Down to the Wire

by Lyn Stone

  She had wrapped the cord loosely enough around her wrists that she could shake it free in a second and had hoped he would put down the gun and start to untie her. That would have given her a chance to disable him with a surprise move. Instead, he backed well away from her and opened the door to the small head in the forward cabin, his nine-millimeter aimed directly at her heart.

  “Some goddess you are now. I should humble you further, but you disgust me. You should see yourself.”

  She did, in the mirror over the small sink. What a mess she was and glad of it. At least he didn’t seem to find her in any way tempting. Humberto was too fastidious. Blood caked one whole side of her face and neck. Her hair was matted with it and incredibly tangled. One eye was purplish and swollen.

  In the cabin when she first woke up, she had noted the shorts and camp shirt she wore were a mass of dirty wrinkles and her arms and legs were streaked with dark sand and scraped raw in places. She had lost her shoes. At some point after he had taken her, he must have dragged her along the ground.

  When she had finished in the bathroom—no easy task since she left the rope around her wrists—she bumped against the door. He jerked it open and waited for her to exit, then shoved her back into the pocket cabin where she fell on her side across the bunk.

  “Reflect on your sins. They are about to catch up with you,” he had told her then.

  Well, he had come for her now and she guessed this must be the time for it. Company coming meant Joe, of course.

  One of Humberto’s men was still away. She had listened for the return of the smaller boat, but had never heard one approach. That meant only Humberto and one other guy were onboard. If Joe got in a position to take one of them out, she would rush the other.

  Humberto pushed her ahead of him into the salon. She risked a glance at the wheel and saw the box with the bomb sitting just forward of it facing the window. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he planned to do with it.

  He and his man would take the boat Joe came in and leave her and Joe alive on the motor yacht if he could. When he was far enough away, he planned to detonate that bomb with the remote and watch them die.

  He had planned this very carefully. Nothing as simple as gunning them down would suit Humberto. Unless they forced his hand.

  Martine stumbled before she reached the steps from the salon up to the deck, hoping he would run into her and she could catch him off guard. But he stopped too soon, motioning with the gun for her to continue.

  There were low-level lights in the salon, the drapes drawn except for the ones in front of the wheel. She climbed the steps and exited into the breeze and total darkness. There was no moon, no stars. In the distance, she could hear the drone of a motor.

  She sensed movement to her right and as her eyes became more accustomed to the dark, she could just make out the large silhouette of Humberto’s man. And the automatic he held. He was standing at the rail.

  Humberto switched on a deck light, blinding her in the process. The whine of the motor drew nearer. Martine willed herself to be patient and hold her hands behind her rather than drop her bonds and attack. She could take out one of the men, but the other would shoot her if she did. Then he would more than likely kill Joe before he could even board.

  “Go to the swim ladder, Thomas,” Humberto ordered. “When he pulls alongside, take your flashlight and check out the contents of the boat. Make certain all is as I ordered. If it is not, kill him.”

  Martine held her breath. Joe would be a fool to come alone. And a damned fool to come unarmed. The running lights of the smaller craft grew closer and closer until they disappeared beneath the high railing of the motor yacht.

  “Ahoy,” called Joe, his voice cocky. “Permission to board?”

  Thomas sat astride the break in the rail where the swim ladder attached. He held on to the raised edge beside him, leaned over and pointed the flashlight downward for a long minute.

  “He has the fuel,” he called back. “And he is not armed.” He leaned over a little farther as if to inspect closer. When he straightened, he held a silver case aloft. “The money!”

  “Drop it on the deck,” Humberto ordered and Thomas did. It bounced and fell over on its side. Martine looked up just in time to see Thomas disappear over the railing headfirst. His scream of surprise ended with a loud splash. Joe climbed aboard, hands out to the side to show he held no weapon. He smiled and said, “Oops.”

  Thomas cried out from below, sputtering, that he couldn’t swim. Then silence, another gurgling yell and then nothing. Martine thought maybe he had managed to climb in the other boat. Or maybe not.

