Page 5 of The Hijack

I hung up, giving my host a tight smile. “I’ll be going now.”

“Good luck,” Russel said gruffly, walking me to the door to make sure I didn’t try anything on the way out.

Chapter 3

Clark

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MY HEAD HURT RIGHT where that asshole had hit me. The last thing I remembered was seeing Theo go down. He’d hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, completely devoid of consciousness. Then there was the shot.

Theo’s handler from MI6 stood over his fallen body and fired down into my boyfriend’s chest. There was no reaction, but I could see blood leap through the fibers of his shirt, proving that the wound was deep.

“Nooo!” I shouted, launching myself at the madman.

But instead of the superior, coordinated attack I’d planned, my game was off. My emotions were in control, and I didn’t see the guy behind me. Before I could reach the man who’d nearly murdered my lover, I felt a solid impact to the back of my skull.

Light burst upon the scene, eclipsing everything in the room. I tumbled to my knees and then to my stomach. My last thought was that at least neither of us were going to die alone. If I had to outlive another boyfriend, I might just go crazy. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and I could think of worse ways to go out.

I stretched a hand out to grasp Theo’s, feeling the warm ridges in his palm before losing touch entirely. The next thing I knew, I was in some kind of moving vehicle, my shoulder pressed to the floor, my mouth bound with tape.

So they hadn’t killed me.

That was the only rational thought that surfaced before I sank back into unconsciousness. A moment later, I was lying on a different surface, half upright, stuffed into an airplane seat. I couldn’t tell if there was anyone else around me. Though there wasn’t any blindfold, the only information I could force from my tired eyes was light and shadow. Then I passed out again.

My next hint came when I woke in a metal room. I lay on a cot that had been nailed to the floor. There was another cot above me, identifying the room as some kind of crew quarters. A set of metal handcuffs attached me to the bed, allowing only basic movement.

I could sense that I was alone, and while that didn’t mean I was safe, it did afford me some time to get my bearings. I had sustained quite a head injury. A sharp headache pulsed from behind my eyes, but for the time being, I could see.

I rose to a sitting position, glancing around as much as I could. The door was about three feet from my bed, almost close enough to reach. There was a single window in it, making me reevaluate my assumption that I was in a berth somewhere. It seemed more like a prison cell.

As I was struggling to come up with a theory that made sense, the floor bucked beneath me. There was nothing in the room that wasn’t nailed down except for me. I slid up to the pillow on my ass, knocking one shoulder against the wall.

A boat. I was on a boat.

Without knowing my destination or when I had come aboard, I had no idea how to reconnect with Theo. If he was even still alive. First things first: If I wanted to escape, I had to get out of the handcuffs. With the right tools, I could make quick work of the restraints, but the problem was that I had left the safe house with only the clothes on my back. In fact, I didn’t even have that many clothes.

I wore one of Theo’s shirts and a pair of underwear. Thankfully I’d managed to put that much one before I’d gone to investigate the disturbance in the kitchen. If I’d gone with my first instinct, I might have been sitting there naked.

After a quick sweep of my cell, I decided that one of the screws binding the cot to the floor was probably my best bet. I slid off the cot and onto the floor, using my free hand to work at the Phillips head.

It wasn’t designed to release its hold without power tools. No matter how many times I tried, or what angle I managed to approach, the screws wouldn’t give up. I pressed my thumbnail into the groove and twisted to the best of my ability. That only tore my thumb up and caused a thin stream of blood to coat the metal.

The door swung open as I worked, and a man I’d never seen before stepped in. “Get up on the bed,” he demanded in a thick accent.

I tried to place it, feeling like the man’s origin might give me some clues as to where I had been taken. It was faintly Asian, but not from one of the mainland countries. If I had to guess, I would have said Vietnamese or Indonesian.

I complied, not wanting to create more problems for myself. He waved a knife at me, threatening to cut me if I gave him any trouble. I wasn’t impressed. He moved to the bedside and unlocked my cuffs, clearly intending to take me somewhere. But as soon as my wrists were free, I launched into action.

Batting his knife away like the plaything that it was, I twisted his arm behind his back, slamming his head into the wall. He dropped like a stone. I helped myself to both his pants and his weapon before I snuck out into the hall.

The ship was still, and I assumed that since the unconscious soldier had been sent to collect me, that we were docked. Possibly the shudder that I had felt earlier was the final connection of the boat with the port. The hallway was narrow, and while there were rooms on either side, I could see the exit quite clearly.

I bulldozed my way to the stairs, managing to make it out on deck before I was stopped. Three guards with automatic weapons were waiting to greet me, as if they had expected me to make a break for it.

They circled me with their weapons drawn, cutting off my options. If I attacked one, the other two would still have clear shots. If I managed to take down two before I was murdered, the third would seal my fate.

I dropped the knife and put my hands on top of my head. Though I desperately wanted to get free and find my way back to Theo, I wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I couldn’t help Theo from beyond the grave. If he was still alive, then my first obligation was to keep my heart beating so that I could eventually find him.