Now
Standing near the sparse accommodation area on the main deck of what used to be the 160-passenger cruise liner Spirit of Destiny, Max hid behind a stack of crates, dressed in an all-black wetsuit, the zipper boots and oxygen tank to which bobbed in a black bag tied to the anchor chain, and cased the seemingly empty deck. There were a few open crates, which looked to be filled with clothes and shoes. Single beds, each with their own small nightstand and lamp, were arranged in rows along the sides of the ship. The setup reminded Max of their old barracks before receiving their assignments.
Her hair had been pulled back in a tight bun in order to be covered by the bib hood, and though she trained for scuba scenarios in the past, the hood always made her feel a little claustrophobic. She pulled the hood off and breathed a shallow sigh of relief.
Operation: Ironman (yes, Alec penned this Op) entailed Max secretly boarding the small cruise liner and photographing its contents while the passengers were off the boat for a few hours at port. Manticore's intel indicated this ship was about to bring in something illegal, and a lot of it. They just didn't know what would be brought in. Was it drugs? Girls? Children? Weapons?
Quickly, she peeled off her wetsuit and rifled through the clothing bins for something else to wear. It looked to be all women's clothing, which was a bit of a relief to her; she eliminated 'children' from the possible smuggling scenario. The black pleated skirt and white long sleeved button-up shirt she selected looked like a stuffy school uniform, so she unbuttoned the top three buttons and the lower three, and knotted the ends of the shirt in front to make it a crop top. She then unbuttoned and rolled up her sleeves to the elbows. She let her hair out of the tight bun, and it cascaded around her face in soft waves. She found a pair of Mary Janes and slipped those on; they were a size too small, but she'd power through. I look like a reject from a pop star's music video.
As Max readied herself to sneak up to the middle deck she and Alec were fairly certain housed the product, which Manticore's intel indicated the roughly 50 people aboard the vessel smuggled, she heard her comms come to life.
"Excuse me, ladies, we got a report that there might be a fire on board this vessel," came a voice she didn't recognize. Had someone called in a tip about a fire on board? Couldn't be. Alec would have said something; he had to have seen whoever this guy was, because he, himself, posted on the docks dressed in a real Port Isabel police officer's uniform.
"Yeah, right here," a woman responded. "The one with the 'Bride' sash. She's got a fire down below."
"Oh god," Max mumbled, putting the clues together. There must only be women on this ship, and one of them is having a bachelorette party. She heard Alec's chuckle in response.
"What about you, Officer Sexy?" asked another woman.
"I'm here to protect... and swerve," Alec nearly crooned, smoothly.
Max stifled a moan. He had to have infiltrated a group of male strippers if these women were talking directly to him. His response was deep and low, and she could only imagine the motion of his hips when he said that, despite it being so incredibly cheesy. God, she wished she could have seen him.
"I think we're looking at a manufacturing operation. Give me another cheesy pun if you read me."
"You have the right to remain sexy," started Alec. "Anything you say or do can be held directly against me."
Oh, how she would have loved to hold anything at all against him, feel his firm muscles under her palms as he gyrated against her. She tamped down on those urges and listened in.
"Jeannie, I can't believe you're marrying Johnny in two days," a deep-voiced woman said. "Hopefully you guys will be the official growers here so we can come back and see you a few times a year."
"We'll see what Carlos says in a year," a hoarse-voiced woman replied.
"Probably the leader of the closest cartel," Max added softly.
"Can't wait to get black out drunk." This woman's voice was heavily accented. Sounded French to Max.
Some suggestive R and B was turned on a stereo.
Then a Russian accent filtered through the listening device. "I'm sure The Horny Rhino gets us going. How many bars before we get back on ship?"
"Five, if we can stay on track," the French woman promised.
"Can't come back for at least two hours. Freddie and Hans are going to a topless place," another woman said. This one had a South African accent.
"Will you guys get us there?" asked the Russian woman.
"My unit is already en route," Alec said suggestively.
"Come on, that was weak," Max complained. "After you're done stripping and these ladies get off the boat, come find me on the observation deck."
"I got a code 51/50, because these chicks are getting crazy up in here," he informed.
Max chuckled. "See you soon, Tony."
Max gathered her wet suit and hood, folding the garments in a way that bundled them together, and snuck out of the accommodation area on the main deck.
Up one level, she crept deeper into this deck and noticed it housed a few empty restaurants with a kitchen in between them. The women probably made all meals here and ate cafeteria style in one of the two restaurants. From the decor, she deduced that one was previously a buffet-style eatery, and the other had a Brazilian steakhouse theme, with a few accents of different cuisines. Of course those types of foods were no longer prepared here. Not for a long time.
