Not Just an Echo (Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Book 3)

by Danielle Stewart

  “This way please,” a woman dressed in the cruise ship uniform said loudly as she waved her arms animatedly. “I’m Christina. I’ll need you all to assemble here and get comfortable.”

  “It’s hot,” a hefty man whose shirt didn’t completely cover his stomach grumbled. Sweat ringed his neck; his skin glowed red from the heat. “We need shade.”

  “As you can see,” Christina answered curtly, “there are no shade structures here on the shoreline. I encourage you all to use what you have to cover your heads and sit calmly to conserve your energy and stay as cool as possible. The crew is gathering supplies from the ship, and we expect them soon. We will then hand them out in an orderly fashion. ”

  “Like what?” the man asked, looking hopeful. “What will they bring?”

  “Some bottled water, prepackaged snacks, and sunscreen. The waves are quite high right now, and we aren’t able to make too many safe trips back and forth on the lifeboats at the moment. They will get what they can while staying safe.”

  “That’s it?” he barked, his nostrils flaring. “There’s plenty on there. Why not bring it? All that food will just go to waste, and we’ll be sitting here eating chips when you’ve got all that food I already paid for sitting there.”

  “It’s like putting the good cheese in the mouse trap,” a thin man, standing with his arms crossed muttered just loud enough for everyone in the group to hear. People were cloistered together, breaking off in different little cliques, drawn to each other for no clear reason. The man with a pompous glare didn’t seem to be fitting anywhere. “Except we’re the ones that’ll get our necks snapped when the trap closes. If we bring all the supplies from the ship, it’ll just draw the pirates quicker.” His mouth lifted in a devious little smile as people clamored with worry and held each other tighter.

  “There are no pirates.” A little girl laughed and rolled her eyes as if the man were being silly. “That’s just in stories. In books.”

  “You’re right,” her mom whispered, pulling her in close and kissing her hair. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “A little blonde girl goes for a fortune,” the smiling man ground out in a low voice. There was something viscerally repulsive about him, but Cosette couldn’t figure it out exactly. Just that he seemed like the kind of man that got joy from making others suffer. “She’s worth more here than any bottled water that might come off the ship.”

  “Stop,” the mother demanded, pulling her daughter’s head to her chest and covering her ears. “You’re a monster.”

  “No sweetheart,” he chuckled, “but you’re being watched by real monsters right now.” He pointed out to the tree line where birds were scattering upwards suddenly and squawking their ominous warnings.

  “Back off,” Michael ordered, a hand on the man’s skinny chest, moving him backward with no effort. There would be no contest if he decided to silence this puny excuse for a man. Clearly knowing that, he backed a few more steps and threw his hands up disarmingly, like the warning arms that pop up after a train crosses and you know the danger is gone.

  Aiden moved in close to the girl, and Cosette was sure he’d be the first to give the terrified mother some much needed reassurance. He reached into his back and pulled out a baseball hat. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I’m Pauline, this is Marie,” the mother explained, her eyes dancing with worry as she stared out into the woods.

  “Pauline. I’m Aiden. I want you to pull Marie’s hair up and tuck it into the hat,” he instructed quietly. “Did you bring any other clothes with you?”

  “Uh,” Pauline stuttered, her eyes darting to her tiny bag. “No. I didn’t have time to take anything else.”

  “Ma’am,” Aiden called to a woman with two boys playing in the sand at her feet. “Do you have any other clothes with you?”

  The woman spun her hair up into a ponytail, trying to escape the heat settling on her neck and then grabbed her backpack. “Just their swim shirts,” she said fishing them out and holding them up. One was blue with a shark on it. The other was purple with an octopus.

  “Would you mind if Marie put this on?” Aiden asked, pointing to the blue one.

  “Why?” the woman asked, recoiling some and clutching the swim shirt tighter. “My boys will need it if they go swimming.”

  “It’s better if she doesn’t look like a little girl here,” Aiden said, his gaze locked on the mother, trying to get her to understand without having to elaborate more. When she didn’t make a move he was forced to continue. “That shirt can make her safer. We need to watch out for one another here. The boys won’t be swimming right now.”

  “Oh,” the mother said, swallowing hard and looking down at her boys with a wordless gratitude for the good fortune they were born male. “Yes,” she nodded. “Of course. Here put it on. I have some shorts too. I forgot they were in here. Is she about a size six?”

  “Yes,” Pauline replied, wiping a stray tear away.

  “I don’t want to,” Marie protested. “That’s boy clothes.”

  “Have you ever seen Mulan?” Jules smiled brightly, interjecting herself into the chaos.

  “Yes,” the girl edged out tentatively, still standing too rigid for her mother to get the clothes over her head.

  “She’s a princess, right? But she dressed like a boy. She was so strong. I think she is my favorite. How about you?” Jules continued to talk as the mother capitalized on the distraction and dressed the girl who had softened her arms enough to be moved.

  “I like them all,” she replied with wide eyes as though she’d just met a kindred soul who’d become a lifelong friend.

  “What about security on the ship?” Michael asked Clay and Aiden in a hushed tone. Cosette was fighting tears as she listened to bits and pieces of everything going on around her. They’d said be alert, but the thudding of her heart made that hard.

