by Rachel Grant
Chapter Sixteen
Archie Wright wasn’t at all happy to see Sienna. And she was pretty certain he could see her, just not well. As Nick Pelligrew had said, Archie was only legally blind. And he was mad as hell Nick had abducted her.
He stood on the deck of the boat, arms crossed and mouth pursed as he scowled at Nick. “I told you I’d take you to Siberia. You didn’t need to go and get a hostage.”
“We don’t trust you, old man. And this bitch ruined our business. Only fitting that she should help us out now by keeping you in line. Besides, she doesn’t have anything better to do since her honey’s gonna blow up any second.”
Sienna flinched. He’d taunted her with that line half a dozen times on the drive to the marina, but there’d been no explosion yet, and the fireworks display the other night proved the sound would carry.
Rhys was still alive.
Archie reached out and squeezed her hand, then pulled her toward the pilothouse.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
“If we’re going to do this thing, we need to go over the controls,” Archie answered as he opened the pilothouse door. He nudged her toward the captain’s chair at the helm.
She sat and pretended to listen. She had no intention of helping the Pelligrews escape. She didn’t need to know how to drive the old fishing trawler. She closed her eyes and reached out to Jana. If Jana could pull Rhys into her dreams, maybe she could pull him into her thoughts. She kept repeating Archie. Boat. Archie. Boat.
Archie bent down next to her and whispered, “Honey, you and me are going to jump in the water. It’ll be freezing as hell, and we have to do it before we reach the first buoy or we’ll be too far out and won’t be able to swim to shore before our muscles seize from the cold. These boys learned net making, but they don’t know shit about boats. As soon as we pull away from the dock, I’m going to make the engine sputter. I’ll try to check on it myself, but one of them will insist on doing it. When he’s below deck, the rigging is going to fall and land on the other one. You’ll need to tell me exactly where he’s standing, and I’ll make it happen. Once he’s trapped, we jump. Got it?”
She nodded.
Nick, who stood outside the pilothouse regaling his brother with his exploits in kidnapping Sienna right under the FBI’s nose, shouted through the open door, “Enough lessons. Let’s get underway.”
“Boy, you can’t just start up the engine on a boat like this and drive off. First off, we need diesel for the big engine. It’s too shallow in the inlet for more than the trolling engine, so I never fill the diesel. It’s so low, we won’t get out of Kotzebue Sound before we run out.”
“You told us we had enough fuel.”
“I lied. So shoot me. Oh, wait, you can’t. Because you don’t know shit about this boat or how to drive it.” Archie laughed, and the sound was genuine. The Pelligrews thought they were in charge because they had guns they enjoyed waving around, but the ninety-year-old man was completely running this show, and Sienna and Archie knew it.
“You moron,” Nick said to his brother. “You should have checked. You could have been fueling up while I grabbed the girl.”
“Someone’s got to release the lines so I can move her to the fuel dock,” Archie said, sounding almost eager.
“Don’t try anything funny, old man,” Doug said, casting a glare at Archie before moving to the front to untie the boat.
The fuel station was two hundred yards away, against the wharf, a distance Archie maneuvered surprisingly well, asking Sienna to estimate distances between boats and wooden pilings.
Doug climbed onto the dock to fill the tank. Archie went out on deck to argue with Nick about his handling of the lines. Sienna paced the pilothouse. They could get out of this. There was too much going on for the Pelligrews to be vigilant. It was all a matter of waiting for the right moment.
Flames licked at her cheeks. Hotter now.
Her gaze caught on a canvas bag in the corner of the pilot house, and with a jolt, she knew what was inside. She flipped up the flap, and there it was, the mask. It had a bullet hole through the left cheek, and red stains that could only be blood.
Her connection to Jana had been faint since the visions of fire this morning, but she knew Jana was still holding on. She closed her eyes and pressed the mask to her face for the first time. She breathed in the scent of the ancient wood, also smelling gunpowder and blood. She closed her eyes and called to Jana, asking her to send Rhys visions of Archie and the boat, adding thoughts of jumping from the side near the first buoy for good measure. May as well tell Rhys the plan. If Jana could deliver it.
