Chapter 26
There were none. There was nothing at the bottom of the stairs except a short metal hall with a locked metal door with a small square window at eye level. And not a soul anywhere.
Dane moved quietly forward to the door and out of sight of the window. He put his ear to the metal door and listened but couldn’t hear a thing. He rapped on it with his gun. No response. With caution, he ventured a look inside through the window.
What he saw clenched his gut into a sickened coil. Several filthy mattresses lay on the metal floor, each with nearby metal rings attached to the wall and holding heavy iron chains. All the mattresses were empty. Except one, at the far end of the long narrow cell, which held one person.
Backing away from the door, he first tried kicking it, but there was no give.
He stood aside and took aim with his pistol and fired it at the lock on the door handle.
He made a hole, but when he rattled the door, it didn’t budge.
Looking inside the room again, he saw the person he assumed to be Susan Whittier, although she looked more like an indistinguishable lump of humanity with long ratty hair and one foot showing from under a worn blanket that might have once been white.
He hated to waste bullets, but he took aim again inside the hole he’d already created to blow the locking mechanism out.
He pulled the trigger and, with a very loud echoing clank, the metal handle gave way and he pushed the door open.
Rushing inside, his gut churned as he smelled the foul odor and the state of the prone woman.
Bending when he got to her, he turned her and checked the pulse on her neck.
She was alive, but likely drugged. He hefted her over his shoulder, with one arm securing her in place and the other holding his gun, then moved swiftly back the way he came until he got to the ladder.
The quarters were tight and he heard shouting and thuds from above.
Carefully moving her up the ladder with him, he stopped just before his head would pop out onto the deck and he listened.
Jean Luc’s voice shouted something in frantic French that Dane didn’t catch until he got to the word “Shana.” It felt like an anvil dropped from his chest to his toes and in place of his heartbeat a menacing barrel drum.
Rage thundered through his veins where his blood used to be.
He took the last step up with his gun in front of him and aimed back from the bow at anyone waiting for him.
The deck around the stairs was empty. He scanned the area. Behind the nearest cabin wall he spotted a billow of blond hair carried on the breeze from behind the cover of the corner. Shana.
Dane wrestled Susan up the final step, off his shoulder and out of the stairwell hatch. Looking directly at the spot where he knew she stood, he said, “Shana” in a tight whisper. She veered out from behind the corner and, crouching low, she came forward.
“All clear? The guards?” she asked as she shuffled over to where he laid Susan Whittier on the deck behind the rail and out of the way.
“Taken care of. But she needs medical attention and we need to call Cap to close in. We need to get her off the boat before all hell breaks loose.”
“Same way we came?”
He shook his head. “Into the water. You jump in and I’ll lower her to you. You can tow her toward the dock on the far side of the boat here on the starboard side to keep her safe.”
“What’ll you be doing?”
“I’ll be arresting some bad guys.” He looked at her, knowing what she was thinking. “Don’t even think about it.”
“How about if you take her to shore—”
“I said don’t even think about it.” He used that tone he had in reserve that threatened certain death if there was any resistance.
He held his breath hoping it would work with Shana.
It could go either way, mostly depending on her mood rather than any rational reason or that she might actually be intimidated by him.
He realized he gave up long ago on that notion.
He still hadn’t decided how he felt about it.
“I’ll be back,” she said and climbed over the side to lower herself into the water with a light splash.
As far as big yachts went, this was substantial, but the drop from the deck rail to the water was only about six feet at the point where he lowered Susan Whittier into the arms of Shana.
Shana only went under for a second under the weight of the woman and bounced back up, holding her charge in a lifesaving grip around her chin.
Dane watched her backstroke away around the end of the neighboring boat for only a few seconds before renewed shouting got his attention. He heard Ned’s name.
As Dane moved along the side of the main cabin toward the salon entrance where he’d last seen Jean Luc enter, he pulled out his two-way and called Cap.
“Time to come in. I think from the sounds of it they’re all in the main cabin. Whittier and Shana are off the boat. I’m outside on the starboard side of the cabin. Jean Luc is inside.”
