It was stupid to argue, anyway. It was going to have to be the one of them who didn’t have a T-shirt tied tightly around a bullet wound in his leg.
And that wasn’t Ric.
It had freaked him out a little to see Jules’s cool slip. It was now obvious that the man’s careful control was just an act. He was as much on the verge of losing it as Ric was.
If Junior had Robin or Annie, if he so much as breathed on them wrong, Jules was going to be right beside Ric as he made the bastard bleed.
“Yeah, that’s the right button,” a voice that had to be Donny’s echoed through the ship. “Push this one when you’re done.”
“Thanks.” Junior was louder—he probably spoke more directly into the microphone. “Here comes your proof of life, assholes,” he said.
There was feedback, then another male voice that could well have been Foley’s. “You say your name, you say you’re with me on a fishing boat, you say you’re all right. You say anything else at all, and I will beat you within an inch of your life. Are we clear?”
Ric held his breath, listening harder. But there was nothing discernible in response, just the sound of someone crying. Whoever it was, it couldn’t be Annie. He’d never heard her make that kind of pathetic, defeated noise in his entire life.
“Jesus H. Christ.” Foley’s voice came through the speakers. “Speak the fuck up.”
Still there was nothing—until there was something loud, something that sounded like Foley shouting. “Hey!” It was cut off, though, midword.
Ric looked at Jules. What was that?
Junior’s voice, over the intercom, broke the sudden silence. He was equally perplexed. “What the hell…?”
Annie threw herself down the companionway, Foley’s phone in her hand.
Ric had been right. Tears, along with various other fluids, really worked when it came to putting people off their guard.
As she’d hoped, Foley had assumed her spirit was crushed. When she’d cowered from his threatening words and mewed a pitiful, barely audible version of his request, he’d leaned over, putting himself off balance as he held his phone closer to her mouth.
Whereupon she’d snatched it from his hand and scrambled away.
But God, he was right behind her now. She dialed 911 as she threw herself into the stateroom where she and Robin had been held, but she didn’t hear more than the phone ringing on the other end before Foley slapped it out of her hands. He grabbed her and threw her toward the cabinets that lined the wall.
She hit with her shoulder and back, turning to try to protect her head, then landing on the floor with a bone-jarring crash.
Foley’d gone after his phone, slamming it shut. He came toward her, now, and the look in his eyes was murderous.
“We lost the connection,” Donny’s voice said over the intercom.
“Get it back.” Junior, too, still echoed through the ship.
“Let’s do this now,” Jules decided. “While they’re distracted.” He held out the sidearm that he’d taken from the skinhead, and Ric reluctantly took it.
“I can’t shoot like you,” Ric told him.
“I’m just looking for covering fire.” Chances were that they weren’t even going to need that. Jules moved the ammo closer to Ric and opened the switchblade knife, testing it with his finger. Yeah, ouch, it was plenty sharp. He snapped it shut.
Junior was probably up on the bridge with Donny. That left three men unaccounted for.
At least one was watching the stairs from the galley to the main deck. No, make that two—they were having a conversation out there. Jules couldn’t make out their words, but he definitely heard the buzz of two different voices. Thanks for that intel, guys.
It meant there was only one man watching one of the three other ways out of the galley.
Although it was possible, from the amount of blood Ric had left on the deck, that Junior was going to assume he and Jules weren’t going to budge from their cozy and protected position there. So maybe he wasn’t watching any of the other exits at all.
Up on the bridge, Donny and Junior had finally realized their words were being broadcast throughout the yacht. It was like a bad comedy routine, ending only as they finally turned off the intercom.
Jules cracked open the door that led to the ladder access down to the food storage area below and listened.
Nothing. No movement. No breathing.
He looked at Ric and nodded. He was going.
He opened the door wider and stuck his head into the passageway—just a quick dip down and back. There was no one in the immediate area, so he swung himself down, feetfirst this time. He dropped as silently as humanly possible onto the metal of the deck below.
