She responded in French.
“I was looking at the bedrooms. They’re really cool. What a great layout.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to go back up to the salon, Miss. This area is off limits.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It just is.”
“D’accord.”
She could feel his eyes burning into her as she glided down the hall away from him, sipping her champagne as she swayed unsteadily, her gait tipsy. The leather jumpsuit had been a good call for captivating the attention of anything male within a mile, if somewhat impractical and hot.
She returned to the party and sidled up to Samuel, who was flushed from the quick ingestion of so much vodka. Grigenko was standing with a group of young women near the rear deck, gesturing expansively at the waterfront buildings in the foreground, their lights glowing warmly and reflecting off the gentle swell that rocked as it pulsed through the mouth of the harbor.
“Did you miss me?” she teased as she again slid her arm through his.
“Of course. I haven’t thought of anything else but you since I first saw you in the casino. How’s the champagne?”
“Delicious. How’s yours?”
“Hits the spot, although vodka isn’t usually my thing.”
“Really?” she inched closer to him. “What is your thing, Samuel?”
“You are, tonight.”
“You sure you can handle me? I tend to get a little…wild – aggressive, even.”
Were it possible for a man to die and go to heaven and still remain ambulatory, Samuel had just reached that state.
“I don’t scare easily.”
“Name your poison,” she said, nodding at his empty glass.
“Single malt scotch, if they have it. Neat.”
She took his glass from him and gestured to the bartender, relaying Samuel’s preference. He selected a new tumbler and filled it with a generous pour, which Jet then handed to Samuel.
“We were talking about you not scaring easy…”
“I can be as adventurous as anyone,” he said. She noticed a slight slur.
“You don’t say. Do you think we can find some rope on board, and someplace…private?”
Samuel’s eyes widened, and he tossed the scotch back, swallowing it in two gulps.
“I went looking for someplace, but the guards told me the staterooms were off limits.”
“I know the owner. Give me a second,” he said, and then weaved over to where Grigenko was holding court.
After a brief discussion with much laughing and a few appraising looks, Samuel returned, his face glowing like a schoolboy’s.
“No problem. We can use any of the rooms but the master.”
“And the rope?”
“One of the bodyguards will leave some coiled up in the hall. Give it a few minutes.” Samuel rubbed up against her, his excitement palpable.
“Isn’t it kind of creepy to have guards everywhere like this?” she asked.
“He’s Russian. That’s what they do.”
Jet motioned for one more drink, this time ordering them both champagne. He nuzzled her neck as the two flutes slid across the bar.
She pointed at one of the servants carrying a tray of food. “Can you get me one of those? They look delicious.”
“Anything you want,” he said and lurched toward the steward.
She dropped a small yellow pill she’d palmed into the champagne and stirred it with her finger. By the time he made it back with an appetizer for her, it had dissolved in the bubbly. Any unfamiliar taste would be masked by the oak and the palate-deadening effect of the hard liquor immediately prior to drinking it. She gratefully took a small bite of the cracker with brie and then set it on the bar, offering him a champagne flute.
“Let’s celebrate. To famous new acquaintances who don’t scare easily,” she recited, and then drank half the flute in one fluid motion. Samuel joined her, finishing his as she knew he would. She now had about five minutes before he passed out for at least half an hour.
“Come on. Let’s find a room. I need some…attention…in the worst way,” she growled into his ear, then took his hand and led him to the stairway that descended to the stateroom level. She could hear tittering from Grigenko’s group as they walked – a good sign.
The rope was sitting outside of the second master stateroom, and she scooped it up as Samuel fumbled with the handle, having trouble with it as his motor skills began to stall. She reached around him and twisted the lever and then moved him into the room, guiding him to the king-size bed.
“Have you been a bad boy today, Samuel? Meeting a strange girl and convincing her to let you violate her only an hour after your first words? What a filthy, horny dog you are, cheri. Pull those pants off, show me what you can do,” she ordered in a commanding tone, heightening Samuel’s arousal even further. She snapped the end of the rope against the bed like a whip, for effect.
“I am filthy. Dirty and nasty,” he slurred, the words now almost unintelligible.
“Lie back and let’s get those clothes off. I can’t wait any longer.”
Samuel dropped his head onto the pillow and began pawing at his shirt with numb fingers. He almost had his trousers down when he started snoring. She finished the job and, once he was naked, wasted no time in tying his wrists to the bedposts and binding his legs spread-eagle. If anyone looked in on them, they’d quickly leave. Samuel was obviously in the middle of something important and wouldn’t appreciate an interruption.
Jet checked her watch. Six more minutes until David would be in position by the bow. Her job, once onboard, had been to disable the sonar, which she had, and create a diversion – something that would allow him to get onto the ship.
She inched to the door and cracked it open, checking the hallway. It was clear, the guards otherwise occupied with their constant patrol of the guest areas. She moved soundlessly to the stairs that led to the equipment rooms and ducked into the engine compartment.
Four minutes to go.
