Taban puffed on the cigar and surveyed the people crammed into his quarters.
“I want you to tell me what is hidden on your ship, Russian girl,” Taban said. “If you do, maybe I gives you this one.” He pointed to Sugar. “You seem to like her.”
Alex shook her head. “Lying.”
Taban took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at Alex. “What, you some kind of human lie detector?”
Alex nodded. “Yes sir, that would be me.”
Taban grabbed a half-full bottle of whiskey off the table next to the bed, swilled down three or four gulps, and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He offered the bottle to Alex. “You like drink?”
She shook her head.
“How you like to work for me? You sit with Taban. When peoples lie to him, you tell.”
“Is his offer legitimate?” Mina asked.
Alex nodded. “I will do that if you will treat my friends with respect and give the women you took off the ship decent treatment as well. We want to go home.”
Taban looked thoughtful. “They are all the profit I collected from this raid, and you would have me give it away?”
“If we tell you where the real cargo off the Russian freighter is hidden, and I work for you, will you take care of them?”
“I will take care of them and I will not sell them, but I will ransom them to the Americans. Can we agree on this?”
“Is he telling the truth?” Mina asked.
Alex nodded. “If no one will pay their ransom, will you let them go?”
“I will give it a lot of thought. Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Tell him where the guns are hidden.”
* * * *
Maksim and the Turk came out of their hiding spot after spending nearly ten hours crunched into a three-foot space. The one coffee can they’d used as a urinal was brimming, and Maksim needed to shit.
“I know most of them have to be on the bridge,” Maksim said as they emerged.
“I have weapons hidden under my bunk, an RPG, several rounds for it and two AKMs with many rounds of ammo for the rifles. And, of course, I keep my knife there.”
They stopped at the Turk’s cabin, found the weapons and left. Maksim felt a lot better armed.
“Maybe we should use the RPG to destroy the bridge,” Maksim said.
“How would we control the boat? No, we must kill the pirates one at a time. I’m thinking hide near the kitchen, or wait just outside the bridge. We can pick them off and take over when we eliminate the last one.”
“We need to get our cargo back. We will have to save one of the Somalis to find out where the pirates are taking the slaves. They must have a base somewhere.”
The Turk nodded.
They ran into a pirate on their way up to the kitchen. Little more than a boy, the Somali was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the rail. They slipped up behind him. The Turk pulled his huge Taiga out of its sheath, grabbed the smaller black man from behind before he knew they were there, quietly inserted his knife into the man’s throat, pushed it up and into his skull, and then gave it a twist. With his spinal cord severed, the pirate dropped dead in an instant: no sound, and no blood.
Dropping the body over the side, Maksim watched it disappear into the choppy blue water. “That’s one down.”
Chapter 19
Baine found Antonio and his witch girlfriend easily after his long run across the desert. As usual, he felt refreshed. Turning into a mountain lion for a night relieved a lot of stress. He’d recommend it to anyone.
Sniffing, Baine smelled sex. Antonio and Africaisi must have had a good time while he was gone. Swiftly changing back into his human form, Baine approached the Jeep. His companions reclined a short distance away, naked in each other’s arms. Baine shrugged into his clothes and walked up the sand dune.
“You hear from anyone while I was, uh, away?”
Antonio rolled over and stared up at Baine. The satisfied smirk on his face was hard for Baine to handle. The only sex he’d had on this trip was the witches in Panama and the “fathering” in Cairo. He was tired of being raped and longed to see Alex.
“Your Interpol contact called. He’s waiting for us in Yemen, but he said he’d only be there for two days.”
“Well, then let’s go,” Baine snapped.
The drive took two days as they traveled through Saudi Arabia and across the border into Yemen. They took turns, driving all night and all day. When they were about three hours away from Adan, they stopped to add gas to the tank and Baine called the inspector.
The man was so damn dependable. He answered after only one ring. “Lefevre here.”
“Inspector, this is Baine Tenbrook. Sorry we’re running a little late. Are you still in Adan?”
