“They won’t be using this room again for a while,” she heard him mutter, watching the door finish making its loud racket.
“LIAM! OH.” She ran out of the room and into his arms, leveling a kiss on his lips.
“Tori! Hmmm.” He kissed her. “God! You’re like ice—are you okay?”
“I am now. I almost died, Liam. One of the men saved me.”
“Saved you?”
“LIAM! You have to help me find him. We have to—”
“Whoa. Whoa, Ice Princess! We are getting you out of here. Right now.”
“No!” She suddenly pulled away from him, her stare held firm determination.
Liam could feel her all over inside. She was dead serious.
“Please. You have to help me find Mac. PLEASE! They’re going to kill him!”
It took Liam only a moment to realize what had happened, reading her feelings of the events from the past week. He understood.
“I’m not leaving you here alone. Not again.”
“I’ll be fine.” She reached down and picked up one of the automatic weapons that lay strewn next to over dozen guards also on the floor, not all of them breathing. “I’m warming up. In a few minutes, no one will be able to touch me. Trust me.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He kissed her and then suddenly vanished right from her pressed lips.
The suddenness of his disappearance only slightly startled her. “God—” her eyes drew wide. “You can—?”
* * * * *
“CAP’N!” the sentry entered the bridge quickly. “There’s a whole river of NYPD making their way onto the pier. They must have a couple hundred cars.”
“Bitch. Monica must have discovered our plans at the last minute. DAMMIT.”
“They’ll be swarming us in a minutes, Cap’n.”
“And we’ll be long gone. Sound general quarters. All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill.”
“Sounding general quarters, Captain.”
Somewhere in the hold of the vessel, Mac and the rest of the Seal team heard the claxon and the order to battle stations.
“IT’S OVER, GENTLEMEN,” Mac shouted. Blood was still seeping from a nasty shoulder hit. He pressed himself against the bulkhead wall to keep the bleeding from exiting the back of his half-shattered shoulder blade.
He heard nothing from down the corridor.
“JOHN? TOM?” Mac called out. “ARE YOU THERE? Hmmm,” he winced in pain. It hurt to call out like he was.
But there was only silence.
He turned to look down the dimly lit corridor just as the visage of the tall built god entered his corridor, towering over him, his eyes shimmering in an unworldly glow. Sinclair didn’t look happy.
Mac unloaded what remained in his magazine, until the trigger just clicked. The rifle was suddenly jerked from his grip, a line of deep, bullet holes staining red across his chest.
“Dammit. I just bought this shirt!” Liam glared, tossing the rifle aside.
Mac tried to kick himself back away from the glowing-eyed god.
“You’re wounded.” Liam looked at the blood staining the back wall and floor.
“I’ve have worse.” Mac winced at the pain.
“I just took care of the guys down the hall. They won’t be bothering you. Tori sent me to find you.”
Mac suddenly forgot his pain for a moment. “Tori? Sh—she did?”
Liam crouched down in front of him. “Yea, but I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what the hell to do about this,” he pointed at the seeping wound.
“Take your shirt off—we’ll need to tie it around my shoulder as a bandage …”
36
T he fatigues she’d borrowed from one of the guards fit terribly. But at least now she wasn’t dancing around the lower decks looking like a stripper. She could feel others now, moving all over the ship.
Where was Liam? Was he still aboard ship? She didn’t know if he’d been able to find and rescue Mac. It was neat trick he’d done, just vanishing like he did. She’d discovered she couldn’t do it. Or maybe she just didn’t know how. In any event, he was going to teach her that one. Whatever it was.
Tori moved as quietly as she could through the lower decks of the ship until she came to a ladder. She climbed the steep stairs that led to another steel corridor with other passages and doors. She felt a little lost moving through hulls of the vessel. She could feel others on her same deck, not far ahead of her. It appeared to be the only way out. But how was she going to get past the guards? Sure, she had a weapon, but the gunfire could give her away and bring even more of them. She wasn’t trained for this! She needed them disarmed—maybe if she …
“Captain’s got her at flank speed. No way they’ll be able to catch us now.” One of the four guards standing in the corridor next to the ladder hatch quipped. He could hear the hum of massive engines propelling The Neptune not far from where they were.
“I think once we’re out of this, we go find some senoritas, amigos,” another of the guards grinned. “I feel—” All of them heard the sound coming from beyond the open water-tight door in the next corridor.
“What is that?”
“Someone humming?”
“Sounds like a girl,” another said.
The sound was beautiful. It was a simple, subtle voice. All of them looked at each other. Together they lifted their weapons and moved quietly away from the ladder and to the open door hatch.
“A girl—amigo,” the guard began, looking into the corridor, “that is no girl. That is a woman—”
Tori stood alone in the open corridor, a soft tune floating from her lips. She held no weapons, just the front of her fatigue shirt fully opened showing cleavage and skin down to her fully unzipped pants that now drooped around her hips giving them an unrestricted view of her manicured pubic hair.
All of them stared, as if star-struck. Tori lifted her arms above her head, a move that open her black shirt even more to reveal her large rounded breasts to the four men staring at her from the open doorway.
