Em stood, grabbing her own phone, but didn’t yet follow. Behind them, the doors to the galley swung open and the dessert course made its entrance. “Boone…”
“Emily, I ignored my instincts back in Belize and nearly got you killed. I’d rather make an ass of myself than risk doing that again.”
Atop the dais, Achilles rose. Lifted a stemmed glass and a dessert spoon.
“What are you going to do?”
Boone moved toward the front. “Talk to the captain, or maybe the security guard near the main table—”
Achilles struck the glass to call for a toast… and the room went dark.
Everything happened in less than a second. As the last ringing tone of silverware on crystal hung in the air, pale emergency lights came on and guest voices rose in alarm. The distant blare of claxons clashed with what sounded like the ringing of an old-timey school bell. The doors on either side of the dais crashed open, black-clad figures in combat armor bursting into the room. To port, closest to Boone and Emily, a feminine figure raised a stubby submachine gun and double-tapped the security officer beside the door. Across the table, a lanky man aimed his weapon at the Othonos family. Boone immediately recognized him as the bug-eyed man from the neighboring balcony. Head pivoting, even as he began shoving Emily toward the galley, Boone saw the Russian on the opposite mezzanine lifting a silenced pistol from the cooler, dropping the guard there with a pair of clacking puffs.
“Go! Go! The galley!” Boone pushed Em ahead, trying to keep his body between her and the figure nearest them, whom he recognized as the woman who had been with the Russian at Coconuts.
Emily needed no encouragement, staggering for the doors with all the speed her dressy shoes would allow. Boone began to follow, but a burst of fire from an unsilenced weapon came from the front of the hall, followed by a gravelly-voiced shout.
“Everybody, freeze!”
There, by the main entrance, was the other man from the neighboring balcony, the one Boone had seen in the tender bay wearing a blue crew shirt. Now, he was dressed like the two on the dais. At his feet, the security guard from outside the main entrance was dropping to his knees, hands clasped behind his head. As Emily pushed through the galley access doors, the mercenary lifted his weapon and fired off a burst, shattering one of the small windows set into the doors and pockmarking the wood. His weapon swung to Boone, who halted in his tracks, raising his arms.
“Goddammit, nobody move! No one else has to die today, if you all follow our instructions.”
A shout drew Boone’s attention back to the rear of the hall. Achilles had grabbed a steak knife and taken a drunken stab at Bug-eye, who actually laughed as he stepped back from the swing and calmly kicked the eldest Othonos sibling squarely in the balls. Achilles crumpled out of sight behind the table, the sounds of retching just audible over the panicked screams from the guests.
Another burst of unsilenced automatic weapons fire from the man at the front, firing into the ceiling. “Listen up! Othonos family… stay put! Everybody else—and I mean everyone—get your asses down to the central dining area now!” When people began to move, the man called out to the female merc. “Potluck! Go get that girl who ran into the galley.”
Emily ran frantically toward the back of the galley, her eyes drawn to a single door, its exit sign still lit by the auxiliary power. The eerie emergency lights cast a dim glow over the room. Several members of the galley staff were at the door, pulling at it, pounding on it.
“Está cerrada!” a man in a chef’s hat shouted. Emily knew basic Spanish, but context was the best translator: It’s locked!
Emily rushed to help, nearly turning her ankle. Still holding her mobile, she savagely tore off her high-heeled shoes as she reached the door, peering at the keypad beside it. A red light glowed back at her. She looked at her beautiful, expensive shoes… then aimed the heel of one of them at the keypad and bashed it repeatedly. Her fruitless exercise was interrupted by a shout from the door to the dining hall. She hoped it was Boone. It wasn’t.
“All right, everybody, hands up and get yer butts out to the dining room!”
Emily dropped her shoes and crouched, putting a stainless-steel shelf of pots and pans between herself and the voice, with its extreme Midwestern accent.
“The door is locked. Yer not gonna get ote that way! Nobody is gonna get hurt—we just need you all to come sit in the middle of the hall for a couple hours, okay?”