The throb of the generators that provided the ship with power was loud as she approached the enclosures. Three were operating, shore power for a yacht this size being impractical at a guest mooring. She moved to the first and opened the top, searching for the priming assembly, and then found it. Glancing around, she spotted a toolbox, neatly labeled and secured to the nearby wall. She slid open a drawer, selected a wrench, and quickly loosened a bolt on the priming system, then moved to the others to do the same. Once she had finished, she peered at her watch, waiting until the second hand passed the appointed hour, and then she unscrewed the first bolt and removed it, quickly dumping a third of her Cartier pen’s inky liquid into the cavity before replacing the bolt. She did the same with the other two, then returned the wrench to its slot and shut the enclosures. Inching over to the electrical panel, she shut off the breaker for the battery banks; when the generators died, she needed at least three or four minutes of darkness and confusion before they got the batteries powering the emergency systems – that the breaker had been left off would be deemed an oversight arising from maintenance or sloppiness.
Feeling around in her purse, she retrieved two pieces of her gum and wedged them up into the snarl of cables above the breakers, out of sight, then flipped the lipstick top off and jammed the cylinder up beside them, twisting the bottom once she was done.
Jet was swinging the engine room door open again when the first generator started faltering, and the overhead lights flickered, once, then again.
She had just made it back to the stairwell to the main deck when the ship’s power shut down with a groan, and Petrushka was plunged into darkness.
Chapter 31
Jet could hear the surprised exclamations from the upper deck as she crept carefully up the stairs. Excited voices echoed off the wooden walls of the main salon, interrupted by static from the guards’ radios as they took stock of the situation.
Grigenko’s voice boomed through the area, silen
cing the speculations and questions.
“My friends, this is just one of the many joys of boat ownership. A breaker must have tripped. Power will be restored shortly. May I suggest that everyone make their way outside onto the rear deck where the marina’s lights will provide illumination while the staff sorts this out? It happens occasionally. There is nothing to be alarmed about.”
The Russian’s voice sounded calm, strong and confident. The guests turned to the open glass doors that separated the stern area from the salon, and everyone moved onto the deck, which could easily accommodate double the number of people without being crowded. A woman’s laugh cut through the night as she stumbled and almost fell into the twelve-person hot tub, her companion catching her just in time. The security detail hovered nervously nearby, wary of the new danger that bringing the party outdoors presented for their host. A sniper could easily be in one of the surrounding buildings, and there was no way of shielding him if he was in the open.
One of the guards approached Grigenko, who was still safe behind the salon’s bulletproof glass windows, and had a terse discussion, cautioning against joining his guests on the rear deck. Another bodyguard moved toward him, holding a penlight to illuminate the way. Grigenko barked a series of curt instructions, his voice in no way resembling the jolly party host of only a few seconds earlier.
“Figure out what the hell happened. I want lights and air-conditioning back on within sixty seconds, do you read me? Get the mechanic to the generators and find out why the batteries aren’t supplying power. They should have kicked on the moment the generators failed.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard agreed, then spoke into his radio.
“I’m going above to the command center. Something about this doesn’t feel right,” Grigenko said, then moved to the stairs, trailed by the man with the flashlight.
The guests milled about on the rear of the yacht, the sense of emergency waning as the jazz trio carried their instruments outside and resumed playing. Soon, the sounds of laughter and merriment drifted into the night, echoing off the water, the Monaco police contingent having moved further away on the wharf to provide a little privacy for the mega-yacht’s celebrants.
~ ~ ~
David tied his scuba harness and the dive bag containing his fins and mask to the front mooring rope as he waited for the lights to go off. When they did, he expertly shimmied up the heavy line from the mooring to the ship’s bow, unnoticed amid the commotion from the power outage. He was over the front railing within ninety seconds and had his backpack open within another ten, extracting a silenced pistol and an FN P90 submachine gun with a sound suppressor.
He inserted a micro bud into his ear and activated it, then slid a cell phone from the bag and made a call.
Within thirty seconds, the ear bud crackled, and he heard Jet’s whispered voice.
“He’s inside the salon. Three guards around him. No. Wait. He’s heading upstairs. Maybe to the entertainment deck, or maybe to the command center level on the bridge.”
“On my way,” he breathed back as he crept to the superstructure, his neoprene-sheathed feet silent on the hull’s slick surface.
~ ~ ~
Jet slowly traversed the dark main salon, trying to spot where all the security was stationed. She counted eight bodyguards on the back deck, and three had gone upstairs with Grigenko, leaving at least another nine onboard, if the CIA background document on the ship was correct. The Russian traveled with a contingent of twenty-four men when he was on the yacht, not counting the crew, the helicopter pilot, the mechanic, the captain and first mate, and the deckhands and domestic staff. She counted four guards on the wharf now. That left twelve somewhere above the salon.
She walked onto the rear deck among the rest of the guests and glanced up at the superstructure rising three stories above her. She could see the outlines of two men on each level watching the wharf for threats. That totaled six visible on all external upper decks and eight on the main one, with four on the dock.