  “I can’t believe we didn’t look into this before taking this damn cruise,” Clay chastised himself as he kicked around some sand. “I have no clue. There are thousands of people on the ship. They’ve got to have security.”

  Aiden shrugged and shook his head. “I’m sure they have a drunk tank for passengers that have too much. But they probably rely mostly on the security cameras. It felt like there was one every few feet.”

  “You people need to start listening to me when I talk,” Jules scolded as she grabbed Michael by the arm and moved them all a few feet away.

  Betty rolled her eyes. “It’s one of those things, girl. If you talk all the time, we can’t tell what’s important and what’s your grocery list.”

  “On the plane I told you all I’d read a lot about crime on cruises and how it’s handled. I’m a worrywart mom. You know I would have read the worst case scenarios and continued to worry about them for an inordinate amount of time. Nearly to the point of taking all the fun out of the trip. Gosh, it’s like you people don’t know me at all.”

  “In my defense,” Aiden interjected, “I don’t know you. And second, did this make your list of worst case scenarios?” he asked, gesturing around them at their current predicament.

  “It did not,” she conceded. “But I did research crime rates on ships, how they’re handled and what kind of security they have. I basically wanted to see how long it would take my mother to break some law and end up in a padded room in the belly of the ship.”

  “I am law-abiding citizen,” Betty protested, looking insulted. “Watch your tongue.”

  “I’ve seen you eat candy straight out of the bulk bin at the grocery store,” Michael reminded her.

  Betty’s looked fully insulted now. “They want you to do that. It keeps your blood sugar in check while you shop.” Betty folded her arms as a halo from the rising sun filled the sky behind her.

  “And that time you threatened a police officer?” Jules reminded her.

  “He stepped on my roses like some kind of animal,” Betty defended. “Badge or not those are prize winning roses not a door mat.”r />
  “So what did you read?” Aiden asked, and Cosette gave him credit for trying not to sound impatient. In any other scenario it was obvious this group would be enormously fun to spend time with. Their love for each other was written between the lines of every joke. But right now, Aiden seemed to have no time for such things.

  “Crime on cruise ships is a fairly low percentage. They have more issues at some ports, and they rely on security based there to help. On the ship they usually only have a small security team of five or six people. I couldn’t find out what our cruise line specifically employs but most did about the same thing.”

  “Even with all these passengers?” Clay asked, gesturing to the enormous crowd on the beach. “That can’t be right.”

  Jules shrugged as though she were just the messenger. “They have so little to police. People are here to relax and have fun. If you apply the crimes they do have against the amount of passengers who cruise each year, it’s a small percentage.”

  “Can we get down to brass tacks here?” Betty asked. “These security guys, even if there are just a few, do they have guns?”

  “Most don’t,” Jules reported solemnly. “I read they have some of those guns that shoot sonar or something. I don’t know what they are, but they like stun people. They try to keep regular guns off the ships.”

  “DEWs. Directed Energy Weapons,” Aiden said, then looked like he immediately regretted how quickly he summoned the knowledge. Cosette wasn’t a fool. Aiden clearly had lied about being an accountant. And right now, she was glad that was a lie.

  “Will that help us? DEWs?” Jules asked, looking at the small girl, who was now camouflaged by boy clothes.

  Aiden didn’t look very confident. “If they have large sonar options on the ship, it’s set up for anti-pirating. It keeps small boats from being able to approach.”

  “We’re not on the ship,” Betty sighed.

  “Right,” Aiden agreed. “And I think they made the right choice there.” He pointed over at the ship that was a few hundred yards out. It had lurched over to the side as smoke continued to billow. The blackness of the plumes was starkly contrasted by the bright blue cloudless sky. “It could capsize if the hull was compromised enough by the fire and is taking on water now.”

  “Over here please,” Christina, the crew member, instructed the last batch of lifeboat arrivals.

  “We need to find someone in charge,” Michael said, his eyes raking the ever growing crowd. “I want to know when the rescue ship or Coast Guard will arrive. You three should be in line to get on as soon as possible. We need answers.”

  A loud boom rattled the sand under Cosette’s feet, sending a flutter up to her chest. “What was that?” The crowd seemed to collectively call out, people clinging to each other.

  “Was it the ship?” Jules asked, the noise seeming to come in around them from every direction, impossible to pinpoint as it echoed off the mountains behind them.

  “It must have been,” Clay said quickly. “The ship is full of fuel and other chemicals that would react to fire. The good news is it looks like they’ve been successful in evacuating everyone. I don’t see any lifeboats heading in.”

  The small coastline was full of faces, squinting under the glare of the hot rising sun, furrowing under the weight of worry. It looked like every available square foot of sand for nearly a mile was filled with the one of the over four thousand passengers and crew members.

  Another loud bang rang out, and this time, perhaps because they were all listening more closely, it was clear where it originated. From the thick jungle vegetation behind them, a plume of smoke began to rise.

  “If I do something right now,” Aiden asked, “something completely off script, are you with me?” His eyes moved over the five of them. “I’m not an accountant,” he explained.

