by S. E. Smith
Brian sat back and smiled at her. She could see that he was impressed. For her, getting a good education and focusing on a career was a way of ensuring she was free. It gave her the power to control what happened in her life. She never wanted to have to worry about whether or not she could make it on her own or feel like she needed someone else for her to make it through the day. Deep down, she knew that was a result of her mom’s struggle.
“Wow,” he murmured.
“What about you?” She asked.
“Not much different,” he responded in a light tone. “I’ll clean up the kitchen and then you can call Detective Woo. I’d also like to go down to the marina and take a look around the Defiance.”
“I’ll help you,” Makayla said, sliding off the bar stool and picking up her plate. “Oh, and Brian….” She paused to make sure he was looking at her before she spoke. “I do better if you ask me instead of telling me to do something.”
The corner of his mouth tugged into a wry smile and he nodded. “Noted,” he replied, turning to the sink.
They cleaned the kitchen in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. So much had happened in the past twenty four hours that she was still trying to process it. Just before she woke up, she’d had another dream. She couldn’t remember what it was at first, but the faint images had returned when she was in the shower – the steely-eyed man from the dock who had shot at her. There was something about the way he had looked at her that reminded her of….
Makayla swallowed and glanced out of the corner of her eye at Brian. There had been the same sense of danger. Shaking her head, she decided she was either becoming paranoid or delusional.
“If you don’t mind, can you put it on speaker so I can hear what she has to say?” Brian asked when she picked up her cell phone.
Makayla nodded and walked over to the couch. Sitting down, she touched the screen and accessed her recent calls. She touched the number. It had barely completed the first ring when it was picked up.
“Makayla, where are you?” Helen demanded.
Makayla looked at Brian and scowled. “She answers faster than you do. It took you three rings,” she muttered. “I’m with a friend. He picked me up last night.”
“You should have called me,” Helen replied in a voice tinged with a slight reprimand.
“Detective Woo, this is Brian Jacobs. I work for the United States Consulate. Makayla was attacked outside of the café last night,” Brian said in a hard tone edged with a warning – mess with Makayla, you mess with him. “It was the same man that took Henry and shot Makayla.”
They could hear Helen Woo’s swiftly inhaled breath over the phone. There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. This time, she was speaking in a quiet, urgent voice.
“Where are you?” Helen asked.
“I brought her back to my place,” Brian said before Makayla could reply. “I would like to examine the Defiance and discuss any information that you have so far, if you don’t mind. I have – resources that might help with the case.”
“Who are you again?” Helen asked in a suspicious voice.
Brian looked at Makayla. “I’ve known Brian since I was sixteen. He lived down the street from my grandfather,” she replied, staring into his eyes. “He… He can help us find Henry,” Makayla replied in a soft voice before turning to look down at the phone in her hand. “I need you to share everything you know with him… please.”
Once again, there was silence on the other end. Finally, Helen replied. Her voice was clipped, but professional.
“I will meet you down at the marina in twenty minutes,” she said.
“Make it an hour. It will take us that long to get through the traffic,” Brian replied.
“One hour,” Helen agreed before politely ending the call.
Makayla looked up at Brian when he stood up. “What now?” She asked, rising to her feet.
“We go find out what she knows,” he replied, reaching for her hand.
Makayla nodded. “Oh, I need to get my rain slicker. It looks like it is still drizzling,” she said, releasing his hand and turning back toward the bedroom.
“Good idea,” he murmured, staring out the window.
12
Makayla gazed out the window of the car as Brian pulled into the parking lot of the marina an hour later. Detective Helen Woo was already there. She was standing on the dock looking out over the bay. Makayla opened the door of the car and slid out. Shutting the door, she waited until he walked around the car to where she was standing.
Reaching up, she tugged the hood of the slicker up to shield her face from the light rain that was falling. She began to move forward once he reached her side and they walked down the dock to where Helen was standing. In the back of her mind, Makayla couldn’t help but think that everything appeared so much different today than it had yesterday.
Her footsteps slowed until she came to a stop. Her gaze was glued to the berth where the Defiance should have been. Instead of the sailboat, there was nothing but an empty space and lapping salt water. Confusion swept through her and she glanced around, turning in a tight circle before coming to a stop when she was facing the detective again.
“Where… where is the Defiance?” Makayla asked, staring back at the detective with a puzzled expression.
“Gone,” Helen replied in a terse tone.
“Gone? What the hell do you mean by gone?” Makayla demanded, taking a step closer to the woman. “How can a twenty-six foot sailboat just disappear?” She asked in an incredulous tone.
Helen’s fingers tightened around the handle of the umbrella she was holding when a gust of wind swirled past them. She turned and glanced at Makayla with a frustrated expression clearly evident on her face. Pulling the collar of her raincoat higher, she shook her head.
