Kill Switch: A Vigilante Serial Killer Action Thriller (Angel of Darkness Suspense Thriller Series Book 1) (17 page)

Keeping Elena behind her, Tess clung to the shadows of a field of shipping containers as tall as a Manhattan apartment building and as long as a city block. How far back it went, Tess had no idea, but she prayed the container holding Cat was already onboard the ship – they’d never find it on their own if it was still on land.

Skulking through the darkness, Tess crept around the corner of a red container. A ship lurked in the gloom. Emblazoned across its stern was the name: Baltic Empress. They’d found it.

Tess pinned herself to the container as Elena crept around and joined her.

Tess took out her phone. She studied the photos she’d copied from Facebook, so that if she saw the men, she’d recognize them.

Putting her phone away, Tess said, “Stay here. If it’s safe and I need you, I’ll come for you.”

Elena panted for breath and her hands trembled. “But I can help.”

“No. You know what I might have to do. I can’t worry about you and do that at the same time.”

“But—”

“No.” Tess gripped her arm. “Listen to me, you have to stay here. The priority is me finding Cat, not me worrying about protecting you. Do you understand?”

“Okay. Yes, you’re right.”

“You’re sure you’ve got that.” Tess couldn’t risk being pulled in two directions at once when she needed to focus solely on one objective: rescuing Cat.

Elena nodded forcefully. “Yes, I’m staying here.”

Still holding the lady’s arm, Tess squeezed it gently. “If I can, I’ll bring Cat back to you.”

Tess disappeared around the corner, hugging the wall of the container so light from the ship didn’t silhouette her out in the open.

Prowling through the darkness, she used her breathing technique to temper her fear and adrenaline levels. It was the only way she would stand a chance of surviving the next ten minutes.

The ship was the biggest vessel she’d ever seen close up, with containers stacked five high on its deck and more in the hold. A gangplank climbed up from the dock to the massive structure in the stern that housed the bridge, crew quarters and such.

On the dockside end of the gangplank, a shape lurked in the darkness. It was a man, because every few seconds, a small glowing red dot moved from being just a few feet off the floor to being higher up – he was smoking. Maybe it was normal to post guards to protect ships from stowaways or the theft of cargo. Or maybe it was confirmation that traffickers were using this ship and they wanted to ensure their precious cargo went undisturbed.

She slunk closer, constantly scanning for threats. She would have to break from the cover of the shadows at some point. When she did, the guard would see her. No question. But in the darkness, would she be able to tell if it was one of the men responsible for taking Cat or not?

She’d have to get close. Have to get close enough to have a good look without being drawn into direct conflict. How could she do that? It was around twenty yards from her shadows to the dockside. No matter how fast she ran, she could never cover so much ground before he saw her and raised the alarm.

Almost drawing level with the ship’s stern, she’d have to break cover any moment, but still couldn’t identify the guard or figure how to get up the gangplank unseen.

Inspiration flashed a smirk across her face for the briefest of moments.

As if enjoying an afternoon in the park, Tess strolled out of the shadows. Her muscles twitched with nervous energy. Oh God, she hated this moment – those seconds leading up to combat. The uncertainty, the waiting, the doubts. Absolute hell. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid and anxious. Her heart pounded so hard she imagined if someone was standing in front of her, they’d see her chest jerking rhythmically. Only the calm reasoning of her mind pushed her on and prevented her from following her instinct to run far, far away from this hellish place.

As she walked across the dockside access road, light from the ship illuminated her more and more.

She swallowed hard. Game time. Again.

She called out.
“Przepraszam.”

There was no point in being unseen when being seen could deliver far more satisfying results.

The dark shape at the end of the gangplank turned in her direction and moved toward her. He shouted in Polish.

Tess replied with the single phrase she’d used most often in all her time in the country.
“Przepraszam. Er, toaleta? Gdzie?”

A pretty foreigner using broken Polish to ask for the nearest toilet wouldn’t raise any flags, but merely imply she was as stupid as she was pretty and had gotten lost. She hoped.

He marched toward her, pointing and spouting Polish. Now in the shade of the ship’s hull, however, she still couldn’t see if it was one of the men she was hunting. But the shadows did have benefits – no one on the deck could see her without purposefully looking over and shining a light down.

Within striking range, Tess waved as if greeting someone behind him up on the deck. “Oh,
dzien dobry
, Piotr.”

He turned and looked up, presenting his jaw as if begging to be punched on it. Many a professional boxing match was won by a direct shot to the jaw. It was one of the surest ways to get a knockout there was.

Tess smashed a massive right hook into the guy’s face.

He twirled around and flopped to the ground face first. He didn’t move.

Tess arched an eyebrow. If only all her adversaries went down so easily.

For just a second, she used her phone as a flashlight to check if he was one of the guys she was hunting. He wasn’t.

Tess slunk over to the gangplank and crept up the long run of steps which climbed twenty feet or more up the side of the hull. Near the top, she crouched just below deck level and then peeped over.

Deserted.

Time to board the ship.

Time to save Cat.

Time to demand retribution.

Like a ghost, Tess crept along the gangway. So quiet. So fluid. Almost floating.

She stole her way forward, hugging the metal wall to her right, toward the storage area which consumed the ship from its middle right up to its bow. The ship’s skeleton of red-painted steel columns, beams and buttresses dwarfed her.

Hugging the shadows, she stopped and peeled her left glove away from her wrist. Across the skin, she’d noted the container number they’d obtained from the laptop – GDXU 6664219. That was easy – just look for a number beginning 666.

