“What about you?” Chloe sounded worried. “What happens if you get caught?”
“I’ll handle it.” He turned toward Jonathan. “Do not, under any circumstances, let her do anything rash. That includes coming after me if the unthinkable happens. Just get her out of here. Got it?”
Jonathan frowned, but then his expression hardened. Like one soldier to another, he nodded his agreement. “I’ll get her to safety. But do me a favor and stay under the radar. She won’t be easy to persuade.”
“Why do you two talk like I’m not standing right here and can’t hear every word?” Chloe whispered harshly.
“Because,” Finn said quietly, “I can’t leave you without knowing someone has your back. It’s not negotiable, and we don’t have time to argue.” Hopefully that little revelation would slow her down enough to see her safely through this insane plan.
The trio fell silent. Distant shouts and the mechanical clang of equipment drifted through the trees, and Finn used the sound to center himself, to prepare for a small dose of guerilla warfare.
He handed his duffle bag to Jonathan, then hit the back glow on his watch. “Ten o’clock.” He glanced back at the compound before continuing. “Your best bet is to stick with the tree line all the way to the water. Move fast, but quiet, and stay alert.”
“We’ll do our part,” Jonathan said. “You just focus on what you have to do, and do it big. We’ll meet you at the ship.”
Chloe stepped up in front of him and stared him straight in the eyes. He waited for her to say something, but instead she shocked him near senseless as she lifted onto her toes and kissed him square on the lips.
“Please be careful,” she whispered.
* * * *
Chloe regretted it instantly. What was she thinking? Kissing him was impulsive, and she should’ve known better than to distract him right before he had to ignite a Fourth of July fireworks show. But he was so somber and serious. The thought of throwing him for a loop was strangely appealing. Too bad her timing sucked lemons. That man had the unnerving power to crush her better sense. She stared until he disappeared from sight.
“You’ve got a thing for the bounty hunter?”
Even at a whisper, her Uncle Jonathan’s voice sounded surprised. She didn’t blame him. Her quest for the emeralds consumed her every waking hour, and that focus rarely strayed. Needless to say, she didn’t date much. Now and then she’d meet a guy she liked enough to stick with for a time, but it never lasted long before they’d start complaining about her lack of attention.
Finnegan Kane, she couldn’t explain. It was an attraction that made no sense. She just met the guy, he rarely smiled, and his old-school alpha male attitude was annoying. She’d be better off ignoring his allure instead of kissing him.
“He’s…interesting.”
“Is that so?”
She didn’t want to talk about Finn right now. They needed to focus on not being discovered by pirates.
“Where did you meet him?”
“Port Authority’s office in St. Lucia.”
Her uncle used the binoculars Finn had left and scanned the grounds. He pointed to the left, and they started moving, keeping inside the tree line as Finn suggested. It made the going a little slower, but lessened the likelihood of being spotted as they made their way around toward the water. She refused to think of all the things that could go wrong because failure wasn’t an option. They simply had to succeed.
Chloe dodged a palm leaf and came to a sudden halt right behind her uncle. He quickly crouched down, and she followed suit.
A lone man stood fifty or so feet away. He was smoking, the red tip of the cigarette glowing in the dark as he puffed. He hadn’t heard them as he stared intently toward a small shed behind the big metal warehouse. She followed his line of sight. Through the dark, she could see a vague figure moving through a pile of derelict equipment and knew with certainty it was Finn.
The pirate had spotted him, too.
Alarm began to race through her bloodstream, along with a spike of adrenaline as the guy reached for a radio on his belt. Uncle Jon dropped the duffle bags, sprinted forward, and in one lithe jump, tackled the pirate. They rolled until her uncle landed on top, then a meaty thud sounded as her uncle’s fist collided with the other man’s jaw. The impact knocked him out cold.
Chloe jumped into action and snatched the radio. Silence. The guy hadn’t made contact. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hellfire, that hurt.” Jonathan shook out his hand. “I think I broke something.”
