Thomas Prescott Superpack (89 page)

Tupac and Greg watched as Gilroy approached—his wide chest pushed out, his shoulders back, the enormous bulge in his swim trunks growing larger every step. Part of me wondered if the pirates were impressed by Gilroy’s package, but another part, the part prone to a racial generalization every now and then, thought otherwise. I played basketball almost all my life. I’d seen things.

Gilroy shot a look my way. On any other face, it might have read, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of this,” but on his face it screamed, “You got yourself into this mess and I’m sure as shit not
going to stick my neck out to get you out of it.”

As he approached the pirates, he put his hands up, the international way of saying, “Hey, I come in peace.”

Greg and Tupac eyed each other warily. I knew they would see what he had to say. I mean, they had to be bored out of their minds. Even if they’d been playing the movie game as well—
I can name seven Tiagalo Dgegea Mateila Saminella Protaatsue Cialis Tutatloo movies
—it was only good for an hour or so.

Tupac waved Gilroy forward with his gun, then motioned him to stop when he was five steps away.

Gilroy took a couple steps forward, then glanced at me. I knew he would prefer to have his little powwow with the pirates in private and he was weighing the options of my overhearing his conversation. Evidently, he decided the chances of my dying in the next half day were infinitely better than anyone else’s, and began speaking. He flashed that smile of his and said, “How are you doin?”

I imagined Gilroy saying this to a little old lady whose house he wanted to tear down so he could drill for oil.

The pirates didn’t respond.

Undeterred, Gilroy asked, “I just want to know how much you guys are being paid?”

“Monay?” asked Tupac.

“Yes. How much money are you being paid?”

“Many monays.”

“Good, good. I’m glad you boys are being well compensated for your efforts. It would seem to me that you gentlemen are the ones doing all the heavy lifting while your bosses reap all the rewards.”

The pirates didn’t respond and Gilroy pushed on, “Here’s the deal. In my room I have some money hidden.” He looked at me, then said, a bit softer than his previous statements, “Ten thousand dollars.”

I smiled behind the tape. What happened to the other one hundred and ninety thousand dollars? Plus, I didn’t think ten thousand dollars was going to spark much interest in these guys. For one, this whole operation was ironclad, which means, there was a lot of money backing it. Two, they were ransoming a young girl for what had to be millions of dollars. Surely, these men had been promised a share of this money. And third, the pirates probably already had his money. I’d seen the rooms. They’d been ransacked. Everything remotely valuable in each room was sitting in a garbage bag on this boat somewhere. Pardon the cliché, but these pirates were making out like bandits.

“Ten thouzand dollas?”
repeated Greg.

“Yes. And it’s yours. All I ask in return is that you provide me with a small life raft and a couple day’s rations. That’s it.”

The pirates looked at each other. Tupac asked, “Jus you?

“Just me.”

The pirates huddled together. It appeared they were considering his plan. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe these guys were getting paid jack shit. Maybe the Professor and Warlord would get all the money and jewels, along with the millions in ransom, and these guys were being paid in old T-shirts.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Tupac said, “Okay.”

Gilroy smiled.

“Bud furst we shood you.”

“Shood me?” Gilroy looked confused.

“Yes. Shood you.”

Tupac pulled his gun up and shot Gilroy in the left leg. Greg shot him in his right leg.

Gilroy’s screams filled the small room.

I noticed many of the hostages covering their ears, as not to hear his moans and cries. He reminded me of that horse who broke both his legs during the Kentucky Derby and they had been forced to kill him. I was glad I didn’t have access to my gun at this moment in time. I would have pulled it out and put him out of his misery. Yes, I despised the guy about as much as a Closed Caption typist despised Charles Barkley, but I still felt bad for the guy.

At least a
little
bad.

I watched as Gilroy opened his eyes and stared at his bleeding legs. He looked up at the pirates and screamed, “My legs! My fucking legs!”

I looked over at my sister. She had her hand covering her mouth. Susie was holding Trinity’s head in her arms. I turned and looked at Gilroy. The first shot hit his left knee. The second his right shin. There are not words on this Earth to describe the pain he was feeling.

I shook my head. If Gilroy somehow survived, and with the amount of blood pouring out of his legs, the odds were slim, he would probably never walk again.

Gilroy’s only hope was for Ganju to come barging through those doors in the next twenty minutes or so. His life depended on it. All of our lives did.

THE BRIDGE

8:03 p.m.

“Thirsty?”

Rikki nodded.

The older gentlemen walked over to her and handed her a bottled water. She cracked the top and pressed the bottle to her lips. She winced. Her bottom lip was cracked from where she’d been hit. She tilted the bottle up and poured the water down her throat.

She drank the entire bottle. She set it on the ground.

The older gentlemen said, “Well, as you may have overheard, your father has transferred one billion dollars to an account of my choosing.”

Rikki eyed him suspiciously,

He continued, “Unfortunately, we require two billion dollars for your safe return. So we have two options, we could just throw you overboard and keep the one billion. Or we press your father for the second billion. Or we could release you, and hope your dad follows through.”

“Follows through?”

“Yes, just before the money was wired to the account, we received an e-mail from your father.” He paused a moment, then said, “Would you like me to read it to you?”

Rikki was sure she would be listening to the e-mail regardless of what she answered. “Sure.”

The older gentlemen walked over to the laptop, fiddled for a couple moments, then began reading, “In one hour, I will transfer a sum of one billion dollars to the account you have requested. But, I am no fool. The only chance you have of getting the second billion is for you to send me video footage of my daughter in a lifeboat set out to sea. When I get this footage, I will transfer the remaining one billion dollars. Travis-Victor Bowe.”