“Fuck. Me.” Floated from the lips of one of the guards as his weapon lowered and cock hardened.
One of them set his weapon aside and walked into the narrow corridor with her as the others watched. Another of the guards swallowed hard, watching her as his fellow guard moved closer to her, his hand slipping inside her shirt, cupping her bare breast while he slid the front of his fatigues closer to her. She unbuttoned his shirt while he laid kiss after kiss along her neck, until his shirt fell to the floor.
Another of the guards now entered the corridor and began removing his own shirt. Taking the other side of her, cupping her breast, while her hands caressed both of their full-haired, military-built chests. The remaining two guards exchanged surprised looks, and then slowly entered the corridor, their weapons anything but at the ready.
Her voice was beyond beautiful as she hummed her tune. Each of the two guards had already unbuckled, unzipped and lowered their pants to their knees as each rubbed his hard, hard male seductively against the fine skin of her bare hips.
Barely another minute had passed before all four of them were surrounding her, their shirts and weapons discarded, their pants pushed down, one all the way to around his boots.
Tori continued to hum softly, moving seductively, surrounded by all four of the mostly unclothed muscular men. She wasn’t really sure what to do at this point. Her empathy entwined with all four, she’d revved their motors and had all of them disarmed, but now what was she supposed to do? She felt her side grow suddenly warm and wet as one of the guards shot his passion uncontrollably against her skin. All of them were rising to their limits while one was now probing her ass with his not-so-tall member looking for a way inside her.
That was enough of this. She’d accomplished what she’d wanted to do. None of them would be shooting at her, well, not with bullets anyway as she felt another of the men splash her front with his excitement.
Another minute passed befor
e Tori exited the corridor, still humming softly. Mostly cleaned of their spills and redressed in her fatigues, she ascended the ladder up to the next deck, none of the half-dressed men still conscious on the floor of the corridor below her.
37
G unfire erupted from all around them. After leaving the shell of the cargo vessel that had been hiding The Neptune, the ship was gaining knots quickly down the Hudson toward New York’s Upper Bay. A small armada of law enforcement vessels surrounded the large yacht in hot pursuit.
Tori emerged cautiously from below and onto the luxury deck of the ship as fifty or sixty heavily armed men spread all over the vessel exchanged gunfire with NYPD and FBI police craft. Several helicopters also buzzed overhead, their lights on the craft, exchanging gunfire with the pirates below. Her danger sense now at full alert, she trained her weapon on Roberts’ men from behind. Her aim could have been more deadly, but she’d not really had the will to kill them. Although she could feel the pirates’ desperate intentions to kill anyone on the pursing boats and aircraft, she specifically targeted legs, shoulders, even a few trigger hands. She’d disabled quite a number of Roberts’ men before the seasoned Special Forces now began turning their automatic weapons on her. Tori could see the hot rounds coming at her, as if in slow motion. She moved with incredible speed, rolling and dodging the bullets that moved past her while taking beads on the soldiers shooting at her.
Suddenly a loud boom, like a thunder clap caught Tori off guard as her danger senses went into overdrive. As if by reflex, her psionic shields only partially coalesced, as the blast of something big hit the side of The Neptune, exploded, and sent her skidding across the wide deck and slamming into another deck structure.
“DIRECT HIT!” the NYPD officer looked into his binoculars, his accent thickly Bronx. “Nice shot.”
“Yea, but, it looks like Starboard damage is minimal. Barely scratched the paint.”
“Christ.” The other officer examined the damage. “And that was an explosive round too. What the hell is that thing? Goddamned battleship?”
Double rows of portholes all along the side of The Neptune began opening as barrel after barrel of modern cannon-like guns began to protrude from both sides of the fleeing ship. The larger vessels steaming alongside The Neptune were the first to feel the sting of the pirate ship’s own retributive small canon fire. The explosive rounds easily hit a half dozen of the NYPD’s boats, sending the smaller armored vessels into flame and debris with the first volley. The other vessels, seeing the massive broadside of modern cannon rounds, now peeled away from the colossal yacht.
“Son-of-a-bitch! THAT SOMBITCH IS ARMED!” the Bronx officer watched in amazement through his binoculars.
“Looks like it’s pulling away too. Fuckin-A! No vessel that size gains knots that fast.”
Liam walked Mac a little more quickly and painfully to the upper deck, looking around to see what had happened to Tori. He’d felt her move to the top deck, but now her feelings felt different; she wasn’t moving anymore! Had she been hurt somehow?!
A loud thunderous boom echoed from overhead with the sudden bright flash of a police helicopter going up in a ball of flame, causing both Mac and Liam to crouch low while wreckage descended into the upper bay and other large and small pieces of the chopper dropped flaming and smoking onto The Neptune’s own deck.
Liam now saw Tori through the smoke, bleeding from a myriad of wounds, her fatigue clothes half shredded, as if some kind of grenade had exploded next to her. He left Mac kneeling on the deck and ran as fast as he could to her. She was already surrounded by some of Roberts’ men. She wasn’t conscious. But GOD! She was still breathing as he slid across the fine wood deck and then lifted her limp and bleeding into body his lap.
