Born Ready (26 page)

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to duct tape your hands behind your back.”

“But why?”

“You’ve made a very serious mistake.”

“Diving alone?”

“Among other things. But mostly, you found a submarine full of cocaine.”

Suddenly everything clicked and she couldn’t believe how she’d been so blind. “Y-you’re a drug smuggler.”

“Who knew? In spite of your measly 138 IQ you are not as dumb as you look.”

She kicked at him, but he jumped out of reach, laughing.

“Just for that you get your ankles duct taped together, too, and before you get any crazy ideas about lunging at me.” He set the shotgun down, but simultaneously pulled a small pistol from the waistband of the back of his Bermuda shorts. “I’ll just keep this pressed against the back of your skull while I tape up your wrists.”

Jackie’s heart sank. She was in serious trouble.

Don’t give up. Scott will get your voice mail and he will know where to come looking for you.

“I have to thank you for finding the sub. What a stroke of luck,” Gary said, “After Juliette flaked on me.”

“Juliette?”

“One of the drug mules who was supposed to guide the submarine in with a homing device today, but she’s MIA. I pity her. When DeCristo finds out she took off on him, it’s not going to be pleasant for her.”

“But I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? My father pays you a good salary. You have prestige and—”

“You don’t get it. Do you have any idea how much money I’m getting from DeCristo? Hundreds of thousands, baby. Not that paltry salary your old man gives me and we both know what a royal pain in the ass he is.”

“Who is DeCristo?”

“You are so ignorant.”

“Well then, enlighten me.”

“DeCristo is an enterprising drug lord out of South America with friends in Cuba. He’s found a way to sneak past the Coast Guard.”

This was why Scott had warned her not to go into the mangrove channel.

Jackie gulped. She wished she’d listened to him. Yes, she’d found the Key blenny, but she would have eventually found the fish anyway. Now, she was beginning to understand just how foolish she’d been when it was too late to correct her mistake.

Gary duct taped her wrists together, then her feet. Lastly, he stuck a piece of duct tape over her mouth. The jackass. She glowered at him.

He seemed unfazed by the eye-daggers she threw at him. He donned a diving suit. “I’m going to dislodge the submarine and tow it back to the
Anemone.
”

So she wasn’t the only one stupid enough to dive without a buddy. This alarmed her for her father’s sake. If Gary was caught with drugs on the
Sea Anemone,
the Coast Guard could seize the ship. Her father would be devastated. Anger lodged in her throat.

“Be right back,” he said.

Jackie fumed. How had she allowed herself to get trapped like this? Regret dug into her. If she hadn’t gone off and left her father, he would never have put Gary in charge of the
Sea Anemone
and this would never have happened. She had a lot to make up for.

If you even get a chance.

Surely, Gary wouldn’t harm her. He’d known her for ten years. He might be a greedy criminal, but he wasn’t a killer.

He’s working for a drug lord. There are bound to be henchmen who can do the dirty work for him.

Scott was her only hope of salvation. Maybe he and a team of Coast Guard were staking out the mangrove channel, just waiting to make their move.

Hopefully, she scanned the shore, looking for signs of rescue. Fireflies flickered through the darkness. A mosquito buzzed past her ear. Sultry humidity soaked the air. Her wet suit clung tight and cloying.

She heard nothing more than the natural sounds of the mangrove. Saw nothing that shouldn’t have been there. She willed Scott to be there. To find her message and put two and two together, but she knew she couldn’t count on it. She had to find a way to save herself.

But how?

Gary came up ten minutes later. He stripped off the wet suit, started the boat and left the estuary for open sea. He didn’t speak to her again.

Her hopes plummeted. It would be far more difficult for Scott to track her into the ocean.

You’ve got a transponder on the sub.

Yes, but Scott didn’t know that. He had no way of monitoring the tracking device.

Dammit.

It took almost an hour to reach the spot where Gary had anchored the
Sea Anemone.
She wondered how he was going to explain her, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, to the rest of the crew.

Except when he got to the
Sea Anemone,
she did not know the two men who showed up to greet them. They spoke to Gary in Spanish and helped him pull the submarine up on pulleys beside the ship.

Where were the scientists and students who normally worked on the
Sea Anemone?

And where was her father? She only had Gary’s word that he was at a symposium in Paris. It could all be a lie.

Real fear gripped her then. Her father could be dead. She hadn’t spoke to him in months. Not since they’d had their falling-out.

Gary yanked her to her feet, pressed the pistol into her ribs. “I’m going to untie your feet so you can climb onto the ship, but no funny business.”

He cut the duct tape around her feet. Briefly, Jackie thought about kicking him, but if Gary didn’t shoot her, the two men waiting for them on the deck looked like they would be happy to oblige and put the bullet through her head for him.

Stay alive. You have to find a way to stay alive so you can tell Scott exactly how much you love him.

Yes. Scott. Think of Scott. Even if they kill you at least you will die with the thought of the man you love embedded in your mind.