The galley staff raised their hands and made their way toward the door. One of the busboys looked down at Emily as he went around the shelves of pans.
“Somebody else back there?”
Frantic, Em crouch-walked around the shelving as the sound of boots came from the other side.
“Looks like someone lost a fancy pair of shoes. We all saw you run in here, blondie.” The boots began to turn the corner around the pots and pans.
Shitshitshitshit. Emily mirrored the move around the other side, her eyes looking frantically for a weapon. Instead they found… linens. A laundry cart half-full of tablecloths. And beside it…
The boots began to turn the corner. “Olly, olly, oxen free…”
Emily lunged from her crouch and plunged down the laundry chute, a burst of gunfire roaring from above.
“You… get down there.” The gravelly-voiced mercenary gestured to Boone as he reached him.
Boone had been staying near the galley door, looking for an opportunity to follow Emily, but the female mercenary had gone in moments ago. Furthermore, the leader—Boone felt certain the man who’d come in the main entrance was in charge—had kept a close eye on Boone as he herded guests and staff down to the well of larger dining tables in the center of the hall.
“You look familiar…” the mercenary leader said. He squinted. “Oh, yeah… you were getting a tour of the boats… the guy with the mutt next door. Well, behave… and you and your pooch can live happily ever after.”
Automatic weapons fire sounded from the galley, drawing the man’s attention. Boone spun around and took two steps, intending to rush in, but the doors burst open, the female merc coming out, looking pissed.
“Bitch jumped down the laundry chute.” She raised her gun, aiming it at Boone. “Who’s this beanpole?”
“The boyfriend, would be my guess.”
“What do we do about the girl?”
“Ignore her. All Wi-Fi is down, ship’s coms are down, and the ship is halfway between Cozumel and Cayman. No one’s getting a cell call in or out. Get this jackass down there with the others.”
“Let’s go, handsome.” The woman twitched the barrel of her submachine gun at him and Boone complied. Hands raised, he made his way around the piano. “You too, Piano Man,” the female mercenary said, addressing Keith.
Boone looked at Keith as the actor-turned-crewman rose and joined him. He’s scared, but he’s still in the game, Boone thought. Together, they moved near the captain’s table and headed down the stairs beside it to the bottom level. Boone’s eyes caught Lyra’s, shining with a patina of tears and fear. “It’s okay,” he said, loud enough for her to hear.
“Listen up, everyone!” the leader of the mercs shouted. “We are not here to kill you… we are not even here to rob you. We are here… for them.” He pointed toward the Othonos family. “Provided you sit your asses down and wait for two hours, all the rest of you will make it out of here alive.”
The captain was stepping down from the dais, about to go down the steps as instructed, when he turned back to the head mercenary. “But… the alarms… the siren is a fire alarm! And the bells… the watertight doors are sealing!” As if the system heard him, the ringing suddenly stopped, though the fire alarms continued. “The watertight doors are sealed now! Is there flooding? Did you set off an explosion or something?”
“Ignore the alarms!” the mercenary replied, loud enough for the room to hear. “We a
re simulating a couple disasters to seal off compartments and keep the crew busy.”
A shriek from the dais. “Father!” Lyra was clutching at Karras’s shoulder.
The leader looked toward the main table, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
The lanky, weird-eyed merc shrugged. “I dunno, I ain’t no doc.”
“Please!” Lyra cried out. “He’s having a heart attack!”
“Goddammit, just what we need…”
Stallion shifted his feet. “Uh… if he dies before…”
“I know I know!” The mercenary leader looked down at the guests clustered below. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but… is there a doctor in the house? Or… ship?”
A middle-aged guest raised her hand. “Yes. And I’m a cardiologist.”
“Well, that’s handy.” He pointed at two of the busboys who had just reached the bottom of the stairs. “You two, come back up. Bring him down there to the doc.” He strode toward the dais, stopping abruptly. “Wait. Where’s the other one? Nicholas Othonos.” He turned toward the people below. “Nicholas Othonos, if you are in here, get up here right the hell now!”
