Hell or High Water

by Julie Ann Walker

  She walks in beauty like the night

  Of terrorist-laden climes and mortar-filled skies…

  Yessir, Lord Byron had nothing on him.

  * * *

  1:21 p.m.…

  Bran dropped the binoculars he’d been using to glass the seas in front of them when he heard Leo’s heavy footsteps pounding up the metal stairs. Turning, he had to suppress a grin when Leo joined them, his best friend’s expression all There! Are you happy now?

  Bran winked at his former commanding officer because he knew it would piss him off. And, sure as shit, right on cue, Leo flipped him the bird.

  He rolled in his lips, turning back to listen to Olivia’s end of the conversation. It seemed she and her supervisor were debating their options on what to do now that the contractors appeared to be delayed for God only knew how long.

  Clusterfuck. That’s what this was turning out to be. Although, without a doubt, it would all be worth it if Leo got the opportunity to finish what he started with Olivia down in that galley. Even though Bran wasn’t totally in agreement with Wolf’s assessment that all Leo needed in order to pull a Father Karras and exorcize Olivia from his system was a nice, long fuck-a-thon, he figured it was best if Leo at least gave it the ol’ college try.

  “Okay. I’ll call you back after I talk to the guys, and let you know what we decide,” Olivia said, signing off with her boss and turning her back on the bay of windows that made up three sides of the pilothouse. Bran knew the instant she realized Leo had joined them, because she flushed prettily and unconsciously caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Huh. Would you look at that? If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it, but Olivia Mortier looked…well…coy. And when he turned to see Leo smoldering at the woman—there was really no other word for it—he didn’t even attempt to suppress the urge to roll his eyes.

  The way those two were mooning over each other reminded him of when he was six years old and his mother took him to the rundown movie theater in the South Ward to watch a re-showing of the classic Disney film Bambi—one of the few times he could remember his father allowing her out of the house. Besides the fact that he had bawled his eyes out when Bambi’s mother died, the only other thing Bran distinctly remembered from the film was when the old owl explained to Bambi, Thumper, and Flower why the animals acted so funny in the springtime. “Twitterpated,” the condition was called. And he figured that summed up Leo and Olivia in one succinct word.

  Thankfully, the way he understood it, being twitterpated was a passing phase. Once the mating instinct was satisfied, both parties were free to go their separate ways. Let’s hope…

  “So, what’s up?” Leo asked Olivia, folding his arms over the back of the captain’s chair Wolf was currently occupying.

  “Apparently the A-Team…uh…” She shook her head. “That’s what Morales and I were calling the apprehension team.”

  “You guys sure go for the obvious when it comes to code names, don’t you?” Wolf snorted, causing Olivia to pull a face.

  “This isn’t an official”—she made the quote marks with her fingers—“operation. So, we figured the simpler we kept things, the better.” Wolf opened his mouth, but she was quick to cut him off. “And, yes. I know this has since turned into a shitstorm of complexity, but I swear to you it started out as nothing much more than a Sunday picnic.”

  Bran glanced at the faces around him, reading the varying levels of disbelief. Once again the word “clusterfuck” whispered through his head.

  “Anyway,” she continued, choosing to ignore their cynical expressions, “apparently they hit something in the water, and it bent the hell out of the propeller on one of their two outboard engines. They have an extra prop with them, but it’ll take some time to switch out the old for the new.”

  “And in the meantime?” he asked. “Do we go dead in the water or do we carry on to…the package?” He couldn’t help but stress the last two words, especially when doing so caused Olivia’s whole face to flatten.

  “That’s up to you guys,” she said after she’d tried to light his eyebrows on fire with her gaze alone.

  “Pros and cons, men?” Leo asked, and the question was so familiar that Bran experienced a strong sense of nostalgia. That’s how Leo had begun the planning for each and every op they’d ever run. And it was just one more reason why Leo had been perfect for the job of commanding officer. It took an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful man to be humble enough to know he didn’t always have the right answer and to solicit as many opinions as he could before making any decision.

  Of course, Bran would never tell Leo how much he admired him. Where’s the fun in that?

