by Steve Richer
Feeling optimism for the first time in a while, he leapt forward, extending his arm. Once this button pushed, help would be on the way.
“No!” Nemec yelled.
Rogan was confused, even more so when the captain grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back, keeping him from calling for help.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I can’t let you do that, sir.”
Rogan frowned. “Fuck that. I’m calling for help.”
He made his way forward again, reaching for the DSC unit. This time the captain punched him in the gut.
Dropping to his knees, Rogan was out of breath. He saw the next blow coming and he blocked it. However, he couldn’t keep Nemec from kicking him.
“What’s happening?!” Gina screamed. “No!”
But Rogan knew what was going on now. The captain was working with Blake.
He had been paid off to make sure that Sabatini and his crew didn’t flee before the job was done. It kind of made sense for him to accept. Nemec would side with the winners, get paid for it, and still keep his job after the regime change.
The captain landed on top of Rogan, hitting him in the chest and side. It was hard to defend against that. Rogan had no room to maneuver as he fell to the ground.
“Go help him!” Gina ordered the stewards.
Rogan barely heard her voice. He was distracted by the punches raining down on him. It had been so sudden that he’d had no time to prepare. That in itself was a blow to his ego. In the past, he had faced bigger, tougher opponents and won. Why was he now getting the shit kicked out of him by a man who was at least ten years older than he was?
The problem was that Rogan was too crowded. He was overwhelmed. No one outside of Bruce Lee ever pulled off the Bruce Lee one-inch punch.
“Get off,” he growled through gritted teeth.
He tried to knee Nemec in the groin, but the guy anticipated this, shifting to the side to avoid most of the damage. Rogan wiggled his elbows. It didn’t work. Nemec remained on top of him, applying pressure.
Gina pleaded again. “Help him, quick!”
This time, the stewards moved. Rogan caught sight of them in his peripheral vision. They came closer.
“Captain, what are you doing?”
“Please, stop, Captain!”
Nemec didn’t reply. The stewards took hold of his arms and began prying him off. Rogan struggled to catch his breath. He slid backwards, trying to get as far away from him as possible. Once he was on his feet again, he would go on the offensive and finally get some answers.
His legs were still under Nemec though and the older man was snarling. He was like a rabid dog, a pit bull fighting against his restraints. What was wrong with him?
With his hands free, Rogan decided to help the stewards. He cocked his right arm back and hit the captain in the face. It cut his lip, blood trickling down his chin. But Nemec didn’t back down.
The stewards were definitely not club bouncers, especially the guy. They just didn’t have the upper body strength. The captain was stronger than both of them combined.
Rogan was almost fully out from under him when Gina shrieked.
“What… No!”
There were gunshots. Bang! Bang!
The stewards immediately dropped Nemec. Rogan saw that the Australian woman was wounded. Oh fuck, Blake had followed them here!
There were two more gunshots and this time the two stewards had their heads blown off. Blood spattered against the windows and control panel.
Gina was cowering, crouching down to make herself as small as possible. It was only a matter of seconds before Blake turned the gun on her, if only to shut her up.
Except that it wasn’t what happened.
Rogan took a moment to analyze the situation and that meant being oblivious to Nemec for a split second to look at the opponent. It wasn’t Blake. The man was blonde, in his thirties. He was wearing dark blue overalls stained with grease. It was the yacht’s engineer.
“Don’t move!”
That’s exactly what Rogan did. He froze as the muzzle of the black pistol was pointed at his face.
“What’s this? he asked. “Is it voluntary or coerced?”
“Huh?”
“Blake is making you do this—kill these kids—or you’re doing it to get your rocks off?”
Nemec grinned and wiped the blood off his chin. “Both.”
“That’s even worse.”
“We are taking advantage of a business opportunity,” the captain said. “Sabatini may be dead, but now you have an important USB drive. Give it to me.”
“That’s what your wife said to me last night,” Rogan spat.
Nemec punched him in the face without warning.
“Give me the fucking USB drive!”
There was no getting out of this. Nemec was still within striking distance and the engineer was armed. More terrifying was that Gina was standing nearby. All the engineer had to do was turn twenty degrees to his left and she was dead.
“Hand over the drive, asshole.” It was the engineer, his finger taking the slack from the trigger.
“Okay, okay! I have to reach in my pants though, all right? So chill.”
Rogan leaned backwards and unfurled his legs. He didn’t even know if he still had the USB drive. Maybe it had sunk to the bottom of the sea while they were swimming over. He shoved his hand in his pocket. The thing was there. He pulled his hand out slowly.
“Here, you can have it.”
He handed the small thing to Nemec who was focusing entirely on the exchange, his eyes growing wide as if he had discovered the lost city of El Dorado.
“What is it?” the captain asked in puzzlement.
Rogan hadn’t given him the thumb drive. What the man had in the palm of his hand was in fact a soggy roll of breath mints.
The engineer craned his neck to look. “You got it, Captain?”
