Hard Tide: A Sea Adventure (Florida Coast Adventures)

by Johnny Asa

  “The engine room is through the door behind you. Follow the corridor to the stairway at the end and head all the way down.” He planted his hands on the guardrail. “Seems, I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.”

  “It seems so,” I said, pulling back a step and keeping the gun trained on him.

  “So, you’re going to let me go?” he asked, slowly turning to look me up and down.

  “Yeah,” I said, right before he stepped to the side, left leg arcing out toward me.

  I fired, putting a slug right in the middle of his chest. Blood splattered across the railway behind him as he stumbled toward me. He looked up at me, and as the report of the gunshot echoed in my ears, I hooked my arms under his armpits to keep him from collapsing to the ground. The light from his glassy eyes faded as I carried him toward the guardrail and hoisted him over.

  His body hit the sea below with a splash I couldn’t hear, and before he’d even fully submerged, I made my way toward the door.

  Part of me wanted to sprint, but I couldn’t do that with my leg. Slow would be fast in this case. While I was a touch worried someone had heard my shot, no one had so much as poked their head out of the woodwork. Still, that didn’t mean someone wasn’t on their way.

  The corridor was lit with fluorescent light, giving it an antiseptic feel as I moved along one step at a time. The sound of my own ragged breathing and footsteps seemed to fill the tiny space, making me jumpy, and as I glanced back over my shoulder nervously, I was surprised to find no one behind me.

  I continued on like that until I reached the stairs. Thankfully, no one was guarding them, so I quickly made my way down. It was hard, making my leg shriek with agony every time I put weight on it, but I made it all the way down anyway. Thankfully, it didn’t go that many steps down, and after only a minute or two I found myself staring at a closed door. Worse it was padlocked shut.

  A man dressed like the fellow I’d shot above sat right outside the door in a steel folding chair reading a book.

  As he thumbed over another page, I stepped out from cover and raised my Glock.

  “Don’t make any sudden movements if you want to keep breathing.” He froze, mid-page turn, and as his eyes snapped up to focus on me. “I just want to go inside.” I gestured at the locked door with one hand. “You think you could unlock that door and let me in? I’d be much obliged if you would.”

  “And if I don’t?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me as he folded the corner of his book and shut it. “You’ll what, kill me?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding at him. “That’s exactly what will happen.”

  “Okay,” he said, getting to his feet and moving toward the lock. Much to my surprise he thumbed in a code and pulled the lock free of the hasp. He turned, holding it out to me. “Here you go.” He dropped it, allowing it to clang across the floor.

  “Great,” I said, right before I smacked him across the face with the gun. He wobbled, shock and pain filling his features as I drove my elbow into the side of his head. His eyes rolled up in his skull as he collapsed to the ground like a jellyfish.

  As he lay there unmoving, I took a step toward the door. It opened easily under my hand, but what I found inside shocked me. Sitting at a card table were two tattooed thugs wearing wife beaters. As they turned to regard me, I noticed Ren laying on the ground beside them. His mouth had been duct-taped shut, and his wrists and ankles were zip-tied together. Worse, he looked like someone had decided to beat out a drum solo on his face.

  I shot the two thugs as they started to stand. Putting a round in the left one’s face and a round in the right one’s chest. They toppled to the ground, their lives reduced to gooey bits of paste that splattered across the machinery behind them.

  “You okay, Ren?” I asked, moving close to him and tearing the tape from his mouth.

  “Ouch!” he cried, bucking a bit before letting out a breath of relief. “Thanks for saving me.” He swallowed hard. “But they took Mary Ann.” His eyes looked everywhere but at me. “Guess the head honcho had something special in mind for her.” He spat as I used my pilfered knife to cut the zip ties and free him.

  His words struck me like a knife to the gut, and for a second I couldn’t breathe. I’d known they’d had Mary Ann, but I hadn’t really thought about what they might do to her. Now that I did, rage exploded through me. I wasn’t just going to stop them. No, I was going to rip off their heads and crap down their throats. I would make it so they wished I’d never come back to town. If they had touched even a hair on her head, I would take everything from them. Everything.

