by Amy Gamet
“I am this ship’s captain and I will handle the situation as I see fit.” He flipped on the microphone and opened his mouth to speak.
The first mate opened fire, the gunshot echoing through the ship on the public address system as the captain fell to the floor.
“I am in charge now,” said the first mate. He looked back at the helicopter on the bow, several men standing on the helipad in the rain. HERO Force. They were not part of the plan. He’d worked hard to ensure the mainland didn’t know what was happening on the ship.
He pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Turn out the lights and all but the emergency generator. Set a course for Nassau, full speed ahead.” He pocketed the walkie-talkie and pulled the microphone from the captain’s unmoving hand and watched the ship go dark around him.
“Attention. This is your captain speaking. We have experienced the failure of our main generator. Not to worry, everything on the ship is mechanically sound, but we’ll be running on emergency power until we get the problem fixed in port. This means emergency lighting in the hallways and staterooms. I ask that you stay confined to your cabins throughout the night. We will be docking in Nassau in the morning for repairs.”
He stepped over the captain’s body before turning in a slow circle for one last look at the bridge. “It’s hard to believe we can control all this from a disco.” He laughed, grabbing his hat, and walked out of the room.
23
Rain fell down in sheets, reducing visibility. The flight from the U.S.S. Rapture had taken longer than anticipated due to the conditions, which had Matteo trying to land the bird in the waning light of day.
“Faster. They’ve gotta be going twenty-five, twenty-eight knots,” said Jax into his headset, looking out the window of the chopper.
“Roger that,” said Matteo. He was flying fifty yards in front of the cruise ship and a hundred feet up, trying to match its speed.
“It’s a new ship,” said Logan. “Faster than the rest of the fleet. I failed to take that into consideration.”
Red made some adjustments and the chopper picked up speed. “You’re just lucky I’m good at this shit,” he said.
Jax eyeballed the cruise ship out the window. The boat was no longer gaining on them. “That’s a match.”
“Roger that. I’m going down.”
They were close enough now for Jax to clearly see the deck. There was no one on the helipad and he was relieved they would have a clear landing. His eyes moved up to the row of windows on the highest part of the ship — the bridge. He hoped whoever was in there would take kindly to the company, but he knew better than to assume that was the case.
His hands clenched the AK-47 in his lap. He didn’t know which would be touchier — this landing or the subsequent reaction to their arrival. While he didn’t anticipate stepping out of the chopper with his weapon, he needed it just to make sure they could land safely.
The chopper slipped lower in the sky, its rotors now below the bridge. Jax could make out people in the windows, all staring, some moving quickly.
Just keep that helipad clear for us, and everything else will take care of itself.
The slightest movement on the deck near the helipad had him straining his eyes in the heavy rain. He reached for his binoculars and trained them on the ship. “Son of a bitch. We’ve got company.”
“Friendlies?” asked Hawk.
“He’s got a weapon. That makes him a tango.”
The sound of Hawk and Logan slamming loaded magazines into rifles could be heard over the thunderous roar of the helicopter.
“Hold your fire,” said Jax. “If I need to take him out I will.”
“Maybe he just wants to show us his nice new gun,” said Hawk.
Jax snapped. “Maybe if we fire on them before we even land this bird they’ll welcome us with open arms.”
A second figure took cover near the helipad.
“Another tango at four o’clock,” said Hawk.
“I see him,” said Jax.
Matteo stopped his descent. “What do you want me to do?”
The first man was clearly visible now, his arms extended away from his body, a firearm between them. Jax begrudgingly raised his AK-47. He’d hoped their landing would go easily. Now he was being forced to attack.
Suddenly, the man fell to the ground, a dark stain spreading on his chest. “Somebody else shot him.” Jax searched fervently for the shooter. “There!” he said. In the shadows beside the helipad was a figure he hadn’t seen before. The second tango went down.
The man in the shadows stepped forward into the light and relief flooded through Jax. “It’s Cowboy,” he said. “Thank God. Let’s get this bird out of the sky.”
Red landed dead center on the helipad, soft as a leaf falling to the ground. “I told you I was good at this shit.” He pressed a series of buttons and the screaming of the rotors slowed and then stopped.
Cowboy approached the chopper as the men climbed onto the helipad.
“Evenin’,” Cowboy said, reaching out to shake Jax’s hand. “’Bout time you guys made it.”
“Where’s Abby Granger?” asked Jax.
“Downstairs.”
“Bad news,” said Logan. “The real Abby was found murdered a few hours ago. This one is an imposter.”
“What? I left her alone with your sister!”
Cowboy ran as fast as he could, the others right behind him. His mind was trying to make sense of this new information, but his animal mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: he had to get to Charlotte, now.
He knew he should have insisted she stay in her stateroom, but instead he’d let her help and put her directly in harm’s way. But she was the one who found the bomb. If it weren’t for her, they’d still be looking and would probably never find it.
I just need her to be okay.
