by Mark Stone
“Never in my life have I ever wished I had minded my own business,” I answered, circling the man. He moved in tandem, and I could tell from the way his body arched, ready to fight, and the stealthy way in which he glided around me, that this guy was no novice. He wasn’t some drunk slob who had downed too many piña coladas, gotten frisky with a girl on the dance floor, and then didn’t want to take no for an answer. This guy knew what he was doing, which only led credence to the idea that he might have something to do with the larger picture here. Of course, it also lent credence to the idea that he might kick my ass, which was a much less promising idea.
“I heard a crack when you landed,” the Russian said. “Did you break something?”
“Funny,” I muttered, still circling along with the guy. “I heard that, too. I thought it was your pride.”
“That’s the difference between us and Americans, I suppose,” the Russian said. “We have pride in country. You people waste it on yourselves.”
“That’s an odd way to insult me, but okay,” I said.
“People will break. You will break,” the Russian said. “But Mother Russia will never—”
“I can guess the end of that sentence, and I’m not interested,” I interrupted. “Not even a little. Especially since I’ve seen all the Rocky movies. I know how this ends for you. So, let’s get it over with.”
With that, I darted toward the man. He moved in response, but he moved the way I knew he would. He had been keeping all his weight on his right foot, which meant that more than likely, he was a southpaw. As he reared toward the left, pulling back and readying a punch, I connected with his shoulder, knocking him backward just a little. It didn’t faze him too much, though. He twisted, turning his back on me and driving an elbow into my face. It hit my mouth, and I immediately tasted blood. Knowing my lip had busted, I dabbed at it, pulling away reddened fingers.
“You thought the war was cold,” I muttered, anger rising in me. “Wait until I toss your ass into the water.”
I drove toward him, punching. He blocked it. I threw another punch. He blocked it, too. Tried a kick. Another block. Then a jab and a punch to spice things up. Blocked and blocked. This dude was like a ballerina. You know, if a ballerina really didn’t want me to clock him in the nose.
Finally, I decided if this dance way of fighting wasn’t going to work, I’d go back to my roots. I’d go back to old-school Midwestern cornfield fighting. And that only ever started one way.
Looking down, I slammed my foot down hard onto his and held it there. He tried to pull away, but I was wearing my size twelve boots, and it would have taken a U-Haul to pull those off him.
He looked down as he tried fruitlessly to free his foot.
“Made in America, loser,” I explained. Then I leveled him with a round of haymakers. Sure, he blocked a few. Okay, he blocked more than a few. But that wasn’t what I was going for, anyway. With him pinned and his hands busy minimizing the damage mine were doing, his face was vulnerable. And as I had proven earlier in the motel, my skull was harder than most.
Pulling back, I slammed the top of my head hard into his face. He screamed, his hands moving up the affected area.
“There we go,” I murmured, returning to the haymakers and really working over his ribcage. Finally, I moved my foot long enough to sweep his legs, sending him to the floor, a breathless, bloodied mess. “Now what was it you said about minding my own business?”
“I said you would regret it,” he said weakly, a strange smile spreading across his face. “And you’re about to.”
“John!” Scott screamed from overhead. “John, help me!”
Turning, I looked up and saw my friend standing on the upper deck. His hands were raised over his head, and the woman I had just saved stood beside him, a knife in her hand that was pointed right at his chest.
“What?” I muttered, my eyes widening as questions filled my mind along with a lowkey panic. “What the hell is going on here?”
I looked up at my friend, at the fear on his face and the tremble in his large body as the wheels in my head spun in overdrive.
“I told you,” the Russian said from below me, his thick accent mixing with the weakness in his voice making his words even harder to understand than usual. “I told you that you would regret not—”
“That’s enough out of you,” I said, giving him a swift kick to the head, just enough to knock him out. I didn’t need him to spell any of this out for me. It was right there, as crystal clear as the bloody smile on his face and as gleaming as the woman’s blade against the setting sun. I had been played. This wasn’t what it looked like. This lady wasn’t in need of rescue. What she was trying to do was draw me away from Scott long enough to slice him up like a pig at a luau. And I had stupidly obliged. Maybe Davey was right. Maybe I was the kind of guy who leapt into danger first and asked questions second. In any event, we were where we were now. I was a full deck away from Scott, who wasn’t the type of guy who excelled at protecting himself, even from a woman half his size, so long as that woman was armed like this one was.
More than that, the idea of fighting a woman wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. Sure, she might have wanted to kill one of my oldest friends, but could I actually throw punches at her the same way I did with her Russian comrade? Would I even have a choice?
I mean, assuming I could get up there in time to stop her, I wouldn’t be able to hesitate. I’d have to strike quickly. I would have to show no mercy. I would have to—
As I was going over the situation in my head, a figure emerged from the staircase. She was tall, and it took all of a second for me to recognize her as Charlotte and another second for me to recognize the item in her hand as a fire extinguisher.
