by Cindy Dees
She burst out onto deck two, and straight ahead was the gangway and the shore beyond. She slowed to a fast walk and approached the sailor stationed at the door. It was the same guy as before, and he was frantic with worry.
“What ’n hell’s going on?” he all but bellowed at her.
“I don’t know. I was talking to Schmeckler and all hell broke loose. They said something about topside cargo shifting and overbalancing the ship. She’s rolling on her side and they can’t stop it. They told me to get the heck off the Veronique before she sinks.”
The sailor exploded into a string of curses. Then he pulled himself together enough to say, “You better go now. The gangplank’s getting unsafe.”
She stepped up to the door and looked out. Sure enough, the metal walkway, which had been nearly level when she boarded, was now tilting down at the dock at an alarmingly steep angle.
She paused in the door to face the sailor. “You’d better get up top. They need all hands up there if they’re gonna save the ship.”
The sailor’s eyes widened in panic and he bolted for the stairs.
She turned and started down the ramp. She ended up having to half run down the thing to keep her balance, but then she spurted out onto the pier and solid ground. She ran for shore and didn’t stop until she’d cleared the main shipyard and was standing once more in the dark shadows of the visitors’ parking lot beside their car.
She swore under her breath. She didn’t have the car keys. And she didn’t have a clue how to break into a car, let alone hot-wire one. She turned to look back at the ship. It was definitely listing to port. It was probably no more than a ten-degree angle, but in a ship the size of the Veronique, ten degrees made it look about ready to roll over and sink.
Sailors were running around on deck like furious fire ants, and she suspected some poor schmuck on the bridge was frantically trying to figure out why none of his commands to the ballast system were working. Personnel from the docks were starting to head toward the ship, and a number of them ran up the steep gangplank, no doubt trying to assist the disabled vessel.
Well, she’d created chaos. Now, if only Jagger, Laura and Nick could find a way off the ship in the midst of it all.
Chapter 16
Belowdecks, Jagger crouched and peeked around a corner. He’d taken point while Laura helped an exhausted Nick stumble along behind him. He was just in time to see the sailor on the watch bolt away from the main hatch into the bowels of the ship. He didn’t know what the hell was going on with the Veronique, but it was definitely listing hard to port. Hey, he was all over any luck that came their way.
He signaled over his shoulder for the pair behind him to move out. Nick apparently knew military sign language, because he shambled forward immediately. The guy was obviously running on nothing but guts and grit, but so far, he’d clenched his jaw and managed to keep up.
Jagger approached the gangplank cautiously. Son of a gun. Not a soul was in sight. Were they actually going to be able to stroll off the ship? It seemed too easy to be true. But he was prepared to go with the easy solution right now. No telling how much longer Nick would be able to stay upright. The guy was as gray as a ghost.
Laura and Nick caught up to him and likewise gaped at the unattended hatch. “What’s happening?” she whispered.
“I have no idea. But let’s not stick around to find out. C’mon.”
Jagger led the way, the butt of his sidearm tightly gripped in his fist inside the pocket of his jacket. This stunk of yet another AbaCo trap. But then, he’d successfully made it off the Zhow Min and he’d been sure that was a trap. Could lightning strike twice in one lifetime?
He headed down to the dock, looked both ways and waved Laura and Nick down. There was a tricky moment when Nick lost his balance, but Laura lunged forward and got a shoulder under the guy’s armpit before he could go down.
Once they were safely on the pier, Jagger moved to Nick’s other side and looped the taller man’s arm over his shoulder. Between Jagger and Laura they all but carried him off the pier. And just in time, too. Behind them, a team of firefighters raced toward the Veronique and clambered aboard the wounded behemoth.
Jagger guided the awkward trio into the visitors’ parking lot and his car. He looked around frantically. Where is Emily? Panic exploded behind his eyes, all but blinding him.
“Take the car and get Nick out of here, Laura. I’m going back for Em—”
An apparition rose from behind the car and he all but fainted in relief at the familiar shape of Emily coming around the rear fender. She flung herself at him with enough force to nearly knock him off his feet. She was sobbing so hard he couldn’t make out a single word of whatever she cried against his chest.
“Easy, darlin’. We all made it. Let’s get out of here. We’ll talk later.”
He opened the car door and eased her into the front passenger’s seat. Nick had already half collapsed into the backseat, and Laura was climbing in beside him, cradling him close. Clearly those two had some sort of history between them. And given how badly steel-nerved Laura had fallen apart at the sight of the guy, it was an intimate emotional history.
Their departure was shockingly anticlimactic. He drove sedately out of the parking lot and pointed the car back toward the hills and valleys of the Shenandoah. The video camera was safely in his pocket, loaded with damning footage of Nick’s prison and the container he’d been trapped within. Like him, Nick hadn’t believed at first that rescue had arrived. He’d had to flash a few of his own scars to convince the guy that he, too, had been AbaCo’s prisoner and was here to free the guy.
Jagger shuddered to remember the mental and emotional place he’d been in when Emily had done the same for him. He reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Okay, honey, it’s safe to talk now. How did you get off the ship? And do you have any idea what happened to the Veronique?”
