Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) (32 page)

He heard a thud behind him and then footsteps trotting across the deck.

Elijah whirled around and in two seconds he had his knife at the old man’s throat. “I said shut up, you fucking fossil.”

“Don’t hurt him,” she said.

“Give me an axe!” Irv shouted. “I’ll tear her boat apart, and I guarantee you I’ll find it.”

“You don’t shut up, you son of a bitch, I’ll cut your tongue out.”

“Stop it,” she said.

Elijah turned back to look at her, but she hung her head. She wouldn’t look at him.

“You can have it,” she said. “I’ll show you where it is. Just don’t hurt him. Take me over there. I’ll get it, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Irv said, “I’ll go with her to make sure it’s the real thing. I’m the only one here who’s seen it.”

Elijah turned to Benny. “Take them both. If she doesn’t cooperate, cut the old man’s tongue out.”

Benny nodded and the corner of his mouth pulled up in a half smile. He grabbed the old man’s arm and walked them both aft to get into the fishing boat’s dinghy.

Elijah watched as Benny rowed them across to her sailboat. The girl sat huddled in the boat, her arms across her chest holding up what was left of her shirt.

He was about to get what he wanted, so why did he feel disappointed?

Aboard
Bonefish
Natuna Besar

November 24, 2012

Benny, the man who had shot her with the blowpipe, sat on the center thwart of the dinghy at the oars. He told Peewee to get in the bow. Riley slumped in the stern with her arms crossed to hold up her top. She knew she could take him while he rowed and she wanted nothing more. But on the fishing boat, one of the local men stood on deck with a rifle, watching them.

Ever since she’d awakened with water in her face, she’d been reacting, trying to figure out what was going on. That muscular monster with the dragon on his back was a madman. She was doing her very best right now to appear conquered and cowed. Let this guy think she was terrified, broken. Maybe he would drop his guard. It was time for her to stop reacting and figure out how she was going to get out of this mess.

Benny was much stronger than her. She’d learned that on the boat. And he wore a nasty-looking knife in a sheath on his belt. The handle looked like it was made of bone, and from the shape of the sheath,
the blade was more than seven inches long. She was certain, after her experience with the one they called Hawkes, that this one also knew how to use his knife.

If she leaned a little to one side, she could see her boat anchored not far from the fishing boat. She wondered how they’d got it there. Had they sailed it? Judging from the mess the mainsail had been left in, they weren’t sailors. Perhaps they’d towed it. Her eyes searched her vessel from stem to stern, looking for signs of any damage. She didn’t see any.

These guys had a fast powerboat. Even if she did overpower Benny, she’d never outrun them in her sailboat. If she was going to escape, she would need to disable their boat somehow. But how?

Benny told Irv to get out of the dinghy and climb aboard first. She followed.

“Stay where I can see you,” he said.

She climbed into the cockpit and stood still. She saw the flare gun lying on the cockpit floor. She considered picking it up, but the rest of the flares were in the ditch bag in the aft cabin. The gun was no good without ammunition.

While Benny was tying off the dinghy, Peewee whispered, “I’ll help you. I’m on your side.”

She acted as though she had not heard. She didn’t know whether or not to believe him.

She looked down into the cabin and it took some effort not to react. It was a mess. They’d searched her home and torn her things up. Books, clothes, food, and pots and pans were strewn across the cabin sole. But they hadn’t found what they were looking for or she wouldn’t be here. There were so many places to hide things on a boat.

When Benny climbed into the cockpit, he said, “Where is it?”

“In the forward head.”

“Okay, go down slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“I’ll need to get a screwdriver,” she said. “It’s behind an access panel in the head.”

“Okay, wait till I’m down, too.”

Riley went down the companionway stairs. She pointed to a drawer by the chart table. “There’s a screwdriver in there.”

He descended the stairs. “Okay.”