All at once, a frisson spread through her. Rhys understood. He had a plan too. His message came crystal clear: no matter what, she and Archie had to be off the boat before the big engine was powered up.
Rhys worked the plastic explosive into a disk and plucked out the detonators from the towel. He studied the wires, then stripped the ends, exposing them. Yeah, it would work. He could thread them together in a way that any electric charge—like a radio signal or the powering up of the trawler’s massive engine—would set off the explosive. He’d already told Agent Upton he suspected Sienna had been taken to Archie Wright’s boat, that the boys would likely make a run for it, with Archie and Sienna as hostages.
The man had been skeptical, but a moment later, one of his team had confirmed seeing the Pelligrews’ truck in the marina, and a man who fit Doug Pelligrew’s description was fueling up the old trawler. Both tanks were being filled; they were prepping for a long voyage.
The brothers were armed and dangerous, and Nick Pelligrew had stepped into the pilothouse and trained a gun on the hostages. Agent Upton’s team—who were more forensic specialists than combat-ready agents—were told not to engage, not until Upton and Rhys arrived.
Rhys finished all but the final wiring that would make the explosive deadly, then told Upton his plan.
“Are you fucking nuts? Your girlfriend and the old man are on board. They’ll blow sky high.”
“I’m pretty certain they’re going to jump from the boat before they get far enough out for the main engine to come online.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Isn’t that what you’d do in their situation? They wait too long, and they’re at sea with two neo-Nazis who have zero respect for human life. If what you just told me about their background is correct, these boys have a long trail of destruction in their wake. There is no way they’re reaching Russia without killing Sienna and Archie along the way. They don’t know how to play nice that long, and they have a history of shitting where they eat.”
“Yeah, but Aubrey and Wright don’t know their background. And Wright is blind, for crissakes.”
“They’re both smart people, and they know the danger they’re in.” Rhys didn’t have time to convince the agent of his “hunch.” This would be a helluva lot easier if he could just tell the man an ancient mask harboring the soul of my cousin’s dead wife told me.
Agent Upton would freak knowing the delusional guy sitting next to him held five pounds of C-4 in his hands. With detonators.
“To plant the explosive,” he said instead. “I’ll need to join them on the boat. I’ll tell them to jump.”
“I don’t like this plan,” Upton said with a stiff jaw.
“You have a better one? They have hostages.”
Ever since receiving Sienna’s message, flames had licked at the edge of Rhys’ vision. Now his hands burned. He’d guessed there would be fire. The only question was, who would burn?
They arrived at the marina and parked at the far end, behind the main office. Rhys crouched low, weaving his way between dilapidated shacks as he made his way toward the quay where the boat was being fueled. Doug was on the other side of the fuel shed, with his eyes on the diesel gauge.
Nick, he knew, was in the pilothouse with Sienna and Archie.
As Rhys neared the vessel, he was grateful for all the lines and rigging t
hat hung from the boat. In the pilothouse, the nets would obscure Nick’s view. A thick rubber Zodiac was suspended from the rigging and jutted out to the side, hovering over the quay. Rhys grabbed an oarlock and pulled himself up, sliding over the side, into the boat. He ducked, praying Nick hadn’t seen him.
He was in the Zodiac. Now what? His best bet would be to put the C-4 in the engine room. Could he get down there without Nick seeing him?
He closed his eyes and asked Jana…
He got a flash of an image. Nick was in the pilothouse, going over the controls, asking Archie questions. The smarter of the two brothers, Nick must have guessed he needed a crash course in captaining the boat.
The important thing was his focus was toward the bow. Rhys glanced over the gunwale of the Zodiac. Doug still stared at the fuel gauge.
Now or never.
