In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(11)
And it all happened in about two seconds flat.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she hated to admit it, but they were good.
Threading an unsteady arm around Eve’s trembling shoulders, she used the sturdy mast to pull the two of them upright as the catamaran rocked and bounced against the side of the immense tanker. The smell of diesel from the Serendipity’s steaming engines mixed with the metallic scent of the Hamilton’s wet steel hull, making her eyes water.
Surely, that was the cause for her tears and not the sheer terror she’d just experienced.
Uh-huh. Right.
“Are you okay?” she asked once they were both standing on the undulating deck, dripping wet and shaking like leaves. When Eve glanced up at her and saw the bright tears in her eyes, the woman’s face started to crumple.
Okay, you gotta pull it together for Eve’s sake, Reichert. She quickly brushed a hand over her cheeks and pasted on a wicked grin.
“Boy howdy!” she slapped Eve on the back and feigned bravado, “that was one hell of ride, wasn’t it?”
Eve swallowed convulsively. “Cheese and rice, they’re completely crazy.”
“Ya think?” she grunted scornfully as she tried to slow her racing heart. Glancing down, she grimaced and pointed at her friend’s bleeding knees, which Eve obviously received courtesy of the stupid pirates’ Wild-West boat piloting tactics. “Those look painful. Are you sure you’re all right?”
Eve didn’t get a chance to respond when Sharif appeared behind them, shoving a menacing black Glock 19 at the back of Becky’s head. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the ropes dangling down the massive gray hull of the Hamilton and handed her a shiny, new rock-climbing harness. The thing still had a price tag attached to one strap.
Ol’ Sharif obviously planned ahead and came fully equipped for this little endeavor.
“Start climbing,” he barked. “You’ve got work to do.”
She craned her head back, way back, to squint up at the Hamilton’s railing.
Cheese and rice.
Eve certainly had that part right.
Chapter Three
Ten hours later…
“You sure you know how to handle this equipment?” Boss asked Angel as Bill rechecked the fuel gauges on his DPV—diver propulsion vehicle—and then went back to his book, concentrating on the Joad family and their trek west on Route 66.
The reading helped…
Scratch that. The reading usually helped. He stifled a groan, rubbed at his burning belly, and turned his back on Angel and Boss in order to take a quick chug of Pepto-Bismol.
The three of them were alone down on the USS Patton’s lowest deck, waiting for Captain Garcia to divert the attention of his crew, so they could open the aft doors without detection. Then they’d plunge down into the deep blue and really get this party started.
“This gear is technical and highly specialized,” Boss growled. “The last thing we need once we get out in the water is for you to f*ck up.”
“It’s no problem,” Angel reassured him as Bill covertly re-pocketed the bottle of pink medicine and glanced over the top of his worn copy of The Grapes of Wrath. He watched Angel flick up the neck on his wet suit and reach behind his head for the cord on the zipper. The Israeli gave it the kind of hard yank that all divers developed over the years.
Well, at least it appears the guy has been in a wet suit before. That’s something.
“You’re certain?” Boss pressed, his deep voice booming around the cavernous space. “Because you gotta be one-f*cking-hundred-percent certain about this, man.”
Boss stood with his hands on his hips, scowling at Angel as if his will alone could compel the guy to tell him the unfettered truth.
To be quite honest, Bill figured it could. There was nothing scarier, in his way of thinking, than Boss. And when the guy towered like that, all 6’4” of mammoth shoulders and bulging biceps, it made a man hesitate to utter anything but the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.
“I know what I’m doing.” Angel met Boss’s hard glare with one of his own. “I will not fail you or Becky. I might not have been around her long before she left for this vacation, but it was long enough. I will give my life for her if needed.”
That surprised Boss. His chin jerked back on his neck like someone just popped him a five-finger sandwich.
Bill didn’t share the big man’s astonishment. His kid sister just had a way about her. All most folks needed was ten minutes in Becky’s lively company, and they either wanted to date her, adopt her, or be her new best friend.
He did, however, wonder which category Angel fell into…
Boss hesitated for a second, searching for something in the new guy’s eyes. Whatever he was looking for, he must’ve found it, because he grunted his approval and turned toward Bill. “You ready for this?”
Uh, sort of?
But that wasn’t the answer Boss was looking for, so he hardened his expression and gave a curt nod instead.
“Of course you are, you sonofabitch,” Boss chuckled, the sound reminiscent of the rumbling purr Bill’s beloved Harley made once he got the beast out on the open road. “Look at you,” Boss shook his shaggy head, “cool as a f*cking cucumber.”
Cool as a cucumber…