  I dropped the pouch with the C4 on the ground beside Ren. “Let’s throw a wrench in their plans.” I gestured to the machines, not quite sure what all the gears and whatnot did. “Can you do something they won’t like with that?” I pointed to the C4.

  “Sure can,” Ren said, rubbing his wrists. “Just give me a few minutes.” I nodded, and he moved over to the satchel and pulled out the C4. “Why don’t you go watch the door? Because now that I’m looking at things, I wanna do something that will really blow their minds.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, leaving him smiling like a kid in a candy store. “I’ll let you do your thing.”

  28

  “All done,” Ren said, coming out a few minutes later. He shut the door behind him as he shot me a toothy grin and held out the detonator. “One press of this button and these guys are going to have a very bad day.”

  “Great,” I said, rubbing my face with my hands. I was leaning against the wall, trying to take some of the weight off my leg. Somewhere over the course of my getting Ren freed, I’d started to bleed again. Not enough to worry me, but enough to know I was definitely going to need stitches to get it to permanently stop.

  “You don’t sound as excited as I thought you’d be, Billy,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Is it because of Mary Ann?” As he spoke, his smile darkened around the edges. “Because she’s a tough girl. I think she’ll be okay until we find her.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said, shoving my tired body off the wall and looking him in the eye. “I need you to take off and blow the Hard Tide sky high as soon as you get to the maximum range.” I gestured to the engine room.

  “You can’t be serious, Billy.” Ren shook his head in disbelief. “If I do that, there’s a good chance you’ll die along with this yacht. ‘Sides, I wanna help, and trust me when I say you’ll need it.”

  “I believe you,” I huffed, running a hand through my hair. “But I can’t have you dying for me.” I reached out my free hand to him. “And I need this boat to go down. I know you can do that.”

  “You’re not making any sense. Who blows up a boat while still being on it?” he asked, staring at my hand like he’d never seen one before.

  “If the head honcho goes down, a special agent named Tom will give you the location of my dad. I’ll send you his picture so you can make sure you can find him. Hear me when I say I need to make sure someone finds him afterward. Otherwise, all this,” I gestured around us, “will be for nothing. I will get Mary Ann to safety, don’t you worry about that, but just in case I don’t get there, I need you to find him, okay?”

  Ren swallowed hard and stared at his shoes for a moment before looking up at me and sighing. “Okay.” He took my hand then. “Good luck, Billy. And try not to be a hero.”

  “That will be easy,” I said, shaking my head. “I ain’t no hero, just a Marine trying to do his duty and take out a few bad guys along the way.”

  “Oorah,” Ren said, nodding at me. “Well, don’t let me keep you.”

  With that, we made our way back outside. I kept expecting people to leap from the shadows, but none did. It was sort of surprising, but then again, I was pretty sure Mandrake thought he had this all sewn up. He was probably back on the deck, drinking his stupid Trinitas.

  The Florida air outside hit me like a damp breath, and as I inhaled a lungful, I tossed a glance sideways at Ren. “So how do you figure on e
scaping?”

  “They didn’t sink your dad’s boat or anything,” he said, gesturing toward the sea. “It’s tethered out there.” He pointed into the darkness. “There’s some kind of oceanic dock thing. Once they had us captured, they drove the boat there and tethered it.” He grinned at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll get there.” He looked me up and down. “Just tell me where your fins are.”

  “I left them at the end of the trail line at the end of the boat. They’re probably still there.”

  He nodded. “I really hope that’s true,” he muttered before walking away toward the back end of the boat, hands shoved in his pockets. “By the way, I can’t exactly get the detonator wet. I’ll set a timer for fifteen minutes. That should be enough time for me to reach the dock. You have until then before this whole side of the yacht gets a hole where it really doesn’t need one.”

  “Roger,” I said, partially wanting to follow him to make sure he’d get back okay, but I knew he didn’t want me to. If he had, he’d have told me. Ren wasn’t exactly the type of guy who wouldn’t ask for help if he thought he needed it. “Good luck.”

