Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(23)
The pain and shock of the blow played second fiddle to the fact that she could…not…breathe. She clutched at her paralyzed neck, falling back another step. Her eyes watered; her chest ached from lack of oxygen.
This can’t be happening!
The remaining six men crawled from the bobbing dinghy onto the deck, each of them shouldering what looked to be a machine gun. She couldn’t be absolutely sure of the make of the weapons since her only experience with firearms was limited to the shotguns and rifles her father and brothers used to hunt pheasant and white-tailed deer. But she’d seen Black Hawk Down and Apocalypse Now, and the lethal black weapons clutched so casually in these men’s hands certainly looked like machine guns.
“Do not speak,” the first guy said, spinning her around so he could snake an arm around her neck and shoving the barrel of his gun into her right kidney.
Do not speak? Holy shitfire! As if she could with a crushed windpipe!
The man turned to say something to one of his compatriots in a language that didn’t sound a thing like Spanish.
This can’t be happening! her mind yelled again, unable to get its ass in gear and come to terms with the harsh reality of her situation. It’s a nightmare. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, Maddy! Wake up!
“Move!” the man holding her hostage hissed in her ear. His breath smelled like something had up and died inside him. And that was better than any pinch to the arm, because even her wild imagination couldn’t have conjured up that stench. She wasn’t dreaming. This was happening. Which meant that all that darkness edging into her vision was real, all those prickling sensations along her nerve endings were genuine, and if she didn’t get some oxygen to her brain in about five seconds, she was going to pass out flat.
“Uhhhhh! Uhhhhh!” Her lungs worked to expand her ribs, even though her crippled neck refused to let one drop of life-sustaining oxygen through. But just as her vision tunneled down to a single dot, just as her legs began to crumple beneath her, her throat chose that exact moment to open itself up. Praise be to Jesus and all his followers! She sucked in a burning, desperate breath and was disgusted to discover that her captor’s rancid mouth wasn’t the only thing that could stand a good, solid scrubbing. The air around her was filled with the smell of tangy sweat and nauseating body odor. So strong she could almost taste it.
Who the hell are these men? Not Cubans. The man’s accent was decidedly…off.
Terrorists.
The idea bloomed in her mind like a poisonous flower, but she refused to pluck it. Terrorists? No, surely not. Surely she was just predisposed to labeling them as such because of all the stories in the news. Because why in the world would terrorists be floating in a dinghy out in the middle of the Florida Straits? It didn’t make a lick of sense! Though the racing of her heart and the throbbing of the blood in her brain told her that, sense or no sense, terrorists or no terrorists, she’d allowed her father’s yacht to be boarded by a group of very nasty men.
“Move!” the man behind her hissed again, his foul breath making her gag. And when he punched the barrel of his machine gun into her side, causing her to cry out, she was left with no recourse but to do as she was told.
Someone had replaced her kneecaps with jelly. Which didn’t do a damn thing to make her journey up the stairs to the back deck any easier, especially not with the man’s arm secured around her neck.
“Miss Madison?” Captain Harry’s posh accent drifted around the corner. “Do you want me to pack a box with foodstuffs, or would you prefer—”
“Run! Lock yourself in the engine room!” Maddy screamed. A sweaty hand clamped over her mouth, and her kidney took another blow from the barrel of her captor’s weapon.
Three of the gunmen raced passed her before Captain Harry could act on her shrieked instructions. They grabbed the captain by his arm and yanked him into view. Harry’s eyes popped out of his head and his face flashed florid when he realized a couple of brutal-looking machine guns were aimed under his jaw.
“How many more on boat?” the man behind her asked, removing his hand from her mouth to once more snake his hairy arm around her abused throat. She could taste the sweat clinging to her lips. The sweat and the grime. It took everything she had not to double over and retch like the time she was four and her mama had dosed her with ipecac after she’d gotten into the bathroom cleaner beneath the sink.
Instead, she gritted her teeth and shook her head, refusing to answer. Even though the Black Gold was a sturdily built ship, sound traveled far on the water. It was possible Nigel and Bruce had heard her scream and were, even at this moment, making their way to the engine room where they could lock themselves behind the heavy steel door and use the satellite phone down there to alert the authorities to their…er… she supposed this was a hijacking? And if that was the case, she was determined to give the two crewmen as much time as she could.
“How many!” the man bellowed, smacking her upside the head with the heel of his hand and causing stars to dance before her eyes. “Talk, bitch!” Bam! Another blow had the stars going supernova. The only thing that kept her from stumbling sideways was the fact that he had her in a choke hold.
“Two!” Captain Harry answered for her, his voice raspy and broken. “There are two belowdecks. Please don’t hurt her!”
More, Maddy couldn’t help but think. Hurt her more. Because she’d already sustained a blow to the throat and two to the head. The thought of suffering more abuse at the hands of these vile men should have filled her with paralyzing fear. But she’d often been accused, usually by her brothers, of having more balls than brains. Which meant the fear she should be feeling was replaced by boiling rage.