Unlucky 13 (Women's Murder Club 13)

Brady prodded Lazaroff and Lyle with the barrel of his AK, and they started down the stairs, one ringing metal flight after another times three sets of footsteps. They passed signs to various decks and public rooms: the Casino, the Spa, and so on, until they saw the arrow marked OFFICERS QUARTERS.

The arrow indicated a forty-five-degree turn to the right.

Brady knew that the crew slept in narrow, windowless cabins no wider than four feet across, with single bunks hung on the walls. He wondered how many crewmen were still alive in those slim, airless cells.

He and his team turned the corner and saw a brighter light at the end of this spur off the main corridor. The light came from a gas lantern on the floor next to a man in fatigues who was sitting in a folding chair, guarding the hatch door to the crew quarters.

The guard got to his feet. He was holding his radio phone, and Brady thought the guy upstairs had probably given this one a heads-up.

The guard said to Brady, “What’s up, brother? Who’ve you got there?”

He pocketed his radio and held his AK-47 with both hands.

CHAPTER 90

BRADY KNEW WITH dead certainty that the guard positioned in front of the crew quarters would shoot without provocation. Shooting would be very, very bad. Gunfire inside this metal staircase would be like setting off a fire alarm.

Jackhammer’s entire crew would be on them in about a second and he would be dead.

Along with the AK-47 and the combat clothes, Brady had taken the dead gunman’s knife and belt, which he was wearing.

As he and his two wingmen closed in on the guard at the door, Brady still had hope that he could talk the guy into opening the crew door. If not, he would be bringing a knife to a gun fight. And he’d have one chance to pull it off.

Using Lazaroff and Lyle to shield him from the gunman’s view, Brady reached across his body, and gripped the knife handle in his fist so that the blade faced up.

Ten feet from the guy, Brady said, “Jackhammer told you I was coming plus two, right? I was there when he called you.”

This guard had a huskier voice and build and was older than the kid on the stairs. Brady thought he might be an actual soldier.

He said, “Jackhammer called me? Because I don’t know nothing about this.”

“Let’s not talk in front of these mutts,” said Brady as he closed in on the guard. “Do you mind? After I stow them, we can talk about it all you want.”

The gunman hesitated.

Then he said, “No fucking way. I’m calling the chief.”

Brady said to the guard, “I’ll save you the call. Jackhammer is on the line with me right now.”

The guard said, “Yeah?”

Coming toward Brady to take the radio, he stretched out his hand. Brady grabbed his wrist with his left hand, jerked him forward, and slashed his throat, slicing through his carotid artery, larynx, and jugular.

The gunman reached up but never got his hand to his neck before he dropped, blood pumping out of him, adrenaline speeding up the flow. He breathed in blood, coughed up more blood, and gurgled his last words as he tried to speak.

Lazaroff got behind the dying man as the blood gushed and held him down until he no longer moved. Then he took the AK away from the dead man while Brady told Lyle to sit on the chair and put his head between his knees.

Lazaroff got up, checked the corridor, and reported back, “All clear. Great job, Brady. They teach you how to do that in the police department?”

“I picked up a few moves along the way.”

He and Lazaroff each took one of the gunman’s arms and dragged him through the blood pool to the side of the corridor. Then Brady took off his mask and turned the wheel on the hatch door.

The hinges squealed as the door to the officers’ quarters swung wide open.

CHAPTER 91

A GROUP OF officers stood in the narrow aisle between two rows of cabins. They were unshaven and rumpled and pale. They stood shifting on their feet and angry, what you’d expect of men who’d been imprisoned in their cabins belowdeck while their ship was under siege.