Maddy narrowed her eyes at the captain.
“This is no time to play the heroine,” he grumbled softly, barely moving his lips. But it wouldn’t have mattered had he said the words flat out. Their captors were no longer paying them any attention.
Lead A-hole was pacing the length of the bridge, yelling and gesturing wildly. He seemed to be repeating one word a lot.Banoo. Banoo. Banoo.What the heck did “banoo” mean?
As for Skinny A-hole Number Two, he’d picked up the binoculars and was staring in the direction of the salvage ship. Occasionally, he answered his cohort with a shrug of his thin shoulders or a quick shake of his head.
Suddenly Lead A-hole, a.k.a. Mr. Rotten Mouth, stomped over to stand in front of the love seat. His face was contorted with rage. His hands clenched into fists. “CIA?” he yelled, flinging his arm out to point a finger toward the approaching vessel.
Maddy and Captain Harry exchanged a look. “Huh?” she asked at the same time the captain said, “I beg your pardon?”
“The ship! The ship!” Their captor was so worked up his voice screeched like a pubescent boy’s. Maddy wondered if the big blood vessel pumping in the side of his neck was about to explode.
Onecanalwayshope!
“They CIA?” he screamed. “They CIA?”
If the guy thought repeating himself twice made his crazy ramblings any more coherent, he had another think coming.
“You mean the Central Intelligence Agency?” Captain Harry asked.
Maddy’s eyes widened as her gaze flew up to Rotten Mouth. “Yes!” he bellowed, his extended arm vibrating with tension. His lips pulled back in a sneer made more revolting by those discolored teeth. And then there it was again. Something moved behind his eyes. Instinctively she shrank away from it.
“Why would they be the CIA?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. All that rage that had been fueling her since Lead A-hole hopped on board and punched her in the throat suddenly leaked out of her as if she’d turned into a human sieve. In its place was the fear she should have been feeling all along.TheCIA? For Pete’s sake!“Wh-who are you guys?”
Bam!The backhanded blow happened so fast Maddy didn’t have time to duck. Which meant she caught the full force of it square on her cheekbone. Pain exploded. Her brain scrambled. And it took her a solid five seconds to realize she hadn’t been run over by a bus or swept up by a hurricane.
Opening her jaw to try to relieve the acute throb in her cheek, it occurred to her that the cartoons got it all wrong. They always showed little birdies floating around the head of someone who was knocked silly, but they should have used bees instead. There was a definite buzzing in her ears.
“Stop it!” Captain Harry yelled, throwing up his hands in front of her. She looked through tear-moist eyes and realized their captor had lifted his arm for another blow.
Lead A-hole slowly lowered his hand, glancing back and forth between her and the captain. And for a heartbeat or two, Maddy got the distinct impression he was considering swinging the machine gun strapped to his back around to the front of his body so he could squeeze the trigger and fill their heads full of lead.
Her mouth went as dry as a West Texas well in a drought, and each of her nerve endings set itself ablaze until her whole body felt like it was covered in fire ants. They say when you’re close to death, your life flashes before your eyes. But the only thing filling her vision was the hate-filled face of their captor. And just when she thought they were goners for sure, he turned toward Skinny A-hole Number Two and snarled, “Get rocket launchers.”
Número Dos just blinked at him, and that’s when Rotten Mouth realized he’d spoken in English. He repeated his order in whatever language they were speaking, and their skinny guard hopped into motion, quickly racing out the door.
“Did he just say rocket launchers?” Maddy husked, her breath wheezing out of her.
“I’m afraid so,” Captain Harry answered, shaking his head in disbelief as Lead A-hole pulled a small satellite phone from the pocket of his trousers.
Her mind flashed back to those strange metal tubes she’d seen in the bottom of the dinghy. And she spoke aloud the words that had been circling around in her head for the last ninety minutes. “What did I get us into?”
* * *
1:48 p.m.…
“See if you can understand what Nassar is saying.” Banu angrily handed his satellite phone to Ahmed. “He’s all worked up. And when he gets like that, what little English he speaks becomes completely incomprehensible.”
Ahmed grabbed the phone, quickly asking a question in Arabic. Then he plugged his ear against the noise of the outboards and the waves splashing against the hull of the rented vessel.
Ireallyshouldlearnthelanguage, Banu thought, leaning back in his seat in the wheelhouse. After his spectacular grand finale as CIA agent Jonathan Wilson, he’d most likely be seeking asylum in a country where Arabic was the mother tongue. And speaking of Jonathan Wilson…he wondered if his boss had noted his absence from work this morning.
Probablynot, he figured. Even CIA agents were allowed to call in sick. Of course, his absenteeism would be noted eventually. Probably not today or tomorrow or even the day after. But soon. Fortunately, by then it would be too late. By then it—
“He says there is a salvage ship in the area,” Ahmed shouted just as the fishing boat hit the bottom of a wave. It nearly had him dropping the phone. “He wants to know if you want him to sink it with the RPGs?”
“What?” Banu yelled, sitting forward. Between the whistle of the wind through the open windows of the wheelhouse and the roar of the engines, he wasn’t sure he’d heard the man correctly.
