A/N: Took longer than I wanted to get this chapter done. Hopefully everybody remembers where we were? Sarah has just recovered a mysterious case from a wreck on the bottom of the ocean only to find Chuck being held at gunpoint by a mob boss she dated briefly several months ago. And... action!
Chapter 9:
"Don't play coy, girlie. I want whatever you found down there," he shouted down to her, "Or your new boyfriend here gets it."
"'Get's it?' Seriously?" Chuck said, "What's next, 'you dirty rat?' You need to improve your witty banter if you want to play in the big leagues tough-guy, that was just atrocious."
Garret nodded to the man behind Chuck, and Sarah cringed. He clocked Chuck in the kidney with the butt of his rifle. It could have been much worse, but even that was enough to make him cry out and collapse out of sight. Then the man aimed his rifle down at Chuck.
"Don't!" Sarah said, and lifted the metal case up out of the water enough for them to see it. "I found the case. Just take it and let us go."
"I'll take it under advisement," Garret said, nodding to another one of his cronies. "Get the case."
Sarah swam over to the ladder, two more men with assault rifles appearing at the rail to 'help' her onto the boat. As she came up the aft ladder, she spotted two more gunmen still on the second boat. One of the men stood a couple steps off with the gun pointed at her head while the second one took the case from her. After a second's thought, he bent and snatched her diving knife out of its scabbard on her calf. Sarah shrugged out of her scuba tanks, and one of the gunmen grabbed her arm impatiently before he frogmarched her over to where Chuck sat. She was sat down hard and glared up at the men who had stormed her boat.
"You alright?" Chuck asked softly, and Sarah turned the glare on him.
"I'm fine," she said. "Stop antagonizing the pirates."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that out myself. Wait, I thought he was a mobster," Chuck whispered.
Sarah waved expansively. "This right here is an act of piracy. Makes them pirates now. They have a boat and everything."
"No talking!" one of the pirates shouted. Chuck pretended to lock his mouth shut and throw away the key. Sarah rolled her eyes.
Garret and his men crowded around the case and talked amongst themselves, though one of them kept a constant eye on Chuck and Sarah. Like they were going to do anything except sit quietly and pray they didn't get shot and dumped over the side. Sarah ground her teeth. She counted six, not including Garret. A glanced down at her hands surprised her. They should have been shaking, but they were steady. It really didn't make any sense.
She finally caught some of the conversation. "I don't care, just shoot the lock open!" Garret grumbled.
"Ohshit," she heard Chuck breathe, a moment before he tackled her.
"Ow! What the hell!" Sarah said. Chuck shook his head and put his hand roughly in her hair, turning her face into the side of his neck. There was a blast of gunfire, loud enough to startle her, followed by a scream of pain. A burst of splinters showered over them an instant after something zipped by her head. Chuck slid off of her and grimaced.
One of Garret's cronies was down, clutching at a bloody leg. Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest. That had been a bullet buzzing by her head a moment ago. "Are you hurt?" Sarah whispered when she could force words out. Chuck shook his head.
"No, I'm alright."
She nodded and took a shaky breath. "But, you knew there'd be a ricochet?"
"My sentiments exactly," Garret loomed over them, gun pointed at Chuck's head. "Open the case."
"I can't... I mean, don't shoot!" Chuck said. "It's... I recognize the model. It's an R600 series quad-lock. Triple biometrics and a passcode. A friend of mine was on the design team. Bulletproofing is standard. So's the anti-tamper charge. If you shoot it again, you'll fry whatever's in there."
"Triple biometric?" Garret said. "What's that mean?"
"It requires a fingerprint, retinal scan, and voice-print match, in combination with the correct code to open," Chuck said. "And if you bust it open, there's an incendiary charge built in to destroy the contents."
"So you can't open it," Garret said. "Makes you expendable."
"Wait, wait!" Chuck said, holding up his hands over his face. "I didn't say that. I might be able to open it safely. But I'd need tools. An oxy-acetylene torch, a couple other things. I can probably do it, just don't kill us."
Sarah wanted to glare at Chuck for buckling so quickly under the pressure, but she couldn't find it in herself to be angry at him. It was too outside either of their experience. In all the years she'd worked with her father, running cons on sometimes very dangerous people, she'd never been this scared. Or at such a disadvantage. There were weapons on board, if she could get to them. It wasn't hopeless, but her thoughts kept racing in that same futile circle and running into a brick wall. To get her hands on a gun she'd have to be out of sight of all the gunmen, and Garret was smart enough that he wouldn't allow that. She shook her head.
