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Chapter Thirty-One
Aziza
As the swim deck of the Zamarad came into view, so did three armed men awaiting our arrival. A shockwave of recognition rocked through me. I’d seen these men before, their likenesses sketched out on paper. They were the crew members who’d abandoned the reality show kids. I turned to Jim. “Pirates! Go!”
“It’s fine,” he grunted, waving me off. “Hayes said he’d be sending reinforcements.”
I grabbed for the wheel, but Jim fought me for it. Too late anyway. We were well-within firing range, and for whatever reason they weren’t shooting at us. Didn’t make them safe, though. I hissed, “These aren’t our guys, Jim. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Hayes said the first guys to get here would be local.”
“Do you even see a boat? How the hell did they get here?”
“If they were bad guys, they’d be shooting at us. You need to stay calm and just know we’re taking good care of you.”
Yeah, fuck that.
The men greeting us must’ve been aware I was valuable to Zaki. With the Ozma Emerald gone I was their only leverage, or they would’ve killed us already. We were too close to escape. At this distance, with their ARs, they’d have decent shooting accuracy, if not to kill, then for sure to injure into submission.
If I had any chance at all of surviving, I needed better odds. One of them would have to take his hand off his weapon to tie us off. If I could get another one to drop his, that would give me a fifty-fifty shot.
I scrambled to the edge of the tender, smiling like I was thankful to see them and eager to jump aboard. As I balanced on the step, I kept jutting my hand out like I needed help. I used my weight to rock the tender a little harder than the waves, feigning having trouble with my balance.
“Ayudame,” I pleaded. Again I held out my hand. “Help.”
Finally, the asshole across from me let his grip on his AR slide as he swung the weapon to his back. Just as Jim tossed the tie-off rope to the pirate nearest the bow, I stepped across the gap. Before the man’s fingers could grasp mine, I retracted my hand and took a deep breath. Crossing my arms over my chest, I dropped into the water. Ducking under the dock-like platform, I shot as fast as I could below the yacht. Grappling for one of the propellers to hang onto, I watched a flurry of gunshots pierce the sea. Seconds later, Jim’s body tumbled down with a splash before floating back to the surface.
Lungs burning, I half-swam, half-edged my way under the Zamarad’s hull to the port side at midship, hoping the gunmen wouldn’t be able to get a decent angle. Maybe if I was really lucky I could get the Zodiac. Kicking through the pain, I surfaced, desperate to catch my breath. But before I could get a lungful, I heard one of the men saying, “Don’t be stupid, lady. We don’t want to kill you. But we will hurt you if you don’t come out.”
When I didn’t take his bait, a sharp report of machine gun fire rang out. Several bullets punctured the Zodiac before I darted back under. Shit. I headed toward the bow to steal a second gasp, but this wasn’t a game I could win against three gunmen. We were in the middle of the ocean. Even if I could swim to the island, I would be a sitting duck there too. I had nowhere to go.
With a pang in my heart, I realized no one would be coming to my rescue. Certainly not Michael Cooper. If I thought about the loss of him too long, I’d just stop kicking. It would be so easy. My muscles were fatigued to the point I couldn’t feel pain anymore. My buoyant body would be trapped under water, under the boat, and I’d be gone. Free of the need of my lungs, of air. I would just stop. So easy. But I still had work to do.
I clamored for the anchor chain, grasping it to give my legs a break. This spot provided a much better shield for me, but all it would take would be one of them jumping in. Between struggling against the belligerent waves, breathlessly swimming, and my emotions on full tilt, I was way too fatigued to combat a fresh enemy.
Where had these fuckers come from anyway?
They’d have had to have been on board this whole time. How? I tried to access my brain. Between my exhaustion and the adrenaline of survival all I could process was a heavy pounding throb, suggesting my pulse was stronger and steadier than it felt.
I needed to know what I was up against, but I was skimming just barely at the surface physically and mentally.
Focus. Focus.
Hayes had arranged for Magnussen to come aboard, which meant he had to have known about Captain Tom. The locked captain’s quarters. The men had been holed up in there the whole time. For what, a couple of days maybe? Just waiting for the opportunity to take the ship, the emerald, and our lives.
There’d been three men on the swim deck when Jim had pulled alongside of them. That room couldn’t have held more without anyone knowing.
Was Magnussen in on it? Jim? Whatever his involvement, Jim was dead now. My heart sank as I realized the gunmen had to have disabled and probably killed anyone on the crew who wasn’t involved. Cait…Kai…Chef Anders?
Above me, on the bow, I could hear two men arguing in a foreign language. Spanish or Portuguese. Then in English, one said, “We don’t have time for this horseshit. The charges have been set. We have less than an hour.”
Charges? Like explosives?
I briefly thought about surrendering myself, getting away from this yacht before it blew, buying time to come up with a Hail Mary play. But fuck ‘em.
This was war.
I pulled my dive knife from my thigh strap and swam aft. If at least two of them were arguing on the bow, that left one to keep watch on the tender. Pausing midship, I ducked out to grab a quick but deep breath. Then I swam. With an eye out above me for where the hull of the Zamarad ended and the tender began, I caught sight of Jim’s body floating. Two red punctures seeped blood from his chest.