  “Thomas?” Humberto shouted when all went silent. No answer.

  He cursed. But instead of running to the rail to see about his man, he grabbed Martine in a choke hold, the pistol pressed against her temple. “Stay where you are, Corda. One more wrong move and she dies,” he warned. “If you do exactly as I tell you, I might spare her life.”

  Joe shrugged and pointed to the case lying next to his bare feet. “There’s your ill-gotten gain, Carlos. Don’t you want to count it?”

  “Open it,” Humberto demanded. Martine felt the tension in the forearm locked beneath her chin, in the strong body that pressed against her back. The cold steel of the barrel dug into her skin. She could grab him where it hurt—her hands were positioned right—but he would blow her head off and might still have time to shoot Joe.

  Joe knelt on the deck and unlatched the container, raised the lid and turned it toward Humberto. “All there. Come and get it.”

  Though he wore nothing but swim briefs, Martine wondered if Joe might have a weapon. Or maybe he was merely trying to get Humberto’s focus off her. She saw Joe quickly scan the part of the deck within view and the flybridge, as if he were looking for the other man.

  There was no way to signal Joe that he wasn’t aboard. It was all she could do to breathe with Humberto’s arm threatening to cut off her air supply.

  Suddenly Humberto released her and shoved her at Joe. “Untie her!” he ordered.

  Joe reached for her hands and made a low sound of surprise when he found the ropes loose. He made a show of struggling with the knots as he asked, “Are you hurt bad?”

  “I’m fine.” She lowered her head. “There’s only him,” she growled in a low voice she hoped Humberto couldn’t hear.

  “Gotcha,” he whispered. “Do as he says. Help’s coming.”

  Humberto shouted for her to move away from Joe. She moved, hands out to her sides.

  “I don’t trust your fancy briefcase, Corda. I know you are not so stupid as to leave my escape to chance. You will have made provision for me to be followed. Go to the aft cabin, woman!” he commanded Martine. “Empty the bag on the bed and bring it to me. Do exactly as I say or I will shoot him where he stands.”

  Martine scurried inside. She rushed to the right, found the dark canvas bag shaped like an army duffel bag, but only about half the size of one. She quickly pulled out everything inside it, tossing Humberto’s clothes every which way.

  He wanted to transfer the money to get rid of any hidden tracking device that might be hidden in the case? Well, she’d give him a device, all right, but no one would be able to follow him unless they went to hell.

  When she returned to the deck with the bag, Humberto proved even more predictable than she could have hoped. “Took you long enough. Empty the money into that,” he demanded.

  Martine looked up at Joe as she knelt, hoping to signal him somehow, but his eyes were trained on Humberto. She began to stuff the money into the bag. Very carefully.

  “I am curious, Humberto. How in the world did you find my family?” Joe asked.

  Humberto scoffed. “I had your name from Vargas. He told me you were DEA. I knew how closely held your employment records would be, given your occupation.” He sneered at the word. “But I also knew a man with your physique naturally would have played college sports. It was child’s play to discover your school,
hack into the computerized records and discover your hometown. There was only one Jose Corda in a small town such as yours. You see, I, too, have excellent skills in the field of espionage.”

  “And you found Martine, too,” Joe commented, acting a little impressed. Martine knew he was playing for time.

  “Even simpler,” Humberto bragged. “She has a passport. Her prints were on file. Her place of employment, a matter of record with your Social Security. Your country tends to underestimate the enemy. And I am the enemy, make no mistake. You and your people have destroyed my livelihood. My very life.”

  Joe heaved an audible sigh. “That’s my job, Carlos.”

  “Destruction of drugs, I could understand. But you even tore apart my family. I am branded a traitor.”

  “You are a traitor,” Joe argued, but Humberto seemed not to hear.

  “My wife, my children. I have lost them because of you.” He glanced at the rail where his man had disappeared. “Even poor Thomas, drowned. He is no great loss, but he was my cousin. A fair trade for that loudmouthed sister of yours and her mewling brat, I suppose.”