“TORI!” Liam called to her pulling her close to himself. “TORI!”
She coughed. Then groaned.
He cradled her in his arms, kissing the side of her head. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Ohh, Liam—” he heard her breathe softly, her feelings telling him she was still half dazed.
Other guards brought Mac to where the two of them now kneeled next to a steel superstructure wall.
It didn’t take long for Liam to see the pirate approach them through the thick smoke.
“Well, well, Sinclair; and my ex-XO too.” Roberts appeared pleased by the round up. “Looks like we get to take out three birds with one stone.”
“Let us go, Roy.” Mac coughed weakly; he’d already lost a lot of blood. “We’re not any threat to you.”
“You’re all threats, Mac. You know far too much of what we’ve built. So does the goddess, I’m afraid. And Liam, you’re just the dumbass kid who got tied up with all of them. Pity too. You knock over banks like it’s nobody’s business. You’d have made one helluva pirate. The only depressing thing is, I’ll never know how you actually pulled it off. Guess you’ll be taking that secret to your grave. TAKE AIM!”
A score of Robert’s men now raised their weapons.
“I’ll tell you how I did it, Roberts!” Liam offered quickly.
“How’s that?” the pirate now looked intrigued. But it was buying the time Liam needed. He’d never in his life tried to build a psionic charge this big before, but he was building one helluva one now, and it was getting bigger and bigger by the moment.
“The gods can move about unseen, Roberts. It was just that easy. No one sees you. No one cares.” Liam was pretty sure his eyes were glowing like wildfire, so he kept his gaze to ward the floor. He could feel most of it now, the vessel.
“That’s old news, Sinclair. Psychic cloaking. But being invisible still doesn’t tell me how you moved tons of gold out of their vaults.”
“Sure it does—” He could feel all of her now, The Neptune.
“You’re losing me.”
“It’s called—teleport.”
“Never heard of it.” Roberts looked askance at the young god. “How does it work?”
“Just—like—THIS!” Liam looked up, his eyes ablaze in something that beamed like bright sunshine from his eye sockets causing the assembled guards to shield their eyes from the brightness. His face now contorted in pain as he spread his arms feeling The Neptune from stem to stern. It was his—all of it. But, gods it was huge! “AAAHHHHHH!” he yelled as every square inch of his mind burned like fire.
Then suddenly, in a silent spray of saltwater, The Neptune all at once vanished from the bay—
“What the hell?!” the officer with the Bronx accent rubbed his eyes then looked at his binoculars. He re-affixed his sight on where the ship was just a moment ago!
“Holy. Mary. Mother— It’s gone!”
“WHAT?! Where’d she go!?”
Both officers just looked at each other and then back out at the bay where boats now circled the area of water where the luxury vessel had just been a moment ago.
For a brief moment it felt as if their ship was falling. Then The Neptune jarred to one side; as if it had dropped hard onto something. The deck slowly began to tilt as the vessel yawed to port audibly with the sound of creaking steel. Roberts quickly looked around to see what they’d just struck, another vessel maybe? No. Looking quickly to both port and starboard, he didn’t see any other ships, or the shore, or even open water for that matter. What he did see were—trees? And buildings? The vessel was yawing more quickly now; soon the wooden deck had tilted far too much for anyone to keep standing. All of them were sliding off the practically vertical main deck, spilling everyone onto the night-lit manicured grounds with not just trees, but lawn and sidewalks—and a veritable army of Secret Service security people who were now moving toward them with readied weapons.
Roberts’ men regrouped quickly in a semi-circle, their weapons aimed in a defensive position; but there weren’t that many of the pirates still able-bodied. They were being quickly out numbered.
“Ah, Monica—?”
“Yes, Mr. Harlan?” She was still on the phone with her field agents. Robert
s had made a mess of both sea and air craft and now no one could find him. The Neptune had suddenly just—vanished. Dammit. They’d lost the bastard. Again.
“You want to come here for a moment?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Harlan, I’m still on the phone—with …” She looked out the front window of the Oval Office and onto the evening-lit grounds. The phone dropped out of her hand. Her mouth opened as Secret Service were descending on a huge luxury boat someone had dropped onto the White House’s front lawn.
“I—ah,” Harlan began, “think we just found our Captain Roberts.” Harlan’s face showed astonishment. Both Monica and Harlan exchanged glances, then both began smirking uncontrollably.
Finding themselves surrounded by platoons of Secret Service and heavily armed police in SWAT gear, Roberts and his men began surrendering their weapons, laying them on the grass as the feds inched closer and began arresting the pirates.
Suddenly a number of wooden pallets holding bundles and bundles of cash fell out of the night sky from above and landed with thuds onto the grass and sidewalks, spilling stacks of money all over the grounds.
“Nice.” Monica approached, looking past Liam at the money that had spilled, some of which was softly blowing everywhere.
“You wanted it back. It’s back.” Liam quipped.
“Tori!” Monica suddenly noticed her half-shredded clothes with wounds that had now mostly healed. “What happened to you?” She was being held up by Liam who was also still helping a very wounded Mac. Monica went to her.
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