Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  Rio's thugboy stopped, consulted a piece of paper, and gestured down the row of shipping containers.

  Ohh, no. No, we're not going into one of those.

  There'd be no taking anyone by surprise if they were closed in a shipping container—no negotiating, no nothing. Not to mention no bathroom.

  "No!" Kimmer cried, going for the edge of Kimberly-hysteria. "You can't mean it! I won't go! I can't stand dark places! No, no, noNO!"

  His grip tightened as she let her legs go limp, wailing the whole time—and keeping Rio in the corner of her eye. She dodged the fist her thugboy aimed at her—then remained a flailing weight on the deck until he dropped her and aimed a kick of utter frustration.

  She rolled with the blow, heading for the edge of the bow as Rio shouted his Richard lines. "Kimberly! You're making things worse!" Waiting and ready.

  Yanking against the wrist restraints gained nothing; she didn't waste time on it. Her thugboy came on with another kick—oof—she took it in the hip and crabbed away, all flailing Kimberly panic, and dragging the backpack along in the clumsiest possible fashion, the war club within dangling from her wrist.

  Another kick and thank you, thugboy, she was in position to tuck her legs up and roll through the hoop of her own bound wrists—if the damned pack hadn't tangled in her feet. Son of a— She fought with it, clearing her heels just in time to take another kick—bitch!

  And still she screamed, presenting him with Kimberly's hysteria and hiding Kimmer's deadly intent.

  "I won't!" she cried, eyeing the bow. "I won't, won't, won't—!"

  Here he came again, grim and undeterred by her English babbling.

  "And if you think you can make me—"

  Down he reached, looming, ready to snag her up and bodily drag her along—

  "Then you're all—" she came up to meet him, surging to her feet, hands still wrapped together but holding the war club inside the backpack "-fucking wet!"

  The backpack slammed into him, the war club slammed into him, her fisted hands slammed into him. He stumbled backward, arms flailing, hitting up against the railing—and Kimmer plunged forward, ramming her shoulder into his gut.

  Over the railing he went.

  The splash was a long time coming.

  Kimmer didn't wait for it. Sprawled across the deck, her nose inches from the railing, she glanced back to find the other thugboy and his pistol headed her way, foolishly dismissing Rio.

  Rio, who'd been quiet and unresisting and so apparently ineffective.

  Rio, who had been waiting for his moment...

  The thugboy jerked around in a flurry of Rio-driven motion; the sound of a solid blow followed. Kimmer hauled herself to her feet and hooked her restraints over a rounded metal post of the railing, yanking with no regard to her wrists. Break, damn you!

  Gunfire stunned the air; the bullet skipped across the deck right at Kimmer's feet. She jumped, taken completely by surprise—and then flushed in anger.

  Bullet-flinging. I don't think so. She lifted her hands from the post, flipped the abused backpack haphazardly over one shoulder, and leaped into the struggle from behind—wrapping her restraints around the thugboy's neck and jumping up to plant her knees on either side of his spine. He staggered, ramming at her with his elbows, and then staggered again at another solid blow from Rio. Kimmer made a decidedly unthreatening squeak of dismay as the man flailed backward and she slammed down to the metal deck, the thugboy limply on top of her.

  "Hold on," Rio said, and flipped her hands over the man's head. In another moment he'd dragged the thugboy off her, and Kimmer wasted no time grabbing the basic little Swiss Army Knife from her backpack pocket to finish cutting the restraint. Next time...cut it completely and fake restraint by holding your hands together. Idiot.

  By the time Rio let the thugboy go, she was free, shaking out her hands and abused wrists. Rio grinned at her, blood smeared across his face from a fat lip and a nosebleed. "Shall we run like hell?" he asked, ever the gentleman.

  "After we talk to your friend," Kimmer muttered, taking his offered hand as she climbed to her feet. Bad idea; his was slick, and she ended up right back on her butt.

  "Oops." Rio looked at his bloody hand. "Cable ties, knife. I hope the Doña stocks that cling-wrap stuff."

