In Rides Trouble: Black Knights Inc.

by Julie Ann Walker

  “Well, you must agree it’s a bit far-fetched,” Eve replied. “If there really were surveillance drones taking our picture, don’t you think the little man in charge would know about it and deny you the ability to write your messages?”

  “His name is Ghedi, and he can’t read,” Becky explained. “I convinced him I’m taking notes for the novel I’ll write once our families pay for our freedom. He’s very excited to be in an American book. I told him I’d call his character One-Eyed Willie.” She wiggled her eyebrows, grinning.

  Eve stared at her blankly, and Becky could only laugh at her friend’s shocking lack of knowledge when it came to pop culture. “Look, Ghedi hasn’t a clue we’re being watched. The poor guy probably doesn’t even know such technology exists.”

  “Ah yes, well…” Eve let the sentence dangle, and Becky decided it was time to give Eve the truth. The woman was going to find out anyway when the boys of Black Knights Inc. came racing to their rescue. And they would come racing to their rescue. Of that she was 100 percent certain.

  “What if I told you the mechanics,” she made the quote signs with her fingers, “working in my chopper shop are more than they seem?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if I told you they’re covert government defense contractors who are on their way to save us right this very minute?”

  Eve blinked rapidly, shaking her head. “Are you trying to tell me your brother and all those other no-neck, tattoo-covered, leather-clad bikers you employ and run around with are really spies?”

  Becky lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes.”

  Eve took a deep breath, rolling in her lips as she placed a hand on Becky’s shoulder. “Becky, I really think you should get out of the sun and—”

  The sound of an outboard engine stopped her. Both of them scrambled to their feet and raced toward the railing.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Eve choked on a sob when they spotted a motorboat bobbing in the distance. “We’re rescued.”

  Chapter Two

  “I have good news and bad news,” Commander Patterson said as he marched to the middle of the briefing room.

  “Let’s have the bad news first, then,” Frank grumbled as he searched the commander’s curiously brown-gray eyes, looking for…he didn’t know. A spark of honor, maybe? The shining light of integrity? Something to let him know Patterson was a man capable of keeping a secret, because Patterson, along with Captain Ernesto Garcia, knew the truth about Frank, Bill, and Angel.

  And, damnit, that just chapped Frank’s ass.

  Although he took some comfort in the fact that they were the only two aboard the USS Patton privy to the truth. The rest of the Patton’s crew suffered under the impression that Frank and his men were a trio of K&R—kidnap and ransom—specialists who’d been hired by Eve’s ultra-wealthy family to try to negotiate the safe return of the women.

  “Last surveillance photos indicate your ladies and their, uh, escorts, have been joined by a third party and have changed course,” Patterson reported. “They’re heading straight for a British oil tanker, the BP Hamilton. The Hamilton apparently had catastrophic engine failure two days ago. Twenty-four hours ago, her radio became in-op. Reports show she’s still got power, her generators are working, but that’s about it. She’s basically a dead stick. And though various military vessels are scrambling to assist, it appears the ladies and pirates will get there first. In fact,” the commander glanced down at his watch, “given the time delay on the intelligence reports, they’re probably already there.”

  Great. So now Becky wasn’t only being held by pirates, she’d been conscripted into piracy herself.

  Frank didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since he figured neither was really appropriate, he simply asked, “And the good news?”

  “Their course change means we’ll intercept them within six hours.”

  “Now that is good news.” Because the sooner he got Becky to safety, the sooner he could wring her obstinate little neck for putting him and the rest of the Knights in the position of breaking their covers, and the sooner he could paddle her stubborn little ass for putting them through this emotional hell. Because she wasn’t just Bill’s little sister, she was like a kid sister to all of them…well, not him necessarily. He only wished his feelings toward her were brotherly. It would make things so much easier.

