Blood Cruise: A Deep Sea Thriller (20 page)

40.

“You hear that?” Carlos asked Lane. “Is that someone yelling?”

Lane cocked his head and listened. “No, that’s someone screaming.”

He laid down his hand and gave Carlos a huge grin.

“Gin, mate,” Lane announced as he reached across the bar and grabbed a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. “And more gin.”

“You have to be cheating,” Carlos said as he laid his cards down and separated out the ones that he didn’t have a set for. “But even when cheating you only get six points off me.”

“I don’t cheat,” Lane said. “Not at cards.” He wiggled his fingers. “Don’t have the dexterity to stack the deck. I tried once and had all kinds of hell beat out of me.”

“Lucky you didn’t get killed,” Carlos said. “Where I come from, cards are a very serious business.”

“Yeah, well, my mum stepped in before my dad could do some real damage,” Lane replied. “Learned a valuable lesson, though.”

“Don’t cheat at cards?” Carlos laughed.

“Not to play cards with my dad unless I had a can of pepper spray on me,” Lane said. “Cheating or not, the man hated to lose.”

Carlos laughed again and picked up the cards, splitting them into two piles. As his hands tensed to shuffle, a loud scraping noise came from directly below the bar.

“You hear that?” Carlos asked.

“How much have you had to drink, mate?” Lane asked. “Because you just asked me that question.”

“No, not the screaming, the other noise,” Carlos said.

“Lots of noises on this yacht,” Lane replied as he poured Carlos half a glass of vodka then reached back over the bar for ice. “Dammit. The bucket’s empty.”

“Shhh,” Carlos said, setting the cards down.

“Don’t shhh me,” Lane snapped as he got up to walk around the bar. “Bucket’s out of ice, mate. This is an emergency.”

There was a thump directly under Carlos’s bar stool and he jumped to his feet, taking several steps back from the bar as he looked around. His eyes fell on Manny’s body, who was miraculously hanging on to life by a thread. He dismissed the nearly dead man and kept searching the room.

“Something spook you?” Lane asked as he scooped ice from a small maker behind the bar into the empty silver bucket he had in hand. “You need a hug, mate? A shoulder to cry on while we piss away our time out on this scary, scary ocean?”

“Fuck you,” Carlos said, nodding at the bar. “I felt something. There any knives back there?”

Lane held up a paring knife.

“Yes,” Lane said. “It has already killed three limes and is about to slaughter another one.”

The thump came again and the smirk on Lane’s face faltered.

“Ha!” Carlos exclaimed. “You felt that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Lane said and slowly walked out from behind the bar, bucket of ice in one hand, paring knife in the other. “What was that?”

“Give me the knife,” Carlos said.

“Like bloody hell I will,” Lane replied. “This little guy could save my life.”

They both stood there, next to the poker table with the nearly dead INTERPOL agent slowly bleeding to death on it, and stared at the bar.

A third thump and one of the bar stools fell over.

“Time to pick the lock,” Lane said. “Odds or evens?”

“What?” Carlos asked.

“Odds or evens?” Lane said again. “To see who picks the lock.”

“Odds,” Carlos replied.

Lane looked at his occupied hands and set the ice bucket on the card table next to Manny’s head. He held up a clenched fist and Carlos did the same. They shook their fists down three times then each extended a single finger.

“Evens,” Lane said and grinned. “You go pick the lock.”

“No, no, no,” Carlos said. “I said odds. If we’d shook odds then I would pick the lock.”

“Bullshit,” Lane argued. “The winner gets to choose. I won with evens, so you pick the lock.”

A fourth thump and another bar stool fell to the ground. The two men watched as the floor under the stools started to bow and bend upward.

“We both do it,” Carlos said and sprinted to the closed game room doors.

He slid off his shoe, fished around inside, and pulled out a small packet. Lane had started to do the same, but stopped when he saw Carlos had beaten him to it. Instead, he spun about and held the paring knife out in front of him, aiming the tip at the still-bending floorboards.

“Come on, mate,” Lane said.

“I am,” Carlos replied as he slid a pick and hook into the lock. He wiggled it about then yanked out the pick. “I need a C rake.”

“Then pull one out,” Lane said.

“Mine’s busted,” Carlos said. “You have one?”

“Of course,” Lane said as he hopped on one foot while he pulled off his shoe. He handed it back to Carlos, his eyes and paring knife still focused on the bowing floor boards that had started to splinter. “Grab it and hurry your arse.”

Carlos pulled out the kit from inside Lane’s shoe and found the C rake. He slid it into the lock over the hook and twisted it to the right.

