Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six) (25 page)

“He said he’s got a bad feelin’ about this,” she whispered to Alex, watching how the two yachters caught the ropes the Coast Guard crew tossed them, quickly and efficiently tethering the vessels together.

Alex frowned. “Looks legit to me,” she said.

“Me too,” Maddy agreed. “But if something is wigglin’ their antennas…” She hooked a thumb toward Mason and Bran and let the sentence dangle.

“Captain,” Bran turned to Webber, a man whose leather face and sun-bleached hair spoke of a lifetime at sea. “I’m gonna take the women belowdecks, and then Mason and I will assume a defensive position, if you don’t mind.”

Webber, behind the controls in the captain’s chair, narrowed his eyes. “You see something that makes you think this isn’t a real Mayday call?” he asked.

“Nope.” Bran shook his head. “But not too long ago I was in a situation where a Mayday ended up in a shitload of bloodshed, and there was nothing to make me think it wasn’t on the up-and-up until the moment guns were blazing.” Sure enough. Maddy had been there too. And in this case she fully supported the
History…don’t make me repeat myself
slogan on Alex’s shirt. “Let’s just say that since then I’d rather err on the side of caution. Have you…uh…have you checked the radar?”

“Nothing showing up for miles around but a fishing trawler,” Webber reported, motioning with a finger toward the radar screen. “There’s no sign of the dinghy. The two goons are probably out of range by now.”

“Right.” Bran nodded. “But I’d still feel better if we covered all our bases.”

For three ticks of the clock Webber regarded him. Then he dipped his chin. “Do what you have to do to set your mind at ease, sailor.”

Bran nodded his thanks before shepherding Alex and Maddy through the door of the bridge.

“So what does
assume a defensive position
mean?” Maddy asked, her heart rate spiking as they tromped down the stairs into the belly of the cutter.

“It means we’re gonna arm you ladies to the teeth, leave you with the girls, and play ourselves a little game of watch-and-wait,” Bran explained, motioning them toward the ship’s small galley. “If all is aboveboard? Great. If not, we’ll be ready.”

“Arm us?” Alex squeaked. “Just so we’re clear, I’ve never held a gun in my life.”

“It’s easier than it looks,” Mason muttered from the back of the pack.

“Oh, so
now
you’re talking to me?” Alex demanded, craning her head around to lift a brow in Mason’s direction.

Maddy ignored them, instead looking at the weapons arranged atop the pristine white dropcloth draped over the galley’s metal trestle table. Bran and Mason’s machine guns, as well as the machine guns the bad guys had left on Garden Key, were in a neat row, paper tags tied around their triggers.

“We were surrendering them as evidence,” Bran explained.

Evidence
.
Of the carnage that is this night.

“Where is Rick?” Alex asked, reminding Maddy of the young man who’d been dragged into this nightmare with her. “Shouldn’t we be arming him too? Or better yet, shouldn’t we be arming him
instead
? I’m sure he’d be much better than me when it comes to—”

“He went down in the hold ten minutes ago to check on the bodies and make sure that one-eighty we did didn’t jostle them loose and have them rolling across the floor,” Bran explained.

Ew,
Maddy thought, bile climbing into her throat.

“Ew,” Alex said, making a face and proving the two of them had more in common than jabber jaws.

“So for right now, you’re it,” Mason told Alex, grabbing one of the weapons, ripping off the tag, and handing it to her. She held it in front of her like it might be a live grenade.

Bran slammed a magazine into his machine gun and then threw the strap over his shoulder before presenting Maddy with one of the remaining weapons. The assault rifle was heavier than she imagined. The metal was cool and menacing to the touch. Unlike Alex, she
had
held a gun before. But never one like this. One that felt like pure, raw, unrepentant death.

She tried her best to hide her revulsion and her shaking hands as she went through the instructions Bran quickly listed. How to change it from safety mode to firing mode? Check. How to slam in a new magazine when the old one ran dry? Check, check. How to
aim and spray
, as he called it? Triple check.

And triple gulp too.

She shivered and thought she heard Alex’s teeth chatter behind her as the four of them quickly made their way down the narrow hall, stopping in front of the door to the crew’s quarters where the teenagers slept soundly.

They’ve been through enough tonight, don’t you think, Lord?
Maddy sent up a silent prayer.
How about givin’ them a break, okay?

“Hopefully this is nothing,” Bran said, his dark eyes fierce. Death and destruction. That look was back.

She shook her head. “You don’t really believe that.”

He leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. Then he grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and stared hard into her eyes. “If things go bad, you do whatever it takes to protect yourself, you get me? No hesitation. Hesitation will get you killed.”