It was slightly cooler down there, thank you God.
The entire lower level was badly lit, but it was brighter out in the hall. Jules crept toward that light and…Shit.
One of Junior’s men was down here. Jules could hear him moving about in that nasty little bomb-making room where those extra suits of explosives were stored.
Which was exactly where Jules wanted to go.
He froze, as a sudden noise echoed, but it was just the intercom clicking back on. And then Foley’s voice came through a tinny-sounding speaker.
“We’re going to try that again.” The man’s words were slightly distorted but comprehensible. “I’m here with the girl, and she’s going to say her name into the phone, or she’s going to get hit and then you’ll know she’s here because you’ll hear her scream.”
Annie shook her head at Foley.
She wasn’t going to do it.
Even if he hit her, she wasn’t going to make so much as a sound.
He was just going to kill her anyway. She knew that. As soon as she did as he asked, she was dead.
And she was damned if she was going to help Junior force Jules and Ric to surrender. She put her hand in her pocket, her fingers closing around the cigarette lighter she’d taken from the galley.
“Okay then.” Foley set his phone down on top of one of the bench cushions. “I guess we’re going to do this the hard way.”
As Annie backed away from Foley, she tried to inch closer and closer to the end of the fuse that Robin had run, hidden, along the edge of the room.
“You gonna say it now?” Foley’s voice was muffled as it came over the intercom.
It could’ve all been just a giant head game—Foley, alone in a room somewhere, kicking things over, making crashing noises to make it sound as if he were beating someone up.
He had the girl, he’d said. He’d made no mention at all of Robin—Jules tried not to think about that as he continued to move down the dimly lit passageway on the lower level of Junior’s yacht.
“Is that enough?” Foley asked, but apparently it wasn’t, because there were more thuds and crashes.
The door to the explosives workroom was still locked open. That was lucky. There was definitely someone in there—Jules could see his shadow moving.
The noises coming from the intercom masked any sounds that Jules might’ve made as he peeked around the edge of the open doorway.
Yes, one of Junior’s so-called boys was there in the room, his back to Jules. It looked—sweet Jesus!—as if he were working to connect all of the suits of explosives together. And wasn’t that the nifty plan. Blow the entire yacht. There was enough C4 here at least to put a huge hole in the hull.
But explosions were tricky things. It would be a risk for Junior, who liked having a guarantee there’d be no random DNA evidence floating around for investigators to find. And unless they brought the C4 up and tossed it into the galley…which, of course, was what they were probably going to do, as soon as they had another ride home.
Great.
So much for Jules’s we can sit here all day threat.
“What?” Foley asked over the intercom. “Do I have break your arm to make you scream?”
Annie cried. Silently.
One of her eyes was swelling and
her mouth was bleeding, cut from her own teeth. She was battered and bruised, but at least so far no ribs had been broken, thank God.
It had been years since she’d gone into the hospital with a rib-punctured lung, but she still remembered what that had felt like. She would do nearly anything to prevent a replay of that desperate, gasping, lack-of-air sensation.
Anything but risk Ric and Jules’s lives.
Foley’s last punch had made her head spin. She almost wished he’d hit her harder—and knocked her out. But her biggest regret was that Foley’s last punch had taken her farther away from the end of that time fuse.
Annie now looked at Foley and shook her head.
“Look,” he said. “I respect what you’re trying to do, but…”
She just kept shaking her head.
“Last chance.” He waited, just a few more seconds, then grabbed her left arm and twisted and…
Annie felt her wrist give, felt the bones snap, felt the scream ripped from her very throat.
“There,” Foley said, his voice rough as he released her, as she fell back, cradling her arm against her chest, sobbing. “There’s your fucking proof of life.”
No. No, she was not going to let him win. She was not going to let Ric die. Not a chance.
So she shouted. As loudly as she could so the phone would pick her up, even from way across the stateroom. “Ric, I love you—don’t let them kill us both. Robin’s already dead, Foley killed him, and I’m dead, too. I’m bleeding to death,” she lied. “I’m not going to make it—save yourselves!”
