Operation: Monarch

by Valerie Parv

  Suddenly Serena rushed to the starboard side, leaning out and pointing. "Oh my God, is that a shark fin?"

  As she'd hoped, Nick followed her. "They're harmless white-tipped reef sharks. Those big guys, the gray whalers are the real villains."

  She had no trouble injecting a tremor into her voice. "They're following the boat."

  He put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and pointed out a bloodstained shelf near the stern. She didn't have to pretend to shudder at the litter of knives and gore. "I was cleaning a catch of tuna when you rammed…when you arrived. The sharks are scavenging the scraps."

  "Thank God you were out here fishing. I'm so grateful." He almost salivated as she traced a figure eight across his broad chest with an extended finger.

  A noise on the port side caught both their attention. Nick looked back but Serena fisted the collar of his shirt and turned him away from the noise. "I'll make you glad you saved my life."

  He had lowered his head, and she was bracing herself for the contact when a thickly accented voice demanded, "What the hell is she doing here?"

  Nick jerked away from her as if stung. "Sorry, Skipper. The lady's runabout broke down, and I offered her a tow back to Solano."

  She pretended confusion. "Aren't you the skipper, Nick?"

  "I will be this afternoon." He lowered his voice, trying to salvage the situation.

  "When the boss sees her you'll be fish bait," the skipper growled, looming over them. "This is no pleasure cruise."

  "Especially for Miss Cordeaux. Serena, isn't it?" a voice asked.

  Her act vanished in her shock at seeing the man who followed the skipper out of the saloon. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, hard as nails, with skin the color of mahogany as if from spending too many hours in the glare of the sun. A five-inch scar gleamed whitely along his jaw. He was dressed in charcoal Levi's and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of a heavy metal band and in his hand was a .38 Special revolver.

  "Roy Keer," she said flatly. He was older than the last police photo she'd seen of him, but he looked surprisingly fit for a man who had drowned at sea ten years before.

  His gaze was so lethal that she felt ill. She could well believe he was a murderer. He looked as if killing her would be an absolute pleasure.

  He lifted the gun. "Where's Garth Remy?"

  She met him glare for glare, while praying that Garth wouldn't give his presence away. The element of surprise was all they had right now. "I have no idea. As I told Nick, I drifted out to sea and couldn't get the motor started."

  Keer slammed the back of his free hand across her mouth so hard that she staggered. "You and Remy have been joined at the hip since you got your hands on a package meant for me. So where is he?"

  She stood her ground, but touched a finger to the corner of her mouth. It came away red. "I should have known you're the Hand. It adds up. Military background, knowledge of explosives, long prison record, no scruples whatsoever."

  Keer moved toward her, and she couldn't help flinching. But he didn't strike her again. "Yes, I'm the Hand. For all the good knowing it will do you."

  Because she wouldn't live to tell anyone, she assumed. Keep him talking, give Garth the chance to act. "I thought you were dead," she said.

  "You were meant to think so. Who blames a dead man when a crime is committed?"

  "It is quite an alibi. Is it true you live on your own artificial island, by your own laws?"

  "Part of it is true. You decide which part," he said conversationally. "Not that you'll have long to wonder. As soon as I get hold of Remy, your life is over."

  More afraid than she wanted him to see, she said, "Not exactly an incentive. If you agree to let me live, I'll tell you what you want to know."

  "You want my word?" He laughed, an ugly sound that sent shivers down her spine. "You've obviously never been in prison."

  "Not on the same side of the bars as you, anyway."

  He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back painfully. "Being an ex-cop gives me another reason to kill you."

  "Tell me one thing before you do. How did you know about Armand Junot's souvenirs of the royal baby?"

  "His wife was my lover. When she visited me in prison, she told me what the drunken fool had kept. I had plenty of time to plan how they might help me to destroy the useless parasites you call the royal family."

  "Because you weren't allowed to be one of them," she gasped. Her scalp was on fire, but she was buying time until Garth could find a way aboard and back her up.