“Come on, come on,” Lane said as splinters popped into the air. “This is freaking me out, mate! Let’s go!”

“Shut up,” Carlos snapped as he wiggled the pick a couple of times, twisted it to the right while twisting the hook to the left. There was an audible click and Carlos sighed. “Done.”

He stood up and yanked open the door. He was instantly greeted by the muzzle of a .45.

“Get back in there,” the guard said.

“Where the hell did he come from?” Lane asked, looking back over his shoulder. He lifted his fingers and counted. “How many of you are there?”

“Enough,” the guard said. “Now, get back in there. You stay alive if you stay put.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carlos said as he pointed at the floorboards that were busy popping loose and cracking before their eyes. “Whatever is happening there isn’t good. We’re coming out.”

“No,” the guard said.

“No? To hell with your bloody no,” Lane said as he turned and started to shove past Carlos.

The gunshot was loud and sudden and Carlos threw himself to the floor before a second one rang out. He looked up and saw Lane standing there, his eyes wide, his hands patting at his body. The guard fell to the floor, collapsing inside the game room doorway and Carlos had to roll out of the way to keep from getting crushed.

“What the bloody hell?” Lane said as Maggie shoved him back.

“Are you shot?” Maggie asked, one hand on Lane’s chest, the other holding her 9mm. “Did the guard get a shot off?”

“What? No,” Lane said.

“What just happened?” Carlos asked, getting to his feet. He started towards Maggie and Lane, but stopped as Maggie’s 9mm was turned on him. His hands went up and he shook his head. “We’re cool, lady. We’re cool.”

Maggie looked past Lane at Manny’s body and frowned.

“He dead yet?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” Lane replied. His facial features went through several incarnations before settling on plain old confused. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Benjamin’s girlfriend,” Maggie said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Yeah, right,” Lane said, nodding his chin at Maggie’s neck. “That a new necklace he gave you?”

“The less questions you ask, the less lies I have to tell,” Maggie said. “The less lies, the less worried I am you are becoming a liability. Would either of you like to know what happens to liabilities?”

“Military,” Carlos said as if that settled everything. “Special ops or something.”

“Or something,” Maggie said. “Now shut up and get back. You two are staying here so I don’t have to deal with variables.”

She pulled her hand on Lane’s chest back and turned it palm up.

“Pick sets now,” Maggie said.

“You can have the picks,” Lane said. “But we aren’t staying here.”

Two floorboards cracked in half and splinters flew up into the air. Maggie shoved Lane out of the way and fired three shots into the tentacle that started to push through. It disappeared and the floor rippled across the room right at the doorway. Right at where Maggie and Lane were standing.

“Move!” Maggie yelled as she yanked Lane by the collar and pulled him out into the passageway just as the floor exploded upward and six tentacles started whipping about in every direction.

Maggie opened fire, nailing two of the tentacles before her pistol clicked empty. She ejected the spent magazine and slapped in a fresh one as three tentacles came shooting towards her. She threw herself up against the passageway’s wall and the tentacles darted past her.

Lane screamed again as he was pulled off his feet and yanked back to the game room. Maggie took aim, but couldn’t get a shot without hitting Lane.

“Shit,” she swore as she pulled her knife free from her hip and dove at the tentacles.

Lane thrashed next to her, his face turning blue as a tentacle tightened around his throat. Maggie slashed at it, sending blue blood splattering everywhere. But instead of letting go, the tentacle tightened more and Lane’s eyes started to bulge.

“HEY!” Carlos shouted as he lifted a bar stool over his head. “Let him go!”

He brought the bar stool down on as many tentacles as he could, smashing them over and over again as he roared German curse words.

Half the tentacles shrunk back from the attack, withdrawing into the hole in the game room floor. The other half whipped around and grabbed Carlos by the legs, lifting him high into the air before he could attack again with the bar stool.

Maggie pressed her pistol against the tentacle that had Lane by the throat and fired. It split apart and started flopping wildly about, coating her in blue blood. Lane scrambled back out of the game room, his fingers clawing at the part of the tentacle that still had him.

Getting to her feet, and firing down into the hole, Maggie emptied another magazine. She ejected that one and smacked in a fresh one then started firing again until the third magazine was empty.

The tentacles that held Carlos tossed him across the game room. There was a loud crack as he impacted with the bar and he cried out then was silent as his body tumbled over the side and out of sight.

