Now Dane had something that Max wanted more than anything—the identity of the person behind all this. His gut told him they would want Maurice Arnot alive. Which might increase the chances of Ava staying alive.
He knew Roper wouldn’t entertain the idea of replacing Ava with Dane as a hostage. There was only one reason the agent didn’t shove him out the harbormaster’s office on his ass: his intimate knowledge of the ship.
He looked hard at Max. “There’s someone else on that ship. The one you really want.”
Max frowned at him. “Who is it?”
“The chef. Arnot. That’s what she meant when she said she’d cook for me.”
To his credit, Max didn’t question the statement. “Spell it.”
One of the other agents started punching the letters into a laptop computer.
“Tell me everything you know about him,” Max ordered.
“Obviously, it’s not enough.” Dane sighed and ran a hand over his unshaven face. “Let me call and get his personnel file pulled up.”
“We got it right here,” the agent with the laptop told him. Then he hooted. “Maurice Chevalier Arnot? You kiddin’ me?”
An agent was pouring over the massive diagram of the ship. “There are only two entrances to the galley, Agent Roper, and we know from the satellite that’s where they are. They’re bound to have both entrances covered.”
Dane’s heart jumped. He grabbed the blueprint and yanked it toward Max.
“Look at this.” He dropped his finger over a small square on the commodore deck. “There’s an inside cabin right here that abuts the galley. You can’t see it from the blueprint, because it was a recent modification. You could cut right through and land smack in the middle of the galley. I’m not sure where on the wall of that cabin you would cut, but I’d know it”—he looked up and held Max’s interested gaze—“if I saw it.”
“Forget it, Erikson.”
“Listen to me!” Dane banged his hand on the blueprint. “You need me, Roper. They’ve got every light off and I can guide you through that ship blind. I’m sure your guys are pros, but I can get you in there faster. You’ve got less than an hour, for Christ’s sake.”
No one breathed as the two men stared at each other.
“Okay. You go. In safety gear. Get them to that cabin, Erikson, and then don’t leave it. I don’t care if the Virgin Mary is on board. You don’t move. You got that?”
Dane finally exhaled. Someone threw him a bullet-proof vest while Max spewed orders to his men. Code words and plans were communicated to the DEA and Coast Guard in the harbor. The operation would start in seven minutes. They’d travel silently by rowboat to the bow of the ship, and climb up the tender embarkation on the port side of the bowsprit.
Instinctively, Dane looked toward the sky for a sign as he walked in the moonlight down the wooden planks. A golden haze ringed the quarter moon, reminding him of the Viking god who sent the Valkyrie into battlefields to choose which fallen warriors would be taken to heaven. To light their way, Odin provided a gold moon and the strange glimmering lights known as the aurora borealis. Dane prayed to that god and any other one who would listen. Please don’t let this be a Ride of the Valkyrie. Please let her be safe.
Maurice shoved Ava against the galley doors, pushing her ahead of him. Behind them, Ricardo stood with an ominous-looking gun and a nasty expression on his face. They’d left Philippe in the far end of the galley, guarding the other entrance with his own menacing weapon.
She stumbled on the carpet of the dark dining room and grabbed a chair for support.
“Vite! N’arrêtez pas!” he shouted at her. “Do not stop!”
He pushed her forward and she banged her knuckles against the corner of a table, but ignored the pain. Her stomach rolled as Arnot propelled her up four flights of stairs. Her sweating palms slipped off the handrail.
On the moon-drenched upper deck, she saw a crazed and driven look in his eyes. He urged her toward the Zodiac that hung on the side, then whipped a small handgun out of his waistband and pointed it at her face.
“I’m not afraid to use this.”
She had no doubt of that.
He nodded toward the motorized rubber raft. “We’re taking a cruise, cherie. Take this down. Now. Do it fast and quietly or I will shoot you. Comprendez?”
“I—I thought you were going on a helicopter,” she stammered.
