It was a hospital. He was in a hospital. He made it! He was alive!
He wanted to whoop with the joy of it, but a sudden shaft of pain lanced through his hand, making him grimace instead.
“What’s your name?” the doctor repeated the question in Somali, but Sharif just shook his head, biting his bottom lip against the fiery agony shooting up his arm. Despite the coolness of the air-conditioned room, sweat broke out on his forehead and beaded on his upper lip.
“All right,” the doctor said, “don’t strain yourself. We will answer all of these questions later. Like who you are and what you were doing piloting a boat that was reported hijacked almost two weeks ago.”
Sharif’s eyes snapped open as he scanned the doctor’s hard expression. An icy chill washed over him, momentarily freezing the sweat on his skin and the rhythm of his heart.
The doctor knew what he was, or more appropriately, what he’d become. A pirate. And that meant he was in deep, deep trouble.
“Where am I?” he managed to rasp.
“Ah,” the doctor smiled narrowly, unwinding the stethoscope from around his neck. “So you do understand what I am saying.”
He swallowed. His throat was excruciatingly dry, like he’d been ingesting wads of cotton for a week.
“You are in Mombasa, Kenya,” the doctor explained, plugging the earbuds of his stethoscope into his ears and placing the cool, round diaphragm above Sharif’s pounding heart. “And it is a good thing, too. Had you made the Somali coast, you would have been lucky to find anyone who could save that hand.”
Sharif glanced down to his wounded hand but could see nothing past the thick white bandages wrapped around the throbbing appendage.
“We’ve rehydrated you and cleaned out the infection. The last finger had to be amputated. There was no saving it; the infection had reached the bone.”
Hot bile climbed up his parched throat at the thought of being permanently maimed, disfigured. And the burning rage that quickly followed scorched away the ice that’d briefly filled his veins when the doctor mentioned the hijacked catamaran.
“We will have to wait and see how much nerve damage was done before we can determine how much mobility you will retain,” the doctor continued, completely oblivious to the dark thoughts of death and retribution flashing through Sharif’s fevered brain.
When the doctor finally left the room, he raked in a deep, steadying breath and pushed up on the narrow hospital bed. The walls slanted in on him as the floor bucked. It was like walking through a funhouse—only not nearly as fun. Taking slow, measured breaths through his nose, he managed to breathe away the dizziness. And when his head finally quit spinning, he surveyed his condition.
With his good hand, he grabbed one of the bags of fluid hanging from a metal pole beside his bed and read, “saline.” Gritting his teeth, he yanked the needle administering the fluid out of his arm. After flinging it aside, he grabbed the other bag. Nafcillin. An antibiotic. That one he unhooked from its metal pole in order to secure the cool plastic bag under his perspiring armpit.
He wasn’t taking any chances with the infection in his hand. Slipping his feet over the side of the bed, he tested his strength, found it pathetically lacking but firmed his jaw and took a step anyway. He couldn’t afford to waste one minute.
Pleased when he didn’t collapse on the floor, he shuffled to the little plywood wardrobe shoved in the corner. Empty—save for an extra blanket and pillow. Frustrated, he stumbled toward the door, carefully pulling it open. The hall was quiet and wonderfully vacant.
With a small smile of victory, he slipped from his room and padded to the next blue door. Knocking softly, he listened for a response and, hearing none, swept inside.
There was a man lying on the bed, hooked up to a great number of beeping, shushing, monitoring machines. The man’s dark skin hung over his face like a brown shroud, and the room reeked of astringent cleaning products, old urine, and the lingering putrescence of imminent death.
Sharif swallowed the overwhelming desire to gag, breathed through his mouth, and opened the small wardrobe.
Ah-ha!
He was pleased to discover the familiar red-and-white checkered cloth of a shemagh. A circular black igal lay on top of the carefully folded Arabic head scarf.
Most Kenyans, especially those living on the coast, tended to don western-style clothing, but Sharif was happy to see this man, whoever the poor dying sod was, did not. Hiding his injury and his bag of antibiotics in the billowing folds of traditional Arabic dress would be so much easier.
He couldn’t have picked a more perfect or comfortable disguise if he tried.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the dying man after donning the clothes. He shuffled to the door, once more peeking into the hallway. Still empty.
Stepping out, he wiped the cold sweat from his brow, lengthened his stride to conceal his weakness, and made his way quickly down the corridor.
It wasn’t until he pushed through the hospital’s wide front doors and out into the scorching African sun, that he dragged in a shaky breath.
His knees wobbled like they were made of spaghetti, his head pounded like a jackhammer, and his whole arm was ready to fall off, but he’d made it.
It was time to find a phone and get far, far away from the international police force that was sure to be hot on his trail.
***
Frank stood at the second-story railing and glanced down at the grease-stained shop floor below.
Dan “The Man” Currington had managed to crawl out of the bottle this morning and was diligently working on a production bike—the standard model of chopper the Black Knights built for purchase by the general public, as opposed to the one-off, custom-theme bikes they designed for corporations or the ultra-wealthy.