  “Oh, I should have told you. We found them,” Joe said, a smile in his voice. “Turned off the gas and dismantled your bomb.”

  Humberto cursed.

  “We know there were two, and I expect they’ve found the other one by this time,” Joe told him.

  “I assure you, they have not.” Humberto chuckled, a truly evil sound.

  Martine smiled herself. He was quite right. They had not found it, but they’d know where it was soon enough.

  When she had transferred the money to the bag, she stood, hands on her hips, waiting for what she knew would come next.

  “Get inside, both of you,” Humberto ordered and made a threatening movement with the gun. He stayed well away from Joe and kept the pistol pointed at her. “Into the aft cabin. Corda, you first, and go to the far corner, away from the door.”

  Joe’s gaze raked the deck again, fury and desperation in his eyes. Martine noticed his near naked body tense, the muscles standing out in relief as his fists clenched, opened and clenched again. His stance screamed attack. She knew he was ready to rush Humberto if he found a chance to do it without getting her shot. “Don’t do it, Joe. You know he’ll shoot. Go inside.”

  Finally, he looked at her. She winked and tried to put a smile in her eyes to tell him everything would be all right. It would be if only Humberto didn’t check the box just in front of the wheel.

  “Go!” shouted Humberto. He fired one shot above their heads and retrained the gun on her.

  The cabin door closed behind them and she heard the snick of the key in the lock. Joe immediately rushed to it and tried to break it down, but it was too sturdy and there was no room for him to back up and gather any force. Hardly more than a minute later they heard the muted roar of an engine catch and Marline pictured Humberto zipping away from the motor yacht, far enough away to stop and watch the fireworks. Good, he hadn’t had time to go forward and check on the bomb.

  Joe was already pounding on one of the two windows with his fist. He was too big to fit through it even if he managed to break out the thick tempered glass. But she wasn’t. Martine smiled. He was doing everything he could to save her. There was no use trying to stop him. He was like a man gone berserk.

  Suddenly he ripped a shelf off the wall above the bunk and shattered the window. “Here, crawl through. Hurry!” he said, shoving her at the window. “Dive over the rail and swim like hell. I think he’s left a bomb aboard.”

  “No he hasn’t,” she argued, about to explain what she had done.

  As the words left her lips, an explosion rocked the world. Joe shoved her flat on the bunk and fell on top of her, shielding her with his body.

  Chapter 15

  Joe lifted his head, sniffed for smoke, listened for the crackle of flames. He was amazed that the cabin was still intact, the glass unbroken except for the one he had smashed. “Ha. We’re alive! I need to get out there and assess the damage. It couldn’t have been a very big bomb.”

  “Yes it could.” Martine could barely see his face. The cabin was almost dark, illuminated only by a meager amount of light coming from that on the deck. “But he took it with him.”

  Joe stared at her for a minute, then laughed, pushing up and bracing on his arms above her. “Don’t tell me. You put it in the bag with the money?”

  Martine nodded. “He must have been clicking that remote all over the place when it refused to blow us to kingdom come.”

  Joe dropped a quick, gentle kiss on her lips. Her poor face was a wreck and must hurt like the devil. His rage when he had first seen it nearly had him doing a suicidal dive for Humberto. The vision of her with blood on her face had come to pass and she had survived. He felt much better about the one of her in white.

  He kissed her again, drawing out the pleasure a little longer, tasting the sweetness of life. His body was super revved, still pumping adrenaline. “Have I told you how wonderful you are, Ms. Duquesne?”

  “You can start showing me any time now.”

  He laughed again when she moved suggestively beneath him. “Not that I wouldn’t love to, but we should try to get out of here and let everyone know we’re all right.” He brushed her tangled hair away from her forehead, noting how she winced. “You are all right, aren’t you, querida?”

  “Well, I could do with some bedrest. A quarter hour maybe?”

  She was revved, too, apparently. “Martine…”

  Her kiss shut him up nicely and he was just getting into it big-time, his heady state of arousal blocking out all the shoulds and should-nots, when he heard a sound from the broken window. The beam of a flashlight flicked over his face. Before he could react, he heard a chuckle he recognized.

