CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It all happened so fast. One second, Lennox was standing there as calm as anything, the next a loud gunshot echoed around the cargo hold. Before Talia could understand what was going on, Keller was falling on top of her. She hit the metal deck so hard that it knocked most of the air out of her lungs. Then Keller’s elbow slammed into her stomach and there went the rest of the air as black dots began filling her vision.
Keller tumbled off her as gunshots sounded all around them. Talia tried to push herself upright, wanting to see what was happening. It took a few seconds for her vision to clear but by then all she could see were people running everywhere, some hitting the deck to avoid being shot while others went down because they’d already been shot. Talia shook her head, trying to find Lennox and make sense of what she was seeing.
She’d thought there had only been seven bad guys including Keller a few moments ago. Now, there had to be at least twenty. And Lennox was in the midst of them, spinning and twisting as he fired at one man after another.
A moment later, he was at her side, an arm around her waist moving her forward before she was even aware of what was happening. Two stumbling steps later, Bogdan and Maria joined them.
“This way!” Lennox shouted, urging Talia in the direction he wanted them to go, pushing Maria and her father ahead of them.
Armed men came charging at them out of the chaos and Talia expected someone to shoot them any second. But every time one of the men got close, they’d immediately tumble to the deck and not get back up. It took her a few seconds to realize Lennox’s Teammates must be inside of the cargo hold somewhere, covering them as they made their escape. Resisting the urge to crane her head around in an attempt to see where they were, she kept moving, praying there were enough SEALs to get them out of this ship alive.
“Go left! Between the containers!” Lennox yelled, pausing for a moment to turn and fire back at several men who were right on their tail. “Don’t stop! Keep going!”
Behind Talia, Lennox jogged backwards, shooting at the same time. Ahead of her, Bogdan led Maria to the left down a dimly lit passageway between two towering stacks of cargo containers. Talia moved to follow but bullets slamming into the container not more than a foot from her head stopped her cold. She probably would have gotten shot a dozen times over if Lennox hadn’t pushed her to the deck and covered her body with his.
Before she could catch her breath, he tugged her to her feet, a hand on her back forcing her to stay low as she ran. But even with him putting his body between her and the incoming bullets, there was no way she could make that left hand turn after Maria and her father. She sobbed in panic as Lennox guided her to the right instead.
“Don’t worry,” Lennox said, pulling her faster and faster down the narrow passageway. “We’ll find them.”
Talia didn’t know how that would be possible since the majority of the cargo hold was a maze of containers and crates. Within seconds she was so turned around that finding her way back to the main cargo ramp would have been all but impossible.
Running through the labyrinth was like something out of a nightmare. There were endless series of confusing turns, dead ends, people chasing them, and the occasional bullet smacking into the deck and walls around them. The crazy thing—beyond the people behind them shooting, of course—was that there wasn’t another soul on the ship that she could see. It was like the whole place had been evacuated.
Just when it seemed like the nightmare might never end, Talia and Lennox found themselves in a wider passageway off the cargo hold. Somehow, they’d stumbled through one of the exits. Or maybe he’d led her this way on purpose?
“What about Maria and her father? We can’t leave them!” Talia asked once they stopped long enough for her to catch her breath. The sound of gunfire was muted but could still be heard echoing occasionally through the ship. “Anna is around here somewhere too. I saw her.”
“We’re not leaving anybody,” Lennox promised. “With how fixated Keller seems to be with me, I’m hoping us running out like we did will draw the heat away from Bogdan and Maria so they can get away. Then we can look for Anna. But right now, we have to worry about Keller. He was following when we left the cargo hold.”
He was?
“Is he still back there?” she asked in alarm, craning her head that way to see if there was anyone coming behind them.
“Yes,” Lennox said calmly. “But I think we’ve lost him for the moment, so if you need more time to catch your breath, take it.”
Talia nodded, forcing herself to calm down as much as she could, taking long slow breaths as she felt her heart continue to thump like a drum in her chest.
“I know this is probably the worst time to have this conversation but after everything that’s happened the past couple days, I wanted to tell you that I completely understand why you want to stop seeing me,” Lennox said softly. “I wish it’d worked out differently, but I get why you were planning to break up with me last night.”
