Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
I calculate scenarios, weighing the risk of waiting. I consider intervening. I could fire a warning shot from the pistol strapped to my leg and perhaps it would be enough to make them scatter.
But that could have future deadly consequences if I’m seen. I’ve spent years cultivating a relationship with Voronin to share these waterways. It’s been a mutual agreement to leave each other alone, and if I were to interfere in his business, it would earn me a bullet to the head. Each of my crew would pay the price as well. Anatoli Voronin is the most ruthless person I’ve ever known.
“Need to make a decision,” Marcus urges.
My conscience is at war. “Just wait a minute.”
The woman’s head swivels, taking in the three men surrounding her. I watch as her body goes still and I can sense something’s about to happen.
When it does, it catches everyone by surprise. She strikes out with a vicious kick to Mikhail’s knee, and he buckles with a scream of pain that carries cleanly over the water.
She’s already sprinting before he hits the dock and Marcus exhales a gasp of respect as he watches beside me.
“Start the engine,” I tell him, and he moves quickly. It turns over with a deep wet purr just as the woman executes an impressive dive into the dark waters.
Voronin’s men draw their guns and race to the end of the dock. Gunshots crack and I wince, wondering if a bullet will find the woman and distantly, if someone will call the police.
I hear three, five, seven shots as they fire randomly into the general area where she went in. They aim closer to the dock, perhaps assuming she’ll surface close to them.
If she’s smart, she’ll swim away.
I make the decision that could cost me everything, moving toward Marcus. “Put us in her direction.”
He angles The Quartermaster into the current and I move to the bow, my eyes searching the midnight water.
“How long can she stay under?” Marcus asks.
“Sixty seconds in that water. Maybe ninety if she’s strong.”
I glance at my watch. It’s been thirty.
Voronin’s men fan out across the dock, looking over the edges, guns at the ready to shoot the woman if her head pops up.
And then I see her, or at least I think it’s her. A small black blob on the surface, but it goes under again.
Fuck… is she drowning? I put the binoculars back to my face.
But no… she pops back up again, seeming to tread water now.
“Ten degrees east,” I call back to Marcus. “And cut the engine again.”
It’s a risk, calling out to Marcus, but I didn’t want to run over the lady. Unfortunately, the men heard me… their heads whipping our way, peering into the darkness. There’s no way they can see us, and with the engine dead, they can’t hear now, but they know someone’s out here.
“Untie the fucking boat,” Mikhail yells at one of the men. “Find the fucking woman.”
“Goddamn it,” I mutter as I pull my pistol free of the leg strap.
I aim in their direction, high enough I won’t hit anything, and fire a warning shot.
The men duck, one of them hitting the dock face first. Another raises his gun, but Mikhail slaps at his arm. “Get in the van and go.”
Two of them race down the dock, launch themselves into the front, and peel out of there with their cargo. Those women are unfortunately lost.
Mikhail and the other men move to the boat.
“Get ready to hightail it out of here,” I warn Marcus and fire one more shot toward the dock to stall Voronin’s goons.
They duck again just as we’re sliding up adjacent to the woman.
I move to the stern as the current carries us to her. She’s twenty feet out. The only thing I can really see is the white of her face, looking right at us.
She’s now ten feet off the stern and I grab a long-handled hook. Leaning over the edge, I say, “Grab on.”
Water splashes as she makes a lunge for it and I feel the tension, hoping she’s holding tight as I pull her in.
Marcus joins me and we manage to haul her up and over the edge, where she flops on the deck gasping and coughing.
“Get us out of here,” I tell Marcus, but he’s already at the wheel and firing the engine to life. I glance back at the dock and the men have their vessel untied, scrambling to push off.
Marcus guns the engine, and I hold on to the rail as the bow lifts and the propellers dig down into the current. We shoot into the night, heading south.
I glance back over my shoulder as the dock and Voronin’s men recede. I’m confident they couldn’t see us at all, but I’m not so confident they can’t fathom a guess as to who might have shot at them. They know it’s not law enforcement because they don’t shoot and run.