The two men were distracted. It was time to go on the offensive.
Rogan punched Nemec in the throat, sending him reeling back. At the same moment, he sprang to his feet.
The engineer fired, but the shot went wide. Gina also knew that she had to use this opportunity. She shoved the engineer as best as she could, throwing him off balance.
Stepping over the corpse of the Australian woman, Rogan jumped on the engineer. He struck him in the face and wrestled him to the ground. He wanted him weak before he wrenched the gun out of his hand.
Just as he was going for the pistol, Rogan was yanked back.
Chapter 41
Nemec got him into a chokehold. And yet, Rogan wasn’t down for the count.
He kicked the engineer before he could retaliate and then focused on the captain, pushing back into him, beating him at his own game.
Rogan head-butted Nemec and kicked the engineer once more, this time making him lose his weapon. With this respite, Rogan bit into the captain’s arm.
“Aaaahh!”
Wiggling free, Rogan elbowed Nemec in the face until he could catch his breath.
“Rogan,” Gina called. “Look out!”
The engineer was picking up his gun. At this point, Rogan had to evaluate the scene, and do it fast. Thankfully, being a Marine and spending a decade as a federal agent had trained him for this sort of scenario.
He was free of Nemec so for once he had some room to maneuver. Unfortunately, the engineer was out of reach. He was diving for the handgun. There was simply no time for Rogan to strike back. He saw in his head a thousand different possibilities unfolding, from start to finish, and all ended up with him or Gina being killed. All except one.
They had to escape.
“Come on,” he told Gina as he scrambled to his feet.
He went to take her hand although it was unnecessary. She was right there along with him.
They were running toward the exit when the first shot rang out. They both ducked instinctively and were showered with splinters from the doorframe.
“Sh
it! Rogan cursed as another round flew his way.
He stopped breathing. This bullet he had felt zooming right by his neck.
“This way…”
They turned left and sprinted down the passageway. It was only seconds before Gina asked where they were going, and he had no answer for her. The only thing that mattered right this moment was to get out of range of the pistol, something that made no sense. An expert marksman could hit a target at three hundred yards with a decent pistol.
And this boat was six times shorter than that.
Rogan glanced over his shoulder in time to see the engineer leaving the bridge, squeezing off two more rounds.
They had no weapons and they were stuck on a ship with two people who wanted them dead. Rogan did the math. On the island, there was only one man who wanted to kill them.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Gina asked as they sped down a companionway.
“The yacht must have another tender.”
“A what?”
“Another small boat. So we can leave this place.”
“Leave?!”
Despite her shock, she kept pace with him as they went deeper and deeper inside the Jersey Devil. There was a chance that a big enough boat could carry them all the way to Nassau or Bimini. The inclement weather was an issue, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.
“We stay here, we die,” he told her.
“I’m not going in the ocean again! No more water, Rogan!”
“We don’t have a choice,” he barked, dragging her with him.
They went right, left again, getting lost in a maze of passageways. Nevertheless, Rogan had been on many yachts before and he generally knew where he was going.
Then he saw the plaque on the bulkhead: Tender Garage.
They hurried through the door and found themselves in a storage area. There was a space missing where the tender that had taken them to the island was supposed to be tied up. There weren’t any other boats.
“Goddamn it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Rogan? What’s wrong?”
He was about to tell her that they needed to go for a dip again when a black tarp caught his attention. He ran to it, knowing fully well that Nemec and the engineer would show up any second now. He lifted the vinyl cover. Underneath was a jet ski.
“Good news, Gina. We’re not going back swimming. Go hit the switch over there and hold it.”
He pointed next to the wide side panel. She didn’t say anything and did as instructed. The wall opened up like a garage door, revealing the rough sea beyond. Waves splashed inside the yacht and Gina was startled. She let go of the button and the door closed again.
“Quick, open it again,” Rogan ordered as he tossed the tarp away and began untying the watercraft, relieved that the key was in the ignition.
There were more gunshots!
Rogan saw that the door leading to the passageway was ajar. They had forgotten to close and lock it in their haste. He searched the premises. He had to find a way to beat them back, giving them enough time to escape.
On the wall was an array of diving equipment. There was a spear gun. He became excited before realizing that it was useless against a pistol. By the time he got it loaded, the captain and the engineer would have made their way inside. But there was something else.
A first aid kit.
Rogan left the jet ski and pulled the white and yellow plastic box from the wall. He popped it open and found what he was looking for: a flare gun.
He loaded it and without hesitation went to the door. He opened it further and aimed. Nemec and the crewman were stunned by the counteroffensive. They stopped in their tracks twenty feet away.
“Suck this!”
He fired and the two seamen ran in the opposite direction. The flare hit against the bulkhead, at the next corner, and burst into a red blinding light.
It wouldn’t do any damage, but the few seconds it bought Gina and Rogan was all they needed. When he turned around, he saw that she had figured out how to lock the garage door open and she was undoing the straps on the jet ski. She was smart.
