by Rebecca York
Cole spoke. “You already know Emma, and I’m Cole Marshall. We work for Decorah Security.”
“Why didn’t you get me out when I saw you?”
“Because we were under guard,” Cole answered. “Now we’ve broken out of the brig, and we have to get you off the ship.”
It was then that Emma remembered something that had slipped her mind in the past few frantic hours. She fought not to look sick. “We were supposed to call the rescue ship with the transmitter in my purse. In the lipstick. But I don’t have it with me.”
“We’ll have to make alternate arrangements,” Cole bit out, then looked at Ben. “I assume Del Conte has an escape boat.”
“Yes.”
“Can we get to it?”
“If we’re lucky.” While he stepped to the barred door and pushed in a code, Emma turned to the lockers and began opening doors. She found a blue uniform shirt and pants, which she pulled out.
As soon as the cell door was open, Karen charged out, looking relieved but also worried.
“Turn around,” Emma said to the two men. When they complied, she stepping forward and handed the clothing to Karen. The girl glanced at the men’s backs, then stepped into the pants under her kimono skirt. When she had them on, Emma pulled off the gown and Karen slipped into the shirt before reaching to roll up the pants legs and sleeves.
She looked at Emma. “Are we really getting out of here?”
“Yes,” she answered with more confidence than she felt.
There were more weapons in racks in the holding area. They each took a spare. And extra ammunition.
“Where’s the escape boat?” Cole asked Walker.
“In a docking area on Deck Two. He can flood the whole compartment and open doors to the sea.”
Emma thought about that.
“What if Del Conte floods the compartment, and we can’t get the doors open? We’ll drown.”
“Let’s assume we can,” Cole bit out.
Emma nodded. Without the signal device, their only other alternative was to jump off the ship and swim or try for one of the lifeboats. Both of which would leave them sitting ducks.
Walker looked at Cole and Emma. “Both of you, put on the rest of the uniforms. You might pass for security.
They riffled through more lockers and both found uniform shirts. Cole also found shoes that were only a size too small. Emma had a choice between Bozo the Clown and barefoot. She chose the latter.
The security chief gave them a critical look. “You’ll pass,” he said to Cole. “But you look like a kid in her dad’s uniform,” he told Emma.
“Thanks.”
He led the way down the corridor again. Emma was next, followed by Karen. Cole brought up the rear, and she hated leaving him in that position, but it made sense.
When more footsteps sounded in the corridor, Emma clenched her hand on the automatic weapon she was holding.
“We don’t know how many they are,” Walker whispered. “Duck in here.” He opened a door, and they stepped into a room that felt like it was freezing. Only a dim light hung from the ceiling, giving Emma a view of large drawers along one wall and a metal table in front of them.
“The morgue?” she asked Walker.
“Yeah.” His voice was gritty.
She gave him a direct look. “You don’t like this place.”
“I’ve spent too much time here.”
“Because Del Conte is rough on his staff?”
“Something like that,” he clipped out, telling her that he didn’t want to discuss it.
Walker locked the door from the inside. When footsteps paused outside their hiding place, Emma tensed. Whoever was out there tried the door, then moved on.
She sagged against the wall, trying not to breathe in the odor of death.
Turning to Walker she said, “Someone was killed in the hallway when we first arrived, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A slave who was trying to get off the ship when the hovercraft arrived.”
“And you lied about it.”
“Of course. You think I had a choice if I wanted to maintain my cover?” he asked in a hard voice. “Just like I had to interrogate Cole last night when Stella called me. Lucky she reached me and not Greg. Otherwise, Cole would probably be dead.”
Emma winced.
Cole took her arm. “Let’s not get off track. We have to get off the Windward. After unlocking the door, he cautiously opened it a crack. No one was outside.
Walker led them to the stairs. They were on their way down when the third floor landing opened.
A tall, blond woman stepped out. Allison from the beauty salon. She was followed by Anna, the other beautician.
Allison eyes widened as she stared at the guns. “Don’t shoot me. What’s going on?”
Emma started to answer, but stopped abruptly when Walker shook his head.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked.
“Something’s happening. I heard gunfire. I’m scared. Is there any chance of getting off the ship?”
“No,” Walker snapped.”
“Then where are you going?” Allison asked.
Walker’s gaze flicked from Allison to Anna and back again. Apparently he didn’t trust the blond woman.
Allison’s speculative gaze swept over them and fixed on Karen. ‘What’s she doing with you?”
While Emma was considering the answer, Anna took a quick step back just as Allison brought a gun from the folds of her black smock.
“All of you, drop your weapons.”
As she spoke, a shot reverberated off the walls of the stairwell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
While Emma watched in shock, Allison slid to the floor, a red stain spreading out beneath her.
Anna was standing behind her, a gun in her hand.
Walker turned to the others. “Anna’s one of the leaders of the rebels. I’ve been meeting with her in secret—when I could.”
