Chapter 3
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Leo panted, close to hyperventilating. It seemed to take an eternity for him to get himself under control and say, “Drop it. Drop it now.”
Chad moved slowly. Reluctant. He lowered his gun, placing it on a tackle box. Flint gestured for him to step back and he did.
Saul rolled onto his knees.
Flint waved his gun at Leo. “Take him up front.”
The pair moved away, Leo warily glancing backward at the gun. Flint waited until he had a clear space around him to release the rope tying Sand Dollar to Insatiable.
Keeping his gun on Leo, Flint looped the rope around his forearm. With his free hand, he lifted a small hatch, roughly cut in the molded shell of the boat’s rear seats. The crewman at the helm stared backward. Flint reached into the hatch opening, his fingers finding a plastic handle.
Chad leaped forward.
Flint pulled on the handle. Below deck, two wedges dropped into place, locking the rudder mechanism in the straight-ahead position.
An electromagnetic device jammed the throttle levers on full power.
The engine roared, and the boat lurched forward, the rear digging in as the propellor gained traction.
Chad found his gun.
As the rope around Flint’s arm reached its full length, he put one foot on the rear seat.
Chad raised the weapon.
Flint flew from the back of the boat. His grip had remained secure on the rope tied to Insatiable, and Sand Dollar whipped away from under him. He descended into the water as gunfire rang out.
With swift strokes, he pushed himself below the waves and under the rear of Insatiable. Occasional lines of white bubbles traced the path of bullets in a wild arc around him.
It only took moments for the beat and throb of Sand Dollar’s propeller to fade, along with the frothy path it churned. He clicked the MP5’s selector to safe and, on the count of sixty, rose to the surface.
The waves tossed him back and forth. He looped the MP5’s strap over his head and swam hard for the rear of the ship.
Craig knelt on the swim deck, one arm wrapped around a bollard to stop her sliding with the tilt of the ship, and the other stretched out to him.
He timed his grab for her hand with a rising wave that practically lifted him onto the swim deck.
Behind her on the main deck, two crew members extinguished the fire in the hatchway with a hose, the same hose that had previously been non-functional.
“The crew agreed to the plan?” said Flint.
Craig nodded. “Leo gets zero points for popularity.”
“Excellent.”
Flint felt a low throb from the engines and the propellor churned the sea behind the boat. They were moving. Slowly.
“Captain chose five people to run the ship. The rest of the crew boarded your boat to make sure the passengers left,” she said.
“Any more of Leo’s thugs?”
“Just the two.”
Thick smoke still poured from the main lounge, the result of the smoke bombs they had smuggled aboard the previous night. The ship rocked on a wave. “The ballast?” he said.
“There’s some problem with the electrics.”
“We have to get the ship back upright.”
“They’re on it. Three men. Manually pumping the tanks. But it’s slow, and we don’t have long.”
Flint frowned.
She pointed out to sea. Flint exhaled at the sight of Sand Dollar, sideways on. “Turning,” he said. “Must have unlocked the rudder.”
“We can move,” she said. “But the captain doesn’t want to steer until the ship’s balanced, and the electrics are back. One wrong wave and the ship could roll.”
“Slow is better than nothing, I guess.”
Flint levered himself onto his feet. Sand Dollar was mid-turn. He watched it a moment until he realized Saul was leaning over the side, a rope trailing in the water. “They’re using a bucket for drag. It’ll turn them around eventually. Where’s the helm?”
Craig pointed forward and up.
“Let’s go.”
She led the way up the main deck and past the hatch where the fire had been set.
The expensive looking wooden planks were charred.
In the hatchway, the steps were gone, and the metal handrail was scorched.
Bending down, he could see the conflagration had been confined close to the hatch, the rest of the corridor was untouched by the flames. A good trick by the crew.
They skirted around the main lounge, up a level to the bridge deck, through an exercise room and onto the bridge.
A lone man sat at the helm, the glass panel displays around him dark. He stared out the windshield, not breaking his vigil when Flint entered the room.
“Flyin’ damn close to tha’ wind, we are,” he said, with a thick Scottish accent.