  “If those tangos are still on site,” Wolf began, “it’d be better to wait for the…ah…A-Team.” One corner of Wolf’s mouth twitched and Bran slapped him a high five. Olivia rolled her eyes.

  “True.” Leo nodded, running a hand over his beard—if you considered the current trend to maintain what amounted to a slightly longer than a five-o’clock shadow an actual beard. “But if they’re not on site, if they went down with their boat, we could be twiddlin’ our dicks out here for hours for no good reason.”

  Bran opened his mouth to take a swing at the dick-twiddling softball Leo had lobbed his way. But Leo beat him to the punch by flicking him a look that promised untold misery should one word of what had happened belowdecks escape his lips. Bran wisely clamped his teeth together.

  “Or we could always alter course and go pick up the contractors,” Wolf suggested, adjusting the throttle when a larger-than-normal wave caused Wayfarer-I to list slightly. “But if they get that propeller repaired in the meantime, we’ll have wasted a lot of time and fuel.”

  Fuel. The way Wolf spat out the word almost made it sound dirty. And, in a way, it was. Because even though that half a million dollars Olivia was paying them for this gig would go a long way in helping them search for the Santa Cristina, every dime—which translated into every drop of fuel—still counted.

  “I vote we keep heading toward the package,” Mason said. “We can always stop a few miles out and glass the area to see if there are any un-fuckin’-friendlies floating thereabouts. If there are, then we can pull back and wait for the contractors to arrive.”

  “Bran?” Leo asked. “Thoughts?”

  “You know me, LT.” He shrugged. “I like it best when we do things Han-style, so I say we keep on keeping on.”

  “Han-style?” Olivia asked.

  “You know, Han Solo? So, solo?”

  She lifted a brow.

  “Oh, for shit’s sake. You really need to get a subscription to HBO or Netflix. It loses its oomph when I have to explain it.”

  “Olivia?” Leo turned to her, or more like he’d never turned away from her. “Which side of the argument are you comin’ in on?”

  “Well, of course I want to go retrieve those chemicals as quickly as possible,” she admitted. “So I vote for doing it”—she turned to smile at Bran—“Han-style.”

  He slow-winked at her.

  “Something in your eye, Brando?” Leo asked. And even if his best friend hadn’t used his full name, the warning in Leo’s tone was clear. She’s mine, it said. So, ix-nay on the irting-flay.

  Bran sighed. Twitterpated. Totally, completely, annoyingly twitterpated…

  Chapter Eight

  1:43 p.m.…

  “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Maddy glanced over at Captain Harry and frowned, her heart so heavy it was a wonder the thing hadn’t sunk down to slide out of her ass. “I’m so sorry I got you into this mess,” she told him, wishing with all her might she’d taken a minute, just one stinking minute, to consider the possible repercussions of approaching a boatful of strange men. There she’d gone again. Leaping before she looked.

  That phrase should be tattooed across my forehead.

  Although, in her defense, even if she had taken the time to consider the possible downsides to
her decision, she never would have envisioned…well…this. Whatever the hell this was—she had yet to determine if it was a hijacking, a kidnapping, or just plain being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Regardless, she had to admit, “I should have listened to you and called in the Coast G—”

  “You couldn’t have known who they were,” Captain Harry interrupted her, parroting her thoughts back to her. “Neither of us could have. And I’m the captain. Ultimately, all decisions concerning the Black Gold are mine. So I should be apologizing to you.”

  Sweet man. Sweet wrongheaded man.

  “How ’bout we agree to disagree?” She gave him a friendly nudge with her shoulder. “Because you know damn well had I not been on board pleadin’ the case of destitute Cubans riskin’ life and limb in trying for the good old U.S. of A., you would have called in the authorities and none of this would be happenin’.”

  “Perhaps,” he admitted, then added, “or perhaps not. How do you know my bleeding heart wouldn’t have gotten the better of me?”

  She shook her head at him. “Well, can we at least share the blame?”

  “Deal,” he told her with a sharp bounce of his head. “I’d shake your hand but…” He used his chin to gesture over his shoulder to his wrists, zip-tied behind his back.