“We found nothing last night,” she replied. “I stayed the entire time. The investigation team didn’t finish until after two this morning. They searched every centimeter of the sailboat and found nothing out of the ordinary.”
“That doesn’t explain how a sailboat can disappear,” Makayla replied through gritted teeth. “You can’t just put it into your pocket and walk away with it, for crying out loud!”
“I don’t know where it is. It was here when I left earlier this morning,” Helen admitted, releasing a deep sigh.
“What about the security cameras?” Brian asked, turning to look at the camera mounted on the pole.
“It doesn’t cover this far,” Helen said, turning to look out over the bay again. “It would catch anyone entering the dock, but it stops shortly after that. I checked it myself last night to see if I could find any leads that would help identify the men behind Henry Summerlin’s abduction.”
Makayla pushed pass Helen and stepped up to the edge of the dock. She knelt down and pulled one of the mooring lines up out of the water where it had fallen. Fingering the end, she glanced up at Brian.
“It was cut,” she murmured, turning to look back at him.
She was just starting to stand up when Brian jerked and fell backwards several steps. His eyes widened and he immediately reached out for the gun at his side. Makayla grabbed Helen and pulled her to the side behind one of the large concrete pillars. Brian rolled when a piece of fiberglass from the boat behind him shattered.
“What’s going on?” Makayla asked in a shocked whisper. “You’re bleeding!”
Her gaze was locked on Brian’s hand. A thin line of blood was running down from under his sleeve. She jerked her head up to look at his face. He was looking past her, scanning the bay.
“Did you see where the shots came from?” Helen asked. She gripped her gun in her hand. The umbrella she had been holding now lay in the boat behind them. “Three o’clock?” She asked, ducking when another bullet pierced the concrete pillar, cutting a thick section out of one of the corners.
“No,” Brian replied, scanning each boat and calculating the trajectory. “There, five o’clock.”
Makayla lif
ted her head just high enough to peer between the boat that had been moored next to the Defiance and the pillar. She saw the boat that Brian had pointed out. Drawing back, she looked at him.
“I’m pretty sure that is the same boat that was used to take Henry,” she whispered.
“There is no way to hit it from here. Between the wind and the distance, we are no match for the firepower they are using,” Brian responded, glancing around.
*.*.*
Three of the berths between them and the car were empty. Makayla didn’t need to be a detective or whatever in the hell Brian was to figure out that they would be sitting ducks for whoever was shooting at them. Her gaze moved behind them before she turned back to the boat in front of them.
Grabbing the mooring line down by her foot, she quickly untied it. She motioned with her other hand for Brian to do the same. Turning, she glanced at the rope tied to the bow.
“I need to untie the bow rope,” she said, wincing when Brian roughly jerked her back down just as another bullet hit the boat behind them.
“Keep your head down,” he ordered, glancing at the rope she was talking about. “I’ll take care of the bow rope. Can you get this thing started?”
“As long as they left the keys to it, I can,” she retorted, sliding onto the back platform of the forty-five foot cabin Sports Cruiser.
“Check. If they did, start it,” he said before glancing at Helen.
“What are you planning to do?” Helen asked.
“I want answers and they have them,” Brian replied grimly.
*.*.*
Brian ignored the stinging in his arm. He knew it was just a deep graze and not life threatening. His gaze swept over Makayla. Once again, he wondered how he could ever have been so stupid as to walk away from her. He watched her methodically searching the upper deck for the keys while still keeping low so that she wasn’t a target.
The moment she turned with a triumphant expression on her face, he knew she had found the keys. Within seconds, she had the forty-five foot Sports Cruiser fired up. Brian turned to look at Helen again.
“Don’t…,” she hissed, reading the intention in his eyes even before he had a chance to express it. “If you are going to steal a boat, I can at least legitimize it by saying that it was necessary to confiscate it.”
“Do you really think your commanding officers will agree?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ll find out,” Helen bit out.
Helen slid her legs over the side of the dock and jumped down onto the platform. She grabbed the side when it rocked before quickly climbing the molded stairs to the upper wheelhouse.
Brian shook his head before he leaned to the side and aimed at the rope. It took three shots before he was able to cut through it enough to be confident it would snap when Makayla took off. Jumping onto the boat, he moved up the steps to stand next to Helen and Makayla.
“Go,” he said, eyeing the boat in the distance.
“This thing is no match for that powerboat,” Makayla warned. “We’ll be lucky if the top speed hits thirty knots, especially in this weather. That speed boat can do at least fifty.”
“I just need you to get me close enough to hit the engine compartment,” Brian replied in a steely voice.
Makayla nodded. Pressing the throttle down a quarter of the way, she felt the cruiser’s twin Volvo engines kick into gear. Her hands tightened on the wheel when she felt the tug of the front bow line. The line pulled the bow to the right before it snapped. Once she was clear of the pilings, she thrust the throttle all the way forward. The powerful engines responded and the Sports Cruiser went up onto a plane, cutting through the turbulent waters of the bay like a hot knife through butter.
