In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(9)
Good luck with that one, man.
When it came to Becky, the old adage, “what you see is what you get,” was blown to smithereens. The woman was like a kaleidoscope. Never the same, always changing, and always surprising you with her brilliance.
“They know she’s a crackerjack mechanic because piracy is a big, profitable, highly technical business,” Frank explained. “Those malnourished guys you see on TV are just the grunts, the expendables. They’re the hired guns brought in to do the dangerous dirty work. Behind them are highly intelligent, well-organized, well-cloaked entities with as much access to information as you or me. I’m sure within ten minutes of them finding Becky and Eve’s passports, whoever was in charge knew everything there was to know about the women, right down to their Social Security numbers and bra sizes.”
34B in Becky’s case.
And no, he hadn’t gone rummaging around in the girl’s…damnit!…woman’s lingerie drawer. He’d been doing a load of laundry in one of the two washing machines back at the Black Knights’ compound when he’d come across a rather titillating, pink peekaboo lace number wrapped around the base of the washer’s oscillating drum. He’d just happened to see the size on the tag as he’d unwound the scrap of lace, and yeah, he could admit, for a brief second, he’d thought about shoving it in the pocket of his jeans and keeping it as a sort of perverse souvenir. Thankfully, sanity quickly surfaced, and he simply hung it over the knob of an overhead cabinet.
But dear Lord, that he even considered doing otherwise was disconcerting.
“Dear Lord,” Patterson breathed, “that’s disconcerting.”
Whoa. What?
Frank glanced around, afraid he’d been thinking out loud, but no, no one was looking at him like he’d been eating pervert sandwiches for lunch. So uh, what had they been discussing? Oh yes, the pirates’ incredibly disturbing ability to gather information.
“And then some,” he agreed, brushing aside the memory of that slip of pink lace as the weight of Becky’s predicament once more settled heavily on his shoulders. That weight would crush him if he let it. And the thought of losing her…he shuddered. “I’m assuming those are the tanker’s schematics in your hand,” he gestured with a jerk of his chin toward the long plastic tube in the commander’s fist.
“Affirmative.” Commander Patterson handed over the documents.
“Were you able to glean anything else from the last fly-over footage?” he asked as he popped the top on the plastic tube and slid the schematics onto the table.
He glanced up when the commander didn’t immediately respond. The man was chewing on the side of his cheek in what appeared to be an attempt to keep from grinning.
“What?” he growled. “What’s she written this time?”
The commander lifted a fist to his mouth and democratically cleared his throat. “The footage shows she’d written, For the love of God, would you guys hurry the hell up already?”
“Well, at least we know this little experience isn’t adversely affecting her attitude,” Bill chuckled.
That was Becky, all right. Two tons of unpredictable TNT packed in one small package…and he nearly crumpled from the hard rush of relief that flooded through him at the sound of those terribly Becky-like words.
That-a-girl, he thought and took a deep, steadying breath before motioning his men closer. “Okay, gentlemen, it looks like we’ve got a tanker to appropriate.”
***
Pirate was never a position Becky thought to add to her résumé but, as usual, her life was chockablock full of surprises.
The man who’d come aboard was not their rescuer, as Eve had foolishly hoped. Oh no. Although he was taller and older than the other pirates, superbly well-dressed, impeccably groomed, and spoke excellent English with the slightly haughty air that came with any British accent, he was still just a pirate. He’d introduced himself as Sharif—no last name—the interpreter.
“I worked for the United Nations,” he explained shortly after coming aboard, “before I came into this business. Now I’m an interpreter.”
“What business?” she snorted with derision, crossing her arms over her chest and eyeing his freshly laundered clothes with a mixture of jealously and contempt. “Last I checked, piracy is an international crime, not a business. Which doesn’t make you an interpreter, it makes you a blackmailer at best and an extortionist at worst.”
Sharif just laughed, the sound low and rolling. Cultured was perhaps the right way to describe it. It made Becky’s skin crawl. “I interpret for nine gangs, all of whom work independently for the same boss. Sounds quite like a business to me. A very lucrative one at that.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and placed a comforting hand on Eve’s shoulder. When it became obvious Sharif was not there to rescue them, her poor friend deflated like a popped birthday balloon.
“I don’t care what you think of me, Miss Reichert,” Sharif replied, dropping the t on the end of her name. “All I care about is that you know how to repair engines.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So we’re putting off your trip to Somalia,” he declared, and her heart filled with hope and started floating somewhere above her head. The Knights, many of them ex–Navy SEALs, were straight-up badasses when it came to work in the water. The longer she kept herself off dry land, the easier it would be for her guys to facilitate a rescue.