Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  “It’s not on a timer,” he said to the FBI investigators. “It’s a booby trap. You guys should leave. Join Sienna down the hill.”

  Sweat dotted his brow as he studied the lines trailing from the device. Goddamn net manufacturing… The wires disappeared into a jumbled gill net. It was a mess surrounding at least five pounds of C-4 with the detonator wires lost in the netting.

  “Can it be triggered with a cell phone?” Agent Upton asked.

  “Probably.”

  “So it could go off any second?”

  “Yes.”

  To the investigators, Upton said, “Do what Vaughan says. Get out. Wait with Ms. Aubrey.”

  “You need to leave too, Upton,” Rhys said. “Unless you have a bomb suit, get out.”

  “You don’t have one either. Dammit, there is no way in hell we’ll find a bomb squad or robot in this godforsaken tundra.”

  “Well then, it’s a good thing I’m here,” Rhys said, suddenly understanding Jana’s machinations. Had she seen far enough into the future to know explosives would come into play?

  Rhys’s training was seven years out of date, but those tours in Iraq were burned in his brain forever. He had the night sweats he hadn’t yet told Sienna about to prove it.

  “Get out, Upton.”

  “I can’t leave you here. Tell me what to do to help, or we both abandon the building and let it blow.”

  Rhys debated. The building was remote, but everything inside would be destroyed, including—especially—the entire collection of Itqaklut artifacts. The storage facility held both Jana’s and Chuck’s life’s work—preserving their tribe’s cultural heritage. But what were artifacts in comparison to human life—his human life? He didn’t have the right tools. He was out of date in his skills. “Let’s pack it in. Declare the building off-limits. See if a suppression blanket can be brought in, and detonate.”

  Upton nodded. “A reasonable plan. Let’s go.”

  The agent’s cell phone rang, startling Rhys. Damn, two minutes back in ordnance disposal mode, and he was already jumpy as hell.

  Upton answered the phone on speaker. “We’re coming out,” he said, presumably to the team that waited outside.

  “Matt, we’ve got a problem. Ms. Aubrey isn’t here. We saw the vehicle driving away. It looked like there was a man in the backseat. Holding a gun to her head.”

  Rhys bolted for the door to the main bay, his heart pounding. He grabbed the knob, but instinct stopped him in his tracks. A trickle ran up his spine. Déjà vu? A vision from Jana? He wasn’t sure, but he scanned the doorframe, quickly spotting the wire. He turned to Agent Upton. “The door was open before, right? It wasn’t closed until your team left a minute ago.”

  “Yes. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a collapsing circuit, and closing the door armed the bomb. We can’t open the door without setting it off. We’re trapped in here until I dismantle it.”

  “Where are we going?” Sienna asked, barely able to keep the quiver from her voice.

  “To meet my brother.”

  “Why?”

  “Shut up.”

  His gun still pressed against her temple, and she had to fight the itch to wipe away the sweat that had dripped into her eyebrow. “I don’t see why I should, since you’re just going to kill me anyway.”

  “Figured that out all by yourself, didja? And my brother thought you were stupid.”

  “I’m not the idiot who murdered a guy in a town where the only exit is through the airport. How stupid can you be? You’re stuck with nowhere to hide in a tiny village where it’s easy to freeze to death ten months out of the year.”

  “Well, see there, darling. That’s where your brains fail you. We’ve got a plan. And since it’s your fault we’re in this situation, you’re going to help us.”

  “I will never help you.”

  “You’ll have to, or you’ll die. We’re going to good old Archie Wright. He’s going to pilot us on his boat across the Chukchi Sea and Bering Strait. We’re going to Russia.”

  “That piece-of-crap boat is going to cross the arctic sea?”

  “Don’t let the exterior fool you. That sucker is Archie’s pride and joy. He’s always talking about how sweet the engine is.”

  “You expect a blind man to pilot you to Siberia?”

  “He’s only legally blind. He’s still got some vision, and Archie doesn’t need to see well to operate the controls of a boat he’s been piloting for over sixty years, not when you’re going to be his eyes. You’re going to tell him exactly what’s out there and what the gauges say.”

