by Matt Lincoln
“Get ready!” Meg yelled.
29
My eyes were still somewhat dazzled, but I poked my head up to see that the yacht was fast approaching. Meg began to curve to the side so that we could leap onto the other boat if we timed it just right.
“I’ll cover you!” Lex shouted in my ear.
She rose to her knees, braced her arms on the plastic bench, and began to fire at the other boat. I holstered my gun then launched myself up and toward the edge of our boat, barely clearing the lower line of the railing with both feet before I jumped into the air, aiming for the taller side of the yacht. There were maybe five feet of space between us, and I hoped desperately that I would make it and not eat shit against the hull and then fall into the water.
I was barely aware of anything going on around me as I flew through the air. I sort of thought guns were going off, and I could half see the three men standing on the yacht, watching me jump, but none of the sensory input really meant anything to me. I was only fully aware of the air wrapped around my limbs and the edge of the yacht I was reaching for.
I slammed into it with my chest, pain ripping through my ribs, and managed to get my hands around something, though I couldn’t say what as my legs flailed against the yacht’s slick hull, seeking purchase. The rubber on my water socks kept slipping, refusing to catch on anything, and I could feel my fingers weakening as well as gravity took over, seeking to pull me into the hungry maw of the water down below.
Boots appeared before me, and I reacted before the person had a chance to do anything. I rammed my toes into the side of the boat and pushed, flinging myself forward a couple of inches. I wrapped both arms around one of the legs in front of me and clung on for dear life. The man cried out, startled, and stumbled backward, trying to break my grip, but instead, he dragged me with him. My head caught on the lower line of the railing, several hairs ripping free with pings of pain, and I kicked my legs again, forcing myself further onto the yacht.
I got my toes around the lip at the edge of the boat and shoved, my calf cramping, bellowing in protest, and then the man and I tumbled down onto the lower deck, his limbs cushioning my fall, though it was only a few feet. His breath left him in a rush, and I used the quiet sound to find his head, wrap my hands around it, and pound it into the hard plastic until I felt him fall still beneath me.
I staggered upright, trying to take in the whole scene around me in a single instant. The other two sentries were still standing. There was only one with a gun, and she was pivoting to face me. Meg had swung away from the yacht in a wide arc to make a second approach so Lex could board. I needed to deal with these two goons before Meg came back.
My gun was shoved into the belt of my wetsuit. It was amazing that I hadn’t lost it in my jump, but I didn’t have time to untangle it before the blonde woman fired. So I lunged at the man standing between us. He was only a few feet away, and in an instant, I was upon him, grabbing the lapel of his jacket and pulling him close at the same time that the woman fired. The bullet struck his back, and he jerked against me, and as the woman cried out, I shoved him away as hard as I could. There wasn’t enough room for the woman to dodge out of the way, so the body struck her and brought her down with it, the two of them landing on the deck in a tangle of limbs. The gun had fallen from her hand, and I darted forward and snatched it up as she reached for it, using the butt to knock her out with a quick jab to the head.
I stepped away from the pile of limp bodies, looking around for Meg and Lex. They were almost back to the yacht, and I gave them a two-armed wave to let them know that I’d handled it. Meg slowed up, coming to a near stop by my position, and I grabbed Lex’s arm and helped her climb on board, mildly jealous of her much easier entrance.
“I’ll stay out here!” Meg called from her spot by the steering wheel. “Make sure no boats sneak up on you.”
“Got it. Stay safe,” I replied, leaning over so I could see her through the window.
She smiled. “You too.”
I watched as Meg peeled away on her boat until Lex tugged at my arm to grab my attention. Rachel and Graham approached us from the opposite end of the yacht, carefully threading their way through the ropes on the ground. Ramirez was right behind them, continually checking over his shoulder for any sign of attack.
“Where to, boss?” I asked Rachel once we stood in a little cluster beside the yacht’s large cabin.
“Inside, quickly,” she replied.
