Chapter 2
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Smoke floated through the open door. Moments later, it positively poured from a deck hatchway behind Leo and his entourage.
Perhaps they smelled smoke or maybe someone saw it, but however the group realized, they turned as one. Screams and shouts sounded. The guards ran into the main deck lounge, returning moments later with inadequate fire extinguishers.
The rest of the group shuffled along the railing away from the superstructure and toward the back of the ship.
An alarm sounded, followed by an artificial voice bellowing loudly from the intercom. “Danger. Danger. Engine room fire. Engine room fire.”
Flames burst from a hatchway along the walking path outside the main lounge. Flint knew another such staged conflagration had also been started on the far side of the boat, constraining Leo and his friends to the rear of the ship.
Chad and Saul jumped into action. They emptied fire extinguishers into the smoke and hurled them down the hatchway and into the staged flames.
Several below deck workers appeared wearing dirty jeans and T-shirts. In moments, they dragged a firehose from a storage container.
The yacht lurched. The port side dropped six inches in one swift movement when the port side ballast filled as fast as possible. Flint grinned. Craig had briefed the below deck crew well.
Leo and his entourage stumbled forward, coughing and grabbing for the railings. In the rush, a brunette, toppled over the edge and dangled above the water while clinging to the railing. Two of her friends grabbed her wrists while she screamed.
The port side of the ship continued to inch down. In moments, the deck sloped at least twelve degrees. A plume of thick black smoke burst from the lounge and the flames from the deck hatchway continued unabated.
The tilt of the ship meant the girl’s feet no longer contacted the sloping hull. She kicked wildly, as her screams moved up a notch.
Flint eased his boat alongside Insatiable. Waves bumped the small craft against the big ship’s hull, but Flint kept close and under the dangling girl. He wouldn’t let her drown and if she went in the water, the height of the waves would complicate her rescue.
Flint abandoned the helm to help the girl. He hurried across the craft to stand under her, arms out.
“Jump!”
She continued to scream.
“Jump! Jump!”
The girl glanced down and her screams momentarily halted.
Flint waved his arms, indicating he would catch her. “Jump!”
Waves pounded the two boats together, the bumpers causing them to bounce apart a couple of feet each time. Flint debated returning to the helm to reposition, but the girl finally half swung, half pushed herself from the yacht and let go.
Her long hair trailed behind her as she fell. Flint leaned out, arms at full stretch and caught the girl in the crook of his elbows and pulled her close. He swung her over the boat and deposited her on her feet. She clung to his arms, shaking. Her mouth hung open and her glazed eyes didn’t blink.
Flint’s boat rocked as waves pounded it against the bigger ship’s hull.
“Sit,” he said, wriggling from the girl’s grasp and placing her hands on the back of a seat. She looked shocked as he returned to the helm and powered Sand Dollar away from danger. After a moment, she sank onto the seat, still dazed.
Smoke poured from Insatiable’s doorways. Flames around the deck hatch continued unabated.
The yacht had developed a considerable lean, more than ten degrees. Hopefully, the below deck crew would cease filling the port ballast tank.
The slope bunched the passengers up at the railings, pushing against each other.
Crew members struggled to move across the sloping deck, grabbing one handhold after another.
Judging by their cries, they had not been able to activate the fire hoses.
The captain shouted orders with a thick Scottish accent through a Tannoy system, but the crew didn’t seem to take much notice.
Waves rocked Insatiable. Leo clung to the railing, as did many of his passengers. The big ship shuddered with each rise and fall, as if the gyro stabilization had ceased to function, which Flint knew was perfectly true. Life aboard the big ship would feel seriously uncomfortable at this point.
Now they were in the danger zone. Flint was no murderer. The rate the ship had developed a list meant they only had minutes before the lean would be uncontrollable, and the ship would capsize.
With the bullhorn, he shouted to the passengers to move to the rear.
“You did this!” Leo yelled back through his bullhorn.
“Who, me?” said Flint, gesturing to Sand Dollar as if the idea were preposterous.
“You’re going to pay for this!”
The rescued brunette shouted for Emma to jump off Insatiable. One girl in the entourage, presumably Emma, climbed the railings, looked down and shook her head.
The brunette pleaded with her to jump, but Emma stepped down and joined the rest of Leo’s guests staggering along the deck toward the rear.
Saul stumbled around the group and caught up with Leo.
The pair talked a moment before Leo gestured to Flint.
Insatiable rolled with the waves, the entourage on deck squealing as they clung on for dear life.
Saul pushed away from the group and pulled out what looked like an H&K MP5, a compact, lightweight, and highly reliable submachine gun.
In close combat, it could be devastating.
Flint slammed the throttle lever forward and Sand Dollar’s engine roared. The rear of the boat dug in as the bow lifted. The big engine shoved the craft forward as if hit by a tsunami. The brunette screamed, falling backward in the boat.
The H&K bucked in Saul’s hands, the sound of its shots lost under the engine roar. The only saving grace Flint could see was that the gun was the short barrel variety, not as good for shooting a moving target.
Flint curved Sand Dollar around in a wide arc. Saul stopped firing. It seemed unlikely he would be out of ammunition, so Flint kept at least a couple of hundred feet away and reduced the engine power to keep the boat a more difficult target moving over the waves.
