Unlucky 13(71)

Like he was telling her that she was going to die.

Brady saw that his only way to save Yuki was to shoot her himself. He would aim for her shoulder or her hip and hope that she would drop and Jackhammer would lose his grip on her.

Could he fucking shoot straight?

Please, God, help me.

As he was taking aim at Yuki’s shoulder, Brady saw George Berlinghoff come up behind Jackhammer, unseen. He was holding his one-shot revolver pointed at the pirate’s neck.

Brady saw what would happen. Berlinghoff would kill Jackhammer. He could not miss. And then Brady would come in quickly and swoop Yuki up before Jackhammer hit the ground.

But, it didn’t happen.

In the split second before Berlinghoff pulled the trigger, there were shots from Berlinghoff’s right-hand side and the revolver spun out of his hand.

The captain yelled, “Damn!” and Brady saw him grab his wrist. More shots hit him, sending blood spurting across the captain’s white uniform as he fell.

Jackhammer was distracted by Berlinghoff’s shout. He swung his head to see Berlinghoff’s falling body, and in that instant, Brady yelled at Yuki, “NOW!”

Yuki seemed to come back to herself. She twisted in Jackhammer’s grip and kicked him in the knee. Then she pulled something from her bathrobe pocket and punched out at Jackhammer’s gut.

Jackhammer grunted and relaxed his hold enough for Yuki to wrench herself free.

As she ran to Brady, Jackhammer aimed at them. Brady saw that he was steady enough to stand, and he knew that the bullets would cut both of them down.

But, no. Jackhammer was switching out his empty magazine.

Brady shoved Yuki away from him. He dropped to his knee and fired the last rounds in his AK’s magazine at Jackhammer’s legs.

The terrorist-in-chief dropped his weapon and went down screaming.





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.”





CHAPTER 98


IT WAS EVENING, in the thick of rush hour. Joe and I were in his Mercedes, heading out to San Francisco International Airport, as the sky turned a rich cobalt-blue. Two black SUVs with government plates and flashers bracketed us in front and behind, helping to speed our way.

After a news blackout of two full days, word had exploded over all media channels at once: The surviving passengers of the FinStar were returning home.

Yuki and Brady, along with about a dozen other San Francisco residents who had been aboard, were arriving by Air Canada at a yet to be disclosed time and I definitely wanted to be there when that plane landed.

Naturally, traffic didn’t know or care what I wanted, and I swore at the vehicular knots and snarls, tried to drive from the passenger seat, jamming on the imaginary gas pedal whenever Joe had to take his foot off the real one.

I stared ahead at the highway and thought about the last time I saw Yuki, a pale night-blooming flower in her après-wedding dress as Brady twirled his new bride around the dance floor.

Then another memory pushed the party right out. It was the ten seconds of unfocused autumn colors on my iPhone accompanied by Yuki’s frightened whispered voice—“Lindsay. Our ship was attacked”—before her phone was snatched and the lights went out.