“Got it. Coming in hot now.” Cap clicked off and Dane shut the device down and shoved it back into the left leg pocket of his wet shorts.
He approached the window, stopping short, waiting for the onslaught and listened to one of the Tavares brothers—the older one—asking Jean Luc about Ned.
Dane didn’t hear the answer, but heard the sickening smack of a pistol against flesh and bone.
Then all hell broke loose.
Captain Lynch shouted from his bullhorn as he and his men charged into the main salon doors.
Dane moved forward with his gun leading, now feeling underpowered and vulnerable with his small weapon and no flak vest for the raid like he saw on the others.
Coming in the side door, he saw Jean Luc on the floor and one of the Tavares brothers retreating behind the bar.
Lynch and two men moved inside with their weapons drawn.
Tavares pulled out an automatic weapon—bigger and better than the one he’d seen Ned wielding—and started firing.
Cap went down and the others took cover.
Dane was out of the firing line and he took that advantage to lift his weapon and aim it dead on Tavares’s temple. The Brazilian dropped to the floor.
Then Lynch’s men took over, prodding the others, including the younger Tavares brother, onto the floor. Dane ran past them to Cap and got to him at the same time as Shana walked through the door behind two more men, wielding her own gun.
He caught her eyes as he knelt beside Cap and felt for his pulse and examined the wound.
The shot caught him near the collarbone at the edge of his vest and it was bloody and bad.
Dane frantically tried to stop the bleeding, telling himself it could be worse and probably looked worse than it was.
He shouted for help. Shana knelt beside him and ripped off a piece of her orange jersey to pad the wound. The EMTs rushed in and took over.
Shana and Dane stood and looked at each other.
They were the last two standing from their team of four.
Shana looked wet and bedraggled and was dressed all wrong for the scene in her bathing suit and torn competition jersey and holding a gun. She just stared at him with those green eyes full of trouble and promise. His heart kicked back up after it had finally slowed to normal.
Wanting to say something, but having no damn idea what should come first, he took her free hand and held it. She squeezed his hand back.
“Let’s get out of here.” He suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near the scum that was being arrested and led off by well-equipped and well-armed state troopers.
With Cap gone, carried away on the first stretcher, they no longer had a connection to the scene and he felt like they were in the way. And the place smelled bad.
She pulled on his hand and gave the weapon to the trooper she came in with. He took it and nodded. Then she led him to the side door and they walked around and off the boat, onto the dock, and headed to the marina. Without saying a word.
* * *
She shouldn’t have been surprised to find a helicopter waiting for them outside the hospital. The hospital was the only place that it made sense for her and Dane to go after leaving the boat. Both Cap and Chauncey were there and Chauncey had just been med-evacked back to Boston.
She stood next to Dane, still holding his hand, outside in the parking lot and they watched another helicopter land. It was bigger than the medical copter and had an official state seal on the side.
“Shit.”
She turned to Dane. It was the first thing he’d said to her since the shootout.
“What?” No use trying not to sound worried now. All the worry she’d held in for the last few days came spilling out of her until she had to bite her lip to keep from crying on the spot.
“It’s the governor and the Chief of the State Police.”
Shana turned, strained to get her professional cool back, and watched the two men pile out of the copter. Then she saw a third. Exhaustion pulled at her more than panic about her career ambitions and making an impression.
“And David Young, Chief of the Scotland Yard Exchange Program.” Dane turned to her. “Your boss.”
Dane walked forward to meet the landing party short of the rotor spin, dragging her with him.
She clung to her last grain of control. She still wore her bathing suit, although one of the nurses had given her a dressing gown to cover it up after she refused to be checked out in the emergency room.
There was nothing wrong with her that a good meal and a shot of something strong wouldn’t cure.
Or maybe a night in the arms of a good man was the cure she needed.
She glanced under her lashes at Dane and wondered if he’d understand.
Her worry picked up, thinking about it layering on top of the deep weariness.