Drake didn’t move, instead staring at the man until Arthur seemed to shrink before him.
“If you or the people you represent wish to proceed, know that I am a man of business—not pandering and prurient whims. Approach me directly or not at all. No messages or codes tucked into canvases—I couldn’t care. My business succeeds just as well in one locale as another.” He waved a hand at a small painting of an African family group in tribal dress that was only spared from being racist by the sympathetic eye of the artist.
Not giving Arthur time to answer, Drake turned aside and would have walked off without her if they hadn’t been holding hands.
“When can I get back to my goddamn helicopter?” He snarled as soon as they were beyond earshot.
She let him steamroller along until they reached the very bow of the ship and stepped out onto the foredeck. He led her all the way to the rail. The sunset had left the evening cool, which was refreshing on her face, though she shivered at the unexpected contact with her shoulders. Strapless wasn’t exactly her style.
Moments later Drake slipped his jacket over her bare shoulders like a cape. And while she didn’t need the warmth, feeling his body heat wrap around her was such a pleasure she might never give it back.
The constellations Capricorn and Aquarius shown in the sky, higher than she was used to. Rather than flying straight overhead, Cygnus the swan was hidden behind the upper stories of the cruise ship as they headed south toward Belize, their next port of call.
“What’s our next step?” She didn’t trust herself to think more about Drake the man. So she’d focus on Drake the warrior.
“How the hell would I know?” He leaned on the railing and stared out over the bow so she couldn’t see his face.
The open ocean always surprised her at how much it didn’t smell like anything. Dead algae and seaweed gave beaches their fishy smell. Breaking waves churned salt into the air. Yet the four-foot rollers of the Gulf of Mexico added nothing to the air and only the slightest motion to the ship. This was no Navy ship—it ran with stabilizers that could flatten out the least roll for its passenger’s comfort.
The last of the day’s light had turned the sky blood orange. A land mass lay low to the south and east. It must be Cuba, the only major island for a long way south of Key West. They would pass it in the night on their way to Belize in Central America.
That left them two ports of call to solve the riddle or this whole trip would have been a waste. She leaned back against the railing close by Drake and looked up at the towering ship, outlined against the glowing sky. It rose four more decks above them, the control bridge a single sweep of glass like a dark eyebrow immediately above their own suite.
Looking at their suite’s verandah, she could see Altman and Zoe standing side by side, outlined by the light behind them. Both looking down at her and Drake.
What did Altman see? What did he imagine had become of his prize pupil, the first female SEAL, as she lounged next to her lover in a thousand-dollar gown that she’d just as soon throw overboard?
“I don’t know how to do this,” she told the fading light.
“That makes two of us,” Drake’s whisper was a caress that she couldn’t stand to turn and face.
“Are we talking about the mission?” Nikita kept her voice low as if Arthur or one of his cronies might hear.
“Or are we talking about us?” Drake’s voice was hushed as if he was afraid the world would hear.
“I wasn’t,” she swallowed hard. “But I guess we are now.”
“What happens when the mission is done?”
“Shit, Roman. We’ve never even shared a bed.”
“We will tonight,” his tone left no doubt. “Then what?”
Nikita spotted a flash of light on the uppermost deck, no brighter than a cigarette lighter.
A highly trained instinct about the color and shape of the flare had her slamming a fist into Drake’s arm. She let half the momentum knock him sideways and used the other half to push herself away from him.
She felt a sharp slice of pain in her upper arm—and the distinctive hard plonk! of a bullet hitting the rail.
“Incoming!” She hissed at Drake. He’d been facing the wrong way to see it. “Observation Deck,” she called out loudly, hoping that Altman was still at the suite’s rail and would hear her.
She dove behind a large steel anchor capstan. Drake went down behind a bench, which was lousy protection, then glanced back at her. She pointed up toward where she’d seen the flash of light.
Another round came in. There was a loud clang! This time it hit on the back side of the capstan she was crouched behind. No sharp crack of a supersonic round. The small flash she’d spotted indicated a silenced weapon, which would act as a flash suppressor as well.
She was never going to leave her rifle in the suite again, not if she had to wear it under her dress at a fancy dinner.
Drake took advantage of the moment and rolled to a more secure spot close behind a large anchor resting on the deck.
Unless they could get beneath the overhang of the bridge, they were defenseless.
Five breaths, ten, she held her position.
She was considering a bolt for cover, but knew that patience was her friend and the shooter’s enemy.
“Wait it out!” Drake hissed at her. “Do you see the shooter?”
“Just the flash.”
If only—
A sharp whistle cut the night. It was high and far away, but it was easily heard.
Long-short-long-short. Pause. Repeat.
Altman. The letter C in Morse Code for All Clear.
He’d heard her and reached the Observation Deck in record time.
As a test, she snagged Roman’s jacket from where it had fallen as she rolled to safety and held it out.
The letter C sounded again.
She peeked cautiously through a gap in the steel fixture that had saved her from the second shot.
The silhouette of a man stood right where she’d seen the flash of light.
Against the now red sky, he held his arm up in silhouette, fingers shaped like a pistol. Then he circled a hand over his head to rally up, then pointed straight down at the suite two decks below his position and two decks above theirs, indicating that they should meet there.
