The Terminals (13 page)

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

13. SEXT ME
  

by Jackie Z

14. MEET AND GREET

by Melody Who-Who

15. CHAOS

by Demonkeeper

“The image of me in your head,

or that snap of me on my bed.

Which one do you fantasize to?”

Pilot woke them at dawn. “The boat leaves in fifteen minutes. Grab a shower, brush your teeth, and meet on the beach with your gear. You'll eat breakfast at sea.”

When Cam tumbled out of bed he found that Ari was already up and gone. He brushed his teeth quickly, then pulled on the swim trunks he wore daily and headed for the outdoor shower. He had to wait for Gwen. Watching her shower in her swimsuit was surprisingly uninteresting. She was frowny, all business, and had a routine—first her feet, then legs, torso, and hair last. Systematic. No surprises. Nothing missed, and nothing lingered upon.

“I have finished,” she announced curtly. She stepped out, groping for her glasses almost before the water stopped flowing. She straightened them carefully, content only after they were perched on her nose just so, providing her with two little windows on the world.
Or windshields
, Cam thought.

The team gathered at the shoreline. No Ward. No Pilot. Ari was nowhere to be seen either.

“What the hell?” Donnie complained.

“Still two minutes,” Gwen said, tapping her cell phone. They'd all been given cheap phones just for show. They'd almost certainly be taken immediately and weren't meant for use, but the simple gadgets told time and had an overhead map of the pirate compound that could be accessed only with the code word—
DEATHWING
.

“Look,” Owen said. He pointed out to sea.

A rigid inflatable boat approached, its outboard motor humming. Donnie said he could see Ari's black hair from a distance before Cam could even make out the shape of a person.

They murmured among themselves, speculating, but Cam knew that Ari would fill them in as soon as he arrived, so he didn't bother to take up any brain space wondering. The ten-person craft surfed an incoming wave, and Ari tilted the engine out of the water at the last minute so that it glided entirely up onto the beach and lurched to a stop right at their feet with him perched on the bow like a ship's figurehead. The little guy certainly liked to make an entrance, Cam thought.

“All aboard!” he shouted happily over the surf.

“We're all going to cram into a rubber kiddie raft?” Gwen said, frowning.

“This is a Zodiac,” Ari said, indignant. “Top of the line.”

Gwen climbed in, unimpressed. Minutes later, they were all bouncing out past the surf. Ari drove like a kid with a new toy, his smile broad and genuine. Cam stood beside him while the others sat.

“Johnson outboard,” Ari explained. “American made. This craft is the consumer version of what the military uses.”

“How do you know that?”

“You know that kid who had every toy car, boat, and plane? The dorky one who built models and had a bunch of remote control crap?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was that kid. Only now I'm old enough to drive the real thing.” Ari tilted his head back and whooped into the spray as they hit a wave. “Woo-hoo!”

Ari steered toward the southern cliffs, and the boat climbed over the rolling water. Cam put his headphones on and punched up a song, taking note of the landscape south of the compound. It was treacherous, steep and heavily forested. Trying to get to the condos and bunker wasn't only difficult because of the cliffs, it was almost impossible because of the terrain that preceded it. Cam noted that it was probably also impossible to go the other direction.

They came around a point, and Ari looped into a protected cove. To Cam's surprise, a sizable white yacht floated at anchor ahead of them. It was a sixty- or seventy-footer—one or two million dollars' worth of vessel, Cam estimated.

“Ward says we should avoid contact with civilians,” Donnie advised as they motored into the cove. He pointed at the yacht.

“It looks empty to me,” Ari said. He winked at Cam and steered directly toward it. When Donnie began to protest again, Ari raised a hand to silence him. “Trust me, Donnie.”

They pulled up to the stern of the yacht, and Ari shimmied up the ladder hanging down the back.

“Anyone there?” Cam called up.

“No one but us,” Ari said.

They all glanced at each other.

“You're kidding, right?” Cam replied.

Ari held up a set of keys.

“Yes!” Wally yelled, and he flew up the ladder.

The others stampeded past Cam, who stood in the Zodiac, stunned.

“Cam, throw me the line and let's haul that dinghy up here,” Ari called down. “We are going pirate hunting in style!”

The yacht was spacious for ten young adults. The main deck had a kitchen and common area. The lower three cabins held two bunks and two large beds. Ari stood at the controls on the upper deck and took her out.

“You know how to operate this thing?” Cam asked.

“This ‘thing' is a Ferretti 630, I'll have you know—a million five worth of boating goodness. And what do you think I've been doing all week while you chumps were playing darts and going for swims?
This
was my training.”

The cruising time was nearly ten hours, according to Ari, and so they had eight hours free before they needed to start their prep.

The refrigerator was fully stocked. Ari and Pilot had made some inroads on the food supply during the week to make the boat look lived in, but there was still plenty.

Jules decided to prepare a meal for everyone, explaining that she cooked for her family back home and missed it. “It's hard to believe I've only been gone a couple of months,” she said, her eyes tearing up. Then she excused herself to the kitchen to get started.

The others scattered about the large deck. Cam stood out over the ship's prow with his arms spread and fists thrust forward, listening to “Ace in the Hole” at near maximum volume. It was an anthem of sorts, but a touch discordant and not for everybody. He found he preferred bands' less famous songs and wondered what that said about him.