“No steerin’ and twelve degrees o’ list in a swell like this.
” To prove his point, a wave struck the boat at an angle, sending water and spray up over the port side deck.
The ship rocked. “Be gettin’ worse, too,” he muttered, tapping a mechanical barometer on the wall beside him. “Storm’ll be here in an hour.”
“Can you point the nose into the waves?” said Flint.
“Tha’ be the prow, an’ nay, can’t be steerin’ till we get the electrics back.”
“Leo is on his way back.”
The captain turned to show his name, Peabody, visible on the breast pocket of his jacket. “Is he now,” he said.
“Anything to repel pirates?”
“Shotgun, pistol, an’ two automatics.” Peabody jerked a thumb toward a cabinet on the wall. “Leo’s men took ’em a while ago.”
Flint held up his gun. “I believe I have got one of them back.”
The captain grunted.
Flint checked the magazine. Out of thirty rounds, it only had seven shots left. Saul had used the rest in his futile attempt to shoot down the drone.
“Firehose be the only thing now,” said the captain.
“Spear gun?” said Flint, not exactly sure how he’d used it when he didn’t want to injure bystanders.
“Ah dinnae ken.”
Flint frowned at the man’s language.
“He doesn’t know,” Craig translated.
Peabody grunted his agreement.
Flint crossed the width of the ship to look from the port window.
Sand Dollar had turned ahead of Insatiable.
That allowed them a good chance of an intercept.
Perhaps Leo’s men weren’t entirely dumb after all.
The small boat pounded over the waves, creating giant plumes of spray.
The people on board must have been holding on for dear life.
“Going fast,” Peabody, arriving beside Flint.
“I wedged the throttle wide open.”
“So tha’ lass said.”
“They’re steering using drag.”
The captain produced a set of binoculars, adjusted them for focus and followed the boat a moment. “An’ they have me automatics.”
“I have one.”
“Well they’ve found another.”
“MP5s?”
“Aye. An’ they be on a direct path.” The captain handed over the binoculars. “Two minutes. At tha’ most.”
Flint studied the approaching boat. Saul had indeed found another gun. That probably meant they had plenty of ammunition as well. Flint’s seven shots weren’t going to be a lot of use. Especially as he didn’t want to hurt any of the rest of the entourage.
“They’re aiming for where the ship will be,” he said.
“Aye. Figured out we’re movin’.”
“We need to go faster.”
“Nae. We’re pushing the limit now.”
Flint raised his eyebrows. “Another knot?”
The captain muttered something then walked back to the helm and inched the throttle forward. Whatever difference it made to the noise from the engine was muted long before it reached its well-heeled owners, but Flint sensed a tiny acceleration.
“The galley,” Flint said to Craig.
Her eyebrows squeezed down, a look of shock on her face. “Food?”
“Soap.”
She broke out of her trance and led him down three floors, sliding down ladders between each floor in a direct route from the rear of the bridge.
She landed on each floor with an easy gait, knees bending to absorb the impact and moving for the next ladder without a pause.
The engine noise grew louder. Voices could be heard shouting.
Two corridors later, they entered a storeroom with rows of shelves stacked with provisions. A metal railing kept the contents from falling off in rough seas. Craig found the cleaning products on the first try.
Flint said, “The swim deck is the only place for them to board, right?”
She nodded. “Dockside gangplank is on the main deck, and the boarding steps are pulled up.”
“Good. Find a bucket.”
She frowned a moment before running off. Flint unscrewed the tops from a half dozen industrial-size bottles of washing up liquid before she returned with two five-gallon buckets. They filled both buckets, squeezing the plastic bottles to transfer the liquid as fast as possible.
She led him back through the ship, up one floor, and out of a door on the port side to the rear of the main lounge.
Sand Dollar was a hundred yards away, closing fast. The increase in Insatiable’s speed hadn’t been enough.
Leo would intercept them at the rear of Insatiable.
The swim deck. Exactly what Flint didn’t want.
He dropped to the deck as Saul started firing. Craig did the same. The shots went wild.