She stepped forward again.

A crewman walked out of an open door right in front of her. He jumped at seeing her.

Before he had time to do anything but gawk at her, she slammed a front kick into his gut.

He doubled over, groaning as though he was going to throw up.

Tess grabbed him around his neck.

Locked her arms.

Squeezed.

Should she cut off his blood supply to render him unconscious, or cut off his air supply to kill him? She tightened her hold.

He flailed and bucked. Raked her steel-clad forearms. Fought for air, his breath rasping and guttural.

But she had him tight.

She squeezed.

Tess would not leave a piece-of-scum trafficker still breathing, but she didn’t want to kill an innocent man, either. She hadn’t seen him on Facebook so he could be only a crewman.

The man’s clawing hands dropped and his weight sank into her arms.

She let him collapse to the green-painted deck. Still breathing. But his mind as black and empty as the night sky.

After hauling him away, she stuffed him into a shadowed alcove created by the ship’s infrastructure, where a row of hefty buttresses helped the ship bear the incredible weight of thousands of tons of cargo.

The crewman hidden, Tess prowled onto the open deck toward a wall of containers stacked lengthwise along the vessel, as tall as an apartment building. The wall of yellow, red, blue, white, and brown metal bricks looked like a modernist work of art.

With the ship’s lights casting an eerie glow upon the containers, Tess searched for one which had 666 in its unique identifying number. Nothing.

She prayed the container was up here – if she had to venture into the ship’s innards to search those stored below deck, it would be impossible to escape detection.

She stalked toward the bow. Along the gangway to her left, a slender handrail overlooked the dock – she wouldn’t want to be on a rough sea with only that to save her from falling overboard. To her right were more massive buttresses and beams. And the giant wall of containers which just went on and on.

Men’s voices drifted from above and right, somewhere in the mass of containers.

She peered around but found no direct access.

Ahead, a yellow ladder led up to a higher gangway from which it seemed it might be possible to reach the containers. And maybe those voices.

She climbed partway up the ladder, placing her feet softly to avoid a metallic ring signaling those above of her presence.

Peeking onto the next level, she saw a rectangular space about forty feet wide, surrounded on three sides by the enormous metal walls formed from containers – like a clearing in a metal forest. In the far-right corner of the clearing sat two men. They played cards in the glow of a handheld lantern, a couple of beer cans beside them.

Tess’s heart leapt as if it were trying to escape through her mouth.

It was them – the men she was hunting.

Mateusz Wojcik, a hefty man with a goatee, and Kuba Jelen, whose goofy teeth made him look cute, but simple. Thank God for Facebook.

She tried to make out the unmistakable outlines of firearms under their clothing, but it was too dark and she was at the wrong angle.

Checking the containers, Tess saw all the ones on the left had only their rears visible, but those on her right had their doors facing into the clearing.

With only the light from the small lantern, and at a poor angle, she struggled to make out the numbers of the containers. She squinted. Strained. No, it was impossible.

Then her jaw dropped.

All the containers were lashed down by two heavy metal rods which ran diagonally across their fronts, forming an
X
shape. All of them except one. If the containers needed to be lashed to stop them moving when the ship was pummeled by waves, the only reason not to lash one down was so you could still open its doors. Maybe to feed what was inside. She’d finally found Cat!

But how to reach her?

It was impossible to launch a sneak attack on the two guys. In the high-walled metal clearing, there was no way she could reach them without them seeing her. No, she only had one option.

Tess sprang up from the ladder and raced at the men. She had to get to them, before they either raised the alarm or drew weapons.

Kuba shouted in Polish as he struggled to his feet.

Despite his bulk, Mateusz got up quicker. And his hand disappeared under his hoodie. There could be only one reason why – he had a weapon. That made him her first target.

As so many targets had done in the past, Mateusz assumed he had time to pull his weapon before she reached him – after all, she was only a woman so no real threat.

Bounding at him, she leapt into the air. Her flying knee strike smashed into his chest.

A pistol flew from his grasp and skittered across the metal deck while he flew back as if he’d been hit by a wrecking ball. He crashed against the blue container, then crumpled to the deck.

Tess ached to finish him, but in taking out Mateusz, she’d given Kuba time to draw a semiautomatic. He swung it up to aim at her.

But she was already moving. She caught the wrist of his gun arm and swept it away from her just as he pulled the trigger.

A shot blasted into the night.

Still holding his arm with one hand, she drove a palm heel up into his face. As his head jerked back, it sent a spasm through his body and another shot blasted into a red container, then ricocheted away into the blackness with a metallic whine.

Flowing from one move straight into the next, with both hands she cranked an armlock onto his gun arm. Hard. She yanked down with all her might.

Kuba’s arm crunched as the joints ripped apart. He wailed and dropped his gun.

Aware Mateusz had clambered up, Tess hammered a back elbow into Kuba’s face. Continued turning to smash in a hook. Spun around and crashed in a backfist.

Kuba reeled back against the container.

She spun around, just as Mateusz heaved a massive punch at her head.

Dropping into a crouch, she ducked under his fist and kicked his feet out from under him.

He crunched into the deck and cried out.

She jumped up as Kuba pushed away from the container and hurled himself at her, one arm all but dead at his side.

Tess jumped sideways while hammering a roundhouse kick into his midriff.

Winded, he doubled over, clutching his stomach, gagging for breath.

Tess leapt into the air, then crashed down with her right elbow pointed down at him. It cracked into the back of his neck. He smashed into the deck without making another sound. He would not be getting back up.