Anger and fear.
Ric’s reaction to the sound of Annie’s voice was sheer, blinding anger and soul-shredding fear.
She was alive, but Foley had hurt her. The echo of that piercing scream resounded inside his head, making his hands shake.
He nearly dropped the gun, but he forced himself to breathe. Keep breathing. Annie wasn’t dead yet.
“She’s lying.” Foley’s voice reverberated in the galley. “I roughed her up and broke her wrist—but she’s not bleeding. And, uh, the, uh, movie star’s in the other room, too drunk to speak coherently.”
“I love you, Ric,” Annie sobbed, and Ric felt his heart break. He’d wanted her to say it, but Christ, not like this. Her voice continued over what sounded like Donny and Junior shouting. He didn’t pay attention to them, he focused only on her words. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before. Please—save yourself. Foley’s the liar. I’m dead. Just like Robin. Foley threw him overboard and he drowned. Jules, I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t save him and he’s gone—”
Someone cut the connection—it was the intercom being switched off.
“Hey,” Ric bellowed. “Bring her back! Put her back on! I want to hear her talking!”
But no one answered him and the intercom wasn’t turned back on.
“Hey!” he shouted again, totally bullshit. As long as Annie was talking, he knew she was alive. “Put her back on, and I’ll come out!”
He meant it. He’d somehow pushed himself to his feet and was on the verge of dragging himself over to the stairs to the main deck when he heard a sound. Someone was coming.
He turned, trying to hold the gun steady with hands that were numb. God only knew what Foley was doing to Annie right that moment…
“What the hell are you doing?” It was Jules. He was back, pushing the ladder door open. “Get down!”
Ric realized he was standing right in front of that window. He turned to look out at the deck—there was no one out there. “Junior!” he shouted again. “Put Annie back on, you son of a bitch!”
Jules flung what looked like a vest of explosives onto the floor ahead of himself, then climbed out. “Get down,” he said again.
Christ, the FBI agent was covered with blood. It was mostly on his hands and his arms, but it was also streaked across his chest and face like gruesome war paint.
He was holding a gun, but he’d gone below armed only with a knife and…Jesus God, apparently, he’d used it.
Jules grabbed him and dragged him down to the deck. Ric’s leg was on fire, and even more pain jolted through him at the rough treatment. But it provided a greatly needed reality check. He wasn’t going to help Annie by charging out onto the deck half-cocked.
No, he had to wait until he was fully locked and loaded. He knew that and he made himself breathe. “Are you hurt?” he asked Jules.
“It’s not my blood.” Jules’s eyes were as hard and cold as Ric had ever seen them. “One of the business-suits was down there. I took him out.”
Permanently, apparently.
“Two down, four to go,” Jules continued, reporting the information matter-of-factly, as if he were commenting on the day’s lack of rain. “Purple Shirt, Business-Suit Number Two, Donny, and Junior.”
“And Foley,” Ric said. Who had Annie. Who’d already killed Robin. By drowning him. Except, there was something wrong with that picture, something that made Ric find that concept hard to believe.
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Let’s not forget Foley.” He tucked the handgun into the back of his jeans, then stayed low as he rinsed his hands and arms in the kitchen sink. “I’m going to need my jacket back.”
“No, you’re not,” Ric said. He raised his voice. “Junior! Hey!” Where the hell was the bastard?
“Yeah, I am.” Jules started to pull on the explosives. It was one of Junior’s sweatshirt creations, but the sleeves had been cut off—which made it less unwieldy.
“I’m the one going out there,” Ric told the FBI agent.
“No.” Jules didn’t stop what he was doing. “Annie’s still alive.”
“I’m sorry about Robin,” Ric said as he pulled himself closer to Jules. “You know I am, but it has to be me out there, man. It’s got to be. You’re the better shot.”
Jules knew that was the truth. Yet still he hesitated.
