Bran could only assume Maddy Powers was the Texas oil tycoon Olivia had mentioned.AsinPowersPetroleum?It made sense. Andsevenhijackers? One short of the eight assets Olivia seemed convinced took the chemicals. Which meant either one of the dickheads had drowned, or ol’ Nigel boy had miscounted. Still, Bran liked his chances.
“Where are they? Belowdecks or on the bridge?”
“I saw them take Maddy and the captain to the bridge,” Nigel said. “But that was a while ago.” When he swallowed, his Adam’s apple appeared to stick in the column of his long, skinny neck. “Please, sir. I need w-water.”
“Later.” Bran waved him off. “After we check your story.”
He slapped the tape back over Nigel’s mouth despite the man’s sputtered objections. But he wasn’t as heartless a bastard as he was making himself out to be. He turned to his friends. “Help me drag them into the shade next to the living quarters.”
He grabbed Nigel’s collar while Mason, the sorry sonofabitch—Bran still hadn’tquiteforgiven him for that stunt he’d pulled earlier—took hold of the other dude. Together they scooted the men along the deck until they were flush with the main cabin and in the soothing cool of the shadow it cast.
Mission of mercy complete, Bran said, “Let’s double-time it up to the bridge.”
The three of them opened the forward door to the living quarters. Crouched low, their fingers on their triggers, they advanced while checking left, right, and center. As they crossed the big, central room with its plush furniture, gargantuan-screen TV, and expensive-looking art, Bran resisted the urge to whistle.
Sothisishowtheotherhalflives?
He couldn’t imagine it. Although ever since he’d come down with the treasure-hunting bug, he’d been trying his best to do just that.Allof them had big plans for their share of the loot.Importantplans.Butsayonaraandseeyoulatertothatlittledream.Because without a salvage ship, it would be impossible to locate the remains of theSantaCristina. And even if they pooled the limited funds they had left and combined them with the half-mil Olivia was paying them, they still wouldn’t have one-fifth of what it would take to replaceWayfarer-I.
Clusterfuck…a motherfriggin’ clusterfuck if ever there was one.
But he’d have to worry later about what he now planned to do for the rest of his life. Because the three of them were at the stairs leading up to the bridge. And this is where it got tricky. Hallways and alleys weren’t called fatal funnels for nothing. If whoever was at the top of those stairs decided to throw open the door and start spraying lead, there wasn’t much they could do to protect themselves. The usual duck-and-cover wasn’t an option. Well…the ducking part could still be accomplished, but the only cover available was each other. Andthatthought sucked so hard he decided to name it Hoover.
“Stay frosty, boys,” he whispered softly, his senses on high alert. Taking the lead, he saw the muzzle of Mason’s rifle appear in his peripheral vision. Once again, Wolf was bringing up the rear, watching their backs so they didn’t have to keep their heads on a swivel. As a group they advanced, slowly, steadily. Then the sound of a thickly accented voice shouting, “MoveboatorIshoot!” necessitated they pick up the pace.
“Go, go, go!” Bran commanded, and the three of them raced up the stairs. Throwing open the door and looking down the sight on his rifle, he took in the scene in an instant. A gray-haired man wearing a captain’s uniform—Tripplehorn, no doubt—stood at the controls, his ankles shackled together by a neon-green zip tie.
A blond-haired boy in a navy-blue bathrobe was on his knees near the captain’s feet, hands and feet cuffed by more zip ties, the yawning black mouth of the terrorist’s AK-47 leveled at his temple.MaddyPowers? Must be thesonoftheoiltycoon.As for the terrorist himself? He looked like a cannoli full of crazy when his dark gaze shot up upon their entry, his mouth morphing into a ghoulish sneer.
Bran had seen that expression a hundred times on the faces of fanatics. It was devoid of reason, devoid of humanity, and completely devoid of mercy. This guy was outnumbered and outgunned. But instead of throwing down his weapon and giving up, he was itching to take the captain and the kid with him while he chose suicide by SEAL.Goddamnitalltohell.
The world around Bran disappeared, his entire focus squeezing down to a two-foot-by-two-foot area that was the tango’s head and torso. His finger tightened on his trigger as he automatically ran through the fiveS’s: slow, smooth, straight, steady, squeeze. But the boy must’ve come to the same conclusion about the terrorist’s intent, because with a banshee cry, he rammed his head into the terrorist’s crotch. It gave Bran just the opening he needed. As soon as the barrel of the Kalashnikov was no longer pointing at the kid’s face, he squeezed off a round that echoed around the well-appointed bridge like a cannon shot, rattling the windows and making his ears pop. It hit the rat bastard just above his left eye-socket.
Even though the movies got most things wrong in portraying gunshot victims—for instance, a body very rarely flew backward upon impact—one thing they gotrightwas what happened to a human skull when it was introduced to a 5.56mm NATO round. Blood and gray matter splattered onto the bridge’s port-side window in a macabre mess, and the tango crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, his knees simply folding beneath his lifeless body and his arms falling wide. The AK-47 clattered on the polished hardwood floor and slid to a stop against the bulkhead.
It all happened in under three seconds.
Bran lowered his weapon, the world snapping back into focus as he drew in a deep breath, clocked his heart rate and breathing, and advanced into the room. Mason and Wolf continued to draw down on the scene, ever ready, ever steady.
He’d made it two steps in when he realized the boy wasn’t a boy at all, but a diminutive woman. His first clue was the hot-pink panties—after head-butting the terrorist, and with her wrists tied behind her back, her forward momentum meant she’d ended up face-first on the floor, her bottom thrust into the air, the hem of her robe pooling around her waist. His second clue was theshapeof her plump ass. Seriously, it was the type of heart-shaped butt worthy of worship by native peoples.
The third clue was her voice, all cute and girly. Of course, her words were anything but. “Jesus Christ and all his followers! Quit starin’ at my ass and help me up, would you?” She rolled onto her side. “This guy stunk like buzzard baitbeforehe was dead. Lord help me if I get a snoot full of what he smells like now. We’ll have more than blood and brains to clean up, if you catch my drift.”
Huh. He would have expected crying, not cursing. Pleading, not pluckiness. Clearly the woman was—
He stopped dead in his tracks when she lifted her chin to look at him. She was a mix between Miley Cyrus and Carey Mulligan, with one hundred percent Julia Roberts lips—the top being slightly plumper than the bottom. Most people would call her “cute as a button.” Bran would call her the yellow mist to his Green Lantern, the kryptonite to his Superman, the water to his Human Torch. Because one look at her and he was powerless, speechless, and…strangely, inexplicably…captivated.
Chapter Thirteen
2:55 p.m.…
In any other situation, one where she hadn’t been beaten, hog-tied, held hostage, and forced to watch a man get shot right in front of her, Maddy might have considered the tall, granite-shouldered man standing in the middle of the bridge house swoon-worthy.Imean, there’s all that tan skin, that wide chest, and that shock of wavy brown hair.As it was, shehadbeen beaten, hog-tied, held hostage, and witnessed a violent death, so his mute, slack-jawed stare left her feeling decidedly…er…unsettled.Pissedeven. Angerwasher go-to emotion today, it seemed.
“Hello?” she huffed. “Mr. CIA Agent?”
That seemed to jog him out of whatever stupor he’d fallen into. He shook his head, sending water droplets raining onto the floor at his feet. Hisbarefeet.Hmm. Nice toes.Andthatwas a weird thought to have at a time like this, wasn’t it?
Shock. She was clearly in shock.
