“Stay calm,” Sean said.
“I am calm.” He was deadly calm. His focus had narrowed to one point in the world. Saving his wife. He laid out his options, shitty as they were, and came up with a plan.
“Do we have what he wants?” Simon asked.
Ian shook his head.
“We can always get the computer,” Sean said. “We have a copy so if we need to hand the computer over, I don’t think Kash would argue. He was horribly torn up about his guards. He won’t want Charlie’s death on his conscience.”
Ian nodded. “I’ll get it. I’ll do the trade.”
“You think he won’t just kill you on sight?” Sean asked.
That would be the smart play on Nelson’s part. It was what Ian would do if their roles were reversed. “I’ll password protect it. He doesn’t get the password until I have my wife. Then he’ll try to kill both of us.”
“I’m thinking that’s not a smashing plan, boss.” Simon shook his head.
“That’s because you don’t know what your part is yet. Get those bodies and some rope. What we need is a little chaos.” And a little time. The minute the Coast Guard showed up, all bets would be off.
His team leaned in and Ian told them the plan.
Charlie stood on the bridge, watching as Nelson’s men boarded the boat. She kept her eyes on the outside. It was better than seeing what Nelson had done to the crew.
They were lying in heaps of dead flesh, their corpses cooling. He’d just put out that he wouldn’t kill the rest of the king’s people if the king gave him what he wanted, but Charlie knew the truth. He would kill everyone. No matter how fast he got the data.
She’d seen what one of his men had attached to the side of the boat just under the water’s surface. He might have thought she wasn’t looking at the time, or maybe he didn’t care, but she knew damn well he intended to blow the yacht sky high. She’d also watched as he put the bomb’s trigger device in his pocket.
She had to get that device.
Unfortunately there were four guards watching over the bastard. The pirates were dressed in a mixture of camo and jeans and tank tops. They looked dirty and mean and very comfortable with AK-47s.
“Do you think he’s panicking, dear?” He put a hand on her shoulder.
She shivered and tried to step away. She was steady on her feet again, but her hands were still shaky.
His hold tightened. “Don’t. I wouldn’t want to be forced to make a point, Charlotte. I think Taggart will be more inclined to be helpful if you’re in one piece, so be a good girl and don’t flinch when I touch you.” His hand stroked her shoulder, but she couldn’t forget that he had a gun pressed to her side. “You might make me think you don’t want me, sweetheart.”
Nothing could make her mouth stop though. “I thought I made that plain when I turned down your first offer, Eli.”
“Or you could have just been playing hard to get.” He took a step back. “You know I understand the value of not giving in too soon. Sometimes you have to make a man work for it, don’t you? Charlotte, you’re a smart girl. We could use you. You have to know that Taggart is a bad bet at this point. Why else would you have contacted me?”
“I didn’t. It was my sister.” The last thing she needed was to play out the creep’s sexual fantasies. She was going to have such a long talk with her sister. If she survived this, Chelsea was getting off the information-gathering wagon forever. That kind of power had become a dangerous addiction for her.
He frowned and stepped over the captain’s body. “I should have known. Well, that’s a shame. I mean I’ll still try to recruit her because obviously she got all the brains in the family, but I was hoping for a fuck buddy, too. I’ll have to take a pass on her. You got the looks. She got the brains. Taggart is going to lose his balls over a woman. I kind of love that. I wish the others were here to witness it. I’ve had to be in his shadow for years. I was an operative before he was old enough to join the Army. Then one day they recruit him out of black ops and put him on some fucking pedestal. Well, I showed them.”
She’d always known his problems with Ian weren’t strictly professional. “Yes, you showed them that he was human and that you’re a traitor.”
He waved that off. “Traitor? I’m more American than any of those fuckers. They still think we’re some sort of democracy. We left that long ago. You know what took down your father’s precious USSR? It sure as fuck wasn’t a thirst for freedom. Hell, no. It was capitalism. The world doesn’t run on democracy. It runs on capitalism, and I’m a capitalist.”
As long as he was talking, he wasn’t shooting her full of electricity. “So you’re going to take the plans for the engine and sell them to the highest bidder.”