She raised a hand to pump a Hurry Up in acknowledgement, but only managed a sharp curse.
“Goddamn it!”
“What?” Drake whispered from where he still lay, not having understood or seen Altman’s signals.
“I hate being shot.”
“What do you mean she was shot?”
“That does seem to be the question of the evening,” Drake said drily. He’d been the first to ask it. Then by the first steward he’d found and demanded to know the way to the infirmary. Then by the doctor and now by Norma the hotel manager as they each joined the growing crowd in the tiny two-bed infirmary on Deck 2, two levels below the normal passenger areas.
Down here the corridors were steel and windowless. A token bit of carpet stretched between the elevator and the infirmary, but the rest was gray-and-white painted steel. Luxury was for passengers, not crew. The doctor was out of his depth with a gunshot wound; he was more geared for seasickness and elderly patients suffering heart attacks.
Thankfully it was only a clean meat shot on the upper arm. The bullet hadn’t made much of a hole going in or out, so a dab of glue, a wrap bandage, and an antibiotic were all that was called for and the doc was able to manage that—though he and Nikita had kept a close eye on him.
Altman came in.
“She okay?”
“I’m fine,” Nikita growled from where the doctor was making her lie still, or trying to.
“She’s just fine,” Drake answered for her.
“Hey, I was shot,” Nikita changed from dismissive to seeking sympathy with all of the agility of a Spec Ops warrior.
Drake ignored her, “What did you find?”
Altman held out a pair of brass
casings. “Two rounds, .22LR. You said there was no supersonic crack, so they were fired from a handgun, not a rifle. I also followed your lead. I got only fragments from the capstan, but I dug this out of the wooden railing.”
“You did what?” Norma the hotelier still wasn’t up to speed.
He’d give her more time.
“You’ll need to fix it; I had to dig a little,” Altman held up a six-inch MK 3 knife.
“Those aren’t allowed on board,” Norma was still out of the loop, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Altman’s smile said that he was sick of the cruising life and was having fun keeping her off balance.
Drake ignored them both, plucking the round and casings out of Altman’s palm and turning to show them to Nikita. Beautiful woman, lovely gown, lying back just as he’d hoped—except on a hospital gurney, not a luxury bed. Somebody was a dead man and he was going to start with Arthur.
They inspected the hardware together.
The bullet was heavily deformed by the impact with the wood, but was definitely a .22 round. No way to get rifling marks, not that it would tell them much without a lab and the weapon. The shooter had gone, or blended back into the crowd by the time Altman showed up. Short of frisking every passenger in the Observation Lounge, he hadn’t had a whole range of options.
“I think that’s a bit of blood caught in the furling,” Nikita pointed.
“Who the hell besides us has weapons on this boat?” Drake spun back to Norma as the rage shot back to life inside him.
“You have weapons on the boat? Those are forbidden. You can’t…” she trailed off and swallowed hard. She was the one who had let them board directly from their helicopter—exactly as she’d probably always let GSI board. The pieces were starting to connect together for her.
“Who else besides us?” Drake repeated, resisting the urge to shake the answer out of her.
But Norma was shaking her head in a dazed fashion. “No one else bypassed security. The Captain’s safe should have the only weapons on board.”
“Does he have silenced .22s?”
“Silenced? Like with…” she made a helpless gesture in the form that might have been an extended gun barrel.
“Like this,” Altman pulled out a six-inch silencer from his shoulder holster, holding the lapel aside just long enough for her to get an eyeful of his Glock 19 with laser sight.
“No,” Norma managed in a strangled tone. “No, the captain doesn’t.”
Altman grunted. For the first time on the voyage he was smiling. “Somebody is being bad besides us. Lousy damn shot, though, to miss you both from no more than fifty meters.” He tucked the silencer away.
“Didn’t miss completely,” Drake returned the bullet and casings to Altman. “And someone is going to go to hell for that one.”
Zoe came in. “You okay, Nikki?”
“I’m fine, if the doctor would just stop hovering.”
“Doctor,” Zoe rested her hand on his arm. “We’re done with you now, thank you so much.”
“But she—” then he winced.
Drake hadn’t seen Zoe tighten her fingers about his arm, but they were right over a nerve cluster that was going to leave his hand numb for hours if she didn’t back off quickly.
“And you’re not going to say a word to anyone about this without our permission, right?”
His knees buckled slightly for a moment, then she let go and patted his arm in a friendly fashion.
“Uh,” he stumbled backward into a cabinet that rattled with equipment but freed him from the clench of the harmless-looking blonde in the green evening gown. “If you need me—” He didn’t complete the sentence as he raced out of the tiny infirmary.
“She okay?” This time Zoe was asking about the hotel manager.
“Yes,” Drake decided that Norma was either the best actress in the world or was actually in shock that such a thing could happen on her cruise ship.
Altman apparently agreed as he closed the door, with the four of them and Norma still crowded into the small space.
Nikita swung to a sitting position and went to stand, but Zoe pushed her back to stay seated on the bed. Then, to forestall argument, Zoe hopped up to sit beside her, her feet swinging in the air. It was just as well; if they all five were standing they’d have to all be hugging to fit.