  "No doubt in the colors of Spain," Kimmer grunted, climbing to her feet her own damned self. She swiped off the seat of her pants, took an instant to realize that the thugboy had ripped the flimsy material of her shirt, and shrugged at the sight of her bared skin. "No Guggenheim for us."

  "Good lunch, though." Rio looked at his hands and dismissed them, a plastic bracelet still encircling one wrist; he handed the thugboy's gun to Kimmer, who made a face at the clunky Glock but tucked it away in her backpack anyway. She turned to the dazed man beside her.

  The war club woke him up, tapping on his shin in a most painful way. Rio planted a foot on his throat, and when the man came to himself with a start, he instantly froze, understanding the threat. Sweaty, his lightweight shirt bloodied from several missing teeth, he made a half-assed attempt to muster his bravado.

  "Forget it," Kimmer advised him in Spanish, using his own words against him. "It's not important what you think. It's only important that you shut up and do as you're told." As fast as you possibly can. "I want to know why you grabbed us. What you wanted from us."

  The man sputtered blood and astonishment. "But you—you're just tourists!"

  "You betcha," Kimmer said. "This is what happens when you take on American tourists. Try to remember that." She smiled, so sweetly, and tapped his shin again. "And why was it that you took us on, again?"

  He tried to jerk away, cursing—something scathing and Basque. "The Etxea, you stupid bitch!" and then stared defiantly at Kimmer's impatient gesture.

  Rio put a little more weight on his throat, cutting further imprecations off into a gargle, then easing up. Kimmer gave the man a poke. Come on, come on...

  He got the message all right, sullen and snarly. "To trade! For the Etxea!"

  Oh, great. The word is definitely out. She exchanged a quick glance with Rio, saw her concern and annoyance reflected there. Nice way to start a gig—with their big secret antiquity already deeply compromised.

  She gave their surroundings a quick assessment. The containers, the ship, the noise of the dock off to the sides...the quiet wouldn't last much longer. And yet they needed to know—

  Rio caught her eye. "We've got to go."

  Kimmer made a frustrated sound deep in her throat and jerked her attention to the man's waist, fumbling at his belt buckle with such savage intent she could practically hear his shrinkage factor.

  "The railing," she said, and even as she whipped the belt free, Rio dragged the man away, flipped him over, and jerked his hands behind his back. A couple of quick whips with the belt held them tight, and Kimmer buckled it around the railing, lifting his arms up painfully high.

  Rio handed her a sock, harvested from the man's own foot, and she stuffed it into his mouth and stood. "Time to run away." They headed for the gangplank at a run, skirting the containers along the way. In only moments, filtered shouts reached them.

  "That's not good," Rio panted as the shouts quickly grew in intensity. They slowed; a clattering noise or two and footsteps pounded along the metal deck just beyond their container—cutting off the gangplank.

  Rio grabbed Kimmer's arm and pulled her into a container alley; they dodged deeply back into the row. Breathless, focused back on the bow, he said, "I think we're gonna go swimming."

  You think? Kimmer sprinted into motion, heading for the bow at top speed. Quicker than Rio in these tight quarters, quicker on the sprint in any event, she donned her backpack in mid-run and burst from the forest of containers with gun in hand, laying down non-stop cover at the first sign of movement from the other side of the containers.

  Someone fired off a sporadic shot; Kimmer ran out of ammo and didn't think twice; she slid to a stop as Rio passed her, and whip
ped the empty gun at the first face to peek out in the wake of her silence. No hesitation; she spun around and headed for the railing.

  Rio hesitated on the other side of it, balancing, waiting—and she launched herself over, grabbing his hand on the way by.

  They hung in the air, connected for only a moment. Then the river rushed at them with a sickening swoop of gravity and air. Kimmer let go of his hand to tuck herself into the smallest, tightest possible cannonball. Ohh, this is gonna—

  WHUMP!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 10

  Impact.

  Water up her nose, water forced into her eyes, water in places she never thought water would go. Her breath slammed out as her body slammed down, and then the pack yanked backwards, cutting under her arms. Kimmer flailed for the surface with no more bubbles left to breathe out, and broke through a surface still tumultuous with their entrance.

