by Jade Alters
“That’s how it happened,” confirmed Josh. “We were fired upon and… and one of the enlisted personnel fired back. It was self-defense.”
I was growing more confident about our story by the minute. “We had been chasing them so long, we didn’t realize we had crossed the border. It was an honest mistake.”
“Except, who fired the shot?”
I scratched my chin thoughtfully. “Maybe Pete’s willing to take the credit.”
“After he was shot?”
I clicked my teeth together. “Tough guy, Pete is. A real hero. After getting shot, he was so angry to see these murderers getting away, he shot back at them. Never meant to hit the fuel tank. That’s what happens when both arms aren’t fully operational.”
“That’s a fact, isn’t it? Pete was very brave. He’ll probably get a medal.”
Satisfied that his bases were still covered, he bounded into the pilot’s cabin, going up the stairs two steps at a time. Pete was being treated for his wound. He looked pale, but was already gaining the goofy look of someone high on drugs. “Hey, Captain,” he croaked cheerfully. “I took one for the team.”
Josh patted the uninjured shoulder. “I see you did. You’re a good man. I’m going to get you off this boat as soon as I can. Go below, Commander. Check into the infirmary. We’ll reach our target area in twenty minutes.”
“Permission to remain here,” he said in a loopy voice.
“Permission denied. I’ll call you in two hours. Get some rest.”
Captain Josh regained the wheel, easing the ship in even closer to the island banks, sliding around bends with the engines murmuring so low, they sounded like cats purring. It was a miracle nobody was close enough to hear the shots or see the explosion. Again, maybe not. The islands were largely deserted this time of year. The tourist season was over. Fishermen were throwing their nets into the icy of waters of the northern Pacific. The small towns sleepily curled around themselves, waiting for spring.
Once the bodies were discovered, it wouldn’t be hard to defend our case, not with the deserted cutter so close to the scene. It would just be difficult to explain ourselves if we got caught snooping around Vancouver. It was Captain Josh’s expertise that we all depended on to keep that from happening.
We reached the target area in the length of time the captain said we would. He settled the ship back into a little cove and dropped anchor. It was a good location. The cove curved inland enough to form a natural barrier, yet left a wide mouth at one end that allowed us to an unrestricted view of the ocean from our swampy port of overhanging trees and tangled brush. In our hiding place, so close to the shore, the boat rocked against a bed of surfacing seaweed, and we could see the white dot of the cruise ship six miles away. We aimed the telescopic lens on the pilot’s deck at it and took turns watching the fuzzy panorama of activity.
We spent about an hour studying the layout and watching visitors arrive. We found no sign of the Canadian Coast Guard, and few indicators of activity apart from the cruise ship. Some of the visitors came in by boat, buzzing up to the stern and using the ladders, some came by helicopter. We recognized a few faces from the Internet news feed. Arrogant and wealthy, they strutted around with their air of diplomatic immunity, flickering in and out of the telescopic lens.
After giving him his two-hour rest, Pete was summoned from sickbay. He arrived still a little fuzzy-headed, but it was nothing two cups of the cook’s stout, black coffee wouldn’t fix. Josh gave him an intense look. “Are you with us, Commander?”
“Aye, sir.” Pete looked at his surroundings drowsily, his eyes slowly taking in the cul-de-sac the captain had snuggled us into, and the telescope lens fixed at a white spot on the ocean.
“We’ve got our enemy in the line of sight. My team is headed out. I want you and everyone else to sit tight. That includes Natalia. Make no noise, fire no weapons, do nothing at all once we’re out there, no matter what you see.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pete, looking anxiously at Natalia, while she tapped her foot and pressed her lips together.
Josh stopped in his instructions long enough to glower at Natalia before resuming his speech. “Tell the crew to keep their eyes peeled, Commander, for any extra signs of activity. If we aren’t back before the first Canadian guard appears, raise anchor and hightail it out of here. Get back into U.S. waters. And take this woman with you. If she kicks and screams, tie her up and lock her in her quarters.”
“Captain, we would be leaving you stranded.”
