SeaChange (29 page)

“Sssh,” Heidi whispered, covering her own microphone. She
was glad for her friend, but this wasn’t the time. “I want to hear what’s going
on.”

“They’re just swimming ashore,” Brad reminded her. “There’s
nothing happening yet.”

Niko’s voice over the headsets disabused him of that notion.
“One of the yachts and two of the cigarette boats are missing,” he whispered. “It
looks as if they’re out on a raid tonight.”

“Well, that reduces the number of men in the village by
half,” Miguel said. “And hopefully, the leaders don’t go out on the raids.”

Since the
Folly
had been waiting to the north of the
island, they would have easily missed the boats if they’d headed out in a
southerly direction. Still, Heidi shivered. She and Brad were armed, just in
case, but she really didn’t want to take on a dozen armed pirates all by
herself.

“I’ll go get Myrrine and Darius up on deck,” Brad said. He
clattered down the staircase to the main deck. A few minutes later, he returned
with a carafe of coffee and two mugs, followed closely by Darius who climbed
out on the bow with a pair of night-vision binoculars.

“If you spot them, send an SOS to the Mexican Navy vessel
that’s waiting on the other side of the island,” said Miguel. “Use my name.”

“Did we ever find out exactly
what
Miguel and his
guys are?” Heidi whispered to Brad.

“Psychics of various sorts,” Brad replied. “Carlos is a
telekinetic, Pablo is pyrokinetic. Boss man is telepathic. Not sure about Juan.”

Heidi whistled silently. “No wonder the government lets them
run in and handle things without too much explanation. Who’d want to know what
was in their reports?”

They fell silent, listening to the men on the island report
in as Steve set up his sound barrier spell and Carlos and Pablo disabled the
ATVs. Finally, Heidi had to force herself to breathe as they all moved into the
temple grounds.

Jake crouched low as he moved across the temple compound,
hugging the wall until he made his final approach. They had decided on a
two-pronged attack. Steve, two of Miguel’s men and half the mermen would take
the guest house, while the others would surround and enter the high priest’s
residence. Hopefully, this would give them the pirate leaders and Jake’s uncle
at the same time. With them as hostages, getting the others to surrender or
flee would be easy.

On Wen’s signal, Jake moved into place on the front porch of
the main building. Lights burned through the first floor windows, courtesy of a
gasoline generator belching away behind the house. Upstairs, only one room—the
largest—was lit.

Wen, who shimmered, indicating he was probably invisible to
those he didn’t want to see him, looked in the windows. “Two men playing cards
at the dining table,” he whispered. “Both wearing shoulder holsters.”

“Bodyguards, maybe?” Niko offered.

Wen disappeared from view and then returned. “One man and
one woman in the master bedroom. They appear to be…occupied.”

They wouldn’t get a better time than this. He listened over
the communicators to the other team, discovered they were about to take on half
a dozen armed men in the guest house. He hoped like hell they’d all survive,
but right now, he had to focus on his own battle.

The table where the two men sat was at one end of the large
open room, which was divided into spaces by sturdy stone pillars that supported
the upper floor. A makeshift kitchen—microwave and mini fridge had been set up
by the open hearth, and the generator cable ran out an open window. There were
windows all around, and doors on both of the short sides of the rectangular
building. Wordlessly, Miguel and Carlos took up positions at windows near the
table, then Jake and Wen approached the door closest to the men with Niko,
while Chiron led the other mermen to the far door. Their job was to go in and
immediately move to secure the stairs. Thanks to Wen’s photos, they’d had
plenty of time to plan this out in advance. He sent up a prayer to Dionysus
along with every other god he could think of, then tensed in readiness as Wen
kicked in the door.

The two men at the table were caught completely off guard.
Subduing them was a matter of moments, with no shots fired. Their shouts,
however, did draw the attention of their boss and his woman. The woman came
down the stairs slowly, her hands in the air, and Niko quickly had her cuffed
and lined up against the wall with the two bodyguards. The leader, however did
something that no one had anticipated. He went out the window.

Wen went after him, with Jake close behind. The landing must
have hurt, or maybe he just wasn’t very fast, because Wen caught him in a
flying tackle just as they rounded the corner of the building.

Jake pulled out a pair of cuffs and helped wrestle the man’s
hands behind his back while Wen knelt on his thighs to hold him down. The
pirate leader was spitting and swearing in Spanish, so Jake responded in his
own language, telling him to shut the fuck up if he wanted to live. Once the
cuffs were secured, he pulled out his pistol and held it on the man as Wen
hauled him to his feet.