  Yeah, perhaps if all he wanted to do was throw an arm around the girl’s, er, woman’s shoulders and knuckle her head, he wouldn’t walk around most days feeling like a skeevy old perv. Feeling like, despite his best efforts, he’d become no different than—

  “Six hours,” Bill murmured, glancing at his own watch and interrupting Frank’s thoughts. “Midafternoon is a terrible time to attempt a rescue.”

  “Which is why we’ll wait until tonight,” Frank decided quickly. “Breaching the catamaran would’ve been a cinch, and we could’ve done it at high noon. Overtaking the tanker? That’s a little different. Not only are we going to need the time to plan, we’re also going to need the cover of darkness in order to ensure our safety and the safety of the hostages.”

  “Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of,” Bill said.

  “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” Angel said.

  Bill winked, and the two of them bumped fists.

  “Jesus Christ,” Frank growled. “You guys are killing me.”

  They both turned to grin at him.

  Patterson glanced at the three of them and finally shook his shiny bald head. If there was ever a casting call for a new Mr. Clean, the commander was a shoo-in. “I agree with waiting for nightfall, but there’s one thing I don’t get.”

  “What’s that?” Frank asked, fighting the smile pulling at his lips at the thought of the staunch military officer sporting a little gold hoop earring and winking at appreciative housewives across the world.

  “Why would the pirates, with nothing more than a couple of skiffs and a catamaran, go after a floundering tanker? There’s no way for them to get that beast into harbor, no way to tow it, so why are they risking their lives and the ransom they expect to receive for Miss Edens and Miss Reichert?”

  “Bill,” Frank dipped his chin, “you want to answer that one?”

  “They’re hoping Becky can fix it,” Bill supplied, totally deadpan.

  “They’re hoping she can fix what?” Commander Patterson asked. “The ship’s engines?”

  “Yes.” Frank grinned, loving the incredulity on the commander’s hard face. “That’s exactly right. And what a prize it’ll be for them if she does. I’m assuming, given the tanker’s designation as one of BP’s fleet, she’s a big one. Probably carrying a typical load, which, if memory serves, comes to about one hundred million dollars worth of crude. Even if BP is only willing to pay three percent, that’s still a major victory for the pirates.”

  “Three percent?” Angel rasped in his scratchy voice, the one he’d received courtesy of a good old-fashioned vocal-cord scouring, which guaranteed no voice recognition software could ever identify him. “After that catastrofuck in the Gulf of Mexico, they’ll pay a lot more than that. The last thing they want is another scandal on their hands.”

  Catasrofuck?

  Frank, a self-described connoisseur of creative cursing, quite liked that little combination. Perhaps working with Angel Agassi wasn’t going to be so bad after all…

  “Do you think it’s possible?” Patterson asked. “Can she get those engines up and running? The ship’s engineers have been working on the problem for days with no success.”

  Frank shrugged. “With Rebecca Reichert anything’s possible, and I’ve never seen a more intuitive mechanic in my life. If there’s a way to get the engines going, Becky’ll find it.”

  “By the look on your face, Commander Patterson, I
’m assuming you’ve seen the news footage of Becky.” Bill chuckled.

  Yeah, unfortunately the networks had gone crazy with the story of the American women captured by pirates. Frank hated publicity as a general rule, and when the media stuck its long nose so close to him and his men? Man, it took every ounce of restraint he had not to go all Sean Penn and start punching folks. That was another thing he could punish Becky for once he got his hands on her…

  Oh Jesus, he was not going to go there again. The mental image of bending her over his knees and paddling her sweet bare ass until it turned pink was just too…erotic. He’d never been into S&M before, never felt the need to tie a woman down or playfully spank her butt, but Becky was just so…so…independent and…and damned…confrontational that she brought out the caveman in him. He’d like nothing better than to take his flex-cuffs, secure her wrists and ankles to his bed posts, and prove his dominance once and for all. Which was weird, disturbing, and so, so wrong.

  But there you go. That summed up his feelings for her perfectly. Weird, disturbing, and wrong. Still, just the thought of having her at his mercy made his shorts tight.