He huffed. “If you’re caught in these waters without so much as permission from the port authorities, there will be such a stink about U.S. trespassing and spying, it will take a hundred years to air it all out.” With a self-satisfied sigh, he added, “There is no jurisdiction for bears.”
The atmosphere in the cabin was rather glum. None of the human crew was happy about being left out of the main flurry, but there was no choice. The law can only be bent so far before it breaks. We’d always been on good terms with Canada. Canadians were reasonable people and as eager as anyone to put the bad guys away, but they couldn’t turn their heads at the unthinkable, when the unthinkable was carnage caused by humans.
The captain led us into the ready room and closed the door gently. The privacy was meant to spare the rest more pain at being excluded from the final stage of our pursuit. He gathered us into a huddle like football players, pumping us up, allowing us to taste our own adrenaline.
“When we hit the deck, I want you fierce. I want you to be the most terrifying thing they’ve ever encountered. I want them to be so terrified, they drop their drawers and shit, but remember: We don’t care about the buyers. Law enforcement will take care of them. All we care about are Denisovich and his men. We get them, and we get out.”
“How do we know law enforcement will come?” asked Lee, his mind still going over the miles of unpatrolled waters.
“Believe me, Lee. If you’re doing your huffing, puffing best, somebody’s going to sound an alarm. They aren’t going to stand around with a dozen shredded bodies and wait for someone to show up.”
“And the girls, boss? What about the girls?”
“We’ll stay close by until we hear someone. The girls will be all right, Lee. I’ll notify the admiralty as soon as we’re back with the Ursa. Nobody wants an international incident; not Canada, not Russia, not us.”
It’s not very difficult to be terrifying when you’re twelve feet tall and weigh two thousand pounds. I was a little shorter than Josh when I was in bear form and had a narrower head, but these small differences didn’t register in the mind of someone faced with a roaring animal towering over them. Terrified people freeze. They panic. They do stupid things. And they would be scrambling like rats to get off a sinking ship.
The anticipation of putting the fear of the almighty in some of these black-hearted scoundrels had me pumping so hard, I was shaking. I kicked off my shoes and unbuckled my pants. Natalia breezed over with her forever scent of wildflowers and slipped her hands inside the loose trousers, squeezing my buttocks. She pulled me close, so my chest rubbed against her. “Come back safe. I want all my men.”
I kissed her, exploring with my tongue and would have done a little exploring of my own inside her pants, but Josh pulled us apart. “Natalia,” he said sternly, gripping her arm. “I need you to promise me. You will not intervene.”
“I won’t intervene,” she said, looking up at him innocently. “I’m just giving each of you my personal blessing.” She snuggled up to him to prove it.
He took her arms and held her back. “You will stay on the boat. If the boat leaves, you will leave on the boat. Promise me.”
“I’ll stay on the boat,” she echoed, making a face. “I promise.”
Notably, he still buttonholed Pete as we filed out. “Hold her to her word.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pete.
As naked humans, we climbed over the guardrail and down the ladder. As bears, we slipped into the water. It was
the warmest ocean I had ever been in while in bear form. It felt strange; as though I had just landed in the tropics. I swam languidly. I knew the others weren’t as comfortable in the wide, open sea as I was, and I didn’t want to look like I was showing off in front of them. Darkhorse and Lee were the most unhappy. They held their heads up stiffly, dogpaddling. Josh was an islander. He was farther south than usual, but these were still islands. He swam confidently, almost keeping up with me.
The yacht had a metal ladder to one side of the stern. Josh led the way, with Darkhorse right behind him. He paused and peered over the edge. Beckoning to us, he scurried onto the deck and ducked behind the stairs leading to the next level. When it came my turn, I halted. Someone was crossing the floor. I held my breath as muffled steps strolled to the far end guardrail and a man looked over the bow. After lighting a cigarette and taking a few drags, he tossed it overboard and returned to the main party.
Quickly, I slipped over the edge and joined the team with Lee at my tail. Josh indicated in bear sign that we were each to go in a separate direction. My way led me through a service door left partially open. I calculated the number of steps I needed to reach the door several feet to the right of the stairs, in an exposed area. A shadowy figure flicked by at the far end, then a moment of unbroken silence passed. Staying close to the wall, I walked rapidly to the open door and slipped inside.