  Keer released her so abruptly her neck cracked. "There's more at stake here than revenge, satisfying as it is. Using the fools in Carramer First, I was building a profitable international organization until your royals invited the Americans to put a base in Carramer. I can't let it happen. Some of my best clients are very anti-American."

  "So you hatched this scheme to scare them away," she said. "It isn't going to work."

  "You won't be around to know," he snapped. To Nick, he said, "Search her runabout. If Remy's onboard, bring him here. Either he rediscovers his loyalty to Carramer First or he watches her die slowly and painfully in front of him."

  * * *

  Garth was about to board the yacht when Keer's arrival drove him back. Only years of DARE training kept him from storming to Serena's aid, but he knew she would be dead before he reached her. So he slipped quietly back into the runabout. Within three minutes he had disabled the outboard motor and dropped the oars overboard. He put ready a few other items he'd secreted in the cabin before they left the dock.

  Then he waited and listened.

  As soon as the sailor called Nick set foot on board, he acted. The man had no idea what hit him. One moment he was stepping cautiously onto the runabout, the next he had a length of mooring rope coiled around his neck. His eyes bulged and he scrabbled at the noose but Garth kept up the pressure until the man lost consciousness. Dropping his burden to the deck, Garth felt for a pulse. Still alive. He must be losing his touch, he thought, or Serena was making him sentimental.

  Having evened the odds a bit more, he turned his attention to the yacht but pulled up short when he saw Roy Keer bending Serena backward over the railing. "I thought this might get your attention," Keer said when he saw Garth freeze.

  "Let her go."

  "When you agree to play your part."

  "What part?"

  "Crown prince of Carramer."

  "You know that's a bloody lie."

  "Is it?" Keer exerted more pressure on Serena's spine. "By now you've learned that you're not the Remys' son. Why not the real monarch?"

  "Let her go and we'll talk about it."

  A waterspout erupted beside the runabout as a bloody chunk of tuna landed in the sea. Within seconds, two dorsal fins broke the surface. Three more converged on the party. Garth saw the skipper lob more fish carcasses overboard, and the ocean became a boiling mass of shark activity.

  Keeping the gun at her head, Keer flipped Serena over, forcing her to lean over the railing and look in horror at the frenzy below. "You have ten seconds to surrender or the next bait going in there is Miss Cordeaux."

  Chapter 17

  "No, Garth." Serena cried, ignoring the pain in her abused spine. "If you surrender he'll kill me anyway."

  Dragging her gaze away from the feeding sharks, she was confronted by a worse nightmare. Garth was pulling the runabout hand over hand along the mooring line toward the rope ladder. Despair swamped her. He was going to give himself up for her sake, and it would all be over for both of them.

  She could almost smell Keer's anticipation as Garth brought the small boat steadily closer until he was right in the middle of the feeding frenzy, the runabout rocked repeatedly by torpedo-shaped bodies ramming it in their haste to reach the food.

  Garth was looking right at her. Suddenly she caught a movement of his right arm, a pushing gesture with fingers extended. The diving signal for "Go under" done so quickly she almost missed it. In a
nother lightning gesture, he pointed with both hands, index fingers extended in the same direction. "You lead, I'll follow," she translated. Surely he didn't mean what she thought he meant? She made herself remember his assurance that sharks almost never attacked scuba divers. If she understood what he wanted from her, he'd better be right or so help her, she'd never stop haunting him.

  Time was running out. She had to trust him.

  With a savage cry she raised her bent right arm and drove it backward into Keer's chest near his heart. He reeled away, cursing. That he still had the breath to swear showed she hadn't struck nearly hard enough. She saw him lift the gun over her head, butt first.

  She didn't give herself time for second thoughts, but threw herself over the railing into the sea. As soon as she surfaced, threshing sandpaper-textured bodies brushed her on all sides and she glimpsed double rows of backward-facing rapier teeth. Her vision turned red with blood from the fish being ripped apart in the frenzy. She had never been so terrified in her life.