  He glanced around at Patterson and Bill, hoping the sight of their manly faces would be just the visual cold shower he needed to wash away the raunchy images heating his brain and other parts of his anatomy, because, yeah, talk about a piss-poor time to pop a boner…

  “But don’t let her looks fool you,” Bill continued. “Becky’s an absolute wizard when it comes to wielding a wrench.”

  “But how would the pirates know that?” the commander asked. His puzzled expression screamed his difficulty at melding the image of the pretty, blond woman he’d seen on television with the one they were all describing.

  Good luck with that one, man.

  When it came to Becky, the old adage, “what you see is what you get,” was blown to smithereens. The woman was like a kaleidoscope. Never the same, always changing, and always surprising you with her brilliance.

  “They know she’s a crackerjack mechanic because piracy is a big, profitable, highly technical business,” Frank explained. “Those malnourished guys you see on TV are just the grunts, the expendables. They’re the hired guns brought in to do the dangerous dirty work. Behind them are highly intelligent, well-organized, well-cloaked entities with as much access to information as you or me. I’m sure within ten minutes of them finding Becky and Eve’s passports, whoever was in charge knew everything there was to know about the women, right down to their Social Security numbers and bra sizes.”

  34B in Becky’s case.

  And no, he hadn’t gone rummaging around in the girl’s…damnit!…woman’s lingerie drawer. He’d been doing a load of laundry in one of the two washing machines back at the Black Knights’ compound when he’d come across a rather titillating, pink peekaboo lace number wrapped around the base of the washer’s oscillating drum. He’d just happened to see the size on the tag as he’d unwound the scrap of lace, and yeah, he could admit, for a brief second, he’d thought about shoving it in the pocket of his jeans and keeping it as a sort of perverse souvenir. Thankfully, sanity quickly surfaced, and he simply hung it over the knob of an overhead cabinet.

  But dear Lord, that he even considered doing otherwise was disconcerting.

  “Dear Lord,” Patterson breathed, “that’s disconcerting.”

  Whoa. What?

  Frank glanced around, afraid he’d been thinking out loud, but no, no one was looking at him like he’d been eating pervert sandwiches for lunch. So uh, what had they been discussing? Oh yes, the pirates’ incredibly disturbing ability to gather information.

  “And then some,” he agreed, brushing aside the memory of that slip of pink lace as the weight of Becky’s predicament once more settled heavily on his shoulders. That weight would crush him if he let it. And the thought of losing her…he shuddered. “I’m assuming those are the tanker’s schematics in your hand,” he gestured with a jerk of his chin toward the long plastic tube in the commander’s fist.

  “Affirmative.” Commander Patterson handed over the documents.

  “Were you able to glean anything else from the last fly-over footage?” he asked as he popped the top on the plastic tube and slid the schematics onto the table.

  He glanced up when the commander didn’t immediately respond. The man was chewing on the side of his cheek in what appeared to be an attempt to keep from grinning.

  “What?” he growled. “What’s she written this time?”

  The commander lifted a fist to his mouth and democratically cleared his throat. “The footage shows she’d written, For the love of God, would you guys hurry the hell up already?”

  “Well, at least we know this little experience isn’t adversely affecting her attitude,” Bill chuckled.

  That was Becky, all right. Two tons of unpredictable TNT packed in one small package…and he nearly crumpled from the hard rush of relief that flooded through him at the sound of those terribly Becky-like words.

  That-a-girl, he thought and took a deep, steadying breath before motioning his men closer. “Okay, gentlemen, it looks like we’ve got a tanker to appropriate.”

  ***

  Pirate was never a position Becky thought to add to her résumé but, as usual, her life was chockablock full of surprises.

  The man who’d come aboard was not their rescuer, as Eve had foolishly hoped. Oh no. Although he was taller and older than the other pirates, superbly well-dressed, impeccably groomed, and spoke excellent English with the slightly haughty air that came with any British accent, he was still just a pirate. He’d introduced himself as Sharif—no last name—the interpreter.