“Get back inside,” he said, reaching for her bucket.
“No,” she said. “They stole this from me, and I’ll be damned if they’re going to get it back.” Bent double, she hustled for the safety of the garaging superstructure where jet skis were stored.
Flint followed on her heels. The gunfire stopped. He hefted his bucket and scrabbled around the garage.
The noise of Sand Dollar’s engine grew rapidly. Saul and Chad were on the gunwale, the boat only fifty feet away, readying to jump.
Flint briefly considered using the H&K, but with the bulk of the entourage behind the thugs, there was no clear shot that wouldn’t endanger innocent lives.
The rope he’d used to pull him from Sand Dollar trailed in Insatiable’s wake, twisting and flipping in some wild snake dance. He watched and waited for it to buck up, closer.
One of the thugs fired. The sharp noise grabbed Flint’s attention even though the bullet passed harmlessly overhead.
The far end of the rope whipped onto the swim deck. He grabbed it. The fibers stung as they slapped his hands and burned as he gripped tight to tame its energy and pull it in. It trailed across the rear swim deck, from the bollard on the port side to him on the starboard.
Leo had used drag to turn Sand Dollar around, but he wasn’t the only who could use that trick.
Flint threw the liquid soap across the swim deck, hitting the transom and steps. Bubbles burst into life in the ship’s wake. He repeated his throws, coating the entire rear of the ship in the clear liquid.
More shots sounded. One bounced off the ship to his left, leaving a long dark scar on the brilliant white plastic. Sand Dollar was twenty feet away. He rolled back, gripping the end of the rope tight as he slid down the superstructure to Craig.
He pointed to the steps on either side of the garage, the only pathways from the swim deck to the rest of the ship. While she emptied her soap over each side, he looped the rope around the handle of his bucket, tucking the free end under itself for a clove hitch, and pulled tight.
She dived to safety just as Sand Dollar hit the rear of Insatiable.
It was a glancing impact, scraping the hulls together.
Screams and shouts filled the air. The entourage no doubt traumatized by the switch from party to open combat.
But there was one word that stood out, one word he was waiting to hear. “Go!” Saul shouted.
Shouts turned to gasps from the entourage.
Flint felt more than heard the thump of boots on the swim deck, followed by scrabbling. Shouts and curses filled the air.
Sand Dollar barreled past. The entourage huddled midships and Leo on the closest edge, shouting and gesticulating. To Flint’s relief, neither Saul nor Chad had remained aboard, they were on Insatiable’s swim deck behind the superstructure, slipping and sliding.
Several shots sounded. Flint couldn’t see either of the attackers, so they were firing blind, maybe accidentally as they struggled to stay upright.
Sand Dollar continued on its way, leaving the sea behind clear. He pulled the rope tight, from the bollard on the port side to him on the starboard before throwing the bucket, underarm, a looping shot. It cleared the superstructure and the railings to fall into the foaming sea behind Insatiable.
The bucket filled with water in an instant, scooping everything in its path.
It stayed still while Insatiable continued on its way.
The motion snapped the rope tight before sweeping it across the swim deck at knee height.
Saul and Chad cried out. Flint peered around the garage in time to see them slap face down on the swim deck and slither overboard, guns lost and splashing in the foamy wake.
Flint threw two life preservers. The men swam hard for them. Once back in the bridge, he’d inform the coast guard. And the police.
Craig stood and stared at the two men. “An irresistible force and slippery objects.”
She turned her stare to Flint. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
Flint shook his head.
“You sure clean up good,” she said with a grin.
Flint groaned.
In the distance, Sand Dollar slowed and turned. The crew would head back to the harbor. They’d be given tickets and re-board Insatiable at the port. They’d no doubt receive a significant bonus from Pauline Craig.
Leo would fare less well, but Flint wasn’t about to lose sleep over that.
Slowly, the undamaged lights came on all over Insatiable. Electrical systems buzzed and thrummed back to life. The ballast tanks began to slowly right the ship.
He followed Craig back up to the bridge, confident in the knowledge he’d righted a wrong, too.