Ward
“Aship is wood, steel, and glass. A family is the reason a captain sails her into the fire.”
— James Sinclair
Flames climbed from Sea Whisper’s stern.
The explosion had knocked our response boat sideways.
I hit the deck hard enough to lose my breath.
Ben grabbed the railing before he went overboard. John pulled Lieutenant Akana away from the shattered windshield.
“Everyone up!” I shouted.
“I’m up,” Ben answered.
Blood had soaked through the bandage on his shoulder.
He ignored it.
Sea Whisper drifted thirty yards ahead.
The fire burned near the upper stern deck, but it hadn’t reached the fuel lines.
Not yet.
“Incendiary charge,” John said.
“A distraction,” Ben answered.
He was right.
The men aboard Sea Whisper didn’t want to sink her.
Ross needed the Sinclair sisters alive, and he needed a way to transport them.
The fire was meant to pull us toward the stern while they escaped from the bow.
A smaller boat appeared on the far side of the yacht.
No navigation lights.
No engine.
It drifted close to Sea Whisper’s hull.
“Escape boat,” I said. “Two men will take Hazel. The others will keep us occupied.”
Lieutenant Akana grabbed the radio.
“Scott, Mark, cover the starboard side. Suspect vessel near the bow.”
Static answered.
Then Mark’s voice.
“We see it.”
“Do not fire unless you have a clear shot,” I ordered. “They have Hazel.”
The name nearly caught in my throat.
Storm’s youngest sister.
The one she had spent her entire life protecting.
If anything happened to Hazel, Storm would blame herself.
And I would spend the rest of my life knowing I had failed her.
Our boat reached Sea Whisper’s port side.
Ben climbed first.
He caught the boarding ladder and hauled himself upward with one arm.
“Your shoulder,” John warned.
“Still attached.”
“It won’t be if you keep doing that.”
Ben disappeared over the railing.
John followed.
I turned to Lieutenant Akana.
“Contain the fire. Keep anyone from leaving the yacht.”
“What about you?”
“I’m getting the sisters.”
Smoke covered the aft deck.
I dropped low and moved toward the salon.
The glass doors had been shattered.
Furniture lay overturned.
A man wearing a stolen Coast Guard uniform appeared behind the bar.
He raised his weapon.
I fired first.
The bullet struck his vest and threw him backward.
John reached him before he could recover.
“Clear!”
A metallic banging came from below deck.
Three strikes.
A pause.
Two.
Five.
Ivy and Willow.
The men hadn’t found them.
“Ben, engine room.”
He was already moving.
“Find out what they know,” I ordered. “Then meet us near the wheelhouse.”
Ben disappeared down the stairs.
John and I moved forward.
The fire alarms screamed overhead.
Smoke rolled along the ceiling.
Sea Whisper’s sprinkler system activated, soaking everything beneath it.
Storm was going to hate the damage.
She could yell at us after her sisters were safe.
I looked forward to it.
A voice came through the yacht’s speakers.
“Ward Allen.”
The younger man who had spoken to Storm.
I stopped outside the wheelhouse.
“You have something I want,” he continued.
“And you have something that belongs to Storm.”
Hazel screamed somewhere above us.
My hands tightened around my weapon.
“Bring the guard you took from the cannery to the upper deck.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Then bring Storm.”
“No.”
A low laugh filled the yacht.
“August said you’d answer that way.”
“August Ross isn’t here to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
The speakers went silent.
John pointed toward the narrow stairs leading to the flybridge.
Two shadows moved above us.
One man.
Hazel.
I signaled for John to circle through the exterior walkway.
He disappeared into the smoke.
I climbed the first step.
“Hazel?”
“Don’t come up!”
Her voice trembled.
But she sounded angry.
Good.
Anger kept people alive.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where is he standing?”
The man jerked her backward.
She cried out.
“Stop talking!”
I climbed another step.
A bullet struck the wall beside my head.
“I said stop!”
I dropped behind the stairwell.
The angle told me he was standing on the port side of the flybridge.
Hazel was between us.
I couldn’t take the shot.
John might be able to reach them from outside.
If the smoke didn’t reveal him first.
A door slammed below deck.
Ben’s voice rose through the salon.
“Ward!”
He ran toward me with Ivy and Willow behind him.
Both sisters were soaked in engine oil and seawater.
Ivy carried a heavy wrench.
Willow held a flare gun.
Ben had found them armed.
I wasn’t surprised.
“Where are the other men?” I asked.
“Two unconscious in the engine room,” Ben answered.
I looked at the sisters.
Ivy lifted the wrench.
“They shouldn’t have touched Grandpa’s engines.”
Willow raised the flare gun.
“One tried to grab her.”
Ben’s mouth almost curved.
“Remind me never to corner a Sinclair sister aboard her own yacht.”
“Where is Hazel?” Ivy asked.
“Flybridge.”
Willow started toward the stairs.
I caught her arm.
“He has a gun.”
“So do I.”
“That’s a flare gun.”
“It worked on the last one.”
The fire burning near the stern suddenly made more sense.
