kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) (30 page)

The former boat was now nothing but a fiberglass shell, partitioned into several smaller spaces inside—what used to be cabins. Archer slipped around one of these walls and stepped up into ankle-deep water. Hearing the thrum of the waverunner’s engine start up, Archer ducked below an open air window. The waverunner’s operator began to circle the wreck not more than a few yards away, like a shark honing in on its prey.

Archer cautiously exposed one eye enough to peer out of the window. He couldn’t see the waverunner, but could hear its motor revving and fading as the kidnappers picked a careful course through the maze of corals around the wreck. But it was what he could see that shocked Archer.

The
Nahoa
—his seagoing cell. Its fun-loving exterior belied the fact that inside it had been converted to a high-tech industrial prison complex. Floating all around the yacht were a collection of water toys, including the orca float Archer had bounced off on his way into the water. But there was also a mini-island, complete with fake palm tree, and ringed with cup holders, one of which held the beverage that belonged to one of the kidnappers reclining under the tree, apparently without a care in the world. A yellow tow-banana trailed off the stern, presently unoccupied. On the yacht itself, prominently lashed above the perimeter deck, were a clutch of surfboards, bodyboards, and snorkel gear. Two small jet-skis sat on the stern deck platform, while a couple of fishing rods rested in rod holders on either rail.

Archer muttered to himself in disbelief. He seethed as he took in the charade. There was no way anyone would look twice at this boat in a place like this (wherever
this
was), he knew. Even the area he had blown up had already been covered by a yellow rubber raft, carefully arranged to appear casually stacked there.

It worried Archer that his kidnappers were carrying out such an elaborate ruse. And effective, too, he noted, watching a crewmember dance to a reggae tune with his arms in the air atop the upper cabin deck. What a party cruise!

The waverunner engine suddenly stopped. Archer retreated from the window. He had seen enough. He struggled to contain his anger as he heard the two kidnappers conferring in hushed voices. Then one of them spoke loudly.

“Doctor Archer: we know you are inside the wreck. There is nowhere to go from here. Please come back with us to the ship.”

Archer could hear wet footsteps. Then the machine started up once more, resuming its circular path around the wreck.

One of the waverunner’s passengers had jumped off.

Now that he knew to listen for it, Archer could hear the sound of feet sloshing through the shallow water around the wreck. One of the kidnappers was approaching. From the regularity of his steps, there was no doubt the man wore boots or water shoes of some kind. Archer crouched behind a partition so that he would not be immediately visible to anyone approaching the wreck’s main entry point. Then a voice almost made him jump.

“Doctor Archer, please come out peaceably. I’ve got a silenced pistol, and if I have to I have orders to shoot out both of your kneecaps to keep you from escaping. I will not kill you because we still have important work to do. Doctor Archer?” The footsteps stopped.

The waverunner’s idling engine and the lapping of waves against the wreck were the only sounds as Archer processed this new information. Not only what the man had said, but how far away he had sounded, from which direction, and the undeniable undercurrent of anger in the voice. Archer hefted the chunk of coral in his right hand, finding comfort in its weight.

Then the footsteps resumed. Toward the wreck entrance. The assailant was only yards away now. Archer hunkered down behind the interior wall.

A long shadow was cast on the inside of the wreck as the kidnapper stepped inside. From his position behind the wall, Archer couldn’t yet see the man himself. He heard the waverunner’s engine stop and he heard the man inside the wreck walk away from him—toward the stern.

Slowly, carefully, Archer rose from his crouched position without making a sound. His K&R trainer’s voice, Scottish accent, echoed in his head:
If you are forced to consider an escape, remember that it’s about being able to first recognize a situation that is advantageous to you—relative to your average situation—and then to rapidly determine the best course of action to capitalize on that advantage, and finally, to swiftly and decisively execute that plan. Recognize, determine, and execute. Sometimes this entire process may take weeks. Others, only minutes.

Recognize
. Right now Archer recognized that he was in a situation where he faced considerably better odds of escaping than when on the ship. He was one on one with an attacker, and he was semi-armed. That was as good as it was going to get. Soon, he realized, hearing the waverunner start up once more and approach the wreck—it would be two on one, and maybe even more than that.