“They are.” He angled his head in the direction they’d come from. “They won’t get far and everyone knows it. But no one has missed me in St. Barts yet.”
“You don’t need me. Why don’t you just go?”
He glanced toward the small crafts surrounding the ship and laughed. “Swim right into the sharks, eh? Non, cherie. You are my insurance.”
“Then you will kill me like you killed Genevieve.”
He shrugged. “Ricardo killed her. I suspected her affection for her boss would eventually override her loyalty to us.”
Her affection for her boss? “What do you mean?”
“We set her up with false addresses, and sure enough, he showed up at one of them two hours after we hit Antigua.”
“You mean…that wasn’t really a transshipment point?”
He tapped the gun on the side of the raft. “Quickly! Get the pins out.”
Her heart dropped. The computer disk might be useless.
“I tried to warn you.” He sounded almost contrite.
Her fingers felt for the pin release as her gaze stayed on the gun. “The knife?”
“Philippe’s idea. He’d been following Dane all day in Guadeloupe. He knew he bought you a present, and of course, Monsieur Erikson’s fondness for sailing superstitions is well known. His other well-known fondness—pretty women—made me fairly certain where he’d end up sleeping that night.” He abruptly waved the gun. “Take the Zodiac down now. Pull the pins, it’s not difficult.”
Her hands shaking, Ava found the first pin that held the raft. She needed to slide it out of a metal clamp, but if she lifted the clamp itself, the Zodiac would unhook from its cable entirely and fall four stories to the water below
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned as though he could read her thoughts. “Release it and lower it down to the clipper deck and we’ll go down and get in.”
She could see the green and red lights of the boats bobbing around the harbor, all too far away to see them on the upper deck. Where was Dane? Was he out there?
“Are you going to jump, cherie? You’ll die if you do.”
She turned to him as she tugged hard on the release pin. His brown eyes looked sad and tired. “I’ll die if I don’t, won’t I, Maurice?”
He sighed. “You know, it is ironic, I suppose, that you will die the very same way your brother did.”
The pin clattered to the floor of the deck. “What?”
“On a launch. Escaping a doomed ship.”
She held on to the rubber raft for support. “What are you talking about? What happened on that ship?”
“It exploded, thanks to the complete stupidity of Jacques Basille. An idiot, I always—”
“It exploded? Then how will I die like Marco did?” It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Standing in the dark having a conversation with a madman didn’t make sense.
“He got on a Zodiac with Jacques.” At her gasp, he smiled sadly. “But, alas, he didn’t make it, cherie. Died in the hurricane when it hit Grenada.”
A bang shook the entire ship and she gasped and spun around. A series of loud explosions echoed through the night and Maurice viciously grabbed her hair and wrenched her toward the stairs. She stumbled and fell against him as he dragged her down the metal stairs, her shins crashing against the edges of each step. She frantically grabbed for the rail and prayed Arnot didn’t shoot her in panic.
He muttered something in French and yanked her down the length of the main deck. She couldn’t jerk away, his grip was so close to her skull. The only thing she could do was keep her head do
wn and try to stay on her feet as he pulled her toward the diving platform at the stern.
Another series of shots exploded in her ears, and she heard blood rushing in her head. For a split second she thought she’d been hit, but it was just the noise and the pain and the terror that burned a hole in her. He threw her onto the diving ramp and wrenched the small raft that hung there with his free hand.
“Take this down!” he demanded, waving the gun three inches from her face.
Her trembling hands were useless as the ropes slipped through her fingers. “I can’t do it!” she screamed.
He slapped the raft with the gun in anger, making Ava jump in terror, a shriek escaping her as she thought he’d fired.
“Shut up!” he hissed and whacked the gun again, his finger on the trigger. Then he stuck the barrel into her neck.
She squeezed her eyes closed, bracing for death.