Ramirez was closest to the sliding glass door to the cabin, but when he yanked on the handle, it refused to budge.
“Step aside,” Rachel ordered. Ramirez moved hastily out of the way as Rachel took his spot, leveled her gun, and shot out the glass. The sound of the doors shattering was deafening, the pieces striking the floor as a glittering cascade, and the four of us stared at Rachel as she casually kicked an upright shard out of the doorframe and stepped inside.
“Well, are you coming?” she asked, turning her head to look at us.
I shook myself and hurried to follow her, stepping carefully on the glass in my socked feet. The rubber on my soles protected my flesh, but I could feel the shape of each shard through the fabric, and I was sure I was going to slice myself to ribbons at any second. I heaved a sigh of relief when I reached the end of the short glass field without leaving behind any bloody footprints.
Comparing this yacht to the Wandering Heart, I figured that this one had a middle level, lower level, and open upper level for the control console and steering wheel. If I were Ward, I would make my stand up high, where it would be easiest to leap off the boat and make my escape, but I didn’t think I’d seen anyone moving about up there while we were on the deck, though it was possible I simply hadn’t spotted them.
“We stick together this time,” Rachel decided, gun out as she looked at the various doors around us. “Strength in numbers.”
“Where do we go first?” Graham asked.
“Down,” Rachel said, eyes darting around until she spotted the ladder that would take us to the lower level.
I didn’t like that it was a ladder rather than stairs, like it had been on the larger yacht. Climbing down the rungs would leave us much more vulnerable than descending some steps.
“I’ll go first,” Rachel continued. There was a determined crease in her brow, and her mouth was a white line across her face as she pressed her lips together, breathing deeply through her nose.
There wasn’t anything we could do to cover her. We could only crowd around the ladder’s hole and peer down at her with our guns pointed nowhere useful as she descended rung by rung. There was no way to know what waited for her at the bottom.
I was tense, practically trembling as I waited for a shot to ring out and knock her off the ladder. But her feet thumped quietly to the ground without any trouble, though I saw her stiffen and raise her gun the moment she looked out into the room.
“Hello, Ms. Bane,” a smooth and familiar voice said. “I’m sorry. I should say, Director Bane.”
Rachel stalked away from the ladder and out of view, the two steps that I could see before she disappeared sharp and dangerous.
Ramirez, Lex, and I scrambled for the ladder at the same time and bounced off each other, wasting precious time. I scowled at the other two and shouldered my way forward, grabbing the top of the ladder and placing my feet on the wide rungs. I hurried down to the lower level, gun in hand, the metal clanking against the wood, digging into my fingers. I jumped the last two rungs, bruised knees groaning in protest when I hit the ground.
There was Simon Ward in the flesh. He looked much like he had in the blackmail video—like an affable, middle-aged dad, his stubble flecked with gray and his hair pushed back loosely, a light smile on his lips. He wore a light blue SPF shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and held there by a button. His beige shorts showed off his chicken leg calves, and leather boating shoes covered his sockless feet.
He also held a gun to Malia Bane’s head.
Ra
chel stood ten feet from the two of them, pistol leveled at Ward’s head while neither moved. Malia sat in a metal chair, though she wasn’t tied up at all. She didn’t look hurt. There was dirt on her face and her pajamas, and her cheeks were streaked with tears, her hands trembling in her lap, but physically, she was fine. Relief flooded through me at that, though it drained away in an instant when my eyes landed on the gun in Ward’s hand again.
Lex dropped to the ground behind me as I moved away from the ladder, and Ward’s eyes flicked toward us, but he didn’t seem terribly concerned by the fact that he was quickly becoming outnumbered. The room was a smaller version of the engine room on the Wandering Heart, and we were alone in it, all Ward’s goons unconscious upstairs. Ramirez joined us next, followed by Graham, and the four of us moved to flank Rachel, guns pointed at the ground rather than Ward. He held the most powerful card, after all, with Malia still in his clutches.