“He left,” Calypso said.
“What? When?”
The youngest Othonos shrugged. “Maybe fifteen… twenty minutes ago.” She pointed to the starboard dais exit. “He went out that door.”
“Dammit… Stallion, that was your station, you didn’t see anyone?”
“Don’t blame me,” the lanky man protested. “Fifteen minutes ago, we weren’t in position yet.”
The leader fumed for a moment, then filed the problem away. “We go with what we got.”
Achilles got a hand up onto the table, trying to rise. “You… you can’t do this…”
“Stallion… zip-tie that idiot before he gets himself killed,” the leader said. “Potluck, gather their phones.”
The female mercenary moved toward the table, weapon at the ready. “What about the old man’s phone?”
“We ain’t taking him, so we don’t need his. We only need phones from… Lyra, Calypso, and Achilles.” He pointed at each in turn. “And Nicholas, if we can find him.”
Boone studied the Othonos siblings. Achilles still appeared nauseous, his arms behind his back. Calypso looked scared, but there was something odd about her fear. There’s something else, Boone thought. But he filed that away when Lyra’s tear-filled eyes locked onto his own. He held up a hand, keeping it low, and mouthed, “It will be okay.”
Beside her, the mercenary leader checked his watch. “Let’s get this show on the road. Attention, everyone! As you may have noticed—and I’m sure you have, because I can see some of you trying to call or text—there is no Wi-Fi, there is no cell signal. So, save your batteries… or play solitaire or something. Furthermore, all doors with keypads or card swipes have been reset and locked. At the moment, half of the complement of the ship should be in here. Crew elsewhere are no doubt discovering everything is powered down, and many of them are locked into whatever rooms or areas they were in. All of you in here will be quite safe as long as you stay inside this hall.”
The leader paced, his eyes scanning the crowd. “In a few minutes, I and my three scary friends will be leaving you. And some of you might take it upon yourselves to try to break through the locked doors. I would advise against that.” He ceased his pacing and yelled across the hall, “Tolstoy! Let them know what prize they’ll win if they try to open a door.”
“H’okay, please to be listening!” the Russian called from the opposite mezzanine, where he had been covering the guests below with his pistol. Boone noted the man now had a small backpack slung over one shoulder. Tolstoy opened the cooler and retrieved a boxy contraption with several straps hanging from it. “This… is bomb.”
Screams and commotion rose from below. Tolstoy raised a hand for silence. When that didn’t work, the mercenary leader fired off another burst into the ceiling. This did little to quell the fear in the room, but it did restore a measure of quiet.
“No one is going to be hurt, if no one is going out doors,” Tolstoy said. He gestured behind him, then across to the galley. “Both side exits already wired with one of these.” He placed the device back in the cooler and began circling the room, heading for the front of the hall. “I will now attach one to main entrance. When we leave, we will attach two more to two doors behind our hosts. If you open a door, seal will be broken and… boom.”
Anxiety rose again, but Tolstoy waved an arm and headed it off.
“No, is good! You all watch American movies, yes? You know bombs with timer, yes? These have good timer. In two hours, bombs will deactivate. You understand? When bomb active, you will see blinking red light. But in two hours, light turn off. You will be safe to go.” He began to attach a device across the double doors.
Boone was just close enough to the dais to overhear the female mercenary, the one the leader had called Potluck, speak to her boss. “Angler, what about the laundry chute?”
Angler, Potluck, Stallion, Tolstoy. Code names, Boone thought.
“Nobody’s gonna use that…” Angler muttered.
“Lover boy down there might,” Potluck suggested, looking down at Boone. “He was there when I mentioned it.”
Angler chewed his lip. “Fuck it.” He aimed his gun down at Boone. “You. Get up here. Gimme your phone.”
Boone made his way up the stairs just as Tolstoy reached them. The Russian peered at him.
“You… you look familiar…”
“I get that a lot,” Boone said sullenly, watching Tolstoy extract another device and attach it to the portside door.