Donnie, Gwen, and Owen sat around a deck-side table in the stern, continuing to review strategies and scenarios. It wasn't required, Ari said, but it wouldn't hurt them any either. Tegan had found a deck of cards and played solitaire, although he seemed to spend most of his time chasing stray cards that the light ocean breeze slid askew. Wally had gone with Pilot in the helicopter. He would be launched miles away with a radio receiver and hang glide into the action if necessary.

“Relaxing is a good idea too,” Ari said to Cam when he came into the cabin.

“You going to drive all ten hours?”

“If I can.” Ari still had the big smile on his face.

Cam decided to visit the girls. Calliope was helping Jules create a sort of chicken Parmesan out of frozen breasts and a hard cheese they'd found in the crisper. Music from a satellite channel blared from portable speakers. They made small talk as they worked, avoiding the topic of the mission. But the kitchen was not big enough for the three of them. Cam lingered a bit, but found he was mostly in the way.

Everyone seemed able to occupy themselves except him. But he didn't believe anyone was honestly relaxing in the face of the impending raid. Even those who were no longer prepping couldn't ignore that it was coming.

The ship's cabins were downstairs in a short hall. An escape of sorts. Cam trotted down to check them out. There were three doors. One of them stood slightly ajar, just a crack, and light leaked out. Cam frowned and walked over to investigate. He pushed it wide and stepped into the room. A bedroom. But something was wrong. The door swung closed behind him suddenly, and he was thrown forward onto the bed. The person on top of him pinned one arm. He flailed with his other, until his fingers were forcibly bent backward.

“Oww! I give!”

“You gonna be that easy for the pirates?” Zara said. She straddled his legs, held his arm behind his back, and shoved his head down.

“I think the idea is to
let
them capture us,” he mumbled into the pillow.

“Well, now I've captured you. The question is: what shall I do with you?”

“Let go of my fingers?”

Zara chuckled and gave them one last painful yank for good measure. Then she slid her hand from his arm to his shoulder and flipped him over so that she was sitting on his stomach. Sweat trickled down her arms and dripped from the tip of her nose onto Cam's chest.

He squirmed beneath her. “Someone's going to come investigate.”

“The music is too loud and the door is locked,” she said, and she wiggled her eyebrows.

Cam felt his heartbeat quicken. Zara panted on top of him as she held him down. He could feel her heat rolling off her. It was suffocating.

“I'm not sure this is the right time or place,” he heard himself say.

“Are you kidding? We're on a million-dollar yacht in an exotic country, we're young and hot, we have no girlfriends or boyfriends to be faithful to, and we're all going to die within a year. Maybe even today. This is
exactly
the right time and place.”

She has a point
, Cam thought. There was no reason to hold back. And she was right about herself being hot—it didn't even sound like bragging coming from her. Still …

“How many of the guys on the team have you done this with?” he asked. “The romance, I mean, not the assault.”

Zara just laughed. “It's not romance.”

“So I'm not the first.”

She just smirked. Her nonanswer told him what he needed to know. Donnie for sure. Probably others, though they were hard to imagine. Tegan or Owen. Calliope maybe? Certainly not Ari. Or Wally—Cam shuddered.

“I hate to ask if you've tried this on Ward.”

She hesitated, and Cam could see that she was way ahead of him.

“Ward is a Boy Scout,” she complained. “You're not a Boy Scout, are you, Cam?”

“I was.”

“Oh my god! This doesn't need to be complicated. You're like a lady.”

“And you're not.”

Cam wanted to take it back even as it came out of his mouth. There was hurt in her eyes for a moment. But as quickly as it appeared, the look vanished. She scowled and climbed off him, her lips drawing a delicate line between defiance and uncertainty.

“Have the decency not to tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Okay,” Cam said. Being decent wasn't a problem for him. Then again, he thought, it was exactly his problem sometimes.

Zara stepped to the door and grabbed the handle. She paused, and Cam marveled at how the back of a woman's head could look sad. She spoke without turning around. “Don't you think I'm pretty?”

“Yes,” Cam answered. “Very.”

It seemed to be enough. She nodded and slipped out.

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

14. MEET AND GREET
  

by Melody Who-Who

15. CHAOS

by Demonkeeper

16. BACKPACK FULL OF SOUL

by C. Aspen B.

“Don't come at me cocked and locked unless you're ready to rock.”

Two hours out Ari revealed a hidden trapdoor in the floor of the boat.

“This used to be a smuggler's vessel,” he explained, and he instructed the scuba team to tuck their gear away. They'd soon be ducking into the hold also. There was a watertight exterior hatch through which they would exit when the time came.

Very nice
, Cam thought, impressed, and he suddenly wondered where the organization got their funding. He'd ask Ward later, he decided. Some things weren't talked about, but Ward was always open to questions and, when he answered them, he was brutally honest.

The yacht cruised into darker waters. It was hoped they would be taken in the evening so that they would spend as little time in the hands of the pirates as possible before their nighttime assault. Ward had warned them that despite their preparation, there would be “variables.” Pirate recruits came and went. Leaders changed. Their methods evolved or deteriorated. Some of them were on drugs and erratic. Some were erratic without drugs. There was no way to predict exactly where they would be ambushed or what the pirates would do with them. The hope was simple—they'd be walked through camp without blindfolds and housed with the doctors. They could direct the scuba strike team, which would then know the defenses, would find them easily, and bring them all out together. Unfortunately, Ward also said, things usually weren't simple.