Midnight Sun (6 page)

"Is it clear?" she asked, her lips barely moving.

He shook his head. "Don't know who's in there. Is there a way we can listen in?"

She pushed loose strands of hair back from her face with stiff, impatient movements. "Do you think I designed this ship? I'm the chef."

He gritted his teeth. Just what they needed, to take their frustration out on each other. He squeezed her shin, scanning the area. End of the road.

"I'm going to go down and listen at the door."

"No!" The word came out loud enough to vibrate off the wall, and her hand clamped over his. "You'll get caught."

"No, I won't. I'll be careful." This time he drew his hand away, tired of being in the dark, of having to consider someone else when he was used to doing whatever he wanted.

"If they come out, or someone else comes down the hall, where will you go?"

He considered, every muscle in his body quivering with his need to do something, to find out what the hell these people wanted and how bad they wanted it. "Give me your master key card. I'll slip in the room next door."

She pulled the card out of her back pocket and held it out, then pulled it out of his reach. "I'm going with you."

He went rigid. "The hell you are.” But he thought about it a moment. He would feel better if she was in his sight. Though he'd hate himself if they got caught and she got hurt, or worse. He gave her a curt nod and turned away, leaving her with the key card.

He moved the panel again. Bracing his hands on the supports, he lowered his body through the opening, and landed in the hallway in a crouch, wincing at the thump. He straightened, looked around, then reached up to help her down. She lowered her legs through the opening, and he caught her around the knees, taking her weight against his chest when she released the ceiling.

"Put the tile in place," he grunted, and she scrambled to do so, balancing it on the tips of her fingers, then she slid down his body and stepped back.

She moved toward the door by the bridge, ready to slide the key card into the slot.

He grabbed her wrist. "How do we know no one is in there?" he asked.

She pulled the card away and stepped back. "We don't."

He took her place and pressed his ear against the door. He heard nothing. Still..."Get ready to run," he told her, plucking the key card from her hand and sliding it home.

The room they entered housed the servers for communication and navigation, and the hum of the machines made it impossible to hear any of the conversation on the bridge, or to communicate with each other any way other than with gestures. Brylie pointed to a vent above them, just a normal vent like you'd see in a house, sharing a wall with the bridge. Marcus climbed up on one of the metal shelves holding the black machinery and heaved himself up. There was a space between the walls, so he couldn't see directly into the bridge, couldn't see how many men were in there, or who they were, but he could hear their voices. Angry voices, loud, and foreign. Portuguese, maybe? What did they speak in Chile? Brazil was Portuguese, he knew that much.

He crouched down to Brylie. "You know languages?"

She shrugged. "A few words here and there. French, mostly. Some Spanish. Why?"

"Come up here and see if you can tell me what language this is."

Moving as lightly as he could, he hopped off the shelf and helped her take his place. She leaned close against the wall, trying as he had to see into the other room. Then she closed her eyes and listened carefully for a few moments, then lowered herself off the shelf, shaking her head.

"I can't be sure. It sounds like Spanish, but the accent is weird. I don't know."

He nodded. "So, from South America?"

"Maybe." Frustration etched lines on her face. "But this isn't doing us any good. We can't find out why they're here if we can't understand them."

"We're here to call for help," he reminded her. "We can still do that."

Her eyes widened. "How? We can’t just walk in there. And we don't even know how many are in there."

"A distraction. I'll make one, take off, and you go in there and call."

She was shaking her head before he was done. "No. No way. I can't."

"Sure you can." He rubbed his hand down her arm reassuringly. "I need you to do this, Brylie."

Panic constricted her features, making her eyes appear even bigger. "We'll give ourselves away. Right now they don't know we're here. If we do that, we'll lose the element of surprise."

She was right. Damn it. But was that more important than alerting authorities?

 “Right. Right.” He lowered himself to the floor and pulled his legs up in front of them, his elbows on his knees and dragged his hands down his face. Now what?

“We should find out where the others are,” she said.

