Unlucky 13

Chapter 88

One of the masked thugs had put a seventies rock track on the bar’s sound system. As “You Make Loving Fun” blasted overhead, Brady and Lazaroff lay next to each other on the deck, talking mouth to ear in the dark.

When Brady worked narcotics for the Miami PD, he’d worked with undercover cops, run stings with them, and led raids against drug traffickers. Cops got almost no training in hand-to-hand combat, but Brady had taken some training in mixed martial arts on his own. As for guns, he knew and could operate almost any weapon in current use.

His new friend aboard the FinStar, Brett Lazaroff, had been a Navy corpsman in the early days of Vietnam. He had been involved in search-and-destroy missions and worked with the Marines as well as local irregulars, going into villages and finding and killing guerrillas.

Lazaroff was in his midsixties and had arthritis all through his joints, but the two of them would make a good team.

And then there was Lyle.

Lyle was a nice kid, but that was all he had in his kit. He’d told Brady that he had held a variety of odd jobs over the past three years: washing cars and mowing lawns before moving to Alaska and getting a dishwashing job in a one-star hotel. He gave that up when he heard of an opening as a cabin steward on the FinStar.

Lyle’s no-forethought series of pickup dead-end jobs had accidentally positioned him to be a part of a life-and-death operation he could never have imagined.

After Brady and Lazaroff blocked it all out, Brady filled Lyle in.

“Lyle, you have to take us to the crew quarters. Lazaroff and I are going to keep you out of the way when the shooting starts.”

“My mom’s name is Leora Findlay. Hoboken, New Jersey. If I don’t make it, Mr. Brady.”

Lazaroff said in a husky whisper, “Lyle? It’s okay to be afraid. In fact, we’re counting on it. You won’t have to act scared and that’s good.”

Brady knew that there were three gunmen on the Sun Deck above them, a half dozen patrolling the Pool Deck, and others inside the body of the ship.

Their “pattern of life” was to make radio contact every half hour. Each gunman identified himself by position, not by name: Pool deck 4 to base. Veranda 2 to base. Roving patrol 1 to Sun Deck.

Brady watched for the pale-green light of the radio on the track to go out. Then he glanced at his watch. It had been five minutes since the start of the pirates’ last check-in. A pale gray line on the horizon in the east signaled morning getting ready to bust through some cloud cover.

It was now or never.

Over a period of ten minutes, Brady pulled the dead pirate’s lightweight, waterproof camouflage pants over his jeans, buttoned the shirt over his sweater, switched out his deck shoes for lace-up combat boots, and cinched the ammo belt around his waist.

Last, he put the dead guy’s walkie-talkie radio back in his shirt pocket and hung the rifle strap across his shoulder.

He covered Yuki’s cheek with his hand and kissed her. She held his hand against her face and trembled.

“I love you so much,” he said.

“Come back to me,” she said. “We have to make a life.”

Doubts saturated Brady’s mind. He was out of shape. He didn’t know the ship very well. There were hundreds of moving parts that could go so far out of control that people would die. And that would be on him.

“There’s no way I’m not coming back,” he said to Yuki. “Have you got that?”

He pulled on the black knitted mask that smelled of cigarette smoke, then signaled to Lazaroff and Lyle to stand.

When they were all on their feet, he said loudly, “Let’s go, assholes.”

He waved the rifle and Lazaroff and Lyle raised their hands. With Brady bringing up the rear, the three men stepped around the weeping, cringing clumps of humanity on the deck and made their way toward the Luna Grill doors and the interior of the ship.