“Behind you,” Wen shouted.

Jake turned just in time to see three people round the
corner of the priests’ residence.

“Stop, or your leader dies,” he yelled.

“Good,” one of the pirates answered with a laugh. Then he
shot Jake while the other two fired—one at the leader, the other at Wen.

Jake felt the bullet slam into his chest, and he heard Heidi’s
scream over the headset and over their link, but he couldn’t respond, couldn’t
tell her not to worry. His knees buckling, he vaguely saw Niko and Miguel’s men
come up and open fire on the pirates. He didn’t see them fall, though, couldn’t
tell what had happened. The world went black as he fell to lush grass at his
feet.

“No!” Heidi screamed into the headset. She saw Brad wince,
knew she’d probably hurt his ears, but she didn’t care. Her link with Jake had
gone dark.

He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t! “We were going to get
married,” she whispered to Brad as tears filled her eyes.

“The pirates are fighting back,” Wen said. “They shot their
own leader. We can’t assume any of them will surrender at this point.”

Brad reached over and clicked the off button on Heidi’s
headset, and his own. “We don’t know anything yet, Heidi. Darius is ready to
go, as soon as they finish. If anyone can save Jake, you know he can.”

“You’re right,” she said through her tears. “We still—” She
choked back a sob. “We still have work to do, right?”

“Right,” he said. He clicked on his headset, then reported
to Heidi, “Steve says the guest house is clear. Phaeton was not in it, but one
of his lieutenants was.”

Heidi gulped in a few deep breaths. She could do this. She
would
do this. For Jake. She switched her headset back on and listened as the second
team came up to support Wen in the firefight with the pirates from the priests’
quarters.

Darius came running from the bow of the boat, jumped around
into the bridge. “We have trouble. Two small boats, approaching fast.”

“Shit! We have pirates,” she said over her com. “Two
cigarette boats incoming.” She closed down her computer, switched off her com
and checked her rifle. “Darius, you and Myrrine get below and lock yourself in
a stateroom. Brad, get on the radio and call the navy boat like Miguel said.”

“On it.” Brad turned off his com and turned on the radio,
preset to the frequency Miguel had specified. “What are you doing?”

“Getting more ammo.” Keeping her rifle close, Heidi ducked
below and filled a duffle bag with ammo and a spare handgun for each of them,
then lugged it back up to the bridge, turning off every possible light as she
went. No need to make it easier to board them.

“We’ll have a good vantage point from here,” she said.
Putting on a pair of night-vision goggles, she scanned the horizon. “I see
them. They’re coming up fast.”

They both watched grimly as the two boats approached. As
they drew closer, she could see that each boat held five or six men, all
heavily armed.

“We just try to shoot them one at a time as they climb on
board?” Brad asked.

“You got a better idea?”

There was movement below them on deck, and Heidi swore. “I
thought I told them to stay below!”

Sure enough, Myrrine and Darius were creeping toward the
railings on either side of the deck—right above the lower deck, where the
pirate vessels were drawing up to the
Folly
.

Without taking time to think, Heidi set down the rifle,
picked up Jake’s Beretta, and ran down to where her fiancé’s mother stood
peeking over the rail between the upper and lower decks with something the size
of a football in her hand.

“What are you doing?” Heidi whispered. “You’re supposed to
be hiding.”

“I’m helping keep us safe,” Myrrine whispered back. Just as
a head poked up above the side of the lower deck, she added, “Cover me,” and
leaned over.

Heidi did, firing her weapon at the man whose shoulder had
just emerged. She missed, but he did duck, though not before firing a couple
rounds into the side of the cabin just beneath her. Sounds from the other side
of the deck indicated that Brad had followed Heidi’s lead and was covering
Darius.

“Here goes,” Myrrine said. She chanted something softly—a
prayer?—then threw the object in her hands toward the cigarette boat.

While the throw didn’t look that good, Heidi watched as the
black lump landed squarely in the center of the cigarette boat.

Then it exploded.

A matching explosion sounded from Brad’s side of the boat.

“What the hell was that?” she shouted over the ringing in
her ears.

“A mine,” Myrrine replied. “Marcos showed me how to use them.”

