Wyatt pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out a breath. “Did the lieutenant see the news report too?”
“No. And you’ve got Mason to thank for that. As soon as it came on, he dragged Lieutenant Hadley into a conversation.”
That was good. At least there was still a chance of salvaging the situation. “Something’s going on here, Master Chief. I caught the bomber planting the UIED at the Seattle Aquarium. I immobilized him and then disposed of the armed device where it would cause the least amount of damage. Senator Montgomery was at the fundraiser. I think he was the target of the bombing.”
A large group of rowdy teens entered the restaurant, blocking his view of Claire and her father. Wyatt tried to see around them.
“Do the cops know this?”
“How could they? The bomb went off a couple miles away.”
“So he’s without protection?”
“I’m having dinner with him and his daughter right now.”
“His daughter?”
“Dr. Claire Montgomery.”
“From San Diego? What’s she doing out here?”
“She was at the aquarium. Anyway it’s a long story. I think they’re both at risk, so I’m sticking close by.” Annoyed with the group, he pushed through them and back out onto the deck. The table was empty. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck!”
“Wyatt? What’s going on?”
Ignoring the master chief, Wyatt grabbed the waitress’s arm. “The woman and the older gentleman that were sitting here with me, where are they?”
She shot him a dark look. “Looks like they skipped out.” She picked up the bill and slapped it against his chest. “Guess you’re paying.”
“Whatever.” He yanked his wallet out of his shorts and tossed four twenties on the table. A boat motor revved in the nearby Bell Street Marina. Ice shot up his spine, making his hair stand on end. Even as his mind refused to make the connection, his feet took him along the pier to the marina. Damn flip-flops were slowing him down. He kicked them off and ran flat out. Had someone forced Claire away from the table? He swerved, narrowly avoiding an older gentleman and his dog. Pumping his arms, he pushed himself to go faster. His hand clenched over his cell phone and he remembered that Romero was still on the line. “Goddamn, Master Chief. Claire’s gone and so is her father.”
“Maybe they returned to the aquarium or went home.”
Wyatt raced along the dock, blood roaring in his ears. His chest contracted painfully and cold sweat sheened his forehead. He had to calm down or he’d be no good to Claire and the senator. “No. She wouldn’t have left without me.”
About twenty yards ahead, a boat pulled away from its mooring. As he closed the distance, he tried to peer inside the boat. It had a small cabin area below the deck that he couldn’t see. The boat accelerated and his chest heaved with the effort to keep up with it. A shadow moved in one of the portholes. He caught a glimpse of blonde hair. “Oh, God! I think he’s got her, Master Chief,” he panted into the cell phone clutched in his fist. “He just took off in a small cabin cruiser.”
“Who, Wyatt? Who’s got her?”
“The bomber. Oh fuck. The bomber took Claire.”
“What about the senator?”
“I don’t see him, but he’s probably in there too.” Or Wyatt would have spotted him on the way. When he reached the end of the marina, he made a decision. “Master Chief, I’m follow—”
A bullet hit the deck below his feet, splintering the wood. Wyatt jumped back, almost dropping his phone. He could hear Romero’s voice squawking through it. “Wyatt? What’s going on?”
“It’s definitely the bomber. Bastard just shot at me.”
“You hit?”
“I’ve got to go after them.”
“This is a touchy situation, Wyatt. You should call the cops.”
Over his shoulder, he scanned the marina and didn’t see SPD’s Harbor-1, which was often docked there. “And say what? By the time they get here, the guy will be long gone and we may never find Claire.”
“How will you catch up to him? Do you have your suit? Your dolphin tail?”
“I’ve got my gear.” Wyatt took a deep breath. “Master Chief, I can’t just sit by and let him take her. She… she’s really important to me. We have to do something. Right now.”
Silence.
“Master Chief?”
