Seized (Hostage Rescue Team Series, #7) (24 page)

Lighting her and the others up with a natural spotlight.

She didn’t dare stop, didn’t look back to see if Wira had made it out of the theater yet. To her left others had already fled out the main double doors at the center of the theater, somehow having escaped the deadly hail of bullets. Behind her, the deafening roar of more gunfire and the blood-curdling screams of the victims told her people were being slaughtered.

Her legs felt like rubber and she was already panting for breath. When the hallway narrowed people slammed into her from all directions, bounced off and around her as they shoved and jostled for an escape route, panic a living thing that crackled through the crowd of fleeing hostages.

Go, go, faster,
she urged herself, shoving through a knot of passengers stuck in a narrow passageway between the theater entrance and the casino. A spray of bullets thudded into the roof and walls above her, raining pieces of the ceiling down on them.

Close behind her people screamed in agony. Her lungs seized.

With a strength borne of desperation she forced her way through the mass of people, the fingers of her right hand like claws in her mother’s sleeve. As soon as she’d dragged them through the restriction and popped into the clear again, she put her head down and ran, her muscles straining to keep her mom with her.

Seconds later someone raced up beside her. On instinct she turned to swing an elbow at them but stopped when a familiar male voice reached her.

“Where are you going? We can’t go up or down, they’ll be watching the stairs!” he shouted.

Jenny’s father.

Without slowing she risked a glance over at him, saw the little girl clinging to his neck and felt a surge of relief that both were still okay. “To the bow.” As fucking far away from the gunmen as she could get, until she could find a place to hide. The ship was huge, there had to be a place they could hide in and wait for rescue.

There is no safe place
, the panicked voice in her mind shouted.

Fuck that
, she thought savagely.
There has to be a way
.

The herd of panicked passengers thundered behind her, the sound of the gunfire sharp in her ears. Veering hard to the right when she reached the amidships corridor, she raced for the first door she came to and yanked on the handle.

Locked.

Her mother ran ahead and tried another door. “It won’t open!” she cried, her voice barely audible over the noise of the frightened crowd surging toward them.

“Keep going!” Swallowing a sob of desperation, shaking all over, Carmela spun and raced for the bow, away from the gunmen chasing them and prayed it would be enough to save them.

She raced ahead of her mother and tried another door handle. Locked. Behind her more terrified cries rang out, along with another burst of fire. It sounded like it was coming from the left but Carmela instinctively flinched and ducked anyway, then frantically ran to the next door. And the next. And the next—

It opened.

Whipping around, she grabbed her mother’s arm and towed her into what appeared to be a small storage closet. The man rushed inside as well, Jenny safe in his arms, jamming Carmela up against something hard enough that the breath whooshed out of her. He slammed the door shut behind them and turned the deadbolt on the inside, locking them in.

And everyone else, out.

They were all wedged together so tight there was no room to turn around. Even though it was pitch dark inside Carmela closed her eyes and covered her ears in an attempt to block out the sound of people banging their fists against the door, trying to break inside, their panicked shouts begging to be let in.

Her mother’s fingers dug into Carmela’s waist like claws as they stood there panting in the darkness. She gritted her teeth and tried futilely to hold back the tears that spilled down her cheeks, praying the gunmen wouldn’t find them.

––––––––

D
own the hall from the engine room Sawyer fired twice, hitting another militant coming out of the crew quarters while Bauer took out the next. Another stuck the muzzle of his weapon out the doorway and began spraying bullets wildly.

Sawyer dropped to a crouch behind Bauer as the bullets zinged past, burying into the wall and floor. Behind them, Tuck and the rest of the guys were engaged with the tangos holed up in the engine room.

Through the noise of gunfire, the SEAL platoon leader’s voice suddenly came over their comms. “Bridge secure, but all hell’s breaking loose down on the lower promenade deck. Main body of tangos and their leader are executing hostages at random in the theater, pushing them toward the bow. We’re heading down to intercept now.”