“Turn around, hands behind your back,” Angler barked, grabbing Boone’s phone. “Potluck, do the honors. We’ll lock him in a closet somewhere.”
“Why not just shoot him?” she asked, as she zip-tied Boone’s wrists together.
“Guy’s a dog owner. Can’t do that to the dog.”
Potluck guffawed. “The security guys mighta had dogs.”
“They were armed, he ain’t. Besides, I didn’t kill mine. The two you took out, you get their sidearms?”
Potluck and Tolstoy answered in the affirmative and Angler shoved Boone over to where the Othonos family stood clustered together, Lyra holding up a pale Achilles.
“All right, this has taken too long already,” Angler rumbled. “You three… you’re coming with us. Everybody plays nice, everybody lives. Stallion, get the door.”
The merc with the bulging eyes fished a card from a pocket in the vest of his body armor and tapped it to the panel beside the door. It beep-clicked and the red light beside it went green. He held the door open and the other mercenaries ushered the trio of Othonos siblings through. Boone followed, but Angler stopped him.
“What’s your name?”
“Boone.”
“Nice suit, Boone. Don’t give me a reason to mess it up. Blood stains are murder to get out.” Pushing him into the passageway, he raised his voice. “Tolstoy, you got the last bomb?”
“Da!” The Russian held it up for the room to see and raised his voice. “This one go on the outside! Remember… try to leave… and you will leave. This earth!” He burst into laughter at his own joke and followed Boone and Angler into the passageway. As the door clicked closed, Tolstoy lifted a card on an id lanyard and touched it to the keypad. The light went red.
Angler took charge. “Stallion, in the lead with Calypso. Keep an eye out for Nicholas Othonos. Potluck, you take Lyra.” Angler grabbed hold of Achilles. “I’ve got this one. Tolstoy, take our temporary guest. We’ll lock him in the maintenance locker in the hangar.”
“Is good plan,” Tolstoy said, tossing the remaining bomb onto the floor without attaching it. When Boone looked quizzically at it, Tolstoy laughed. “They fake! Just a little something to make everyone think twice. Go.”
Qu
ickly leaving the wider guest passageway, the group opened a door and entered one of the narrower crew corridors. The sounds of ringing bells and blaring claxons was louder here. As they proceeded, Tolstoy laughed again. “I remember you now! You were at the bar with the book of breasts! Hey! That sexy little blonde you were with… where is she?”
“Oooohhh…” Emily came to in a heap of linens, her head throbbing. Pushing aside the piles of tablecloths and napkins, she realized she was in the laundry bin, lying on its side—no doubt knocked over when she plunged into it. A flash of lime green caught her eye in the sea of white. My mobile! Boone always teased her about the garishly colored protective case, but the bright hue certainly came in handy now. Her fingers closed around it. Still no signal… no Wi-Fi. Warbling sirens filled the air. Fire alarms? Em mused, her thoughts still fuzzy.
Rising unsteadily to her bare feet, she gently touched her forehead, wincing when her fingers found a little lump. “Blimey, they make that look so easy in Hollywood.” She looked back at the mouth of the chute. A metal flap hung partway down, and Emily now had a vague memory of a metallic clanging sound right out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. Musta banged my noggin on that. Now, what was I…?
Suddenly it all came back, and Emily ran through the laundry room to a stairwell door. This being an internal crew stairway, there was no keypad on it. Need to get to the bridge! She pulled open the door and rushed in. Bare feet slapping on the steps, Emily launched herself up the stairs, heading for the bridge.
“What do you want with us?” Lyra asked, her voice trembling.
“What do you think?” Stallion responded, following up with a braying laugh. “Money, of course.”
“Shut up, Stallion,” Angler admonished. “Let’s keep the questions to a minimum, okay? You all do as you’re told, you come out of this healthy, we come out wealthy. Simple as that.” He looked back at Boone. “What do you do, Mr. Fancy Suit? You some software developer or something? Or you just sucking at the teat of mommy and daddy’s trust fund?”
Deep Devil (The Deep Book 4) Page 23