“Give me a minute, I’m thinking. Okay. I’ll inform the lieutenant the team is taking the MAKO out on the Sound for a training exercise. Gear up and follow the bomber. We’ll get as close as we can. As soon as our communicators are in range, we’ll sync up and take the boat from the water. Don’t engage before we meet up. Understood?”
Now it was Wyatt’s turn to keep quiet. How was he supposed to wait idly by while some crazy fucker held his girl hostage?
“Petty Officer Black. I repeat. Is that understood?”
Wyatt swallowed. He’d do his best. “Yes, Master Chief.”
“ETA thirty minutes.”
“Roger that.”
Wyatt hung up the phone and ran back to the aquarium, keeping to the shadows to avoid the growing crowd, no doubt attracted by the sound of the gunshot. He snuck in the same entrance he’d used earlier and retrieved his gear from the employee locker rooms. Kirby’s moans and Jane’s soft comforting tones filtered out from the operating room. Wyatt ran a mental scan of his body. Other than the frantic beating of his heart, everything felt normal. Still, he’d do his best to keep his distance from the team until Claire… His thoughts hit a wall. Claire.
Today, he’d fallen for her, fallen like a ton of bricks, and his heart would be just as shattered if he didn’t get her back safe and sound. He’d promised to protect her, and he’d failed.
Chapter 6
Claire awoke with a throbbing jaw and aching shoulders. She tried to rub her pounding temples, but her arms refused to move. They were tied behind her back. Her pulse skyrocketed and perspiration beaded along her hairline. What was going on? Leveraging herself against the wall, she wiggled and squirmed into a sitting position. The floor beneath her swayed and an engine rumbled. Where was she? Peering through the dim light, she tried to get her bearings. The floor moved again, a slow rolling motion. A faint smell of fish permeated the air. She was on a boat. But why? And where were Wyatt and her father?
A moan came from the corner of the room, close to an opening that led up to the deck.
“Daddy? Wyatt?”
“Claire?” Her father’s voice was soft, shaken.
“Are you hurt?”
“My ears are ringing, but I don’t think anything’s broken. You?”
“I’m okay. My hands are bound though.” She attempted to move her legs. “My feet too.”
She heard a scuffling sound. “Damn. Mine are, too.”
“The last thing I remember was sitting at the restaurant. Wyatt took a phone call. You and I were chatting, then…” An image of a thin blond man with a gun flashed in her mind. “We’ve been kidnapped!”
“Afraid so, honey.” His voice seemed stronger now.
“If they have both of us, how do they expect to get any ransom?”
“This might be politically motivated.”
“You think this is about that bill you’re working on?”
“It’s highly probable.”
“What are we going to do? And where’s Wyatt? Oh God, what if they killed him?” Her heart hammered against her chest and she felt lightheaded, like she was going to faint.
“Claire,” her father said firmly. “Calm down. You’re hyperventilating.”
She inhaled deeply and let the air out in a long stream.
“That’s it. Breathe slowly, in and out,” he coached her.
After a few minutes, she felt better. “Sorry for losing it like that.”
“We’ll be okay, sweetheart. The police will figure out what’s happened. They’ll find us soon.”
She shook her head. “Wyatt will come for us. I know he will.” Ju
st that afternoon, he’d risked his life to save strangers. Then he’d saved her from drowning. He hadn’t done all that to let her be killed by a political terrorist.
“How much do you know about this Wyatt Black?”
The way he said Wyatt’s name sent goose bumps up her arms. The muscles of her face tightened as her defenses went up. “I know he’s a good man.”
“You have to admit this is a little suspicious. There’s an explosion. The guy shows up out of nowhere. At dinner, he’s asking me questions about my bill. Then he gets a mysterious phone call, right before some extremist kidnaps us at gunpoint.”
Outrage filled her and the food she’d eaten seemed to curdle, her stomach cramping painfully. “Wyatt has nothing to do with this. You saw the man! That obviously wasn’t Wyatt.”
“Could have been an accomplice.”