“No. I’m going to hand them over to the oil company that’s paying me and let them sit on it. There’s still money to be made in oil. A lot of it. Until such time as that changes, there’s no place for technology like this. Do you really think some bumfuck beach bum from Loa Mali is the first scientist to think this up? No. This is just the latest, and we’ll take this down, too. When the company is ready, they’ll roll out their own version and the money will stay in the right hands.”
Ian had been right. This wasn’t about selling secrets to other governments. “So you work for companies that want you to steal technology for them. Or hurt other companies. That’s why you’re working with my uncle on the pipeline.”
Nelson shrugged a little, like a small boy who had been caught cheating at Monopoly. “Malone Oil doesn’t belong to my employers. If you aren’t in with the big boys, then you’re fair game. The Collective watches out for their membership.”
“The Collective? They have a name for themselves? Oh, god, I hate the Illuminati crap. So I’m supposed to believe that a bunch of CEOs have gotten together and they hire you to what? Steal some plans? What the hell can you really do?”
A nasty little smile lit Nelson’s features. “Well, let’s see. Let me give you an example. Let’s say my latest assignment is for a pharmaceutical company whose top-selling pain reliever is being beaten out by new-blood competition. New drug research takes years and millions of dollars. It’s so much easier to simply herd the public where we think they should go.”
She got a chill as she remembered what had happened a little over a month before. Someone had coated the caplets of a certain brand of ibuprofen with a cyanide paste. It was clear and undetectable to the human eye. Fifteen people in five states had died.
The company’s stock had plummeted while the rival company had seen its shares and its products purchased at higher quantities than ever before.
They had called it a terrorist attack. For Nelson, it seemed it was just good business. “You’re a terrorist for hire.”
“I’m just a lowly employee, Charlotte, looking to make his pension. Like a lot of other people in my line of business. The Collective finds it easy to recruit from Western intelligence agencies. They pay crap. The Collective offers an alternative. Did you wonder how I knew to be here at this particular time?”
She had wondered about it. And come up with some unsavory answers. “You’re saying one of the agents is working for you?”
“Maybe more than one, but certainly you have a viper in your little nest.” He picked up the microphone again and pressed the button on the side before speaking into it. His voice filled the air around her. “Mr. Taggart, you’re down to one minute. Has the bloom worn off the rose so quickly? Well, then you won’t mind when I try her out myself.”
“I’m here.”
Charlie’s whole body went electric with the sound of his rough-as-gravel voice. Fear crept along her spine as her husband stepped on the bridge and every gun in the room pointed his way. Four AK-47s that could tear him apart in an instant.
He shouldn’t have come. He should have found a way off the boat. She wasn’t worth his life, not after everything she’d done.
“Hey, baby.” He held a laptop computer in one hand, his eyes on her.
Two more pirates came up behind him, surrounding him with death.
God, she couldn’t lose him.
“Mr. Taggart, so nice to see you again.” Eli Nelson sounded perfectly content, but then he did have the upper hand. “Did you bring me my data?”
Ian tapped the computer with his left hand. “It’s password protected. I’ll give you the laptop, but you don’t get the password until Charlie and I are off the ship.”
A low chuckle came out of Nelson’s mouth. “Really? You think this is a negotiation?”
If Ian was bothered by all those guns pointed at him, he didn’t show it. He stood tall, his shoulders squared, his stance firm. “I think I have something you want and you definitely have something that belongs to me.”
“I wish we had more time,” Nelson said, sighing with regret. “I really do. I would honestly find it fascinating to peel back your layers, Tag. I mean that literally. I would love to take you with me and skin your hide. But I would also try to understand how you fell for a woman I hired to fuck you. I’ll be honest. I thought I had a fifty-fifty shot at it working.”
“Whatever you paid, you should have doubled it because she’s really good,” Ian replied.
“Ian!” It was good to know his sarcasm didn’t fade just because they were about to die.
Ian sent a slow, infinitely sexy smile her way. “Hey, baby, it’s true. I like to acknowledge great work, and you have the sweetest pussy in the whole world. It’s totally worth a man’s downfall.”
