A New War

Chapter 14

"Search the whole boat. It's a tiny ship! Where could they be?" Leonid shouted.

He was furious that his men had let the two CIA agents slip through their fingers. It wasn't rocket science to know how to keep the both of them locked up and stuck in a room and yet they had failed.

"Why the hell did you untie them?" he shouted.

He kicked the man who had bled out all over the floor before putting the rope around his leg to stop it.

No one replied.

"Well?" Leonid continued to ask. "I want to know how they escaped."

Still none of them wanted to answer to Leonid.

"What the hell happened? You must have been shot with your own gun, you moron, and you, you were knocked unconscious," Leonid observed.

"And you…why were you even down here?" Leonid asked the third one.

"I…uh…I came down here because I hadn't seen them in a while," he replied to Leonid. "So when I came down here, I found them already untied."

"We never untied the man," the blond man said to Leonid. "He attacked me with his chair and kicked me until I was unconscious."

"How did the woman get free?" Leonid asked.

"Well."

"Well what?" he shouted. "Tell me or I'll shoot you in your other leg!"

"She had a last request," one man told their boss. "Well, she said she had a last request. So after she told me what it was, we untied her."

"You're a moron, and you're a moron, and you, well, you don't deserve to be on this ship," Leonid said. He raised his gun and fired a bullet to the third henchman in the room. His eyes went wide and he slumped over on the ground.

"Now, I should do the same thing to you two losers, but I think I'm going to make you both help everyone search for the agents."

"Boss, Mr. Leonid, I can't walk," the one that had been shot told him.

Leonid shrugged disinterestedly. "I don't care! Move!"

The kid struggled to his feet and he gingerly put weight on it. He howled in pain again and went crashing to the ground again. However, this time he was unconscious. The pain had caused him to pass out.

"Whatever. Never mind. You stay here," Leonid said to the last man.

He stepped toward the door.

"No! Don't leave me here!" He yelled.

But it was too late. His boss had slammed and locked the door and he was now left with a dead man and one that was going to bleed to death.

Leonid didn't care. And it certainly didn't matter that he was his godson. He did not tolerate stupidity. And these three were some of the stupidest.

After this fiasco, Leonid wasn't going to be using family ever again. It just was useless to try to include them. No, he was definitely going to use people with experience from now on.

His next task was to find the two CIA agents. They had managed to get away from the ridiculous children he'd been employing, but they wouldn't get away from him.

He slammed his fist into the wall and the paneling cracked with the force. First the two kids had gotten away, but he assumed they drowned. And now both Hansen and Simons were gone. But not for long; he was going to go through the whole ship to find them. And no one could get away…he had the main deck safely guarded and all of the lifeboats were thrown overboard. No one was getting away from him, especially not these two. These two were going to pay.

"We don't have much time left to hide here," Amanda whispered. She and Tuck were crouched down, hiding, while the remaining crewmen searched the ship. Eventually, their hiding spot would be found, simply by process of elimination. What his men lacked in, well, everything, they were going to be epically great at hide and seek.

"Well, we've got a couple of options," Tuck replied. "We can make a break for it and we might get shot at in the process, or…"

"We could wait and let them find us and then they can shoot us," Amanda finished. "So what poison do you choose?"

"There is the chance, since we also have guns that we could shoot our way off of the boat."

Amanda nodded. "I suppose."

"You don't seem convinced," Tuck said. "I mean we could do it."

"Well, whatever we're doing, we need to do it now," she told him. Amanda motioned with her head to the right. That direction was clear. They could start that way. They would probably never make it in the ocean, but they could try to take over the ship they were on.

Tuck moved past her and snuck up on one man first. Tuck swung and made direct contact with the man's skull. He started to fall and Tuck caught him before he made too much noise on the deck.

Amanda attempted the same kind of maneuver, but wasn't as lucky. She was now defending herself against two assailants.

Tuck started to help her, but more started to surround them. How many people were on this ship really?

