Raging Hard(35)

“What do you want?” I yelled out.

“We’re lost,” one man yelled back. “We need help.”

“Land is due west.”

“We need help. Can we board?”

“Negative. Do not board.”

They didn’t slow down. They were headed right for us.

“Do not board,” I yelled again.

Suddenly, the man I had been talking to pulled out a rifle from beneath his bench and aimed it at me. My training kicked in as I dove away from the bullet spray, the scream of the weapon cutting through over the rain and the engines.

I rolled off and quickly moved toward the stairs, getting under cover behind the metal door. I didn’t have a gun to return fire, or else this would be much easier. Instead, I needed to let them board. I needed them to get close, nice and personal.

And so I waited. After a few minutes, their engine cut out, and I saw ropes get thrown up onto the deck. They caught on the railing and went taut.

The two men climbed over. They were both wearing masks now, and both carried the same AK-47 rifle. They moved with some practice, though I couldn’t tell if they were professionals or not.

I cursed under my breath and then yelled indistinctly. They heard my voice and came hustling toward me. I was moving on autopilot, following my instincts and my training, letting the cool, deadly calm of a trained warrior take over me.

I went down the steps and quickly hid beneath them. Claire was poking her head out of the door, and I signaled for her to get back inside. She listened right away, for once in her life. She must have heard the shots and guessed correctly what they were.

I heard the men’s footsteps coming down the stairs. Time felt like it slowed down.

I acted fast. I whipped around the side, bringing my knife up. My aim was true as I dragged the blade along the Achilles tendon of the man in the front, severing it cleanly.

He screamed in pain and toppled forward, his leg useless. His gun began to fire as I moved back under cover. I heard his body thud against the wall at the bottom and his gun stopped shooting. The other man yelled out but retreated upstairs.

I was out and on the first guy in half a second. He was sitting up and bringing his rifle steady when I kicked it to the side. I plunged my knife into his neck without thinking, and then I ripped the gun from his hands, leaving the knife in his throat.

I didn’t have time to think or react as I fired some rounds at the second man with my newly-stolen rifle, forcing him back away from the door. I quickly followed up, firing at him as he retreated back onto the deck.

He was clearly an amateur, sloppy and terrified. He wasn’t at all the practiced professional I thought he was when I first saw them board. He was moving from cover to cover, but he moved slowly, and he was clearly scared. His shots were missing wildly, and there was no thought to tactics or strategy, just an obvious animal fear.

I was the opposite. This was my element. Even half naked with a borrowed gun, I was a deadly killing machine. I had been beaten down and broken by the Navy SEALs and rebuilt into a real man. They had drilled every bit of training and deadly force into me, and now I could use it at will.

But I didn’t want to kill the second guy. I wanted to wound him so that I could potentially find out who the hell they were. He was more useful to me that way.

As he fell back, my shots forcing him toward their ropes, he decided to be brave and make a jump for it into their ride.

Before he could make it, I put a targeted shot right into his calf. He screamed in pain as he toppled forward. Before I could get to him, though, his momentum carried him forward and he tipped over the railing, disappearing into the water.

Cursing my bad luck, I looked over the edge but couldn’t see him. He wasn’t in the boat and he wasn’t coming back up for air. I watched and waited for another minute, but there was nothing. The sea had swallowed him whole.

I moved back downstairs and checked the first man. He was dead; there was no question about it. Frustrated, I wiped my bloody hands on his clothes.

Claire looked out from the back room. “Nate?”

“Get back inside,” I snapped at her.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at the dead man at my feet.

“Is he . . .?” she asked, trailing off.

“These men were pirates.”

“I heard gunshots.”

I nodded gravely. “They’re gone now, though.”

“You killed him,” she said softly.

“I did what I had to do. Now get back in that room and stay there while I take care of this.”

She obeyed, hesitating, her eyes full of fear. I was sure it was the first dead man she’d ever seen.

I pulled my knife from his body and wiped the blood on his shirt. I yanked off the mask, but I didn’t recognize him. He was young, possibly Latino, but I wasn’t positive.