He wanted to scream as he raced around stairwell corners, pulling himself forward with his arms on the railings. It was dark, emergency lighting the only thing shining. He pushed through the door to the sixth floor, where he’d seen Charlotte last, and there she stood, talking to Harrison, Abby nowhere in sight.
“Charlotte!” he yelled, still running toward her, needing to feel her in his arms. He wrapped her in his embrace. “Are you okay? Where’s Abby?”
“I don’t know where she went, but I’m fine. Why?” Her body went rigid and she pulled away. “Hi, Logan.”
Cowboy had never seen Logan look so furious. Come to think of it, he’d never even seen the kid angry.
“What are you doing here?” he asked his sister.
“You said I should go on a vacation…”
“That woman you were just with? Abby? She’s an imposter. The real Abby was killed so this one could come on this ship.”
“Oh, my God,” said Charlotte.
Logan gestured to Cowboy. “And he just took out two tangos who were trying to shoot our chopper out of the sky.”
She turned to Leo, her eyes full of concern. “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine,” snapped Logan. “Because this is his job. This is what he’s trained to do. But you have no business being here, Charlotte. None at all.” He turned to Cowboy. “Where the fuck do you get off bringing my sister on a HERO Force mission? She could have been killed, for Christ’s sake. She still could be.”
Charlotte interrupted. “It’s not his fault. He—”
Cowboy held up his hand to stop her. “You’re right, Doc. I screwed up. I made a mistake, and it won’t happen again.”
24
Logan searched through hundreds of lines of code, looking for a back door into the ship’s computer system. He was so angry he could spit. It was one thing for him to be on the ship risking his life, but his sister had no business being here.
All because she went behind his back and did something she knew full well he wouldn't appreciate.
“Are you going to talk to me?” she asked. “Or do you need me to be quiet so you can work?”
H
e could do what he was doing now in his sleep. Until he managed to find a way in, this was nothing more than the tedious work of a hacker. “Why did you do it?”
She was quiet, and the tap of his fingers on the keys was harder than it needed to be, each movement a staccato peck of frustration.
“I'm sorry, Logan.”
“I asked you why.”
“I can't explain it to you. You wouldn't understand what it's been like for me lately.”
He shot her a look before turning back to his computer screen. “I wouldn't understand? Who's been by your side since Rick walked out of your life? Who's been trying to make it better?”
“It isn't your problem to fix. It’s mine.” She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, resigned to the need for this conversation. “Being married to him did something to me, Logan. It made me think I was less than.”
“Less than what?”
“Less than everything. I wasn't good enough anymore. I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't funny. He didn't want to be around me. Our friends were his friends, not mine, and they made it clear they didn't really like me. Sometimes they even made it clear my husband didn't, either.”
“Then why did you stay with that son of a bitch? You could have left him any time, but you didn't.”
“That's the problem. When I was there, living like that, I didn't understand it was him. I really thought it was me, that everything I believed before was the lie. That's what abuse does to you.”
Logan stared at her again. “Did he hit you?”
“No. But this was just as bad.”
“What does any of this have to do with Cowboy?”
“He’s a good guy, and he likes me.” She looked at her hands. “I guess I just needed a good man to like me.”
It made a strange kind of sense, and Logan felt some of his anger begin to dissipate. But he knew too much about Cowboy and his teammate’s relationships with women to feel that his sister's fragile heart was safe with that man. “He dates a lot of women, Charlotte.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to be one of them.”
“Is that enough for you?”
“It's a little late to be worried about that now.”
There was just enough sadness in her voice that Logan knew his biggest fear for his sister in dating Cowboy had already been realized. She was falling for him, and Logan had the sudden desire to punch Cowboy squarely in the jaw.
“I know you worry about me, Logan. But I'm not a little kid.”
“You just said yourself you made a bad decision by marrying Rick. That he treated you like crap. How can you expect me not to worry?”
She nodded. “You're right. Go ahead and worry. But I still get to decide my own fate.”
He copied and pasted a line of code to a login screen. “I'm in,” he said. The row of security monitors changed from blank screens to live feeds.
Charlotte looked at them, eerily dark images from a ship that had lost its main power. “I think we are in one of the only rooms that has full power right now.”
“It makes sense. It’s not a luxury to have power in the security room. It’s a necessity. I can see in the control settings where they turned off the main power. There is clearly no problem with the system itself. It's just a ruse. I wonder what they’re hoping to accomplish.”
One of the monitors glowed much brighter than the others, and Charlotte moved toward it, her eyes trying to make sense of what she saw. There was a man on the ground, windows along one whole wall, and what seemed to be a long console. Was that the ship’s bridge? “Logan, come here for a minute.”
He stood and joined her at the screen. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s the captain.” He picked up his walkie-talkie and called for Cowboy. “The captain has been injured. He’s on the bridge. He may even be dead.”
25
Cowboy, Harrison, Red, and Hawk ran to the bridge. The ship’s halls were nearly empty, the announcement for the guests to stay in their rooms seeming to have made quite an impact.