Chloe shot a quick look around to assure they hadn’t been discovered. All appeared quiet, but what were they going to do with this guy now? He was a liability they couldn’t afford.
Her uncle answered the question. “Help me drag him into the woods.” Together they pulled the unconscious man deeper into the shadowy forest.
“There’s duct tape in Finn’s bag,” her uncle said as he began patting down the guy’s pockets. First he found a gun, then a wicked-looking knife. A pack of cigarettes he tossed into the woods, but he pocketed the lighter.
Chloe fought against the sense of dread those weapons induced and grabbed the tape, pulled a strip, and ripped it with her teeth before slapping it over the guy’s mouth.
Together they finished trussing him up, taping his arms to his body and wrapping his ankles and knees. She grabbed handfuls of broken branches and forest debris, piling it over top of him, then sent up a quick prayer, begging God’s help to keep the guy out cold for a good long while.
They’d lost valuable time. She kept the radio, her uncle the pistol and knife, and they took off, moving faster now and aiming straight for the water. The going was rough. Foliage as thick and tangled as the Amazon jungle stretched all the way to the brackish shore. There was only a thin stretch of sandy beach, and they sprinted down the length before stopping just shy of the clearing.
So far so good. No alarms had sounded and all remained quiet. Uncle Jon broke out the binoculars again, studying their next move. With a flip of his hand, he signaled to move, and she followed. The going was easier, but it came with a price. They were running in the open, their black clothing the only cover until they reached a small shed on the outskirts. From there, progress went in short sprints, from the shed to a pile of broken and rusted equipment, to an old boat, until the pier loomed close in front of them.
“Where is everybody? In the dry dock?” she whispered. It looked all the world like they could just stroll down the pier undetected. It was long with a hard right at the end, like an upside down L. Five boats were moored, all of various sizes. The Emerald Fire was the crown jewel of the ill-gotten contraband. She floated proudly at the end of the pier, moonlight reflecting off her sleek lines and graceful hull.
An unsettling wave of apprehension filled Chloe. Guttural shouts from the men in the warehouse sounded callous and mean. They didn’t sound like men who’d take the stealing of their property lying down. The fact that they stole it first wouldn’t matter. This would be a doozy of a fight.
She scanned the perimeter, searching for any stray. There was nothing. No dog, squirrel, or pirate. It was almost eerie.
For a flashing moment, Chloe wondered how Finn was doing. She hoped he was creating a massive bonfire because there was no way they were going to politely sail away from this place. Especially if their victim was now awake and managed to get out of his bonds. The alarm could go off any minute.
They needed to get moving. There were fuel lines to cut and boats to disable before they even reached the Fire.
“You ready?” her uncle whispered.
Her heart had stopped beating when they’d trussed up the pirate, her nerves felt like sandpaper, and fear hovered just beneath the surface, threatening to explode. So, yeah, she was ready. “Let’s go.”
They began creeping toward the pier.
Chapter 8
Finn circled the storage building, then tried the fro
nt door. It was unlocked, and he shook his head, grateful for their lax security. A nearby yard light shone in through a small window at the back, barely enough glow to reveal the shed was a catchall. Sunburned buoys, old life vests, broken oars, stuff you’d expect hanging around a boat repair shop. But it was the fuel containers that he zeroed in on. Diesel, cans of propane, and welding oxygen tanks, things that made him smile in wicked delight.
He’d learned a lot of things in his naval spec-ops training. Mainly, that a life of one high-risk campaign after another wasn’t for him. Unlike his fellow soldiers, he didn’t thrive on life-threatening operations, adrenaline, and military deployment. He’d completed his assignments, and based on the multiple commendations, he was good at it. But he had never fully committed. And if you aren’t in it one hundred percent, you risk the lives of the men who served with you. So he got out.