Jet inched around the musicians and back into the salon’s gloom, retreating to a quiet corner.
“You have six bad guys inside near Grigenko. There are six more outside on the upper decks and eight down here. Four on the dock. Over.”
“I’m proceeding up to the command level. When the lights come back on, I’m going to need the second distraction within no more than one minute. Are you ready?”
“Affirmative. On your mark.”
She knew from studying the ship’s schematic that there was another service stairway near the galley, forward of the bar. It was almost impossible to see inside, but she felt her way along until she reached the forward bulkhead, and then groped along the joinery until she found the entry to the stairs.
“I’m in position.”
“Okay. I’m at the entertainment level. I see two inside. Preparing to neutralize.” David’s words were barely audible.
Just then, the air-conditioning units and the refrigeration kicked on with a hum, followed by the lights.
Applause sounded from the rear deck, and the band increased its tempo, a few of the partygoers clapping along as the mugging bass player plucked theatrically at the strings of his stand-up bass and gave it a twirl.
One of the security men cleared his throat and called for the attention of the gathering as Jet slipped her cell phone out of her purse and pressed the number six speed dial number.
“Ladies and gentlemen. The power is now back on, so if you would join me in returning to the salon, I would appreciate it. The harbor department frowns on excess noise on the marina, and now tha–”
Jet pushed the number one key on her phone, and the lights flickered and then went out again.
The crowd groaned, and the band slowed its pace to a funeral dirge tempo, engendering laughter and a smattering of applause. She took the opportunity to move into the stairwell that led to the entertainment level and softly took the steps one at a time, retrieving her makeup bag as she climbed. After feeling inside and pocketing the casino card, she found the mascara and twisted the top counter-clockwise, watching as it slowly wound back to the original position with a series of small clicks. She dropped it back into the bag, placed it at the top of the stairs and inched away from it, the light from the dark tinted windows barely sufficient to see.
The bag detonated with a hiss of white-hot phosphor, then the other contents exploded outward, spraying liquid fire on the carpet and wood railing, which immediately ignited.
As the flames spread, Jet heard the distinctive popping of a pistol from the same level. She darted to the recessed metal box near the stairs and pulled the handle of the fire alarm, which sounded a klaxon wail throughout the yacht – she’d known that the emergency warning system was on a different battery bank and had left it intact.
The guards on the outside deck turned to see flames licking at the drapes and pushing from the stairwell to the aft portion of the entertainment deck salon. As they approached the glass doors at a run, Jet saw the nearest guard tumble backward as his chest tore open, then the man behind him spun around as a slug shattered his skull. Both men lay motionless in a spreading black pool of blood, so Jet sprinted to the nearest and pulled his pistol free, chambering a round before turning. She caught a glimpse of David moving up the far stairs to the command level and called up to the exterior deck.
“Oh my God! There’s a fire down here. Fire! FIRE!” she screamed at the two guards she’d seen earlier – she repeated the yell to the people outside on the main deck. The panic was instantaneous as the throng fought to get off the boat, fire now pouring from the entertainment level windows.
One of the guards above her leaned over the railing with an alarmed look on his face and, seeing a woman, looked past her to the lower deck. His partner joined him, and she screamed ‘fire’ again, but the second man was quicker on his feet and sensed a threat, woman or not. He was pulling at his shoulder holster when she squeezed off a shot at him, hitting him in the center of the chest,
and then fired at his partner, who took two rounds in the throat.
Screams of horror emanated from below as the crowd went berserk after hearing the sounds of the shots, scrambling and clawing to get away from the new threat of gunfire even as the security men around them drew their weapons, adding to the mayhem.
She swung onto the metal ladder that led from the entertainment deck to the command center and was three quarters of the way up when she heard the percussive blast of the FN P90, still loud even with the suppresor. Shots answered it, and the little gun chattered back.
Jet rolled onto the command level, using a fallen guard as cover – one of the windows near her went opaque as bullets pounded into it. She crawled to the access door, and when a guard’s head moved into view, she blew the top of it off.
The clamoring of the alarm was even louder on this deck, and her ears rang from tinnitus caused by the guns’ detonations. She heard more shooting inside, and then her ear bud came to life. David’s strained voice echoed in her ear.
“I’m hit.”
No.
“Where are you? How bad?”
He wheezed and then answered, “By the surveillance room. I took one in the chest. Not good.”
“I’m coming. Where’s Grigenko?”
“Near the bridge. He’s still got two bodyguards with him. The rest are dead.”
“I’ll be with you in a second. Hold on.”
She moved into the dark, the layout of the bridge level burned into her brain from studying the blueprint.
Another shot rang out, and she heard a grunt of pain in her ear bud. They were killing him.
She ran in a crouch to where she thought David would be, and then a pistol butt slammed into the back of her head, and she collapsed, even as she tried to spin to fire at her assailant. Her gun clattered uselessly by her feet as her legs lost the ability to support her, and then she blacked out, the dim glow of the emergency lighting on the controls from the far bridge spinning giddily as the night rushed in and everything went silent.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 23