“O-okay.” She nodded, her breaths coming hard and fast. Fear was alive inside her, crawling through her chest like a poisonous spider on a sticky web.

“What? No kiss for me, Mason?” Alex asked the big man, batting her lashes.

Maddy turned to see Mason chuck Alex on the chin.

“I guess that’ll have to do,” Alex said with a wry twist of her lips.

And then she and Alex were left to watch the bravest men on the planet run off to do their parts to save the day.
Again.

“So lust that led to love, or love that led to lust?” Alex whispered after Bran and Mason disappeared up the stairwell.

Maddy gave her the stink eye. “You’re like a dog with a damned bone.”

“So I’ve been told,” Alex said when Maddy grabbed the door handle. “But humor me, okay? I need to take my mind off the fact that I’m holding a fully automatic rifle in my hands.”

Maddy paused before opening the door. And maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the nerves and the worry and the fear. But before she made the conscious decision to confess a truth,
the
truth, the one she’d known for quite a while now but had been afraid to admit even to herself, she blurted, “I don’t know which came first. It’s all lust and love, and love and lust. Has been since the beginnin’. At least for me.”

“I knew it!” Alex shot a fist in the air.

1:12 a.m.…

“So far, so good,” Mason muttered.

“Here’s hoping,” Bran replied.

He and Mason were hiding behind the bridge house, bellied on the deck and peeking around the corner to watch the activity on both boats. The eighty-seven-foot Marine Protector Class patrol ship was one of the smaller cutters in the Coast Guard’s fleet. Still, it was larger than the yacht. Larger and lower in the water since it was built for speed. Which meant the yacht’s deck was approximately two feet above the cutter’s, giving those onboard the cruising boat the high ground.

Which I don’t like a damned bit.

Bran watched as the Coast Guard’s medic climbed onto the yacht, medical kit in hand, two members of the cutter’s crew following him. The sound of the men chatting carried over the water. The air smelled of marine fuel and antifouling paint. The running lights on both vessels lit the decks in a friendly, half-light glow. Everything appeared A-okay, nothing but apple pie.

Bran’s finger tightened on his trigger.
There’s just something…

He narrowed his eyes and looked through his scope, zeroing in on the faces of the two men on the deck of the motor yacht. “What do they look like to you?” he whispered to Mason.

“Like more than your average overfed, over-coiffed millionaires,” Mason mumbled. “Check out the tattoo on the forearm of the one on the left. Looks like Airborne Ranger ink to me.”

Sure as shit. There was no mistaking the grinning skull tattoo. “And if I’m not mistaken,” he said, “the other one has
Semper Fi
inked on his bicep. I can only make out the bottom of the words below his sleeve, but…”

“The few. The proud,” Mason grumbled the U.S. Marine motto. “Who the hell
are
these guys?”

“Mercs.” Bran spat out the shortened form of the word
mercenaries
. Before he could say more, the sound of metal clinking against metal reached his ears. Mason heard it too. They flipped onto their backs in time to see two guys in hooded wet suits pulling themselves aboard the cutter, weapons in hand.

“What the fuck?” Mason asked.

It’s another one of tonight’s running themes.

Normally Bran wasn’t the type to shoot first and ask questions later. But he’d seen too much over the last few hours,
heard
too much, to think these
cazzos
were up to anything good.

“Light ’em up,” he snarled before laying on his trigger.

* * *

1:13 a.m.…

The
crack
and
pop
of gunfire sounded from above, and a piece of dry ice slid from the nape of Maddy’s neck all the way down her spine to the top of her tailbone. Or at least it felt like one did. Every inch of her skin prickled, and her heart froze into a useless chunk.

I can’t believe this is happenin’ again!
Her sense of déjà vu from three months ago was only slightly keener than her sense of astonishment.
Another false Mayday? It’s like a flippin’ epidemic! Do bad guys get together to go over tactics, or what?

“Wh-what’s happening?” Louisa called out in the semi-dark room. Maddy and Alex had tiptoed inside, hoping not to disturb the girls. Hoping there’d be no
reason
to disturb them.

So much for that,
Maddy thought, flipping on the lights, scared and angry and incredulous and…
scared
. Sally Mae and Donna came awake with gasps and confused mutterings, blinking against the sudden glare.

“What’s happening, Miss Maddy?” Louisa asked again, pulling the plain gray coverlet up to her chin and looking no older than half a minute with her hair all mussed and her dark eyes taking up her whole face.

