187
M/V Point of Order
27.072196 N 176.928390 W
“This is all the speed they can give you,” Hennessy reported, after hanging up the phone. He’d been talking to the engineroom. They’d been trying for the last two hours to squeeze every ounce of speed out of the diesel engines, without blowing them apart.
According to Hennessy...
He could be lying, Blackjack Charlie supposed. He could, in fact be trying to slow them down as much as possible, in collusion with certain other members of the yacht’s crew. Couldn’t rule the possibility out. But if so, what would be the point? What would be Hennessy’s end-game?
To seize control of the pirate band...
“You better not be lying,” Blackjack said under his breath.
“Why would I?” Hennessy asked. His face carried a What the fuck expression. Either Charlie was all wrong about the man, or his second in command was a really good actor. Could be either one.
Charlie scowled at him for a moment longer. “Never mind,” he said, finally.
The uncertainty was killing him - and he didn’t mean that metaphorically. Not knowing who to trust, not being able to trust anyone, not being sure who would be the first to stick a knife in his back, was driving all coherent though out of his mind, at exactly the wrong time. He needed to concentrate, needed a clear head to see this through to a successful end, but he couldn’t shake the idea.
It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you.
He looked at his watch. ETA, three hours...
188
M/V True North
23.879168 N 166.601242 W
“They’ll be all right, John,” Lane Keely said.
“You can’t know that,” John Gordon replied.
Lane had come up to the Bridge to take over the watch, but he might just as well have stayed in bed. John wouldn’t be getting any sleep. John wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“No,” Keely admitted. “No I can’t. But I’m sure of it, nonetheless.”
John turned to stare at his friend. “How?”
Lane shrugged. “I just do.”
“Easy for you to say,” John said. “Your children aren’t on Midway.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. At least he knew where his children were. At least he knew they were still alive. Lane’s were somewhere up in Alaska. Maybe. “Sorry,” he apologized.
Lane waved it off. He turned to examine the chart. “How much farther?” He asked.
“About four hundred miles,” John answered, with a sinking heart. Six hundred nautical miles. True North’s top speed - even after all Gus Perniola had been able to do to tweak the engines and whip the gerbils - was at ,most eighteen knots. On a good day. With a tailwind and a following sea.
“ETA?” Lane asked.
John slumped against the port windows. “Twenty hours. Roughly seventeen-thirty, tomorrow afternoon.”
They wouldn’t get there in time, wouldn’t be able to affect anything. His wife, his daughter, his son, and all the other people on Midway were on their own, and there wasn’t a single goddamned thing he could do about it. He couldn’t protect them.
189
USCGC Sassafras
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“There she goes,” Amy Montrose said.
“Yep,” Molly agreed, though it was hardly necessary. The evidence was right in front of their eyes. They were standing on the flying bridge, watching the Star’s lights disappear through the harbor entrance.
“A good ship going in harm’s way,” Amy said, a bit wistfully.
Molly turned to her. “Really?” She asked. “You’re quoting John Wayne?” The quote came from the movie, In Harm’s Way. She’d seen it many, many times, and apparently, so had Montrose.
Amy shrugged. “It’s still the truth.”
“And what are we doing?” Molly asked.
Amy glanced sideways at her. “What do you mean?”
“Why aren’t we with them?”
“Pearl Harbor,” Amy replied, as if the answer were obvious.
“With all due respect to your rank, and all,” Jonesy said from behind them, as he came up the ladder. They both turned to look at him. “Fuck Pearl Harbor.”
“That’s not quite the party line, now is it?” Montrose asked. Her voice sounded almost amused. Molly didn’t trust her own voice. The sight of Socrates Jones sent her heart to fluttering, and her mind to...other things.
The greeting on the pier, after the rescue, hung between them like a solid, living thing. She wanted him. And she hoped he wanted her.
I won’t bring it up again, he’d said. Ever.
It had sounded so final when he’d uttered those words on their way into Pearl Harbor. Could it really have been that morning? So much had happened, so much death and destruction and terror. But at the time, it had certainly sounded - and felt - like he meant it.
And now?
Now, Jonesy stood at the bottom of the short ladder leading from the signal bridge to the flying bridge. His arms were hooked into the lower rail on either side of the ladder, as if they were holding him upright.
He looks exhausted, Molly thought, and she couldn’t blame him.
“Why aren’t you in the rack?” Amy asked.
His eyes flicked - for the briefest of moments - onto Molly. There and gone again, as if they’d never been there in the first place. He yawned. “Too much to do.”
The greeting, (the kiss) and the undeniable fact he kissed her back, happened in the heat of the moment, where he and she and everyone involved had been utterly shell-shocked, and simply delighted to be alive. Had he kissed her back because he wanted to, or because he’d been too surprised not to? Inquiring minds wanted to know, but she doubted she’d be getting any answers anytime soon. There certainly wouldn’t be a repeat performance. Not now.
“Well, then, fill us in, and get some sleep,” Montrose said. “That’s an order.”
