by Dale Mayer
“So, at the moment, everything is contained?”
“Yes. And yet,” he said, “it doesn’t feel right.”
“It never does in these scenarios,” he said.
“Until we get everybody back home again,” Jerricho said, “we’re on four-hour watches.”
“I’ll take the first one,” Killian said.
At that, Jerricho nodded. He looked at Brenna. “Rooms are below deck,” he said. “The women are packed in pretty tight, but whatever space is available is ours to utilize.”
“Good,” she said in surprise. “Any chance of lying down?”
“Yes,” he said, “Killian and I have one room for ourselves and our weapons. I want you to stay there with us.”
She nodded slowly. “Where’s Jessie?”
“She’s lying down now.”
“Fine,” Brenna said, “lead the way then.”
He led her downstairs, where she realized just how tight the facilities were. But she was thankful for these rooms, and everybody was more than anxious to just crash, yet she heard excited murmurs as everybody discussed what had just happened. They all stopped speaking, as Brenna and Jerricho walked through the hallway, until he led her to a small room. He opened the door and let her inside. “Four bunks are in here. Killian and I are on the left. You take the right.”
She nodded and immediately laid down on the lower bunk.
“I figured you’d want to go high.”
“I want a fast exit, if need be,” she said. “It’ll take me that few seconds longer to get out, if I’m up top.”
He nodded in approval. “Keep up the good fight.”
“How about I just crash and burn?” she said instead.
He laughed. “Good idea.”
He walked to the other side and threw himself down.
“This is what you’ll do for your four hours?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “because four hours will happen so fast that I won’t have any chance to catch up on lost sleep. I need rest too.”
At that, she immediately fell quiet.
He looked over, smiled, and said, “I didn’t mean for you to be quiet.”
“No, maybe not,” she said, “but it’s important for you to get rest, just in case.”
“And you,” he said.
She smiled, nodded, closed her eyes, and said, “I’m okay to just crash.”
Even as Jerricho watched, it seemed like Brenna crashed in front of him. He smiled at that. Their marriage had been short and so many years ago that he didn’t remember ever watching her fall asleep before. It was an interesting experience. Something was just so innocent about that. He was adjusting to who she was now. But he liked this person. He wasn’t sure he’d liked the last one. He’d been smitten, but that’s not the same thing. Then his hormones had been involved and not his brain so much.
Right now was a whole different story. She had held up just fine through this shitstorm. He was proud of her. And with that thought, he let the last few hours of events drift through his mind, looking for areas that he was ignoring or was in danger of missing out on. But even then he couldn’t find anything. And he closed his eyes and slipped into a deep sleep. He slept solidly until a soft knock came on the door. He opened his eyes and heard the door open.
As Killian popped his head around, Jerricho rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and said, “Yep, I’m here.”
“Good enough.”
He sat up, brushed his hair back, and asked, “Any change?”
“It’s completely smooth out there. Are you okay to do a shift?” Killian asked.
“Of course,” he said. “I’m fine.” He sat up and quickly stepped over and waited until Killian stretched out and asked, “Anything to report?”
“No,” he said, “it’s all good. It’s been quiet.”
“Progress and speed?”
“ETA is another eight hours.”
“Shit, that long still?”
“Yes. The captain is back at the helm though. And he’s more than grateful for our help. At the same time I think he’s quite pissed that he got taken. And he’s even angrier that he was in this position altogether, so he is a mix between happy and pissed.”
“Got it,” he said. “In other words don’t take anything for granted.”
“Not at all,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t think he was involved.”
“That’s good news.” At that, Jerricho headed to the bathroom, quickly used the facilities, scrubbed his face in the cold water, and headed up on deck. That chased away the last vestiges of sleep as nothing else could. Cold crisp wind floated across the water. The captain called out to him. Jerricho smiled, walked over, and shook hands with him. “How goes it this morning?” he asked.
“I don’t want to let down our guard,” he said. “They came upon us so fast, and with such surprise, we didn’t expect anything.”
“Did they announce who they were before they boarded?”
“No, only that they were taking command of the ship.”
“Which is never very friendly,” he said, with a hard look.
“Are you telling me?” The captain was a grizzled old Ukrainian. What he was doing here was a long and funny tale, and Jerricho was happy to listen, as he extolled the virtues of chasing the only woman he had ever loved halfway across the country. As it was, she waited for him at home now, while he did these trips as a thank-you for those who had helped him back then track her down.
“I’m glad you’re on our side,” Jerricho said.
“I’m on anybody’s side who isn’t those assholes who boarded us and shot two of my men.”
Jerricho shook his head.
“Right off the bat, to make us all fall into line,” he said. “Assholes.”
“I have to agree with that,” he said. “That’s a pretty shitty move.”
“But it was also a fairly common tactic. Let everybody know that you meant business, and those who had survived the first onslaught were usually prepared to behave themselves. If they weren’t, then another one got shot. Until they were compliant. Usually, at that point, everybody complied. It still sucks though. Those two young men had families, people who loved them and cared for them.”