The military training had stuck with him, however, and the detonation skills he picked up were about to come in real handy. He lifted each of the five-gallon jugs of diesel, gauging their level. Two were close to full, one less than half. It was enough. Finn set to work, piling the propane cans and oxygen tanks in the center of the floor. Next he raided the shelves for life-vests, shop rags, anything flammable, and created a ring around the fuel cells. He finished the job by splashing a liberal amount of diesel over the whole pile, dousing the wooden shelves and walls for good measure. Diesel burned slow. He would’ve preferred the more volatile gasoline, but then again, he needed a few minutes to get to the yacht before the explosion.
The last jug he used to pour a liberal trail out the door, going heavy on the doorframe. He wanted a double bang, so he scattered a line of dry tinder and oil-soaked rags toward an old Ford pick-up parked about ten feet from the shed, then splashed the truck and fuse line with the remaining fuel.
He twisted one of the dirty shop rags around a stick like a torch then soaked it in the diesel. He stood at the apex, one line to the shed, one to the truck and paused. This was it. Once he lit the torch, the advantage of surprise was over.
But it would go with one hell of a bang.
He hoped Chloe and Jonathan had made it to the yacht. Diesel might be slow burning, but he had a short fuse here. Once he dropped the torch, he figured he had three minutes tops before the flames reached the inside of the shed, maybe another five before the propane and oxygen turned into the Fourth of July.
He stood stock-still and listened to the camp. All was quiet, so he could only assume his partners were successful. Now it was his turn to pull through. It felt odd working as a team again. He hadn’t since he left the Navy, preferring to work alone. Two more souls to worry about drastically changed things.
So did stealing from pirates. He’d never done that before either, but wasn’t fool enough to believe they were going to get away with the Emerald Fire easily, even with a towering inferno for a diversion.
He pulled out a lighter. After one last glance around, Finn struck the flint and watched flames eat up his torch. One deep breath later, he dropped it onto the pile.
He waited, watching, making certain he had ignition. When the fire snaked its way to within a foot of the door, he took off.
Moving as fast as he dared, he dodged from one hiding spot to the next, aiming for the pier. A stack of old lumber sat a hundred feet or so from the start of the dock. Finn dashed behind it and took one last quick assessment. The array of boats at the pier ranged from small speedboats to larger cabin cruisers. Fast, but if Jonathan and Chloe cut fuel lines, they shouldn’t be a problem.
But then he looked beyond the dry dock and his heart sank. “Damn it to hell,” he cursed. Another, smaller pier sat farther down the shore with one vessel moored there. A cigarette boat. The long, racing lines and sleek hull spelled disaster. They’d never outrun a boat capable of eighty knots.
The good news was that a reassuring glow from the direction of the shed said his blaze was growing. Laughter drifted from the warehouse as the men inside worked. The Emerald Fire sat peacefully at the end of the pier, but no sign of Chloe or her uncle. They’d better be on board because they had less than a minute before liftoff.
Time to close the distance.
He turned to make a run for it, but stalled when someone stepped outside the warehouse and lit a cigarette. Finn ducked back behind the woodpile.
The smoker started to stroll toward the side of the building. If he rounded the corner he would no doubt spot the orange glow coming from the rear.
One…two…the shout went up. Men poured out of the warehouse, rounding the side of the building. More shouts erupted, and then Finn’s time bomb detonated. The force of the explosion reached him, hitting with a blast of wind that signaled a need to move. Finn took off at a dead run, hoping against hope that chaos would keep the pirates busy.
He’d made it halfway down the pier, legs pumping faster than a thoroughbred, when the diesel engines of the Emerald Fire rumbled to life. Finn had never heard a more beautiful sound.
Chloe was on deck frantically waving him on as the first bullet whizzed past his head. Two more shots followed, but then the second explosion hit. He raced the remaining distance as the Fire began moving away from the dock.
“Jump, Finn!” Chloe shouted.
He didn’t need to be told. He thrust off the edge of the wooden pier and went airborne. He didn’t quite make the landing, but got close enough to grasp the deck rail and hang on for dear life.
“Hit it, Uncle Jon!” Chloe screamed.
Chloe reached over and yanked him up by his belt. They both tumbled onto the deck amid another round of gunfire.
