Red Hot BOX SET: Complete Series 1-4: A Patrick & Steeves Suspense (22 page)

B
elow deck
, Emily couldn’t stop shivering. Her clothes were soaked through, she felt like a drowned rat. The clock was ticking down and they still had ground to cover. Or ocean. Each time the propeller came out of the water, which was often, her heart skipped a beat and she wondered if the engine had quit again.

She’d come below, with the excuse that she needed to use the head, so she could call her father again. There was a possibility that she’d be blown to bits in the next half an hour and she longed to hear his voice, if only for a minute. The call went to voice mail. Again. What could she possibly say in a message that would make sense? She tried to keep her tone light as she said she loved him. Sighing, she took a breath, held it, and tried to push all the frustration out of her body. The worst was yet to come, she knew. She wanted to be calm and collected for the end.

Bracing herself against the rolling of the deck, she replayed the nightmarish events of the last two days in her mind. Two failed attempts at disarming the bomb. The bomb squad would now deal with that - one small blessing. At least that part was over - as long as the bomb didn’t blow up before they could get there.

If she made it home alive, then she would also get Dal and Kris home alive. So she was facing either a spectacular success or a colossal fail. And if she failed, she’d be dead, too, so it wouldn’t really matter.

And Jack? She couldn’t help but wonder what his hired thugs had done to him, or where they’d left him. It would remain a mystery, she was sure, and she probably shouldn’t give a shit. But her heart felt like it had been squeezed, juiced clean like a discarded orange, her sense of betrayal and disbelief was so strong.

She tried her father one last time. With an overwhelming sense of dejection, she shoved the phone back in her pocket and swallowed more ginger tablets before returning topside.

O
n deck
, Dal and Kris huddled to the port side deep in conversation. Diego stood guard at the wheel. He looked a pitiful mess, hair plastered to his head, drops running down his face. The rain, while still strong, felt like a spring shower compared to the earlier force of the storm. Ignoring the weather, she held tightly to the rail of the aft deck and kept an eye on the other boat, which followed closely behind them to the starboard.

From overhead, a spotlight lit up the deck. Over the wind, she heard the distinctive whup-whup-whup of a helicopter. “Dal,” she called. He stepped toward her, Kris, too. “How far out are we?”

“We’re still in Mexican waters,” Kris answered.

“Think it might be Jack?” Dal asked, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard over the din.

She crossed to his side. “How could it be?” She jerked her chin toward the other boat. “They said they’d left him on shore.”

“True, but he seems pretty resourceful,” Dal yelled back. “Depending on where they left him, he could probably pull this off.”

“If it is Jack, we need to get below deck. He’ll be happy to blow us all up and have us go down with the ship.” She peered upward, rain streaming into her eyes. “Damn, I can’t see.”

A flash of lightning scorched her eyes. She clenched them shut, seeing spots. “What can you see?”

“Not much, the bird is … red,” Kris shouted over the wind. “It’s a SARs bird.”

“So it’s the Coast Guard? Search and rescue?” she asked.

“Most likely,” Kris said, “but… I thought they couldn’t come for us until we reach U.S. waters.”

“We must be close,” Dal said, moving toward the helm. “Look, Kris, we’re almost there.”

Kris slid in beside Dal and confirmed their location. Diego shot him a dirty look when he bumped against his elbow. “Let me go,” he said. “Unhook me so I can leave with my friends.”

“We already tried that,” Emily said. “If there was a way, we’d do it.”

“They can’t come into U.S. waters,” Diego whined. “And neither can I.”

“You, my friend,” Dal said, “aren’t going to have the choice.”

The helicopter dipped down in front of them - red and white, definitely Search and Rescue from the Coast Guard. The bird circled widely overhead, circumnavigating them three complete times as the boat ate up the waves ahead of them, bow slamming down into the enormous swells.

“We’re almost there,” Kris called.

Diego waved his left arm. “Let me go,” he pleaded. “Unhook me and let me go.”

“There’s no way to do that.” Kris shook his head and returned to the aft deck where Emily stood beside Dal, looking to the sky.

A door slid open in the back of the helicopter and Em could make out someone leaning forward. The phone in Dal’s pocket chirped. He pulled it out and answered.

“Sounds good, sir.” He turned to her. “They’re sending a swimmer down to get us off the boat. Kris,” he turned to his friend, “we need to kill the engine and get life jackets on everybody.”

Kris dug into a locker below the gunnels and threw life jackets onto the deck where they slid with the roll of the waves. Dal clamped a foot down over one and lifted the other to put over Emily’s head. She looked up at him. “Not me first,” she said. “You should go.”