  “Same to you, Billy. Seems you’ll need it a lot more than me.”

  I couldn’t argue that as I turned away from him. Besides, it was time to finish this. My grip tightened around the Glock in my hand as I checked it over once. Satisfied, I moved forward, taking quick, careful steps that shuddered through my body. I could practically feel the flesh around my wound scream with each movement. Still, I didn’t have time to worry about that. Not now, anyway. I only had a few minutes before all hell broke loose.

  Well, it was time to make the best of it. I moved forward, inching my way toward the party, and as I did, I spied a hallway to my left. My eyebrow quirked up as I took it in. I hadn’t noticed it before, but that was likely because the door had been shut. Now it was open, cracked enough for me to see into the darkness inside.

  Something about it was definitely off, and as I stared into its depths, my gut tightened. I wasn’t sure what was down there, but I knew I needed to look. I carefully pushed the rest of the door open, while keeping my Glock ready so I could drop any scum bags who might want to put a hole in me.

  As the door opened, it revealed darkness and little else besides expensive, cherry-wood panels, and not with the cheap stuff, either. No, this hallway cost a lot, and no one would spend that kind of money on some random hallway. This hallway led somewhere important.

  I crept forward, trying my best to see in the darkness. Part of me wondered why no lights had been flipped on, but since there was a small trail of illumination along the bottom of the walls that reminded me of emergency lighting, I was starting to think that maybe the main lighting wasn’t working. That struck me as odd though. Wouldn’t the party have stopped?

  That thought barely entered my brain when the shadows in front of me started to darken unnaturally. I whirled while throwing myself deeper into the tunnel. Agony shot through my shoulder blades as I landed hard on the floor, gun raised. A man the size of a gorilla stood just a few feet away, body half shrouded by a doorway I hadn’t seen. He had a monkey wrench raised like he had been about to bat me a good one upside the head.

  I didn’t give him the chance. I fired the Glock. The crack of the shot practically blew out my hearing in the confined space. My bullet caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around as the monkey wrench slipped from his grip and hit the ground with a heavy clang.

  He cried out in pain as I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline surging through my veins. I was on him a second later, tackling him to the ground and jamming my gun under his chin. Crimson spread out beneath him on the tile as I clamped a hand over his mouth. Couldn’t take a chance on him yelling for help if nobody had heard the shot.

  “I could have killed you, but I didn’t.” I pushed the gun harder into his flesh, and he squeaked eyes going wide, probably because the barrel was still hot. “Now, tell me where I can find Mary Ann. She has black hair and is about five and a half feet tall. I’m going to remove my hand now, and if you scream, I’m gonna just shoot you, got it?” He nodded, and I slowly pulled my hand away.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said through clenched teeth. “I just fix stuff on the boat.” He tried to nod overhead but was stopped by my gun. “Lights are out in here if you haven’t noticed.”

  “I noticed,” I grumbled, sitting up. “Where’s this hallway lead?”

  “To Mr. Mandrake’s personal suite.” He swallowed. “Oh, God. He’s gonna kill me, isn’t he?”

  “I doubt it,” I said, getting up and backing away. This guy didn’t seem like a soldier or a thug. No. He seemed like some poor schlub who had taken a job on the wrong boat. “But you may wanna get off this boat.” I glanced at my watch. “I reckon you have about ten minutes before there’s no more boat here.”

  “Wait, are you a terrorist?” he asked, eyes wide.

  “No, but your boss is.” I made a shooing motion. “Go on, get out of here.”

  He nodded, scrambling to his feet while clutching his shoulder. I was sure shock and adrenaline were suppressing most his pain down, and I felt a little bad for having shot him. In retrospect, he’d probably just been carrying his wrench on his shoulder or something. Only…

  “Say, where’s your stuff?” I asked, and he froze.

  “Stuff?” he said, a bit confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Your tools. You said you were fixing the lights. Call me crazy, but usually, you don’t use a wrench to fix electrical issues.” His face darkened, and then before I could blink, he flung the monkey wrench at me. It hit my shoulder, causing me to drop the gun as pain shot through me.

