Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (23 page)

Mercy checked her watch. Less than 20 minutes remaining. At least her partner had been right about the distracting influence of the carnival. The ship was nearly deserted and all normal activity seemed to have ceased.

Discouraged but still hopeful that Glen might have discovered shipping documents or other evidence of the ore being on board, she stepped cautiously out onto the leeward deck and looked around. Moonlight danced across rippling black water dotted with white froth. The fireworks over Charlotte Amalie were building to a brilliant, deafening crescendo. The sound of each bomb reverberated in her stomach.

The glowing dial of her watch showed 11:31. She looked over the rail to the boarding platform directly beneath her. Glen wasn’t there yet. She should move on and finish what she could of her search then get back down to the platform.

She’d taken only a few steps when a shout rang out from nearby, startling her. “Halt! Stop or I shoot.” And her heart clutched. 

                                          24

Mercy froze. Was the warning aimed at her? Sharp reports rang out. Gunfire! She ducked, belatedly realizing she wasn’t the target.

Glen! Had he been hit?

Instinct told her she should make a dash for the platform while she had a chance. But if her partner was injured or captured she might still be able to get him off the ship. If she kept her head.

Mercy listened for a moment. The mayhem was coming from the deck above her. She flew up the nearby stairs, her feet barely touching the metal treads. Her head crowned the stairwell. She peered over the top step.

God, please, don’t let him have been hit!

Two men were chasing a third, much smaller figure in a black wetsuit. Glen, of course. He dodged to the right then dove behind a lifeboat before leaping an immense iron winch. He vaulted an anchor chain as big around as his waist, and then rocketed along the deck at impressive speed. His pursuers stopped running long enough to fire off an ear-splitting burst from their automatic weapons. Seeing they’d missed, they took up the chase again.

Mercy fought against a wave of paralyzing fear. She ripped open the plastic sack holding the Ruger. By the time she looked up again, the trio had run down another set of stairs to the level below her. Looking over the rail and down on them, she could just make out a dark shape in Glen’s hand. His gun? If it was his weapon, he wasn’t firing it. Maybe he’d already emptied the clip. Her throat tightened until she could hardly breathe. Sweat seeped, stinging, into her eyes.

Do something…do something…do something!
the voice in her head screamed. But what?

Maybe Glen didn’t dare stop running long enough to get off a shot. If she bought him time to build a lead on his pursuers…

Mercy braced her gun hand on the metal railing, wrapped the fingers of her left hand over her right. Looking down on the chase scene, she aimed at a spot just ahead of the tall sailor in the lead, barely fifteen feet behind Glen, then panned the muzzle forward to keep up with their progress. She sucked in two quick breaths. Held the third. Squeezed off a single round.

The bullet ricocheted with an earsplitting ping off of a metal air vent. She hadn’t tried to hit either sailor, but the shot confused Glen’s pursuers and interrupted the chase.

“Cover!” one of the men shouted, and dove behind a lifeboat. The other flung himself flat on the deck, unaware that she, the shooter, was directly above him.

She could have taken the shot but didn’t. For all she knew these two were just doing their jobs, thinking they were chasing a thief, and had nothing to do with the stolen opals.

Glen took advantage of the chaos and altered his course. Mercy raised a hand so that he could see her. Whether he did or not, she couldn’t tell. She watched him crash down yet another flight of stairs, free-falling the last three steps to the deck below. On his way, she assumed, to the boarding platform. Shoving the pistol into her belt, she watched the two sailors jump to their feet and scramble after Glen, although one of them kept looking back and up over his shoulder, as if he was now sure of the presence of a second intruder.

She turned away and dove back inside the interior passageways that now felt familiar. She could track the progress of the chase—down, down, down through the decks—by the pounding of their footsteps. She stayed apace, using inside stairwells, then managed to gain a bit on the trio. When she saw Glen whip into sight on the other side of an open hatch, she reached out and hauled him in.

“This way!” she shouted, turning them across the ship toward the platform, still another two decks below.

“No!” Glen grabbed her arm, trying to stop her. “I heard one of them radio security. They’ll be waiting for us.” He gulped air, eyes huge, staring at her in desperation.

Mercy knew from her search that they wouldn’t find another seaward opening in the hull, at least not at water level.

“Right,” she said. “They think we’re going down. So we go up again.”

Glen was shaking his head violently. “Mercy. No!”

“Come on.” She grabbed his hand and, with the added strength of her own terror, pulled him along with her. “I know what to do. Trust me.”

She ran, her mask and snorkel thumping against her hip. She unclipped them.

“Lose the gear!” she shouted and threw her equipment over the rail. It no longer mattered if they made noise. They’d been spotted. Now the only thing that counted was getting away.

“What?” Glen wailed.

“Lose it,” she insisted. “It’ll just get in the way when we dive.”

“Dive? From where? We’re four fucking stories above the water.”

Above them, the carnival’s pyrotechnics exploded in sapphire, gold, and carnelian bursts in the night sky. Silhouetted against the festive lights the arm of a deck crane reached out and up, looking like part of a child’s Erector Set. Mercy stopped short, braced herself at the rail and stared down over the side. “It won’t work from here. We need to go up one more deck.”

“Up?” Glen screamed. “Fuck! Why?”

She was running again. Leaping steps in twos. Breath rasping in and out of her burning lungs. Glen cursing behind her. “The crane,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Need a clear drop to water. Don’t want to crash land—” she gasped “—on a steel deck.”

“But we must be a hundred freakin’ feet above the water!”

At least. But who’s counting?

