Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(61)
He grabbed Nigel’s collar while Mason, the sorry sonofabitch—Bran still hadn’t quite forgiven him for that stunt he’d pulled earlier—took hold of the other dude. Together they scooted the men along the deck until they were flush with the main cabin and in the soothing cool of the shadow it cast.
Mission of mercy complete, Bran said, “Let’s double-time it up to the bridge.”
The three of them opened the forward door to the living quarters. Crouched low, their fingers on their triggers, they advanced while checking left, right, and center. As they crossed the big, central room with its plush furniture, gargantuan-screen TV, and expensive-looking art, Bran resisted the urge to whistle.
So this is how the other half lives?
He couldn’t imagine it. Although ever since he’d come down with the treasure-hunting bug, he’d been trying his best to do just that. All of them had big plans for their share of the loot. Important plans. But sayonara and see you later to that little dream. Because without a salvage ship, it would be impossible to locate the remains of the Santa Cristina. And even if they pooled the limited funds they had left and combined them with the half-mil Olivia was paying them, they still wouldn’t have one-fifth of what it would take to replace Wayfarer-I.
Clusterf*ck…a motherfriggin’ clusterf*ck if ever there was one.
But he’d have to worry later about what he now planned to do for the rest of his life. Because the three of them were at the stairs leading up to the bridge. And this is where it got tricky. Hallways and alleys weren’t called fatal funnels for nothing. If whoever was at the top of those stairs decided to throw open the door and start spraying lead, there wasn’t much they could do to protect themselves. The usual duck-and-cover wasn’t an option. Well…the ducking part could still be accomplished, but the only cover available was each other. And that thought sucked so hard he decided to name it Hoover.
“Stay frosty, boys,” he whispered softly, his senses on high alert. Taking the lead, he saw the muzzle of Mason’s rifle appear in his peripheral vision. Once again, Wolf was bringing up the rear, watching their backs so they didn’t have to keep their heads on a swivel. As a group they advanced, slowly, steadily. Then the sound of a thickly accented voice shouting, “Move boat or I shoot!” necessitated they pick up the pace.
“Go, go, go!” Bran commanded, and the three of them raced up the stairs. Throwing open the door and looking down the sight on his rifle, he took in the scene in an instant. A gray-haired man wearing a captain’s uniform—Tripplehorn, no doubt—stood at the controls, his ankles shackled together by a neon-green zip tie.
A blond-haired boy in a navy-blue bathrobe was on his knees near the captain’s feet, hands and feet cuffed by more zip ties, the yawning black mouth of the terrorist’s AK-47 leveled at his temple. Maddy Powers? Must be the son of the oil tycoon. As for the terrorist himself? He looked like a cannoli full of crazy when his dark gaze shot up upon their entry, his mouth morphing into a ghoulish sneer.
Bran had seen that expression a hundred times on the faces of fanatics. It was devoid of reason, devoid of humanity, and completely devoid of mercy. This guy was outnumbered and outgunned. But instead of throwing down his weapon and giving up, he was itching to take the captain and the kid with him while he chose suicide by SEAL. Goddamnit all to hell.
The world around Bran disappeared, his entire focus squeezing down to a two-foot-by-two-foot area that was the tango’s head and torso. His finger tightened on his trigger as he automatically ran through the five S’s: slow, smooth, straight, steady, squeeze. But the boy must’ve come to the same conclusion about the terrorist’s intent, because with a banshee cry, he rammed his head into the terrorist’s crotch. It gave Bran just the opening he needed. As soon as the barrel of the Kalashnikov was no longer pointing at the kid’s face, he squeezed off a round that echoed around the well-appointed bridge like a cannon shot, rattling the windows and making his ears pop. It hit the rat bastard just above his left eye-socket.
Even though the movies got most things wrong in portraying gunshot victims—for instance, a body very rarely flew backward upon impact—one thing they got right was what happened to a human skull when it was introduced to a 5.56mm NATO round. Blood and gray matter splattered onto the bridge’s port-side window in a macabre mess, and the tango crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, his knees simply folding beneath his lifeless body and his arms falling wide. The AK-47 clattered on the polished hardwood floor and slid to a stop against the bulkhead.
It all happened in under three seconds.
Bran lowered his weapon, the world snapping back into focus as he drew in a deep breath, clocked his heart rate and breathing, and advanced into the room. Mason and Wolf continued to draw down on the scene, ever ready, ever steady.
He’d made it two steps in when he realized the boy wasn’t a boy at all, but a diminutive woman. His first clue was the hot-pink panties—after head-butting the terrorist, and with her wrists tied behind her back, her forward momentum meant she’d ended up face-first on the floor, her bottom thrust into the air, the hem of her robe pooling around her waist. His second clue was the shape of her plump ass. Seriously, it was the type of heart-shaped butt worthy of worship by native peoples.
The third clue was her voice, all cute and girly. Of course, her words were anything but. “Jesus Christ and all his followers! Quit starin’ at my ass and help me up, would you?” She rolled onto her side. “This guy stunk like buzzard bait before he was dead. Lord help me if I get a snoot full of what he smells like now. We’ll have more than blood and brains to clean up, if you catch my drift.”