Cowboy was the first to reach the captain. Blood soaked the captain’s upper right shoulder all the way down to the middle of his chest. He looked dead. Cowboy felt his neck for a pulse, surprised when he found one. “Captain!” he called. “Captain, can you hear me?”
The captain’s eyelids twitched for several moments before they opened, his eyes unfocused and glassy. “The disco,” he said. “He’s in the disco.”
Cowboy looked to Jax, then back to the captain. “Who is in the disco?”
“Beaudreau. My first mate.”
“Did he do this to you?” asked Jax.
“Yes.”
“We need to get you to the infirmary,” said Cowboy.
“No. You go. Tell them I’m here, but stop Beaudreau before he hurts somebody.”
They were moving again, racing to the infirmary and sending help to the captain before heading to the nightclub. Cowboy couldn’t help but wonder if their elusive enemy had been there while he danced with Charlotte.
If you hadn’t been distracted, you might’ve seen something. You never should’ve taken up with her in the first place.
Not on the job.
Hell, not at all.
Now that this mission had gone south and HERO Force was here in the cold light of day, Cowboy could see it had been a mistake to be with her. Logan had been a lot less than happy to find out Cowboy and Charlotte were sleeping together. That much had been painfully obvious from the look in his teammate’s eye.
Cowboy moved along the darkened hallway, leading the pack, as the evenly spaced emergency lights gave the corridor the look of some futuristic time machine. Cowboy wished he could go back in time. Change the decisions he had made that would cost him to lose his promotion with HERO Force.
Would you really erase the time you spent with Charlotte if you could?
No way in hell.
Even though he knew better, he couldn’t make himself wish it away. Even though Logan might never forgive him, and Jax was surely pissed, too. Their time together was worth it, even if that made him a self-centered prick. He liked her.
He liked her a lot.
And given the chance, he’d do everything again.
He rounded a corner, the disco coming into view. Its sign was dark, as was seemingly everything inside. He couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d been here as he paused to let his eyes adjust as much as possible. He reached for his cell phone.
“Could be one man, could be a hundred,” Hawk whispered next to him.
Harrison pushed in front of them both. “Let me go first. I know this place better than you do.”
There was just enough light coming from beneath a distant door to cast everything in the faintest shadow. They moved as a unit, quiet and stealthy, as Harrison led the way to the employee area. When they reached the door from where the light came, he stopped. “Are we ready?”
Four thumbs up.
Harrison pushed open the door to a commercial kitchen with one motion, his weapon drawn. He never had a chance to fire. Six men were waiting, their weapons trained on the door. Four of them fell with Harrison, shot by Cowboy and Hawk. The next two were just a moment behind.
Cowboy sank to the floor to check on Harrison. One shot to the head and multiple shots to the chest. There would be no saving him, and Cowboy mourned in the second it took Hawk and Matteo to make sure the others were dead. He stood and reloaded his weapon. “Beaudreau and Abby aren’t here. We need to find the power. The computers. The second bridge where they’re running the show.”
They were close. You didn’t encounter six armed men if you weren’t getting hotter. Where was the electrical center of a dance club? It had to be powering the lights or the music.
Music began blaring from the disco. “The DJ booth,” said Matteo.
“Wait,” said Jax. “He’s baiting us.”
“We still need to go out there,” said Cowboy. He turned to Hawk. “You’re with me. You two go tha
t way,” he said, gesturing to another exit from the kitchen to the dance floor. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned on its flashlight. When each team was positioned at an exit, Cowboy turned off the kitchen light, opened the door, and slid his phone out into the room.
Gunfire exploded.
Cowboy moved into the room, Hawk right behind him, staying low and heading for the corner from where the shots were fired. The light from his cell phone was just enough to reflect off the glass of a structure beside the dance floor. The DJ booth. He ripped open the door and froze.
Silhouetted against the light of the room were two figures, one big and tall, one smaller. The tall one held a handgun to the head of the other.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” said a woman in a proper British accent.
Princess Violet.
“Let her go,” said Cowboy, training his weapon on the other man as best he could in the darkness.
“You think you’re saving the day, but you are too late,” said the man.
“We found your bomb in the theater. There isn’t going to be any explosion.” Cowboy’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could just make out the features of Beaudreau and the princess.
The first mate laughed. “You took out one bomb, and you think you saved the ship!”
A sickening wave of dread mixed with bile in the back of Cowboy’s throat. More bombs. “How many?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Because you want me to know. You want everyone to know exactly what you did.” Cowboy took a step closer to the pair.
Beaudreau’s elbow went higher in the air and the princess screamed. “You come any closer and I put a bullet in her temple. I’d hate for her to miss the show.”
“How many bombs?”
“Twenty. There used to be twenty-one—a very lucky number—then one of my men had an attack of conscience.”
Cowboy thought of the murder scene Harrison had found. The murdered crew mate. “So you killed him and threw his body overboard.”