She continued down the common hall and saw two openings opposite one another: a wide doorway leading to what she could only assume was a multipurpose room, used for projecting movies or maybe streaming other media when possible.
The other side opened to another hallway with a few doors to restrooms, a little alcove on the side which provided a waiting area, and two doors which each read 'Security.'
You've got to be kidding me, why not just put a big neon sign up here that says "block me in and steal whatever you want"?
It didn't take much longer for her to find which room had the two security guys. The doors had peepholes, and one glance through the other side with her enhanced vision showed two men. One looked like a bulkier Vin Diesel with hair - dark hair - and nearly no neck, and the other was rocking Nordic Viking vibes - blond with a noticeably close-shaved fade, hard and angry, brows and grimace seemingly stuck in his own personal resting bitch face.
She studied them for a few minutes, enhancing her hearing.
"I can't wait to leave this fucking port," the blond man said. "The only good thing about docking is that those assholes in Brownsville are fast."
"Immigrant labor," supplied the dark haired man.
"When the Valenzuela farm is operational, Carlos will let them fight it out with those white Texans over who will give us a more potent crop at a more competitive price."
"Good. Think he'll get a replacement for Jeannie?"
"Yeah. Hopefully we get a hot one."
The conversation lulled a moment while she heard and saw the men shuffling some papers into desk drawers as if cleaning up.
"The rest of the girls are on the top deck," Vin's twin informed his partner.
"Christ, took 'em long enough," complained the tall blond.
The first guy turned in his seat. "You're so fricken impatient, Hansel," he ribbed the Norseman.
So Freddie is the shorter guy, and Hans is the tall blonde.
"Yeah, so what? Lavinia needed enough time to double back. She's taking too long."
Max turned the corner and flattened herself against the alcove wall. If one of the women was coming back, it'd be soon. And why?
There were muffled sounds of papers shifting around before Freddie spoke again. "You're still down for this?"
What the fuck are they doing? Max wondered. Some kind of heist? Maybe send this Lavinia girl off the boat with some product to sell?
"Yeah. Why?"
"Just 'cause, well, you're married..."
"So what? I guarantee my wife is fucking every delivery man with a halfway straight dick. I haven't even talked to her in six months."
So Lavinia is...?
Her question was answered within one minute, when a petite Eastern European woman sauntered down the hall. Max peeked around the corner to see her. The woman was wearing a barely there baby blue cropped halter top with matching mini skirt, and white patent leather pumps. She knocked on the door to the security room.
The men let her in, and from the sounds of it, Lavinia was about to be the 'a trios' to their 'ménage.'
The threesome began taking off their clothes, the men taking turns kissing Lavinia, and Max let her head fall back on the wall. "Well, shit."
"What's happening, Pepper?" Alec's voice startled her a bit. Had he ditched his horny admirers already?
"Where are you?" She whispered, wondering, if the security guys and Lavinia were busy, who was watching the product? Maybe there wasn't any on board.
She waited until she could hear the jangle of the mens' belt buckles clanging against the buttons of their trousers before she crept by the door, catching a quick glimpse of them.
Alec's voice was low again, and surprised. "Hey there, this isn't that kind of service. Not that you're not hot, you are. Besides, stairs are not an easy place to get busy."
One of the other women was trying to get herself a happy ending, and Max immediately burned with jealousy.
"But, Officer, I need to be punished for my crimes," she whined.
Climbing two flights of stairs up to the observation deck, Max caught sight of Alec and the whiny woman. Her hands were all over Alec's chest. He wore a white tee underneath the now-unbuttoned short sleeved uniform shirt, and her fingers had already pushed the cotton tee up to reveal his toned stomach. She moved toward his belt buckle.
"Hey," Max called, garnering the woman's attention. "I was supposed to provide a little relief for your boys down there, but uh... looks like Lavinia is helping them with the ol' wobbly H."
Alec's face shone genuine mirth and he suppressed a chuckle.
"What's that?" asked the blonde woman.
"You know," Max said, "one step away from getting airtight."
Her Commanding Officer actually laughed out loud. Max thought he definitely would have heard those terms before.
But the blonde still looked confused, so Max bent forward, miming being fucked from behind, while grabbing an invisible cock in front of her and tonguing her cheek as if giving an imaginary blowjob.
Her charade sobered the woman right up, so much so that she stood up, incensed. "She's doing what!?"
The woman took off down the stairs, leaving Max and Alec alone. Alec shook his head, his smile fading. "Maybe one of them's her boyfriend. Or maybe they have a 'No Fraternization' policy," he guessed.
Max looked behind her as if the woman had left a shimmering ghost trail on the threadbare, red-carpeted stairs. "Yeah, that, or maybe she's about to go make it a party."