They were wasting time and energy arguing about something that couldn’t possibly be true. She had to tell her father the truth. Well, at least some of it. “Wyatt is in the Navy, Dad. He’s the one who located the explosive and took it out to deeper water where it wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“In that case, he’s also the one who lured you out in the boat. You were almost killed by that blast.” His voice was as hard as his expression, which she could clearly see now that her eyes had adjusted to the fading light.
“It wasn’t him.”
“Did you ever see someone else?”
No, she hadn’t. But every cell in her body screamed that Wyatt was innocent. He’d told her the truth. He was a hero. “Wyatt left the bomber zip-tied next to the pier. And you saw a SCUBA diver swim over to the Bell Street Marina. Wyatt couldn’t have been at the site of the explosion and at the marina at the same time.”
“Like I said, he could have an accomplice.”
“To what purpose? He’s military, for heaven’s sake. What does he care about your bill?”
“I don’t know, Claire. But answer this, if he’s military, why was he at the aquarium in the first place? The military doesn’t execute missions within the US. You know that.”
She ducked her head. “He came to see me.”
“You need to face the facts, honey. This man isn’t what he professes to be.”
Slumping against the wall, she leaned her head on what appeared to be the galley cabinets. Her father was wrong. Wyatt had told her the truth at great risk to himself. He would come for them. He would come for her.
Footsteps pounded on the stairs.
Claire sucked in a breath and made herself as small as she could. The blond man she’d remembered entered the cabin and went straight to her father. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Senator?”
Everything about him, from his stance to his tone, was abrasive. Her father bristled. “I demand to know what this is about.”
“You demand, do you?” The kidnapper laughed. The maniacal sound scared Claire worse than her earlier near-death experience. “This is for my buddy who lost his house when his company folded in 2010—after the moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling. The moratorium you voted for.” He kicked her father in the stomach.
The air whooshed out of her father’s lungs and he bent in half, moaning.
“Dad!” She lunged onto her knees, wanting to help him, to shelter him with her own body. Something. But the man had other ideas. When she almost toppled over, unbalanced with her hands tied behind her back, he caught her arm, the smile on his face cold. Deadly.
Crouching down, he touched his fingers to the growing bruise on her jaw. “Looks like that hurts.”
Claire’s lips curled into a sneer. “Bastard!” She gathered up her saliva and launched it at his face.
“Bitch.” The man’s heavy hand caught the side of her head. The impact sent her flying backward into the cabinets. A million nails pounded into her skull, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. The bastard would never have the satisfaction of hearing her scream.
He marched back to her father, who lay sprawled on the floor, and kicked him in the back. “And that’s for the job my brother lost in 2011 when his employer was denied permits for new wells because of stricter regulations. Regulations you voted for.”
Her father’s moans shredded her heart. “Please, stop hurting him!”
“Why should I?” The man snarled at her before turning back to his victim. “This is for me, you son of a bitch. My wife left me and took off with the kids when I lost my job. And just when things in the oil industry were starting to get better and the US-Mexico agreement looked like it was moving forward, you pull this shit with expanding Dodd-Frank. If this bill is passed, tens of thousands of jobs will go up in smoke.” His boot connected with her father’s face. A sickening crunch echoed in the silent room. “It’s all just numbers to you. But those are people’s jobs, their lives, that you’re ruining. My life.”
Tears tracked down her cheeks, mingling with the blood and sweat on her lips. The horrible extent of their situation crashed down on her. They might not survive long enough for Wyatt to rescue them. She had to get the kidnapper’s attention, keep him talking, stall him until help came.
“Please, stop. How can the senator help you?”
The muscles of the man’s arms bulged as he picked her father up by the collar of his shirt and threw him onto the settee. “He can help by dying.” And with that, he pulled out a gun and aimed it at her father’s temple.
Screams tore from her chest, ripping her throat. All she could see was the kidnapper’s weapon, his index finger caressing the trigger. Claire’s entire being was reduced to one purpose: separating the man from his gun. Pushing with her feet, she slid her back up the wall until she was standing, and with every ounce of strength she had left, she threw herself at the kidnapper just as the gun went off.