The loading crane that she’d glimpsed from below was their one hope. The track supporting it ran from starboard to portside of the ship, allowing the massive steel arm to extend over water or land, on whichever side was required.

“Ever done any high diving?” Mercy shouted. From up here even the mega-yachts looked like bathtub toys. Another neon plume of multi-colored fireworks lit the sky above them.

“Crap. You’re serious.” Glen’s face glowed a ghastly white in the after-light of dancing sparkles.

Mercy felt sorry for him but knew they had no choice. When they’d reached the base of the crane she stopped and turned to him. “You make the call, Turtle. We shoot it out and blow the mission. Or dive and leave them thinking they’ve chased off common thieves.”

Glen grimaced. “Shit, shit, shit!” He squeezed his eyes closed. “Okay, we dive.”

The thunder of running steps and angry shouts rose up the stairwell behind them.

Not much time for a lesson in technique, Mercy decided. “Push off hard to keep away from the side of the ship.” She tossed away her pistol. No good to her now. “Go in feet first if you aren’t sure you can dive.
Under no circumstances belly flop!
”

Glen followed her as she climbed over the ship’s lifelines and crawled on hands and knees out along the crane’s long arm. She glanced over her shoulder at him, just two feet behind her, and sensed his reluctance.

“You go first,” he said, voice cracking.

Bullets zinged off metal. Way too close. Now she could see four men at the rail with automatic weapons. Even so, she realized she couldn’t trust Glen to leap after her.

“We go together. Big breath!” Reaching back, Mercy grabbed a handful of shirt and threw herself into space. She felt the tug of his weight. Dragging him with her, she plummeted down…down…down…

When she was sure she’d given him enough of a head start to steer him wide of the unforgiving steel hull of the ship, she released her hold. Mercy jackknifed, fingertips to toes, orienting her body to the water. One second, two seconds…now!

She sucked down a final breath then unfolded and extended her body in one long line, tucking her head protectively between her arms. Her fingertips neatly sliced the water’s surface. Warm liquid rushed up the length of her body, pressure building in her head as she angled deeper. She hadn’t competed in the high dive, but she’d been a competent enough diver in her college days. Thank God they were in the middle of a deep-water shipping channel. No danger of hitting bottom and shattering the spine.

Glen,
she thought.
Where is he?

She piked at the bottom of her dive, turned and stroked hard toward what she hoped was the surface. With only a night sky above, the water at first appeared to be a solid wall of black in every direction. But then she caught the faint glimmer of moonlight and a much brighter flash of fireworks, beckoning her toward the water’s surface and blessed oxygen. Her body’s natural buoyancy lifted her upward. Years of swim-team training stood her in good stead. She had more than enough breath. What still worried her were the bullets that might rain down on her when she broke the surface.

The top of her head breached. She lifted her face and sucked down air. Shaking water out of her eyes she looked around for Glen.

In the dark, with only the distorting effects of moonlight and fireworks, it was almost impossible to make out objects at water level. Waves sloshed against the hull of the ship. Floating debris bumped against her and made her jump. Nowhere did she see Glen. Her heart seized up.

She didn’t dare call his name for fear someone on the ship might hear her, then she’d become a target. From above she could hear angry shouts. A yellow spotlight streaked across the water. But where was Glen?

He had to have made it, didn’t he? She’d pulled him with her. But maybe he’d hit the surface wrong. Impacting water with the force of the height from which they’d dived could shatter bones, bruise or rupture tender internal organs.

Please, oh please, let him be okay!

Something cold and clammy brushed against her leg in the water. She involuntarily jerked away, then grabbed for it. A discarded plastic bag. Her heart sank. Twenty feet away from her, she thought she saw a ripple on the water's surface. Desperate now, she swam toward it. Nothing. Just a trick of the currents?

Mercy dove.

Her outstretched hand grazed something that felt like an old tire, but might have been neoprene. She grabbed for the object which seemed to be rising in the water toward her, and caught hold of it.
An arm or more trash?
She kicked furiously toward the surface then turned to observe her catch. Water sheeted off of Glen’s face.
Thank you!
But his eyes were closed; he appeared unconscious. She started swimming, taking care to keep his face above water, fighting against his body’s dead weight to keep them both afloat. Mercy hauled him toward a boat launch ramp, much closer than the Zodiac.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear as she swam, her arm clamped around his chest, supporting him. “Glen, please be okay. I’m sorry I had to make you do that.”
Oh, God!

Dragging him up onto the sloped cement pad, she immediately started giving him mouth-to-mouth. After what seemed an eternity, he rolled over and hacked up seawater. She looked around. Thankfully, everyone was occupied at the carnival. Although a doctor coincidentally passing by would have been a godsend.

“Damn, Glen, are you all right?”

“Shoulder,” he moaned, his face contorted with pain. “Hit something . . . going down.”

She gently pressed her fingers around the joint.

“Christ! D-don’t!”

“Come on,” she said, “we’re getting you some medical help. Can you stand? Walk?”

He struggled to sit up, looking dazed. “Think so. Maybe.” He winced as she gently helped him to his feet. “They made me dive from thirty feet at camp, and I thought that was bad.”

“Look on the bright side.” She eased her shoulder under his left side for support.

“What’s that?”

“Now you have bragging rights over your classmates.”

                                          25

Sebastian thought it ironic, not to mention more than a little amusing, that modern governments put so much trust in their sophisticated satellite surveillance systems, spy planes, and covert operatives. They were inefficient toys compared to his information network. In America it would be called The Underworld.

Pedro Mendosa controlled one of the most powerful drug cartels in all of Central America. And he owed Sebastian a favor. At least Mendosa believed he did, which was just as good.