White Hot (17 page)

This part of the deck was hidden from
Île de Cœur
, but he could still smell cigarette smoke wafting back from the trawler’s forward deck, just half a boat length away.

All remained quiet. He eased out a long, even breath.

It had been unbelievably risky to dispose of the body and rags like that, but even more risky not to. At least now there’d be momentary confusion and uncertainty about the dead man’s fate. Finding a body with a gaping stab wound and broken neck would have left no doubt. It would also have confirmed Clint’s presence somewhere on board the two vessels, and result in a full-scale search of both. There was no question, the enemy would not give up until they’d found him.

Getting rid of the evidence might just buy enough time for the Coast Guard to arrive before that happened.

Assuming Clint could somehow send that distress call.

Making a move for the wheelhouse door, he flinched, and glanced down at his arm. Blood oozed from a long slash in his wetsuit—the price of stopping his attacker’s gun from going off. As he had lunged for it, the man had grabbed his knife hand and nearly succeeded in forcing the blade to Clint’s throat. He’d managed to knock the gun to the floor, then swing his arm up to block the knife, saving his life…but taking a nasty slice in the process.

Hell, at least he was alive. And on an even more positive note, he now had a loaded gun zipped under his jacket. Things were looking up.

Snagging another clean rag from a deck locker, he
wound it around his bleeding cut, tied it with his teeth, and slid quietly back onto the bridge. He paused just inside the door for a millisecond, half expecting Tango One to appear out of nowhere as his buddy had done. But the man was still clearly visible through the forward windshield, standing at the bow rail idly studying
Île de Cœur
’s deck.

Oh, shit.

Clint whipped his gaze to the other ship. A spurt of relief zinged through him when he saw the scuttle was now battened down tight. Thank God Samantha had come to her senses and gone back down below.

He wondered briefly if she’d seen what had happened on the bridge. She must have. Probably that was what finally got through her stubborn head and drove her back into hiding. It was dangerous on deck. These bastards were not fooling around.

Small favors. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about her.

Making himself small, he padded quietly to the pilot’s station to assess the damaged instruments. The engine controls seemed to have been spared, so the boat could still be started and driven—which made sense since the hijackers had arrived on it—though they must have been running without navigation. Of course, any spec ops unit on the planet, even an assassination squad, would be carrying its own GPS equipment.

More evidence he was right about the hijackers being Chinese agents.

He glanced back at the murdering bastard in the bow, and with a short moment of satisfaction considered killing him, too, then cranking up
Eliza Jane
and racing to get help in person…instead of trying to convince a skeptical Coastie radio dispatcher to send valuable resources to a possible hoax at an unknown position.

So damn tempting. But he dismissed the idea. Even if he was willing to leave Samantha on her own—
which he wasn’t
—fishing trawlers did not race. Besides, it may
look
like the engines had not been disabled, but he could be wrong about that.

And totally screwed if he was.

He peered up at the radio and the stripped wires hanging from its back, dimly hoping they hadn’t really been attached to the DSC unit. But they had, and a quick visual of the bridge did not reveal the unit itself tossed in a corner. Probably long since thrown overboard—the first thing
he
would have done in their place.

He flicked his eyes back to the radio. It was mounted right under the overhead. But he sure as hell didn’t dare try removing the monstrosity from its corroded bracket. God knew what mechanical disaster that would bring down on him. Literally.

Damn
, this was going to be a royal bitch. In order to reach the radio dials he’d have to actually sit in the blood-soaked captain’s chair….

In front of the panoramic windshield, in full view of anyone looking in.

Sam’s heart was slamming against her chest so hard she was positive the beats must be echoing off the ro-ro cargo, bouncing from tractor to Caterpillar like pinballs. Giving away her position.

Frankly, she didn’t give a damn.

She was mad.
Really
mad.

These assholes thought they could go around hijacking ships and shooting innocent people? Well, she had news for them. They were
not
going to get away with it. Not
her
ship. Not
her
crew. And
definitely
not her—

She squelched the thought before it could form.
Clint might be gone.
But Bolun, Matty, Frank and Johnny, and the others…her faithful crew,
they
were still alive. Somewhere on this ship. Counting on her to save them.

She intended to do just that.

All she needed was a weapon. And she knew just where to find one.

She straightened her spine against the cold metal earthmover at her back, steeling her nerve. She ducked her head
around a giant tread and peeked up at the crew deck two flights above.

Just as before, there was a guard positioned on the weather deck landing of the central companionway. But this was a new guy. And not as vigilant, it appeared. He was pacing back and forth impatiently, casting resentful looks up toward the quarterdeck level.

She almost sympathized. Even way down here, her nose was twitching at the hint of delicious smells wafting out from the galley and mess, where the hijackers must be having a midnight supper of the night’s meal for her crew. Ginger’s lasagna and garlic bread. Sam would know those heavenly smells anywhere.

She expected stomach growls to join the pinball game with her pulse any second. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime, nearly twelve hours ago, other than the small loaf of French bread Clint had pressed on her.

At the thought of him, once again she had to shut her eyes and squeeze them fiercely not to tear up again.

Stop!

Crying was not going to help anyone, least of all Clint.

Lieutenant Commander Walker would not want her to fall apart; not now, not on his account. For reasons she’d never fathom, from their very first meeting Clint had trusted in her skills and abilities—despite his admittedly overprotective tendencies. Now that he wasn’t here to protect her, he’d want her to step up and be that brave leader he’d believed she was. The take-charge commander she had worked so hard to become. The rightful captain her father so steadfastly refused to approve of.