He gave her a two-fingered salute, without unhooking either of his arms. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The weapons are cleaned and stored, and all the mags are reloaded. We need to thank our civilian friend, Mister Micari. The ammo resupply he scrounged was a godsend.” He rubbed his tired face. “Not sure where we’re going to find more twenty-five millimeter for the chain gun. We’re down to less than a hundred rounds.”
“It is what it is,” Montrose said, and Molly had to agree - though for a different reason.
Whatever would or could happen between she and Jonesy, now that the cat was out of the bag, as it were, either would or wouldn’t happen. It was what it was. Best not to think about it. Too much to do. There was always too much to do.
“And the C-4 will definitely come in handy, should we need to blow another bridge.” His eyes flicked to Molly’s again, but they held a deep sadness. The last bridge had cost the life of Dan McMullen. They couldn’t keep paying so high a price.
“Anything else?” Montrose asked.
Jonesy yawned again. “Uh, nope.”
“Head below, Mister Jones.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” he said. He glanced at Molly one last very brief time, then shoved off the rails and descended the ladder to the boat deck.
When he was gone, Amy turned to Molly, and said: “Isn’t there someplace you need to be?”
“Ma’am?” She asked.
The woman - her superior officer - turned to Molly and considered her for a moment, before replying. “If you don’t go right now and join that man in bed, then you’re an idiot.”
Molly gaped at her.
“Do you need me to spell it out for you?” Montrose asked.
“But...the regs against fraternization...” Molly protested.
Amy Montrose turned away from her, and stared out into the night. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Molly smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and headed below.
190
Facilities Maintenance Building
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“Get this thing in the air, right fucking now,” Jim Barber said without preamble as he stormed into the machine shop. His nerves felt like they were on fire. Enough waiting. Enough patience. It was his family on Midway, his wife and daughter. None of the aircraft mechanics had family there. Harvey Walton had no family at all, as near as Jim had been able to learn from the crazy bastard in all the hours they’d spent flying together. They had no idea what it was like, no concept, no fucking clue. Well, he was about to give them a lesson, and he didn’t care whose jaw he broke to make it happen.
“Ah!” Harvey said in a weirdly chipper voice. Jim was sick and tired of that voice, sick of his quirks, and oddity, and damned British reserve. “There you are.”
“Why aren’t we in the air, yet?” Jim demanded, striding forward with clenched fists.
The four aviation support personnel each stepped back and away from the juggernaut Jim Barber had become. Fine, he thought. I’ll deal with them later.
Harvey Walton, however, remained standing where he was. Instead of retreating or cowering or somehow trying to avoid the punch he had to know Jim was about to throw, he simply stood there, smiling and pointing toward the work bench around which they’d all been gathered.
“It’s done,” the man said, calm and chipper. He waved toward the four men who’d spent the last several hours effecting the repair. “We were just about to install it.”
This stopped Jim Barber in his tracks. His body seemed to do this on its own, as if it knew what was good for it, in spite of what the silly brain was telling it to do. The abrupt halt, and the even more abrupt realization causing it, nearly made him trip over his own feet.
“What?” He asked, stupidly.
“If you’d kindly like to stop scaring these fine members of the United States Coast Guard, I’m sure they’d be delighted to help us launch the Wallbanger.” Jim continued to stare at him with what he felt sure must appear to be drooling idiocy. “Unless you’d like to stay here,” the British pilot offered. “Perhaps have a spot of tea?”
Jim cocked his head back and forth between Harvey and the four clearly intimidated people who’d been working their asses off to give Jim what he wanted, more than anything else in this world. He should feel ashamed. He should feel sorry. He should apologize.
Screw that, he thought. “What are we waiting for?”
191
M/V Point of Order
7.5 Nautical Miles off Midway
Kill him for me, Clara had said. At the time, it had seemed reasonable. At the time (so near his orgasm) it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. Now that Felix had had time to consider it from all angles - and without interruption from the tiny brain in the head of his dick - it seemed insanely foolhardy, at best, and utterly suicidal, at worst.
Blackjack Charlie Carter was a killer. He’d killed a lot of people. Felix had seen him do it. The man carried a nine millimeter pistol in his belt at his back, a dagger up his sleeve, and his signature blackjack somewhere else on his body. And what did Felix have? A knife. Just a knife. Which he’d never used before.
It felt cold and sharp and as if he might stab himself with it, if he wasn’t careful how he moved. Felix was no killer. Felix was no fighter. Felix was barely a lover - though he had to admit, Clara Blondelle had given his the best sex in his entire life, more than once. More than twice.
He’d been stumbling around in a sexual daze, with his brain crammed full of erotic thoughts, for the better part of a week. Clara had seen to his every need, and they were beginning to work on his fantasies. He had a lot of fantasies. She could show him things he’d only dreamed of. She already had.
And all he needed to do to make it happen, to keep it going, to satisfy his every imagined desire, was to kill Blackjack Charlie.
“What do you want?” Charlie snarled, seeing Felix as he entered the Bridge.
Felix stared at him, felt the cold steel at his back, stared at him some more. Just do it, his little brain said. No fucking way, his big brain countered.
“Nothing,” Felix said aloud. “Just looking around.”