  “He’ll die before he takes you to Russia.”

  “I know. That’s why we need you. You’re his reason for not dying. He’ll do what we say to save your life. He’ll take us wherever we want to go. He won’t let the boat sink if you’re on board. Folks about town keep saying good old Archie always had a thing for the ladies. Guess we’ll find out if it’s true.”

  Rhys stared at the jumble of wires intermixed with the netting. Slowly he picked out the detonator wires. Four.

  No problem.

  Don’t think about Sienna. You can’t help her if you’re blown to bits.

  He traced one wire with his eyes. That one was a trap. Clip that one and you die.

  Okay. He wouldn’t do that.

  This was just like Iraq, only better because he wasn’t exposed on a city street, surrounded by assholes who wanted him dead.

  Yeah. This was almost cozy. Inside. Good lighting—Archie had splurged on the daylight fluorescents—probably because it was better for his workers in the dark winter months.

  At the end of the day in Iraq, Rhys had only his team to hang out with, but today, after he ripped off the Pelligrew brothers’ heads and saved Sienna, he’d make love to her for about ten hours, then they’d get on a flight and return to Seattle and begin their lives together.

  But first he had to conquer this motherfucker of a bomb.

  He had it figured out. Knew which lines would detonate it. Now he just had to reach in and snip the wires. And here, unlike Iraq, he wasn’t encumbered by thick gloves.

  This was so much better than the insane old days.

  “I’m cutting,” he told Upton, then positioned the clippers around the first wire. His heart roared in his ears. He’d forgotten that part. Forgotten how the adrenaline felt as it coursed through him while he conducted delicate surgery.

  Steady hands were key. He severed the wire, wiped sweat from his brow with his wrist, then went back for the next wire. And the next. Four cuts and it was done.

  He released the breath he’d been holding, then very gently untangled the massive lump of C-4 from the net that had partially buried it. He pulled out the detonators one by one and wrapped them in a cotton towel he’d set aside for that purpose. They could come in handy.

  He lifted the mound of C-4. Heavy. He’d been right—at least five pounds. It too could come in handy. He put the explosive in the canvas tool bag, picked up the towel full of detonators, and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here and find Sienna.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Archie Wright wasn’t at all happy to see Sienna. And she was pretty certain he could see her, just not well. As Nick Pelligrew had said, Archie was only legally blind. And he was mad as hell Nick had abducted her.

  He stood on the deck of the boat, arms crossed and mouth pursed as he scowled at Nick. “I told you I’d take you to Siberia. You didn’t need to go and get a hostage.”

  “We don’t trust you, old man. And this bitch ruined our business. Only fitting that she should help us out now by keeping you in line. Besides, she doesn’t have anything better to do since her honey’s gonna blow up any second.”

  Sienna flinched. He’d taunted her with that line half a dozen times on the drive to the marina, but there’d been no explosion yet, and the fireworks display the other night proved the sound would carry.

  Rhys was still alive.

  Archie reached out
and squeezed her hand, then pulled her toward the pilothouse.

  “What are you doing?” Nick asked.

  “If we’re going to do this thing, we need to go over the controls,” Archie answered as he opened the pilothouse door. He nudged her toward the captain’s chair at the helm.

  She sat and pretended to listen. She had no intention of helping the Pelligrews escape. She didn’t need to know how to drive the old fishing trawler. She closed her eyes and reached out to Jana. If Jana could pull Rhys into her dreams, maybe she could pull him into her thoughts. She kept repeating Archie. Boat. Archie. Boat.