“No,” he said. “You first.”

She shook her head. “No. Send Kris first then.”

“Kris is not going to leave his boat. We don’t have time for this.”

She persisted. “But it’s my job to get both of you back safe.”

“I’ll make sure Kris gets off the boat. You need to go. Now.” The look in his eyes told her there was no room for argument. This was the Dal who ran into burning buildings, in charge and not to be questioned.

The helicopter was holding just off the stern to the port. She watched as the swimmer was lowered by cable until he was twenty feet over the water. Slowly, the bird moved forward, the swimmer swaying over the water, until he was positioned off the bow of their boat.

Em shielded her eyes from the spray. The engine was off and they were rolling broadside to the waves again. Her stomach flipped as she watched the swimmer take strong strokes toward the ladder off the stern.

Dal climbed up on the aft deck and helped her up. “You’ll have to go in the water as soon as he gets here,” he said, shuffling forward with her toward the edge. “You can swim, right?”

She nodded, wiping water off her face as the swimmer came closer to the bobbing stern. He looked up from the water, waved her in. Dal’s hand clutched the top of her life jacket as she slid into the choppy water, into the waiting grip of the swimmer. He quickly hooked a line to her life jacket and pulled away from the boat.

Waves crashed over them, as the swimmer sliced through the sea, taking solid strokes toward the large yellow basket floating at the top of a swell. Emily’s eyes stung from the spray, she took a large gulp of salt water and kept her eye on the basket bobbing over the waves. They reached the crest of a swell and were propelled down the other side, into a small valley of calm, where she was quickly belted into the basket.

The swimmer rode with her up to the helicopter, the two of them swaying in the wind. Em watched the bottom of the bird come closer, they were swinging wide in the wind, they were going to knock into the wheels, they were going to fall back into the ocean, she wrenched her neck, tried to see the boat below.

“Stay still,” said the swimmer.

“But my friends—”

“Hang on,” he said.

She squeezed her eyes shut, held her breath. “Swimmer and survivor just below the door.” She opened her eyes to see a man guiding the cable up between the wheels, stabilizing the horrible swinging. Another couple of feet… “Swimmer and survivor at the door.” She shivered with relief as strong hands pulled the basket onto the helicopter, mentally counting off the minutes left for Dal and Kris on the boat. “Swimmer and survivor inside.”

D
al wiped
the rain from his face and peered into the storm, watching the Coast Guard swimmer disappear with Emily over the top of the swell. The ocean was a frothy, seething mess. The boat slammed repeatedly by whitecaps as they rolled broadside in the waves.

Thunder cracked through the air overhead, followed immediately by a sheet of lightning that lit everything around him like an over-exposed sepia photograph.

Behind him, Kris was yelling his name. He turned, confident the Coast Guard would get Em safely out of the water, and strode to Kris’s side.

“It’s the Coast Guard again,” Kris said, extending the phone. “Guy wants to talk to you.”

Dal took the cell and spoke: “This is Steeves.”

“Steeves, we’ve got the girl off the boat. I understand you’re a firefighter.”

“Yeah. Kris, too.”

“Kris?”

“The captain, sir.”

“Of the fire department?”

“No, of this boat, sir.” He rolled his eyes at Kris, feeling like he was in a Three Stooges comedy routine.

“Look Steeves, we’re going to get the rest of you off that boat now.”

“You’re sending the bomb guys over, right?”

A pause. “We can’t do that unfortunately.”

Dal paced to the stern, as far from Diego as possible in the small space. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re going to get you off the boat with the chopper and—”

“There’s a guy down here with a bomb on him. The trigger is under his hand. On the wheel.”

“I’m aware of the situation, Ste—”

“It doesn’t sound like you are. We can’t move this guy. The only solution is to neutralize the bomb. Dispatch said that’s why you were meeting us here.”

“Dispatch?”

“Yeah, Fire Department Dispatch said the bomb squad was coming out with you guys.”

“Look Steeves, the bomb is too close to going off and the seas are too heavy to get anyone else on board. We’re going to get you out with the chopper.”

“And the guy attached to the bomb?”

“They’ve been studying the photo and there may be a solution to get him off that wheel. But here’s the thing. The chopper just advised they’re dropping the swimmer for the second trip.”

Dal’s eyes followed the helicopter overhead, advancing along the port side with the swimmer suspended over the surface of the water.

“We’re bringing one of you up now and then the bomb squad will get on the phone with you and walk you through it. You or the boat’s captain.”