Ben looked at her.
“You started the fire?”
“Not all of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Their charge started it. I made it bigger.”
“Why?”
“So you could find us.”
I stared at her.
“It worked.”
Ivy lowered her voice.
“There’s another way onto the flybridge.”
“Exterior ladder?”
“No. Inside Grandpa’s compartment.”
“The one Hazel was hiding in?”
Ivy nodded.
“There’s an emergency hatch behind the old radio panel. Grandpa said it was for pirates.”
Ben looked toward the ceiling.
“Your grandfather prepared for pirates?”
“He raised five girls,” Willow said. “He prepared for everything.”
“Where does the hatch open?”
“Behind the flybridge seating.”
I turned to Ben.
“Take Ivy and Willow to Akana’s boat.”
“No,” both sisters said.
Ben didn’t move.
“Well, are you taking them?” I said.
“I heard you,” Ben said.
“Then take them.”
Ben looked toward the flybridge.
“You need someone at the lower stairwell.”
“I have John.”
“John is outside.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw his shadow through the smoke.”
Of course he had.
Even wounded and terrified for Calle, Ben was still reading every inch of the operation.
“I’ll hold the stairs,” he said. “The sisters show you the compartment.”
Ivy crossed her arms.
“We’re not leaving without Hazel.”
Ben looked at her.
Then Willow.
“You stay behind me. If I say move, you move.”
They nodded.
I doubted either of them meant it.
We entered Grandpa’s compartment through the wheelhouse.
The hidden door blended perfectly with the chart cabinet.
Inside, the space was barely large enough for two people.
A narrow ladder disappeared into the ceiling.
Ivy pointed toward a metal panel.
“The hatch is above that.”
“How much noise does it make?”
“None if you release the catch first.”
“And if I don’t?”
“It falls open.”
“That sounds useful.”
I climbed the ladder.
Ben positioned himself near the flybridge stairs.
Ivy and Willow stayed inside the compartment.
For once.
I pressed my ear to the hatch.
The younger man’s voice came through clearly.
“Walk toward the railing.”
Hazel answered, “No.”
“Do it.”
“You said Ross needs me alive.”
“He does.”
“Then you can’t shoot me.”
A pause followed.
Hazel had found the weakness in his threat.
Exactly as Storm would have.
The man lowered his voice.
“I don’t have to shoot you to hurt you.”
I released the catch.
The hatch opened beneath the curved seating.
Smoke drifted across the flybridge.
Hazel stood near the port railing.
The man held her from behind with his forearm across her throat.
His gun pressed against her ribs.
John crouched below the starboard railing, waiting for a clear shot.
He saw me.
The kidnapper didn’t.
“Move,” the man ordered.
Hazel dug her heels into the deck.
“You’re not taking me anywhere.”
He tightened his arm.
Her face twisted in pain.
I raised my weapon.
No clear shot.
John held up three fingers.
Then two.
One.
John rose on the starboard side.
The kidnapper turned toward him.
Hazel dropped.
Not forward.
Straight down, the way someone had taught her to escape a hold.
The man’s arm slipped over her head.
I fired.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
John vaulted the railing and hit him before he recovered.
The gun skidded across the deck.
Hazel kicked it away.
The kidnapper drove John backward.
I crossed the flybridge and caught the man from the side.
He swung at me.
I blocked the strike and drove him against the railing.
He reached for a knife.
Hazel picked up the gun.
“Don’t.”
The man froze.
The weapon shook in her hands.
But it remained pointed at his chest.
“You touched my sisters,” she whispered.
I took the gun from her.
“I have him.”
Her eyes filled.
“Ward?”
“Yes?”
“Is Storm safe?”
“She’s waiting for you.”
That was all it took.
Hazel threw herself against me.
I held her with one arm while keeping my weapon trained on the man with the other.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispered.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
Because she hadn’t said the Coast Guard.
She hadn’t said the SEALs.
She had said you.
Storm’s family trusted me.
I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
But I would die before I betrayed it.
Ben appeared at the top of the stairs.
His gaze swept across Hazel.
“She’s safe,” I said.
Relief crossed his face.
Then disappeared.
“Scott intercepted the escape boat. Two men in custody.”
“How many does that make?”
“Five aboard the yacht, two in the boat.”
“The guard said six men attacked Sea Whisper.”
“He was wrong.”
A shot exploded below us.
Ben turned.
I pushed Hazel behind the seating.
“Stay down.”
Ivy screamed from inside Grandpa’s compartment.
Ben ran.
I followed him down the stairs.
The final attacker stood inside the wheelhouse.
He held Willow against his chest.
A pistol pressed to her head.
Ivy lay near the chart table.
Blood ran from a cut above her eye.
Ben stopped in the doorway.
“Let her go.”
The man looked at the blood covering Ben’s shoulder.
“You first.”
“Me first what?”
“Put down the gun.”
Ben lowered his weapon.
“Kick it toward me.”
He did.
The pistol slid across the floor.
The attacker smiled.
“You people are predictable.”