In Rides Trouble (3 page)

Obviously. Because before he’d found out and eighty-sixed their activities, a few of the Knights had been teaching her—upon her repeating wheedling, no doubt—such dubious skills as computer hacking, sniping, explosives, demolitions, FBI investigative techniques…and God only knew what else. He was still mulling over some really inventive ways to kill his men for that.

She was supposed to be their
cover
. Nothing more. End of story.

Of course, she’d become so much more to him. The bane of his existence and the fantasy he didn’t dare allow himself to fully contemplate all rolled into one.

“When I said it’s not really their fault, I was talking about the pirates,” Bill continued.

Say
what?

Frank stopped with a couple of pain tablets halfway to his mouth. “What the hell do you mean by that? Of course the pirates are at fault.”

“I’m not giving them a get-out-of-jail-free card, but Somalia hasn’t had a functioning government in twenty years,” Bill explained, keeping his place in the novel with one callused finger. “As a result, its fisheries were nearly poached dry by foreigners. Not to mention that the tsunami in 2004 washed ashore tons of toxic waste.”

“The snot-green sea,” Angel murmured. “The scrotum-tightening sea.”

What
the
hell?
Frank thought.

Bill’s head snapped around, his expression shocked. “
Ulysses?
”

Angel shrugged. “Seemed appropriate.”

Okay, so they were talking about a book?
Now?

“For fuck’s sake!” Frank roared, incredulous. “Can we all just get back to the point?”

“Yes,” Angel agreed, “Bill’s point is that, because of the pollution and tsunami and overfishing, early episodes of piracy close to the coast were a form of self-preservation. Simple people protecting their only economic resource. The sea.”

“Exactly.” Bill nodded toward the ex-Mossad agent.

“Great! Just fucking great!” Frank threw the pills in his hand to the back of his throat and swallowed them down without benefit of water. “Of all the Knights who could’ve been between missions, I get stuck with Plato and Aristotle. And I swear to God, if you two keep bobbing your heads like that at each other, we’re going to start buying you matching outfits.”

He could
maybe
understand Angel’s ability to disassociate himself from the situation long enough to get a good long peekaroo at the big picture, but
Bill
? The man’s baby sister was in the hands of Somali pirates and had been for nearly a week!

“Not that I won’t happily blast them all into the welcoming arms of Allah if they harm one little hair on my sister’s head,” Bill added, a darkly menacing smile tilting one corner of his mouth.

Frank did a double take, then stared at Bill in astonishment.

Folks thought
he
was scary with his fiery temperament, but hearing how calmly Bill spoke of killing the pirates after he’d just been proselytizing on the raw deal they’d been handed? Now
that
was truly bloodcurdling.

It was the difference between holding a live grenade in your hand and stepping on a bag of trash on a roadside in Kandahar. The first was going to go off, no doubt about it, so you throw it as hard as you can and let it do its worst. The second looked totally innocuous until it suddenly blasted you into a hundred bloody bits.

Huh. Well, there you go. Frank was just happy ol’ Billy Boy was on
his
side.

“And you?” he turned to Angel. “You have a problem killing poor Somali pirates if it comes to that?”

The mysterious Israeli lifted one perfectly shaped brow. “Not in the least.”

Good. At least he could depend—

The door to the briefing room swung open and Commander John L. Patterson ducked inside.

***

“Why do you keep writing those notes?” Eve asked as Becky closed her spiral notebook, shoving a felt-tip marker inside the wire rings at its spine.

“Because,” she craned her neck around to make sure One-Eyed Willie wasn’t within earshot, “the surveillance drones flying overhead have crazy accurate cameras. I’m just letting the guys know what’s up, keeping them informed as best I can. I don’t want Billy or any of the others to worry too much.”

Eve tilted her head back and gazed into the spotless blue bowl of the sky, then slid Becky a skeptical glance.

Until this morning when One-Eyed Willie shoved her down beside Eve, they’d been sequestered on opposite sides of the deck. Which was probably because within six hours of their capture she’d not only tried to sabotage the
Serendipity
’s engines but also sneak rat poison into the pirates’ food. No doubt the Somalis had thought it best to keep them apart should she attempt to solicit Eve’s help in some new escape scheme.

“Uh, I don’t…I don’t see any surveillance drones,” Eve said, the look on her tired face clearly telegraphing her belief that the Indian Ocean sun finally had baked Becky’s brain to the rubbery consistency of overcooked shrimp.

Becky could only smile. Poor Eve. The last six days would frighten anyone, but for someone with Eve’s pampered and protected upbringing, it had to be truly terrifying.

“It’s long gone,” she explained calmly, trying to infuse her tone with enough confidence to bolster Eve’s waning spirits. “As best as I can figure, it flies by every three or four hours. Only stays in sight for about sixty seconds.”

Eve swallowed convulsively and glanced into the sky again. “I haven’t noticed anything flying overhead.”