And he had to be, too.
He glanced at the diving equipment again and this time his eyes rested on the air tanks. The first was actually nitrox—a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. Yes, this would work!
His heart racing, Rogan lifted the nearest tank from the rack. It was heavy. Full.
Perfect.
He headed back to the passageway and opened the door. The captain and the engineer were squinting against the dazzling red light and yet they were returning. The gun rose.
One, two, three rounds whizzed by Rogan! He didn’t linger on the possibility that one of them could hit him. Instead, he hurled the cylinder down the passageway before racing back. More shots were fired.
“What now?” Gina inquired.
At that exact moment, one of the rounds caught the nitrox tank. It exploded in a deafening sound. It was nowhere near powerful enough to sink the ship or kill Nemec and the engineer, but it bought them time.
“Hop on,” Rogan commanded while he pushed the jet ski toward the opening.
Just as the watercraft hit the water, he straddled the seat and Gina did the same, wrapping her arms around his waist. He turned the ignition and the engine caught on the first try.
The first wave was tricky, nearly throwing them over, but Rogan got the hang of it. He had performed such a dramatic escape once, he bitterly recalled. More troubling was that the jet ski didn’t have the range to reach anything but Murder Island. If they tried going to Bimini or Nassau, they would run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
Directly ahead was the marina, still on fire, and as a waypoint it did its job. He sped up, confident that they wouldn’t have to deal with Captain Nemec and the engineer anymore. There weren’t any other boats on the yacht aside from inflatable lifeboats which would only drift away. They couldn’t come after them.
“Where are we going?” Gina shouted into his ear.
“Look,” Rogan pointed with his chin at the antenna on top of the hill. There was a red beacon on top. “Used to be a park ranger station, Clifford told me.”
“So?”
“There could be a radio up there. We can call for help.”
But first they had to get to the island. Between the waves, the sharks, and the burning wreckage dotting the harbor waters, it might prove to be their hardest challenge yet.
Chapter 42
Approaching the inferno, Rogan looked for a safe place to land. It was weird to see the entire marina on fire. Even though it was raining—the winds had to be near a seventy miles per hour now—the fire still raged.
“Over there,” Gina shouted into his ear, pointing ahead and to the left.
Rogan eased the throttle of the jet ski, but it didn’t slow them down much. The sea was alive, operating on its own terms. The waves were much more violent now, threatening to capsize them.
Again was this feeling of being trapped, he thought. It wasn’t enough to be confronted with trained assassins, even the ocean meant to kill them. But he had to stop thinking about that. He hadn’t stayed alive all these years by lingering on every little problem.
He aimed at the area on the rocky beach that wasn’t consumed by flames. He had to give more gas to the watercraft so they would avoid the shipwrecks, the boats that had been destroyed by these bastards.
“You think there’s enough room?” she asked.
There was no sense answering her. He didn’t know more than she did although they were both thinking the same thing. There was nothing left of the pier and, unlike on the other side of the island, the shore wasn’t a smooth, sandy beach. It was a maze of sharp rocks jutting into the sea.
Any other night, this wouldn’t have been a problem. They could have ditched the jet ski and swam the rest of the way. If they did that now, the waves would send them straight into the rocks. There was no question that their bodies would be pulverized. It was a death sentence.
Screw this, he thought as he gave it gas and turned more to the left.
A swell lifted them at least ten feet. Rogan swiveled the handles to the right, doing his best to ride the wave like a surfer would. It was the only way to stay alive.
“Oh shit!”
He was surprised that the voice didn’t belong to Gina. It was him who was screaming like a girl. She had both arms wrapped around his waist, holding on tightly. She was steadfast.
His first instinct was to tell her to brace for impact, but she was already doing this. They reached the wave’s trough, both leaned in the opposite way so they wouldn’t fall off, and it was a miracle that the jet ski remained upright. Rogan found himself laughing with relief.
Focusing on the shore, it was only at the last moment that he saw the yellow and orange flicker of the fire twenty feet into the sea. The light was dancing against the fiberglass hull of one of the sunken boats. He avoided it just in time. At long last, they reached the shore, the farthest point from the epicenter of the fire.
“Get ready,” he shouted. “We’re only gonna get one chance at this.”
She nodded and, although he didn’t see it, he felt it as her chin moved against his shoulder.
“I’m gonna get us as close as possible and we’ll have to jump. Don’t fall into the water.”
“I won’t,” she replied.
It occurred to him that she wasn’t as panicked as she’d been before, when they’d swam to the yacht. It was as if she had conquered her fear of the water. And to think it had only taken murderous gunmen to make her get over it, he thought with morbid amusement.
“Okay, here we go!”
The jet ski skidded sideways because Rogan knew there was no chance to land. There was no smooth area to propel themselves onto. The shore was simply too high. They bumped against the rocks and right then a wave lifted them up.