Moving like a lethal dream, Charlotte lifted the metal object, bringing it down first on the woman’s hand, knocking the blade away, and then across her face. She crumpled like paper in the rain.
Dropping the fire extinguisher and turning to me, Charlotte muttered, “You’re welcome,” as she shook her head.
“Well, I’ll be damned” I muttered, turning back to the Russian on the floor. “Guess I didn’t have to be sorry after all—” But when I turned to him, the man was gone.
17
Scott was shaking as I paced around the living room of my suite, looking at the man sitting on the couch as well as an array of people around him. Oliver was there, as well as Charlotte, Maxwell, Irma, Scott’s personal bodyguards, and a few housekeepers, bringing extra blankets, food, and a bunch of other stuff we didn’t need at the moment. What we did need was the one thing that it didn’t look like we were going to be able to get—answers.
“What the hell kind of security is this, anyway?” I almost spat, sneering at Oliver.
“Don’t you dare blame me for this!” Oliver said, standing and pointing a stubby finger in my direction. “It was you and Mr. Shades who insisted on galivanting off by yourselves. Why, he practically blackmailed me. I had no choice but to relent.”
Oliver had a point. We had rubbed our chance to get away from our protectors in his face, and not fifteen minutes later, we’d found ourselves in a very dangerous situation. Still, that wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t care about having some guy over my shoulder to make sure I was safe, even if that guy was a fellow veteran. What I cared about was the source of the disruption in the first place.
“I don’t care about the damn bodyguards!” I shouted before looking over at Maxwell and nodding. “No offense, but what I’m talking about goes deeper than that. You said you have no record of either of these people on the ship. That’s what you just told me, isn’t that right, Oliver?”
Oliver practically deflated as he took in my words. “Unfortunately, the woman in custody doesn’t have any identification, but seeing as how all other occupants on the ship are present and accounted for and she’s not one of the staff, we have to assume that she and the missing man who you fought with are, indeed, stowaways.”
“Is
that in addition to the stowaway who might have broken into my room, or are we thinking that incident and this one are related?” I asked bitterly.
Oliver looked down at the floor. “An investigation is being launched to deal with the issues at hand. Unfortunately, I don’t have any further information for you at this moment.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I tell you exactly where you can stick that investigation,” I answered quickly.
“John, stop,” Charlotte said, running a hand through her hair. “The guy is doing the best he can.”
“I certainly hope not,” I admitted, not breaking eye contact with Oliver. “Because if that’s the case, we’re all screwed.”
“What about the Russian?” Scott asked, his hands on his head.
“We’re looking for him,” Oliver said. “There are only so many places he can hide aboard this ship.”
“There are a thousand places he could hide,” I retorted, shaking my head again. “And he could move from one to the other and back again. It’s a cat and mouse game that you might never win, regardless of how many people you have on the case. He is dripping blood, though, and I’m pretty sure I broke his jaw. So, he’ll need at least a little bit of medical attention. We should start out by looking into any infirmaries the ship has, as well as medical bays. I’m betting we’ll either find him there or adjacent to there. He’ll need painkillers. He won’t get by too long without them. We can start there.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Lucky,” Oliver said, taking a deep breath. “You won’t be starting anything. I understand that you see yourself as having something of a reputation for getting things done, but that is utterly beside the point here. We have a team in place and a protocol for situations like this,”
“What do you mean, situations like this?” Charlotte balked. “I thought you said there had never been a situation like this on this ship. You told us there had never been—”
“I’m well aware of what I told you, Ms. York,” Oliver cut her off. “It’s the truth. Or, at least it was until the two of you started stirring up trouble. But just because something has never happened doesn’t mean we weren’t prepared for it. The Diamond Mine is one of the most secure and thoroughly protected ships to ever sail the seas. We are trained for every possible situation.”
“Dude, there’s at least one crazy person running free on this ship and who knows how many others out there waiting in the wings. You have a woman in custody you can’t get any information from, and as far as I know, you have no idea why any of this is happening or how far it actually goes. So, with all due respect, would you please stop telling me how awesome your ship is and how on top of things all of you are?” I asked, sighing loudly.
“I understand your frustration, Mr. Lucky, and I assure you, it’s shared by both myself and the entire staff of the—”
“Nope, I’m out,” I said, shaking my head and walking toward the door. “Come on,” I continued, motioning to both Charlotte and Scott. “They might not want us looking into this, but they can’t stop us from walking away from this nonsense.”
“I’m going to ask that you don’t disregard your bodyguards again,” Oliver said.
“Who cares about the damn bodyguards?” Scott asked, standing to meet me. “I almost got killed on this boat.”
“Because you insisted on leaving your protection detail,” Maxwell said, his hands clasped together at his waist.
“I couldn’t have a better protection detail than the pair of people who actually saved me,” Scott countered, looking from me to Charlotte and back again. “I’ll stick with them, thank you very much.”