Rhys slid from the Zodiac onto the deck and darted into the cabin below the pilothouse. Thank goodness Archie had given him the fifty-cent tour at the end of their visit last night. Rhys slipped into the engine room and smiled when he saw Archie’s stash of full bottles of scotch, including the one Rhys had given him last night. He could kiss the wonderful old man for his silly rebellion.
Rhys gathered the bottles and placed them next to the engine block, then planted the explosive on the engine, right above the bottles. The C-4 would shatter the bottles and ignite the alcohol, a secondary fuel/air explosion that would decimate the trawler.
He tweaked the wires on the detonators, then planted them in the plastic. They would go off with the slightest change in the electromagnetic field.
Task complete, Rhys slipped out of the engine room. Flames licked again at the edges of his vision. He hoped to hell he hadn’t just made a huge mistake.
Back on deck, he pulled himself up into the Zodiac again and tucked down between the seats. Doug had finished fueling, and now he undid the bowline. Rhys had a split second to make his choice: stay or escape.
No way in hell was he getting off this boat while Sienna was on it.
Chapter Seventeen
Sienna didn’t need the mask to tell her where Rhys was. She’d seen him climb into the Zodiac. Such a brazen maneuver, she couldn’t believe he’d gotten away with it. But he had.
She’d removed the mask from her face when Nick entered the pilothouse, and now clutched it tightly to her chest. She had a feeling Jana had something to do with Rhys’s incredible timing and luck.
“I’ll be taking that mask from you,” Nick said with a sneer.
“Why? You ruined it when you shot Adam through it.”
“How do you know it wasn’t my brother?”
She shrugged. “I just do.”
Nick yanked it from her grasp. “It’s an ugly-ass mask, but it would have made us a fortune if you’d left it alone.” In a flash, his eyes darkened with rage, and he slammed the mask into her face. The blow knocked her sideways, and she hit the pilothouse door.
“There’s no need for that, son. We’re cooperating with you,” Archie said in a calm voice.
“Don’t call me ‘son,’ old man. You ain’t my daddy, and I ain’t no fucking ugly Indian like you.”
He raised the mask to strike Archie, but a shout from Doug interrupted him. “Fueled up. Now let’s get the fuck out of this shithole freezing village.”
“Untie the rear line and shove us off!” Nick shouted through the open window. To Archie, he said, “Fire up the big engine. Let’s roll.”
“You moron. Didn’t you hear anything I just told you? We can’t turn on the main engine until we’ve cleared the third buoy. It’s too shallow.”
“Then turn on the little one and haul ass.”
Archie powered the small engine, and, as promised, it sputtered. They inched away from the dock. “I’d better go check the fuel line,” he said in a convincingly resigned voice.
Sienna’s brain was still rattled from the blow, but she didn’t have the luxury of gathering her wits. This was it. Time to jump in arctic waters and pray she didn’t die.
“Doug, check on the fuel line to the small engine, will ya?”
Shit. If Nick stayed in the pilothouse, he couldn’t be caught in dropped rigging.
Doug disappeared belowdecks. It was now or never. “I need air,” she said and shoved at the door.
“No, you don’t—” Nick said, but he couldn’t grab her because his hands were full of the mask. He dropped it and lunged, but she’d darted forward and had just enough of a head start to get away. On the deck, she swung rigging in his direction, and a thick line caught him across the face. She shouted to Archie, “Drop the Zodiac into the Sound and go!”
They were picking up speed, and there was enough clearance from the quay for Archie to swing the Zodiac over the frigid water. She darted to the railing and reached it just as the rigging holding the small boat released. Rhys was a blur as he rode the boat down to the water.
She climbed on the rail to jump, but Nick caught her foot, stopping her. She caught sight of Archie at the rail closer to the pilothouse. He would make it.
She’d wanted to grab the mask but hadn’t really had a choice. She kicked Nick in the face, then launched herself into the sea.
The shock of water was so cold, it burned. Her whole body flushed with the sharp scorching pain. She took an involuntary breath and inhaled salt water.
This was the burn of the vision. Not fire. Icy cold.