One of Garret's men shook his head. "No way, man. Keeping them alive long enough to find the stuff he needs is too much of a risk."
Sarah bit the inside of her cheek. Damn it. "We have one belowdecks, in the engine room," she said with a grimace.
"Show me," Garret said, reaching down and hauling Sarah to her feet with a hand on her arm. He shoved her toward the ladder heading belowdecks and then paused. "Don't get any ideas there, blondie," the next bit went to the man still hovering over Chuck with the assault rifle. "You hear a gunshot, kill him." He turned the grin on Chuck. "If he tries anything, shoot him. I hear a gunshot I kill her. Wasn't born yesterday kids."
"Well that's obvious," Chuck said. "Yesterday, Sarah was kicking you in the balls. And she doesn't strike me as the child abusing kind." Despite everything, Sarah had to fight down a snort of laughter. Of course then, the gunman guarding Chuck cracked him in the face with the butt of his rifle. "Ow," Chuck grumbled and clutched at his face.
Sarah tensed as she went down the ladder. This was the only chance she was going to get, out of sight of most of the gunmen, but she hadn't counted on Garret being smart as well as vindictive. She got to the bottom and started turning aft for the engine room. Garret stopped her, waving the gun. "Uh-uh. We got plenty of time, I want the grand tour."
"What are you talking about?"
Garret shoved her and Sarah staggered a step or two back down the corridor. She caught her balance with a hand to the door-frame of her cabin, and felt a pit of ice forming in her stomach. She could already see where this was heading before Garret opening his stupid mouth again. "Get on the bed."
"You're disgusting," Sarah spat, rounding on him in a fighting stance. The barrel of the pistol in his hand loomed ominously.
"You remember what I told my men. Be nice, or your boyfriend up there is a dead man. You treat me nice maybe I'll even let him live."
Sarah backed away from the gun; there was little else she could do. "You stay away from me."
"Come on, babe. You didn't always think I was so repulsive," Garret said. "We had some good times, didn't we?"
"God, you're delusional," Sarah said. "Do you not remember me storming out in the middle of dinner? I don't date criminals."
"Oh, don't want people to think you've got a daddy complex," Garret grinned. "I see how it is. Sit down."
Sarah sat on her bed, gritting her teeth and looking around in desperation. There had to be a way out of this. Her eyes fell on a strap protruding from underneath her bed and the air seemed to freeze in her lungs. She schooled her features back to the miserable expression she'd worn a moment ago. "Just... don't hurt Chuck, okay?"
Garret shot her a grin and put his gun on Sarah's dresser while he started pulling his shirt off over his head.
Sarah looped her through the strap and she yanked her speargun out from under her cot, spinning it into her hands. She set the buttstock into her hip and hauled back on the heavy rubber band, cocking the weapon. The leather quiver strapped along the bottom of the speargun held five eighteen inch steel projectiles, and Sarah flipped one out and was fitting it into the nock, when Garret's head popped out of his shirt. His eyes widened comically and he began to turn, reaching for his pistol. His hands were still trapped in his shirt and he just managed to knock the weapon down onto the floor before Sarah opened fire.
The speargun made a dull low pitched twang sound and the projectile took him in the center of the chest, just below the sternum.
Garret stumbled a step after his fallen handgun and then pitched to the ground with a thump. He landed on his side and rolled onto his back limply, mouth open to shout. But all that came out was a liquid gurgle and a stream of blood.
Sarah swallowed heavily and slung the speargun on her back as she skirted around the spreading pool of blood to scoop up the dying man's fallen handgun. "How's that for a daddy complex, asshole," she said, but it was almost entirely bravado. She checked the weapon, making sure the safety was on and her stomach lurched. Sarah barely made it into the head before she started puking her guts out.
Once she was in control of her stomach again, she looked at herself in the mirror. "You just killed a man," she told her reflection. And if she was going to live through the next five minutes... "One down, six to go." Sarah shook her head. How the hell was she going to pull this off? They had assault rifles and she had... a speargun and Garret's pistol. Time to change that. The plan was fairly simple when it came down to it.
Her father kept a 12 gauge in the closet of his cabin, and she wasted nearly a minute before she found the box of shells in his sock drawer. Sarah fed rounds into the bottom of the shotgun as she headed back down the corridor to her cabin. She took her backup diving knife and strapped it on, followed by a fanny-pack to hold the left-over shotgun shells from the box of fifteen. It was a struggle not to look at the body.