Talia stood there, too baffled to say a word as she tried to comprehend everything he’d just unloaded on her.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I wasn’t going to break up with you. If anything, I thought you were going to break up with me. When you were so late, I thought you’d decided not to bother telling me face to face. I mean, I know I come with a lot of baggage, but I thought I rated more than a Dear Jane text.”
Lennox stared at her in obvious confusion, then muttered a curse. “We need to get moving again so let’s put a pin in this confusing conversation until later. But before we take another step, I need you to understand something.” He leaned so close that for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. “I know things between us have been confusing and that’s my fault,” he said slowly, his breath warm against her cheeks. “But I never wanted to break up with you. Talia, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I can’t even put into words how much I want to keep seeing you.”
Hope filled her. “But…”
Lennox put a finger to his lips, then pointed down the passageway.
“We need to get out of here,” he whispered, throwing a glance back the way they’d come, his expression becoming all business again as he urged her to get moving again.
“Okay, you’re right,” she said just as softly.
She’d put aside all of her questions for the moment and focused on getting out of there. But they definitely needed to talk later.
Lennox urged her up a flight of metal stairs to yet another deck of the huge ship and another passageway that looked exactly like the one on the previous floor, with not a single exit sign in sight. “Until we can find our way off this ship, we need to keep avoiding Keller.”
Talia silently agreed but was a little confused when they reached the next flight of stairs and headed down instead of up.
“Shouldn’t we keep going up?” she asked.
“If we do that we’ll be like those people in the movies who always run up to the roof of the building during the zombie apocalypse,” Lennox said as he hustled her off the stairs and through another series of bewildering twists and turns. “There’s nowhere to go once we reach the top deck unless you want to jump.”
Talia’s insides turned to jelly at that thought. She’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the cargo ship as she’d come aboard but even in the darkness, she could tell it must have been a hundred feet tall. Nobody could survive a jump like that, could they?
“Then what are we doing instead?” she asked, hurrying as Lennox continued to urge her forward like he knew exactly where he was going.
“We’re doubling back toward the cargo hold,” he told her. “If we time it right, the place will be empty, and we’ll be able to walk right down the gangway without anyone ever realizing we were there.”
Talia never thought of herself as a pessimistic type but had to admit that sounded too good to be true. Even as gunfire continued to echo through the ship, she followed Lennox’s lead and hoped for the best.
Sooner than she would have thought possible, he led her through a hatch and back into the cargo hold. Shockingly, the huge area was empty—except for the bodies scattered around the deck. Other than that and the bullet holes in some of the containers—it was like nothing had happened here at all.
Lennox bent down and scooped up a handgun then checked the magazine to make sure it wasn’t empty before handing it to Talia.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked. “I don’t know anything about guns.”
“I know,” he said. “Hopefully, you’ll never have to use this. But Keller and his men are looking for us, which means some of them are probably on the dock. We need to be ready for that. And while I’ll do everything I can to protect you, I’d feel a lot better knowing you could defend yourself, if it comes to that.”
Talia hated the idea but could understand why Lennox felt the need to give her the weapon, even if it absolutely terrified her.
“Okay.” She reached gingerly for the handgun. “How do I use this thing?”
“It’s already loaded, and the safety is off. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot and don’t point the weapon at anyone you don’t want to kill. Aim at the center of their chest and pull the trigger. Then keep pulling the trigger until the person is dead.”
Her stomach churned at Lennox’s blunt instructions, and she told herself it would never come to that. They were going to get out of there and she wouldn’t have to worry about whether it was in her nature to kill another human being.
“Okay, let’s get out of here before Keller figures out we doubled back,” Lennox said, taking Talia’s hand and leading her toward the cargo door ramp.
“Too late,” a deep voice called out from the far side of the flatbed truck.
A moment later, Keller stepped out from behind the back of the vehicle, the assault rifle in his hands aimed at them. “You didn’t think I’d notice your obvious ploy to draw me away from the cargo hold and my computer?”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit,” Lennox said, casually moving to place himself squarely in front of Talia.
While his protectiveness was something Talia appreciated, she stepped slightly to the side, making sure she’d have a clear shot at Keller if she had to take it. She might not like the idea of shooting anyone, but for Keller, she’d make an exception.
“I wasn’t even thinking about the computer,” Lennox added, frowning a little when he realized what she was doing. “I was only trying to rescue Talia, and this was the way it worked out.”
