The Uncharted Series Omnibus

by Keely Brooke Keith

  “The Brits sent for a commercial cruise ship that has been sitting at South Georgia Island since the war began. They plan to take everyone they can fit aboard to Valparaiso. There is a warehouse in Santiago full of antibiotics that the Royal Forces are guarding to treat their own. I figured since you have access to the icebreaker for your work on the refit, you simply stall the work until they are gone.”

  “The refit is almost complete. The ship is ready and they know it. How am I supposed to stall?”

  “Simple. We program a false reading with a coolant warning on the reactor’s power output information display. There’s no way they will put her into service. And with no fuel available for the back-up diesel engines, she will sit in the dock indefinitely. Then the cruise ship will arrive to take everyone to Valparaiso and… bam!” Volt clapped. “We’ve got ourselves a free ship with the potential to stay at sea fully-powered for a year, maybe more.”

  Impressed with the plan, Mercer nodded. “The technical manuals are onboard—”

  Volt waved a hand. “I don’t need manuals.”

  “I do.” Securing the ship was only the first challenge. He didn’t know how they would operate the nuclear-powered ship once they had it. “What kind of crew do we need?”

  “A skeleton crew for that ship would consist of twelve men, fourteen tops. I’ve got six picked out already.”

  “Have you spoken to them about this?”

  “Not yet. It’s too soon.”

  Mercer liked what he heard, but still thought it sounded too easy. Volt seemed to know everything about him and already had more than half of the crew ready. A man with his expertise could easily get past security codes and steal the icebreaker by himself if he wanted to. Volt didn’t need him, so Mercer thought it had to be a set-up. His suspicion returned with intensity. He glared at Volt. “What are you really after? You want my room or something? I don’t get it—do you leave here and tell my C.O. and I lose my job?”

  “You don’t have a C.O. any more—military command is obsolete. The guys at the dock are leaving. I’m not staying here and I’m not going to die in Chile. Of all the jobs I’ve done in the past two decades, this is the one that finally ends with me in paradise. Considering what is out there, this is my last chance. It’s yours, too.” Volt leaned forward. “Sure, I could bypass the security codes and take the ship myself, but after I heard about your experience, I thought you’d be anxious for a lift. If you can fly a jet, you can master that ship, no worries.”

  Mercer knew it was probably his only chance. He needed someone like Volt to make it happen and if he refused, Volt would probably take the ship anyway. Mercer stood and pushed a hand through his shaggy hair. “Fine. Get your crew together. I’ll stall the work.”

  Chapter Four

  The late afternoon sun cast Mandy’s shadow long and angled beside her as she walked on the cobblestone street through the village of Good Springs. She unbuttoned the second button of her dress, eliciting a scowling glance from an older village woman. The oppressive heat made her indifferent to traditional modesty. Despite her upbringing, her behavior sometimes escaped the limits of cultural propriety. Shifting her encased violin in front of her body to carry it in the other hand, she decided she would reschedule her music students to cooler morning hours for the remainder of the summer.

  As she walked toward home, she imagined idling the evening away in her family’s farmhouse wishing for relief from the heat. The image stirred a hollow, lonely feeling and compelled her to defer the final mile of her walk home. She wiped her sweaty palm on her yellow summer dress and looked for company. It would be the perfect afternoon to spend at the springs north of the village. The thought of floating in the cool fresh water made her hum. It was a shame the springs were simply too far away to walk to in this heat.

  Her thick ponytail of curls flopped as she turned her head from side to side, scanning the empty porches in the village. The rare heat spell always seemed to have a vacating effect on Good Springs, and she detested it. As she passed the pottery yard, she felt a wave of relief when she spotted Bethany Colburn.

  Mandy stopped near the short wooden fence in front of the pottery yard and greeted the owner. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Vestal.” The top-heavy woman responded with a nod then wiped her face with her sleeve as she lumbered under an open shelter and sat at her pottery wheel.

  Dimples pitted Bethany’s cheeks as she smiled and walked across the sandy yard toward the gate. Her work dress was speckled with pigments and flecks of dried clay. Mandy lifted the latch on a short gate and held it open for Bethany. “Are you on your way home?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Vestal said it’s time for me to go, but I really could have worked until nightfall and been content.” Bethany stepped through the gate carrying a large pot in each arm. The pots were identical in shape and form but different in color. “I’m taking these home to paint the finishing details. What do you think of the glaze?”

  Mandy understood the desire for affirmation innate in every artist, but she still thought of Bethany less as a craftsman and more as the youngest of the Colburn children. To Mandy, Bethany would forever be her best friend’s baby sister. She sighed at the notion of Bethany growing up and gave the pots a quick visual examination. “It is unusual. I like it.”

  They walked away from the pottery yard together and shuffled down the road. Mandy slowed their pace because the heat stunted her energy. Bethany chatted about her pottery work as they walked. “I made the pigment from a new mix of minerals I’m experimenting with. I think the best way to achieve a quality finish is to grind the minerals in a mortar before boiling down the glaze, but Mrs. Vestal says until my apprenticeship is complete, I must follow her procedure. What do you think of the colors?”