Both Tuck and Amanda knew that they were exhausted, but their only hope of getting out alive was to continue to fight.

If the men thought she was going to be limited because of her skirt, they were sadly mistaken. She kicked one and the slit of her skirt went higher, giving her a better range of motion.

The same man came back and landed a punch that knocked her onto her butt. Both men came running at her and she was able to trip one while she started a fight with the second.

"Fight back all you want!" Leonid's voice told them. "But here is the next leg of our trip and you will not be joining us. Stephen, are there sharks in this part of the ocean?"

"I believe sharks are everywhere, sir," Stephen, a man to his left, replied.

An evil smile spread across Leonid's face. "Good. Go on and shoot them, then throw the both of them overboard," he ordered. "If you're lucky, they'll get you quickly. But maybe you'll be one of those shark attack victims that lives to talk about all of the horrors."

Amanda was picked up and set on her feet by the man she had kicked previously while their boat came alongside a very large freighter.

Tuck was forced over next to Amanda while the very few remaining crew members held them at gunpoint.

"Why do we keep ending up like this?" Amanda asked. "Because I really don't enjoy it. I would want anyone to think I have enjoyed it," she babbled. Up until this point, she thought they stood a chance, but now it was looking like the end for Tuck and Amanda.

"Ditto," was all Tuck managed before people from the other ship landed next to them on the deck.

"All right!" one of the men called. "Hands up! Or I will shoot!"

Amanda started to comply and put her hands up, but Tuck grinned at her and stopped her. He knew that voice and he knew it was the voice of someone on their side.

"Hey, mate," Tuck said to FDR as more men surrounded Leonid and his bad guys.

"Did ya miss me?" FDR asked with a huge grin on his face.

"How did you take over the freighter?" Amanda asked. "How did you even find out about it?"

"Well, I had a little bit of help," FDR pointed.

Tuck and Amanda squinted in the direction that FDR was pointing. Amanda had no idea who the man was, but Tuck sighed loudly and she thought she saw a smile on the unknown man's face.

"You didn't," Tuck said.

"Well, the alternative was that you would be dead now," FDR told him. "He was already working on it from the European side of things anyway. And, well, he's your brother."

Two CIA agents marched Leonid past Tuck and Amanda. He was shackled behind his back, but that didn't stop the sneer from forming on his face.

"Hold on," Tuck said.

They stopped moving Leonid along and Tuck looked into the man's eyes.

"You almost won," he said before punching the man as hard as he could in the gut.

Leonid let out a puff of air as all oxygen left his diaphragm. His face turned green as though he was going to be sick and he tried to fall onto his knees in pain, but the two men on either side of him wouldn't let him move.

"My son had better be okay. Otherwise, our next chat won't be as pleasant as this one."

The two agents dragged Leonid away and the three of them were almost alone.

"How are the kids?" Amanda asked. She felt guilty. While she had been in immediate danger herself, thoughts of Sophie and Joe were gone. But now it was hitting her full force and she was trying not to cry.

Tuck also had a concerned look on his face while they waited for FDR to answer them.

"Well?" Tuck asked.

"Those kids…" FDR started, but Tuck had him by the shirt collar.

"So help me if you don't…"

"Joe and Soph are terrific swimmers," FDR announced. "I would have never guessed. But I was in one of those dinky little boats with one of those pull-cord motors and…"

"FDR, I need you to tell me a little bit faster. My nerves can't take it," Amanda announced.

"I was maybe half a mile behind you guys and I found them on a dock. Joe had pulled them onto one of those random floating docks. I turned around and got them checked out and then joined your brother to get you guys. You should be so proud of those kids."

"They are okay? You're not kidding? Both of them?" Amanda kept asking.

FDR smiled. "Both Sophie and Joe are totally fine. And by now, they're probably dried out," FDR finished.

All of the adrenaline that she had was gone, Amanda passed out and Tuck very nearly missed catching her before she hit the deck.

…

To Be Continued…

A/N: okay, there was the newest installment. What did you think? Thank you!