“I’m about to leave. We received word the pirates have a mother ship in the gulf. Our military has them on radar steaming toward Mogadishu. If we don’t hurry, they will be in Somali water and out of our reach.”
“Fuck!” Baine cursed. “Go on without us. We’ll find a boat and follow.”
“No, I would rather have you with us. How far out are you?”
Baine told him their location, and the Inspector said he would be at the dock waiting.
Antonio took over at the wheel. He pushed the Jeep hard. The sun scorched them as they sped across long empty stretches of desert, the road a black ribbon through a barren landscape.
They made it to Adan in an hour and a half. Antonio sped through the outskirts of the city, past the sports center, through a smattering of small farms on one side of the Jeep and huge salt flats on the other, through the airport and finally out to the fisheries and the docks. They screeched into a parking lot beside a huge cemetery and stopped. It was easy to find the group from Interpol. They drove a black Escalade.
Baine and Antonio climbed out of the Jeep and headed for the docks.
“Antonio, my darling, I must get back to Cairo,” Africaisi informed him.
“I thought you would come with us,” Antonio said, stunned.
When she looked into Antonio’s face, her smile made Baine feel like an intruder.
“We need you, Africaisi. I need you.”
She touched his cheek. “I will be as close as a whisper. Just say my name, and I will come.” She touched the amulet hanging around his neck.
He gathered her into a close embrace. They kissed and then, to Baine’s amazement, she just disappeared. Like a wisp of smoke, she was gone.
Antonio clapped Baine on the back. “Come on. We can do this without her.”
The Interpol inspector met them as they stepped onto the dock. The idling boat, a speed boat sometimes called a go-fast boat, sat amid the fishing boats and local craft like a flower among cow dung.
“Hurry. I have news that the mother ship is only a few hours from Somali waters.”
Baine and Antonio were down to a small backpack. Baine threw it on the boat and climbed aboard. “Is this your only boat?”
Inspector Lefevre shook his head. “Non, we have three more and a frigate, the Nivose, waiting for us to arrive. They are steaming just out of sight of the pirates.”
“Why don’t they stop them without us?” Baine asked. “And what about radar?
“So far, we’ve managed to avoid radar detection. They must wait for me because of the slaves, the hostages. It is I who must negotiate their freedom.”
There were two French crewmen aboard the boat. They started the huge twin inboard engines, threw off the ropes and roared out of the small harbor. The boat canted back on its stern, and then the hull rose high as it raced across the water, barely touching the small chop. Baine’s hair was glued to his head, and his ears rang.
They covered the hundred or so nautical miles in a little more than an hour. “How fast does this thing go?” he yelled to Lefevre.
“They tell me it can achieve 115 miles per hour. Very fast.”
“Look,” Antonio said, pointing.
The warship lay ahead. Lef
evre pulled a walkie-talkie out of a compartment under the controls and hailed the ship. It slowly turned and sped up, heading southwest. Three other speed boats, these modified go-fast boats used by the military, cruised behind theirs. The small armada headed for Somalia.
* * * *
Maksim pushed the last of the pirates overboard with his foot. The Somali’s body fell down the side of the ship, bumping twice against the rusty hull, and splashed into the sea.
The Turk lit one of his cigarettes. “Now we can go get our cargo.”
They climbed up to the bridge. The Turk increased the ship’s speed while Maksim activated the radar, scanning for the pirates.
Maksim spotted a small blip on the screen moving slowly southwest. “I found them. Looks like they’re only ten miles in front of us. The Somalis are staying very close to the Volodarskiy. Do you think Mina or Nicholas told them about the guns?”
“Anything is possible,” the Turk said. “There are many effective ways of extracting information. I can think of a number of very interesting ones that would produce all the information you wished.”
“How fast are we going now?”
The Turk glanced at the bank of navigation equipment. “I have the old diesels chugging. We’re almost at thirty knots.”
“That should be enough. The pirate ship looks to be going sixteen max.”