  Mandy glanced again at the pots in Bethany’s arms. The waning sunlight refracted through the glaze and caused a fluid luminescence. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re truly a gifted artist.” She looked up at Bethany—almost seventeen and full of passion for her craft. With her defined features and long legs, she looked like a woman on the outside, though her trusting and unaffected nature betrayed her childlike naiveté. Still, she was company—even if it was only as far as the Colburn property.

  Mandy shifted her gaze back to the road. In the distance, Everett was walking toward the village, probably on his way to spar with Connor. Mandy imagined Levi would join them later. The thought of men training for physical violence excited her, though their reasons were practical in nature.

  She understood the familiarity between her younger brother and Bethany and held a secret hope their friendship would blossom into something more one day. She kept her eyes on Everett’s distant figure, but turned her chin to Bethany. “Do you and Everett get to see each other very often now that he has completed school?”

  Bethany’s pink cheeks—still cushioned with youth—rose as she smiled. “He comes by the pottery yard occasionally to visit me.” She giggled, displaying her lingering juvenile tendencies. “Why? Do you know something?”

  “No, just curious.” Mandy grinned. The temptation to meddle stewed beneath her surface as she watched Everett walk nearer on the road. “I suppose he’s on his way to see Connor today.”

  “Yes, probably. He spars with Connor and Levi every week. I’m not allowed near the barn when they are in there, though sometimes when I know they are fighting, I feel desperate with curiosity.” She giggled again, then seriousness marked her expression. “Please, don’t tell Lydia I said that.”

  “Of course not.” Mandy felt wicked but enjoyed the similarities between her nature and Bethany’s too much to care. “If I were you, I would be curious too.”

  Bethany began to talk about the curiosities of male behavior—a subject in which Mandy considered herself an expert—but two men riding horseback farther down the road caught her attention. She wondered who they could be, but they were still too far away to see their features through the dusty air.

  The riders m
oved behind Everett on the road. They directed their horses around him and passed him by. She continued to watch them as she and Bethany left the road near the Colburn property and walked through the cut grass toward the house. As the men rode closer, her boredom stirred her desire for attention and she smiled with alluring intent in their direction. Soon she got a clear look at their faces and immediately regretted her flirtation. Though she did not recognize the men, their strange features and hungry expressions endowed them with a sinister quality she instinctively knew to evade. Her smile vanished and she hurried Bethany across the Colburn property. “Move along, Bethany.”

  “Whatever for?” Bethany began to giggle then stopped as she looked in the direction of the oncoming riders. Her face changed and she stood still. “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know, but you must come along.” She pulled at Bethany’s elbow as she heard the horses’ gait increase in speed and proximity. It filled her with trepidation. Bethany gulped audibly, but she did not move. The riders were coming straight at them, and Mandy felt the overwhelming need to protect Bethany. “Go to the house, Bethany. Quickly!”

  The earth beneath Mandy’s feet rumbled with the close and heavy thumps of the hooves and, before she could look back, the men were on either side of her. One rider bent from his saddle and grabbed her with both hands. The sound of smashing pottery told her the other man must have grabbed Bethany in the same way.

  The man’s hard fingers dug into her flesh, forcing a scream from her throat. She dropped her encased violin and swung her arms in a panicked fight as the man hoisted her from the ground. He pulled her up by the shoulders and smashed her onto the saddle, pressing her body with his weight. She was bent at the middle over the animal, and her lungs gushed out air from the pressure of the saddle horn against her chest. She heard Bethany’s screams, Everett’s shouting voice, and a horse’s neigh in the distance as her captor rode quickly away with her restrained in front of him on the horse.

  Mandy’s vision blurred from the jarring motion as her face was compressed against the horse’s moving shoulder. She grabbed at the straps and the side of the saddle, but her fingers felt numb and could not get a grip on anything. She tried to hang on and lift her weight off her strained ribcage. The man leaned his elbows into her spine, subduing her every effort. She tried to scream but could not get enough air into her lungs without it being jarred back out again. The gravel of the road blurred, and if they kept going in that direction they would soon pass Levi’s property—maybe he would see her and stop this madman from his brutal attack. If Levi saw her, he could save her before she fell to her death or before this miscreant took her somewhere and did whatever he planned to do. Knowing they would soon pass Levi’s property, she gathered the air to scream, but the horse leapt and the green pasture of her family’s farm blurred beneath its hooves. The horse did not slow its pace for what felt like a torturous eternity across the empty pasture. Her body writhed with pain and she fought to remain conscious. With every passing second, she gave up hope for being seen by anyone who could help her. Then the horse slowed to a stop and the man’s arms came off her back. She slid her hands beneath her chest and gasped for air. She heard wheezing and realized the sound was coming from her breath. With her hair hanging in her face, she lifted her head. She saw rocks, the edges of which distorted in her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut and blinked them open again. The boulder outcrops and creek were at the western edge of her family’s property, far from the village and her family and any chance of being heard and saved.

  Before her captor dismounted, someone grabbed her and pulled her from the horse. She was dropped to her feet and spun around with force by a middle-aged man. He had a kinked moustache that curled into his mouth. His black and silver hair draped over his shoulders. Gripping both of her wrists, he studied her and then turned his face toward her abductor. “You got a pretty one, son. But she don’t look like no Colburn woman to me.”