  As the Glock hit the ground, he lunged for me, big forearm smashing into my throat. He slammed me backward against the wall, and my head cracked against it painfully. My vision went dark around the edges as his thumb clamped down on my windpipe.

  “I’d sort of hoped you’d catch on. Killing like this is always more fun. I’d half thought you’d turn your back on me, and I’d have to stab you in the back. This way, I get to watch the light go out in your eyes.” He grinned as I seized his wrist, trying to pull it away, but I might as well have tried bench pressing a whale.

  I grunted, trying to breathe as he held me in place. Only it was impossible. My head felt like it was gonna pop and my lungs burned for oxygen, but try as I might, I couldn’t break free.

  “Any last words, Mr. Ryder?” He raised an eyebrow. “Why I can’t wait until I bring you to Mr. Mandrake. He’ll probably reward me by letting me have a go at your girlfriend. What was her name? Mary Ann? She’s quite the piece…” He licked his lips as my hands fell to my waist, and as I glared at him, my fingertips brushed against something cold and metallic.

  Realization shot through me as my hand tightened around the knife. I jerked it up with the last of my strength. The blade cut into his chest in an upward arc, and he screamed, dropping me. I sucked in a breath that felt like sweet relief and barbed wire before lunging forward with the knife, jamming it into his stomach.

  His mouth fell open as the blade sank into his gut, and as he reached up for it, I twisted the weapon, pulling it sideways and spilling his guts across his feet. He stumbled then, tripping in his own entrails as he flopped to the floor, trying desperately to stuff his guts back inside himself.

  “I’m going to ask you once,” I said, bending and retrieving my Glock. Then I wiped the bloody knife off on my pant leg and shoved it back in my pocket. I pointed the Glock at him as blood oozed through his fingers. “Where is Mandrake?”

  He didn’t respond, body already trembling as he went into shock and collapsed to the ground, leaving me all alone in the hallway. Still, I knew one thing. He’d said this led to Mandrake’s personal chambers. That was something I absolutely needed to follow up on.

  29

  As I moved down the corridor, the sound of footsteps filled my ears. A hail of gunfire tore through the space in front of me as I thr
ew myself to the ground. Bullets chewed an erratic path through the wall behind me as I landed hard on my elbows. My Glock came up, and I fired a couple quick shots as I rolled sideways toward the other wall like I could somehow scrunch myself into the wall itself.

  The gunfire stopped as my assailant took cover in an alcove just ahead. That wasn’t good. Not only did this guy shooting at me mean my cover was likely blown, but worse, if I got bogged down in a firefight more people would come.

  Silence descended over the corridor in the wake of the gunfire as I squinted into the darkness, trying to find my attacker. A gun barrel glinted in the low light, and I fired on instinct. A cry filled my ears as I heard someone collapse to the ground.

  I scrambled forward, gun at the ready while being careful to stay low. The guy was only a few feet away, and as I saw him trying to breathe through a ruined throat, my blood ran cold. He’d been nearly on top of me. That wasn’t good. If he’d have shown up ten seconds earlier, I’d have been dead.

  “Thanks for the gun,” I send, bending down and picking up his AR-15. I hefted it in my hands as I slid my Glock into the holster. Then I moved forward. Part of me wanted to check on the guy, but even if he could somehow survive a bullet to the throat, which I doubted. Not with the amount of blood gushing between his fingers. He’d be in no position to stop me.

  I crept forward, staying low, and as I did, I heard footsteps ahead of me followed by a door slamming. It wasn’t far away, and I fired my assault rifle even though I couldn’t see anything in the gloom.

  A cry filled my ears, and I charged forward, emptying the weapon as I did so. I dropped it and drew my Glock as I came upon the closed door. The body of a guard lay against it, his chest torn open by gunfire. I pushed the sight of his slack face out of my mind as I relieved him of his AR-15 and stood.

  I took a deep breath and held it as I leaned into the door, listening. Inside I could hear movement. Part of me wished I had a grenade or something to lob inside, but what if Mary Ann was inside? I couldn’t just go all guns blazing.