“Ah, the gang’s all here,” Ward said, eyes landing on each of us in turn. “Didn’t I say don’t involve anyone else in this? You’re clearly not very good at listening.” His tone was light and joking, but therein lay the danger. His eyes were hard within his smiling face, and I remembered the brutal way he murdered John Amherst’s partner. He would not hesitate to shoot a child if it benefited him, or even just to spite Rachel. We needed to play this carefully, and Rachel clearly knew that as she took one hand away from her gun and held her arms up, her weapon pointed at the ceiling.
“Let her go,” Rachel said, voice as level as she could make it, though I still detected a tremor within her words.
Ward tsked and shook his head. “And give away my leverage? I don’t think so because I’m guessing you’re not here to tell me that you set my old partner up to take the fall for something.”
“No, I didn’t,” Rachel said bluntly.
I saw Ward’s fingers tighten on the grip of his gun, but his finger remained off the trigger. For the moment.
“You’re outnumbered and outgunned,” Rachel continued. “Enough of this. Release Malia.”
What was Ward’s plan? He had to have one. He wouldn’t have trapped himself down here with no way out. This was a smart man, a man who had contingencies for his contingencies. I cast my eyes around the room, searching for something, anything, out of the ordinary. The lights were dim, the one directly over our heads the only one giving off any real illumination, so most of the room was thrown into shadow. The pipes and machinery formed hulking shapes within the darkness, but I didn’t know enough about boats to tell if any of them weren’t supposed to be there.
Ward shook his head again, like his favorite football team had just lost a game. “I’m really quite disappointed with you, Director Bane. You do know that there must be consequences for this, don’t you?”
“Consequences for you,” Rachel snapped back.
Ward’s other hand was in his pocket, I realized, and had been since we’d climbed down the ladder. What did he have in there? Nothing good, no doubt.
“I’ll give you one last chance,” Ward said, and his finger slowly slid along the gun to wrap over the trigger. Rachel saw and snapped her weapon up to aim at him once again.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, but Ward was still speaking.
“Make a few calls. Right here. Right now. Make that crooked ex-partner of mine pay for his betrayal.” Ward’s anger and hatred were finally bleeding through his casual demeanor. His entire demeanor changed, brow darkening, casting shadows over his eyes, his mouth twisting, contorting until it was a pale slash across his face. His cheeks seemed to grow hollower, gaunter, drawing in to show off the lines of his skull. It should have looked ridiculous paired with his weekend-sailor get-up, but it wasn’t. That somehow only made it worse.
“No,” Rachel said, and my heart stopped, crashing to a painful halt against my ribs.
“Do it!” Ward bellowed, his words echoing around the room so loudly that we all jumped. “Do it right now, or I will shoot her!”
He pressed his gun into Malia’s head, and she whimpered. It was the first sound she’d made since we’d entered, and its soft tone was all the more heart-wrenching at the harsh howl of Ward’s order. Rachel’s arms trembled, the gun dropping a few inches.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Then make the call,” Ward ground out.
What could we do? With Ward’s finger on the trigger, we had less than a second to get him away from Malia, and there was too much space between us to do anything that quickly. But I itched to act, to find some way out of this situation that wouldn’t end with Rachel capitulating to his demands. I felt so useless, standing just behind her, mind churning but no ideas appearing to save us.
“I don’t have a phone on me,” Rachel whispered.
Ward tsked again, digging his gun harder into Malia’s temple so that fresh tears ran down her face.
“Okay, okay, just hang on,” Rachel begged quickly, desperately. “Just give me a second.”
“You have two minutes,” Ward told her.
Rachel reached back and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward so that she could talk to me without taking her eyes off Malia and Ward. “Give me the radio. I’ll have Linda bring a phone down.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Rachel nodded. I could only see half her face, but her eyes were watery, the dam around her tears ready to break. Her lip quivered, her force of will the only thing currently keeping her upright.