A shimmer of hurt went through her, knowing that nothing she did would ever be good enough for Jason Richardson. This hijacking? It would only confirm her father’s low opinion of her competence. Losing control of the ship was not her fault, but that wouldn’t matter. He’d still lay the blame squarely on her.

Her job was as good as gone. Even if she somehow managed to save the ship and the crew, it would be too late to
deliver the cargo. She’d never get the fireworks to Nome in time for the mayor’s Fourth of July celebration. Neither the egotistical mayor nor her father would give a damn that she had moved heaven and earth in Japan to fulfill the all but impossible, last-minute order. If she didn’t get it to Nome before noon on the Fourth—two days and two hundred fifty miles away—it was all for naught.

Which made her even angrier.

Fuck
them. She was a good captain. She’d show her father what she was capable of. She’d show them all.

You bet she would.

With eye-stinging determination, she hunkered down to wait for the guard’s patience to run out and go for the lasagna.

She’d get that gun from her cabin. And while she was at it, she’d get rid of this nice white uniform. Put on something more appropriate for some down and dirty guerilla warfare.

Then they’d see what she was really made of.

Yippee kayay, assholes.

Oh yeah.

The war was definitely on.

Keeping a close eye on Tango One’s back, Clint lifted the pair of earphones from the clip next to the pilot’s chair and slid them over his ears. Grimacing, he ignored the squelch of blood beneath his wetsuit backside as he reached up to plug in the earphones, for once glad he was wearing the damned thing.

A red light on the front of the radio told him it was already powered up. No surprise there. Every ship the world over was required to maintain a listening watch on channel 16, the universal emergency voice channel.

Except the radio wasn’t tuned to channel 16. Instead it was on 70—the DSC distress transmissions channel. At that realization, Clint’s hand paused on the dial. Had the captain of the ill-fated crew of
Eliza Jane
in his last moments tried to signal for help—Clint’s gaze dropped to the crimson stains on the chair—and died for his trouble…?

Swallowing down a surge of renewed anger, he spun the dial to 16.

Now came the tricky part. He had to speak loudly enough
to be heard by the receiver, but not loud enough to reach Tango One’s ears. And he had to avoid saying anything over channel 16 that would alert the hijackers on
Île de Cœur
. There might be no one stationed on the bridge over there, but undoubtedly one of them was monitoring the radio in the wardroom for any activity in the Bering Sea that might threaten their takeover—or help their mission to find and kill him.

With an inhale, he keyed the mike and put it close to his lips. He tried to sound casual and a little drunk for good measure, to throw off anyone listening. “Coast Guard, Coast Guard, Coast Guard, this is motor vessel
Sea Wolf
, number one-zero-four-two one-zero-niner-niner. Reality check, over.”

The ship name was a decoy, and the smart-ass reality check request just close enough to a radio check to give the receiver pause—and the fishing crews out there a good chuckle. The ship’s call number he’d given was actually Alaska state trooper ten-code for “Emergency” and “Armed and Dangerous.” He was fairly certain, anyway. He hoped he remembered them right. It would be just his luck if his secret message to the Coast Guard was “Mental case” and “Going for donuts.”

On any other day he might have smiled. The hail’s wording and attitude were designed to get him hustled off channel 16 pronto.

His SEAL team had regularly worked with the Coasties, so he was pretty sure it would do the trick. How they’d react when he relayed
Île de Cœur
’s situation was a different story. This kind of thing could be a jurisdictional nightmare, taking time to sort out. Time he didn’t have.

He listened for a response, automatically checking the dive watch he wasn’t wearing because he’d traded it for a ride in a leaky outboard from Attu Station to Kiska, and of course he had left the cheap drugstore watch he’d picked up in Dutch back on
Île de Cœur
, then slashed a hand impatiently through his hair.

Damn, he’d already spent too much time on the trawler. He’d given himself a target of five minutes max. But disposing of the dead body had already put him at more than ten, if his internal clock was to be trusted.

More seconds ticked by, and still no answering call. He tweaked up the volume a bit and repeated the hail.

Finally the radio gave a crackle. “
Sea Wolf
,
Sea Wolf
, this is Coast Guard Station Kodiak,” an efficient female voice answered at last. “Please go to channel two-three-alpha.”

Thank God.

“
Sea Wolf
switching to channel two-three-alpha, over,” he returned.

The tingle of relief he’d felt was short-lived. He still had eyes on Tango One. As he reached for the dial to switch over, the other man came alert at the rail and stared down at the water below.

Clint froze, ready to bolt and hit the afterdeck running.

Could it be the body? Had it somehow come loose from the weight he’d attached and floated up to the surface? He scanned the waves and saw a familiar black fin cut through the water. Two black fins. Three.

Sharks.
He cringed.

Jesus. That hadn’t taken long.
He didn’t know whether to be horrified or grateful.

Unaware of the grisly implications, Tango One tapped another cigarette from his pack and lit up, his impassive gaze watching the creatures make a few more darting passes, then disappear into the deep.

Clint’s shoulders notched down, but his pulse continued to drum a fast beat in his throat as he returned his attention to the radio—and tried not to think about the swim back.

He spun the dial to the other channel, hoping the hijackers on
Île de Cœur
wouldn’t get curious about the tipsy tourist and do the same. If they heard what he was about to say, the swim wouldn’t matter, he’d be shark bait anyway.

“Station Kodiak, this is
Sea Wolf
on two-three-alpha,” he said, pitching his voice just above a whisper, which was as loud as he dared. “Do you read, over?”