The two of them sat back to watch the horizon through binoculars, waiting and hoping to sight the pirate ship.
“Is the smaller skiff ready?” Maksim asked as the old diesel engines thundered away below deck.
“I’ll go down and put a tank of gas into the boat for the outboard.”
“Load up that grenade launcher while you’re at it,” Maxim said. “We might need the extra fire power.”
“You’re right. I’ll search for more ammo in the storage lockers.”
“You do that. Something tells me this is going to be a hell of a fight.”
* * * *
Mina threw her arm around Sugar. “I can’t believe your sister likes that man.”
“She’s always liked black men. She says they know how to do things white men don’t.”
Alex leaned over Mina’s shoulder. “I’ve heard they don’t like oral sex.”
“Few men do,” Mina said. “They’re too self-centered when it comes to making love. It’s all about them. And only another woman can truly understand the complexities of a woman’s sex organs.” She squeezed Sugar and kissed her. “Isn’t that right?”
“I guess so. I just don’t like men. They frighten me. Their desire scares the living shit out of me, not to mention their dicks. Did you see Taban’s thing? Oh…my…god, it was enormous. I thought I was going to die.”
“I thought it was gorgeous,” Lyle interjected. “So big, so long, so hard.”
Nicholas lightly slapped Lyle’s naked rear. “I do not permit you to ever look at that man’s organ again, Lyle.”
Lyle cooed. “Ooooh, look who’s jealous. Well, you have nothing to be ashamed of, dear one. You are hung!”
The three women, Lyle and Nicholas sat crowded together on the bunks in a small cabin, talking and relaxing after days of terror. When the ship’s horn suddenly blasted, Nicholas leaped to his feet.
“Something’s wrong.”
The door flew open. “Captain wants you in the hold. Now.”
Alex stood up. “No matter what’s going on out there, we’ll stay here. I can’t go in the hold. I get terribly seasick.”
The big Somali looked confused. “Captain, he say take you folks down and put you with them other slaves. I got to do what he say.”
Alex grabbed his hand. “We’ll be fine here. Lock us inside. What could possibly happen?”
Chapter 20
“I’m so sorry, missy, but I do what Captain tells me because I want to live.” The pirate hustled all of them out of the room and down a set of ladders to the main deck.
The pirates raced back and forth across the deck like chickens with their heads cut off. As armed men sped to the rail and began firing out to sea, their Somali guard urged them to hurry.
“Please, it is very dangerous for you up here. You must go into the hold where you will be safe.”
Alex felt the fear of going into the belly of the ship like a fire in her gut. When she saw the pitch-black hatch leading down into the hold, she stopped and turned to her captor. “I can’t go down there. Please don’t make me.”
Reeling, her hand on her head, she dropped to her knees and threw up all over the Somali’s black athletic shoes.
While she was vomiting, she heard a strange whining, a noise like the air being torn apart, and something wet splattered her back. When she looked up, the Somali’s head was missing, his neck a smoking ruin.
“Get down!” Nicholas grabbed her and mashed her into the deck as a huge explosion rocked the ship. The pirate’s body slowly collapsed on top of them.
More explosions hammered the small freighter. Nicholas made them all get up, shoving the pirate’s body to the side. “Hurry,” he urged, grabbing Lyle’s hand and pushing Mina, Alex and Sugar in front of him.
“We need to be in the stern.”
They ran to the back of the boat, bare feet slapping on the hot steel deck. The sun beat down on them. When Alex looked at the sky, it seemed to be early afternoon. The sea was shiny gray and the sky a washed-out blue. The sun blazed down on the ship, turning it into an inferno.
When they reached the stern, Nicholas started searching the deck. “This looks like an old tuna processing boat. I’ve been on one before. There should be a hold back here for storing ice and fish. We can hide there.”
Alex ran to the rail. “Look, the Volodarskiy is coming after us.”
Nicholas pushed her aside just as a burst of flames erupted from the Russian ship. “Duck!” he yelled.