Determine
. Archer’s mind went into overdrive as he considered his best course of action. For an instant he considered stepping out from behind the partition and hurling the coral chunk at the kidnapper’s head, then charging at him, but he checked the impulse. Better to wait for the kidnapper to come to him. He needed a close-contact fight. Were he to show himself from ten feet away, the gun would take care of him.

But after the kidnapper scoured the stern end of the boat, he would know he was up here somewhere. No doubt the man on the waverunner was watching to make sure he didn’t make a run for it over the reef. Still…the man inside wouldn’t know exactly where he was; there were at least two more partitions, farther up toward the bow. He could be behind either of those. The stalker wouldn’t be expecting his prey to leap out from behind the first one.

Execute
. Archer took a deep but quiet breath. One more, wanting his system to be well oxygenated for what he was about to do. He heard the splattery footsteps approach his end of the wreck. He clutched the coral in his right hand.

The kidnapper walked slowly toward Archer’s partition. Archer first saw the extra-long barrel of the man’s gun. Archer noted that it was indeed fitted with a silencer. His hunter was holding it out in front of him, in two hands, as he walked.

In that instant the scientist was keenly aware of everything in his surroundings—the rays of sunlight piercing the gloomy interior of the wreck, the muffled sound of the waverunner’s idling engine outside, the sound the water made as the gunman sloshed ahead through the wreck, his own breathing…

Archer sprung his large frame into action.

His left hand hammered down on the gun while his right slammed the hunk of coral into the side of the gunman’s head. The assailant dropped to the ground but somehow held onto the gun. The coral fell from Archer’s hand as he went down with the gunman, grappling for the pistol.

Archer wrapped both of his hands around the gun and began to yank it around violently. The gunman tried to head butt Archer, but the fleeing captive saw it coming and jerked his head to one side just in time. A volley of blood flew off the side of the gunman’s face with his aggressive head movement, some of it spattering across Archer’s neck. The coral had done its work.

The two men wrestled on the floor of the wreck for a few more seconds until Archer managed to get up on his knees. A small blacktip reef shark slithered its way past the fighters, its quiet resting place inside the wreck having been invaded. Archer much preferred the shark to the man. He used his opponent to push off of, rising to his feet while still wrestling with the pistol.

The kidnapper, still in a sitting position, wrenched his hand away from Archer’s. Archer saw him start to wave the gun toward him. The geneticist brought his foot up with full force into the man’s elbow. The gunman grunted in pain and the pistol went flying...

...Through an open hatch in the ceiling. They couldn’t hear it land. Archer had no time to even wonder if the waverunner driver saw it go flying out. The kidnapper was lunging for his waist, but he didn’t care. Archer grabbed the man’s hair with both hands and dragged him up until he could shove him against a bulkhead.

That was when Archer felt the steel blade against the small of his back, reminding him: the scissors.

He snatched the scissors out from his shorts, waving them at the kidnapper, who was wiping blood out of his left eye.

Then a voice came from outside—the waverunner driver—speaking in Chinese. Archer’s opponent uttered a couple of syllables before Archer slashed with the scissors.

Missed.

The kidnapper latched onto his forearm, moving his arm up and down in an attempt to slash Archer with his own weapon. Archer put his right leg behind the attacker’s left ankle. Pushed as hard as he could, sending the man sprawling into the partition. Archer was on top of him in a flash.

The only thing he would be able to recall after that is repeatedly slamming the kidnapper’s face into the bulkhead. The man’s nose was obliterated, and he was bleating like a goat or something, unable to form coherent words as Archer dragged his face back and forth across the barnacle encrusted hull.

Archer knew he should stop—that the man was no longer a threat, but the anger, rage and frustration of being held captive and tortured for months on end while these people sought to rob him of his most valuable asset was too much, and he lost it.