Why was he so damn calm?
He obviously had a plan and it didn’t involve giving Eli Nelson everything he wanted.
One of the pirates, a large man with scars covering his face, leaned in, speaking in broken English about some boat being sighted.
Nelson frowned. “We’ll be faster than the fucking Coast Guard. What the hell did I hire you for if you can’t handle a couple of Coast Guard boats? Get my boat ready. We leave in a few minutes.”
The pirate jogged off, ducking down the stairs.
Only five guns now. What was Ian planning? And how was she going to get that remote device off Nelson?
She glanced down at the water. It was fairly calm. She knew roughly where they had placed the bomb.
If she couldn’t get the remote, maybe she could get the damn bomb. Maybe she could turn it all around. How far was it to the water? She just had to get out the side door and over the railing, but she would have to jump out or she would hit the larger main deck instead of the water. She didn’t need a couple of broken legs.
Nelson pointed his own gun Ian’s way. “Give me the laptop.”
Ian didn’t move. “Give me my girl.”
Nelson grabbed her arm, hauling her to his side. “I’m going to give you your girl the same way I did before if you don’t hand me that laptop.”
“It’s useless without the password. The system has been encrypted to erase the hard drive if you put the wrong password in more than three times. I hope you’re good at guessing, Nelson.” He handed the laptop over to one of the pirates.
“All right. I’ll need the password then. If I have to, I’ll take you with me and I’ll have fun torturing it out of you. Or you could just watch me rape your little whore here. I’ve always had a thing for her.” His hand moved up her torso, nearly to her breast, but she remained still because that gun was oh so close to her brain. “Yes, I think torturing her will be a more effective way to get you to talk. Or maybe I could get two for the price of one. Tell me something, Tag. Where’s that snot-nosed baby brother of yours? I know he’s on the boat. Did you hide him away?”
A smirk lit Ian’s face. “No, I’m distracting you so he can get away.”
There was the sound of an engine gunning and then out of the corner of her eye, she saw something jet out of the yacht’s garage moving at a high speed. She turned and a jet ski was skimming along the surface of the water in a straight line.
“Fuck.” Nelson turned, his attention going to the bow of the boat. “Open fire. Stop that jackass. I want him dead.”
Ian’s hands moved faster than she could track. He bent over and when he came back up, a knife was flying across the room, finding a place in one of the pirates’ neck. The man’s hand was on his gun, and as he fell his finger spasmed, sending a line of bullets into the man beside him.
Both fell, dead, on the floor.
Three left. And very little time. Ian didn’t know about the bomb. He didn’t know that Nelson could still take them all down.
He kicked out as the bullets started to fly.
Charlie brought her elbow forward and then back, catching Nelson in the chest. He groaned and stumbled, giving her just enough time to make it out the side door. Complete chaos rained down on them. From the bridge, the sound of gunfire racked the room.
She glanced back and saw blood staining Ian’s left leg, but he’d gotten a gun and he was moving down the stairs.
Jumping over the railing, she took only a second to judge the distance between her and the water.
Then fire lit her and sent her careening over the edge. At the last minute before she fell, she managed to kick off the railing and gain the momentum she needed. She tried to control the dive, but the pain in her arm was burning.
A bullet. She’d taken a bullet.
She hit the water with a whoosh and the world above went quiet. Light filtered down into the water, a lamp by which to see. Something started to cloud the liquid around her.
Blood. Her blood. How bad was it? It didn’t matter. She gritted her teeth because she had to find that bomb.
Above, the sounds of battle were muffled as though they were so far away, but she knew every moment counted. Nelson and Ian were trying to kill each other. She had to get back on the yacht and help her husband.
She forced herself to move, though her lungs were already burning. She moved from the light into the shadows where the pirate ship touched the yacht. Instinct told her to move away. The boats were so close together they formed a tight little space. Too tight. But she had to force herself to stay calm.
Surfacing, the sounds of battle rushed back to her, but she had to take the chance that Ian was keeping Nelson occupied. In between the two boats, they might not even see her. She was tiny compared to the two boats that bobbed around her.