“Damn,” Dal grumbled into the receiver. “Let me get back to you on that.” Ending the call, he turned to Kris, who was watching him closely. “The swimmer is coming for you,” he said. “You need a life jacket.”

“What the hell? I’m not going before you. Did he say the guys aren’t coming to defuse the bomb?” Kris paced the deck at the stern, glanced up at the chopper releasing the swimmer into the waves off the bow. The boat rolled sharply to the port, taking in water over the gunnel and providing a good view of the swimmer’s strong strokes toward the boat.

It was beyond understanding. Beyond belief, almost. They’d come so far and now … Were they expected to abandon ship and let Diego and the boat blow up? He pushed a shock of wet hair off his forehead and shrugged. “They won’t board. He thinks they have a way for us to get Diego’s hand off the wheel and get us all safely off the boat.”

“What the fuck, Dal? And the bomb will go off
on
the boat? I’m going to lose my damn boat?”

“I thought you were okay with that? Better to save your life than your boat, right?”

“There must be a way to do both,” Kris shouted into the wind. “Give me your phone, I need to talk to this asshole.”

Dal grabbed Kris’s shoulder. “Look, it doesn’t make sense to me either but I don’t see another way. We’re already inside that two hour window. The bomb could go off at any minute. I know you love this boat —”

“Damn right I love this boat. But it’s not just about the boat. I don’t want…” he jutted his head toward Diego’s back, “his blood on my hands.”

“We’re not responsible for that. He brought the bomb onboard.” The swimmer came around the stern, and clasped the ladder, riding the waves as the boat rolled again to the port.

“You go, Dal. I’ll stay.”

Dal shook his head. “Not a chance. I got you into this mess. Let me try to fix it.”

“I should stay with my boat,” Kris yelled.

“I need to take one of you,” the swimmer shouted. “Let’s go.”

Dal reached to the deck, grabbed a life jacket and extended it to Kris. “Go,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Pulling the jacket on, Kris shook his head and accepted Dal’s help up onto the aft deck. The swimmer backed off the ladder and Kris started down, waves slamming over his legs. He released his hands, falling backward into the water, where the swimmer immediately grabbed him and clasped the hook onto the jacket. “Don’t die,” he yelled.

Dal met his eyes and nodded once before turning away. There wasn’t much time left and the phone was already ringing.

S
trong hands worked
to free the belts that held her in the basket. The cavernous inside of the helicopter was at once strange and familiar. Their layout had been different, but a military chopper is a military chopper. Once she was released, the man pushed her to a sitting position, and she extended her hand. “Thanks,” she said.

A shallow quirk of his brow was the only sign of surprise. “Welcome ma’am,” he said, turning his attention back to the swimmer. “Ready?” The swimmer nodded and the winch dropped him slowly back to the sea.

Em accepted a hand extended toward her from the far side and moved out of the way into a jump seat against the wall. A blanket was wrapped over her shoulders. The co-pilot glanced back at her. She nodded, shouted her thanks, and he gave her a thumbs-up.

The officer in the doorway gave constant updates on the status of the swimmer as he lowered him. Once he stopped the winch, the chopper flew forward slowly toward the bow of the boat.

The minute they let the swimmer go, Emily tried to stand. “Who is going to board to defuse the bomb?” She directed her question at the officer that had wrapped her in the blanket. He stared blankly back at her.

She leaned forward to get the attention of the co-pilot, but the officer pulled her back. “We need you to stay seated, ma’am.”

“Look,” she said, agitated. “My friends are still down there with a bomb ticking. Isn’t there a bomb expert here ready to go down?”

“Not from the chopper, ma’am,” the officer from the doorway answered.

“From the boat?” she asked, holding his gaze.

“The cutter has the bomb squad onboard. Yes, ma’am.”

She scanned the horizon through the front windshield. The cutter was not in sight. “And they’re taking them over to the boat?”

“Negative.”

She stepped closer. “What do you mean negative? There’s a bomb down there.”

The officer placed his hand on her shoulder. “I need you to sit down.” He pushed her back toward the seat.

“Look, my friends—”

“No, you look. We’re doing everything we can to get your friends off that boat. And for that, we can’t have any distractions.”

“But the bomb—”

“They have a solution on the cutter,” was all he said before turning his attention back to the open doorway.

Em shook. Whether from frustration or cold, she couldn’t say. Probably a little of both. The clock continued to tick and she spied the swimmer as he crossed the back of the boat. Two figures stood on the aft deck, but it was impossible to make them out through the rain and mist. She bit her tongue and let them focus on their job.