Maddy firmed her shoulders and tightened her grip on the machine gun. As calmly as she could, she said, “Girls, I need y’all to get out of those bunks and pull off the mattresses. Huddle up against that back wall and tip the mattresses in front of you so they create a barrier.”

“Are they back?” Sally Mae asked, horror and disbelief filling her big, blue eyes. Maddy was reminded of the movie
Poltergeist
and little Carol Anne turning away from the television to utter creepily,
They’re heeeere
. Another piece of dry ice formed and slid down her spine.

“I can’t say for sure,” Maddy told her. “But I think so, sweetheart. Now hurry. Do as I say.”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Another volley of shots echoed from above. With soft squeals, the girls scrambled from the bunks to do her bidding.

They don’t deserve this. They don’t deserve any of—

She didn’t finish her thought before a man burst into the room like he’d been blown there from an explosion outside. Maddy spun and aimed. She cried out when she saw Rick standing in the doorway.

“For Chrissakes!” Alex yelled, lowering her weapon and lifting a shaky hand to her mouth. “I almost—” She stopped and swallowed, breathing heavily. “I almost shot you.”

“You’re not the only one,” Maddy assured her, her own hands quaking so hard that the metal clip on the rifle’s strap rattled.

“What’s happening?” Rick asked, his face so white he almost looked dead.

Dead… Right. Which begs the question, who’s dead on deck? Who’s shootin’ and who’s been shot?

Maddy refused to contemplate the answers. “No clue,” she told him before turning back to the teenagers. “Hurry, girls. The mattresses.” Then back to Rick, “There are more rifles on the table in the galley. Go get one and come back here to help us guard the girls.”

“O-okay.” Rick turned and ran from the room, muttering either an expletive or a prayer under his breath. She wasn’t sure which.

“And be sure to knock next time so we know it’s you!” Alex yelled before the door slammed shut with a loud
bang
that had everyone in the room jumping. To herself Alex said, “It’s crazy to think about the fact that a bullet travels twenty-five-hundred feet per second. That’s something like seventeen hundred miles per hour, faster than the speed of sound. So if I shoot him the next time he comes in the door, he’ll probably be dead before I even hear the shot.”

She looked around the room, her face chalk white. “Sorry,” she said. “I tend to spout facts when I’m stressed unless…there’s something else I can fill my mouth with. Does anyone have any food? No?” She rolled in her lips and turned back toward the door.

Maddy blew out a shaky breath, sour with the smell of fear, then jumped again when a loud
bwarrrr-bwarrr
sawed across the deck above them.

She closed her eyes and made a deal with God.

Let him live, Lord. Let him live, and I’ll keep my end of the bargain. Let him live, and I’ll never make him choose between my friendship and my love. Just…let him live.

* * *

1:14 a.m.…

“On the right! On the right!” Bran bellowed to the Coast Guardsman standing at the 50-caliber machine gun mounted on a swivel on the portside of the bow.

No sooner had Bran and Mason watched the dead bodies of the men who’d been trying to sneak aboard the cutter slip back into the sea than the sound of return gunfire echoed from the cruising boat. Only it
hadn’t
been return gunfire. At least the shooters hadn’t returned fire at Bran and Mason.

Instead, the yachtsmen had pulled pistols and carelessly put bullets into the brains of the medic and the Guardsmen who’d boarded with him. Bran had peeked around the corner of the cutter’s bridge house in time to see blood spraying from their skulls as their bodies crumpled to the deck.

One of the Coasties still on the cutter had screamed his rage before rushing over to the closest 50-cal. and letting loose with a barrage of lead that chewed up the side of the yacht and took down one of the mercs. The Guardsman was still laying on the trigger, doing his damndest to destroy the vessel all by himself.

The
ping-ping
of empty shell casings was a sweet melody compared to the loud roar of the weapon. The smell of spent gunpowder hung heavy in the air.

“On your right!” Bran bellowed again, flaying his vocal cords in an effort to be heard. The merc the Guardsman had missed was bellied up to the edge of the yacht’s deck, aiming his pistol straight at the head of the Coastie. And Bran didn’t have a shot. Because of the angle, the Guardsman’s head kept slipping into his line of fire.

“Mason!” he yelled over his shoulder. Mason had moved to the back end of the bridge house. “You got a shot?”

“Negative!” Mason yelled back.

“Shit,” Bran cursed, once again sighting through his scope. “Come on! Come on!” he gritted between his teeth. “Keep your head to the left. Just keep your goddamn head to your left!”

Bran’s heart slowed. The breath left his lungs on a hot breeze. And the world around him disappeared until there was nothing. Nothing but the two-inch piece of real estate between the eyes of the mercenary when the Guardsman finally shifted left.