Archie. She had to find Archie before her muscles seized. He wouldn’t know which way to swim to shore. If her vision of flames was also correct, they needed to get away from the boat, fast. She caught a glimpse of Archie and tried to get her frozen muscles to take her to him.
The water was cold unlike anything she’d ever imagined.
She couldn’t swim. Couldn’t breathe. Archie was ten feet away, and she’d never reach him. The shore was thirty, forty feet away at most, but it might as well be a mile.
She would die.
“Sienna!” Rhys shouted from behind her.
She’d been so focused on spotting Archie, she’d forgotten to look for the Zodiac.
A hand gripped her wrist. Rhys pulled her into the boat in one smooth movement. She coughed and sputtered and her teeth clattered even as her skin burned. She tried to sit up, to help Rhys paddle to Archie, but her arms wouldn’t support her.
A moment later, Rhys had Archie in the boat too. She hugged the old man to her chest, and Rhys spread a canvas cloth over them. It was stiff and wasn’t warm, but at least it blocked the cool wind.
“Sonofabitch, I’m too old for swimming in Kotzebue Sound,” Archie complained.
Sienna laughed. “So am I, Archie.”
If Rhys hadn’t been in the Zodiac, she doubted she or Archie would have made it to shore.
As Rhys rowed to the quay, she looked out at Archie’s old fishing boat, not surprised to see that instead of returning to reclaim their hostages, the Pelligrews were heading out to sea. A glance back at the quay showed the line of feds, explaining the brothers’ hasty retreat. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance. She guessed Agent Upton had called when she and Archie had jumped in the water.
“Did you set the explosive?” she asked Rhys.
“Yes.”
“Damn, I’m going to miss that boat. But I’m glad those sonsofbitches will be taken care of.”
“When will it blow? Is it on a timer?” she asked.
“Sort of. When will they fire up the big engine, Archie?”
“Third buoy.”
“Any second now, then.”
Sienna kept her gaze fixed on the vessel as it headed for open water. It passed the third buoy, and a moment later, a massive explosion rent air and sea.
The boat fireballed, and flames licked at Sienna’s face. Not really, but she realized now it was the mask that flamed along the cheeks, the mask whose hair had burned. She’d put on the mask. She’d seen through its eyes and had felt the fire from its perspective.
She hoped Jana had gone
to the other side before destruction of the mask closed her portal.
One piece of debris stood out as it arced through the air. Sienna frowned, uncomfortably certain it was the mask. Singed but not completely burned.
The small item flew far clear of the burning, floating wreckage, and she kept her gaze locked on it. “Rhys. The mask is floating over there. Should we go get it?”
“You and Archie need to get warm. We’ll get you into the ambulance, then I’ll go after it.”
But in the end, there was no need. Something moved rapidly toward the floating mask, and it took Sienna a moment to realize it was an orca fin. The incredible creature did a full arching breach over the mask, then swam back out into the open sound, taking the mask with it.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Sienna was still cold. Sometimes it seemed the only time she was warm was late at night, when she was wrapped tightly in Rhys’s arms, their naked bodies as close as two people could be. At those times, she burned with heat and loved every moment.
Enough of the Pelligrew brothers’ remains had been plucked from the water to confirm not only that they were dead but also that they were the same white supremacist brothers who’d run afoul of both their supremacist sect leader and the FBI in Idaho a year before. It appeared they’d taken to selling the artifacts in an attempt to buy their way back into the movement. They’d hooked up with Adam Helvig because he’d apparently been performing artifact laundering services for wealthy collectors for several years, but he’d always handled pieces given to him and had decided to venture into procurement because he wanted a bigger piece of the action than his small laundering fee.
The FBI had offered Sienna a contract to comb through the museum’s files to find other items that had been laundered so they could go after both buyers and sellers. The contract would keep her busy for at least a year, a relief as her sister was still stuck in Hawaii with no sign she’d be returning soon. Somebody had to keep Aubrey Sisters Heritage Preservation afloat.