Jerricho deliberately didn’t let himself think about the dozen guards who had died in this mess earlier at the corral, but they were on the wrong side of a war that he hadn’t called for. “Did they mention the women?”
The captain nodded. “Said a group of women had been taken from them. And they were determined to get them back.”
“Interesting. So why did they need you then?”
“Hard to find the women,” he said, “though none of this makes any sense, as far as I’m concerned.”
“It usually does later, just not now, because we don’t have all the pieces.”
“Maybe. Can’t say I want them to make sense, if it involves those assholes.”
“And they were heavily armed?”
He shrugged. “They were armed. I don’t know about heavily.”
“Right. I guess that’s a certain judgment call.” He kept asking more questions, but the captain didn’t have a whole lot to say. He’d been knocked out fairly fast. Jerricho stayed in the pilot’s cabin with the captain for another fifteen minutes when the captain looked at him and said, “Hey, why don’t you put on some coffee.”
“Now that I can do,” Jerricho said, with a smile. He quickly headed to the small kitchen area. It always amazed him how such a fully stocked kitchen could be in such a tiny area. But ships, particularly ones like this, where they had to feed more men than normal, every inch you had was premium space. He rummaged around the kitchen, found what he needed, and put on a pot. By the time it was done dripping, he poured two cups and headed back up to the captain.
The captain stood calmly, staring out into the ocean ahead.
Jerricho held up his mug for him. “Don’t know if it’s strong enough for you,” he said.
“Caffeine is caffeine
,” he said. He rotated his head and winced.
“How is the injury?”
“Ah, I’ll be fine,” he said, “just a stupid injury. I’m madder at myself than anything.”
“That’s easy to see.” As they stood here in the silence, a strange noise was heard along one of the railings. Jerricho looked at the captain, frowned, and then glared into the area making the noise.
“You know we did a full search,” the captain said, “but it’s a pretty decent-size ship, if somebody wanted to hide.”
At that, Jerricho immediately pulled his handgun from his holster and slipped around to the side. “You stay here,” he said. “I’ll go check.”
“I’m all for that,” he said. “And, if somebody is there, make sure you take him out.”
“If they’ve got answers, we have a few questions.”
“The only question I want answered is how long until I’m home,” he said.
Jerricho almost laughed at the captain’s grumbling because it was obvious by a light in his eye that he thought this was a great lark. He’d been through a bunch of experiences in his life, and things had calmed down to the point that this was now fun again. But it was only fun if it ended well.
With that in his mind, Jerricho slipped around the side of the steering cabin and along the ship’s edge; he couldn’t exactly pinpoint where the noise had come from, and definitely lots of creaking could be heard as the waves splashed up on the side of the boat. But that troubling sound wasn’t a consistent noise, and it’s the first he’d heard, even though he’d been up for as long as he had. And the captain didn’t appear to know what it was either.
Nothing was sliding around on the deck, and, if something had banged around, there had to be a reason or a force that banged it. And Jerricho wanted to know just what that was. It also made him suspicious that, on a boat this size, they hadn’t found anybody else.
Why would every pirate have been on deck?
Jerricho shrugged, not sure, and came upon three lifeboats strung alongside the ship, hanging on the outside of the hull. He would think that they had been checked first, but one could never really know. He slipped underneath and around, checking on the chains holding them all tight. They were on a hoist system that could be unclipped and dropped into the ocean, in case of a bad storm, if the main ship were taking on water and if they needed to be rescued. He slipped from one to the other, checking that nothing was in between these lifeboats. Then he came back around and lifted the corner of the first of one. It was empty underneath, although it was hard to see.
Using his flashlight, he crept up to the next one, loosened it carefully, and, when he heard a soft noise on the inside, he immediately jammed his gun underneath and warned whoever it was to come out, with his hands up. He pulled back the canvas covering, and, sure enough, a stranger stared at him, rage on his face. Jerricho nodded slowly. “Up,” he said, “get up.”
The pirate slowly crept forward, and, even as he tried to get over the edge of the main ship and back on its deck, he turned, knife in hand, intent on sending Jerricho flying with a leg kick. But Jerricho evaded and slammed his gun hard into his temple and, as he groaned and caved forward slightly, Jerricho gave him a hard left to the groin, followed with a right to the jaw. The pirate went down. Jerricho pocketed his knife, dragged him back around to where the captain was, who took one look at him, came over roaring, raging, and kicked him hard several times.
Jerricho calmed down the captain, and he said, “Remember? We want to ask him questions.”
The captain gave him a hard look. “And then we toss him overboard,” he snapped. “I’m not giving this guy one more moment of life after he killed my men.”
Jerricho looked at the pirate and asked the captain, “Do you recognize him?”
He nodded. “He’s their leader.”
“Well,” Jerricho said, “that’s really good timing then.” He looked around for something to tie him up with, when the captain walked over, snagged a chunk of rope, and gave it to him. Jerricho quickly tied up the unconscious pirate’s ankles, legs, and wrists, and then tied them together. He wouldn’t go anywhere, short of a sharp knife. At that, Jerricho grabbed a bucket of seawater as it splashed over on the lower deck, came racing back, and threw it at the man.