“And Allison’s been spying on me for months,” Anna added. “When the surveillance system went down, I left the salon, but Allison tagged along. She stuck to me like glue. I had to pretend I was scared of the mutiny, but I was hoping I could hook up with you.”
Walker nodded.
“I was pretty sure this had something to do with Karen.” She looked at Emma. “After the way you reacted when you saw that hair on the floor.”
“I guess I should have been more subtle.”
“No. I’m trained to be observant.” She turned to Walker. “You know there are others desperate to get off the boat.”
“We can’t take a crowd. We’ll have to come back for them,” he said, then gave her a sharp look. “I guess you’d better tell me how you knew where to find us.”
She raised her chin. “I planted a tracker on Karen. It’s also a transmitter.”
The girl gasped. “Where?”
“In your butterfly hair ornament. Remember, I told you not to take it off.”
“Lucky I didn’t,” she murmured.
“How many people are opposing Del Conte?” Cole asked Anna.
“I don’t know exactly,” she answered. “Some slaves recruit others—cautiously. We’re in—how do you call it?—cells.” She looked at Cole and Emma. “One of us was killed when you arrived.”
“Ben told us. I’m so sorry,” Emma murmured.
“Not your fault. He was taking too much of a chance. There was no way he was going to board that hovercraft.”
“We’d better get going,” Walker broke in. “Come on.”
They started down the stairs again, all keeping their eyes on the next doorway. But they passed it without incident and proceeded to Deck Two where the escape boat was located.
“There will be guards,” Walker said as they hurried along a hallway. “I’ll go in first and assess the situation.”
“And then what?” Emma asked.
“Maybe I can convince them I’m still working with Del
Conte.”
Ben Walker moved to the front and pressed his thumb against a pad beside the hatch
When it opened, he took a deep breath and let it out before striding inside like he had every right to be there.
He stayed in the doorway as he looked around to see five of Del Conte’s most loyal guards stationed around the area. They were all hardened security men. All of them enjoyed working on the Windward. Lording it over the slaves and sometimes participating in rough scenes. He knew that two of these guys had been responsible for the deaths of three cast members.
“Chief!” one of them called out. “We’ve been trying to reach you, but the comms system is down. We got a hand-delivered message that the Windward is under attack,” one of the men called out.
“Is it the rebels?” another asked.
“It’s Cole Mason and Emma Ray who came on board yesterday.”
“All by themselves?”
“Some of the rebels have joined them,” Walker conceded. He wished he’d had more time to think of a story before stepping through the door. “I’ve got everything under control,” he went on. “The master is coming down, just as soon as he’s sure the area’s safe. I want you outside the hatch in case there’s trouble.”
The men were tense but compliant as they moved toward the door. Ben was starting to think that he’d pulled this off when a voice called out,
“Wait a minute.”
Greg stepped from behind a stack of supply cartons.
“Don’t listen to the bastard. He’s helping Mason and Ray,” Greg shouted.
Before anyone could fire, Ben ducked back out the hatch, slamming it behind him.
Karen screamed as a hail of bullets hit the metal but didn’t penetrate.
“It was working,” Walker growled. “Until Greg showed up. He’s been desperate to get something on me that he could take to Del Conte—and get my job.”
“Now what?” Cole asked in a grating voice.
Walker stepped closer to them, his voice low. “There’s a hatch in the ceiling. I can get in, but I’m going to need a diversion.”
“I can do it,” Cole answered.
Emma looked from him to Walker and back again.
“But you don’t have any way to communicate, once you’re out of sight,” she said. “Cole won’t know when to start the diversion.”
“Yeah,” Walker acknowledged, trying to think of a way around the problem.
Anna provided the answer by pulling the butterfly clip out of Karen’s hair and clicking her thumbnail against it. The sound echoed in her watch.
“You do have a way to communicate,” she said. “The transmitter.”
She handed the butterfly to Walker. “Take it with you. Signal when you’re in position,” she said.
He took the ornament, turning it in his hand, then slipping it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
“How long before you can open the hatch?” Cole asked.
“Five minutes, if I’m lucky.”
“Do the men in there know about it?” Emma asked.
“That’s the luck part.”
Anna gripped his arm. “Be careful.”
“I will,” he said before heading back the way they’d come.
oOo
Ben took a side corridor, then ducked into one of Del Conte’s secret passages. The man had had them built at strategic locations around the ship. He used them to prowl around without being seen and as alternate routes to secure locations. Nobody was supposed to know about them, but Ben had discovered their existence when he’d been poking around in the master’s computer system. He snorted. Only a megalomaniac would call himself “The Master,” but Del Conte definitely qualified.
At the entrance to a hatch, he stopped and listened, then cautiously opened the metal door and stepped inside where he found a ladder of rungs attached to the wall.
As he started to climb, he reflected that he could get himself killed on this mission, but that wouldn’t be anything new. A couple of years ago he’d gotten into a nasty situation that had left him technically dead for five minutes. A long time, when you considered what oxygen deprivation did to the brain.
