Pirate

Chapter Twenty-one

Cannes

“PUT THE GIRL DOWN,” STOKE HEARD A VOICE BEHIND HIM say. Major German accent. Sounded like Colonel Klink on that old TV show Hogan’s Heroes. Stoke had Jet in his arms, having just lifted her from the bed. He’d wrapped her in the sheet, since she was buck naked except for a little pair of black lace panties. Girl had some nasty cuts and bruises in various places, but the blood had clotted up okay. In the mirrored wall behind the bed cage, he could see there was just one guy. The door was closed behind him. Big guy, weird blond fuzz on his head, and he had on a white dinner jacket and a rich man’s thin smile on his face.

Thin smiles, thin watches.

“Hey, Baron,” Stoke said to the reflection. “How’s it going?”

“Drop her.”

The German also had an ugly little black automatic in his hand. Austrian Walther. He had it pointed smack dab in the middle of Stoke’s broad back. Hard to miss at this range. Like trying to hit a barn. Stoke was armed, but he couldn’t think how the hell he could get to his weapon without putting Jet in the line of fire.

“She’s hurt,” Stoke said, keeping his back to the guy and watching him in the mirror. “She needs a doctor. You got a sickbay on this floating gin palace, boss?”

“Schweinehund!” Even in the dim light, Stoke could see him turning purple in the face. High blood pressure aggravated by people not listening to his ass say “jump.” “I repeat, put her down. This is a private matter.”

“How’d your speech go? Nobody gives more rousing speeches than you crazy Nazis when you’re fired up. Man oh man, I’m telling you.”

“I said, put her down!”

“I asked you a question. Is there a doctor aboard or not? I’m taking this girl to a doctor. Some of these cuts are deep.”

“She is a guest aboard this yacht. She is here of her own free will. Now, put her fucking down.”

“The tycoon himself. Sorry I missed that welcome speech. Bet you had ’em screaming for blood.”

“Who are you? What are you doing on my boat?”

“Me? I’m a decorator. From Orlando. Just poking around, looking for fabric ideas. Chintz and shit. Toile. Found this lady who was hurt. You do this to her?”

“Drop her on the bed and turn around. Now.”

“I want to know if you did this to her.”

“It’s none of your affair. A private matter, as I said. She disappointed me. She was punished. Simple.”

“Punished? That what you call this? Punished?”

“She resisted and she got a little banged up. Nothing serious. Ask her.”

“You were planning to leave her down here in a damn cage to bleed to death?”

“You have five seconds. If you don’t do as I say, I will put one bullet in the back of each of your knees. Shatter the patella, sever the tendons. You won’t walk again. One…”

“Do what he says,” Jet said. “He will shoot.”

“Hey—”

“Two…”

“Shit, man, you making this harder than it has to be.”

“Three…”

“Damn, you Germans are stubborn,” Stoke said, and then he dove across the bed with Jet tucked safely within the solid cradle of his arms. There was a rapid pop-pop, two slugs thunked into the thick mattress, and then Stoke and Jet were on the floor on the far side of the bed. He pushed her down with his left hand and drew his gun with his right. The Sig Sauer P220 was Velcroed into a nylon holster just above his left ankle. Aluminum alloy frame made it light, Black Talon ammo made it right.

Stoke figured he had two-three seconds before the guy came over the bed or around it. “Stay down on the floor, girl,” he said to Jet, “no matter what.” And then he just exploded up and sideways, planting one foot in the bed and using it as a springboard to the right. He fired the Sig while still midair, putting one in the German’s shoulder, spinning him clockwise. Stoke caught the wall pretty high up and shoved off that by planting one foot, did a little half spin and flew into the German hard, using his right shoulder, hitting the guy just below the knees. There was a loud pop as the braced knee went and then the baron screamed a whole lot of unprintable stuff in German as he hit the deck.

Von Draxis was rolling around on his back, grunting with the pain of that bad knee and the shoulder. He still had the gun and he was pointing it in dangerous directions, so Stoke wrapped his hand around the man’s pistol. He twisted the weapon, snapping the finger still inside the trigger guard. Oldest trick in the book, but the German hadn’t seen it coming. The big fella howled in pain and Stoke sat back on his heels and tried to offer some comfort by patting him on the top of his big downy head.

“See? That’s your problem, Baron, thinking you some kind of badass. You just a stereotype, son. Get over it. I’m serious. Relax.”

Stoke removed the man’s gun from his grip as gently as he could, trying to wriggle it free from the broken index finger. Still, you could tell it hurt a little bit when it came off. He pocketed the gun, got to his feet, and walked around to where Jet lay beside the bed.

“You can open your eyes now,” Stoke said, bending to cradle her in his arms. “Fireworks are over.”

“They’ll never let you off this boat,” Jet said.

“Really? We’ll see.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“I got a launch picking me up in about, oh, four minutes. We’ve got a great doc on board Blackhawke. Danish woman Alex hired because of her resume. Former Miss Denmark. She’ll stitch you up. Then we’ll see where you want to take it from there. Sound good? What do you think?”

“I think you are out of your mind.”

“Yeah, most probably. Picking up strange women and taking them home when we hardly know each other.”

“Let’s go.”

“Good idea. Hey, Baron. Auf wiedersehen, okay? I’ll check up on you tomorrow. Thanks a lot for the party. I really enjoyed myself.”

Stroke stepped over the German guy writhing on the floor on his way to the door. He could see the guy thinking about grabbing his foot or some crazy shit like that and then see him figuring out just how bad an idea that was, seeing Stoke’s foot an inch from his head.

He got an idea. He took the German by one hand and dragged him across the leather floor to the bed.

“Alley-oop, Mein Herr,” he said as he lifted the baron up and plopped him down right in the middle of the bed. Then he pulled the remote out of his pocket and lowered the cage back into place. As an afterthought, he dropped the remote on the floor and stepped on it, crushing it. That drove the baron crazy, beating on the cage and all with his good hand, but Stoke just let it go.

“Shut up, Schatzi,” Jet said to the guy and, amazingly enough, he did.

“I like the name Jet,” Stoke said to her as he carried her out into the passageway and closed the door on the stateroom behind him. “What’s your last name?”

“Moon,” she said. “But I don’t use it.”

“Jet Moon. That’s cool. New wave. What do you do?”

“I’m an actress.”

“Yeah? Like a model-actress or an actress-actress?”

“You tell me. Am I acting now?”

“That’s a very good question, Jet. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“You work for Alex Hawke, is that right?”

“You could say that.”

“What do you do for him?”

“Blow things up. Kill people.”

“My God, I can’t believe this.”

“What?”

“I’m just swapping one homicidal maniac for another.”