“Ah, yes, the daring SEAL boyfriend,” Keller said in a condescending tone, his gaze going to Talia. “Here to rescue you from the evil bad guy and sweep you off your feet to your Legoland honeymoon.”
Talia felt all the air go out of her lungs. She’d been right about Keller listening at the door when she and Maria had been talking to Anna.
Before Talia could follow that thought any further, she was distracted by the sight of Keller moving out from behind the truck and aiming his weapon at Talia. She started to lift the handgun but then quickly lowered it again as Lennox began moving too, matching Keller step for step, continuing to put himself in between Talia and the weapon pointed in her direction.
But as disconcerting and frustrating as that behavior was, it was the fact that Lennox wasn’t pointing his weapon at Keller that worried Talia the most. Instead, Lennox had his machine gun pointed at the computer still on the truck.
“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Lennox said casually, his eyes locked on Keller. “If you try and hurt Talia, I’ll destroy your computer. But if I shoot the computer, you’ll kill Talia.”
“What’s to keep me from just shooting you before you get off a shot at the computer?” Keller countered with a snort of derision as he swung his weapon toward Lennox.
At the blatant threat, Talia lifted the gun again, pointing it at Keller with both hands.
“That might work,” Lennox agreed calmly. “Assuming Talia doesn’t shoot you first.”
“And you think she’ll hit me?” Keller sneered, giving her a scathing look.
“She couldn’t miss you, considering how big a target you are,” Lennox pointed out. “But I guess we’ll have to see if luck is on your side today.”
Talia did her best to look confident when Keller glanced her way again, not at all sure how well she was able to pull it off. But at least Keller seemed to look a little less sure of himself.
They stood there for several long moments, weapons all up but not quite pointed at each other, the silence stretching out until it was almost painful. It was like the scene from the old spaghetti western, where the three cowboys all faced off against each other, waiting for the first one to flinch.
Unfortunately, with Talia’s luck, it would be her.
“Keller, what the hell are you doing just standing there?” a sharp voice demanded.
The voice was so disturbingly familiar that it was all Talia could do not to jerk her head in that direction to confirm what she already knew. But staying focused on Keller and the assault weapon in his hands proved impossible when she heard a muffled and terrified whimpering sound coming from the same direction as the woman’s voice.
Talia spun around, the gun in her hand tracking instinctively in the same direction she was looking until it pointed straight at Anna. She’d changed clothes since Talia had last seen her, the jeans and shirt she wore now clean and not torn like the previous ones. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail instead of looking all disheveled like before too. She held Maria firmly against her hip, one of her hands across the little girl’s mouth, the gun in her hand pointed at Maria’s head.
“Anna?” Talia said, starting to lower her weapon only to lift it again at the panic on Maria’s face. “What are you doing?”
Anna didn’t answer. Instead, she glared at Keller.
“I gave you one simple job, Keller,” Anna said. “All you had to do was get the computer and leave. Instead, I find you standing here playing games with these two. Why the hell am I paying you, if you aren’t doing as you’re told?”
“I’m a little busy right now,” Keller said, his attention focused entirely on Lennox and Talia as he shifted his weapon back and forth between the two of them. “The SEAL threatened to destroy the computer if I attempted to take a shot at his girlfriend. Knowing how much you want the damn thing, I didn’t think you wanted me taking a chance.”
“I don’t pay you to think!” Anna snapped. She turned to focus on Lennox, dragging Maria around with her. “Drop your weapon and back away from the truck or I’ll kill the brat.”
Talia blinked. Not only was Anna involved in this scheme with Keller and Sentinel but she was apparently in charge of it. She was standing there threatening to kill Maria like she didn’t care about the little girl at all.
And to think that Talia had believed she was her friend. But Anna had been lying to her the entire time.
Lennox shifted the barrel of his weapon back and forth between Anna and Keller, frustration clear on his face as Anna continued to threaten to shoot Maria. If Lennox went after Keller, Anna would have free rein to kill Maria. If Lennox went after Anna, Keller would kill him…then her and Maria.
Talia didn’t stop to think. Instead, she tightened her grip on the gun and pointed it at Anna then pulled the trigger. And then she kept squeezing it like Lennox had told her.