Rikki raised her eyebrows. She was surprised. Her father did care. She found tears begin to well up in her eyes.

The Professor said, “Tomorrow morning at daybreak, we will not put you in a lifeboat, we will do one better. We will put you in one of our fishing boats. There are many boats stationed just five miles away and you will have no problem finding your way to one of these ships.”

Rikki cocked her head to the side and said, “You’re really going to let me go.” She had tried to trick herself into thinking she might survive this mess, but deep down she knew she was headed for certain death. She asked, “What about all the others?”

He smiled, but didn’t answer.

The next moment was a blur. The door crashed open and someone yelled, “Don’t move.”

Rikki looked towards the voice. It was Bheka. He was holding the machine gun in his hand. He swung it back and forth between the older gentleman and the man with the beret.

The older gentlemen said, “Be careful.”

Rikki bit her lip. She couldn’t believe it. She yelled, “Shoot them!”

He nodded, but did nothing.

“Shoot them!”

The man with the beret began advancing towards Bheka. He didn’t seem to know what to do.

Rikki screamed, “Shoot him Bheka!”

Bheka pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Bheka looked down at the gun. Pulled the trigger again.

Click.

The man with the beret began laughing. He ripped the gun from Bheka’s hands and said, “De safety.”

He looked at the older man, who let out a deep breath. Then the man with the beret kicked Bheka in the stomach. Bheka fell to the floor groaning.

The older man walked towards Rikki. She leaned back in her chair. He leaned down and said, “Didn’t I just tell you that we were going to let you go and this is how you repay us, by telling him to shoot us.”

He slapped her in the face and said, “You can die with the rest of them.”

SHOW LOUNGE

9:43 p.m.

Where was Ganju? Had he gotten cold feet? Had he decided the money was more important than looking his son in the eyes after all? Had he been caught? Had they gotten wind of his traitorous activity and put a stop to it? Was he even alive? And if he was alive, what was he waiting for?

These questions were running through my head in a continuous loop. A dog chasing its tail.

I looked at Gilroy ten yards from me, his ruined legs lying in a tepid pool of blood. He was laying on his back, his eyes closed,
his face ashen. I would have thought him dead had his hairy chest not rhythmically moved up and down still. It was a miracle he’d survived this long. But he wouldn’t survive much longer. There were six quarts of blood in the human body. At least two quarts of Gilroy’s were soaking into the thick carpet.

There was a creak and I turned towards the door.

It was time.

Ganju walked past Tupac and Greg, then stopped. He peered down at Gilroy’s askew body. He turned towards the pirates as if to ask a question, but then thought better of it. He walked around Gilroy and started down the main aisle. He did not glance in my direction.

My heart was pounding against my chest and I attempted a couple calming breaths, pulling as much air through my nostrils as humanly possible. By the time Thapa had reached the halfway mark to the stage, my heart felt like it was going to implode. Over the course of the last six hours, I had loosened the restraint around my right forearm to the point I would be able to slip it from beneath the tape.

I turned towards Lacy. She was trading glances between Ganju and me. I could see it in her eyes. She knew. She knew shit was about to hit the fan.

I watched Ganju. Little Wayne stood on stage, making it appear as though he was hard at work guarding whatever he was supposed to be guarding. I wondered what was going through Ganju’s mind. It would have been much easier if all three pirates had stayed together. And if this wasn’t bad enough, Tupac had decided to make his way into the main aisle and was standing on the outskirts of the first row of chairs. I noticed he was holding his gun in his hand. Maybe he’d seen something in Ganju’s eyes. Maybe he’d seen what Lacy had seen. Either way, he was on guard, and the chances of our success had just been cut in half.

Ganju yelled something and started for the women’s bathroom. When he was halfway there, a loud crack filled the auditorium and Little Wayne fell backwards onto the stage.

That was my cue.

I slipped my arm from the tape. There was another loud crack and I hoped Ganju had hit Greg with his second shot, but I could see Greg ducking behind the row of chairs on the far right.

I wrenched my arm behind my back, my fingers finding the stock of the gun. Pulling it out, I swept the gun at Greg, who was leveling his gun at Ganju.

I had shot a gun from a sitting position a couple times, but never with three of my four appendages securely fastened. I aimed the gun at Greg but some of the hostages were now standing and I didn’t have a clean shot. Meanwhile, Tupac had moved behind me and continued down the right hand wall.

I tipped the chair forward, then fell face first, softening the blow with my hand holding the gun. I could bend my knees just slightly and I used my toes and the barrel of the gun to propel me forward.

Greg had started down the decline and I heard three shots.

Gilroy was situated exactly where I needed to be to get a clean shot. I more or less scooted to him, then dove on top of him, my knees sinking into his belly.

Sorry buddy.

Greg was fifty feet in front of me and down twenty vertical feet. By now all the hostages were duck and covering and the place looked empty. I lined up the gun with the Greg’s spine and pulled the trigger twice, turning him into a paraplegic. I could see the top of Ganju’s head peeking out over the top of the first row of empty seats in the center section. I gazed to my right. Tupac was crouched low, making his way to the stage. Once he made his way onto the stage, Ganju would be a sitting duck.

He took three crouched steps, then stood. I could tell by the smirk on his face that he had a clean shot at Ganju.

Using Gilroy’s chest as a support, I lined up the shot.

Gilroy began to move and I yelled, “Sit still.”