Heidi peeked back over into the water. The cigarette boat
was shattered completely. A few men clung to bits of debris, and one had
reached the side of the Folly and was beginning to climb aboard. Gritting her
teeth, she fired twice. The pirate jerked twice then fell back into the ocean.

Brad’s gun barked on the other side of the deck. “Stay in
the water if you want to live,” he yelled. “The navy will fish you out in a few
minutes.”

Heidi repeated that on her side while Myrrine and Darius
translated into Spanish.

A volley of epithets came back to them, but no one else
tried to climb onto their boat.

“That’s some rather interesting profanity,” Myrrine told
Heidi.

Darius turned the running lights back on, which illuminated
the debris well enough for them to see the pirates without the aid of the
night-vision goggles. Heidi and Brad kept their weapons trained on them. In the
distance, they began to see the lights of the navy vessel.

“Could you run up to the bridge and grab one of the
headsets?” she asked Myrrine. “I want to know what’s happening on the island.”

“Of course.” Myrrine vanished up the stairs, returning just
moments later with Heidi’s headset, and Brad’s.

Heidi slipped it on. She hadn’t mentioned anything to
Myrrine yet about Jake. There was still no trace of him on their mental link.
She prayed that he was just unconscious, but her insides were twisted in knots
as she listened in, trying to catch up.

“The priests’ quarters are empty,” Steve’s voice said. “It
looks as if that was the last of them.”

“Can anyone on the
Folly
read me?” That was Wen. “Come
in, Heidi or Brad.”

“I’m here,” Heidi said. “The pirates are being held off.
Darius and Myrrine blew up their boats with old limpet mines.”

“Excellent,” Miguel said. “The navy vessel is on its way.
They know you’re a private contact of mine who was assisting in this operation.
But if possible, we need Darius here ASAP. We’ve got some seriously wounded.”

Brad conferred with Darius who immediately stripped out of
his clothes and ran toward the bow. There was a flash of skin in the running
lights, then a splash as a dolphin sped away from the ship toward the shore.

“We also have two casualties, so far,” Wen warned. “Marcos
and Pablo.”

“Not…” Heidi’s voice stuck in her throat. Hope for Jake
welled, mixed with horror at the loss of two men she’d become friends with.

“He’s in bad shape, kiddo,” Steve replied. “But if Darius
gets here in time, he should make it. I wish to hell I could teleport the
weight of another person.”

“Darius is on his way,” she assured him. “And the navy ship
is getting close. What about the village? Is someone keeping a watch on that?”

“
Si
. The two fast boats took off, loaded with men,”
Niko confirmed. “And I think most of the mermen fled as dolphins, but they
headed south, not toward you. Probably toward the other yacht, which is still
out there somewhere.”

“I’ll go up and see if I can find it,” Wen added. “Then you
can tell the navy where to find them. That should wrap things up nicely.”

“Okay,” Heidi said. She managed to hold her tears in while
the navy vessel pulled up close by and lowered two small speedboats into the
water. They threw ropes to the pirates and hauled them onboard, immediately
cuffing them while Heidi and the others watched. Finally, one boat nudged up against
the
Folly
, and an officer requested permission to come on board.

“Thank you for your assistance,” he told them after
introducing himself. He pointedly didn’t ask their names or nationalities. “We’ve
been authorized to handle the arrests of the pirates. We can escort you in to
the island now, so we can collect the remaining prisoners.

“Thank you. We’ll follow you in,” Myrrine acted as
translator and spokeswoman. “And perhaps you can take us ashore with you?”

The officer agreed. Heidi and Brad went back to the bridge,
with Myrrine close behind them.

“So tell me,” Myrrine demanded as they followed the navy
ship toward the island. “Is my son all right?”

Heidi bit her lip. “We don’t know yet. He’s injured, but
Darius is with him now.” She’d turned off her microphone but was still
listening in to her headset.

Myrrine nodded. “And the others?”

Brad answered, taking the queen’s hand. “Two men were lost.
Pablo and Marcos.”

“Marcos!” Myrrine’s shattered cry filled the small space of
the bridge. She looked up at Heidi brokenly. “Whatever shall I do without him?”

Leaving Brad to steer the boat, Heidi wrapped her arms
around the older woman. “I don’t know,” she admitted. Her own tears fell as Myrrine
cried against her shoulder.

They were just setting anchor in the cove near the temple
when Heidi felt a tug on her mental link with Jake. It wasn’t strong at first,
but it gradually grew into a sigh, and then her name.

