Red Hot BOX SET: Complete Series 1-4: A Patrick & Steeves Suspense (20 page)

E
mily braced
her back against Dal’s chest. He stood behind her, sheltering her as much as possible from the downpour of rain. Kris stood to her left, his foot up against hers, to ensure she didn’t slip on the slick deck. Diego shivered in the rain, the tarp discarded in a heap near the aft deck.

With the small bit of shelter the men had created for her, she unbuttoned Diego’s shirt and slid it off his left arm. His right arm was already exposed, the duct tape holding the wires in place snaked down his arm like an ugly silver vein leading to his hand on the wheel. She dropped his shirt to the floor and he cursed under his breath.

Dal put the phone on speaker and Emily listened to a disembodied voice walk her through the schematic of the bomb. Reaching out, her right hand steady, she lifted a chaos of wires, a solid knot of colors, in the center of Diego’s gut. The bow slammed down into the waves, throwing a wall of spray over their heads. She sputtered and wiped water from her eyes.

The wind whipped at her ears, waves sloshed against the hull, the rigging overhead danced against the aluminum mast, a cacophony of sounds drowning out the voice on the phone. “Dal, I can’t hear him. You’ll have to take him off speaker and tell me what he says.” Her foot slithered beneath her to the left and Kris pressed closer against her side, bracing her foot with his boot.

Leaning close to her ear, Dal said, “He said to pick out the largest of the red and green wires from the knot.”

Within the mass of wires, she identified three green and three red wires. They looked the same size to her. Nothing in the photographs had indicated they were of different sizes. Poking her nose closer, she focused on only those wires, closing out all other distractions. She was aware of the wheel against the back of her head, but she no longer saw Diego, or the explosives, or the tape. She saw only this clump of wires and two came into focus. They were slightly larger in diameter than the others. Were they? Yes, they were. “Tell him I have them,” she said.

Dal relayed her words. “He says to follow those wires along Diego’s chest to just below his armpit.”

Taking a breath in through her nose, she filled her lungs and puffed out air. With deft fingers, she traced the two wires - one red, one green - to just below Diego’s armpit. “Good. What’s next?”

“She’s got them. What’s next?”

Emily lurched forward, bumping her head into the wheel as the bow of the boat dipped hard into a wave. A crack resounded through her skull, and her head felt like a melon being squeezed. “Dal!”

Kris reached over to right her as Dal reached his free hand in front of her face to buffer her from the wheel. She’d released her hand from the wires when she stumbled, aware of not putting too much stress on them. Light seared through her temples, her stomach surged. She prayed she wouldn’t pass out.

“Hang on, sir,” Dal was shouting into the phone. “Just give us a minute.”

It sounded like he was speaking from inside a tunnel. She laughed a little at that. The wind howled all around them, waves pounded the hull, whitecaps rode waves taller than Diego. Visibility was horrible, but what she could see was ocean churning like a giant Mixmaster hard at work. Water frothing and undulating around her, and the deck shifting constantly beneath her feet. She should have eaten more ginger before coming topside again.

“Em,” Dal called. “You ready for the next step?”

Her ear. She couldn’t hear out of her left ear, just a hollow hissing noise reminiscent of surf rolling over sand. Or sand whipped about by warm desert wind. “What?”

“Are you ready?” He pointed at the wires where she had left off. “Can you go on?”

She nodded and picked her fingers slowly along the wires to untangle the two she needed. “What’s next?”

“He says there’s a splice just below his elbow.”

Weird, she hadn’t noticed a splice earlier. Working her fingers along the wire, she reached his elbow. It was difficult to see anything. A constant spray washed over them, a steady stream of water rolled off Diego, his hair soaked and dripping. But there, she felt a slight nub under her fingertips. A finely done splice.

“Yes,” she said. “I have it.”

Dal passed her the wire cutters. “He says to cut the green one first, then the red one.”

Emily stared at the tool a second too long before closing her grip around the handle. She held the cutters open above the green wire. One rogue wave while she was cutting … The hissing in her ear grew louder, her vision blurred. Damn it, Em, she thought. Come on, you have three other lives hanging in the balance here. Hang in there, girl, come on. Using her finger as a buffer against the other wires, she isolated the green wire, held her breath, and snipped. Behind her, Kris released a breath. She stole a glance up at Diego. His lower lip trembled and his eyes were clenched shut.

Dal’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “Nice work,” he said. “Now the red.”

She repeated the process, separating the largest of the red wires from the others at the splice, and opened the wire cutters. She positioned the wire, ready to be cut, sucked in a breath, then snipped through it.

A huge boom filled her ears followed by a flash of blinding light. She’d failed. She’d been following directions, she’d done everything exactly as they’d told her and yet …

“Holy shit, talk about bad timing,” Dal’s voice came to her as though from a long distance and she realized she was still standing. Dal still had her back. Kris still pressed up along her side. Diego’s large body shuddered head to toe and the musky smell of warm urine filled her nostrils.