Emily ducked her head, abashed. “I broke into the ship’s computer ballast system and filled all the starboard tanks with air and flooded all the port-side tanks. The computer indicated that the ship will only roll about eleven degrees before it stops.”
Jagger gaped. And then he laughed, long and hard. He exulted. “Danger Girl rules!”
Emily’s face went serious. Stubborn. “Danger Girl is dead. Your life is not for me. I can’t do that again. I don’t have the nerves for it, and I have a responsibility to my daughter. One parent who runs around risking life and limb for fun is enough for any child. I’m sorry, Jagger. I can’t be part of your world.”
He stared at her, stunned into silence. What was she saying? Was she dumping him? Was she tossing him out of her family’s life? Not that he’d blame her. His world was far too dangerous for children to be around. Hell, hadn’t his first thought when he found out Michelle existed been horror at what a horrendous liability she was to him?
Except those pink cheeks and bouncy golden curls and innocent laughter didn’t feel like a liability. They felt like a little slice of heaven on earth. His own special angel come to save him from the dark.
“Em…” He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to beg her to hang on to them, to allow him to be a part of their lives. But he didn’t have any right at all to ask that of her. He clenched his jaw against the thickness in his throat and blinked hard against the burning in his eyes. Damned things had grit in them all of a sudden.
Nick passed out in the backseat. Hard to tell if he was sleeping or unconscious. Probably a little of both. Laura cradled the big man protectively in her arms and didn’t look as though she planned on letting go for a very long time. Nick might actually get a happily ever after. Lucky bastard.
Emily stared out the window in pensive silence, her head turned away from Jagger. And he let her withdraw. It was possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done. But he let her go. What choice did he have? He loved her. Loved Michelle. Enough to leave them, to keep them safe from his world, to protect them from everything he did and was.
&n
bsp; But it ripped his heart out of his chest and tore it to little shreds to do so.
They’d been driving for maybe a half hour when Emily murmured, frowning, “Schmeckler said something strange in his office….”
Jagger glanced over at her, his heart dead. “Who’s Schmeckler?” he managed to choke out woodenly.
“The Veronique’s security officer. He pulled me into his office and took away my ID badge. He was trying to call Schroder when a motion detector went off. I assume that was you guys.”
Jagger nodded. “Probably. What did he say that’s got you puzzled?”
“He was mad when the alarm went off. He mumbled something to himself in German about being undermanned tonight. And one of the guys with him mentioned a contingent of Schmeckler’s men being ashore.”
Wild alarms erupted in Jagger’s gut. His every operative instinct, honed over twenty years, went onto high alert. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and Laura was staring back at him, horror written on her face.
Laura breathed, “It was too easy.”
Jagger started to swear. He cursed long and hard as he stood on the accelerator and the car roared forward.
“What’s wrong?” Emily cried. She might not be a trained spy, but she had good instincts, and she sensed that something was terribly wrong.
Jagger ground out, “Finding Nick’s crate was too easy. The rescue went too smoothly, and we encountered practically no opposition.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, with terrible certainty that she knew the answer to that vibrating in her voice.
He spelled it out. “Given that AbaCo knew they had a break-in to their special cargo database today, and they know you and I are in the local area, and they knew the Veronique was coming in today, does it make any sense at all that we all but strolled onto the ship, snagged Nick and strolled off again?”
Emily shook her head, her eyes the size of saucers.
“It was a diversion, Em. They drew us to the Veronique on purpose.”
She frowned. “But they didn’t catch us. Heck, they all but let me go.”
“Exactly. That’s because we weren’t the target tonight.”
“Then what was?”
“Not what,” he said gently. “Who.”
She stared for a moment more; then her face crumpled. “Oh, God. The children!”
Jagger closed his eyes for a moment as pain and terror slashed through him, but then focused on the road flying beneath their tires.
“What do you want to do, Jagger?” Laura asked grimly from the backseat.
He glanced over at Emily, who was a complete wreck, her fists stuffed against her mouth as if she’d scream if she moved them. “Make the call.”
Laura nodded and held her cell phone to her ear. In a moment, she began to murmur unintelligibly.
Emily glanced back and forth between the two of them. “What’s going on? Talk to me, Jagger!”
He sighed. “Laura’s talking to the FBI. She’ll ask them to send a large contingent of agents to her house. Which will protect the kids. But it will also ensure that I’m arrested.”
“I’m wanted, too,” she reminded him.
He nodded grimly. He knew what he had to do, but damn, it was hard. Harder even than he’d expected. He forced himself to continue speaking. “I’ll drop you off outside her estate. Laura will make arrangements to reunite you with Michelle, and you two can leave the country. I’ve got some money squirreled away for emergencies, and you can have it. Laura will help you go someplace far, far away. Start a new life. Doris can go, too, if she wants.”
“It’s done,” Laura announced from the backseat.
“Thanks,” he replied. “I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’re doing for us.”
Laura laughed without humor. “Are you kidding? You gave me the father of my son back.”
Nick lurched beside her at that but didn’t fully regain consciousness.
Emily’s gaze went wild and she looked back and forth between Laura and Jagger. “No! I’m not leaving you!”
