by Dale Mayer
As far as he was concerned, you take out the top dog, and the men below became rudderless. Then he might make a trip to Dubai and take care of a certain doctor all on his own. If they could get him to England, well, Jax would enlist all the help he could get to make sure that asshole doctor went down for as much of this murder plot as could be laid at his feet. Obviously this guy hadn’t changed his colors just because he’d left the country.
As Jax watched, the boss man shook his head, and a heavy discussion ensued. And, not for the first time, Jax wished he spoke Arabic.
By the time the discussion was over, the gunman in blue lowered the rifle against Abby and said, “You will come with us.”
She smiled at him gently and said, “No, I won’t.”
One of the pirates grabbed her and tugged her toward the doorway. Jax lifted his handgun and put a bullet between his eyes. She immediately dropped to the ground, and the other gunman in blue hit the ground too, dead now, courtesy of Beau’s bullet. But the pirate in blue got one shot off before he died, or maybe a reflex action happened as the bullet hit him. Either way, his stray bullet hit the pirate they had just questioned.
Now, with both Beau and Jax holding weapons on the leader, the big boss glared at them and spat, “And now what? You’ll shoot me too?”
“None of you would’ve died,” Abby said, bouncing to her feet, “if you’d just let me go.”
He shook his head. “Then we would be dead when we go home. A bullet is much faster.”
“Go home and tell the father that I’ll meet him and the boy at the hospital in London,” she said quietly. “The boy doesn’t deserve this. The father does. But the boy doesn’t.”
The boss man looked at her in surprise.
She nodded. “You get every last man of yours off this ship right now, and I will meet the little boy in England. And, if there are any more attempts made on my life or the lives of the men with me or the lives of these passengers, that little boy doesn’t get a chance in hell.”
His face darkened at her threat.
She shook her head. “No. You’ve threatened thousands of lives here,” she snapped. “No more games. I’m happy to use my medical expertise to help the boy. If I can. No guarantees, no miracles. But, if there’s anything I can do to help, I will. But I’m not willing to go back and deal with Dr. Windberg. He’s a criminal. He’s a sadist, and he’s a rapist of women. And I will have nothing to do with him.”
At her words, he stiffened. “I must tell my boss.”
“Why don’t you let me speak to him?”
He frowned. His phone was still in his hand. He hit Dial, spoke into it, and then handed it over.
“This is Dr. Abigail Eleanor,” she said crisply. “I’m sending all your men home. If you want me to consult on your son’s medical problem, I’ll meet him at the London hospital of my choosing on Tuesday afternoon, UK time, to allow for time zone differences and travel arrangements to be made. But Dr. Windberg is not to be anywhere around me. He’s a rapist, not allowed in the States. And I will be happy to inform MI6 of this as well. So, if you make any more attempts on my life or anybody on this cruise liner or anybody in my vicinity, I’ll make sure your son doesn’t ever take another breath.”
And she hung up. She tossed the pirate his phone and said, “Now gather your men and leave.”
He looked down at the three in this area, all visibly dead, and looked at the two men standing behind her and said, “You might as well just throw them overboard. I can’t take them off here.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Is that how you look after your dead?”
He shrugged. “They were hired men. It’s the way of the world.”
“Don’t they have families?”
“Yes, but I don’t know who they are.”
“Give me an address in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “Preferably Dubai, where we can deliver the corpses.”
He frowned, pulled out his phone, brought up something, and held up the address for her. She took a photo of it. When she was done, he asked, “Why would you do that?”
“Well, I could say something nasty, like we don’t want corpses floating in our seas or rotting on our lands,” she said. “But the fact of the matter is, their bodies should be disposed of with dignity. They fought on the wrong side. They took money for a job that had no semblance of goodwill behind it. Yet, I can’t find myself capable of throwing them overboard.”
“Talk to the men behind you,” he said with a half-smile. “They’d have no problem doing so.”
“No. These are honorable men who do the right thing, even for pirates who attacked this ship,” she said steadily. “My current concern is that you and anybody left alive of your crew immediately retreat and stop this senseless killing.”
He stood, looked at her and at his men on the floor, and said, “Depending on how many you’ve taken out, there is likely only me left.”
“You’ve got a five-minute head start then,” Jax said in a hard voice behind her. “And then I’m coming after you.”
He shot him a baleful look, and, in the next second, he was gone.
Abby slowly turned to him and said, “Jesus, is this over yet?”
“No,” he said, walking forward gently. He put his arms around her, tucked her up close, and said, “Are you sure about Tuesday? Given it’s already Saturday, and we have yet to properly dispose of the bodies, plus our travel time, and the loss of hours due to the time zone change …”
She nodded. “I am sure. But we must make sure that the captain and all the rest of the crew are okay, and maybe we can get some normality returned here.” She looked at the two men. “And we must collect all the dead men before we leave.”
Jax pulled out his phone, checked for the number he needed, hit Dial, and, as soon as Griffin came on, he said, “Patch me through to the cruise ship captain.”
Griffin gave a half a snort and said, “Hang on.”