The words made Sawyer’s blood pressure plummet even as he took aim and shot the next militant to exit the crew quarters.
Carmela
. God, were her and her mom two of the passengers trapped up there by those assholes?

Simultaneous waves of rage and protectiveness surged through him. He wanted to charge up there
now
, and kill every last one of those bastards. Only the ingrained discipline from years of rigorous training and his commitment to the team kept him from acting on it.

“Heavy resistance from unknown number of tangos down near the engine room,” Tuck replied to the SEAL in between measured shots.

“Suspect we just questioned said more are headed your way.”

Shit. Sawyer didn’t know if they could hold off another wave of attackers. He shifted the butt of his rifle against his right shoulder. The burn in it was getting worse and these assholes showed no sign of letting up anytime soon. There had to be dozens of them, maybe more.

“Get clear and rendezvous on the lower promenade deck. We’ve gotta corner the bastards before they can get into a lifeboat,” the SEAL ordered.

“Roger that.” Then Tuck spoke to their team. “Evers and I will lay down suppressive fire on this side, Bauer and Vance on the other. Head for the aft staircase.” There was a hint of frustration in his voice and Sawyer knew it was because this situation had gone to shit in a hurry, and having to scrap finding the bomb put everyone on board at risk.

But they had no choice. Staying here and waiting for the enemy to reinforce itself was not only stupid, it was suicidal.

“
Go
.”

Sawyer was only too happy to obey. He took a knee and fired controlled bursts toward the doorway where the militants had come out of whenever he saw movement, providing cover for his teammates.

“Forward deck five is clear. Moving down to deck four now,” the SEAL leader advised them.

Deck four was the upper promenade deck, two decks above where the killings were happening. Sawyer heard his teammates running for the stairs behind him. Moments later Schroder’s voice came through. “Stairwell clear.”

The suppressive fire was working. None of the remaining militants were charging toward them now.

One by one the team swung around and raced for the stairs. Schroder was in the lead now, his weapon aimed toward the top of the staircase, with Ethan directly behind him. Tuck hurried past them and took point while Bauer moved into position behind Sawyer to bring up the rear. Once everyone was in place they began the ascent.

Sawyer’s heart rate was already elevated thinking about what was happening on deck two, several floors above them. Footsteps sounded behind him moments before one of the militants opened fire up the stairwell. Sawyer flattened himself against the wall and turned to help Bauer clear the threat, but his teammate had already taken him out.

Turning to face forward once more, as they reached the top of the third flight of stairs Sawyer heard distant screams, then the crack of automatic gunfire and the thud of many feet racing down the stairs toward them. He braced for another fight.

“Passengers coming our way,” Tuck reported, sounding even more frustrated than before.

No gunmen? Sawyer’s boot had just hit the top step when he got his first glimpse of the tide of humanity rushing toward them. Panicked passengers all wearing lifejackets were racing for the staircase, trampling each other in their haste to escape. The sheer number of people made it impossible to find a route through them.

There goes our chance of reaching deck two in time to help
, Sawyer thought with a sinking heart.

“FBI! Get back!” Tuck shouted at them, trying to stem the tide flowing toward them. “It’s not safe down here, there are more gunmen below. Turn around!”

More screams. Some people near the front dove to the floor and covered their heads, further clogging the way out.

It was still dark in the ship, but the moonlight and ambient light gave his NVGs plenty to work with and he could see perfectly. Stuck for the moment, he couldn’t help but scan the crowd for Carmela or her mom, but didn’t see them.

As Bauer fired twice behind him, more panic broke out up the stairs. The passengers on the floor now stood up and began pushing their way toward the bow, away from Sawyer’s team, probably thinking they were more terrorists.

Swearing under his breath, Sawyer bulldozed his way through the mass of terrified passengers with his teammates, using brute strength. It would take the SEALs at least a few more minutes to reach them on their way down from the nav deck. He felt like a salmon fighting his way upstream against a heavy current, with a pack of hungry grizzly bears waiting to pick them off above.