As twin propulsion engines surged, Finn scrambled to the rail. Flames lit up the shoreline, and half a dozen pirates were tearing down the pier. They jumped into a couple smaller boats and rushed to loosen mooring lines. Their outboard motors fired, but quickly sputtered out without a fuel supply. His team had come through.
“Finn!” Chloe shouted. When he turned, she slid an AR15 across the deck to him and followed it with a couple extra ammo magazines.
“You give the best presents, sweetheart.” He kicked off the safety, slapped in a magazine, and chambered a round. Without hesitation, he began raining bullets on the dock. It took him a second to realize Chloe was doing the same thing and doing it with skill. Pirates dove into the water to escape the hail of bullets as the Emerald Fire pulled away from the compound.
In the short reprieve, Finn released a spent magazine and reloaded, but damn if he wasn’t burning to ask where a historian learned to shoot like that. The ease in which she handled the weapon meant she’d had practice. And lots of it.
“We disabled three out of five boats at the dock,” Chloe said. “Shouldn’t be many left to chase us with.”
“But chase they will,” Finn replied. The Fire was picking up speed and pulling away, but pirates wouldn’t be far behind. “You’ve more of those?” he asked, pointing to the ammunition magazines.
“In the weapons locker.”
Chloe Larson had skills that didn’t match her job description. He intended to find out why, but right now they had less than five minutes to prepare for war. “Let’s load up then head for the stern.”
Chloe fled to the bridge, and he followed.
Jonathan flipped switches on the helm, and floodlights illuminated the water in front of them. Though it clearly marked their position, they were running full throttle in unfamiliar territory. It was that or risk running aground.
When Jonathan whipped the wheel to steer them around a bend, the sudden move flung Finn and Chloe sideways, both grasping the captain’s chair. Chloe ended up flush against him, and an ill-timed spark of awareness burned in his gut. Based on her short intake of breath and wide eyes, she had felt it, too.
“My girl has plenty of power and agility.” Jonathan’s words snapped Finn back to attention. “Keep the stinking pirates at bay, and I’ll get us out of here.”
Finn believed him.
Jonathan wore a mantle of determination as he focused out the fly bridge. The Fire was his ship. He’d know what she was capable of.
“When you hit open water,” Finn said, “hang right and head toward Boca Chica.”
“Aye, aye, Mate.”
Finn turned to Chloe. “You stay here where it’s safer.”
“Like hell!” came her heated reply. “I’m not sitting here while you two have all the fun.” She didn’t give him a chance to argue, just loaded her arms with as much ammo as she could carry. “Race you to the back deck.”
She was out the door in a flash, leaving Finn no choice but to grab his own weaponry and follow. This Chloe was a far cry from the prim and proper woman he met in St. Lucia. He could usually read people better than that, but it seemed his new partner was a total mystery.
He made a beeline for the back deck. They had a good head start on the Boca Chica gang, but here the advantage went to the pirates with their smaller and faster boats. The Emerald Fire had power, but needed top speed in open water to pull away.
As soon as he hit the deck, he heard shouts. The thieves were getting closer. Finn joined Chloe at the back rail where she was popping off rounds into the darkness behind them, slow and methodical. She didn’t even look scared, and that impressed the hell out of him. Most women would be screaming or running for cover, but not her. She was a fighting historian, ready to defend their ground. She didn’t add up.
He leveled his AR and easily spotted the two boats following them. The lead boat was fast, a twenty-five-footer designed for skiers. It was the second one that made him nervous. That damn high performance, fifty-foot, built for racing, no chance in hell of outrunning cigarette boat.
Neither one used their running lights, but moonlight reflected off their wake, making them easy targets. He fired off a barrage of bullets at the ski craft. Chloe shot with more precision, aiming and releasing short bursts of gunfire. The men in the skier ducked, but fired back. Finn kept up his firing until the yacht veered sharply left as Jonathan rounded another bend. The maneuver whipped Finn and Chloe to the side, and they dropped to the deck. Finn scooted over to where his additional mags had slid, reloaded, and jumped up again, firing off the stern.
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