She grabbed her emergency backpack just in case and slipped the shoulder straps on. After that, she crept forward to the ladder.
Sarah padded up the ladder and peered out on deck. She spotted Chuck, still sitting in the same spot as when she and Garret had gone below a couple minutes earlier. The man who'd taken the ricochet was gone, but she couldn't risk getting spotted and popped back under cover. They'd probably moved him back into the other boat to give him first aid. She paused, trying to get her breathing under control. She needed... rooting in her emergency backpack turned up a small mirror, perfect.
Sarah eased the mirror around the edge of the door-frame and scanned the front deck of the boat. Chuck, and two gunmen. It took an awkward pose but she managed to catch a glimpse of the other boat. Three men standing, plus the wounded man. Arguing about something it looked like. The two at the front of the boat turned, one going over to the railing.
"Alright," Sarah said under her breath. "Now or never." She slipped aft in a crouch, keeping the bulk of the wheelhouse between her and the gunmen as much as she could. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She used the small mirror to check around the corner before darting to the crane. The winch was still attached to the boat on the bottom, and the anchor was still out. Sarah growled and hit the emergency release on the winch, before crawling on her elbows over to the anchor chain and popping the pin out of flange that held the whole anchor chain in place.
"Shit, shit!" Sarah hissed, realizing her mistake a moment too late. The chain rattled and flipped out into the water with a splash and she dove back behind the crane. She fumbled her mirror back out and used it to peer around the corner of the wheelhouse. One of the gunmen was approaching. If he came much closer he'd see her and that was it. Without the element of surprise, they were as good as dead. Sarah slung the shotgun off her back and flicked the safety off, tensing herself for the recoil as she fit the stock to her shoulder. She held the mirror in her off hand, awkwardly steadying the muzzle at the same time.
"It's nothing!" The gunman shouted and turned back toward the foredeck. Sarah let out a sigh of relief as she watched his retreating back. It was a struggle getting her legs to obey her command, but after a few seconds she padded forward behind the man and slipped into the wheelhouse, still crouched over. She peeked over the console, checking positioning. The others were still on the other boat, and the two gunmen still on the boat were both at the front, the closer one covering Chuck with his AK. The bulk of the wheelhouse itself would screen her from view by the second gunman. She'd only get one shot at this.
The one covering Chuck had the muzzle of his rifle pointed vaguely in Chuck's direction. If she went for the shot and the man squeezed the trigger in his death throes he'd spray Chuck with bullets. Sarah wanted to avoid that. She leaned out and waved surreptitiously. Chuck's eyes widened when he spotted her and she put a finger to her lips. Chuck nodded minutely. Sarah mouthed the words 'distract him' as slowly and carefully as she could. He shrugged in confusion. Sarah glared at the sky, cursing inwardly and brandished the shotgun, pointing to the back of the gunman, and then to Chuck, before miming being shot.
He got it after a moment's thought.
"Hey, buddy," Chuck said. "I've gotta use the little boys room."
"Shut up."
"But I've got to gooooo!" Chuck sing-songed. The gunman raised his weapon to clock Chuck in the face again, taking his weapon out of line.
Sarah cradled the shotgun and took the shot from ten feet away. The gunman crumpled with a basketball sized pattern of pellets in his back, his assault rifle clattering to the deck. She turned and racked the pump to chamber another 12-gauge buckshot round as she came around the corner of the wheelhouse and fell to a knee. The second gunman was turning in shock and squeezed off a quick burst of automatic fire in the moment before Sarah's second shot took him in the face and chest. The man's fire whipped over Sarah's head.
"Chuck! Wheelhouse! Now!" Sarah shouted, backing up and using the wheelhouse for cover, pumping and firing as fast as she could. The men in the other boat ducked below the railing, and moments later Chuck staggered into her.
Sarah grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him into the wheelhouse after her, "Stay down," she shouted, spinning the wheel and ramming the throttle all the way forward to the redline. The engines roared and the boat lurched forward. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief that Garret and his goons hadn't thought to turn the engines off.
Over the roar of the engines, Sarah heard a splash. Chuck started to rise so he could peek out the side window, and Sarah grabbed him by the shirt again. He flinched down an instant before the windows shattered to the sound of gunfire from the other boat. The bullets came from the side at first and then from the rear.