Riley got the screwdriver out of the drawer just as she had said. He was all ready for her to try something. When it didn’t happen, she hoped he’d relax just a little.

Walking below was difficult with all her belongings scattered on the floor. “I need to go up there.” She pointed toward the bow. “I might stumble. It won’t be on purpose.”

Benny pulled the knife from its sheath. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said.

He stayed less than a foot behind her as she made her way through the main salon and into the forward cabin. She could smell cigarettes on his breath. “There’s not room enough in the head for both of us.”

“You know I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

She nodded. “I do. I’m going in here now.”

She stepped into the head, slid open a locker, and removed the vitamins, cough syrup, and aspirin. That was all that was left in the cabinet. Then she unscrewed the panel that provided access to the ship’s wiring. The prayer gau was there, wrapped in the piece of silk. She unwrapped it and placed the gold object in the center of her palm.

“I’m coming out now. I have it in my hand.” With her hand in front of her she stepped out of the head.

Benny snatched the object from her. Then he turned around and stepped into the main salon. “Irv, is this it?”

While his back was turned, Riley felt under the pillow for the crossbow. It was right there where she’d left it. In their search, they’d lifted the mattress, emptied the drawers, but they hadn’t looked under
the pillows. She pulled out the crossbow, spun around to be free of the door, and aimed it at Benny’s back.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Irv said.

Then she saw Irv lean over sideways and peer around Benny. She saw his Adam’s apple twitch as he swallowed.

“Uh, Benny?” he said, and he pointed at Riley.

“Don’t move,” Riley said, “or you’ll take an arrow through the heart.” She saw Benny angle his head and look at her out of the corner of his eye.

“You know this is never going to work,” he said.

“Drop the knife and put your hands in the air.”

“All right. I don’t need a knife.” The knife fell onto a pile of clothes and disappeared into the folds of cloth. He raised his arms. “I’ll enjoy it more with my bare hands.”

“Irv, you’ll find ropes in the cockpit locker.”

The old man climbed the steps and began searching the seat locker.

“Now, turn around slowly,” she said. “And put it on the table.”

He turned around to face her. His mouth was smiling, but his dark eyes were humorless. “Put what?”

“You know. The gold artifact I just gave you.”

Peewee came back down with one of her fifty-foot dock lines. Benny just stood there staring at her.

“Put it on the table,” she said. “I know that you and your friend Mr. Hawkes do not plan to let me live, so shooting you right now would be an act of self-defense. And that way we won’t have to bother with tying you up. It’s your call. Give it to me, I’ll tie you up and you live; don’t give it to me, and I’ll shoot.”

Benny reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the prayer gau. He set it on the table.

She nodded at Irv.

That was when Benny made his move. He spun around to grab Irv. He planned to get the old man between him and the crossbow.
What he hadn’t counted on was the heavy stainless-steel winch handle Irv had brought down with the dock lines. Benny deflected the full force of the blow that probably would have cracked his skull, but even the glancing blow made him stagger and fall. Irv had let go of the winch handle and Benny was pulling him down, going for his neck. Riley set the crossbow aside. She couldn’t get a clear shot as the two men wrestled. From the floor by her foot, she lifted up her cast-iron Le Creuset rice cooker and swung it at the back of Benny’s head. He collapsed on top of Irv.

Riley couldn’t even see the old man. “Irv, you okay?”

She saw movement in the carpet of her belongings and when she pulled up on a shoulder of the unconscious man, Irv squirmed out from under him. She reached a hand and helped him up onto his feet. Riley looked down at the inert form. “I’m glad you were counting on him making a move.”

Irv brushed off his sleeves and said, “Benny’s that kind of man.”

Riley peered out the galley window at the fishing boat anchored a couple of boat lengths away. “Okay. Now we just have to figure out how to incapacitate their boat.” She stepped back. “Excuse me a second while I go grab another shirt.” She found a bra and a T-shirt on the floor in her cabin and quickly changed.