“You wouldn’t unless you knew what to look for. They fly so high, the only chance you have of seeing one is when the angle of the sun hits its fuselage, causing it to shimmer like a little point of daytime starlight.”

“Ah,” Eve murmured, once more propping her chin on her raised knees, folding her arms around her legs like she was trying to make herself as small as possible. Like maybe she was trying to disappear completely.

Becky glanced at her sharply. “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that,” Eve soothed, looping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

“You
don’t
believe me,” Becky laughed incredulously, slapping her knee and dislodging Eve’s arm in the process.

It was just as well. Neither of them had showered in nearly a week, which meant neither of them was particularly daisy-fresh. What she wouldn’t give for a new bar of Dove soap and a smooth stick of deodorant. And while she was wishing for things she couldn’t have, she’d take a big, fat burger from Bull and Bear restaurant and a double side of onion rings.

If she never saw another fish for the rest of her life, it would be too soon.

“Well, you must agree it’s a bit far-fetched,” Eve replied. “If there really were surveillance drones taking our picture, don’t you think the little man in charge would know about it and deny you the ability to write your messages?”

“His name is Ghedi, and he can’t read,” Becky explained. “I convinced him I’m taking notes for the novel I’ll write once our families pay for our freedom. He’s very excited to be in an American book. I told him I’d call his character One-Eyed Willie.” She wiggled her eyebrows, grinning.

Eve stared at her blankly, and Becky could only laugh at her friend’s shocking lack of knowledge when it came to pop culture. “Look, Ghedi hasn’t a clue we’re being watched. The poor guy probably doesn’t even know such technology exists.”

“Ah yes, well…” Eve let the sentence dangle, and Becky decided it was time to give Eve the truth. The woman was going to find out anyway when the boys of Black Knights Inc. came racing to their rescue. And they
would
come racing to their rescue. Of that she was 100 percent certain.

“What if I told you the
mechanics
,” she made the quote signs with her fingers, “working in my chopper shop are more than they seem?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if I told you they’re covert government defense contractors who are on their way to save us right this very minute?”

Eve blinked rapidly, shaking her head. “Are you trying to tell me your brother and all those other no-neck, tattoo-covered, leather-clad bikers you employ and run around with are really spies?”

Becky lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes.”

Eve took a deep breath, rolling in her lips as she placed a hand on Becky’s shoulder. “Becky, I really think you should get out of the sun and—”

The sound of an outboard engine stopped her. Both of them scrambled to their feet and raced toward the railing.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Eve choked on a sob when they spotted a motorboat bobbing in the distance. “We’re rescued.”

“I have good news and bad news,” Commander Patterson said as he marched to the middle of the briefing room.

“Let’s have the bad news first, then,” Frank grumbled as he searched the commander’s curiously brown-gray eyes, looking for…he didn’t know. A spark of honor, maybe? The shining light of integrity? Something to let him know Patterson was a man capable of keeping a secret, because Patterson, along with Captain Ernesto Garcia, knew the truth about Frank, Bill, and Angel.

And,
damnit
, that just chapped Frank’s ass.

Although he took some comfort in the fact that they were the only two aboard the USS
Patton
privy to the truth. The rest of the
Patton
’s crew suffered under the impression that Frank and his men were a trio of K&R—kidnap and ransom—specialists who’d been hired by Eve’s ultra-wealthy family to try to negotiate the safe return of the women.

“Last surveillance photos indicate your ladies and their, uh,
escorts
, have been joined by a third party and have changed course,” Patterson reported. “They’re heading straight for a British oil tanker, the BP
Hamilton.
The
Hamilton
apparently had catastrophic engine failure two days ago. Twenty-four hours ago, her radio became in-op. Reports show she’s still got power, her generators are working, but that’s about it. She’s basically a dead stick. And though various military vessels are scrambling to assist, it appears the ladies and pirates will get there first. In fact,” the commander glanced down at his watch, “given the time delay on the intelligence reports, they’re probably already there.”

Great. So now Becky wasn’t only being
held
by pirates, she’d been conscripted into piracy herself.

Frank didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since he figured neither was really appropriate, he simply asked, “And the good news?”

“Their course change means we’ll intercept them within six hours.”

“Now that
is
good news.” Because the sooner he got Becky to safety, the sooner he could wring her obstinate little neck for putting him and the rest of the Knights in the position of breaking their covers, and the sooner he could paddle her stubborn little ass for putting them through this emotional hell. Because she wasn’t just Bill’s little sister, she was like a kid sister to all of them…well, not
him
necessarily. He only
wished
his feelings toward her were brotherly. It would make things so much easier.

Yeah, perhaps if all he wanted to do was throw an arm around the girl’s, er,
woman’s
shoulders and knuckle her head, he wouldn’t walk around most days feeling like a skeevy old perv. Feeling like, despite his best efforts, he’d become no different than—

“Six hours,” Bill murmured, glancing at his own watch and interrupting Frank’s thoughts. “Midafternoon is a terrible time to attempt a rescue.”