The lighting was poor. Only a single bulb lit a hallway with pantry shelves on either side. Ahead were the sizzling pots and the clangs of a kitchen. I wandered into a galley filled with thick cooking smells, remaining in the shadows and crouching behind counters and stoves.
The cooks bustled in and out the swinging doors, attending the guests in the dining room. Through the swinging doors, I saw little glimpses of that other world, a world of chandeliers, crystal, tall windows and plush seats. When it swung in the other direction, there was this: an overcrowded space teeming with overflowing dishwater, bubbling oil, grease-splattered floors, smoke and steam.
As I became accustomed to the dim lighting, the crowded conditions and the confusion, my attention was caught by something that seemed to be completely apart and separate from the rest of the dining preparations. A thick brocade curtain partitioned off the entrance to another room in the farthest, darkest corner of the kitchen. One gentleman, in full chef’s uniform, went in and out, bringing delicacies inside and returning with empty dishes. Only one chef—the others pretended he didn’t exist.
This kindled my curiosity. With all the discretion that can be squeezed into two thousand pounds of fur balls, I slithered under a table and inched my way up to the doorway. Daringly, my heart pounding, I slipped through it.
I don’t know what I expected at a slave trade, but I didn’t expect this. I was visualizing the girls chained up in cages in the cargo area, not passed out in a room lavishly furnished in scarlet and gold. A huge matching set of settees, armchairs, cushions, and daybeds were scattered around, and complemented by ornate, round tables. There was champagne, chocolates, and finger foods laid out on the little tables and a handful of upper-crust male citizenry with silk suits that would feed the homeless for a month and jeweled rings that would put your eyes out. These elite, well-heeled gentleman stopped at a table now and then to eat a cracker with stuffed crab or a chocolate-covered strawberry and look over the merchandise.
The merchandise was the twelve girls. They were all nude. They all seemed sound asleep as they were poked and prodded, yet never once stirred. They also appeared to have been arranged in their positions. Some were sitting up, their heads lolling against the back of their settee, one leg stretched in front, another on the floor. Some were stretched out with an arm over their heads, legs thrown in wide abandonment.
They barely moaned when a prospective buyer lifted their arms to smell underneath, felt their breasts and their velvety little snatches, then turned them over to examine their bottoms. There was something sickening, unreal, and totally macabre in the way they would dispassionately run their hands down the soft, unresponsive bodies, as though examining prize livestock. My stomach churned and I felt a bitter, burning taste in my mouth as I watched in horror and agony, unable to look away, unable to prevent these young girls from being violated until I received the signal.
A thirtyish young man with a long face and cruel ferret eyes wriggled his fingers inside the newly-blossoming triangle of a girl who was arranged on a sofa with her head resting on her arm, one leg bent at the knee and propped on the couch, the other dangling. “Too loose,” he announced. He had a high, nasal voice. He sniffed his fingers. “Doesn’t smell that good, either.”
I heard someone laugh. “Pick another.” The voice had a thick Russian accent. I swung my head in the speaker’s direction. It was one of Denisovich’s men. I felt a lightning bolt hit my brain and I rumbled deep in my chest. I was supposed to wait. We were all supposed to stay quiet until Josh found Denisovich, no matter what the situation. With each passing minute, the bile boiling up inside became more bitter, the sheer magnitude of what these men had done more unbearable, the rage rumbling like a volcano.
“How’s this one?” asked the author of my blazing torments. He pulled up a young, half-Native girl by her limp arms from off a chair. Oddly, she had been placed in the least compromising position, barely noticeable among the blatant display of village girl treasures. Her skin was light as snow, her hair slick and black. She looked like a child, no more than fifteen. “Nobody’s laid a hand on her,” he said, picking her up and spreading her out on a roomy daybed. He smoothed the hair away from her face, set her arms by her side and opened her legs to expose a silky triangle of black hairs that had barely begun to sprout. “We think she could be a virgin.”