When Riley came out of her cabin, Irv was finishing tying Benny’s hands behind his back. He sat back on the bottom step and said, “You know when they sat me on top of that plastic fuel drum?”

“Yeah.”

“While you were doing such a good job of distracting all those men,” he said with a wink, “I took out my pocketknife and I wiggled the tip into the plastic until it punched a small hole all the way through. It’s been leaking gasoline onto the deck for half an hour now.”

Riley smiled. “And it’s a wood boat.”

She waved her hand at Irv. “Scoot over.” She stepped over Benny and crawled up the steps and into the cockpit on her hands and knees.
The guy with the rifle would still be keeping watch. She grabbed the flare gun, then retreated back into the cabin.

Riley kept a ditch bag in the aft cabin whenever she was at sea. It was there in case she had to abandon ship. The waterproof bag contained everything she would need in the life raft, like food, water, flares, and a signal mirror. The fishermen had emptied the contents out of the bag, but the flares were easy to spot in the mound of stuff. She discarded a couple of smoke flares. She wanted only the rockets.

Out the galley window she looked again at the fishing boat. She saw the man named Hawkes gesturing at her boat. He suspected something wasn’t right. They had to move fast.

“Listen,” Riley said, “I don’t want you to get shot. Stay below here. I can crawl out there and start the engine without raising my head. I have a remote button at the helm to raise the anchor chain, too. They’ll hear the engine start, but they don’t have another boat, so there’s not much they can do about it.”

“Be careful, sweetheart,” Irv said. “I don’t want you getting shot either.”

Riley crawled out into the cockpit, set the flare gun on the seat, and reached for the key at the engine controls. She hit the start button and heard a single
click
. This had happened a few times before. “Come on, baby, start for me now.”

She hit the start button again.
Click
.

“Irv, go to the electric panel and turn off the refrigeration and the radio and anything you see that might be drawing juice from the batteries.”

“Okay.” The hum of the refrigeration system stopped. “Try it now.”

Riley silently asked her brother Mikey to put in a good word with whoever might be listening. She hit the start button again and heard the sweet roar as the engine turned over, caught, and revved up. She inched the throttle back a little, then flicked the switch to start raising the anchor. Nothing happened.

“Irv! The switch for the windlass.”

“I got it!” he yelled.

She tried it again and she could hear the sound of the chain rattling into the chain locker below deck.

Crack!
She heard the shot at the same time the safety glass in one of her portholes fell in pieces inside the boat. That gave Riley an idea. She crawled below and grabbed the signal mirror. She handed it to Irv.

“Keep your head away from the window, but wave this around inside and try to distract the shooter.”

He moved to one of the forward portholes, and Riley watched the shooter. She saw the man shift his stance when he saw the movement. He raised the rifle to aim. She stood, sighted down the barrel of the flare gun through the broken porthole, and pulled the trigger.

The red ball of flame flew right over the top of the fishing boat and landed in the water on the other side.

About a half mile off up inside the estuary, she saw the long dugout canoe returning. For the moment, the only way they could reach her boat would be to swim. The canoe would change that.

The shooter saw the canoe, too. He turned his head to look. One of the fishermen started waving his hands at it, encouraging it to hurry up.

Riley aimed again, planning to lob it up in an arc this time. She fired.

The flare landed in the middle of the blue plastic tarp they had spread for shade. The flare burned straight through and fell onto the nets, but the plastic tarp caught fire. Pieces of curling flame fell to the deck. She watched as two men ran over toward a patch of flame and began stomping on the deck. The nets smoldered. More pieces of burning plastic rained down.

Hearing her anchor hit the bow roller, she shut the windlass off at the electric panel. She saw no sign of the shooter through the porthole, so she climbed out and slid behind the wheel. She crouched down, put
the engine in gear, and pushed the throttle forward. As the boat picked up speed she turned the wheel to put them on a course for the sea.