The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol (7 page)

“I see you’ve taken great care to indulge your foot fetish,” I declare.

He walks over to the shelves. From one on high, he pulls a pair of red four-inch sandals, from Yves St. Laurent.

Yes, I remember those shoes: When Salem and I last met, he’d chosen a similar pair for me. I was still wearing them when I stepped over his corpse. I hope tonight I will experience a déjà vu moment.

He holds them out to me. “These suit you. Put on the right one, then the left.”

“Don’t you want to do the honors?” My God, he made such a big deal about it last time: getting down on one knee, lifting my foot to it, unstrapping the shoe I wore. Ah, good times.
 

He frowns. “No. I remember…something…but it did not go well.”

No gentle reminders from me. Far be it from me to get on his bad side now.

I take the shoes from him. He watches me as I step into them. When I bend to adjust the strap of one, his hand slides over my backside. He pauses to see what I do.

Nothing.

He slaps it so hard that I lose my balance.

At that, he laughs.
 

Thank goodness the other shoe’s strap doesn’t need adjusting. I hold my hands behind my back, faking the fact that I’m duly chastened.

He walks over to the wall holding the sex toys and chooses a three-pronged whip.

He doesn’t see me pick up the Taser gun. My hands are behind me again before he has a chance to turn around.

As he faces me, I say in my best little girl voice: “Are you going to let me choose my poison?”
 

“Why don’t we take turns, my dear?” He snaps the whip in the direction of the wall. “What is your name, anyway? Not that it matters. When I’m through with you, your name will be a distant memory to you—”

He doesn’t remember me.

But…how can that be?

“—by the time you join the other women chosen for our new little enterprise.”

“By that, do you mean the slave auction that you’ve got going on here?”

He chuckles. “No, no! The auction is
petit amusement
, not the business of the day, by any means! You came here because you don’t mind a little roleplaying. Our organization is giving you the ultimate opportunity to do just that—”

Suddenly, the ship rocks violently.
 

The lights go dark.
 

I crouch low. The great news: He can’t see me.

The bad news: I can’t see him either.

In the meantime, a dull and steady alarm moans through the hull’s intercom system. Whatever happened must be serious enough to abandon ship.

Salem makes the first move, swinging the whip.
 

It catches my arm. When I grunt from the pain, he snickers. Hearing another whoosh, I duck in time to miss his next strike.

My retaliation comes with a jolt from the Taser.
 

I realize I’ve struck gold—or something more precious to him—when it lights up the room for a moment, showing me where he now has a terrible owie: On his chest.

The shock throws him backward, into the steel table. As it rolls away, the items that were arrayed upon it clatter to the floor.

No doubt he’s down for the count—

Which means I should get the hell out
—now.

I head for the door, when suddenly the yacht rears up on one side and tosses me in another direction. Shit, whatever hit it must have made some big gash in its hull. We must be taking on water.
 

Suddenly, Salem grabs ahold of my ankle. He jerks me onto my knees and is pulling me toward him.
 

What the hell? He should be out cold, considering that the Taser has enough power to immobilize a raging bull! What are those pills he’s popping?
 

The thought hits me too late that he may have a few more weapons at his disposal. I reach down and zap him again with the Taser, then I scramble away.

He howls a string of curses in something other than English: another advantage to being multi-lingual.
 

It’s so dark that I’ve lost my bearings. Still I rise to my feet in order to inch my way in what I hope is the opposite direction—

Only to be burned on my calf by a jolt of electricity from the cattle prod. Now it’s my turn to cuss up a storm.
 

The yacht gives yet one more lurch as it heaves to one side, and sends us rolling. In the dark I can’t tell which way is up—

Until my back hits the door handle. Fucking
ouch!

I hear the sound of something slicing the air. It pierces the wall to the right above my head. Very carefully I reach for it—

And cut my finger on the blade of the cleaver.
 

I can’t stifle a yelp. Damn it, I’ve given myself away because I hear him scrambling toward me.

Although in pain, I wrench the cleaver from the wall, swinging it as hard as I can in Salem’s direction.
 

I hit something because he roars, “My fingers! …Why you…you
cunt
!”
 

With whatever fingers he has left, he pulls me toward him. Now they are around my throat. I claw at his wrists as he chokes me, but I can’t make him stop. Soon my mind wanders to all the things that I should be doing:

Lying in the sun. Listening to the waves lap at the shore.
 

Laughing with my children.

Making love to my husband.

Instead, I let my hands drop to my side. At the same time, my hand falls onto the pointed pliers.

I scoop them up—

And stab him in the neck.

I must have hit his jugular vein because my arm is sprayed with his blood.
 

I feel his hands falling away from me. He gasps, but he cannot speak.
 

He blacks out.

The yacht convulses again—even harder this time. Once again, I’m slammed against the door.
 

Frantically, I tap in the security pad with the code Salem used to open it, and turn the handle swiftly.

Thank God it opens. For a second time, I’m spared death beside a man I’ve now killed twice.

