Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

“I didn’t say you had.”

“Who were you speaking to on the phone?”

She didn’t reply, but she ran her tongue across the bleeding lip, seeming to enjoy the taste of her own blood like some kind of vampire princess.

“I asked you a question.”

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

Kurt didn’t reply.

“Either kiss me or shoot me,” she said, “but I will scream if you don’t do one or the other.”

“You’re not about to scream,” Kurt said. “You want to be discovered here about as much as I do.”

Kurt hadn’t even finished his statement when she tilted her head back and shrieked at the top of her lungs.

“Damn!” Kurt shouted, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Between the screaming and the commotion, he figured it was time to shove off. He reached into her pocket, grabbed the satellite phone she’d used, and tucked it into a pocket in his coveralls.

Before he could do anything else, the door flew open and a group of Acosta’s men came piling in. They tackled Kurt and knocked the gun from his hand. He managed to throw one of them off and then slammed the second guy onto the desk, but the third guy caught him in the chin with a knee.

Kurt was knocked backward for an instant, just long enough to allow the others back into the fight. Punches landed from all sides. Unable to break free, Kurt was quickly subdued.

The men lifted him to his feet and slammed him into the same wall he’d held the strange woman against.

She was behind them now with Kurt’s pistol in hand. “Three against one,” she said. “That’s hardly fair.”

Without hesitation, she began firing, drilling holes in the men who restrained Kurt. They dropped to the ground all around him. And she kept firing, making certain they were dead. With the three men lying still on the floor, she tossed the pistol to Kurt.

“Better run,” she said quickly. “There’s plenty more where they came from.”

Kurt had no time to co

nsider the madness. He’d landed in the middle of something strange. Damned strange.

He looked out into the hall. Men with guns were running his way. He shut the door and ducked back into the room.

“You should have kissed me,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Maybe next time.”

He turned and blasted three holes in the window and then dove through it, shattering the weakened plate glass and landing on the deck outside.

He got up quickly and sprinted for the stern as an alarm began to blare overhead. Gunshots followed, coming from above and behind, and bullets ricocheted off the deck all around him.

Taking cover, Kurt pressed himself against the superstructure, changed out the spent magazine, fired a few shots, and then scrambled beneath the steel beams supporting the helipad. He gazed up, looking jealously at the shiny helicopter. Realizing it could be a problem for him later, he aimed for the cockpit and reeled off a half dozen shots, shattering the side window, drilling a few holes in the instrument panel and a few more in the sheet metal where the fuel tank was located. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit anything vital, but any pilot would have to think twice before taking the helicopter for a spin.

Ducking back into the shadows, Kurt checked the clip in his Beretta. Four shells left. “Time to abandon ship,” he muttered.

The sound of booted feet pounding the stairway from above only reinforced his decision.

He fired two shots toward the approaching crewmen and took off for the railing. At the same instant, one of Acosta’s men came racing around the corner. They collided like two cars at an intersection.

Kurt hit the deck and rolled over, looking for the Beretta, turned back the other way and came face-to-face with a Colt .45 aimed at his chest. The man holding it had wispy blond hair, pale eyes, and a hollow face that looked almost skeletal in the dim light.

“Hands up,” he said, inching toward Kurt until the weapon was no more than eight inches from his nose.