Finally! Wyatt pumped his legs as rapidly as he could to position himself alongside the fast-moving cruiser. He had to get closer to it without getting caught in the pull of the propeller. He’d be no use to anyone dead.
Swimming several feet below the surface of the water, he was able to avoid most of the drag from the boat’s wake. As he neared the starboard side, a woman’s scream reverberated through the water, slamming into his body like an electric shock. Claire. His breathing accelerated and he had to concentrate to slow it down, to calm his pulse.
He pressed the spot below his ear to activate the communicator. “Master Chief, I’m at the boat. Claire is definitely on it.”
“Location?”
Wyatt rattled off the coordinates as he thrust his hips, diving under the boat. Keeping pace with it, he surfaced alongside the hull and found a groove deep enough to provide a good grip. Digging his fingers in, he pulled himself up above the waterline to peer into a small porthole. The interior consisted of a single all-in-one cabin. A man—he had to be the senator—was slumped over the table. Blood matted his hair and trickled from the corner of his mouth. “The senator is inside and he doesn’t look good.”
“How many tangos?”
“I only see one, but the boat is still moving.”
Wyatt continued to scan the cabin and his breath caught when he spotted Claire fighting with the kidnapper. “Shit! The tango has a gun and Claire’s fighting him for it. I’m going in, Master Chief.”
“We’re almost there. ETA two minutes.”
“Can’t wait.”
“Fuck.” A sigh came over the communicator. “Don’t get dead.”
Despite the tenseness of the situation, a slight smile curved Wyatt’s lips. “Aye, aye, Master Chief.”
Given the growing darkness, Wyatt figured his best bet was to mount the boat via the side. Although access from the transom would be easiest, the kidnapper would be able to see the stern from inside the cabin, increasing Wyatt’s chances of being spotted. With a kick of his tail, he propelled himself upward and grabbed the railing that ran along the sides of the cruiser. As quietly as possible, he heaved himself onto the deck and detached the dolphin tail from his feet. “I’m in,�
�� he confirmed to the master chief.
“See any other tangos?”
Wyatt surveyed the deck. “None so far.”
“We’re in the water. Ready to back you up in sixty seconds.”
Wyatt’s relief was almost palpable. He could take on one assailant, gun or not, but his chances of getting Claire and her father out alive increased exponentially with his team’s support. He could hear her shouting and cursing as she fought to get the gun from the bomber. I’m almost there, sweetheart.
Belly crawling on the deck, he headed for the stern. Water dripped from his wetsuit, lubricating the way. When he reached the cockpit, he made sure it was empty, then climbed over the side and onto one of the benches.
“No tangos in the cockpit,” he said over the communicator.
The entrance to the lower cabin was at the end of the bench. He reached down his leg and wrapped his hand around the hilt of his KA-BAR. The feel of the leather against his palm settled him, helped him focus on the mission. Pushing Claire’s desperate cries to the back of his mind, he dropped his head so he could see the situation inside the cabin. He got his first clear view of the blond man. Thankful for the ability to subvocalize, Wyatt relayed the developments to the team. “I won’t give him the chance to kill her, Master Chief.”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“Just my KA-BAR.”
“Slip inside and get her out of the way. Wingman will take the tango out through the starboard porthole once he has a clear shot.”
“Aye, aye, Master Chief.” Around him, Wyatt sensed more than heard the MER team mounting the boat, getting into position. Under Romero’s command, they were a well-oiled machine. Everyone had a purpose and everyone fulfilled it.
Confident that the situation was under control, Wyatt gripped the top of the opening to the cabin and somersaulted inside. He landed in a crouch and held his breath.
The tango froze in his battle to restrain Claire and searched the opening, but thanks to the reflective material of the wetsuit and the darkening sky, Wyatt remained hidden.
Shadows in the Mist: A Paranormal Anthology Page 33