He groaned and opened his eyes. Soon he tried to jump to his feet, only to tumbled backward. And then he swore in a violent rip of colorful language that Jerricho didn’t need a translator to decipher.
The captain walked over and kicked him again, hard. And the pirate again swore at him in that same language.
“What did he say?” Jerricho asked.
“You don’t need an exact translation,” he said. “Basically, on his mother’s grave, he would skin you alive and feed you to the fish.”
“Colorful,” Jerricho said, looking down at him. “Can you ask him some questions?”
“Sure,” he said, “but only because I’m anticipating throwing the asshole overboard.”
“I hear you, but I don’t want him killed unless he attacks.”
“He has already attacked,” the captain said in a hard voice. “This you give me,” he said. “It’s my men he killed.”
Knowing that he was up against an impasse, Jerricho nodded slowly. “In my world, we don’t kill an unarmed man.”
The captain snorted. “He killed two unarmed men,” he said. “They both had wives. They both had children.”
Jerricho winced because he understood the rage eating at the captain. He still had to go home and explain to the wives of his crewmen. Jerricho nodded, walked over to the pirate, checked him from top to bottom to make sure he had no other weapons, and then pulled out a plastic bag from his back pocket. The captain whistled. The bag was filled with a lot of money that neither expected to see. He handed it to the captain. “Can I trust you to split this between the two men’s families?”
The captain looked at him in surprise, and tears were in his eyes, when he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That is appropriate.” He immediately pocketed the money, glaring at the pirate, swearing at him again. Then the captain walked over, bent, clenched his hand around his captive’s throat, and gave him a hell of a talking to. Finally he sat back, looked at Jerricho, and asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Who was buying the women?”
He quickly asked the questions, and things just weren’t any easier. Buyers were people from all over the world but mostly done by local agents. The pirates would take the women to safe points, where they would travel outward.
“How often were the women sold?”
“Twice a year.”
“How many women usually?”
“Forty to fifty was ideal. More than that was too hard to travel with.”
“How would they be selected?”
“Pretty.” He just shrugged. “And, of course, that was a judgment in itself, but young,” he said suddenly. “The younger, the better.”
At that, the captain reached over and kicked him hard in the side of the head. The leader roared, but he could do nothing to get away from the kicks. Jerricho, knowing that the captain’s temper would take hold faster than anything, quickly asked as many questions as he could. But the pirate settled into a sullen mind-set and refused to answer more than monosyllabic answers.
“When is the next run?”
He shrugged again. “You killed everyone.”
“Not everyone.”
“Organizers,” he said. “They had the contacts …”
“Are the agents on the way?”
“They should have been but …” Then his voice broke off.
“How did you know the women had been rescued?”
“One of the men there called me.” He said, “I grabbed the ships, and we came. We didn’t know very much, but we had to get the women.” He glared at Jerricho and the captain. “Many of us take big risks to get these women. It’s our payoff. Enough to feed our families for an entire year.” And the pirate fell silent.
/> The captain looked down at him, but so much hate remained in his gaze. He looked at Jerricho. “Your call.”
“If it’s my call,” he said quietly, “we keep him alive, find out from him and his associates who the rest are involved in this nightmare.”
“Can your guys do that?”
Jerricho nodded. “They’ll track his laptop, all his communications, his bank accounts, all to see where the money is flowing, who the agents are, who the suppliers are, and, even more of an issue,” he said, “who the buyers are.”
At that, the captain stepped back. “In that case, we keep him alive,” he said. “I get that he shot my two guys, but I also know that my guys all have daughters. And to think that anything like this could happen to them is beyond belief.” At that, he said, “Can you take him down and put him in the storeroom? It’s got a hefty lock on it. And a bolt outside.”
“Will do.”
Grabbing the pirate, Jerricho helped him to his feet—even though he couldn’t walk due to the ropes on him—and bent down until the pirate pitched over his shoulders, and then Jerricho stood up, using the handrail. He slowly stepped below deck to the storeroom. As the captain had promised, the storeroom was solid with a solid steel door. And a great big deadbolt was on the outside.
He dropped the pirate inside and snapped it closed. The pirate called out, but Jerricho didn’t understand the language, so he ignored him and left. He poured another cup of coffee and went out to see the captain, standing out in the open, his hands on his hips, his sea legs easily handling the sway of the deck below his feet. “You okay?” Jerricho asked the captain.
He nodded slowly. “I really want to kill him,” he said. “Yet it’s just like you said. An awful lot of other perpetrators are out there we need to catch.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Based on the fact that we found him, I’ll do another search.”
The captain faced him, gave him a hard look, and said, “We’ve got one, and we need him for answers. If you get any more, pitch them overboard.”
And, with that, he headed back to his wheelhouse, leaving Jerricho alone to take care of the hunt. A hunt he didn’t mind doing in the least. He headed back down around the same side of the ship where he’d found the leader. If anybody else was on the ship, they didn’t belong, and Jerricho would find them.