Dane left his shoes in the rowboat, preferring to feel his way through his darkened ship. Crouched on bare feet, ready to leap, he watched five men pile through the hole they had just cut into the galley. They separated like a starburst, hunched and low, weapons drawn as they moved in twos to hunt their targets.
The last one out turned back to him.
“Don’t move,” he commanded Dane.
Dane nodded, aching to follow, needing to find her.
The last set of bold black letters that identified them as DEA disappeared and he closed his eyes and tucked his chin into his neck to listen, his own breath and heartbeat the only sounds he heard. Where was she? Where would Arnot hide her?
He flinched at the first gunshot and the shout that followed. He gripped either side of the makeshift opening and leaned his head toward the galley to hear. Another shot, then another.
“Perp down!” he heard one of the agents holler.
His shoulders touched the jagged drywall of the opening, his body battling with his brain, willing him toward her.
Three sharp gunshots rang through the galley and he heard a man cry out.
“No hostage here!” he heard Dombrowsky yell.
Screw Max Roper. He flung himself forward and felt the cool tile under his feet. Instinct took him to the back of the galley, to the storerooms. He ran, keeping his head down against the threat of a stray bullet until he saw the closed doors of the office and food storage. He threw his body at Arnot’s office door and it fell open.
“Ava!” he called into the dark.
Nothing.
The refrigerator door of cold storage popped open under his demanding pull. Nothing.
At the third door he kicked at the flimsy wood with his bare foot and the door practically flew off as he stumbled into the empty room, sweat nearly blinding him. He took a step forward, his gaze darting over the shelving units and an empty crate and suddenly something hard dug into his foot.
He bent down and picked up the pencillike thing. Makeup. It was some kind of makeup. He squeezed the pink stick so hard it snapped between his fingers.
Silently, he sprinted down the darkened hallway toward the aft stairs, mentally reviewing and dismissing every possible escape route from the ship. He had to find her. He had to save her.
He would not lose her.
Arnot’s only escape would be a raft. Unless he’d already gotten off on a Zodiac. He froze at a sudden sharp sound.
Slipping from shadow to shadow, he followed the path of the sound. Toward the stern, pausing every few steps to listen, he heard only the rigging clang and the soft lapping waves against the hull.
Then a thump and knock carried distinctly over the empty ship…from the diving ramp, he realized.
He moved toward it and heard a sharp smack that cracked through the night and a panicked shriek. Ava.
Arnot yanked the cold steel of the gun out from under her neck, a watery sensation of impending death running through Ava’s veins.
“Untie it!” he demanded, panic shaking his voice as he tugged at the rope on his side. He was going to kill her. This was it. She had nothing to lose by trying to escape. No, she corrected, she had everything to lose.
In the moonlight, she could see the water dancing about fifteen feet below. She remembered watching passengers dive merrily from this platform, enjoying the free fall sensation into the welcoming salty sea. The lock to the railing was just a foot behind her. It would just take a few seconds to reach back, flip the metal bolt, and slip out onto the diving platform. But if she turned to unlatch it, he’d see her. A few seconds would be too long.
“Vite! Vite!”
She made a show of working the rope. Who was on the receiving end of the gunshots she’d heard? Were they dead? Would someone come for her? The rope burned her fingers and she knew it was impossible. She’d never untie it.
One more time she glanced at the railing lock. She only needed to take three steps backward, reach for the bolt, and give it one good jerk. If she could just distract him. She stole a quick look at Maurice. He had stuck the gun under his arm to use both hands on his end. This was her chance.
She inched along the rail to the gate and looked down. A gasp caught in her throat as the gate swung open, her door to freedom.
“Jump, princess. Now.” Before she could even turn to look at Dane, he’d pushed her through the opening. Breath whooshed out of her as she spun in the air and slid into the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.