He opened his eyes and looked into hers. She was probably right. The idea of crawling through that confined space again tightened his muscles. He wanted just a moment to catch his breath, gather his thoughts, and figure out how he could get to the radio.

Then Trinity’s innocent young face flashed in his mind and he had to move, had to do what he could to help her and the others. Hell, he was no hero. What did he think he could do?

Marcus wished they could just walk down the hall to their hiding place. Moving through the crawlspace took too long and was too limiting, and he had no idea where they were in relation to the kitchen. He wished they had a map or something. He didn’t like depending on Brylie to be in front—she was too vulnerable. But she knew the direction better, so he deferred to her.

She paused in front of a vent that illuminated her face in stripes and held up her hand, then lifted a finger to her lips, her gaze riveted on the other side of the grate. He wanted to see what she was seeing and edged up, but she scowled over her shoulder as he crowded her.

While he couldn’t see, he could hear the voices.

“All depends on you,” a man said in heavily accented English. “As long as you follow instructions, it will go easy on you.”

“What do you want?” Was that the captain’s voice? Relief weakened Marcus’s muscles. He hadn’t been gunned down on the deck. He reached for Brylie’s hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.

“We’ve contacted Devlin Excursions for ransom.”

Marcus heard the murmurs roll through the room before one man—he’d bet the asshole from his table last night, the one worried about the pirates in the first place—spoke up.

“How do you expect them to get the money to you without you being caught?”

“That is not your concern. Your concern is to follow the rules and stay alive.”

Finally Brylie must have sensed Marcus’s impatience because she edged forward to let him look through the vent. He was able to see a large part of the lounge, where dozens of the passengers sat in the low-backed chairs, wives close to husbands, the group of young adventurers looking defiant, but with fear lining their faces. Marcus had seen that look on rookie snowboarders at the top of the course. He hoped their defiance didn’t cause them to do anything stupid. He scanned the room for Trinity but didn’t see her, or the captain, either.

He wanted to stay and hear more, but Brylie was slithering down the vent, so he followed. When they were back in the kitchen, on top of the humming freezer, he saw she was crying, and shaking with it. Smart girl, she hadn’t wanted anyone to hear them. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, smoothing her hair, murmuring nonsense until she pushed away, turning her head and wiping at her tears with the heel of her hand.

“Was that your dad’s voice I heard?”

She nodded, still not looking at him. “I can’t believe they have him.”

“At least he’s safe.”

She nodded again, this one jerkier. “I thought they’d killed him.”

He didn’t know if he should tell her he thought so, too.

“They could still kill him,” she said on a shuddering breath.

“We’re not going to let that happen.”

“How can we stop it?” Her voice lifted in her panic.

He had to calm her. He needed her reasonable, and on his side, though he understood her meltdown and wished he could have one of his own. “I’ll find a way.”

Brylie shoved her hair back from her face and shook her head. Suddenly, she lifted her face to his, her expression bright, hopeful. “Wait. I think I know where there might be another radio, and it might be easier to get to than the bridge.”

His pulse jumped at the possibility. “Where?”

The engine room was hot and steamy, the narrow corridors making it difficult for Marcus to keep an eye on Brylie as she followed him. She’d wanted to lead, but this time he couldn’t risk it, not when a terrorist could be lurking down here. For a moment, he wondered what would happen if he managed disabled the ship in some way, but that was too drastic a step to take, yet. Who wanted to be stranded in the middle of the Southern Ocean without power? So he kept with the original plan—find a radio, call for help.

How long would it take help to reach them? Right, that was out of his control. Hell, everything here was out of his control. Usually control was an abstract concept for him—he sure didn’t have any over his temper. But he always had a piece of his life that he had a grip on. Maybe his home, maybe a girl, maybe his game, maybe his buddies.

Since Jon died, he felt a hell of a lot less in control.

At least they were able to walk down here. His knees and palms were already sore from crawling along metal brackets, and his back ached with the tension of remaining hunched over. He reached back for Brylie’s hand. She hesitated, then slid her hand into his. He squeezed, grateful for the contact, and continued down the corridor.