  “Yep. I feel your pain.” She curled her lip. Her hands and feet hadn’t turned blue yet, but an hour and a half was a long time to have plastic cutting into your skin. What had started out as a fairly painless manacling was growing more and more unpleasant by the minute.

  As if Captain Harry were reading her mind, he adjusted himself on the love seat beside her. “Is it just me, or have the cushions of this settee turned themselves into bricks?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I can’t feel a piddlee-O thing. My butt is completely numb.”

  “Wish I could say the same,” he grumbled. “If I’m not mistaken, my posterior has made a permanent imprint on this cushion.” He frowned at the cushion in question.

  “It could be worse. We could be stuck outside with Bruce and Nigel.”

  Captain Harry grimaced. “Can you see them? Are they still on the front deck?”

  She craned her head to try to get a peek out the bridge’s forward window. But no amount of straining gave her the right angle. And the movement caused the zip tie around her ankles to dig painfully into the top of her bare feet. She settled back into the love seat, blowing out a frustrated, worried breath. “Nope. I can’t see anything lower than the front rails.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” he said. She knew he was trying to soothe her, but there was no mistaking the concern in his voice.

  Much to her dismay, Bruce and Nigel had not heard her screams and had subsequently been yanked from their cabins and trussed up on the front deck where not one sliver of shade protected their pale English skin from the harsh rays of the relentless subtropical sun. Add one more thing to my list of regrets. Then again, if the worst thing the men suffered from this ordeal was a sunburn, she’d count her lucky stars.

  For a couple of minutes after Nigel and Bruce were properly tied, the dusky-skinned men had spoken in sharp tones while gesturing wildly toward her and the captain. Maddy got the impression they were trying to determine what was to be done with them, and she wondered why they were being treated differently than Nigel and Bruce.

  But it all became clear after she and the captain were marched up to the bridge where they were quickly shackled and assigned permanent spots on the love seat. The man who had punched her in the throat said to Captain Harry in broken English, “If passing vessel call on phone, or…eh…” He shook his head and frowned like he was searching for the word. Then his expression cleared. “Or radio. If someone contact boat, you answer. My accent”—he pointed to his lips—“it bring questions, yes?”

  When the captain just blinked at the man, his face took on the mien of a hurricane. Both Maddy and the captain shrank back, trying to dissolve into the love seat. “Answer me!” the man shouted, spittle flying from his lips to cling to his black beard, his obsidian eyes wild.

  “Uh, c-certainly,” Captain Harry stammered. “It’s easy enough for someone to use a boat’s name to check marine registries for the vessel’s corresponding captain and crew. And I suppose if that someone heard your accent when they were expecting to hear mine, it would raise a few eyebrows.”

  “Yes.” Their captor nodded matter-of-factly, smiling. Or…his face contorted into what Maddy suspected was supposed to be a smile. The corners of his eyes crinkled and his lips pulled back to reveal a string of discolored teeth. Then his smile turned to a sneer. “And no you yell for help. If do, my friend put bullet in woman.”

  He clapped a hand on the shoulder of the grubby guy standing beside him. In response, the scrawny A-hole raised his weapon, pointing the barrel directly between Maddy’s eyes. Her lungs caved in on themselves at the same time her mind conjured up a series of satisfying mental images that involved her sticking forks into the necks of every one of her captors.

  “Understand me?” the lead A-hole asked, glowering at the captain. Something seemed to move behind his eyes. Something dark and zealous. Something Maddy figured she could go her whole life without ever seeing again.

  “I understand you perfectly,” Captain Harry replied.

  “Good.” Lead A-hole dipped his bearded chin. “Then you sit. Stay. Like dogs.” He threw his head back, laughing at his own joke, and disappeared through the bridge’s door.

  He hadn’t been back since. Not once. Not when Skinny A-hole Number Two put the Black Gold in gear, sailing her to some mysterious spot in the Straits before cutting her engines. Not when the sound of the anchor motors buzzed, alerting Maddy and the captain that they’d reached their destination, which appeared to be exactly…nowhere. Not when a deep-sea fishing boat passed by a mile or so off their starboard side. And not when Skinny A-hole Number Two kicked back and fell flat asleep.

