“Stop! What in the heck do you think you’re doing?”
Instead of answering, he straddled her and squeezed her hips between his knees to keep her still. She tried to twist and turn, but he managed to grab one flailing ankle and tie a half hitch knot around it. Then he grabbed the other and wound the material in a locking cleat around them both. She yelled her lungs out while Max secured her feet. Then he grabbed the bottom of her skirt once more and ripped. This time the whole thing came off in his hands. The backs of her long legs were pale against the darker wooden deck. Her panties might be pink or maybe white. Max wasn’t sure and he wasn’t going to dwell on it.
She begged him to stop, but her pleas fell on his still ringing ears. He tore another long strip from the skirt, then placed his hand flat on her behind. Silk. Her panties were silk, he discovered as he held her down. He quickly reversed his position so that he faced the back of her head instead of her feet. He knelt over her, her waist squeezed between his thighs like a vise while he tied a half hitch knot, and she still fought him. She tucked her hands beneath her body, but he grabbed her arm and easily brought it to the small of her back. He tied her wrists together, then stood over her. Now that the rush of adrenaline was slowing to a trickle and it seemed as if he just might live after all, his neurotransmitters were running less interference, and the pain in his head and side made him more nauseous than before.
Breathing hard, he stepped over the woman on the floor and moved to the helm. He’d wasted precious time dealing with an unwanted passenger and her unwanted dog. He flipped off the cruise control and pushed the throttle to fifty-five knots.
The scratch of the little dog’s nails reached his battered ears as it scurried from its hiding place to dart past him. Then silence filled the cabin, and he reached for a box of emergency signal flares stuck to the side of the helm. Over the next half an hour, his vision cleared enough for him to sort through the ten handheld flares. As far as making them into any sort of defense weapon, he determined there wasn’t enough magnesium to make a decent incendiary bomb.
He set the box of flares on the helm and glanced at the Global Positioning System. He could now see the outline of Andros and the Berry Islands to his stern. He changed the heading a few degrees west and headed toward the coast of Florida. Then, once he was fairly sure they wouldn’t run aground on one of the seven hundred islands and cays that made up the Bahamian Commonwealth, he once again lowered the speed of the boat and flipped on the cruise control.
Max set his teeth against the pain in his side, and as he walked from the bridge, he looked into the dark corner. The woman had managed to pull herself into a sitting position. Within the shadows, he could make out the white of her blouse and a sliver of light from the window shone on her red toenails. Her little dog lay curled up by her feet.
Without a backward glance, Max walked from the bridge, slowly making his way down the stairs, holding his side against the jolt of each step. His breathing became more labored, and by the time he entered the lit galley, he saw spots in front of his eyes. He found a first-aid kit beside the stove and a tray of ice in the freezer.
In the refrigerator, he discovered bottles of wine, several fifths of rum and tequila, and about a case of Dos Equis beer. Under normal circumstances, Max only allowed himself a beer or two. Tonight he needed more, something with a bigger kick, and he reached for the rum. He unscrewed the top of the clear bottle and brought it to his mouth. He winced at the pressure against his split lip but took several big swallows anyway. He wrapped the ice in a hand towel, then stuck it beneath one arm.
Grabbing the first-aid kit, he headed through the salon and flipped on the switch in the bathroom, coming face- to-face with his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He didn’t know which was worse: the way he looked or the way he felt. The left side of his face was swollen and turning purple. Dried blood from his nose smeared his cheek, and the cut in the middle of his bottom lip had bled down his chin. He took a long drink of the rum as he studied the rip in his shirt and the small dog bite on the ball of his shoulder. It wasn’t deep. Just a scratch, really, and, compared to the rest of his injuries, didn’t even warrant inspection. He just hoped like hell the mutt had had all his shots.
With one hand, Max pulled his shirt from the waistband of his black jeans and lifted it up. Nasty red welts criscrossed his torso, while a bruise in the shape of a bootheel marked his left side. At least he was alive. For the moment anyway.
He rummaged around in the first-aid kit until he found a bottle of Motrin. He emptied five tablets into his palm and chased them down with rum, then he wrapped an Ace bandage around his ribs. The elastic bandage didn’t help all that much, but he pinned it in place anyway. He found some antiseptic soap, and as he washed the blood from his face and neck, he thought of what had happened to him tonight, and wondered how the mission could have gotten so messed up from the beginning.
The intelligence he’d been given had been wrong, his contingency plans had all failed, and he wanted to know why. The report had placed Cosella’s men in one part of the church on the vast compound, when they’d clearly been in another.
The DE A agents had been held in the front of the building instead of the back, but none of that really mattered. Terrorists weren’t the most predictable people and intelligence was subject to change on a minute-by- minute basis. Max knew that, dealt with it often.
But he’d never had all his escape routes so unexpectedly and totally blocked before, and it occurred to him that perhaps someone on the inside hadn’t meant for him to survive this one.
He washed away the traces of blood and closed the gash on his forehead with a few Steri-Strips. With the icy towel held to the side of his face and the fifth of rum in his other hand, he returned to the galley. There was only one person he completely trusted at the special ops command. Joint Chief of Staff General Richard Winter, a chainsmoking, foulmouthed straight shooter who’d served in Vietnam and Desert Storm and knew a thing or two about living in the trenches and fighting with your back against the wall.
The general was a real hard-ass, but fair. He understood about going clandestine, what it took, and what it involved. But Max couldn’t risk contacting the general yet. Not on an unsecured line. Not when the transmission could be picked up by anyone within a thirty-mile radius. Not when he was such an easy target.
Once again, he rummaged through the yacht, looking for a weapon. He searched the closets in the stateroom and cupboards in the salon and galley, but found nothing more threatening than plastic cocktail swords and a set of dull steak knives.
He emptied the bottle of Motrin in his pocket and reached for a big purse sitting on the dinette table. He dumped out the contents, looking for prescription analgesics, like codeine or Darvocet, but came up empty except for a travel-sized Tylenol. The purse contained cosmetics and dog treats. A toothbrush and hairbrush and casino chips. He flipped open the wallet and stared at a North Carolina driver’s license. With one hand, he held the ice to his face, while with the other he brought the license closer to his good eye. For an instant he thought the face looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he read the name that he recognized the woman.
Lola Carlyle. Lola Carlyle, famous underwear and bikini model. Maybe
Max tossed the wallet on the table. Damn. The situation just got a bit more complicated. A bit less easy for the government to cover up. And if he was recaptured before he made it back to the States, the soft pampered woman on the bridge didn’t stand a chance. A few minutes ago, he would have sworn that his luck couldn’t get any worse, but it sure as shit had just gotten a lot worse.
A grim line sealed his lips as he grabbed the rum and the ice-filled towel and headed back up to the bridge. Maybe the woman upstairs wasn’t Lola Carlyle. Just because Lola Carlyle’s purse was in the galley didn’t mean the tall blond woman he’d tied up was her. Yeah, maybe, and maybe he could just go ahead and sprout wings and fly home.
Climbing the stairs on the way up to the galley didn’t hurt any less than on the way down. He paused twice and held his side against the sharp pain before continuing. In the past, Max had broken about every bone in his body, and ribs were by far the worst. Mostly because it hurt to even breathe.
Within the dark cabin, he picked out her white shirt. She was exactly where he’d left her, and he moved to the console and placed the bottle of rum and the towel next to the throttle.
“This will all be over soon,” he said in an effort to reassure her. Although, after she’d tried to knock his head off, he didn’t know why he was bothering. Maybe because if he were in the same situation, he would have done the