They all fell to the deck. Sugar screamed as another missile shrieked across the stern and hit the bridge. The entire structure exploded. Alex looked up in time to see men on fire running out of it. She covered her eyes and moaned. “I hope Candy wasn’t in there.”
Crawling on her belly, Alex slid to the rail, pulled herself to the top and peeked over. “There’s a battleship coming up. And some little boats.” She thought she saw someone familiar in a speed boat racing along beside the ship, leaned further over the rail and screamed. “Oh my God it’s Baine and Antonio.”
Alex leaped to her feet and waved frantically. “Baine we’re here, save us, please.”
Lyle grabbed her pants and pulled her to the deck. “Stay out of sight, Alexandra. Do you have a death wish? They’re shooting at us, darling. Get a clue.”
Alex huddled on the deck with her face next to Lyle’s. “Lyle, I saw Baine and Antonio on one of those speed boats. They’ve come to save me.”
“Who?”
“Remember, US Marshal Baine Tenbrook? He’s with Antonio Salazar, the owner of the Backstreet bar.”
Lyle’s eyes flew open. “They’re here?”
She nodded, her heart dancing with joy. “Yes. They’ve come for us. We’re saved.”
Nicholas crawled to a raised section of the deck, lifted a hatch and stared down. “I found it,” he hissed. “This is the ice room. Come on, everybody in.”
Alex scrambled across the deck with the rest of them. When she looked into the hold, it seemed dark as death. As she hesitated, something large exploded behind them. Alex scrabbled back to the rail and looked. “The Volodarskiy just took a hit from the battleship,” she reported. “It’s on fire and slowing down.”
“Alex, please darling, come down here where you’ll be safe,” Lyle begged her.
She looked at him. The rest of the group had already dropped into the stinking hold. Sugar had Mina, Lyle had Nicholas. She was the odd one out. “You go. I’ll stay and keep lookout.”
Lyle hovered over the open hatch. “Well, if that’s what you want, Alex, stay on deck, but promise you’ll come down if things get any worse.”
/> Alex smiled and waved. “Yes, of course, I promise. Now, go on. I’ll be fine.”
She pulled herself back up to the top of the rail and stared at the sea. The battleship was closing in on the Russian ship. The constant vibration of the engines under her suddenly stopped, and the vessel began to slow and drift. She saw a small boat drop into the water on the far side of the Volodarskiy and two men slide down ropes into it. She knew who they were, the Russian and his lieutenant.
The small boat left the Russian ship and sped toward the pirate vessel. When they got close enough, she saw the Turk piloting the skiff and the Russian brandishing a huge gun. As she watched, the Russian fired it, sending a missile hammering toward the speed boats. It landed short, exploding harmlessly in the water.
Alex dropped to the deck and leaned her back against the rail. The pirates had two small boats in the water. The Russian was speeding toward them along with the battleship and two other speed boats, one with Baine and Antonio in it. It looked like they were all getting ready to meet. Her heart hammered so fast she was terrified she would have a coronary. She was nauseated with fear for herself and for Baine and Antonio. If anything happened to them, she’d never get away. Either the Russians or the pirates would take the slaves and run.
She heard the chatter of automatic weapon fire and moved back into position to watch. Holding her breath, she prayed for Baine and Antonio’s safety. Please God, don’t let them die.
The battleship opened fire on the Russians’ small boat. The pirates were shooting at everything. Baine and Antonio stood up in their speed boat and fired at the pirates. The Russians shot a missile at the battleship. It landed on deck and exploded. Flames erupted from the bow area.
“Kill the Russians,” she shouted over the noise of the explosion, the wind and gun fire. She knew no one could hear her. It was just frustrating to watch and not be able to help.
She saw the Russian lift his big gun again. This time he aimed it at the speed boats and the pirates. Alex sucked in a huge lungful of air and stopped breathing. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene below.
The Secret, the Shifter and the Sex- Slave Shanghai Page 13