A new voice was on the other end. “Who is this?” asked a man, anger and frustration in his voice.
“I’m Jax Darrum,” Jax said. “I’m on your cruise ship, and we’ve taken charge, taking out twenty-two pirates. One more pirate is leaving the ship intact, of his own free will, but we need to store a lot of bodies until we can get them moved off.”
“Who are you?” asked the captain in a disbelieving tone. “And how many of you are there?”
“We are special ops. There are two of us,” Jax said calmly, adding in their suite number. “Where do you want the bodies?”
“In the kitchen cooler,” he said. “I don’t know what else to do. We don’t exactly have a morgue on board.”
“But you have a medical bay, right?”
“Yes,” he said, “but only as a temporary holding area to make arrangements to unload bodies. And then it is only designed to hold one or two.”
“I think I can help with that,” he said. “But we need some strong men to give us a hand.”
“They’ll be right there.”
His phone went dead. He turned, looked at Abby, and smiled. “The captain is sending some men down.”
“And do we believe him? Do we trust him? Is there any chance that he’s involved?”
Jax’s eyebrows popped up. “Wow, you’ve become such an untrusting soul.”
She snorted. “I was never very trusting to begin with. And that asshole doctor went a long way to making my life miserable. I don’t trust anything he’s mixed up in.”
“In that case,” Beau said, “why are you meeting these guys in London? You can’t confirm the boy is ill.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Because it’s what I do. I’m known for being a specialist in blood diseases.”
Jax nodded. “Which explains why they went to such great lengths to get you.”
“It doesn’t mean they’ll still meet me in London though,” she said quietly. “Or that England will allow us all in.”
“We’ll set that up too, but with added security.”
She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Okay. It’s my job, when I get there, to see the boy. It’s your job to get me there safe and sound and to keep everybody else safe while it’s happening,” she said cheerfully. He just stared at her. She shrugged. “I know you like a challenge.”
Jax shook his head. “There are challenges, and then there are suicide missions. What you just did a few minutes ago? Now that was a suicide mission.”
“Like the guy said,” she said, the fatigue showing up in her voice now, “a bullet is faster than what that doctor would have had me suffer through.”
“Is he really that twisted?” Beau asked.
She nodded. “He’s really that twisted.”
Chapter 8
As soon as the call was done, she looked at Jax and said, “What do I do now?”
“Well, it’ll be a bit of a clean-up mess,” he said. “We’ll collect all the bodies, and then the captain will make an announcement to all aboard the ship.”
“Well, the captain is right here,” said a man in a white uniform. He looked at Jax, looked at Beau, and then at her. “I presume you’re the doctor for whom everybody was hunting?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no idea this was even going on.”
“Well, I’m not sure who these gentlemen with you are, but I’m glad it’s all over.” He held out his hand to the two men. “You have my thanks.”
Both men nodded, and shook his hand, then Jax asked, “Did you bring us some men?”
He nodded.
Jax stepped out to see six men in the hallway and said, “I need three with me and three with Beau to collect the bodies and prisoners.”
“Any idea how many?”
Jax looked at the captain and said, “Twenty-two pirates and four passengers, I believe.”
The captain winced and said, “Obviously this has been a very lucky day for the rest of us.”
“In some cases, yes,” Jax said.
The captain looked at Jax and said, “Before I make an announcement to the passengers, I’ll give you an hour to collect and move the bodies. I don’t want the passengers to see all this carnage.”
“We’ve stashed the pirates’ weapons into multiple places as well.”
Abby groaned. “I forgot all about those. A whole arsenal is in the women’s washroom several floors down.” The captain raised his eyebrows, and she shrugged. “We had to take them off those who we took out, just in case.”
Jax turned to the captain, nudging Abby closer. “I ask that you keep her with you up in your cabin. We think we have every hostile accounted for, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
The captain immediately nodded and motioned to her. “Come. Follow me. Let these men do their job.”
She turned to look back at Jax and said, “And remember they may not all be dead.”
He smiled and said, “Not your problem, Doc.”
She gave him a good frown and said, “Why is that?”
“Because a medical facility is on board, and it’s fully staffed,” he said gently. “You’re off duty until Tuesday.”
Abby paused, nodded, and said, “Sounds good.”
Jax separated the men off, three of them handling the three dead just in this room, and said, “Two teams, let’s go downstairs.”
And they were off.
And Abby turned and followed the captain up to his quarters, which he pointed out to her, and then took Abby to the top deck to take a look at what was happening there. Several men bounced to attention when they saw the captain, and then they looked at her. Their eyebrows popped up, and she smiled and introduced herself. Then she added, “The ship is safe now.”
At that, the sighs of relief were visible across their faces.
“Seriously?” asked one of the men.
The captain said, “Yes, we believe so. There’s a chance that we’re still missing one, but we have several teams now heading off and gathering up the bodies and the weapons that have been sprawled across our ship. We’re giving them an hour. Then we’ll do a full announcement and get the ship back to normal.”
