Chapter 17 #2
Josh didn’t have enough breath to answer. The valet had stopped to shout instructions to two of Kadjic’s thugs as they neared the entryway to the valet lot, and Josh was mere feet from the back of the town car. From this angle, Josh could see Grace, sagging in the grip of one of the thugs.
Grace.
Shit. Kadjic was approaching—Josh was going to get busted if he didn’t find someplace to hide, and find it now.
He felt the trickle of blood from his nose as he fell against the back of the town car, fortunately in the shadows.
He was hidden from Kadjic’s party, but could still watch them advance, and he thought helplessly that most of the vehicles out in this area were low-slung growly sportscars that would probably give Chuck a hard-on but that he could hardly roll under without getting squashed.
The trunk latch rattled underneath his weight, and his panic and his breathlessness faded as his formidable brain took over.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his lock picks, trying to remember if the valet had already clicked the alarm system as he’d approached.
He must have, Josh thought as he opened the trunk and slipped in, then closed it from the safety handle inside.
Nobody even saw him hide.
LIAM WONDERED how old he was now. He’d been about to turn thirty-one and feeling mighty old next to his young lover, whom he refused to relinquish, before Molly had opened the bottom hatch, the one level with the dock, so he could slip into the yacht, but that felt like it was a thousand years ago.
His path had been littered with moaning henchmen with zip-ties around their wrists—but only three of them.
“How many?” he asked softly as he followed her through the labyrinthine corridors.
“There’s at least twenty,” she said. “Right now most of them are up in the common room, whining about the rations.” There was a touch of smugness in her voice.
She’d been “delivered” that morning in a big pallet of boxes that had been transported to the cargo hold.
The markings on the side had indicated steaks and pies, and discovering those boxes had been emptied had probably pissed a lot of the lower ranks off.
They’d be assuming the captains had all dined well that night. The captains would all be assuming they worked with thieves. That hadn’t been the plan, but it was a windfall to sow dissension in the ranks before you robbed them of their cargo.
“Have you made contact with the victims yet?”
Molly gave him a fierce look. “Some of them are in a bad way,” she said unhappily. “They’ll need medical. I already contacted Felix and Danny, but they’re going to need help swimming under the dock to the other ship.”
Liam grunted and wished for maybe the more bloodthirsty mindset of a TV law enforcer. “Due process,” he whispered to himself. “Due process. Due process.”
One of the men at his feet moaned and spat, and Liam kicked him in the ribs.
That process was due, he thought sourly.
“How close are we to moving them out?” he asked her.
“Chuck popped the hull about ten minutes ago,” she said. “I’ve got a quiet evacuation going, but I need to get back. You were right—we need you to get their passports, because they need some guidance on this end. You know where to go?”
He bent to the feet of the guy he’d just kicked and took in his clothes.
Liam was wearing thieves’ clothes—black sweats, black turtleneck, black balaclava.
The guy at his feet had a green balaclava but pale, freckled features.
Liam tucked his own hat in his pocket and grabbed the green hat, relieved when it seemed clean and not greasy.
“Think I’ll pass?” he asked Molly, tucking the hat on his head.
“Definitely,” she said. “These guys don’t know each other’s names. I hung out in the galley for a bit and listened in—those Russian lessons are really paying off, by the way.”
Liam laughed softly to himself and wondered how many languages the Salingers knew between all of them. Maybe their next caper should involve the Middle and Far East so they could pick up different traditions and different tongues.
“Good,” he said. “I speak a few words. And I definitely know ‘The captain needs something from his quarters.’ You keep the victims heading down the airlock. I’ll get their passports. You ready?”
She paused, sober. “Any news from the other end?”
Liam gave her a warm smile. “Just heard from Josh—apparently his mother looked straight at Kadjic and he didn’t recognize her. He said it was epic,” he told her, using Josh’s word. “So far so good, although they’re hoping the painting switch will be discovered before the end of the night.”
“Epic,” she said, offering a fist bump. He gave her one in return, and she slipped off toward the engine room, where, he presumed, the three henchmen with head injuries had come from.
It was his turn now.
He’d been in on a few raids of human trafficking boats, although none as big as this one.
Still, the MO of keeping the captives’ passports in the captain’s safe was not new.