  Rio took longer; he'd sliced deeply into the water. He emerged with a splutter, water arcing through the air as he shook his head free of it.

  That's when the shooting started. Semi-automatic bursts, ptt-ptt-ptt, ptt-ptt-ptt. All around them, water spiked on impact. Kimmer gasped in a huge deep breath and pointed her toes, propelling herself straight down with her arms. Bullets punched the water around her—slowing, some breaking up into unpredictable slow-mo shrapnel. Rio's form darkened the water behind her; she led him straight to the ship and came up in the sheltered flare of the deck, bobbing against the metal hull and snatching air the instant her mouth cleared water.

  Rio surfaced beside her, sputtering curses. She slapped a haphazard hand over his mouth, slippery wet skin on skin. Water carries sound. He got the message well enough, sucking back on his words and leaving only the gentle slap of water against the boat.

  After a moment in which he seemed to struggle to regain his normal composure, he put his head close to hers, his breath still coming fast and sunlight sparking from the water that followed the line of his cheek. "They'll send out a boat, if they're thorough."

  They might well be crude in their methods, they might well be unschooled in their operations...but Kimmer had no reason to believe they weren't thorough. "There's another ship docked behind this one. If we can get to it, we can find a way out of the water."

  "Unless they're Basajaun, too," Rio pointed out.

  "Thank you so much for that thought." Kimmer eased into a gentle, quiet sidestroke alongside the freighter's hull. "But hey, are we having fun now?"

  "Doesn't get any better than this." He stayed close behind her, turned so he could watch their backs. They circled the ship, bumping the hull, bumping each other. Kimmer's flimsy shirt, abused by thugboy, high dive, and swimming, gave it up, quietly parting to become nothing more than waterlogged gossamer wings.

  The least of her troubles.

  They'd made it to the stern when the putter of a small engine floated across the water, rapidly growing closer. Kimmer drew breath to go submersible again when Rio nudged her, pointing at an unexpected feature in the hull. A tiny cave of sorts. Then her water-reddened eyes resolved the shape and shadow, and she realized they'd found the empty anchor port. Not nearly enough to hide in...was it?

  Enough for one person, maybe. One small person. Not one Rio-sized person. "Quick," she said, sputtering as a wave of disturbed water splashed her mouth. "Get this thing off me—"

  The backpack. He tugged it from her back, bobbing deeply into the water with his efforts, all the while his gaze watching for the boat, assessing the freighter for additional hiding places. Kimmer groped inside the sodden pack with difficulty, ruing the inevitable ruins of her camera on the way to—

  "Plain old fashioned Bic," she said, pulling out both a pen and her club. The club went around her wrist; she put the pen nib between her teeth and bit down, withdrawing it from the pen body. The little plastic plug at the end gave way to her water-softened nails, and she thrust the empty pen body at Rio. "Hang on to the anchor chain," she told him, treading water with difficulty now that the pack dragged in her hand. "Underneath."

  Understanding lit his eyes; he eased out to the chain and drew himself down hand over hand, the pen in his mouth like a jaunty oversized cigarette as the water closed over his bright hair.

  Please let that pen be big enough to draw air... But he didn't reappear; the pen kept a steady position, rising from the water directly beside the chain.

  The little boat motor warned her; she clambered awkwardly into the anchor port, tucking herself away to fight the slip and slide of the curved, wet surface. A wave splashed over the pen; water splurted out a second later. But the pen stayed put, and Kimmer stayed put, and the boat puttered around...

  She could have wished for a shirt instead of two ragged halves of one, the heat of her body sinking unabated into the cold, painted metal and her hands desperately cramping against the hull.

  The boat engine neared; the boat itself, full of watchful men with their watchful guns—handguns, as if someone had realized it was just a little too conspicuous to go puttering around the dock waving semi-automatic rifles--sliced a path into Kimmer's view.

  Kimmer slipped, bit her tongue on a snarl of frustration, and wedged herself in even more tightly. The boat puttered. A gull settled on the anchor chain. Rio, no doubt, had turned into a prune. And finally the damned boat circled a final time and slipped out of sight.