Lane struggled and gasped behind Maggie and she whirled around in time to see his face turn dark, dark purple just as his throat was completely crushed. The tentacle around his neck continued to constrict, tightening even more until it severed Lane’s vertebrae and his head popped off. It fell to the ground and rolled across the passageway, coming to rest at Maggie’s feet.

She kicked it away and spun back around, pistol trained on the jagged hole in the floor. She could see pipes and cables below and was amazed that a creature as big as the one she was dealing with could fit down in such a tight space. Amazed, but not surprised. Octopi had no bones and could squeeze into almost anything as long as it was big enough for the beak to fit.

Maggie hurried across the game room and glanced behind the bar. She didn’t need to check Carlos’s pulse to know he was dead. The angle of his head and limbs told her that.

She moved to the poker table and placed a finger to Manny’s neck. His pulse was almost nonexistent. But it was still there. Despite the man’s less than honorable intentions, he was still INTERPOL. Maggie sighed and put her finger to her ear.

“Tumbler, come in,” Maggie called. Two clicks in response told her Tumbler and the rest of her team were otherwise occupied. “Shit.”

She looked at Manny and shook her head.

“Sorry, Agent Ruiz,” she said as she carefully made her way around the hole and out of the game room. “I’ll have to come back for you. Try to live, if you can.”

She was down the passageway and around the corner when tentacles reappeared at the hole. One went for Lane’s headless body, one went for Carlos behind the bar, and another reached up and grabbed Manny by the ankles. All three bodies were pulled down into the hole and the sound of slurping and munching started echoing up out of it immediately.

41.

Tony stepped back from the bench, blood coating the knife in his hand, as he cocked his head and listened.

“Those were gunshots,” Tony said.

“I believe so,” Captain Staggs responded.

Tony walked to the dash and picked up his radio.

“Report,” he said. “Who’s shooting?”

Only quiet static came from the radio.

“I said to report,” Tony snapped.

“It’s jammed,” Captain Staggs said.

“No, the radios over there are,” Tony said, nodding towards the bridge windows. “Whoever landed on that ship is jamming from there, not here.” He clicked the button several times. “Hear the difference? Do you?”

“Yes, sir,” Captain Staggs replied.

“Good,” Tony said as he set the radio aside. He looked at the doors to the bridge. “How secure are these doors?”

“The locks can be shot open,” Captain Staggs said. “So not as secure as they should be considering the issues with piracy these days.” He gave Tony a quick glance. “And other dangers.”

“You’re lucky you’re needed, Cap,” Tony said, but didn’t elaborate.

Instead, he walked back to the bench and knelt down. Ben lay there, bleeding and shivering, his left hand clutched to his chest. Two fingers were missing from the hand and blood soaked the bench’s leather upholstery, dripping down to create a pool on the floor.

“That was two fingers,” Tony said. “Just two. I can keep going for a while before I have to switch to your toes. Your handler is moving slow.”

“I don’t have a handler,” Ben gasped. “I write a poker blog and have two daughters and an ex-wife. But no handler.”

“Most men would be crying and begging for me to stop,” Tony said. “You aren’t. Yeah, you’re a mess with snot coming out your nose, but you aren’t acting like a little baby. I admire that.”

“Not the first time I’ve been manhandled,” Ben said. He looked down at his bleeding hand. “You can keep taking fingers, but you won’t get anything from me because I don’t know anything.”

“Now I see shock is getting to you,” Tony said. “I already told you I know you don’t know anything. What I’m doing is getting your handler’s attention. You scream loud enough and someone is going to have to come running.”

“What if my handler was that Ashley woman?” Ben asked. “She’s already dead so you’re torturing me for nothing.”

“She’s not it,” Tony said. “I have a good idea who it is and I’m waiting for her to show her innocent looking face.”

“What? Who?” Ben asked. “She? What do you mean by she? One of the crew?”

“No, not the crew, you idiot,” Tony said. “That sweet piece of Asian Latina you brought with you.”

“Maggie? You have got to be kidding,” Ben said. He started to laugh, but it came out more like a pained wheeze. “Maggie is a school teacher.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Tony said. “I have a hunch and my hunches are always right.”

“Not this time,” Ben said. “This time you are drawing to a dead hand.”

Tony flicked his fingers against Ben’s bleeding nubs eliciting a shriek of pain.

“You’re about to have the dead hand,” Tony said. “I guess we need to get started again. Try to scream louder, will ya? I really need your voice to echo through the boat.”

“Yacht,” Ben said as he spat in Tony’s face.

Tony only laughed as he wiped the spit away then brought the knife up to Ben’s face.

“Now, that was rude,” Tony snarled. “I’m going to make you see how rude that was.”