Those were gold. Those were the things the captors would use to get the women what appeared to be legitimate employment when they reached their destination, and the things that would be held in reserve so the women would never try to escape.
While the US was known for its draconian and inhumane measures toward illegal immigrants, they weren’t the only ones, and human chattel had a value all its own.
Being caught without a passport could be absolutely deadly.
Liam made his way up out of the steerage compartment, past the common area, and up another steep series of steps toward the captain’s quarters.
He passed one or two crew members, but not closely.
They’d all been heading toward the chow line, and he was grateful.
While he did speak his own limited amount of Russian, lying was harder in another language, and incapacitating an opponent took time.
It’s one of the reasons he loved Danny and Josh’s crew. It was worth it to him to plan an elaborate operation that would save lives and trauma.
“Liam, you there?” Stirling said into his ear.
“Da,” Liam murmured, spotting the captain’s quarters near the front of the main deck. He pulled out his own lockpicks and—thanks to Danny’s tutelage during those long-ago visits to the rehab center—made quick work of the lock.
He paused to glance around, grateful the room was empty.
“Just entered. The safe is back behind the bar. Getting there. How’s things on your end?”
“We have… uhm, disturbing news from the gala,” Stirling told him. “And we have reason to believe Kadjic might be on his way with Grace in the car with him.”
Liam almost dropped his lockpicking kit. “I beg your pardon?”
“And, well, they don’t know it, but Carl said Josh was in the trunk.”
Liam’s vision went black. That fast. He felt himself going down, probably about to nail his head on the small, sharp-angled counters to be found even in the captain’s quarters of this stingy, utilitarian yacht, and he caught himself, barely, with a hand on the back of a chair.
“Josh is what?” he asked, trying to breathe.
“Carl said it went bad fast,” Stirling told him. “They’re all in the van now, heading this way. Josh was about to tag the town car with trackers, so those, at least, are working, but Kadjic suspects, and we’ve got to get a move on.”
“Fuck. Does Molly know?”
“She’s got the girls coming out as fast as she can,” Stirling said. “When you’re done there, if you could… you know?”
“I’ve got her back,” Liam said. The siblings would never look alike, but they’d never be apart, Liam knew.
He wondered if his brother, Robert, knew what he was in for, harboring a crush on Molly Christopher.
She was nobody to be trifled with—but she also deserved every bit of happiness her brother had found with the quiet, surprising Tienne.
That thought, of all things, grounded him.
God, he wanted to go swooping into the night to rescue Josh, who had—what?
Smuggled himself aboard the vehicle that Grace was about to get thrown into?
But Josh had people swooping to his rescue.
It was Liam’s job to protect the people on this yacht, to help the captives, to have Molly Christopher’s back.
Josh—whether physically weak or jumping out of buildings—was pretty adept at taking care of himself.
With a deep breath and a sense of purpose, Liam crouched between the small wet bar and the wall, pulled out the electronic gadget that would hack directly into the chip in the safe that held the code, and started his first robbery.
Passports first. Molly and the rest of the captives next.
Exfil after that.
Saving Josh’s ass if he hadn’t done it himself before Liam got there? He’d get there. It would happen.
Liam had to have faith.
“REMEMBER,” JOSH murmured, “Don’t talk.”
“I am not stupid!” Grace proclaimed loudly, and Josh, jouncing in the trunk of the car and trying hard not to vomit, wanted to smack him.
From the front of the car—and in the commlink—Josh heard the confusion of the guard and the driver and of the very dangerous man in the back of the car with Grace.
“I know you’re not stupid,” Kadjic was saying. “You are an astounding thief.”
“Prove it,” Grace said, so much adolescent hostility in his voice that Josh winced.
“Did you or did you not switch the paintings in Chicago?”
“Which ones?” Grace asked—legitimately, but Kadjic could hardly know that.
“The Abercrombie!” Kadjic exclaimed, and Josh halfway expected him to choke on his own tongue with rage. “You know damned well that―”
“I didn’t steal that painting,” Grace said.
“I saw you there catering the event!”
“But I didn’t steal the painting,” Grace said virtuously. “Celeste’s twenty-karat diamond—that I stole, but she hasn’t noticed it yet.”
Josh snorted. “I knew it,” he murmured.
“I was very smooth,” Grace said to both of them. “What else do you think I’ve done? Come on—I want to hear!”