Love.

Yes. She loved Scott. Loved him with all her heart. Too bad it had taken the threat of losing her life to make her realize it.

Oh, Scott, I am so sorry.

Somehow, Gary pushed her up the ladder and shoved her onto the deck of the
Sea Anemone.
She fell over a tangle of rope. Landed so hard it knocked the breath from her lungs. She lay there staring at the wood floor, smelling fish and thinking of Scott.

Scott. He was everything she never knew she wanted. Patient, but determined. Commanding, yet kind. A solid man who had her back.

Or he would have if she hadn’t gotten all jealous and crazy. She’d never gotten jealous and crazy over any man. It had to be love. What else could make a rational scientist act so irrational?

Nothing but love.

She turned the word over in her mind. Felt it in her heart. She loved Scott Everly.

Oh, damn, what a terrible time to know she was stone cold in love. Right when she was on the verge of being killed.

Terrific timing, Birchard.

She would never get credit for finding the Key blenny, but worse than that, without her intervention, the fish could become extinct, forever lost, and that was such a crime. Her heart shredded.

Who was she kidding? The pain came from the thought of losing Scott forever, not the Key blenny. The fish meant a lot to her, yes, but Scott meant a thousand times more.

The two ham-fisted, Spanish-speaking crewmembers hoisted her to her feet and dragged her down the steps to the galley. They threw her unceremoniously onto the couch and then trotted back to the deck.

Minutes later, the men returned carrying white bricks of what Jackie assumed was the cocaine they’d removed from the sub.

Gary trailed behind, his own arms loaded down with the stuff. The three of them made trip after trip, stacking up the galley with it. There had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product. This was no small-time operation. No way was she getting out of this alive. She knew it now with absolutely certainty.

After they finished stacking cocaine bricks around the room, the two men went on deck while Gary stayed in the galley with her. He didn’t speak to Jackie, but instead pulled a satellite cell phone from his pocket and made a call.

From his one-sided conversation she heard him explaining what had happened to the submarine and about finding her in the mangrove channel with it. Was the person on the other end the mysterious DeCristo?

Quick! Think, think. How can you get out of this? You have too much to live for to let this happen. You have to find your father. You have to let Scott know that you love him.

Gary looked pained, glanced at Jackie, then mumbled into the phone. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Even from across the room, Jackie could hear a heavily accented voice yell through the phone in English. “I said kill her!”

The man on the other end of the phone had just ordered her execution.

“But she’s Jack Birchard’s daughter. She’s semifamous. She’ll be missed.” Then Gary went deathly pale. He was trembling so hard Jackie wondered how he was able to keep hold of the phone. “Yes. Yes. I understand.”

He hung up the phone and turned to Jackie. “I’m sorry about that.”

She wished she didn’t have tape over her mouth so she could curse him out.

Gary went to a locker in the back of the room, pulled a key from his pocket and opened up the locker. He whistled and the two men came marching down the steps.

“Load the sub,” he told them.

The men reached into the locker, grabbed handfuls of new one hundred dollar bills in fat bundles wrapped in plastic.

Jackie’s breath went soft. The pulse at her temple pounded. She’d never been so scared in her life. With the duct tape over her mouth she couldn’t even beg Gary for mercy.

Not that I would beg that scumbag for anything.
She tossed her head.

“I wish it didn’t have to come to this.” Gary sighed. “I always did like you.”

She threw him a go-to-hell look and notched her chin upward defiantly. Gary didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger.

“I’ve gotten enough of your dirty stares in the past to know exactly what you’re thinking,” Gary commented. “Yes. I’m too big of an admirer of yours to pull the trigger. Blood does make me a bit squeamish. But Hector and Chemo out there, well, they have no compunctions or aversions.”

Jackie gulped. Okay. This was it. She was going to die. Bravely, she met his stare. Bring it on.

“I know, you’re tough. I’m truly going to miss you.”

Hector and Chemo came back into the gallery and trotted more bundles of money back outside to the submarine.

Gary paced. Sweat popped out on his forehead. The
Sea Anemone
rocked gently on the waves. Well, if she had to die at least she was going to die on the sea. She’d been born on this boat, might as well die on it. Fitting. It was just far too soon.

Funny, she never thought of herself as the marrying kind. Never pictured herself as a mother, but suddenly she realized everything she would miss out on. Love. Marriage. A child. Reuniting with her father. But that was before Scott Everly had come barreling into her life.

Too late. She was too late for all that.

Lost.

She’d lost everything because she’d been too focused and pigheaded. She’d always thought her single-mindedness was her greatest strength. Her intensity. Her ability to fully embrace one thing and embrace it with all her heart.

Now she understood just how unbalanced her life had become. Only lately had equanimity crept in and it was all due to Scott. He’d opened her up. Shown her the joy of just being a regular person. Not Jackie Birchard, daughter of the world’s most important living oceanographer. But just Jackie.