“Thunder,” huffed Kris. “And lightning.”

Emily stared at him, watching his lips move but still not comprehending.

“Wait, sir, we’re still here,” Dal yelled into the phone. “Yes, we’re still here, sir. It was thunder.”

Emily’s legs turned to jelly beneath her and Kris’s arm slid around her waist, guiding her toward the hatch.

“No,” she heard Dal say as she ducked her head to descend the ladder. “She cut those wires but it didn’t change anything. The light is still blinking.”

D
al wrapped
a blanket around Emily’s shoulders and slid in beside her. Her whole body shook uncontrollably. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and met Kris’s gaze across the table.

“What did they say?” Kris asked, fingers splayed across the chart.

He shrugged. “They got it wrong. It’s hard to get it done with photographs only.”

“Come on, those guys should know what they’re doing.”

Dal slapped the table and half-rose out of his seat. “What the hell do I know Kris? But yeah, I agree. Fucking unbelievable.”

“How’s Diego making out?” Emily turned and studied Dal.

“Terrified, would be my guess. I think he pissed himself when the thunder started.”

She tipped her chin. “Yeah. I almost did, too.” She laughed half-heartedly and tucked her hands under her thighs. “I don’t understand what happened. I thought those guys were sure about what they were asking me to do. I mean, they could have blown us all up. We’re lucky it’s still ticking.”

“Lucky?” Kris leapt to his feet and paced the small space. “We’re all going to blow up. Boom. Dead. Bye bye.” He leaned over Dal. “So I think we take things into our own hands.”

“Meaning what?” Dal asked looking up at his friend. A storm was brewing in Kris’s eyes, he’d never seen him so agitated.

“Meaning we get off this boat. I say we abandon ship and take our chances in the lifeboat.” He tapped his finger on a spot on the chart. “Another few miles and we’ll be close enough to drift to shore.”

“And leave your boat to blow up?” Dal leaned back, the proximity of Kris’s face to his making him uncomfortable.

Hoping to cut through the tension, Emily leaned forward, tracing the route on the chart that Kris had pointed out earlier. “Kris, you don’t want your boat to blow up.”

“I’d rather lose the boat than my life.” He slapped both hands on the table, sweat beading up on his forehead, eyes wild. “You can’t honestly tell me the two of you don’t care one way or the other whether you live or die in the next hour.”

Dal watched Em slide her hand over Kris’s. “Of course I care. I’m tasked with bringing Dal home. You, too, now, and —”

“And that asshole topside who got us into this mess with the bomb to begin with?” Kris waved her hand away and stepped back from the table.

“Not necessarily,” Emily said carefully. “But if we can save your boat, we’ll end up saving him, too. I don’t want to see anybody die. I’ve seen enough death to last me a lifetime.”

“Look,” Kris began.

Dal held his palm up in front of Kris’s face. “Em’s right. We need to find a way out of this where nobody dies. You and I,” he continued, gazing directly into his best friend’s eyes, “we’ve seen enough death, too. You don’t want to be responsible for this man losing his life. For his family being without a husband, without a father. Not when we have a chance to get everybody out alive. And save your boat.”

Kris’s shoulders dropped. His whole body uncoiled as if Dal had released air from a helium balloon. His eyes darted from Em to Dal before staring down at the deck. Folding himself into the bench across from them, he sucked in a breath. “I still think we should consider the lifeboat.”

“Look.” Dal moved his hands over the chart, trying to engage Kris in problem-solving, anything to get his thinking turned around. Getting out of this was a long shot, one he didn’t totally believe in himself, but in order for it to work at all, each of them needed to think, to contribute to the solution. “Let’s figure out how far we are from the Coast Guard. They’re waiting for us. We just need to get there.”

Taking a breath, Kris leaned over the chart again, tracing a route with his fingertip. “It doesn’t look good,” he said. “Fighting this storm, the wind against us … we’re still over an hour away.”

The boat pitched to the side, items sliding down the table top. Dal braced himself as Em shifted into him and Kris fell off the bench. The uneven rocking he’d grown somewhat accustomed to, now abrupt and random. He could feel the boat being pushed to the port, the bow following a bumpy half circle through the crashing waves.

“Kris,” he asked, “what the hell is happening?”

“I don’t know,” Kris said, catching his balance by gripping a railing on the hull under a shelf.

Emily dug her fingers into Dal’s thigh. When he looked at her, her face was green, all normal coloring washed out of her skin. “Hang on,” he said. “You have more ginger?”

She reached into her pocket and popped more tablets in her mouth, chewing feverishly. “Is the storm getting worse?

“I don’t know.” Dal looked up at Kris. “You think Diego is sabotaging us somehow?” That didn’t make sense. At least not to him. Sabotaging them would also put him in more danger and Diego didn’t strike him as a man prepared to die for any cause, let alone the one before him.