“Wow.” The men sat down and looked at each other, with expressions somewhere between relief and fear. The anxiety had taken its toll.
Abby looked at the captain and said, “I’m not sure where your supplies are, but I’m pretty sure everybody will benefit from good food and maybe some free booze to help lighten their souls.”
He snorted. “That’ll be the least of our problems. Obviously we’ll do something in order to make this memory a whole lot easier on our guests. But the cruise company will decide how to handle that from here on in.”
She nodded. “And I’ll need a place to crash soon too. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I’m afraid I’m more than slightly exhausted.”
He nodded in understanding. “You can have my quarters in my office. A couch is in there.”
She smiled and thanked him and said, “We’ll wait until this is all over with, and then maybe I’ll sleep.”
“Can you tell us anything about what happened?” asked one of the men beside her.
She shrugged. “Apparently a man in Dubai is a relative to one of the sheikhs,” she said with a bit of an eye roll. “His son is quite sick, and his doctor said they needed me and my services to save the son.”
There was silence for a moment. “Why you?” asked another of the men hesitantly.
She gave him a cheeky grin and said, “You know what? That’s a very good question, but I think it’s because the other doctor knows me.” And she left it at that. But the men appeared to be in much better spirits, and, when coffee was finally delivered, and a bottle of whiskey was brought out, everybody enjoyed a shot as they cheered on having their lives back again.
By the time all the pirates had been collected, apparently all of them dead now, she was beyond exhausted. The captain had given her his office and a couch to lie down on. The captain stayed and worked, but then, as if realizing he was disturbing her, he’d gotten up. She protested and said that, as far as she was concerned, he could stay. She didn’t really want to be alone. But he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You obviously need sleep. I don’t want to impact that. And you aren’t alone as we will be in shouting distance. It’s been a very harrowing day for all of us.”
“As soon as Jax gets back,” she said, “I want to know.”
“I’ll send him in when he returns,” the captain said. And, with a smile, he turned and walked out.
Jax hated to wake her. Even though it was hours later, she was bound to be exhausted, but they had lots more traveling to come. He could give her another hour, but that was it. He’d already arranged with the captain for an airlift off the cruise liner for the three of them, but they had to get a little closer to shore first. That rendezvous would take place in just over an hour. An hour and fifteen, according to his watch. The local coast guard had already arrived to remove the weapons and the bodies. Jax, Beau, and Abby had all given their statements to the captain, who shared them with the coast guard, who would then share them again at the request of any other authorities. So at least she’d already taken care of that ordeal.
From here, they would head to the mainland via the airlift, should arrive midafternoon or later, and, with any luck, would be at the international airport soon enough to grab the last Saturday afternoon jet to England. He was hoping to get her to a hotel soon enough so that they could crash, handle any jet lag, and get some real sleep tonight—before they set up the security details with the hospital and with MI6 for the upcoming meeting.
MI6 had been flabbergasted that she even wanted to meet with the father and son duo and hadn’t been impressed that she had chosen their home turf for such a meeting. However, when Jax had explained who this doctor to a well-known Arab family was and why Abby thought maybe Dr. Windberg would be allowed into the hospital, they perked up and said, “We have a big, thick file on him.”
“Why?” Jax asked.
“Various issue
s,” they said but wouldn’t elaborate.
Jax frowned on that. He’d asked Griffin to get more information on this Dr. Windberg as well. Jax wouldn’t go into anything blind, and no way would he let Abby go into this blind.
Finally it was time to wake her. He walked into the captain’s room, and, as soon as he opened the door and stepped in, immediately Abby opened her eyes and looked at him bleary-eyed.
He smiled and said, “You’ve got about five minutes to wake up. Then we’ll start the first leg of our journey to England.”
She groaned. “Fine. Can’t say I’m thrilled though.”
He reached out a hand, and she stood slowly and then winced.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, just sore,” she said. “Involved in a lot of activities I wasn’t used to lately.”
“To be expected,” he said. “If nothing else, the stress can cause your body to lock into different positions. But we need to go, and we aren’t stopping until we hit London. And it’ll be late Sunday when we do. So let’s go grab your personal belongings and get started.”
And he meant it. They made their Saturday late-afternoon flight—luckily—and settled in for a long seventeen-hour transatlantic flight. Then, allowing for the time zone differences, it was now nine p.m., Sunday evening, as they finally reached their hotel in London just a few blocks away from the designated hospital. Jax led her through the numbered hotel door and said, “This is your room.”
She spun around to look at him, her eyebrows shooting up. “You mean, I get some privacy?”
“Well, you get a little bit of it,” he said. “It’s a suite, and Beau and I’ll share the bedroom across the living room.”
She turned and nodded. “Okay. That makes more sense.” Then she sighed. “I just want to shower and crash. And I don’t want to sleep too long,” she said, yawning. “But I need enough to make it through the rest of the day.”
“It isn’t daytime anymore. We’re heading to bed. So, it’s either order food now or wait until morning.”
She thought about it and said, “How about I shower, and, in the meantime, you can order up something from room service? I’ll eat and then go to bed.”