As well as below.

Though the shooters seemed to have mysteriously disappeared over the past few minutes. Either they’d run out of manpower, or they’d retreated back to guard the engine room.

It should have made it easier for the team to reach their objective but tactically speaking, they were screwed in these conditions. It was utter fucking chaos in here and they still had one more flight of stairs to take before they reached the main body of gunmen on deck two.

He was sweating and breathing hard by the time they finally reached the lower promenade deck, where the sounds of terror and gunshots were a continual roar. The crowding was even worse here, people fueled by terror following the ingrained instinct to flee from the source of danger.

He scanned a few faces as they passed by but still didn’t see Carm. The good news was, from the direction the escaping passengers were moving, it was obvious the gunmen were coming at them from the stern, which gave his team a chance to cut them off.

A sea of men, women and children flooded past them in the darkness, most veering away screaming when they saw him and the others coming toward them brandishing weapons. Sawyer and the others kept directing them toward the bow as they moved, trying to clear a path for themselves.

The gunshots were getting closer. Any moment now the gunmen would come into view.

“Contact, ten-o’clock,” Tuck reported.

Sawyer swung his head around to follow the line of sight and caught a glimpse of a handful of what appeared to be armed men slipping out an exit on the port side. One of them in the rear of the group stopped in the doorway to spray bullets into the retreating crowd. People in front of the deadly hail of fire fell to the deck, either wounded or playing dead, Sawyer couldn’t tell.

Fuck.
His finger stayed curved around the trigger. He wanted a chance to take out these assholes but he still didn’t have a clear view and there were too many innocent people in the way.

“Moving forward to see if I can get a clear shot,” Tuck said, and began to force his way through another tangle of passengers.

Sawyer’s heart sank. There was no way Tuck or any of them could get a shot off in here, not without hitting passengers. These bastards were using the confusion to cover their movements, enabling them to slip out to the lifeboats. There hadn’t been time to disable or guard the boats, not with so many militants attacking.

Fuck that
, he thought savagely, biting down hard. These cowardly bastards were going down.

Tense seconds ticked past as Sawyer and the others pushed their way around the bend in the staircase but by then it was too late. The men had already slipped outside onto the deck.

“Hold tight,” Tuck ordered, and they all stopped, stacked in position against the wall now hiding them from the gunmen’s view. He reported their position to the SEALs and explained the situation.

“We’re on the lower promenade deck now, starboard side aft of the bow,” the SEAL leader responded a moment later. “Moving your way now.”

“Copy,” Tuck replied. “Get ready,” he said to the team. “We’ve gotta keep them from launching the lifeboats.”

Every second they waited cost them. With an unknown number of militants still out there and just under three thousand passengers and crew clogging this deck, they couldn’t divide the team up in these circumstances. It was too risky, and with the sheer volume of bodies around them they needed every man to help protect the team.

Sawyer stayed right on Blackwell’s ass as they started across the hallway toward the door the gunmen had slipped out of, frustration and adrenaline pumping through him.

He could smell the blood as they moved toward the doors and he tried like hell to block out what was happening around him. Several wounded people grabbed at his legs as he passed by, begged him to help them, but he didn’t stop, didn’t look at them. He couldn’t. His team had a mission to complete.

The terrorists had to be taken out before they escaped. Only then could he help the wounded and search for Carmela.

****

W
ira’s heart raced as he rushed for the port side door that led to the lifeboats. They were definitely under attack from an unknown number of forces but he wasn’t giving up yet.

Denial and regret filled him. His plan to reach the pickup point while onboard the vessel wasn’t going to happen now. His only chance to get to his brother now was to abandon ship and attempt to get within range of the incoming helicopters. He had to make it that far.

Had to.

Images of Leo and their mother’s weary and sickness-ravaged features filled his mind, galvanizing him. The
Mawla
would be devastated if he failed. He owed it to them to fight to the end for the chance to locate his brother.