“I’m going to have to insist—”
“Unless you’d like there to be a three-page article in the local papers about what happened here tonight, you’re not in a position to insist on anything,” I said, taking a page from Scott’s playbook and interrupting Oliver with an ultimatum. “I get that you have a way of doing things around here, but you need to stay out of our way, stay off our backs, and keep your distance for the rest of the cruise. Otherwise, when we dock, I’ll have Barbara Walters on the damn phone, feeding her the story of a lifetime. You got it?”
Oliver took a deep breath before finally sitting back down on the couch. “I suppose all that’s left to say is that I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay aboard the Diamond Mine.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said harshly. Turning back to the door, I flung it open and marched out.
“You were hard on them,” Charlotte said.
“Only as hard as I had to be,” I answered. “I can’t have them looking over our shoulders day and night while we’re on this ship.” Then, realizing Scott was there and that I couldn’t discuss the real reasons behind my need for privacy and freedom, I added, “You know, they’ll cramp our style.”
“I’m not too worried about my style,” Scott said shakily. The confidence he’d shown in the room had quickly faded. Now that we were on our own, walking down the hallway of the ship, his voice was soft and meek. “What if they come back? What if there are more of them? Maybe we were actually safer hidden in your room.”
“They’ve already been in that room,” I said. “It was the first thing we heard when we boarded the ship. Oliver said someone had tried to break into our room. Now I know who it was.”
“Except what if it wasn’t?” Charlotte asked. “We have no way of knowing what’s going on here at all, much less whether the Russians are the ones responsible for breaking into your room.”
“It had to be them,” I said. “I mean, who else could it have been?”
“For starters, it could have been me,” a familiar voice chimed in from behind me. Turning around, I saw a face that shocked me staring back, an uneasy grin on her face. Random White stood here, aboard this ship where she absolutely had no business being, blinking hard at me.
“You?” I balked. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“For starters?” she asked, biting her lower lip. “Getting in way over my head.”
18
“Who is this and why did she try to break into your room?” Charlotte asked, eyeing Random up and down, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Yeah, John, if you know this girl, I’d definitely like to be introduced,” Scott said, looking her over, extending his hand for her to shake, and saying, “The name’s Scott, but my fans call me Shades. I’m kind of a big deal.”
“Back off, Scottie. This woman is bad news,” I said, taking a step toward Random.
“Like that’s ever stopped you before,” Scott muttered.
“You heard Charlotte, Random,” I said, settling in front of the reporter. “She asked a question and I’d like the answer to it.”
“It was the wrong question,” Random said. “I didn’t try to break into your room. I got in. This has a double-coded key card system. It’s pretty standard, and it’s not going to give me any trouble. I mean, what am I, twelve?”
“Random, focus,” I said. “What questions should I be asking?”
“If she broke into your room, you should be asking why she’s not in handcuffs or what she wanted in there,” Charlotte replied.
“Wrong again,” Random said. “Your girl is really striking out here, Lucky.”
“She’s not my girl. I mean, not really,” I said. “And you’re right. I know why you went into my room, just like I know why you’re on this ship in the first place. You wanted your story, and you weren’t willing to stop until you got it, even if that meant breaking a law or two in the process.”
“A man after my own heart,” Random said. “You’ve known me for less than a week, and you can already count off my motivations and limitations.”
“It’s easy when they’re both wildly off kilter,” I answered. “But let me take this to its logical conclusion. The question we should be asking you isn’t why you’re on the ship or why you broke into my suite. It’s why you’re telling me about it now. You could have very e
asily stayed hidden in the throngs of people on this boat. You’d have been able to follow Charlotte and me, maybe even dig up a few secrets we’d let slip because we didn’t realize you were watching. But you didn’t. You told us you were here, and there’s got to be a reason for that.”
“There he is, the famous Lucky John in action,” Random said. “Care to venture a guess as to why I’m telling you now?”
“Can we just drop this banter?” Charlotte huffed, throwing her hands out at her sides. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but it deserves to be taken more seriously than this.”
“She seems like a bucket of fun. No wonder you like her so much,” Random muttered.
“Unlike you, she’s been through a lot since coming on this ship,” I answered.
“A lot of what? Money?” Random asked, eyeing Charlotte up and down. “That dress she’s wearing had to cost upward of five hundred bucks.”
“What I am or am not wearing doesn’t concern you, honey!” Charlotte said, using honey in that way that only women can, the way where you can tell it doesn’t actually mean something nice, even if it’s supposed to. “Your actions have put us on edge since the minute we’ve stepped onto this ship.”
“How about this?” Random started, chuckling at Charlotte. “I’ll take ten million dollars from the next person I bang and then we’ll both be on edge. Would that make you feel better?”
“Enough!” I shouted. “We’re going to the bar.”
“What?” Charlotte asked. “Do you really think now is the best time to get drunk?”