“Jake!” She turned to Myrrine. “Jake is conscious now.”

Myrrine dried her eyes. “Thank the gods. I couldn’t have
stood to lose them both.”

“I know.” Heidi hugged the older woman, wishing she could do
something to ease her pain.

They finished setting the anchors and went ashore with the officer
and his men, beaching the small boat on a wide, sandy stretch where Miguel and
his remaining two men waited. A blanket-covered mound at their feet explained
the harsh, contained expressions on all of their faces.

On the slope just above the beach, a set of wide stone
terraces led up to a waist-high wall. Beyond that, the shape of the temple roof
loomed in the moonlight, with smaller buildings off to the side. The prisoners
who were uninjured knelt on the lowest terrace under the watchful eye of two armed
mermen, who also monitored wounded pirates, who lay beside their comrades on
the ground in a row, sporting a collection of makeshift bandages. Beyond them
was another row of forms, these unmoving.

“So many lost,” Myrrine whispered sadly as they moved up
along the edge of the terrace. Wen and Chiron waited at the top step, motioning
them forward.

Heidi just nodded. All her attention was focused on Jake.
She could feel him growing in strength, though he was also in a lot of pain.
Agony speared through her chest, making it hard for her to walk. Only Brad’s
steadying arm around her waist kept her upright. They moved up the terraces,
ignoring the activity of the naval personnel as they loaded the prisoners and
the dead into their boats.

“They’re in the temple,” Chiron said, taking Myrrine’s arm. “It
seemed—appropriate.”

Yes, it did. Heidi and Brad fell into step behind the queen
and her escort. At the top of the terraces was a low stone wall, with an ornate
but rusted gate. Two more of the mermen warriors guarded the gate. Each of them
sported bandages, though both were steady on their feet. They bowed their heads
to their ruler as she approached.

“Thank you,” she told them gravely, a quaver to her normally
strong voice. “Your sacrifices here tonight mean everything to your people.”
Then they moved past them to enter a large courtyard, paved with stone except
for where tall palm trees reached toward the sky in each of the four corners.

“Probably the whole population of the island could
congregate here,” Brad speculated.

“Likely,” Chiron agreed.

A large central fountain still bubbled cool, sweet-smelling
water. They skirted that and continued toward a set of wide gates that stood
open in the back wall. Beyond the gates, a wide flagstone walkway led up to the
temple itself.

The temple was breathtaking, even in the moonlight. Though
matching the architectural style of every Greek temple Heidi had seen pictures
of, it had a very tropical flair, with pineapples at the tops of the columns
and conch shells in the frieze around their base. Somehow, the amalgam worked,
creating a structure both imposing and inviting.

Steve sat on the wide stone steps holding a gun on three
handcuffed men, while two more lay at his feet. One of them at least, was still
moving. Heidi couldn’t be sure about the other. At the top, Niko waited,
leaning on a wide column, bloody, with a bandage around his left thigh, his
weapon also trained on the captive mermen.

“Inside,” Wen said. He didn’t follow them through the second
gate, instead turning back toward the beach.

It was only two steps up to the colonnade of the temple, and
once they passed between the tall pillars, Heidi could see that there were
actual walls inside, though no doors, so it wasn’t completely protected from
the elements.

The first room was three-sided, with the pair of columns
forming the fourth. On the far side, a door opened into another, larger room
lit by flaming torches set into the walls, but Heidi didn’t have time to check
it out. Here in the outer chamber, with the light of more torches and a couple
big flashlights, Jake sat in the corner, leaning against the wall with Darius
kneeling over him.

Heidi immediately dropped to her knees on his other side and
took his hand. His black T-shirt gleamed wetly and sported a huge tear,
frighteningly close to his heart. The Kevlar vest he’d been wearing lay on the
ground beside him, also with an obvious hole. Armor-piercing bullets, Niko had
told her as they walked. Heidi fought hard not to cry.

“Hey, beautiful,” he rasped. “Heard you had trouble with the
pirates.”

Managing a wavering smile, she shrugged. “Your mother took
care of those easily enough.”

“I had help.” Myrrine stood at Jake’s feet and stared at
Darius. “Will he recover?” Her words sounded cold, but Heidi could see the fear
in her taut expression, even in the meager light.

“Yes,” the healer assured her. Someone had given Darius a
pair of black cargo pants. “They all will, except for…”

“Marcos,” the queen finished. “Thank you, Darius.”