"Holy crap!" Chuck said. "How aren't we dead?"
Sarah bonged her knuckles on the wall. "We salvaged an old World War II destroyer a few months ago and we... borrowed some of the armor to redo the walls."
"Your boat is bulletproof?"
"No, just the wheelhouse," Sarah explained. "You have any idea how much two inch steel plate weighs?"
Chuck laughed hysterically from his back. "God, I can't believe we got away. But the bad guys took the case onto their boat."
"Yeah, hate to break it to you Chuck," Sarah said. "But we haven't gotten away yet."
"Exqueeze me?"
"Their boat's faster than ours," she said, "I recognize the hull. I rammed them, and I think that splash was one of them going overboard, but that's only going to buy us a thirty second head start or so. If you want to do the math you're welcome to it. Their boat's got at least a couple knots on us. They'll catch up long before we're in sight of land."
"Oh. Crap," Chuck said. "I... oh Christ you killed two people."
"Three," Sarah corrected. "Garret threatened to have you shot if I didn't have sex with him."
"Oh my god, Sarah, are you okay?"
"Yeah. I had my speargun."
"Thank god," Chuck said. "Shit!" He handled the AK with a familiarity that surprised her, spinning the weapon up into a firing position and coming to his feet in a rush. She hadn't even noticed that he'd grabbed the weapon from the downed gunman until now.
"Chuck what are you doing, stay down!" Sarah shouted just as Chuck opened up on fully automatic. It was little more than two seconds before the action locked back on an empty chamber and Chuck sank back to his earlier spot on the wheelhouse floor. Sarah pulled her hands off her ears. "Are you crazy?"
Chuck shook his head wearily. "The guy who fell overboard. He must have managed to grab that ladder on the back of the boat." Sarah blinked and started to look aft herself, but Chuck grabbed her arm. "Don't. It's a mess back there. I think I'm going to be sick. Tell me you've got a plan."
Sarah tried to catch her breath. She shook her head. "Not really. I think there's what, three left on the other boat?"
"Yeah. We... god, we killed four people."
"It was them or us, Chuck."
"I know that," Chuck said. "I just. I've only ever punched two people in my life, and now I've killed a man."
Sarah fought down the bile trying to rise in the back of her throat again. "I know. But we can't think about that right now. We've killed their friends. So, they're definitely not going to let us escape."
"You want to risk another firefight? We barely survived that one."
"I know, okay. I don't think I've got another gunfight in me today anyway," Sarah said.
"You have another plan?" Chuck said. "Please say yes?"
"No," Sarah said. "Damnit, no I do—" she blinked and stopped mid-word. "No, that's crazy. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I highly doubt it," Chuck said. "My current plan involves a meteor hitting their boat through the power of positive thinking. If you've got an idea, its gotta be better than anything I got."
"We sink the boat."
"What?" Chuck said. "You've got a plan to sink their boat? Really, that's awesome!"
"No," Sarah shook her head. "Not their boat. Ours."
"But, we're... on... our boat."
"Exactly," she grinned.
"Oh, man, you're not even joking a little bit, are you?"
"We've got seven full air tanks down belowdecks; that's at least three hours of air supply for each of us. We sink the boat, and then sit on the bottom and wait for them to leave." Sarah snapped her fingers. "This could work! Just make sure the zodiac is tied down securely, then we cut it loose and it'll float back up; we can use the outboard motor on that to get back to land."
Chuck shook his head. "And this all just... came to you...?"
Sarah shrugged. "Yeah?"
"Okay," Chuck said in resignation. "How do we actually go about sinking the boat in this cockamamie plan of yours?"
"Cockamamie?" Sarah huffed. "I've got some C4 stashed in the secret compartment in the fore wall of the galley."
"Of course you do," Chuck breathed, "Okay, I'm in."
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: I got a review a couple chapters ago which made mention of 'Chekhov's speargun' and it made me laugh because it was true.
Chekhov was probably the best short story writer of all time. Basically, Chekhov's gun: If a gun shows up in a story, it better get fired at some point, or why bother mentioning the gun in the first place?
I actually almost took the part out where Sarah put the speargun under her bed, because I thought it might be giving the game away.
Drop me a review if you want. I don't care. (This is me attempting to appear nonchalant. Please actually review if you liked this chapter. Or if you didn't. I only get better if people tell me when I did things wrong.)