Then she saw him, and her heart stopped. Like Hill, he was facedown. Floating. How long since the impact? Two minutes? Three?
She flipped him upright, turning his face to the night air. A quick check showed he had a pulse but wasn’t breathing. They were miles from land. She didn’t even have a lifejacket.
She grabbed the nearest floating debris, a panel of some sort, and tried to shove him onto it but couldn’t lift his weight without leverage.
She took a deep breath and remembered dive training, which she’d renewed many times during her years of scuba diving. She slipped her body beneath his. She’d be his float. She grabbed the panel with one hand and pulled it under her shoulders. Slowly, she inched it under her until it reached her hips. Then she slid out from beneath Ian, so his upper body rested on the float.
She swiped his mouth, finding no obstruction, and pressed her open mouth to his. A quick puff of breath didn’t inflate his chest. She tilted his throat back, opening the passage, and tried again.
She managed to breathe air into his lungs once, twice, three times.
In the distance, she heard a boat engine. Please let it be one of the SEAL teams responding to her panic button call in the helicopter.
She pressed another breath into Ian’s lungs. “Don’t you dare die on me,” she whispered frantically between puffs of air. “You promised.” Another breath. “You gave me your solemn vow.” Another breath. “I love you. Dammit, I love you.”
Ian coughed, a choking gasp that brought tears to her eyes. She tread water and gripped the float all while making sure he didn’t slip off the panel as his body shook with the spasms. His eyes popped open, and he vomited seawater.
Before his breathing was under control, a boat pulled up alongside them. “Need a hand, Cress?” Sean Logan asked.
Ian’s coughing subsided as Cressida snuggled against his side. The boat circled so the Raptor team could grab Hill’s body from the water, and after the terrorist leader was aboard, Logan announced the man still had a pulse, but barely.