  “I worked for the United Nations,” he explained shortly after coming aboard, “before I came into this business. Now I’m an interpreter.”

  “What business?” she snorted with derision, crossing her arms over her chest and eyeing his freshly laundered clothes with a mixture of jealously and contempt. “Last I checked, piracy is an international crime, not a business. Which doesn’t make you an interpreter, it makes you a blackmailer at best and an extortionist at worst.”

  Sharif just laughed, the sound low and rolling. Cultured was perhaps the right way to describe it. It made Becky’s skin crawl. “I interpret for nine gangs, all of whom work independently for the same boss. Sounds quite like a business to me. A very lucrative one at that.”

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and placed a comforting hand on Eve’s shoulder. When it became obvious Sharif was not there to rescue them, her poor friend deflated like a popped birthday balloon.

  “I don’t care what you think of me, Miss Reichert,” Sharif replied, dropping the t on the end of her name. “All I care about is that you know how to repair engines.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So we’re putting off your trip to Somalia,” he declared, and her heart filled with hope and started floating somewhere above her head. The Knights, many of them ex–Navy SEALs, were straight-up badasses when it came to work in the water. The longer she kept herself off dry land, the easier it would be for her guys to facilitate a rescue.

  “Aw, shucks,” she feigned dejection, “and I was so looking forward to it.” Eve shoved a pointy elbow into her rib cage.

  Sharif tilted his head and smiled. Unlike Ghedi, his teeth were large and even and brilliantly white against the darkness of his face. “You have a very insolent tongue, Miss Reichert. What is that expression you Americans love so much? Ah, yes, you had better make sure it is not writing checks your ass cannot cash. Such a wonderfully colorful turn of phrase, don’t you think?”

  “I think I’d feel a lot better if we kept my tongue and my ass out of the conversation completely.”

  Another sharp elbow crashed into Becky’s side, and she turned to glare at her friend. The look Eve gave her clearly stated the woman was serio
usly questioning her intelligence. And yepper, when she swung her attention back to Sharif, his dark scowl pretty much telegraphed his intention to kill her, slowly, if ever the opportunity arose.

  “I have little patience with mouthy women,” he growled, his musky smelling cologne sticking in her nose until she wanted to puke. “Breaking every little bone in your body would gratify me greatly, not to mention the fact that your diminished health would likely only expedite your ransom. So you see, it’s a win-win situation for me. It would behoove you to remember that.”

  She could almost hear Billy in her head, S squared, Becky. S squared. Which was his way of telling her to sit down and shut up.

  With difficulty, she clamped her lips together and satisfied herself by glowering.

  Sharif turned his back on her and informed Ghedi of their course change, while two other members of the crew captained the extra skiffs back to the safety of the Somali coast.

  Which is how she now found herself stuck on her own catamaran about to become a pirate …

  The crew onboard the BP Hamilton hadn’t a clue they were being attacked until the first volley of bullets burst across the hull.

  This was a nightmare. A really, really scary one where Becky held on for dear life to the Serendipity’s rail as the pirates threw down the throttle on the catamaran’s two big outboard engines until they were blasting across the choppy seas, hurtling like an uneven cannon shot toward the Hamilton as waves crashed over the railing.

  Four red flares suddenly streaked from the tanker’s bridge, turning the bright sky above the football field-sized ship an angry orange. The people on board were no longer under the mistaken impression the Serendipity was a simple pleasure cruiser.

  Was the spray of bullets your first clue? Becky thought sardonically, using her free hand to grab Eve as the woman’s fingers slipped from the rail, and she started sliding across the watery deck. Becky strained to keep them both from bouncing right out of the boat.

  Going overboard would be a case of falling out of the frying pan and into the fire. In this instance, the fire was thousands of miles of endless, shark-infested waters where trying to locate them would be akin to locating a needle in a haystack.