“Which is why we’ll wait until tonight,” Frank decided quickly. “Breaching the catamaran would’ve been a cinch, and we could’ve done it at high noon. Overtaking the tanker? That’s a little different. Not only are we going to need the time to plan, we’re also going to need the cover of darkness in order to ensure our safety and the safety of the hostages.”

“Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word
safe
that I wasn’t previously aware of,” Bill said.

“
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
?” Angel said.

Bill winked, and the two of them bumped fists.

“Jesus Christ,” Frank growled. “You guys are killing me.”

They both turned to grin at him.

Patterson glanced at the three of them and finally shook his shiny bald head. If there was ever a casting call for a new Mr. Clean, the commander was a shoo-in. “I agree with waiting for nightfall, but there’s one thing I don’t get.”

“What’s that?” Frank asked, fighting the smile pulling at his lips at the thought of the staunch military officer sporting a little gold hoop earring and winking at appreciative housewives across the world.

“Why would the pirates, with nothing more than a couple of skiffs and a catamaran, go after a floundering tanker? There’s no way for them to get that beast into harbor, no way to tow it, so why are they risking their lives and the ransom they expect to receive for Miss Edens and Miss Reichert?”

“Bill,” Frank dipped his chin, “you want to answer that one?”

“They’re hoping Becky can fix it,” Bill supplied, totally deadpan.

“They’re hoping she can fix what?” Commander Patterson asked. “The ship’s engines?”

“Yes.” Frank grinned, loving the incredulity on the commander’s hard face. “That’s exactly right. And what a prize it’ll be for them if she does. I’m assuming, given the tanker’s designation as one of BP’s fleet, she’s a big one. Probably carrying a typical load, which, if memory serves, comes to about one hundred million dollars worth of crude. Even if BP is only willing to pay three percent, that’s still a major victory for the pirates.”

“Three percent?” Angel rasped in his scratchy voice, the one he’d received courtesy of a good old-fashioned vocal-cord scouring, which guaranteed no voice recognition software could ever identify him. “After that catastrofuck in the Gulf of Mexico, they’ll pay a lot more than that. The last thing they want is another scandal on their hands.”

Catasrofuck?

Frank, a self-described connoisseur of creative cursing, quite liked that little combination. Perhaps working with Angel Agassi wasn’t going to be so bad after all…

“Do you think it’s possible?” Patterson asked. “Can she get those engines up and running? The ship’s engineers have been working on the problem for days with no success.”

Frank shrugged. “With Rebecca Reichert anything’s possible, and I’ve never seen a more intuitive mechanic in my life. If there’s a way to get the engines going, Becky’ll find it.”

“By the look on your face, Commander Patterson, I’m assuming you’ve seen the news footage of Becky.” Bill chuckled.

Yeah, unfortunately the networks had gone crazy with the story of the American women captured by pirates. Frank hated publicity as a general rule, and when the media stuck its long nose so close to him and his men? Man, it took every ounce of restraint he had not to go all Sean Penn and start punching folks. That was another thing he could punish Becky for once he got his hands on her…

Oh
Jesus
, he was not going to go
there
again. The mental image of bending her over his knees and paddling her sweet bare ass until it turned pink was just too…
erotic.
He’d never been into S&M before, never felt the need to tie a woman down or playfully spank her butt, but Becky was just so…so…independent and…and damned…
confrontational
that she brought out the caveman in him. He’d like nothing better than to take his flex-cuffs, secure her wrists and ankles to his bed posts, and prove his dominance once and for all. Which was weird, disturbing, and so, so wrong.

But there you go. That summed up his feelings for her perfectly. Weird, disturbing, and wrong. Still, just the thought of having her at his mercy made his shorts tight.

He glanced around at Patterson and Bill, hoping the sight of their manly faces would be just the visual cold shower he needed to wash away the raunchy images heating his brain and other parts of his anatomy, because, yeah, talk about a piss-poor time to pop a boner…

“But don’t let her looks fool you,” Bill continued. “Becky’s an absolute wizard when it comes to wielding a wrench.”

“But how would the pirates know that?” the commander asked. His puzzled expression screamed his difficulty at melding the image of the pretty, blond woman he’d seen on television with the one they were all describing.

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.

“Aw, shucks,” she feigned dejection, “and I was
so
looking forward to it.” Eve shoved a pointy elbow into her rib cage.

Sharif tilted his head and smiled. Unlike Ghedi, his teeth were large and even and brilliantly white against the darkness of his face. “You have a very insolent tongue, Miss Reichert. What is that expression you Americans love so much? Ah, yes, you had better make sure it is not writing checks your ass cannot cash. Such a wonderfully colorful turn of phrase, don’t you think?”

“I think I’d feel a lot better if we kept my tongue and my ass out of the conversation completely.”