Insatiable listed badly. The lower deck portholes were submerged, and spray from the waves broke over the main deck.
The crew appeared to be struggling to launch a small bright yellow boat from the rear swim deck.
Leo and his entourage arrived at the stern, staggering down the steps from the main deck.
Saul abandoned his attack and made his way aft, regularly looking sideways at Flint.
Flint drove Sand Dollar around the front of Insatiable and approached the rear on the starboard side. Tilted upward, it made it more difficult for anyone to take pot shots at him.
Using his bullhorn, Flint hailed Leo. “Your ship is sinking. I have enough space for your passengers and crew. Tell your goons to knock it off.”
Leo gesticulated and shouted something inaudible over the noise of sea and engines, his bullhorn apparently lost.
One of the crew slipped off the swim deck. The remaining crew members frantically threw ropes and a life preserver ring at the man in the water. He disappeared in and out of view in the four- to five-foot waves.
Flint blipped the throttle to move his boat closer, careful not to run over the crewman.
The man’s face appeared over a wave. He swam hard for Sand Dollar.
Without leaving the helm, Flint threw the man a life preserver attached to a rope.
Once the man had it in his hands, Flint pulled him back in.
He climbed into the boat, panting. He wriggled out of the ring and looked up, relief written all over his face.
Leo shook one of the crew, a stocky, muscular man with a buzz cut, and shoved him back toward the yellow boat.
The man finished untying the boat and slid it over the edge of the swim deck.
Leo shoved him aside and crouched as if preparing to jump ship.
The boat lurched on a wave and the side caught under the swim deck.
A second wave rolled the yellow boat. The strain ripped the mooring rope from a bollard, and the yellow boat curled away from Insatiable.
Leo leaned forward but didn’t jump. He turned and swung a broad roundhouse punch at the crewman’s head. The man twisted, deflecting the blow with his shoulder, and grabbed Leo’s forearm. With one push he shoved him to the side. Leo stumbled back and fell overboard.
As Leo screamed and thrashed, the waves pushed him away from Insatiable.
In moments, he was closer to Sand Dollar than Insatiable.
Flint lobbed the life preserver in his direction.
Leo caught it on the first throw, but Flint only pulled it in until Leo reached the hull.
Flint tied the rope around a cleat as Leo struggled unsuccessfully to pull himself up over the side.
“Tell your goons to drop their weapons!” yelled Flint.
Leo continued to struggle. Flint blipped the throttle, lurching the boat forward, dragging Leo and no doubt straining his muscles to the limit. Leo screamed. Flint repeated his demand.
Leo shouted something unintelligible, and Saul and Chad made a show of laying down their machine pistols. Probably not their only weapons, but better than nothing. Flint pulled Leo onto the boat and left him heaving and coughing on the floor.
Navigating a large circle, Flint approached the swim deck with Sand Dollar’s prow into the waves. It didn’t stop the rocking and rolling, but it was better than nothing.
The crewman he’d rescued threw a rope to his colleagues, who looped it around a bollard. They pulled Sand Dollar alongside Insatiable, the hulls rubbing and grinding as the waves rocked the pair.
A blonde from the entourage stood on the edge of the swim deck, head bobbing up and down with the waves, apparently timing her jump.
One of the people behind pushed her and in one stumbling step she landed on Sand Dollar.
Spurred by her success, the rest of the group rushed over.
Flint used the bullhorn to tell them to spread out.
The last thing he needed was the boat unevenly loaded.
The crew followed the guests. Eight of them. Not the entire crew for a ship of Insatiable’s size, but enough to satisfy any questions that might arise in Leo’s feeble mind. The last to step onto Sand Dollar were Saul and Chad. Flint had the feeling it was nothing to do with chivalry.
Weighed down, occasional waves sloshed over Sand Dollar’s gunwale. Several of the deck hands got busy with a couple of buckets.
At Flint’s urging, the first crew member he’d rescued took the helm. Flint pushed his way through the crowd to Saul at the rear. “Anymore?”
“Don’t care.” Saul pulled an MP5 from his Hawaiian shirt. “Just go.”
Flint pointed upward. His drone still hung in the air, camera staring down. “You’re going to shoot me? On livestream?”
The entourage shuffled back, silent.
Saul adjusted his grip on the weapon.
Leo pushed his way through the entourage. “We’re in charge now, pal.” He looked at Saul. “Throw him overboard. Make it look like an accident.”
Saul laughed, raised his gun and turned toward the drone. “Or we could do this.” He fired, the gun bucking and hot shells falling to the floor.
Flint slammed a punch into Saul’s kidneys while reaching for the gun. Saul curled sideways, groaning. Flint kicked the back of his knee, and the man went down as Flint pried the gun free.
Chad leaped forward, his weapon ready.
“Don’t even,” said Flint, whipping Saul’s gun toward Leo.
No one spoke.
Chad shuffled.
Leo’s wide eyes took in the automatic weapon in his face.
“Drop it,” Flint said to Chad.
Chad didn’t move.
Flint punched the barrel of the gun against Leo’s forehead. Leo took a half step back, blubbering.
“Even if your pet thug thinks he could get a shot off, you won’t survive,” Flint advised.