He knew what it had done to him. Given him an unusual ability that had changed his life. He didn’t talk about it to anyone. But he’d used it a time or two, especially after he’d taken on the covert mission on the Windward.
At the top of the ladder he paused to inspect the hatch in front of him. Then, working as quietly as possible, he turned the handle that opened the cover.
oOo
Everyone’s tension grew as the minutes ticked by and there was no communication with the security chief.
“Did something happen?” Karen whispered. “I mean, what if he met more guards.”
“Let’s hope he’s still on track,” Emma answered, thinking that if he was out of commission, they’d have to go to plan B—whatever that was.
Finally they heard the flicking sound coming from the watch.
“Thank God,” Emma murmured.
“Get back,” Cole said in a gritty voice. Emma gave him a long look, but she couldn’t come up with an alternative to his drawing the guards’ fire.
The women moved a few yards down the hall and into an alcove, with Anna facing in one direction and Emma in the other, each ready to fire if they saw someone coming.
Cole moved to the hatch and turned the lever, opening the door a crack. It creaked, drawing instant fire from the men inside the docking area. Bullets hit the door and bounced back.
Cole slammed the door and waited thirty seconds. When he opened it again, there was another burst of fire, but this time it wasn’t directed toward the door. The shots were going in the other direction.
Then silence.
After long tense moments, the watch began making the flicking sound again.
“He’s in,” Cole called out. As he reached for the door handle, Emma wanted to grab him, but she knew they couldn’t stay in the hallway forever.
As he disappeared inside, she felt her heart start to pound. She’d been shaken by the wolf, but the shock was over. What if something happened to him now?
The thought of going on without him made a wave of cold sweep over her. She’d just found out what they meant to each other and she ached to explore the bond she felt between them.
Her attention zinged back to the hallway when she heard stealthy footsteps advancing down the corridor. Somebody had heard the gunfire and knew the escape boat was under attack.
She and Anna exchanged glances. Anna nodded. Both of them stepped in front of Karen, faced in the direction of the sound. Emma risked a glance around the corner and saw two guards come cautiously down the corridor, machine guns at the ready. One was a tall, dark-haired woman.
Emma and Anna had never worked together before, but they had to do it now.
“I’ll take the woman,” Emma whispered.
Anna nodded.
Emma’s heart was pounding as she waited for the attackers to come closer.
“Now,” Anna whispered.
They both darted out, taking the assault team by surprise. Emma had never shot a woman, but she knew her life depended on doing it now.
As they fired, Cole charged back out the door, his face alarmed and his gun raised. But the guards were already lying unmoving in a pool of blood on the floor.
“Holy shit,” he whispered as he saw the woman lying on the ground. “It’s Stella.”
“The bitch who interrogated you last night?”
“I guess she won’t be doing it to anyone else.”
“There could be more on the way,” Anna said. “We’d better get out of here.”
Emma followed Cole through the hatch. She gasped when she saw five dead guards strewn around the metal deck. One of them was Greg, who’d first served them drinks on the hovercraft. A thousand years ago.
Walker stepped out from behind a pile of containers. Relief flooded through her, until she saw blood spreading on the arm of his uniform
shirt.
“Not an artery,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice as he took in her worried expression. “Everybody inside.”
Emma stepped back through the door, motioning to Anna and Karen who hurried to join her and the men.
“They know I’d try for the dock. Reinforcements will be coming,” Walker said as he slammed the door, then sent a spray of bullets into the control mechanism.
“I guess it’s either the outer door or nothing,” Cole said.
It was wet and clammy inside the sea dock, making Emma shiver as she looked around. They were in a large open area, nothing like the passenger sections of the ship. The walls of the chamber were metal, with metal catwalks around three sides of a rectangular pool of seawater in the middle of which floated a sleek speedboat. Emma saw why they couldn’t take everybody who wanted to leave the Windward. There was room for maybe six people, if they arranged themselves like Vienna sausages in a can.
Walker strode to another control panel and pressed a row of switches.
“Shit.”
“What?” Cole asked.
“The sea doors won’t open.”
“That’s right.” The observation came from a television mounted high on the wall.
Emma gasped when she saw that Bruno Del Conte was looking down on them, a satisfied expression on his handsome face.
oOo
Bruno Del Conte’s anger flared as he looked down on the bastards who had locked themselves in the sea dock.
He’d left loyal men in there, but it looked like Walker and Mason had finished them off.
They thought they were in the clear, but they were sadly mistaken. He’d drown them, then escape from the Windward, and activate the explosive charges to blow up the ship when he was far enough away.
Contemplating the destruction gave him a few moment’s satisfaction—until he focused on Ben Walker again.
What the hell was he doing with Mason and Ray? Were they paying him to help them? Or was it something personal, something that Bruno didn’t know.
He studied the group again. It included that Asian woman from the beauty salon. And Karen Hopewell.