  The sound of it faded, and Kimmer plucked at the anchor chain. The top of Rio's head emerged—only as far as his eyes. Water streamed down his face, but he made no attempt to shake off. He locked gazes, assessing her—and then his eyes widened, and he quite suddenly slid back under water, leaving her guessing.

  But only until she heard sporadic splashing. From the dock side of the ship, it was, and accompanied by breathless cries in Euskari.

  Of course. It was the man she'd thrown overboard. He'd probably been trolling the edges of the high commercial dock, hunting a way out of the water—and now he thought his best bet lay in chasing down the smaller boat. He came bobbing around the stern, slowly working his way into view—not a natural swimmer, this one—fully clothed and floundering.

  Wedged into her little cave, Kimmer tried to think herself invisible. That was fair, right? It worked in fantasy novels, didn't it?

  Real damned life wasn't quite so convenient. Naturally he saw her. Naturally he stopped short—and naturally he decided revenge would taste just as sweet if wet. She saw the decision on his face and made an internationally rude gesture.

  Ah, good. She'd made him mad.

  He splashed in her direction with purpose, sparing the breath for invectives she couldn't understand. His awkward movement became more obvious—she realized he'd landed badly from his pinwheeling fall from the deck.

  She could relate to that. After all, she'd jumped on purpose and landed well, and still felt as though she'd been through a washing machine. C'mon, c'mon...let's get this over with...

  And here he came. She braced herself in the anchor port, war club ready—

  Just as the man grabbed at her closest foot, Rio shot up out of the water behind him, hands settling around the anchor chain, those long legs levering up to slam between the man's shoulder blades. The thugboy lost all his air with a whump, and smacked face-first into the hull.

  Huh.

  Rio removed the pen from his mouth. "Timing, what?"

  Kimmer might possibly have found a suitable reply had she not lost her precarious security in the anchor port, slipping down into the water with a wordless sound of protest as she snatched at the thugboy, keeping his head above water. Attached to him she wasn't, but there wasn't any point in polluting the waters with his carcass.

  Besides, she wanted his shirt.

  ~~~

  Home sweet home.

  A long and stealthy swim, a squishing walk, an outrageously tipped cab driver...

  Rio climbed out of the car, twitching against the burn beneath his shoulder. Damned bullet was gonna hurt coming out, even shallow.
It sure as hell had hurt going in.

  The motion caught Kimmer's attention; she slammed her driver's door closed and narrowed her eyes at him. "Did you think I wouldn't notice that? What with the blood and all?"

  "Not so much of that," he said, which was true. He'd have felt the warmth of it, especially against the clamminess of his wet shirt against his skin.

  Air conditioning on the ride back to the villa had been a mistake; now he welcomed the warmth of the sun on his shoulders as he stood by the car and stretched his lower back—an automatic accommodation of the old wound that made this new scar-to-be of little significance.

  Kimmer gave him a skeptical squint.

  He supposed he didn't blame her. Not that she looked much better, wearing the thugboy's wet, oversized shirt and generously bruised along the side of her face. Her short curls had dried with much imagination; instead of gamin, she now looked truly wild. Her slacks were as wet as his jeans—and what a nice panty line that was, too.

  Kimmer gave him a sharp look on top of the squint.

  "Look," he said, and bent forward to tug his shirt up, the wet material reluctant and clinging. He'd taken an awkward surreptitious feel of the wound while hanging off that anchor chain; he knew the lump of the bullet lay just beneath the skin.

  Kimmer hovered behind him, her touch light—a little prod, a brush of her fingers that might well have been a caress—and then she pulled his shirt back down.

  "All right," she said. "Lucky you, the water slowed the bullet. I'm sure the villa has first aid supplies."

  Rio snorted, struck by the sudden absurdity of it all. "Do you suppose our persistent suitors are going to wonder how we managed to get away this time? Or why we didn't call the authorities?"

  "I think," Kimmer said, lifting her chin, "that we'd better wrap this thing up as quickly as we can, before they start coming up with answers to questions like that. And stick close to ground until we do. At this point, they're going to come for us just to get their own."