  Archie bent down next to her and whispered, “Honey, you and me are going to jump in the water. It’ll be freezing as hell, and we have to do it before we reach the first buoy or we’ll be too far out and won’t be able to swim to shore before our muscles seize from the cold. These boys learned net making, but they don’t know shit about boats. As soon as we pull away from the dock, I’m going to make the engine sputter. I’ll try to check on it myself, but one of them will insist on doing it. When he’s below deck, the rigging is going to fall and land on the other one. You’ll need to tell me exactly where he’s standing, and I’ll make it happen. Once he’s trapped, we jump. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  Nick, who stood outside the pilothouse regaling his brother with his exploits in kidnapping Sienna right under the FBI’s nose, shouted through the open door, “Enough lessons. Let’s get underway.”

  “Boy, you can’t just start up the engine on a boat like this and drive off. First off, we need diesel for the big engine. It’s too shallow in the inlet for more than the trolling engine, so I never fill the diesel. It’s so low, we won’t get out of Kotzebue Sound before we run out.”

  “You told us we had enough fuel.”

  “I lied. So shoot me. Oh, wait, you can’t. Because you don’t know shit about this boat or how to drive it.” Archie laughed, and the sound was genuine. The Pelligrews thought they were in charge because they had guns they enjoyed waving around, but the ninety-year-old man was completely running this show, and Sienna and Archie knew it.

  “You moron,” Nick said to his brother. “You should have checked. You could have been fueling up while I grabbed the girl.”

  “Someone’s got to release the lines so I can move her to the fuel dock,” Archie said, sounding almost eager.

  “Don’t try anything funny, old man,” Doug said, casting a glare at Archie before moving to the front to untie the boat.

  The fuel station was two hundred yards away, against the wharf, a distance Archie maneuvered surprisingly well, asking Sienna to estimate distances between boats and wooden pilings.

  Doug climbed onto the dock to fill the tank. Archie went out on deck to argue with Nick about his handling of the lines. Sienna paced the pilothouse. They could get out of this. There was too much going on for the Pelligrews to be vigilant. It was all a matter of waiting for the right moment.

  Flames licked at her cheeks. Hotter now.

  Her gaze caught on a canvas bag in the corner of the pilot house, and with a jolt, she knew what was inside. She flipped up the flap, and there it was, the mask. It had a bullet hole through the left cheek, and red stains that could only be blood.

  Her connection to Jana had been faint since the visions of fire this morning, but she knew Jana was still holding on. She closed her eyes and pressed the mask to her face for the first time. She breathed in the scent of the ancient wood, also smelling gunpowder and blood. She closed her eyes and called to Jana, asking her to send Rhys visions of Archie and the boat, adding thoughts of jumping from the side near the first buoy for good measure. May as well tell Rhys the plan. If Jana could deliver it.

  All at once, a frisson spread through her. Rhys understood. He had a plan too. His message came crystal clear: no matter what, she and Archie had to be off the boat before the big engine was powered up.

  Rhys worked the plastic explosive into a disk and plucked out the detonators from the towel. He studied the wires, then stripped the ends, exposing them. Yeah, it would work. He could thread them together in a way that any electric charge—like a radio signal or the powering up of the trawler’s massive engine—would set off the explosive. He’d already told Agent Upton he suspected Sienna had been taken to Archie Wright’s boat, that the boys would likely make a run for it, with Archie and Sienna as hostages.

  The man had been skeptical, but a moment later, one of his team had confirmed seeing the Pelligrews’ truck in the marina, and a man who fit Doug Pelligrew’s description was fueling up the old trawler. Both tanks were being filled; they were prepping for a long voyage.

  The brothers were armed and dangerous, and Nick Pelligrew had stepped into the pilothouse and trained a gun on the hostages. Agent Upton’s team—who were more forensic specialists than combat-ready agents—were told not to engage, not until Upton and Rhys arrived.

  Rhys finished all but the final wiring that would make the explosive deadly, then told Upton his plan.

  “Are you fucking nuts? Your girlfriend and the old man are on board. They’ll blow sky high.”

  “I’m pretty certain they’re going to jump from the boat before they get far enough out for the main engine to come online.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Isn’t that what you’d do in their situation? They wait too long, and they’re at sea with two neo-Nazis who have zero respect for human life. If what you just told me about their background is correct, these boys have a long trail of destruction in their wake. There is no way they’re reaching Russia without killing Sienna and Archie along the way. They don’t know how to play nice that long, and they have a history of shitting where they eat.”

