Five feet out and Jake took the opportunity to jump. He landed on the stern of the yacht and quickly rolled to his side. Laying there for a second, he watched as Elisa cut power and let her boat get back to a reasonable distance. Then she powered up and kept vectored to the port side, not wanting to get close enough for them to see that she might be alone, but a distraction to keep their eyes on her and not Jake at the stern.
Jake pulled his gun and released the safety on his 9mm auto. Then he climbed the ladder and peered over the top.
Nobody there.
He rose up, ran across the helo pad toward an entrance, and rushed into a lounge area. He guessed most people were probably still asleep. Good enough for him. Jake needed to find this Czech intelligence officer and let her know he was with her.
His feet squeaked as the salt water worked its way from the soles of his shoes. Finding the main forward passageway, he crept quietly forward, his gun moving side to side as he passed each door. It wasn’t like he could check every compartment. Some would contain crew members, he was sure.
Then he looked up at the top of a door and saw that it was latched and locked from the outside. That didn’t look right.
Quietly, his eyes working both sides of the passageway, he slid the latch open, slowly opened the door, and peered around the compartment. He saw a blur of something and he hit the deck, rolling to his side, pointing his gun at the attacker and just about to pull the trigger. But something made him pause.
“Don’t shoot!” a woman yelled quietly. “It’s me.”
Jake’s eyes finally focused on the woman before him. It wasn’t the Czech woman, the beautiful model working undercover. It was Toni Contardo, his former girlfriend and current officer in the CIA, a crutch in her hand as a weapon.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jake asked, getting to his feet.
She shoved both crutches under her arms and made her way back to the bed. “Trying to convince this moron Greek to come back into the fold.” Toni settled onto the bed.
“What the hell happened to your ankle?”
“A helo drop in rough seas,” she said. “How did you get here?”
“A boat. Listen, have you seen a hot Czech model?”
“That’s why you came? To find a pretty woman?”
“Hey, my friend in the boat is Italian Intel. She’s the handler of the Czech. We need to get her off the boat. And you now.”
“What about the American professor? Where is she?”
“We lost her. But we believe the Greeks are bringing her here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Where’s the Czech woman?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have another gun.”
Jake shook his head. “Afraid not.”
Toni got up from the bed and hobbled over to him. “I’m always saving your ass.”
“Wait a minute. Seems to me I’m saving yours this time.”
“Right. Svetla is in the stateroom of Petros Caras. Follow me.”
Just as they got to the passageway, a man rounded a corner toward the bow and pulled his automatic handgun when he saw them. But Jake was ready for the man. He shot twice and the man dropped to the deck.
“Now you have a gun,” Jake said. He collected the gun from the man’s dead hand and gave it to Toni.
“That should have woken everyone,” Toni said, shoving the gun into her belt at her back and moving forward with the crutches. “This way.”
At the end of the passageway was a more impressive wooden door with brass fittings.
Jake rushed inside and swept the room with his gun.
“Svetla,” Toni yelled, not worrying about noise now. “It’s Toni and a friend.”
The Czech woman suddenly appeared from the bathroom wearing only her undergarments. Jake couldn’t help but stare.
“Put your tongue away, Jake,” Toni said to him. She quickly introduced Jake and Svetla to each other.
While Jake covered the door with his gun, Svetla got dressed and kept talking in Czech. Jake could understand some of what she said, but mostly just the swear words.
Finally, fully dressed now in dark slacks and a tight gray sweater, Svetla turned to Toni and said, “You two were lovers.”
“That’s ancient history,” Toni said. “Here.” She handed Svetla the 9mm auto pistol. “You’ll do better than me with this.”
“Which way?” the Czech asked.
Jake answered, “Same way I came. Head aft.”
He grasped the door handle and hesitated. The Greek’s men should have been awake and there by now. He backed the two women to one side of the door, flung open the wooden door, and immediately three bullets flew down the corridor through the opening and lodging into the wall above the bed. The spring-loaded door slammed shut. They were trapped.
26
Jake looked to Svetla and Toni. “How many men aboard?”
Svetla said, “Ten plus Petros Caras.”
“Minus the man I just shot.”
“I hurt a guy a few hours ago,” Toni said. “Probably just a broken nose, though.”
“So,” Jake said. “Still ten who could fire back at us.”
“No,” Svetla said. “The captain and one man always stay on the bridge operating the yacht.”
“Eight then. Against two.”
“Three,” Toni corrected.
“I meant two guns.” Jake looked at the Czech woman now and said, “You know the layout of this boat. Where would you position your men?”
She thought for a moment and concluded, “I would put just a couple of men at the stern to cover this passageway. A couple more at the top of the ladder outside. The rest on the upper decks as back-up in case we get through one or the other side.”
“Right,” Jake said. “Plus, they have to assume we have help with the boat outside.”
Just as he said that gunfire broke out on the upper deck. Jake thought immediately about Elisa in the old WWII Italian Navy patrol boat.
“What are they firing at?” Toni asked.
“My Italian friend, Elisa.”
“Elisa sent you here?” Svetla asked. “She’s my contact.”
“Yes.” Jake checked his gun and decided to replace the magazine in his gun with a full one. That would be seventeen rounds now. Damn it! Toni would slow them down. They would only be able to move as fast as her.
More gunfire from above them. Sounded like 9mm from sub-machine guns. Not much range on those.
He had to move fast. Elisa would probably be able to stay far enough away from the yacht to stay out of the effective range of the 9mm rounds, but the men could have something else that could reach out and get her.
No time to discuss this. If they waited too long, the men above could get help from the other Greeks who had the professor. They could be closing in on their position right now.
“All right,” Jake said. “I’m gonna go out and head aft. Try to clear a path for us.”
“You’re crazy,” Toni said. “They have us pinned down. A blind man with Parkinson’s could hit you running down that passageway.”
“You got a better idea?”
She didn’t. Neither did the Czech woman.
Jake shrugged. Here he went again, headlong into a barrage of bullets.
But now the shooting above was getting more intense and it sounded like it was coming from two directions.
He opened the door just a crack to look outside and saw two men rushing right toward him down the narrow passageway. One man looking behind them and the other toward Jake. Crouching down, Jake aimed at the men. When one of the men shot at him, Jake took the guy out. The other one turned and sent bullets flying toward Jake. Hesitating a beat, Jake fired two more times and toppled the last man.
“Let’s go,” Jake yelled.
The three of them slowly left the Greek’s stateroom, Jake in the lead, Toni in the middle, and Svetla covering their back. They moved as fast as they could, but suddenly the ship leaned hard to the port side, knocking them into the bulkhead. When they leveled off, they continued down the passageway, stepping over the dead bodies. Just about to the end, guns appeared around the corner ahead from the lounge area. Jake aimed and put himself in front of the women.