  At least Keer wasn't wasting bullets on her, she thought, although it wasn't much consolation. This was probably his idea of entertainment. But where the hell was Garth?

  Her heart almost stopped as a gray whaler collided with her arm, but it was aiming for a chunk of tailfin floating beside her. She pushed the meat into the shark's jaws and saw them snap closed with the force of a steel trap. In a moment of surreal timelessness, she was aware of the strange sight of each fish arching its back and pulling its pectoral fins in close to its body. Around her the sea boiled. If Garth planned on saving her, he'd better make it soon before she died of fright.

  Maybe she should just give up and sink beneath the churning water. Drowning had to be easier than being eaten. But she had been a fighter for as long as she could remember. What was modeling if not another kind of feeding frenzy? She hadn't given up then, nor during the toughest challenges the police force had thrown at her. She wasn't about to give up now. Garth would come.

  A shark as long as her body surged through the water toward her. Something hard bumped against her and her heart leaped to her mouth until she saw it was a floating oar. Treading water she grabbed the oar and lifted it out of the water one-handed, bringing it down on the nose of the shark with all the force she could muster.

  The oar splintered but the shark veered away, its jaws closing on a floating chunk of meat. Safe for the moment she looked around for the runabout.

  It had disappeared. The mooring rope slapped uselessly against the side of the yacht. Surely she hadn't misunderstood Garth's hand signals? If she had, she was dead meat.

  Her vision blurred. Damned seawater getting in her eyes. She swabbed at them angrily. Hell of a time to realize you loved a man, two seconds before you breathed your last breath.

  Because she did love him. No matter that she might never have the chance to tell him. At least she had known a love few people ever experienced.

  Damn it, she wasn't going to die if she could help it, she told herself. She would live and she would tell him, even if he didn't want to hear it. "I love you, Garth," she shouted to the churning waves mere seconds before a massive pointed head filled her field of vision.

  This time there was to be no reprieve. The nightmare teeth were bared at her, just another chunk of meat as far as the shark was concerned. She closed her eyes, then opened them resolutely and rammed the remaining length of oar into the gaping jaws, wedging them open. As the great head threshed, trying to free the oar, she dived under the water.

  * * *

  Garth was ready. His heart drummed and the blood pounded in his head but he forced himself into the icy calm that had kept him and others alive through countless DARE missions. He had to trust it would help him to save Serena now.

  Seconds before she threw herself into the water, he'd untied the mooring rope at the runabout end, keeping his foot on it as he negotiated with Keer. Now it snapped back toward the yacht as Garth went over the side, at the same time strapping on an oxygen cylinder and backpack. His dive mask was already on his head and he pulled it over his face. He'd hidden the gear in the cabin after borrowing the runabout. Keer's attention was so transfixed by the sight of Serena fighting off the sharks that he didn't see Garth go into the water.

  He was a dozen feet from the small boat and pulling the regulator into his mouth before Keer realized what was going on. Shouts of rage reached Garth but he dived and was breathing underwater by the time shots peppered the waves above.

  The contrast was astonishing. Above him the water churned with the activity of the gray whalers, their feeding frenzy provoked by the slabs of meat thrown from the yacht. Below, he was in a world of silence except for the hiss of his breathing. The sharks' activity had greatly reduced the visibility but would also disguise his trail of bubbles from Keer and the captain on the yacht.

  He was beginning to think he wasn't going to find Serena in the seething water. What had he done? Then he spotted her spiraling downward, her eyes wide with terror. Above her a threshing shape the size of a small car told its own story.

  He kicked for her and wrapped his arms around her to halt her tumble to the sandy floor. Locked in her nightmare she struck at him with clenched fists until he saw recognition penetrate the fear. He felt her go limp in his arms and he feared he was too late, but it was with relief, he saw. And something else. Reviving, she clawed at his hair and shoulders as if she needed to touch him to assure herself they were both alive.

