Eye of the Storm

Chapter 2

Castle threw his arms up above his head as he stepped in front of Kate. "Chill out, Yousuf. We would have gotten there, but the lady likes a little rough stuff before - if you know what I mean. All that cop training. A hard surface is a turn on for her. This door looked like the hardest place on the ship."

"Nice story," Yousuf sneered, "but then making up stories is your trade, isn't it Castle?"

"No story, Yousuf. Kate and I are on our honeymoon."

"Very well then" Yousef agreed, making no move to lower his weapon. "If that's what you were doing, show me. You write thinly disguised recountings of your sexual pleasures in your books. Surely you won't mind an audience."

"If you want porn, there's plenty of it on the internet," Castle returned. "I could even show you my favorite websites. Or doesn't this tub have Wi-Fi?"

Yousef gestured with his pistol. "I prefer live action."

Kate stepped from behind Rick. "It's all right, Babe. It could be fun. I'm getting hot just thinking about it."

Oil dripped from Yousuf's smile. "Your wife has more balls than you do, Castle. But you two should have more space if you're going to get to it. You want hard? The floor of the guest cabin should do nicely."

Yousef gestured with his pistol toward a door down the hall, urging Kate and Rick to walk in front of him. Kate made a show of snapping her teeth at Castle's ear and whispered. "Play along."

The moment they were ushered into an opulent chamber, Kate pulled off Castle's jacket and grabbed at his suspenders. As she tugged at his cummerbund, he tore at the front of her dress, the tiny buttons that secured it flying off and pinging against the furniture and the bulkhead. Kate jerked Castle's shirt off, raking her nails over his back, before shoving his pants down his legs and kicking them away. Castle pushed her to the floor and sucked the tender skin of her breast into his mouth as he covered her. Kate screamed and arched against him, her scarf slipping away.

Castle tangled his fingers in her hair, his tongue forcing its way between her lips. Her fingers dug into his buttocks as her legs rose high, encircling his back and drawing him deep inside her. They rolled, thrusting and panting. Kate's cry echoed throughout the lower deck as their bodies jerked, wrenching them apart. Sweat-covered and breathless, they lay on a deck still warm from the heat of their coupling. Kate heard the sound of Yousuf's zipper being refastened as he left the room.

Rick gently kissed a circle of red that marred Kate's pale skin. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, Castle. Just creeped out. That perv was jacking off while he was watching us. How about you?"

"I may have a couple of bruises. Good thing your nails aren't longer, or I'd be dripping blood. Your dress will never be the same."

"Neither will your tuxedo."

"Let's put on what clothes we have left and see if Yousuf'll let us off this bucket," Castle proposed.

"With you on that, Babe."

Castle slammed down the scrambled phone Gray had provided before Rick and Kate had embarked on their journey. "Sonofabitches at the company suspected that Yousuf's yacht might be carrying WMD's all along. They were just looking for some kind of confirmation. They'll be tracking it from now on."

"So, we're done?" Kate asked. "Did he at least say thank you?"

"He said our country thanks us for our service."

Kate shook her head. "I'm not sure how to take that. At least we didn't end up nearly drowning this time. But I'm not sure I want to stay on this island for the rest of our honeymoon either. I don't suppose you could get us a last-minute booking, maybe in Hawaii or the Caribbean somewhere?"

"If that's what you want, I'll see what I, or the concierge for my Titanium Card, can do," Castle agreed.

"Kate, are you ready to go?" Castle called, reaching for the two largest suitcases.

Kate strode in from the bedroom of their guest house. "Just making a final check. When do we have to be at the dock?"

"Ten minutes from now, but it's only a five-minute walk, even carrying our bags. The skiff will take us to the harbor in Malé. From there we can pick up a limo to the airport. We'll stop off in Mumbai and then on to the big island. We have a bungalow on the beach."

"Sounds great, Castle."

Before Kate and Rick reached their boat, two men with Sig Sauers broke from the thick foliage that lined the path to the water. "Yousuf wants a return engagement."

Kate and Rick were herded onto a transport like the one that had brought them to the yacht the day before. Nudged by gun barrels up the gangplank, they were taken to the lower level and secured with leather straps to chairs bolted to the deck. Yousuf ran the tips of his fingers through his salt and pepper beard. "I made some inquiries. It seems, Rick, that writing books has not been your only endeavor."

"I do help Kate solve murders," Castle replied.

"I was referring to your more clandestine activities. I have a source that tells me that you have been transmitting information to your country's intelligence service. And the phone that my people found in your luggage confirms it. Now I need to know exactly what you told them."

"Well, is that all?" Castle asked. "I could have saved you the trouble of this little interrogation. I told them nothing. There wasn't anything to tell, except maybe that you like to watch. And that's not the sort of thing that interests them. They do too much of that kind of slimy surveillance themselves."

"Then what were you looking for yesterday?"

"I not only told you, I believe you enjoyed our demonstration."

"Perhaps you are telling me the truth, perhaps not," Yousuf considered. "I will find out. In most circumstances like this, I would just inflict agony on your wife until I was sure that you'd told me everything I need to know. But after what I saw yesterday, I'm not at all certain that would be a successful strategy. So, we will go with time-honored methods of obtaining information. Neither one of you will sleep, eat, drink or move from your chairs until I am sure I have extracted everything I need to know from you. This yacht will reach its destination in four days. It only takes three to die of thirst." Yousuf pushed a button on a thermostat attached to the bulkhead. "I just turned off the air conditioning for this cabin. It's going to be warm today - very warm. Consider your options carefully. You might want to talk it out. You may not even have three days."

Yousuf left the cabin, leaving one of his gunman outside the door and locking it behind him. Kate turned to Rick. "Babe, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Castle answered, "but I do know one thing. Whether we tell him anything or not, Yousuf has no intention of letting us leave this boat alive. The longer we hold out, the longer we survive." Castle inclined his head toward his arm. "I have a transponder under my skin. It won't set off a scanner because it only transmits when it's activated from a distance. That's twice a day, at sunrise and midnight. Sunrise is long gone, but at midnight the company will know we've been taken. The question is whether they'll do anything about it, or we're considered expendable."