Unlucky 13

Chapter 97

Brady scrambled to his feet, tossed Jackhammer’s weapon away from him, and then bent close to the man’s face.

He said, “I’d happily kill you, you son of a bitch. But you have to answer for all of this.”

Brady shouted out for help, and passengers brought belts, sashes, and strips of torn clothes. Brady rolled Jackhammer onto his belly, tied his hands and bleeding legs, cinching tourniquets above his wounds.

Yuki stooped beside him.

“The shooting stopped,” she said.

Then she pulled up Brady’s shirt and saw where the blood was coming from.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “That was close.”

She touched his right ear, just above where the lobe had been shot away.

“Oh, Brady,” Yuki said.

He took his wife in his arms. Bottles were being cracked open. Passengers were drinking, and the stinking sound system was shut down.

“It’s not over,” Brady said. “Counting Jackhammer, that’s thirteen men down. The other six… they could be retrenching.”

Brady heard Brett Lazaroff call out from the rail.

“Brady, Yuki. Come and look at this.”

His broken ribs were killing him, but Brady leaned on Yuki, and they joined Lazaroff at the port side of the Pool Deck.

Following the line of Lazaroff’s finger, they saw moving specks coming from the eastern shore of the passage.

“Whales?” Yuki asked. “Is that a pod of Orcas?”

“Boats,” said Brady.

A dozen zodiacs were motoring toward the FinStar, and within minutes they pulled up to the hull. Grappling hooks were fired. Men in ballistic gear began climbing the ropes.

Lazaroff’s voice cracked when he said, “Those are Navy SEALs, my friends. That’s the United States Navy.”