Each word was a dagger to his heart. “Honey, you have to. You said yourself that this life isn’t for you. And it’s not right for Michelle, either.”
Emily subsided, sobbing into her sleeve. Each heave of her slender shoulders was agonizing to witness.
He reached across the car to touch her arm. “I’m so sorry, Em. So very sorry.”
She shook off his hand. He let it fall.
How he stayed on the road for the next hour without wrapping the car around a tree, he had no idea. But eventually, Laura commenced calling out directions from the backseat. Apparently, there was a back entrance to the estate, and she guided him to it.
When they’d driven a ways into a stand of heavy woods and his direction sense said they were getting close to the house, he stopped the car.
“What’re you doing?” Emily croaked.
“It’s time, honey. You need to get out of the car, now. Laura will bring Michelle to you as soon as she can.”
He climbed out of the car and went around to her side of the vehicle. He opened the door, but she merely stared up at him.
“Please, Emily. It’s the only way.”
“No, it’s not.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I’m going with you. Don’t make me choose between you and Michelle. I can’t do it. You’re the two halves of my heart, and I can’t live without either one of you.”
“But you’ll be arrested, too—”
“I have faith in Laura’s lawyers. They’ll get me off. All I did was rescue you. And now that we’ve got that video, I’ll be fine.”
He shook his head in the negative. “I can’t take that chance with you. I have to know the two of you will be safe—”
A faint rattling sound echoed through the trees and his head jerked up.
“Let’s go, Jagger,” Laura called urgently from the backseat. She’d recognized the sound, too. That was gunfire. Coming from the vicinity of the mansion. The mansion his precious daughter was currently inside.
Chapter 17
Emily’s head jerked up. That sounded like…ohmigod. “Was that a gunshot?”
“Several of them,” Jagger bit out as he turned and raced for the car’s trunk.
Laura leaped out and joined him. The trunk slammed shut, and Emily made out the thick, tubular shapes of rifles. Several of them.
Jagger leaped into the driver’s seat and rolled the car forward in the dark.
Laura shook Nick awake. “Do you think you can you shoot a rifle?”
He shrugged and answered in a rusty voice, “I’m game to try.”
Laura asked, “How ’bout if I tell you your son, Adam, is inside that house down there and AbaCo’s thugs are trying to break into the place to kidnap him?”
Nick sat up straighter. “Oh, yeah. I can do this.”
Emily lost it, then. “AbaCo’s men are breaking in?” she squeaked.
Laura grinned. “They may get into the house, but there’s no way they’re getting into the safe room.”
“The…what?” Emily turned around to face the other woman.
“The house has a safe room. I installed an old bank vault and equipped it with self-contained power generators, air filters, even a toilet and running water. I showed it to Doris before we left and gave her the combination to the door. I told her to spend the night in there with the kids just in case.”
Now, if only Doris had taken Laura’s suggestion to heart and taken precautions with the children.
Jagger stopped the car just inside the woods, maybe two hundred yards behind the house. “Can you see any movement?” he muttered.
Emily scanned the area around the house frantically but saw nothing. Please, God, let this all be a giant false alarm.
But then a flash of light from somewhere on the other side of the house lit up the night.
Jagger said, “Laura, you and Nick go in the family room doors. Emily and I will head in through the kitc
hen. Assuming we meet no opposition, we’ll meet at the base of the stairs. AbaCo tends to use German ordnance and the FBI should come with bigger-caliber stuff.”
The pair in the backseat nodded and slid out, weapons in hand, and disappeared into the dark.
“Where’s my gun?” Emily demanded.
Jagger started. “Do you know how to use one?”
“Plenty well enough for tonight’s purposes. My stepdad showed me how to handle a gun, but he never did talk me into going hunting with him. But if AbaCo guys are out there, I’m all over shooting them.”
Jagger grinned and passed a shotgun across to her. “C’mon, Mama Bear. Let’s go protect your cub.”
Grimly, she hefted the weapon and chambered a round. She stuffed the shells Jagger handed her into her pockets and then nodded her readiness. Michelle was in danger. She had to save her baby. Fear had no place in that equation and hovered only peripherally in the background of her mind.
Jagger’s restraining hand on her arm was all that kept her from barging into the house, shotgun blazing. “Easy, Em. We don’t know if the FBI’s on scene yet. If you just charge in there, they may shoot you.”
“The gunfire came from out front. I’m betting AbaCo’s guys are in the house shooting out and the FBI is just arriving on scene.”
“The FBI’s not stupid. They will surround the house.”
“But they haven’t yet, or else we wouldn’t have been able to run up to the back door like this.”
Jagger nodded. “Good point. So let’s go find those AbaCo bastards and wreck their evening.”
She nodded her approval at that plan and realized her entire body was shaking. Okay, so she was actually terrified somewhere deep in her gut. But it wasn’t as though she had any choice in what she was about to do. Michelle needed her. End of discussion.
Jagger whispered one last set of instructions. “Stay behind me. Your job is to make sure no one sneaks up on us from behind. I’ll take care of engaging with the bad guys. Keep your head down and don’t be a hero, got it?”