  “Yeah, but Aubrey and Wright don’t know their background. And Wright is blind, for crissakes.”

  “They’re both smart people, and they know the danger they’re in.” Rhys didn’t have time to convince the agent of his “hunch.” This would be a helluva lot easier if he could just tell the man an ancient mask harboring the soul of my cousin’s dead wife told me.

  Agent Upton would freak knowing the delusional guy sitting next to him held five pounds of C-4 in his hands. With detonators.

  “To plant the explosive,” he said instead. “I’ll need to join them on the boat. I’ll tell them to jump.”

  “I don’t like this plan,” Upton said with a stiff jaw.

  “You have a better one? They have hostages.”

  Ever since receiving Sienna’s message, flames had licked at the edge of Rhys’ vision. Now his hands burned. He’d guessed there would be fire. The only question was, who would burn?

  They arrived at the marina and parked at the far end, behind the main office. Rhys crouched low, weaving his way between dilapidated shacks as he made his way toward the quay where the boat was being fueled. Doug was on the other side of the fuel shed, with his eyes on the diesel gauge.

  Nick, he knew, was in the pilothouse with Sienna and Archie.

  As Rhys neared the vessel, he was grateful for all the lines and rigging that hung from the boat. In the pilothouse, the nets would obscure Nick’s view. A thick rubber Zodiac was suspended from the rigging and jutted out to the side, hovering over the quay. Rhys grabbed an oarlock and pulled himself up, sliding over the side, into the boat. He ducked, praying Nick hadn’t seen him.

  He was in the Zodiac. Now what? His best bet would be to put the C-4 in the engine room. Could he get down there without Nick seeing him?

  He closed his eyes and asked Jana…

  He got a flash of an image. Nick was in the pilothouse, going over the controls, asking Archie questions. The smarter of the two brothers, Nick must have guessed he needed a crash course in captaining the boat.

  The important thing was his focus was toward the bow. Rhys glanced over the gunwale of the Zodiac. Doug still stared at the fuel gauge.

  Now or never.

  Rhys slid from the Zodiac onto the deck and darted into the c
abin below the pilothouse. Thank goodness Archie had given him the fifty-cent tour at the end of their visit last night. Rhys slipped into the engine room and smiled when he saw Archie’s stash of full bottles of scotch, including the one Rhys had given him last night. He could kiss the wonderful old man for his silly rebellion.

  Rhys gathered the bottles and placed them next to the engine block, then planted the explosive on the engine, right above the bottles. The C-4 would shatter the bottles and ignite the alcohol, a secondary fuel/air explosion that would decimate the trawler.

  He tweaked the wires on the detonators, then planted them in the plastic. They would go off with the slightest change in the electromagnetic field.

  Task complete, Rhys slipped out of the engine room. Flames licked again at the edges of his vision. He hoped to hell he hadn’t just made a huge mistake.

  Back on deck, he pulled himself up into the Zodiac again and tucked down between the seats. Doug had finished fueling, and now he undid the bowline. Rhys had a split second to make his choice: stay or escape.

  No way in hell was he getting off this boat while Sienna was on it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sienna didn’t need the mask to tell her where Rhys was. She’d seen him climb into the Zodiac. Such a brazen maneuver, she couldn’t believe he’d gotten away with it. But he had.

  She’d removed the mask from her face when Nick entered the pilothouse, and now clutched it tightly to her chest. She had a feeling Jana had something to do with Rhys’s incredible timing and luck.

  “I’ll be taking that mask from you,” Nick said with a sneer.

  “Why? You ruined it when you shot Adam through it.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t my brother?”

  She shrugged. “I just do.”

  Nick yanked it from her grasp. “It’s an ugly-ass mask, but it would have made us a fortune if you’d left it alone.” In a flash, his eyes darkened with rage, and he slammed the mask into her face. The blow knocked her sideways, and she hit the pilothouse door.