“Okay,” I said after I glanced at Ward again, searching for any sign of trouble or a sudden attack. His gun was still pressed to Malia’s temple, finger on the trigger, and his other hand still clutched something in his pocket. I unhooked the radio from my belt and passed it over.
Rachel raised the device to her mouth, pressed the button on the side, and began to speak. “Lin,” she said, and I frowned at the never before used nickname. “I need you to bring a phone to me, okay? Over.”
“On my way,” Linda said. “Over and out.”
Rachel placed the radio in my hand, and I backed up while she spread her hands out to Ward entreatingly. “Alright. A phone is on the way. Give it a couple of minutes. Take the gun away from my daughter’s head, please.”
Ward snorted. “I don’t think so.” But he did take his finger off the trigger.
I stared at the back of Rachel’s head. Something was going on here, but I couldn’t tell what. I would just have to be ready for anything.
I didn’t have to wait long to figure out what Rachel’s plan was. A mere thirty, tense seconds later, something rammed into the side of the yacht with a tremendous crash. Ramirez and Graham were thrown from their feet, and I staggered, able to keep my balance only because I’d been expecting something to happen.
Ward stumbled as well as the floor rocked violently beneath his feet, the horrendous sound of squalling metal filling the room, and his gun lifted away from Malia’s head. Rachel darted forward, dropping to one knee for a brief second as the boat bucked before she shoved herself upright and went for her daughter. I ran after her, cutting behind her so I could switch sides with her and go after Ward.
Ward recovered quickly as the tremors stopped, the yacht listing notably to one side, and he started to raise his gun, aiming at Rachel, who had Malia buried in her arms. I crashed into him before he could pull the trigger, knocking him to the ground, my hand around the wrist holding the gun as I shoved it away. I drove my elbow into his stomach as we landed, and his breath left him in a rush, gun forced from his fingers as I smashed his hand against the floor. He snapped his teeth at my face, and I jerked back, allowing him space to ram his forehead into my nose, which crunched with a harsh burst of pain, hot blood immediately flooding over my mouth.
I fell off Ward, vision blurry with involuntary tears. He took something out of his pocket as he worked to stagger upright. A small black rectangle. A phone, maybe. I couldn’t tell. I lashed out with both legs, catching him in the knee so that he hit the ground again, device clutched to h
is chest.
I rolled over and surged toward him, struggling to make him out through my watery vision. Ward lay on his stomach, his head facing me, and I saw him smile as his thumb touched the screen.
“Oops,” he quipped.
Something immediately began to blink, and little red lights winked in three places around the engine room.
“Better get out quick,” Ward warned. “It’s her or me. You don’t have time to--”
My fist caught him across the face with all the force I could muster, and he went down, cracking his forehead against the floor. Knuckles stinging, I grabbed the black device from his hand. There was a countdown on the screen, and it hit forty-five seconds as I watched.
“Time to go!” I yelled, voice stuffy sounding.
“What? Why?” Rachel asked, looking up from where she knelt with Malia in her arms.
“Bomb!” I shouted, and Rachel’s eyes widened.
I seized Ward’s limp arm and threw it over my shoulder, hauling him upright. Lex rushed to help me, supporting him from the other side. Rachel picked Malia up as Ramirez and Graham led the charge for the ladder. Rachel urged her daughter up after them with quiet words of encouragement and then scurried up the rungs herself, reaching down from the top to grab the shoulders of Ward’s shirt. Ramirez helped her haul him up with a grunt.
I motioned for Lex to go first, and she wasted no time arguing. I didn’t look at the countdown, though I still clutched the phone in my sweaty hand. I scrambled up the ladder as fast as I could. The others were already on the deck, and I tiptoed quickly over the broken glass to join them. Linda had circled away from the yacht after ramming it so she wouldn’t get tangled up in it, and there was no way she would reach us before the ship blew.