They appraised one another for a split second while Alec re-fastened his belt and pulled down the white tee under the button-up, which itself was left open. Max wished she'd walked in a minute later; maybe they'd have been further along in his undressing.
He tried to maintain some professionalism, but couldn't help appreciate her outfit. Max's smooth legs disappeared into the pleated skirt, then he skimmed up her stomach and past the knotted shirttails. "Catholic school girl? Really?"
"Don't knock a classic," she returned. She didn't think she looked that bad, and plenty of men were into that schoolgirl, barely legal look. "And you're one to talk... Protect and Swerve? Sounds like you were really gonna give it to her. To the fullest extent of the law."
"Only if she 'hit me baby, one more time'," he volleyed back, his grin cocking up on one side.
"Come on, Officer Sexy, let's get our search on."
Max led the way further into the fourth/observation deck. The women were still on the sun deck with the other strippers, but if the blonde who'd been eager to handle Alec was angry, then they didn't have much time to get the proof they needed of the product before all shit broke loose with the security guys.
"You think I'm sexy?" he joked, following her through what had to have been an entertainment floor.
The structure for some of the old shops were still there. Gift shop, high end jewelry, clothing, handbags and shoes. They'd all been cleaned out whenever the ship was decommissioned.
"You certainly do," Max retorted, smiling.
They crept along quietly and efficiently, passing a smaller food court with less formal dining, a small casino and card room, a lounge, and a ballroom. From the looks of them, they were picked over and dusty from non-use.
"Hey, don't 'Hold it Against Me'," he kept the game going. "I can't help them shouting 'Gimme More'."
"Because your equipment is lacking." She raised one brow challengingly and flicked at his body cam. "Saving the whole thing for later? How many women are on this thing anyway?"
"None, it's off. Wouldn't want to be accused of being a 'Womanizer'. Some would say that's a little 'Toxic', when really, I'm just 'Lucky'."
Honestly, the man's extensive knowledge of Britney Spears' discography may have been a bit disconcerting if she wasn't so tickled by it. "You'd have to actually get a date to be called a womanizer, officer. Cuffing a perp doesn't count as a date."
Alec pulled the cuffs from their case on his belt. "I think she would have liked to have been cuffed, and the key, thrown away." He dangled the cuffs between them.
Max turned her head so he wouldn't see her eyes glaze over with a fine layer of lust. Who wouldn't want to be cuffed and at Alec's mercy? "Alright, give it arrest," she said, smirking.
His eyes lit up at the pun. He noticed her blush, barely, and suddenly her hands seemed purposeless.
The conversation was heading away from the mission and into some uncertain flirting territory, so she squared her shoulders and turned back to him. "I don't think they are importing product here. I think they're picking up the crop here and making the product on the way back."
Alec put the cuffs away and slipped back into mission mode, too. "So Freddie and Hans are not guarding anything?"
"Nothing except their secret trysts. We go down four or five levels, I think we'll find an empty lab with metal buckets, gas cans, hydraulic presses and microwaves."
Nodding, Alec led them silently down the stairs five levels, where they did, in fact, find completely empty labs and no visible product. Just machines and materials to process and manufacture cocaine, but no actual coca leaves and no actual cocaine.
He took some footage with the body cam and rifled through the lab for anything incriminating. Finally off ship, Alec and Max grabbed her scuba gear, boosted a car, and headed toward the Brownsville airport.
While Alec drove, Max climbed into the back seat of the sedan to get changed. Alec could easily change his shirt and remove his belt and look different enough, but she needed to wear something else.
He tried not to watch in the rear view mirror, but he couldn't help glancing when a flash of headlights from oncoming traffic illuminated her neck and chest. She wore a navy lace bra, and it made the contrasting skin look so smooth. The steering wheel's bumpy leather suddenly felt so inadequate.
When he heard and felt the wheels running over the reflective road dots, he steered the car back into the center of the lane and checked the mirror to see if Max had noticed. She pinned him with discerning brown eyes and one arched brow. His mouth fell open to apologize, but he couldn't speak. He cracked a tiny smile, and averted his eyes.
Max pulled the sheath dress over her head and down her torso, and lifted her hips to get the black fabric over her thighs. She climbed back into the front seat and exchanged those too-small Mary Janes with a pair of black t-strap pumps that were actually her size. "Finally. Those Mary Janes were killing me."
Alec grinned. "Me, too," he said, and managed to keep his stare forward this time.
At the airport, Alec changed into the extra shirt he'd stuffed into the shared duffel they brought, and stopped in a shop to buy a backpack for their carry-on in which to put the footage from the ship, their cash, and their falsified documents.
Just as they were about to head toward their gate, a familiar voice called out.
"Edward and Eva, is that you?"