The hallway’s emergency lights are dim, but working. The
Divide and Conquer
is at such a precarious angle that I tumble into the hallway, along with some of Salem’s deadly toys.

A finger rolls past me. It wears the ring with the Quorum crest.

I pick it up and run with it. Mission accomplished—sort of.

I open every door that is unlocked, hoping to find Jack. Most of the rooms are empty, so at least some of the women were aware enough to make their way to a higher bridge, even in their drugged states of consciousness. I wonder how many were helped by their rapists. My guess is very few.

By now, several feet of water fill the hallway, as we tilt to the left—the port side of the yacht.

I come across a door that is locked. I recognize it as the one holding all the captives in cages.
 

I try Salem’s code and it opens.
 

I sidestep the cages as they tumble forward. The prisoners can’t reach the latches that open their cage doors, but I can, and I do. Some of the women have already disconnected the IVs that have been drugging them, and are ready to run or swim for safety. Many assist those who are still too dazed to help themselves.
 

As I watch the last woman stumble out the door, I realize that Gigi isn’t among them. Did Pinky Ring get his way with her after all?
 

Hopefully, Jack accomplished his goal of stopping that cruel little toad.

The water is now waist high. I’m about to join them in swimming to safety when I notice another closed room behind a set of double doors. At this point, the hallway is tilted so precariously that the doors are now above my head. To reach the lock pad, I have to jump up and grab the handle.

As I hang onto it with one hand, I once again punch the code on the lock pad with the other.

When the doors slide open, I am smacked down into the water by hundreds of foot-long by foot-wide clear plastic packets filled with the tiny beige pills.

The packets may float, but I don’t. I pop up for air, pushing the packets out of the way, but there are so many of them and there is only four feet of air in the hall. Soon, I’m completely submerged again.
 

I’m drowning.

No. I won’t die this way.

A glimpse of hope is the metal railing along the wall that now serves as the roof above me. If I reach it, I can follow it up the stairs.

With all my might, I push down until I hit the wall that now serves as the floor, only to kick myself to the top. I extend my hands over my head in order to grasp for the railing—

I miss.

I gasp for air again. Considering that the hall now has only six inches of air to spare, there won’t be a next time.

Before my hand disappears underwater, I feel something grabbing it—

Another hand.

A second later, an arm goes around my waist.

I turn my head to I see my savior: Jack.

My angel.

We suddenly sail through the water toward the steps. We’re moving at lightning speed.

I look down to see that Jack has a nylon rope around his waist.
 

Jean-Pierre is pulling us toward the steps. I knew those broad shoulders were more than just man candy.
 

Jean-Pierre’s brow, furled in fear, relaxes when he sees me with Jack. His arms work even more furiously to pull us all the way up the stairs to the next deck.

By the time we reach him, I’m choking on all the salt water I’ve swallowed.
 
Still, it doesn’t stop me from slobbering them both with kisses.

“Run now, kiss later,” Jack commands me. “Let me give you a hand.”

Instead, I hand him a finger—Salem’s.

When he realizes what he’s holding, he laughs. “I think Ryan was expecting a full extraction.”

“My bad. This will have to do.”

He knows better than to argue. Holding my hand, he leads the way.

Most of the second deck is still above the water line. “The hotel’s tender is starboard,” Jean-Pierre explains. “Unfortunately, Madame, you’ll have to jump back into the water and swim to it.”

“And the sooner the better,” Jack warns. “The way this luxury coffin is taking on water, it’s going to capsize in no time—if it doesn’t blow first.”

I nod. “Lead the way.”
 

Jean-Pierre jumps first. He treads water while Jack and I follow suit.

Our boat is a good twenty yards away, but I swim it joyfully, knowing full well the disaster we just escaped.
 

After we clamber onboard, Jean-Pierre takes the wheel while Jack wraps me in one of the hotel’s robes.
 

I kiss his cheek. “Thank goodness you found me when you did.”
 

“Frankly, you should thank Jean-Pierre and Emma for that. With Emma’s instructions, Jean-Pierre was able to hack the ship’s security cameras. Even after Acme lost audio on you—and you with them—Emma could track you from the elevator to Salem’s torture chamber. Emma turned off the lights in the hope that you could dodge Salem long enough that I’d have time to get there.” He moves a damp tendril of my hair behind my ear. “As always, you were able to take care of yourself.”

“That may be the case, but I hope you never stop trying. Next time, I may not be so lucky.”

“Until I take my dying breath.” Jack’s voice cracks as he makes this vow.
 

“Why did the yacht take on water?”

“When Arnie hacked the yacht’s navigational system software, he thought he’d make it easier for Interpol to board it by bringing it to shore. Unfortunately, he’s not that great a SIM pilot—especially when he’s input a speed that is twice as fast as it should be in a crowded bay. He turned to avoid sideswiping another super yacht and instead got rammed head-on by a joyriding speedboat.”

“I presume that you couldn’t find Pinky Ring in the melee.”

Jack scowls. “Sadly, no. The evacuation was a madhouse. The other yachts were gracious in making room for Salem’s waterlogged guests. I didn’t see which one of the rescue boats took him.”