Yuki looked for something she could use to arm herself. There was a bottle of champagne deep in the back of the bar and she grabbed it by the neck. She found a paring knife in a drawer, and slipped it into her pocket.
She looked for Brady. He’d been right there! Suddenly, a hand in her hair pulled her from behind the bar. She kicked out, dropped the bottle, and punched air, and then she was dragged to her feet.
It was Brady who yelled, “Put her down!”
The voice belonging to the man who held her asked, “Is this your wife?”
Yuki recognized the voice: It was Jackhammer’s.
The realization rose in her from her feet to her throat, as if her body had filled with frigid water. She wasn’t going to be saved. This was her last moment on earth. She looked at the pink line of sun rising over the railing. She thought of her dead mother, Keiko, holding out her arms to her.
She looked at Brady for the last time.
She focused on her husband’s eyes and heard Jackhammer say into her ears, “Here’s my little volunteer. Just in time.”
CHAPTER 95
CAPTAIN GEORGE BERLINGHOFF ran out onto the deck from the Luna Grill at the bow, four of his officers behind him, men who’d never been in battle, men with wives and children and aspirations.
Maybe they thought of the ones they loved as they stared out at the chaos and the bloodshed, the downed passengers crawling, trailing blood, the nearly dead and the clearly dead, innocent people in pajamas, many of them fighting back with fists and bottles and whatever they could find.
As the captain of a tourist ship, he was going by Brady’s plan and a lot of old war movies he’d seen from his couch. He waded into a battlefield, armed with one of the dead commandos’ assault rifles.
He did what Brady had said to do.
He assessed the situation and he looked for opportunities. And then he saw Brady, frozen in place right at the foot of the stairs.
Incongruous music from the speakers in the bar wafted across the deck.
As Berlinghoff tried to put the scene together, he saw that Brady was advancing on the overturned bar. Actually, he was coming toward one of the terrorists, who was holding a woman in front of him, using her as a shield.
He heard the gunman shout at Brady, “Is this your wife?”
Berlinghoff slung the AK and pulled his handgun from his belt—the old revolver with one round in the chamber.
Jackhammer was occupied with Brady and didn’t see or hear Berlinghoff come up from behind. Berlinghoff looked over the gun sight to the back of the commando’s neck. He was too close to miss.
He had his finger on the trigger—when suddenly shots rang out and his gun spun from his hand. Blood spurted from his wrist, and he shouted, “Damn!”
He gripped his wrist but blood pumped out between his fingers. More bullets punched into him.
Mother of God. He was hit.
CHAPTER 96
BULLETS CHATTERED ACROSS the Pool Deck. Pop music blasted out of the bar speakers. But despite the terrifying and discordant sights and sounds, Brady’s focus was on Yuki in Jackhammer’s headlock, staring at him as though she was already a ghost.
Jackhammer had pulled Yuki tight to his body and he leaned over her shoulder. Brady thought he was talking to her.
Like he was telling her that she was going to die.
Brady saw that his only way to save Yuki was to shoot her himself. He would aim for her shoulder or her hip and hope that she would drop and Jackhammer would lose his grip on her.
Could he fucking shoot straight?
Please, God, help me.
As he was taking aim at Yuki’s shoulder, Brady saw George Berlinghoff come up behind Jackhammer, unseen. He was holding his one-shot revolver pointed at the pirate’s neck.