Ric all but felt a vein pop in his head—Junior’s silence was killing him. “Junior! Where the fuck are you? I want to hear Annie’s voice again!”
But Junior didn’t answer. It was possible he’d discovered the man that Jules had sliced and diced while he was down below, and had decided to stay somewhere protected—like that bridge. Which would totally screw up Ric and Jules’s plan.
“Junior!” he shouted again.
Meanwhile, Jules was determined to self-destruct, wrapping some kind of grayish cord—the fuse—around his waist.
“You disconnected that, right?” Ric asked.
Jules looked up at him. “Yeah.” For the first time since they’d met, Ric couldn’t get an accurate read on whether or not Jules was telling him the truth.
“Come on, man,” Ric pushed, his voice lowered. “Think about it. This plan only works with you as the shooter. If you go out there in that”—he gestured with his chin toward the sweatshirt vest of explosives as he took off his jacket—“leaving me back here, we don’t stand a chance at saving Annie, and you know it.”
Jules looked back at him with those empty eyes, in a face that had turned to stone. He may have checked his heart and soul at the door when he’d heard about Robin, but his brain was still online, thank God. He finally nodded, and yanked off that vest.
“I am sorry,” Ric said as Jules helped him pull the explosives over his head. Damn, but it was heavy—there was a lot of C4 on this thing. “You’re sure you pulled out the right wires?”
“I’m sure,” Jules told him, and then dropped a different bomb. “Junior’s got to stay alive.”
Ric looked at him. He was serious. “Robin’s dead, Annie’s dying, and you’re worried about Junior?” Ric couldn’t believe this.
“I’m worried about Atlanta.” Jules’s hands were rough as he helped Ric back into the jacket, zipping it up so that it hid the explosives—all but a piece of that gray cord that stuck out the bottom. Jules handed him the skinhead’s lighter. “Junior’s our link to al-Hasan. He stays alive.”
“If he kills Annie—”
�
��He stays alive,” Jules repeated, his voice as flat as his eyes.
“Robin’s dead and you—”
“Yeah,” Jules said, with a sudden sharp flare of emotion. “Keep saying that—it’s really helping me.”
“I’m sorry,” Ric said again. God damn, but those were two of the lamest words in the English language. He turned away from Jules, shouting up to Junior, wherever he was. “Junior, I want to make a deal!”
“I gave you your proof of life,” Junior finally shouted back. “You come out on the main deck with your hands on your heads!”
Ric did a quick scan out the window—Junior wasn’t on the main deck. No one was.
“I want Robin’s death to mean something,” Jules told him quietly. “So let’s do this right. Let’s save Annie and let’s save Atlanta.” His voice was rough as he helped Ric over toward the galley stairs. “You ready?”
Ric nodded. “You call Foley,” he shouted to Junior, “and you get Annie back. I want her voice on that intercom—now!”
“If I don’t make it,” he lowered his voice to tell Jules. He had to say it. “Tell Annie how much it meant to…hear her say she loved me, too.”
Jules made a sound that was little more than an exhale, but it was filled with pain. “You can tell her that yourself.”
Unlike Jules, who would never be able to tell Robin how much he’d loved him. Christ, that was so unfair. Unfair and wrong…
“Fuck you!” Junior shouted back from his hiding place. “It’s my turn to make the demands. You get your asses out here, now, or I’m going to call him and tell him to kill her.”
“No!” Ric shouted.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Jules shouted, full volume, even though Ric hadn’t moved.
“Get away from me!” Ric shouted back, even as he reached out and roughly, impulsively, gave Jules a hard, quick hug.
“I’m not going up there with you,” Jules shouted, and as Ric stepped back, he saw the truth in Jules’s eyes—he didn’t expect Ric to survive this.
“Oh yes, you are,” Ric shouted back.
“You’re crazy!” Jules shouted. “What, you really think she’s alive? She’s dead—she’s as dead as Robin!” His voice broke realistically.
Force of Nature Page 43