“Do it somewhere else,” Charlie ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Felix replied. He turned and left the Pirate King, still very much alive.
192
The Mall
Midway Atoll
“This is weird,” Shilo Grant said.
Samantha Gordon looked at the young woman who’d suddenly become her best friend. Well, maybe not best friend. They weren’t besties, and they certainly weren’t wasting time and money texting each other about the nonsensical things she and her old friends had deemed so crucial back before the world went sideways into a nightmare. She knew almost nothing about the woman, except that in her old life, her normal life, her life without death and destruction and zombies, the two of them wouldn’t have hung out on a bet. Not a chance. Yet here there were, sitting side by side, behind a makeshift barrier, waiting to be attacked by pirates. She’d even been issued a nine-millimeter pistol - by her own mother, no less.
Weird didn’t begin to describe it.
“How so?” She asked.
“I should be scared right out of my booty shorts,” Shilo replied. “And I am.”
Samantha couldn’t control her downward glance. Nope. The woman still wore pants, thank you very much.
“But...?” Samantha asked, just to be conversational.
“But I’m also really, really excited,” she answered. Sam just gaped at her.
“We might die at any moment,” Shilo tried to explain, “but I feel more alive than I ever had in my entire life.”
Now Samantha understood.
“Weird,” she replied.
193
Buoy Tender Pier
ISC Sand Island, Oahu
“Did you have a pleasant sleep?” Duke asked, as Jonesy came off the brow from the Sass.
“What’s sleep?” Jonesy responded with a question of his own. It was meant to be both sarcastic and informative.
“That thing people who aren’t fighting an island filled with bloodthirsty maniacs gets on a more or less regular basis,” Duke replied.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were talking like a normal person,” Harold quipped, as he came down the brow, followed by Glen Newby and Scott Pruden.
Jonesy had to admit, Harold’s good natured and naturally insulting observation seemed apt. Duke rarely strung so many words together at a time.
“Fuck off,” Duke said.
There’s the Duke they all knew and loved - in a purely platonic and heterosexual way. None of which countered the validity of his original statement.
Jonesy hadn’t, as it happened, gotten any sleep, at all. Instead, he’d gotten Molly in his bed. This was a good thing. This was a great thing. He’d been surprised and delighted when she’d knocked on his door and entered without waiting for his invitation.
She hadn’t said a word. All she’d done was drop her clothing and join him in his one-person rack.
Granted, the racks in the Chief’s quarters (where he was staying) and in the Officer’s quarters (Molly), were larger than those the enlisted pukes had to stuff themselves into, but not by much. She barely fit. Turned out, when she rolled over on top of him and took him inside her, the two of them fit just fine.
It had not, however, been conducive to a good night’s sleep. Jonesy didn’t care one bit. I can sleep when I’m dead, he thought, then stopped himself with the realization that such a possibility may not be so very far in his future.
They made their way to the end of the pier, where the Star had moored their Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP), before sailing off into the sunset toward Midway. It bobbed there in the mild swell below them.
“Do we really need the Skull Mobile?” Newby asked.
“Blasphemer,” Scott Pruden answered. “Of course we do.”
Jonesy considered him. They’d rescued Pruden from the Communic
ations Building, where he’d taken refuge with the Operations Specialist, Amber Winkowski. He’d been a bit odd, to be sure, calling himself Jurgen McAwesomeness, and all, but he hadn’t seemed so actively bad-ass as he’d apparently become. Of course, the kid could just be barking at the moon and whistling through the graveyard, but something had changed in the young man. Jonesy was sure of it.
Didn’t matter. No time for it.
“If we’re going, let’s go,” Jonesy said, and climbed down the ladder into the LCVP.
194
Seaplane Wallbanger
Honolulu Harbor
“There’s the last of it,” Seaman Dixon Grimes said, as he handed the tenth and final cannister of 7.62 x 51mm ammunition.
“Bout fucking time,” Jim Barber muttered. The seething anger had dissipated, but it hadn’t gone away, entirely. It lay there, cold and hard and ready to leap out at anyone who provided anything vaguely resembling an excuse.
“You think you got enough?” Grimes asked.
Each can held five hundred rounds. Ten of them, therefore, carried five thousand. The minigun he’d stolen from Gerald Farquar could fire up to six thousand per minute. No. He didn’t have enough ammo. But it would have to do.
“I’ll make it work,” he said, and closed the side hatch on the young Seaman without so much as a fare thee well.
“Shall we go, then?” Harvey Walton asked, as Jim fell into the co-pilot seat.
He pointed. “Fly the fucking plane,” he said.
“Right you are,” Walton replied, and switched the port engine to Start.
195
The Airfield
Midway Atoll
The attack, when it came, occurred in two places. The first fell on a strip of land jutting out from the southern edge of the airfield, that looked vaguely like a miniature version of Florida, which, itself, ran along the southern shore of the largest island in the atoll. The pirates met no resistance, either there, or further inland, in the remnants of the military buildings once dotting the shoreline. Now, they were nothing but foundations and scattered piles of concrete debris.
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