“Norma,” Drake had to repeat her name before she focused on him. “We’re US Special Operations Forces here undercover. No one can know, not even your captain. You certainly shouldn’t, but we can’t have you throwing us off the ship either.”
“But someone shot…” she waved a hand at Nikita. “And you have a gun…” the other hand waved helplessly toward Altman.
Drake would bet that LCDR Luke Altman was armed with a lot more than one. It wouldn’t surprise him if Zoe was as well, though he couldn’t see where she’d hide it in that clingy gown.
“You’re going to have to treat us just the way you did the members of GSI. Courtesy and caution. Can you do that?”
He could see the experienced hotelier in Norma slowly pulling herself together. Her spine straightened. She tugged at the hem of her immaculate jacket. A quick hand checked her short blond hair. Then, with a blink of her blue eyes, she was present.
“But who shot you?”
“It wasn’t Arthur,” Zoe chimed in. “He’s still at his auction. I asked around and he hasn’t left the podium since you were there.”
“Arthur?” Norma looked close to losing her poise again, but she held on.
“Yes. You’ll want to line up a new art handler. We’ll leave him in place for now, but if they were desperate enough to move against us, I don’t expect that he’ll be with your cruise line much longer.”
“You can’t be right about Arthur,” it almost sounded as if she was begging.
“Next time they’ll need a better shooter,” Altman bounced the bullet and casings against his palm before tucking them away.
“Or maybe they already have one,” Nikita was squinting into the distance, looking at something far outside the room. “Steady seas. Deck lights were low but bright enough. Two misses…”
“Two misses?” Drake tried not to explode. Tried not to let loose the terror that his suit was going to end up with another splatter pattern on its back, but not with Carl’s blood this time. “You were shot!”
Altman hissed at him to keep his voice down.
“I think…” she tipped her head sideways, then nodded once and looked directly at him. “It was an accident.”
“People don’t get accidentally shot on cruise ships.”
“I think I was,” she held up a hand to stop him before he could fume more. “I saw the muzzle flash. I knew I only had a split second and I punched you to drive us apart and out of the way.”
Drake ran a hand over his upper arm; it hurt like hell when he pressed on it. “Good punch.” He hadn’t noticed it until this moment.
“Thanks. But we were standing far enough apart for me to be able to punch you. I think I put my arm in the way of the bullet. What if they were aiming between us?”
“The second shot was dead center on the capstan,” Altman confirmed. “As if the shooter wanted to be sure they missed.”
“Scare tactics,” Nikita confirmed.
Drake managed a smile for her sake. “Damn good thing they don’t know what kind of a woman they’re trying to scare.”
Nikita’s smile was far more genuine than his, “Damn good thing.”
He brushed a finger down her cheek, “Remind me never to get on your wrong side, Nikita Hayward.”
“Deal, Drake Roman,” she leaned into his caress.
Chapter Ten
Nikita could never get tired of Drake’s caresses. If only there’d been a chance to last night.
Along with the precautionary antibiotic and the local anesthetic—that the doctor had needed more than she did to dress her wound—he’d apparently given her a shot with enough painkiller to level a
horse. She’d been staggering by the time they reached the suite, with Drake’s jacket once more draped over her shoulders to hide the bandage.
This time she was still conscious enough to remove her own dress. Though she’d need Zoe’s help to put on the t-shirt, because she couldn’t feel her own arm.
No powerful arms lifted her into the bed, but that didn’t matter. By the time she hit the pillow, she was out.
“C’mon, sleepyhead,” someone was tugging on her foot. “You don’t want to miss every port of call.”
She managed to open her eyes.
Drake was smiling down at her.
“How is it that you always look so good and I feel like shit?” He looked far better than good back in his black t-shirt and tan chinos.
“Good living and I stay off the drugs.”
Her head was still muzzy with whatever the doctor had pumped into her last night. She tested the arm. Sore as hell, but not anything worth writing home about.
Drake was busy throwing open curtains. She didn’t even know if he or Zoe had slept beside her last night.
“Come to bed and maybe we’ll discuss the good living part of that.”
He circled close and once more brushed a finger across her cheek. His easy smile disappeared and his expression became deeply intent and serious. “If the next boat ashore wasn’t in fifteen minutes, I’d take you up on that.”
“Let’s miss a boat.”
“Zoe found out through Norma that Arthur signed up for permission to go ashore. He’ll be on that boat as well and I’d like to have a chat with him.” He dropped into a chair to wait for her.
She’d like a few words with him as well. Nikita rolled out of bed and onto her feet. She had to close her eyes for a moment as the world wavered sharply, but then it steadied. Stripping off her shirt, she headed for the walk-in closet. Disgusted that she was still probably “the babe” of the outfit, she went for the light cotton blouse whose price had so shocked her when she first entered the boutique, and capris in a dark lavender. Two minutes flat she was back in the bedroom with her hair and teeth brushed. And—damn Drake for being right—all her efforts at a ponytail were completely foiled.
Target of Mine: The Night Stalkers 5E (Titan World Book 2) Page 11