  Mandy’s red curls stuck to her sweaty face, obscuring her view. She drew a breath then lifted her leg and stomped on the older man’s foot. “Let me go!” she demanded, but he barely flinched. Panting, she struggled to pull her hands loose, but the strength of her tired arms was no match for the nefarious-looking man.

  Both men stood close together and examined her. Frantic, she shifted her gaze from one man to the other. The men looked alike except for a twenty-year difference. And they both seemed pleased with themselves.

  When she tried to pull her hands away again, the older man laughed. “She’s spirited! We’ve never had one this feisty, have we, Harvey? There’s only one way to break a woman like her.” He let go of her wrists, and immediately the man he called Harvey stepped close and grinned.

  Mandy’s pulse pounded in her ears. She scurried backward into the boulders and scanned the space around her for a way of escape but saw none. Harvey appeared amused by her panic. He grabbed the back of her neck and parted his crackled lips. She sucked in every inch of air she could and screamed until her voice burned. Harvey pulled back then angled his head and chuckled.

  “Silence your woman and get her in the wagon!” the older man yelled.

  “Let me break her first, Father.”

  “Not now. Get her into the wagon so we can leave.”

  Harvey wrapped his fingers through the bulk of Mandy’s hair and jerked her toward a covered wagon. “But I think we should wait here for Christopher,” Harvey protested, speaking of the other rider—the one who attacked Bethany.

  “Did he get a woman too?”

  “Yes, his woman has brown hair and she’s real tall. I wanted this one because she smiled at me. Once she settles down a bit, I think we’ll get along just fine.” Harvey gripped her arms and pushed her up into the back of the wagon. “Christopher should be here in a few minutes. I want to wait for him.”

  “We can’t wait—the sun will be down soon and we aren’t going to stay this close to the village tonight. Christopher knows where to meet us. Get in the back of the wagon with that woman and keep her quiet.”

  In the back of the foul-smelling covered wagon, Mandy curled her legs into her chest. Her body ached. Her mind reeled knowing Bethany had also been captured. Bethany was so young and innocent—she did not deserve to be attacked. Mandy would find a way to deal with what came to her, but Bethany still had a chance at life and love.

  Harvey sat by the opening at the back of the wagon. Mandy thought about trying to push around him and jump out once it started rolling. Then she thought of Bethany and decided to wait. She did not want Bethany left alone with these men all night. She would be there for Bethany when she arrived and they would escape their captors together.

  * * *

  Levi drew a line across a plank of gray leaf wood marking where to make a cut. Then he wedged his pencil over his ear and carried the marked board out of his unfinished house. He steadied the plank with one hand and gripped his saw with the other. The quick sounds made by the saw blade’s teeth as it cut through the wood swished until the board fell in two. As he reached to the ground to pick up the wood, a little yellow daisy in the grass caught his eye. He brushed the sawdust from his hands and picked the tiny flower. Unable to feel the true softness of the fragile petals through the calloused skin of his fingertips, he lightly traced the flower along the sensitive scar on his palm. Then he dropped the flower, picked up the piece of wood, and walked back into the house. After he nailed the board into place, he slid his hammer through his belt and walked to a wide window opening. Instead of the constant ocean breeze that usually moved over his hill and through the shell of a house, stagnant air hung humid and limp around his body. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face with the already damp cloth.

  The rare and stifling heat left him drained at the end of the day. He walked through the house to a bucket of warm water and dipped a cup deep inside. After emptying the cup with three swallows, he drew a second cup. As he lifted it to his lips, he heard a horse riding onto hi
s property.

  He descended the steps of what would soon be his front porch and met Everett in the yard. The young man’s eyes were wide and frightened. He rode a tall, black horse and pulled it to a stop in front of Levi. Everett began to speak but his voice was drowned by the horse’s neigh. The horse stomped nervously. Levi grabbed its headstall to control its movement as he tried to decipher Everett’s words.

  “Did you see them?” Everett glanced toward the road then back at Levi.

  “Who?”

  “The man who took Mandy.”

  “What man? Who took Mandy?”

  “One of the men…” Everett held the reins in one hand and wiped his forehead with the other. “There were two men on the road. Did you see them?”

  “No one has passed here in hours.” He noticed Everett’s hands were shaking. “What has happened?”

  Everett swung down from the horse. He handed the reins to Levi and propped his knuckles on his knees while he caught his breath. When he lifted his head again, his eyes were red and swollen. “I was on my way to spar with Connor and I was on the road and I saw Bethany and Mandy walking toward your house—or, your family’s house. Two riders came from behind me on the road. They quickly passed me and went straight for the girls.” His voice trembled as he spoke. “One man grabbed Mandy and the other grabbed Bethany. I ran as fast as I could and I got Bethany before he could pull her onto the horse. He came down after her and fell under his horse’s hooves. Bethany is fine, but Mandy is gone.”

  “Gone?” Levi realized the seriousness of Everett’s report and anger surged along with his increasing pulse. “Where?”