The assembly of a production bike was probably about all Dan, who’d been steadily trying to kill himself with Jack Daniels since his wife’s brutal death, could handle. And given that Dan had built so many of the damn things, he could probably do the deed ten sheets to the wind, half-asleep, and blindfolded.
This morning, gaunt and pasty pale, Dan appeared to be batting three out of three.
He was still drunk. He was certainly dead on his feet, stopping occasionally to rest his palms on the bike lift and let his head hang limply between his skinny shoulders. And even though the poor guy wasn’t blindfolded, he might as well have been. It didn’t take a genius of Ozzie’s caliber to see Dan was on cruise control, his motions smooth and mindless, his glassy eyes vacant.
It broke Frank’s heart to see one of his men sunk so low, but nothing any of them did seemed to make any difference.
So, all that was left was to watch and wait. Give the guy more time to mourn. And hope like hell Dan was able to pull himself together before his liver went tits-up.
What a goatfuck…
The sound of playful bantering drew his attention to the other side of the shop, where Becky and Angel hunched over a large drawing board shoved against the east wall. Their heads were bent close together, their shoulders touching. Something Angel said had Becky throwing her head back, laughing that dark, husky laugh of hers that always hit Frank like a thousand licking tongues, making each and every one of his nerve endings stand up and salute.
He growled as his dick started stiffening with a little homage of its own. The stupid thing had yet to get the memo that Rebecca Reichert was no longer interested.
So what else is new?
His cock was always the first to respond and the last to clue in, which right about now was just grrreat. Men of nearly forty years weren’t supposed to spring boners at the mere sound of a woman’s laughter, were they?
No, definitely not. Though once again, his little head chose to ignore logic, and he was forced to furtively arrange himself into a more comfortable position as he s
cowled down at the oh-so-happy pair.
For the last couple of days, he’d covertly watched the progress as Becky and Angel finalized the design of Angel’s chopper, alternating between the radioactive version of jealously and a dull, aching acceptance. Right then, he was somewhere between the two, though when Angel slung a muscular arm around her shoulders, he quickly starting leaning more toward radioactive jealously again.
He’d very much like to march down there and rip the offending appendage right off the smooth-talking pretty boy…and yessir, it was official. His spent fuel rods were no longer being properly cooled and a meltdown seemed imminent. It probably had something to do with the fact that he’d known her for over three years and the night before he’d held her in his arms while she cried out her fear, and somehow both of those things made him feel like he had some sort of claim over her.
Which was ridiculous.
“So.” Bill came to lean a hip against the railing, crossing his arms over his chest, causing the back of his T-shirt to stretch tight across his shoulders. “Tomorrow’s the big day, huh? You’re going under the knife.”
The fiery venom that’d been heating Frank’s blood instantly banked as a chill raced down his spine, like a ghost slipped an icy finger over the length of his vertebrae—or maybe that was simply Death giving him a glimpse of what was to come?
Well, at least that takes care of my jealousy and the little problem behind my fly, he thought. Thank goodness for small miracles.
Or not.
Perhaps he should be rejoicing in the exhilaration of boiling jealousy and the pleasure of an untimely erection. After all, it might very well be the last time he experienced either.
No, goddamnit!
He was not going to give in to his bone-tingling sense of…certainty.
If he had a chance, just one small chance of making it out alive, of being able to protect Becky and continue to do his job, it was worth it.
And despite what his gut kept telling him, one thing he could be certain of was that nothing was ever certain.
“Yeah.” He nodded, trying to push the dismaying sensation away. It was fairly easy, especially when Angel—that prick—leaned in to whisper something in Becky’s ear. He had no hope of hearing what Angel said, what with Poison pounding out of the array of computer speakers behind him and Ozzie—the kid had arrived back from his meeting with his super-geek buddies this morning—noisily crooning, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” The kid really needed to branch out musically, but the overabundance of 80’s music continually blasting inside the shop’s brick walls was the very least of Frank’s current problems. “Tomorrow’s the day,” he confirmed. “Do or die.”
He very much feared it might well be the latter, but it was a chance he had to take.
“Well, it’s about time you took care of that shoulder,” Bill proclaimed, nodding, oblivious to the turmoil churning inside of Frank. “You’ve been popping ibuprofen so long it’s a wonder your stomach lining isn’t torn to shreds.”
“Stomach trouble has never been my problem,” he murmured, thankful for that small bit of luck because he had been downing pain meds for years instead of taking his chances with surgery.
Bill patted the bottle of Pepto-Bismol in his hip pocket and grimaced. “Wish I could say the same.”
“I’ve seen you swilling that stuff. Is there, uh, is there something you want to talk about?”
“Lord, no,” Bill replied. Which was guy-speak for as long as I don’t say it out loud, there isn’t really a problem.
Frank understood. He wasn’t much for the touchy-feely, tell-me-all-your-woes-so-I-can-commiserate kind of thing himself. Sometimes a man just needed to work through his own shit in his own time. He just hoped Wild Bill worked through his before he needed a stomach transplant.
