Chapter 28
Hao stared at Olive with narrowed eyes, his probing gaze prickling the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. She shifted on the bench, finding the intensity of his stare more disconcerting than the sporadic bursts of gunfire that had sounded for the last five minutes.
“You don’t seem scared,” he said, his voice low and edged with suspicion. “What do you know?”
Olive shook her head, the motion sending a fresh twinge through her bruised jaw. “I’m terrified,” she confessed. “Just used to tense situations. Helps me internalize my emotions.”
“What does that mean?” His brow furrowed.
Olive licked her lips, tasting salty tears she’d hidden from them. The hostility rolling off him in waves coiled tightly around her chest, making her breath come shallower. “I’m a surgical nurse and served in the US Army,” she explained, keeping her tone even. “I can be afraid but still function.”
He glared at her for a long beat, his dark eyes unyielding, before the hard lines of his face eased. “I see.” He lifted a hand to the back of his head, fingers tracing the edges of the bandage with deliberate care. “You patched me up.”
“I did.”
Emanuel interjected from his spot on the bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I was in the Navy.”
She turned to him, summoning a smile. “What did you do?”
He shrugged. “Same thing. Engineer. Pay’s better on this ship, and it docks a lot more often than the aircraft carrier I was on.”
“Right.” The casual rhythm of their exchange grounded her. “Wish I knew what was happening,” she murmured, frustration threading her voice as she rubbed her palms along her arms, chasing away a chill that had nothing to do with the air. “None of this makes sense!”
“Pirates,” Hao said, his mouth turning downward at the corners, pulling the skin tight across his cheekbones. “They are getting worse.”
“The Valiant Voyager seems like a big ship to try to pirate,” Emanuel countered, glancing toward the barred door as if it might yield answers.
Hao shrugged. “Everyone is on the island. It’s the perfect opportunity.” He sighed then, deep and rolling from his chest, tilting his head side to side as if to loosen the knots in his neck, vertebrae popping faintly in the quiet. “We need better security.”
“We hear scuttlebutt of course,” Emanuel added, his fingers drumming a soft tattoo on his thigh. “But I’ve never seen anything.”
“It’s a big ocean.” Hao tilted his head, ear cocking toward the door, the silence stretching taut around them. “The shooting stopped.”
Emanuel pushed to his feet, crossing the narrow cell in two strides to press his face against the bars, cheek squishing against the cold metal as he craned to peer into the outer room. “Maybe we’ll get rescued after all.”
Under Anderson’s clipped directions coming through their earpieces, Jerry led the way down the narrow passageway, Sanders a silent shadow at his right flank, Ibrahim mirroring on the left.
They held their weapons ready. They made the stairwell without incident, ascending to the fourth deck in taut silence, breaths measured, eyes scanning every bulkhead and corner.
No other soul stirred the corridor—no footsteps, no voices, no litany of announcements.
They emerged at an intersection. Anderson’s voice cut through the comms, low and precise. “Someone is just inside the door. I don’t have eyes there, but I keep seeing a shadow.”
“Roger,” Ibrahim murmured, his voice a rumble in the quiet, his broad frame easing forward. He leaned out, weapon sweeping the angle, then snapped back. “Just closed doors.”
Jerry’s jaw tightened, the itch to charge thrumming in his veins like a live wire. “Heisman, which door?”
“Fourth on the left,” came the steady reply.
He glanced at his friends. Sanders gave a short nod, and Ibrahim’s eyes already locked ahead. “Let’s do this.”
They advanced with predatory caution, hugging the bulkheads.
Jerry’s pulse hammered a restrained rhythm.
Every instinct screamed to run and burst through the door.
At the fourth door on the left—a plain slab of reinforced steel with a porthole, they halted, backs pressed flat.
Jerry fished Cynthia’s compact from his pocket, the sterling silver warm from his body heat, and flipped it open, angling the mirror up to the glass in a practiced arc.
One man, Chinese features, clad in a cook’s uniform.
He leaned against a desk, arms crossed tight over his chest, his posture deceptively lax, a holstered sidearm bulging at his hip.
Jerry held up one finger, then jabbed it toward the target’s center mass. Sanders positioned at the handle while Jerry stepped back from the door, feet planting wide, the suppressed Chinese pistol rising in a two-handed grip. He nodded once.
Ibrahim swiped Captain Ege’s badge to unlock the door as Sanders twisted the latch and shoved it wide in a fluid surge.
Jerry swung through the gap, body low and coiled, the world narrowing to the target’s arc.
The man in the cook’s uniform snapped upright, eyes flaring wide in shock, mouth parting on a half-formed shout.