She willed herself up, back up to the light, kicking her legs as hard and fast as possible. She was alive! Alive! Was that the moon that washed the water with light? What was so bright? Just as she was certain her lungs would explode, she broke the surface and saw the brilliant lights of Nirvana coming on one after another. Pools of white and yellow spilled around her as every light on the ship was turned on and spotlights from every craft in the harbor illuminated the majestic vessel. She sank beneath the surface and kicked harder to stay above the water. Rubbing her eyes, she searched the towering masts and combed each deck until she saw a rope ladder snap into place from the diving platform she’d just escaped. Bathed in the brilliant artificial light, Dane attacked each rung with speed and breathtaking determination. Before he reached the bottom, he turned and dove in the water toward her.
She pushed at the sea with matching determination. Water smacked her face and she spit it out with each forceful stroke. By the time they found each other, she could only cling to his powerful shoulders and wrap her legs around his waist. Salty kisses covered her neck, her face, her panting mouth. Gasping for air, she gave into his will and let him swim for both of them.
16
D ane didn’t need a clock to tell him it was nearly midnight. The moon hung in the midnight quadrant of the sky, and his body ached from sleep deprivation. Still, he knew he’d never close his eyes until Ava slept soundly. He’d slipped on jeans and a T-shirt after a hot shower and when he’d passed her room, he heard her bathwater still running.
He considered a cognac, but decided he’d rather inhale the night air on the veranda and study his sky. Arnot was in custody and Basille would be as well, as soon as he got out of the hospital. Salazar was dead. He closed his eyes to relive the moments before he’d pushed Ava toward safety. The surprise kick in Arnot’s gut had been downright pleasurable. Maybe Roper’s job had its merits after all.
After he helped her back to the ship, Roper and company had poured over the CD Ava had found. Dane had been able to identify two other Utopia employees, both new and hired by Arnot. Genevieve’s list may have been bogus, but the disk contained enough information to keep Roper busy for the next few weeks.
All the way home in the backseat of a government-owned Moke, with Roper at the wheel, Ava kept up her refrain: Marco didn’t die on the ship. Dane hadn’t yet told her of his trip to Grenada, and Roper kept his mouth shut for once. He’d finally tell her now, and they could go back tomorrow morning and continue the quest together. If he had given her that option even two hours ago, she would have pestered him to leave immediately—soaking wet and bedraggled. He k
new her that well.
“Hey, sailor. You all alone?” The throaty, sexy voice seized his gut as he turned to her. Backlit by the soft light of the living room, with a white robe hugging her body and wet black waves falling around her face, she looked anything but bedraggled now. In fact, she looked amazing. Sultry. Beautiful.
He gripped the railing behind him and smiled. “Feel better?”
She nodded and took a few steps in his direction. “Can I join you?”
Erotic responses flooded his mind. She could join him anywhere and anyway she wanted. “Please do.”
He thought of his favorite corner, where an oversize rattan chaise lounge waited. He wanted to lay her under the stars and untie that robe and kiss her incredible body from top to bottom. Can I have you, Ava Santori? Can I love every inch of you?
“Would you like anything? A glass of wine?” he asked instead.
She shook her head. “No, it would kill me, I think.” With a sigh, she studied the stars while he drank in the beauty of her face. Fresh and clean, her ivory skin glowed in the soft light. She looked so pretty and feminine, yet so very strong. He stayed rooted to his spot at the railing, aching for her.
Then she looked at him, obviously aware of his scrutiny.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Let’s get this over with.”
His heart twisted. Get it over with? Is that what she thought of the possibility of making love?
“I want to go to St. George’s.”
He had to laugh. “I suspected as much.” Their minds were running on totally different tracks, and it was far safer to travel along hers than his. “I’ve already been there, though, and you shouldn’t harbor any hopes that Marco’s still alive.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. “You’ve been there? I thought that DEA guy said you were up in another part of the island.”
“When Jacques admitted that he’d left Marco in St. George’s, we went there briefly. I tried to find out…anything…but we had to come back to the ship.”