Ah…perfect. So now Dan Man was going to need a liver transplant, Bill was going to need a stomach transplant, and he couldn’t miss the irony that the downfall of both men wasn’t a case of terminal ballistics or capture by enemy forces. Hell no. The direct cause of both men’s maladies was a woman, or more accurately the absence of a woman.
Jesus H. Christ, wasn’t that always the way of it? The toughest, meanest men on the planet turned into whiskey-guzzling, Pepto-chugging, shit for brains when someone with a round ass and sweet-smelling hair minced her precious self into the picture.
It was almost enough to make a smart man want to avoid the fairer sex all together…almost.
A burst of laughter cut through Ozzie’s Bret Michaels impression, and Frank once more focused on the couple down below, grinding his jaw so hard his eye sockets ached when Becky stuffed a sucker in Angel’s breast pocket.
His vision actually hazed with red as he wondered if the lollipop was root beer flavored.
Becky had taken to eating Dum Dums years ago as a way to help herself quit smoking. She liked all the flavors except root beer, which she’d pitched in the trash until the day she found out root beer was Frank’s favorite. Then she started stashing the little treats in places he was sure to discover them. His desk drawer, his coffee mug, his shirt pockets.
He’d professed irritation at the time—because he was unable to resist the sugary treats, and it severely pissed him off anytime his willpower failed him. But right now, he’d give anything to once more be on the receiving end of one of those sweet suckers.
Instead it was Angel, that prick…
Bill turned toward the railing, resting his elbows on the top rung. “I don’t know how to feel about that.” He motioned with a jerk of his chin toward the pair laughing and carrying on below.
“Neither do I,” Frank admitted.
Bill shot him a sharp glance. “I always kind of figured it’d be you.”
“It’d be me what?”
“You know,” Bill shrugged. “I figured it’d be you who ended up with Becky.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because of the way you two constantly dance around each other like boxers, taking strips out of each other’s hide.”
Frank made a face clearly stating his belief that Bill must be suffering from some sort of insanity.
Bill rolled his eyes. “Goddamn, Boss. Are you gonna make me say it?”
“I guess so, since I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“The way you guys continually snipe at each other…it always sort of feels like…I don’t know…foreplay.”
“Goddamnit, Bill!”
“What? You made me say it. And just because she’s my sister, I’m not supposed to notice these things?”
“You’re damned right!” Frank barked, embarrassed, incensed, more than a little bit chagrined because, in truth, it always sort of felt like foreplay.
“Oh, come on. I’d have to be a blind man.”
“Yeah well, I’d never do anything about it.” At least not when I’m stone-cold sober. Give me a few narcotics, and then I can’t keep my flippin’ hands to myself.
“I know.” Bill nodded, still watching him with too much intensity. “You’d never breach the sanctity of the employee/employer relationship which, God knows, I respect you for. But I just figured someday…” He let the sentence dangle.
Someday. If the guy only knew what’d happened down in the Patton’s sick bay…
“She’s too young for me,” he spoke aloud the mantra that’d circled around in his head for over three years.
“Maybe,” Bill agreed, and a new world record for pounds-per-square-inch of pressure was set by Frank’s jaw. “But what’s a few years when we’re talking about amour?”
Aw, goddamnit. He needed to nip this thing in the bud right here and now. Turning to Bill, he managed to unclamp his teeth and let the man see the raw, profligate heat in his eyes. “Who’s talking love, Bill?”
See? See what I feel for your sister? It’s straight-up, one-hundred-percent, fuck-all-night lust.
But instead of getting pissed like he should have, like Frank wanted him to, Bill simply tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in speculation.
“Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine. Or leave a kiss but in the cup, and I’ll not look for wine…”
“What the hell? You’re quoting poetry now? Jesus H. Christ!” Someone please shoot me!
“My point is, Boss,” Bill stressed, “that what I’ve seen in your eyes when you look at my sister isn’t always what you’re showing me right now.”
Frank growled and once more faced the railing, silently cursing Bill for seeing too far, too much. After a long moment, he swallowed down his hostility and ventured, “And you’d have been okay with that? With me and Becky?”
“If you loved her?”
He groaned like he was being tortured—which he was. “Yeah, if I loved her.”
“Yeah, Boss. I’d be okay with that, but I don’t think you would.”
“You’re damned right! It makes me a filthy lecher!”
It was sudden understanding he saw flicker through Bill’s dark gaze, a sort of ah-ha moment. Though, if Bill was just now light-bulbing the fact that he was too old for Becky, then the guy was a lot slower than Frank ever guessed, and that didn’t make a damn bit of sense given Bill was usually nose-deep in a novel the size of a small coffee table.
“I don’t think the age gap is problem, Boss,” Bill replied. “One, because what’s a decade and some change when you come right down to it? And two, because I know you. This has nothing to do with Becky’s age or your age and everything to do with that woman up in Lincoln Park.”
Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. Don’t…
“Shit!” he growled as he stomped away from the railing, slamming the door to his office behind him and throwing himself down in his desk chair until the metal springs wailed for sweet mercy.
In Rides Trouble: Black Knights Inc. Page 15