Brian held onto the railing, his legs acting as shock absorbers when the Sports Cruiser rocked. His gaze flickered to Helen. She was doing the same. His research on Helen Woo last night said that she was a highly capable and hard-working member of the police force. She wasn’t married, and she had a history of cracking some of the toughest unsolved crimes in Hong Kong.
He had completed a thorough background search on her. It had been necessary in his mind. He wasn’t going to trust Makayla’s life to anyone he didn’t know. Helen Woo’s background check had not only been spotless, but impressive. Top graduate in her class with honors, she had scored high on all of her evaluations and was one of the youngest police officers to ever make detective in a record number of years with the force.
Still, he had wanted to make sure that there hadn’t been anyone that she owed. All of her bank records and living expenses were well within her pay grade. There were also no records of offshore accounts and no indication that she was on the payroll of any of the well documented local crime lords.
Turning his attention to Makayla, he saw her face was taut with determination. Her focus was on steering them toward the speedboat. All of them ducked down when the front windshield fractured under a hail of bullets. The tempered glass, instead of exploding, was littered with cracks and bullet holes from the high powered rifle.
Makayla swerved the Sports Cruiser as much as she could to make it more difficult to hit them. Brian gauged that they were about one hundred yards out. They were still too far for his handgun to do any damage.
“They are leaving,” she said above the sound of the weather and the engines. “I can’t go any faster.”
Brian cursed under his breath. He grabbed at Makayla and pulled her down when he saw a man with a long range sniper rifle turn toward them. The choppiness of the water made it impossible for the man to get a clean shot. Still, the bullet that struck just three inches over their heads was enough to let him know they were dealing with a professional hitman.
He released his hold on Makayla and peered above the dash of the cabin cruiser through the windshield riddled with cracks and holes. Standing straight, he watched the speedboat disappear around the cove. Makayla must have realized it was impossible to pursue them and she pulled back on the throttle.
“What do we do now?” Makayla asked, staring into the distance.
“We find out who the speedboat belongs to,” Helen replied, holding up a small camera with a wry smile. “According to my father, a good detective always carries a camera. Once again, he was right.”
Brian nodded. “I want to know everything you know to date,” he said.
“As do I, Mr. Jacobs, including what you really do for the United States Consulate and who authorized you to carry a military issue weapon,” Helen replied.
*.*.*
Ren Lu stood on the deck of the large yacht anchored in the bay. His lips were pressed into a firm line, his face taut with anger. He had watched the scene unfold with a growing sense of fury. Lowering the binoculars he was looking through, Ren Lu turned sharply on his heel and strode across the covered deck to the salon below.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and quickly dialed the number to Sun Yung-Wing. His mind ran through what he would say. He rejected most of his initial thoughts, as all they would do is get him killed.
“You’ve found it?” Yung demanded in greeting.
“No,” Ren Lu snapped before drawing in a calming breath. “I have removed the sailboat to a secure port. Several of my most trusted men are currently searching it. If they find it, I will immediately inform you.”
“Then, why did you call?” Yung snapped in annoyance.
“Who did you hire?” Ren Lu asked in a quiet voice.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. He could feel the tension radiating through the phone in his hand. He turned and clenched his fist before forcing himself to relax.
“The stakes are too high for failure. It was necessary to hire additional help,” Yung replied in an icy tone.
“You have complicated the situation. I told you I would take care of retrieving the information,” Ren Lu stated.
“Don’t forget to whom you are speaking, Ren Lu,” Yung snapped.
A nerve pulsed at Ren Lu’s te
mple and he rubbed it. If he was to be successful in retrieving the information, then he needed to be careful. Sun Yung-Wing was a highly volatile man. He ran his corporation with fear and brutality, often making impulsive decisions that could prove lethal to anyone in his path. Money bought power, and Yung wielded that power like a fine edged sword.
“I have the situation under control. The American is unaware of what is going on,” Ren Lu stated in a calm voice. “I have my men going over the sailboat. If Harrington gave the old man the information, it will be on there.”
“How can you be sure? I told you I wanted the American brought to me,” Yung reminded him in an angry voice.
“I interrogated him. I assure you, the old man knows nothing,” Ren Lu asserted in a firm voice.
“What about the girl?” Yung demanded, revealing that he knew more about the situation than Ren Lu had thought.
“I will deal with her,” Ren Lu replied in a quiet voice. “Call off your man. I will take care of this.”
Again, there was silence before Yung replied. “I can’t,” Yung reluctantly admitted. “Eliminate the American and the girl, and find the information.”
Ren Lu slowly lowered the cell phone when he heard the call disconnect. His fingers tightened around it. Sun’s simple admission – I can’t – signaled that he was nervous that word had already leaked out about the missing information. The situation was quickly becoming extremely dangerous for everyone involved.
*.*.*