  Not that she was complaining about Lead A-hole’s absence, mind you. In fact, more than once she’d praised the Lord for small miracles. Amen! Because she could go the rest of her—

  “Zzzzz-hhhgwww-pppwww.”

  The resounding snore dragged Maddy’s attention over to their lone…uh…she supposed the odorific man was now acting as their captain and guard. But given that he was sawing logs like a professional lumberjack, she wasn’t exactly sure how much guarding he was actually doing.

  She leaned over the love seat’s armrest, craning her head until she could see around the sleeping man to the top of the console in front of him. Right there. The satphone was right there. If she could manage to hop over without waking—

  “Don’t try it,” Captain Harry hissed. “The others could come in at any moment. And if that English-speaking one catches you, I’m afraid…” He let the sentence dangle. After a bit he shook his head. “I was in the military long enough to recognize a man who has killed. And that man has most certainly killed. And liked it, if I’m not mistaken.” Maybe that was that dark, zealous thing she’d seen in their captor’s eyes. “Don’t you be his next victim. We just need to stay calm, keep our heads about us, and do whatever they want.”

  “But what do they want?” she asked. “Are they some sort of…pirates? Are they lookin’ for ransom? If so, why drag us out here? Why haven’t they called—”

  That’s as far as she got, because the two-way radio on the console crackled to life, a deep voice suddenly filling the bridge. “Motor yacht, motor yacht…this is Wayfarer-I off your port-side, over?”

  With a snort and cough, Skinny A-hole Number Two sprang awake. The dingy feet he’d propped on the console hit the floor with a thud, and he glanced around wildly, blinking as if he was afraid she and the captain may have disappeared on him. When he saw them sitting in the exact spot they’d been before he decided to catch some Z’s, he relaxed. That is until that deep voice snapped over the airwaves again.

  “I’m hailin’ the yacht that is floatin’ at the approximate coordinates�
�” The man on the radio rattled off some numbers, and their guard’s bearded chin jerked back. “This is the salvage ship Wayfarer-I floatin’ some distance off your port-side, do you copy?”

  Maddy was equal parts delighted and dismayed by the words echoing through the bridge. A salvage ship could mean salvation! It could also spell doom for the people aboard if the pirates—or terrorists or whatever the hell these guys were—decided to lure them in and open fire.

  Her heart started pounding in her chest like the stupid organ was a convict trying to break free of her rib cage. And when she glanced over, it was to find Captain Harry’s eyes once again popping clean out of his head.

  The skinny guy barked something unintelligible at the captain and pointed his weapon at Harry’s chest. Then he did something truly strange. He stuck his thumb and forefinger into his mouth.

  Gross. Maddy’s top lip curled back. The guy’s hands were filthy, caked with dirt. Then a high-pitched whistle blasted from between his teeth, startling her with its volume.

  A second later, footsteps thundered up the interior stairs to the bridge and Lead A-hole threw open the door, entering the room with a snarl. He barked something to Skinny A-hole Number Two, who subsequently picked up the handset on the two-way radio.

  When it came alive again with, “Motor yacht, motor yacht…this is Wayfarer-I off your port-side, hailin’ on channel sixteen, do you copy?” Lead A-hole stomped over and snatched the radio from the skinny man’s clutches. He turned in their direction, pulling a knife out of the waistband of his trousers.

  Maddy’s entire body broke out in a cold sweat. Her stomach went from attempting to slide out of her ass to turning a series of flips that made her want to hurl. “No!” she screamed when he brandished the weapon in Captain Harry’s face. But he didn’t stick the thing in the captain’s gut as she feared. Instead, he reached around and sliced through Harry’s restraints. Straightening, he thrust the handset at the captain. “Answer,” he growled. “Send them away.”

  With shaking fingers, Captain Harry took the handset, pressing the button on the side. “Wayfar—” His voice cracked with tension. He had to clear his throat before trying again. “Wayfarer-I, Wayfarer-I…this is Captain Harry Tripplehorn on the Black Gold. Sorry for the delay in response. I just popped into the loo, over?”