A heartbeat later, his hand clawed for his gun, leveling it in a blur toward Jerry’s chest.
Jerry fired twice, the suppressed rounds whispering through the air, punching center mass with dull thuds that dropped the man back against the desk, his gun clattering unfired to the deck.
Two more precise shots as the man slumped, arms unfolding limp, a bloom of red staining the white fabric as he slid to the floor.
Jerry pivoted, clearing behind the desk in a swift sweep while Ibrahim mirrored on the other side of the room. One glance revealed the man no longer lived. His nametag read, “Ming, Hong Kong.” Jerry retrieved the unfired pistol from the deck and jammed it into his belt.
Clear.
They converged on the inner door, a heavier barrier etched with the brig’s utilitarian warning in six languages.
Jerry rose on his toes, peering through the porthole’s wire-mesh glass.
He could see the holding cage on the right.
It held three figures—Olive, face swollen and shadowed with bruises, flanked by two men, one in an officer’s whites crusted with blood, the other wearing an engineer’s jumpsuit.
Ibrahim gripped the handle, and on Jerry’s count, he wrenched it open. They flowed through, weapons sweeping the space in overlapping arcs.
“Jerry!” Olive’s sob shattered the hush, raw and breaking as she rushed to the cage door. Tears carved tracks down her bruised cheeks. “I knew you’d come.”
He crossed the room in three strides, eyes raking the men with her.
The bloodied officer stood rigid with guarded tension.
The other edged back, hands half-raised, uncertainty etching his features as he stared at their weapons.
Sanders and Ibrahim fanned deeper as they cleared the far corners of the large room, muzzles trained on blind spots.
Clear.
Jerry reached the bars, his free hand threading through to cup her face. Brushing gently against the swollen curve of her temple and cheek, thumb tracing the purple bloom with a tenderness that knifed his gut. “I’ve been distracted, worrying over you,” he murmured, voice rough.
Tears streamed unchecked down her face, glistening on her lashes. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep—”
He shook his head, the motion firm, silencing her with a press of his thumb to her lips. No time for that. Plus, it looked like it hurt every time she spoke. “Trout, can you do anything about this door?”
“Standby,” Fisher’s voice came back, fingers no doubt flying over keys.
A second ticked, then the latch clicked and buzzed, and Jerry stepped aside as Olive launched herself through the gap, colliding into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him.
Nothing in his life had ever felt as good as her at this very moment.
He closed his eyes, blocking the world for one stolen beat, savoring the thunder of her heartbeat syncing with his, the simple, shattering truth that she was whole, here, breathing, alive.
They separated too soon, the press of duty clawing him back. He wanted to bundle her close, sweep her off to somewhere safe and sunlit, but they still had to contend with the island. “Who are your friends?”
Olive gestured first to the man in the officer’s crew uniform. He spoke up. “First Mate, Hao Jun.”
Jerry dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “Sir. Captain Ege has been worried for you.”
“I would like to know what has been going on with my ship,” Hao replied, his voice biting.
Jerry nodded once, his eyes locked on Hao’s. Something about the man’s tone raised his hackles. “Expect so.”
Olive nodded to the other man. He likewise spoke up. “Emanuel Ramirez. An engineer on the ship.”
The two men did not shake hands. Olive tilted her head then, her gaze snagging on the ugly groove scoring Jerry’s cheek where a bullet had nicked him. “Can I patch you up?”
Jerry did not like the way it clearly hurt her to speak. He wondered if she had lost teeth. Before he could tell her it was a minor wound, Sanders said. “Getting antsy in my pantsy, Jerry Maguire. We should move out soon.”
Jerry nodded and drew the guard’s pistol from his belt. He handed it to Olive. “Loaded,” he said. She nodded, performed a quick function check on the weapon, and held it ready.
Ibrahim approached from the corridor off the room they were in. “Rest of the area is secure, Top.”
“Daddy,” Jerry said into his comm, “we have Olive as well as two civilians.”
After a loaded pause, Pena’s voice came back. It almost surprised Jerry when Pena replied instead of Norton. He would have to get used to that moving forward. “Roger, Maguire. I read three civilians. Stand by.”
It struck Jerry as odd to think of Olive as a civilian.
He didn’t think of her as a civilian, though in this context it fit.
The line hummed with muted discussion—Pena and Norton’s low tones working logistics.
Pena returned. “Bring them to the loading dock and regroup. We’ll consolidate everyone after we contend with the island. ”
“Roger.” Jerry’s gaze found Olive’s, and he said another silent prayer of thanksgiving. “Let’s go,” he said.