Mr. Prick for a Nose ran a hand up the inside of her thighs. “Tight as a drum.”
“Don’t break it. She’s our main attraction.”
“How do I know she’s not a druggie?”
“No, no. They’ve been on drugs only two days to keep them compliant. We were clean about it. No drugs. No sex with them. Just make them ready for the market.”
The hackles on my back were standing up like porcupine quills. I felt if I had to hold back any longer, I was going to explode. Just when I was about to let loose, signal be damned, somebody screamed; if you could call it that. It was a horrible, shattering sound, two pitches higher than a normal man’s voice, followed by a long, sobbing, pleading wail. That was the signal.
I reared up on my hindlegs, the guard hairs shooting down my back like spikes, the great scruff around my neck bristling with fury, my lips curled back in a savage snarl. I roared. For one moment, all activity was suspended. Even the drugged girls opened their heavy-lidded eyes in wonder. The chef, who had been clearing clutter made from wine glasses and plates, pissed his pants. My vile, hated, sworn enemy fumbled for his sidearm, three seconds too late. I squeezed his shoulders with my front paws and opened my mouth, letting him get a good whiff of my hot, wild breath, then closed my jaws slowly over his neck and squeezed. I wanted him to understand, in his final seconds, what it was like to be meat.
The degenerate business tycoons were pressing as close to the wall as they could get. If it had been a possibility, they would have pressed right into it. Mr. Prick Nose was still leaning against the daybed but had sunk to his knees. The captain’s instructions drummed dimly in the back of my mind. We were only to take out Denisovich and his men. We were to leave the mucky-muck’s to the higher-ups. I just couldn’t make myself care enough to listen. I gave Mr. Stinky Fingers one long slash across the face with four razor-sharp claws. He might live through it. Some people did, but they never forgot what happened.
I trotted back to the service door and looked out toward the main deck. It was gloriously splendid. Absolute mayhem. The rest of the team had already polished off the crew. The panicked guests didn’t have the wits to do anything except scramble for shelter and cower. We were to terrify them. Remaining on my hind legs, I thundered out, my bass
voice ricocheting across the stairway.
I must have been their worst nightmare: a solid white bear with splashes of blood running from his throat to his stomach, standing up to his full height, like a twelve-foot heavyweight boxer in a fur coat. Nobody moved. Nobody lifted a finger. There were a few slobbering sounds, and I believe someone was praying. My voice boomed out in an air-shattering roar and the three bears behind me stood up on their hind legs, with the captain topping my size by two inches. His enormous shoulders swelled under the great hump on his back. His black lips wrinkled away from a double row of serrated, carnivorous teeth, meeting with a massive jaw. He was primal. His race was ancient. It soared through the flashing black eyes. His roar was a roll of thunder, answered by the others as a background chorus. It echoed through the yacht, already shuddering with the horrors of its new-found ghosts and mingled with the natural sounds of the ocean’s wildlife.
Just as the captain had predicted, somebody, either unwittingly or willfully, shot a flare. If they were unwitting, they shot it because they thought it was a gun. If it was willful, they probably reasoned it was better to face the Canadian guard than four bears. Whatever the reason, it was a good time to make an exit. We jumped over the rail and hit the water simultaneously.
Eventually, someone did find a gun. A few shots rang out, but by then we were a half-mile away from the yacht. No little girls went tumbling over the side of the boat, so it was a safe bet the congregation of spineless human refuse were not about to compound the problems they were already facing by adding murder charges. We paddled noiselessly in smooth, clean V’s, only our heads showing above the water. From the distance, we could be any marine animal. We swam silently, putting as much ocean as we could between ourselves and the yacht before the Coast Guard came.
We heard the first helicopter just as the island was coming into clear view. Another clattered in, its propellers shrieking, engines whining, rumbling through the air. I turned my head to look back. The yacht was no more than a tiny toy bobbing on the ocean, with two tiny choppers hovering overhead. Streaming toward it were three tiny boats, all so small, they looked like a swarm of gnats. The captain nudged me, and I turned purposely back toward shore.