“I’ll go see what’s happening.” Kris staggered across the deck, gripped the ladder and disappeared topside while everything not clamped down shifted and rolled to the floor, the floor in the galley strewn with utensils, plastic dishes and garbage.

Dal stood and tried to brace himself against the uneven rocking of the deck. When the bow plunged downward, it hit the water so hard he could feel the hull shudder beneath his boots. His stomach lurched and he scrambled to hold himself upright, powerless to help Em, who vomited into the empty mug she clasped white-knuckled.

E
m wiped
the back of her hand across her mouth, turning away from Dal’s concerned gaze. Her stomach surged again and she reached for the other mug that had slid down the table and was hung up by the rim. She forced deep, slow breaths into her lungs, willing her stomach to settle.

“I need to go outside,” she said, glancing sideways at Dal. He stood braced against the hull about as far away from her as possible. Should she take that personally? She watched as he clung to the rail as the boat slipped over another wave, and realized he was also just hanging on minute by minute.

He nodded and reached for her hand. She shook her head, and slid across the vinyl seat, pushing herself to a standing position. Staggering across the deck with the soiled mugs, she dropped them into the sink then rummaged through the cupboard, shook a pile of ginger tablets into her palm, and shoved them in her pocket. “I need fresh air,” she said.

The closeness of the forward cabin with this much movement was overpowering. She lurched toward the ladder and pulled herself up toward the hatch, Dal close behind her.

Being below deck had been difficult, but she was completely unprepared for the chaos that greeted her when she stepped through the hatch. Diego cursed in Spanish, bellowing at the top of his lungs for Maria, for the Madonna, a steady babble of prayers interlaced with profanities she was grateful to not understand. His eyes rolled in his head, water streamed down across his cheeks. He clung to the wheel which turned and jumped of its own accord. He didn’t acknowledge her or Dal when they came on deck.

Behind him, Kris knelt on the slick deck, two large hatch doors thrown open, peering down into a hole. Emily walked forward, shielding her eyes from the pelting rain, her hand clasped around Dal’s forearm for balance.

Kris looked up at them. “Engine is out.”

“Shit,” groaned Dal. “What’s the problem exactly?”

“Same issue I had when I was coming to meet you. I should be able to sort it fairly quickly, but… “

“But what?” Emily looked between the two of them.

“We need to get the boat headed into the waves,” Kris yelled. “Otherwise, we’re gonna be bounced around like a cork in the damn ocean.”

That was accurate, she thought. It was exactly how it felt with the deck shifting constantly beneath her feet.

“We can anchor this far out?” she asked Dal.

Dal shook his head. “What do you need me to do?” he asked Kris.

“Get the sea anchor set up. It’s stowed near the bow. We need to increase the drag on the bow so we can keep her heading into the waves.”

Dal tipped his chin and started to move away.

“Wait,” Emily said, reaching for his arm again. “It’s too rough, Dal, you can’t go up there alone.”

“You’re not coming with me,” he said, shrugging her arm off. “I’ll be fine.”

“Tie him,” Kris yelled, dropping into the small space beside the engine. His hair was soaked and steady rivulets of water ran down his face. He brushed water off his forehead to clear his vision and fixed his gaze on Emily. “Tie a rope around him and tie the other end of the line to the rail. Make sure both ends are tight. You know how to tie a knot?”

She nodded, grateful for the knots her father had taught her as a child, many of which she’d perfected in the military. Reef knot, clove hitch, cleat hitch, bowline, the names reeled off in her head.

“Em,” Kris called as she turned away after Dal. “When you’re done, come back here and help me with tools.”

She turned, her response whipped away by the wind and followed Dal forward. Holding her breath, she watched him climb up on the forward deck, and make his way beneath the main sail. Stooping to gather a line, he passed one end of the yellow rope to her and started to loop the other around his waist. Em secured the line to a cleat on the gunnel and, for good measure, wrapped it around the rail. She noticed a grappling hook latched underneath where she was working, and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.

“Do you need anything else?” she yelled.

Dal shook his head and turned away. He worked his way forward, clutching the cleats that ran along the raised cabin. His jacket billowed out behind him like a sail, and he bent lower into the wind. Near the bow, he hunched down and retrieved the sea anchor from a hatch. She shook her hands out, releasing the tight fists she’d made, remembering he’d spent a lot of time on this boat with Kris.

Carefully tying the line around a cleat, he stepped back and shook his head, throwing water away from his eyes. He hooked a smaller blue line across the top of the main line and wound it around the cleat. Fighting the wind, he gathered an armful of dense blue plastic that looked like a tarp and struggled to lower it over the starboard side of the bow. A wave slammed the boat broadside and he lost his footing, sliding toward the rail on the port side.

Emily screamed.