“You stupid idiot,” Archer rasped, sawing the man’s face into a jagged fiberglass edge. “You goddamn piece of—”

He tore the man’s head backward to look him in the eyes. His nose was practically missing, loose chunks of flesh riding a river of blood literally falling out of his face. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Archer knew that this was no longer a fight—it was murder.

But he had snapped. These men had tried to exploit him for his mind, but now that same mind proved itself as effective at self-preservation as it had at applied science.

Only the sound of approaching footsteps made him drop the kidnapper’s limp body. He hastily patted the man down, searching for any item of value. He found nothing, and was about to start moving when his gaze stopped at the nearly dead man’s feet. Thick-soled neoprene boots.

Archer unzipped them, ripping them off the now comatose man’s feet. He quickly pulled them on while he heard the second kidnapper approach cautiously from the same entrance Archer himself had used. Archer dared take a couple of seconds to look and feel around the water sloshing about his feet for the scissors, but he couldn’t find them.

Archer scuttled like one of the crabs he shared the wreck with toward the bow, passing out of sight behind a second partition. Behind him, the second kidnapper stepped into the wreck.

As Archer stepped around a third partition, higher up toward the bow, he was surprised to see some litter—an old Hana Bay rum bottle, some beer cans, a broken fishing rod. He continued past it on his way up to the bow, where a fat shaft of sunlight cascaded down.

An opening.

Archer reached the forward berth, crawling now on his hands and knees to avoid falling back into the belly of the wreck. He could hear the newly arrived kidnapper stepping through the old boat now. Then he heard him speaking in Chinese, the words unfamiliar, but not the shock and bewilderment in the voice. He had found his fallen associate.

Archer moved on. Toward the light. He reached the top and saw that he could fit out of the open hatch, the hatch cover long since removed.

The splashy footfalls from below became quicker. Archer hauled his big body through the open hatch, kicking off the berth seat. He emerged into a world of dazzling sunlight on top of the wreck.

He looked around. Same crowded beach in the distance. A few swimmers and various ocean users here and there, none of them paying attention to the action playing out on the wreck. In the other direction was the
Nahoa
, lying peacefully at anchor.

And there, two O’clock from the bow, sat the waverunner, bobbing unattended in a few inches of water.

Keys in the ignition.

Archer heard the spat of a silenced pistol and felt a thud somewhere below him. He looked back at the
Nahoa
and saw the man who had been dancing on the sundeck pointing at him.

Archer leapt from the bow toward the waverunner, aiming for a patch of water that didn’t feature any exposed coral. He knew the water wasn’t nearly as deep as he wanted it to be, but he made the best of it by spreading his body as flat as possible to avoid sinking like a stone when he hit.

He landed from an eight foot drop into about six inches of water, on his right side. He grunted with the impact, but immediately got to his feet. The waverunner was only ten feet away. Men from the
Nahoa
were shouting, and inside the wreck he could hear the gunman skip-hopping back toward the entrance.

Archer’s right foot landed in an unexpected sandy depression and down he went, fortunate not to have twisted the ankle. For a split second before he regained his feet, Archer saw his reflection in the water: his beard matted with blood (his own?), cuts and scrapes decorating much of his face. He flashed on the man he had likely just killed. Not long ago Archer had been a respected scientist. What had he become?

And then he was running again, grabbing hold of the waverunner’s handlebar. Straddling its seat.

He’d ridden them before, infrequently. There had been one on the
Tropic Sequence
for use as quick shore transport as well as recreation. Archer heard the gunman emerging from the wreck, but his pursuer was too late.

Archer revved the engine, put the waverunner into gear and zoomed off toward the beach.

…TTGC
55
GAAA …

2:17 P.M.

The helicopter skimmed a hundred feet above the waves as they scoured the water for yachts. So far they hadn’t seen any. Pilot Rob Tanner pointed as the coast of east Kauai came into view, a green jewel on a blue sea.

“Lihue Airport’s just below the middle there,” he said. Tara nodded.

“We’ve been there,” she said, flashing on their Kauai adventure—and their horrific find inside the
Tropic Sequence—
only two days ago. Then she aimed her binoculars at a ship heading for the coastline. “Cargo ship,” she said out from under the glasses.