  “I guess you don’t really need any help?” Vinland said. The light danced playfully around the bed.

  “I guess not. Where the hell were you when I did?” Joe growled.

  Vinland sighed, his head and shoulders backlit by the faint light from the deck. “You had another tail besides me after we left the marina. When you changed course, I surfaced, did a three-sixty and saw him. Thought I’d better take him out before you got caught in a sandwich. Had to ram him and damaged the sub. Took me a while to get it going and then I couldn’t find you. That explosion scared the bejeesus out of me. Then I spotted the deck . lights and came to see if there was anyone left aboard.”

  “Thanks,” Martine said. “Now please go drive the boat, whoever you are.”

  “Sorry,” Joe said. “Martine Duquesne, Eric Vinland, one of Sextant’s finest.”

  “Pleased to have met you,” she said, her impatience showing.

  Eric took the hint and disappeared.

  “Continue,” she demanded when their audience left.

  But Vinland’s interruption had brought Joe to his senses. “When I take you again, I want hours and hours. Days, maybe.” He caressed her through her wrinkled shirt and shorts, long languid strokes that did nothing to augment his decision. “I want you in something slinky and silk. I want you in…”

  “I want you,” she interrupted breathlessly. “Now. No promises, no conditions. Just now, like this…” she murmured against his mouth, then melded hers to it with a white-hot kiss that swept rational thought right out of his head. He devoured her, his hands acting on their own to tear away the clothes that denied him her soft skin, the feel of her pulse around him.

  There was nothing on earth but Martine. His woman. His heart. He entered her in one swift stroke, desperate to reaffirm his claim, to bind her to him in any way he could. Forever if possible. For this hour, if not.

  She met him thrust for thrust, gasping words he couldn’t understand for the blood thundering in his veins. All the feeling he possessed had concentrated where their bodies met, where skin slid against skin, where lips scorched paths, where they became one.

  On and on into a white-hot frenzy he drove her, lurching them against the slanted wall
, rolling side to side, pressing her deep and deeper into the soft foam of the bunk. He felt her legs wrapped around his, the soles of her bare feet against his calves, her nails scoring the sweat-slick muscles of his back. His own palms cupped her curves, held her to a wild, savage dance with no rhythm.

  The beat grew so fierce, he abandoned any semblance of control. Her cry and the tightening of her body drew him down, plummeting into euphoria, releasing all that he was.

  For a long time, he lay motionless, one hand fisted in her hair, the other clutched behind her right knee, his fingers trapped and content. “Can’t…move,” he gasped, a half-ass apology for crushing her, he knew, but true.

  She quivered around him, a final ripple of pleasure so keen he groaned. Now, he thought lazily, would be the time to die. Right now. He was already in heaven. Nothing would ever get any better than this.

  The boat was moving, he realized. How long? How many minutes did he have left to own her? When must he give her up to reality and emerge from this delicious prison?

  Wearily, very reluctantly, he rolled to one side, holding her close, knowing time was nearly up. Reason was creeping slowly back into his brain, adrenaline on the wane, passion spent for the moment. Martine would want to clean up and dress before they reached the marina and someone opened that door. And he really shouldn’t present himself to his boss and co-workers naked except for a satisfied grin and the scent of sex.

  She was first to pull away, disengage and speak normally. “Please don’t say anything, Joe. We agreed, no ties.”

  “We do need to talk,” he argued, feeling around for her clothes. He picked up a shirt and realized it was too big to be hers. It certainly wasn’t his because he hadn’t been wearing one. Humberto’s. They were lying in a mass of garments, probably where she had emptied the bag she’d taken outside earlier for the money.

  She sat up and pawed through the clothing, tossing some of it on the floor. “Here,” she said. He heard plastic up. “New Tshirts,” she explained, shaking one out and draping it over his shoulder. She pulled one over her head and began searching again, he supposed for her shorts.