Boom!
He squeezed his trigger. His bullet flew true, plowing into the merc’s skull and killing him instantly. But it was too late. The mercenary got off his shot. And the Coastie dropped to the deck, clutching his neck as dark, wet blood spurted between his fingers.

“Damnit!” Bran yelled. Then, “Mason! Cover me!”

Bran waited until Mason raced back to him before scooting from behind the bridge house to snake his way across the deck towards the writhing Guardsman. After the roar of the 50-cal., the silence that hung over both ships was eerie, weighty, like that inside a casket six feet below freshly shoveled earth. It was made even more macabre when the wounded man began to gurgle.

Bran slung his M4 across his back and grabbed the Coastie beneath both arms. As quickly as he could, bare feet sliding on the slick deck, he dragged the man backward, toward what little safety the far side of the bridge house provided.

“P-please help,” the Guardsman burbled, blood staining his lips.

“I’m doing my best, buddy,” Bran told him, grunting as he finally managed to heave the wounded man around the corner.

He was down on his knees a second later. “Let me see.” He gently removed the Coastie’s hands. Carnage met Bran’s eyes and a hard stone of remorse settled low in his gut. Carefully applying pressure to the awful wound on the man’s neck, he looked up to see the muscle beneath Mason’s eye twitching. They both knew a mortal injury when they saw one. The Guardsman only had a minute or two of this world left in him, and then he’d be on to the next.

“H-help me,” the Coastie pleaded again.

Bran gave him the only help, the only
comfort
he could. “You are one brave sonofabitch jumping on that saw gun like you did. May have saved everyone on this boat.”

The man’s eyes focused on Bran’s face, wide and terrified. “Am I—” He coughed on the blood filling his mouth. It left slick, dark droplets over his face. “Am I dying?” he garbled.

“You’ve got a shredded carotid artery,” Bran told him, having learned it was better to give a dead man the truth. Somehow it lessened the fear and sped up the journey to acceptance. “Is there anything you want me to tell anyone? Anything you want me to do?”

For a second, the brave Coastie searched his face as if hoping he misheard. Then he said, “T-tell my wife and kids—” More coughing. More blood. “I love them.”

“I will,” Bran vowed, feeling the man’s blood pumping hot and heavy against his hands. The Guardsman’s life was slipping through his fingers. “I’ll tell ’em you were a hero. And that your last thoughts were of them.”

“I d-don’t—” Now the man was struggling to breathe, struggling to hold on to that last, waning vestige of life. The fabric of Bran’s already tattered soul shredded just a little more. He could not believe he once again found himself ferrying a fine man to the other side. “I don’t want to…to die…”

With those awful words, the courageous Guardsman breathed his last. His eyes went opaque as the life left them, his skin gray and already cooling from lack of blood. Bran gently removed his hands from the man’s ruined neck and wiped the blood on his shorts. His jaw clenched so hard he was surprised he didn’t shatter his teeth.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Mason muttered, still standing over them, weapon raised, guard up.

“I thought we were finished watching good men die,” Bran said. “I’d
hoped
we were finished.” He took a second, a moment of silence for the fallen sailor, before asking, “So how many friendlies we got left?”

“At most two,” Mason said. “The captain and one more.”

“And we have no idea how many mercs are still out here.”

“I say we untie, start the engines, and get the fuck out of here.”

“Roger that,” Bran agreed, pushing to his feet just as movement at the back of the boat near the ramp where the Coasties launched their rescue dinghy caught his attention. “Behind you!” he yelled, grabbing for the M4 strapped to his back.

A sound around the corner of the bridge house told him he didn’t have time to get his weapon in the ready position. Mason bellied out and opened up on the two men sneaking aboard the back of the boat at the same time Bran spun and slapped the barrel of a SCAR-L away from his head just as it peeked around the corner and aimed. The metal was cold and wet against the side of his hand, and the rifle hit the deck with a clatter before skidding toward the railing.

Bran barely had time to brace himself before his would-be assassin let loose with a bloodcurdling scream and launched himself. The two of them slammed onto the deck in a tangle of arms and legs as the sound of two rounds
zzzzzipped
through the air beside them.

As Mason laid down a covering fire, keeping the assailants at the back of the boat pinned, Bran fought to gain the upper hand with all the rage and fury inside him. Still rolling across the deck, he yanked his knife from the sheath around his calf. With a grunt and twist, he was able to end up atop his attacker. He didn’t hesitate. He plunged the blade straight toward the merc’s heart, but the man grabbed his wrist at the last moment and stayed the deathblow.