  “No kidding, Sugar,” Betty scoffed. “If you’re an accountant, I’m a zookeeper, and these hands were made for biscuit cutting not shoveling elephant shit. So what are your hands made for?”

  A look of what Cosette read as guilt rose and then slid off Aiden’s face. “I’m made for this,” he explained, though it was hardly an explanation at all. “My gut says any minute a group of militant extremists, the same ones who overthrew the government here, will emerge from that forest. Depending on their motives, they’ll snag what they think are the most profitable targets for ransom. If they’re not bloodthirsty, it’ll be the men, the affluent looking ones.”

  “If they are bloodthirsty?” Cosette asked, instinctively raising her hand to her throat to cover it.

  “It’ll be the women and the children they’ll grab. Or maybe they’ll just come out firing. But their goal is their presidential coup will be established as a power player in the world. They’ve seen these cruise ships buy up ports like Torrella Bay and turn them into million-dollar profit machines while the people less than two miles away starve to death. They don’t want blood; they want a deal. They want a bigger piece of the pie, and they think we might be leverage for that.”

  “That’s a big gamble,” Michael said, his eyes fixed on the tree line where the smoke was pouring upward. “I’m not going to sit back and let them take my wife, no matter what their motivation is.” His hands were clenched into fists and his jaw set in anger.

  “Me either,” Clay announced. “There’s power in numbers. There’s plenty of able-bodied men here.”

  “Able-bodied sure,” Aiden stated flatly. “Are they bulletproof? Are you?”

  Chapter 8

  Aiden had always worked alone. He wasn’t prepared to have to move with five other people, most of who had little or no training and hardly any supplies. But the choices were getting smaller by the second. The fuse to this situation had been lit and with every passing minute the flame grew closer to the explosives.

  “It’s about forty miles from here to the security that patrols the border of Torrella Bay. If we can get there we’d stand a better chance. The militants haven’t ever tried to attack that security. They have weapons but the security they’d face there would be far more skilled and prepared. We could make a break back for a lifeboat, but that sea is still too choppy. A capsized lifeboat is more dangerous than trekking to Torrella Bay.”

  “Forty miles through hostile territory with no supplies?” Michael asked. “I’m a former Marine, but Betty . . .”

  “Boy,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “do you know how many agonizing hours I spent in labor? If you want to make a case for being tougher than me, you’ll lose.”

  “Is it safe?” Cosette asked, and the tug on his heart was so strong it pulled a piece clear off him. The job he’d taken was with the promise that it would always just be him. No more team. No more men to lose. He was a ghost and that’s what made all of this work. Knowing what he was about to pull these people into made his gut tie into knots.

  “No,” he replied honestly. “It’s not safe. Nothing right now is. But I think we’re sitting ducks here. There is next to no security. The explosions you’re hearing are only a hundred or so yards away and they’re sending a message. They are telling us they have fire power. They’re testing the response. And frankly, we don’t have one. Once they realize there’s no one running to the explosion with guns drawn, they’ll understand how vulnerable we are. If we go there,” he said, pointing to a small hill of rocks, “and we get a better vantage point maybe we can decide if the forty miles is plausible. At least we won’t be sitting here, waiting to be picked off.”

  “What about all these other people?” Jules asked, again her eyes settling on the children.

  “I don’t know,” Aiden admitted. “They wouldn’t all be able to make it to the other side of the island in these conditions. The best shot they have is the Coast Guard or the rescue ship arriving quickly.”

  “Look,” someone in the crowd pointed to the sky over the cruise ship, which was listing even farther to the side. “The Coast Guard.”

  An orange and white helicopter was barreling toward t
he shore, like a knight on his trusty steed. “Oh thank goodness,” Jules sang out. “Will they land?”

  “I don’t know what the protocol would be in this situation,” Aiden explained. “They could drop some supplies, and if anyone was critically injured, they could evacuate them. Other than that they can’t do much until more of them arrive. A familiar whistle stole the air from Aiden’s lungs as he yelled, “Get down!”

  “RPG,” Michael said, pulling Jules down as the aerodynamic flying grenade sailed up, a trail of smoke in its wake. It missed the Coast Guard helicopter by over twenty feet, hitting instead an empty lifeboat that had been tethered out at sea.

  The sand exploded with shrieks and bodies bashing into each other. People ran toward the water, instinctively fleeing where the weapon had been fired from. It was human nature, but Aiden knew it was misguided. They were running headlong into waves, children in their arms as they fought to reach the lifeboats. The sea was still at risk of capsizing the lifeboats, and now the militants had proven they had weapons that could reach them.

  The Coast Guard helicopter banked quickly to the left, drew back a few hundred feet, then held its position. Aiden could only imagine what the on-board crew was thinking. There were thousands of people here, swimming for their lives, trying to get through rough surf and climb aboard small lifeboats that would be hard pressed to stay upright in the storm’s residual rough seas.

  “Should we go to the boats?” Cosette asked frantically. “Everyone is getting back on.”

  Looking on in horror, Betty let out a tiny cry. “Not everyone. Those people are pulling up the anchors before the boats are full. They’ll leave so many people behind.”