  He gave her the regulator and she took deep breaths, her thumbs-up signaling when it was okay for him to take it back. He continued to buddy-breathe with her as he kicked down to a pair of rocky outcrops forming a natural arch on the sea floor a few feet from the feeding site. From this shelter, they watched the sharks ripping into the tuna. Shreds of meat drifted down, to be snapped up by smaller fish and a leopard-spotted eel they'd displaced from the arch.

  At one point a white-tipped reef shark became entangled in one of the fish heads. It fought dramatically to shake off the burden then suddenly went still and floated to the top of the arch where it flopped lifelessly.

  Serena shot Garth a questioning look. It was her turn at the regulator and he smiled. He prodded the limp body on the rock above them but the shark didn't move. He prodded it again, still with no result. She gave him the regulator and mouthed, "Heart attack?"

  Garth shook his head, waiting. As he knew it would, the shark suddenly flicked its tail and shot away. He had seen sharks playing dead before, but never this close up.

  He was starting to worry about their air supply when the feeding frenzy began to dissipate. One by one the satiated fish swam away to digest their meal until the sea was calm again, the fragments of tuna being worried by smaller fish the only sign that the frenzy had ever happened.

  When he signaled to Serena that they should surface, she nodded understanding. He allowed himself the luxury of appreciating how beautiful she looked in his element with her hair floating in a golden halo around her and her movements as graceful as a ballet dancer.

  He would bring her back here, he promised himself as he passed the regulator to her and buddy-breathed with her in a controlled ascent. Not in fear but in the exhilaration of exploring the last frontier on the planet.

  It wouldn't matter if she refused. After this experience he wouldn't blame her. As long as she agreed to marry him somewhere, sometime. When she'd thrown herself in among the sharks at his behest, he'd known the worst terror of his life. He wouldn't rest until she was his to love, honor and protect for a lifetime.

  As he'd planned, they surfaced under the stern of the yacht and Garth braced himself to feel shots tearing through him, shielding Serena with his body. But none came and he heard laughter from the deck above as they trod water. Keer and his skipper had decided that the sharks had done their work for them. He pushed his mask back and grasped the dangling rope he'd cut free from the runabout.

  Exhausted, half-drowned, her eyes shone as she also took hold of the rope and ki
ssed him hard and fast. "That's for saving my life."

  "It's becoming a habit."

  "Practically a full-time job."

  "Exactly my thought. Will you marry me?"

  She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

  "Not the ideal setting for a proposal."

  "Consider it a rehearsal. Keer is our problem right now."

  He nodded. "Give me a minute, then follow me up." He swarmed hand over hand up the rope. Keeping his head below the level of the deck, he used the regulator to tap against the hull.

  She recognized the Morse code message and smiled. He was tapping out the word hand.

  Moments later the skipper leaned over the edge. He had a gun but Garth was faster, yanking his feet out from under him. The man hit the water with a mighty splash.

  Serena followed Garth up the rope, pleasure sweeping through her at finding a solid surface under her feet again. She didn't waste time indulging it. Roy Keer was still onboard and armed. Her gaze raked the deck, and Garth checked the flying bridge. Both were deserted.

  A glance at the sea showed the skipper swimming for the runabout drifting a hundred feet away from the yacht.

  Garth's gaze followed hers and they saw the man reach the runabout. "He'll be company for Tiny Tim."

  "As long as they don't get away."

  He began to unstrap his diving gear. "They won't get far. I cut the fuel line."

  A shot whistled between them. Keer was standing on a spar in the rigging above their heads. Keeping the gun on them, he jumped to the deck. "I'd offer to be your best man but you're too much trouble."

  Why hadn't she looked upward? Fuming because Keer must have overheard Garth's proposal, she could do nothing but raise her hands in the air. Garth hooked his around the straps of the air tank he'd been about to remove, but retained enough defiance to say, "Go to hell."

  "I've spent most of my life there, thanks to the royal family. Now they're going to pay."

  "How, Keer?" she demanded. "You're alone out here. You could contact someone in Carramer First, but a police helicopter will be overhead before anyone else can get here."