His heart jumped when he saw a phone, but she grabbed his wrist before he picked it up. She pointed at a plastic sign above it. “To the bridge.” Right. Wouldn’t want to let the baddies know they were hanging around down here.

Frustration tensed his shoulders as they continued, unable to find anything. Then she tugged at his hand and pulled him to the right, where she released his hand and hurried forward. He was about to grab her shoulder to stop her when she lifted two radios and turned to him, grinning.

Not radios, he realized, not what they were after, but walkie-talkies. For a moment he wondered at her excitement, but then he realized the options they had here. She handed him one and tucked the other in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

 “If we can get one to my father, we can know what’s going on.”

“You don’t think they’d notice him with a walkie?” He shook his head. “You keep one and I keep one.”

She scowled. “You’re going to bail, aren’t you?”

He had to admit, the idea of having some freedom, of not having to constantly worry about her, had appeal. But he doubted she’d go for him locking her away while he went exploring. “If we get separated, you know. If—one of us needs privacy and gets in trouble.”

She nodded and turned away, apparently in search of the real radio.

The noise down here made him nervous. No telling what lurked around the corner. Sure couldn’t hear someone coming up on you. And Brylie was making him nuts, because the more anxious she got, the quicker she moved, probably as glad as he was to be able to use her feet. He grabbed her arm and she jumped a foot, barely muffling her cry of alarm. Her eyes were huge when she looked back at him, then she sagged against him. He could feel her heart pounding.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “You were getting away from me.”

His meaning took a moment to sink in, then she nodded and let him move ahead.

They didn’t find a radio, or a sat phone, and returned to the freezer alcove empty-handed.

Brylie felt guilty eating when she didn’t think the hostages had been fed, so she merely nibbled the packet of fruit snacks Marcus tossed her way.

“Eat up,” he advised. “You’re the one that told me we need more calories because it’s cold.”

“It’s not cold here,” she muttered stubbornly, hunched against the wall.

But they were safe, and that made her feel more guilty than eating. She would be with the others if she’d been at her post instead of in bed with Marcus. So she had to make sure she did something to help those in the lounge.

Sitting in here was making her antsy, and she could tell it was doing the same to Marcus. He hadn’t stayed in the same position for more than two minutes. Yes, it wasn’t exactly comfortable up here, but his fidgeting made her uneasy.

“I’m going to see what’s going on. Is there any way to get topside from here?”

She widened her eyes. “Topside? You’re not dressed to go out.”

“I’m not going to be out for long,” he said, his tone tight. “And I’m used to the cold. Snowboarder, remember? Look, I just want to have a look at their ship, see if I can get an idea how many there are. I won’t be gone long. We have the walkies.” He pulled his out, set it to a channel to match hers. “I’ll be back.”

“Then I’m going to the lounge and see what’s going on there.” He didn’t expect her to just sit here, did he?

He shook his head. “If I get in trouble and need to call you, they’ll hear the walkie and you’ll get caught. Just—wait here. I won’t be long, I promise.”

“Wait!”

He turned, impatience lining his face.

“Take this.” She shoved the master key card at him. “Just in case.”

He took it and nodded. “Good thinking. Thanks.” Without waiting for her to give him directions, he disappeared into the vent.

Once he’d gotten some distance from her, he got tired of crawling around on his hands and knees. Yeah, he could get caught, but he was smart and he was quick. And he needed to think. Not that Brylie was a distraction, really, but worrying about her—that was out of the ordinary. As long as he was worried about her, he couldn’t make decisions.

Glancing around the corridor, he headed toward the door that led onto the deck on the third level. He exited on the opposite side from the other ship, afraid someone was watching from the pirates’ vessel and would see his movement. That would be bad. He slipped out, and the wind from the ocean almost stole his breath. Brylie was right. He wasn’t dressed for this. But he was going nuts locked up in there. He wedged the door open and kept it from closing again with a fire extinguisher. Then he crept along the edge of the ship—Jesus, it was cold—and rounded the corner to look at the other craft.