Page 93 of One Minute Out

From my imperfect view I see no one on the lower deck by the sea stairs so, while still kicking to keep my arms above the water and fighting the incredible wake, I swing my right hand over my head, hurling the four-pound metal utility anchor up and over the stern railing. The rubber coating I sprayed on the tongs masks any metal-on-metal noise, and I’m hoping the sound of the engine hides the clunking of the instrument when it hits the deck and again when it catches on the rail.

I quickly wrap my wrist and forearm in the rope and hope like hell that I am yanked along in the water.

I’m violently jerked and towed behind the yacht. I pull myself handover hand up the rope through the foamy wake, using all the strength in my arms, legs, and back to do so. The mask is ripped off my eyes by the force of the water, but it slides down onto my neck and not over my head. I gulp a mouthful of seawater and fight the incredible drag of the small pack on my chest trying to haul me under the surface.

This? This is not the shit I live for.

But I keep pulling, and soon I take a hand off the rope and reach up to the sea stairs, looking for something to grab on to. I’m weakening by the second from exhaustion and the need to suck in a breath of air, impossible in the heavy wake of the megayacht.

A small tie-down is positioned just to the right of the water entry of the sea stairs, and my fingers take it in a death grip. I let go of the rope with my left hand now, wrap it over my clenched right hand, and, like I’m freeclimbing a sheer wall, I pull myself out of the water and onto the lower stairs.

I fight the urge to vomit and to cough up a large volume of the Adriatic Sea and to collapse down onto the deck, because I haven’t cleared the area around me yet. Barely able to function, I pull the suppressed G19, rise onto my knees, and, still with the massive fins on my feet, I scan the rear portion of the lower deck over the top of the stairs.

The area is clear.

I drop back onto the lower stairs, out of view from the deck, and take a few seconds to recover from the exhausting swim. I gag out seawater for a few seconds, and this makes me feel a lot better. Finally, I remove my fins and fold them till they fit in the pack. Taking off my mask and snorkel, I shove these in, as well.

I’m head to toe in a hooded black wetsuit, with black neoprene boots and a black pack on my chest, which I shift around to my back after retrieving my knife from it.

The blade and the pistol go in the utility pocket on my right thigh, and then I begin climbing the sea stairs again. I only make it a couple of feet before I drop back down, because a man in a short-sleeved black shirt is walking by from my right to my left. Luckily, I saw him before he saw me, but I nevertheless draw my blade and prepare to launch myself up the three remaining steps to shove it into his windpipe if he comes over here and peers down on me.

Thirty seconds later I chance another glance and find the deck clear of hostiles, so I move up the stairs towards the rear door to the saloon.

My objective is the master stateroom, at the top of a staircase out of the saloon on the bridge deck and then down a hall, aft. I don’t know who is in this room, but I’m certain that whoever the big cheese on board is, they are going to get the best cabin.

I make it up to the windows into the saloon and then duck down, crawling behind a little rear-deck bar area to get a view into the well-lit room. Right across from me is the diving deck. Several scuba tanks, buoyancy control vests, hoses, and other equipment are fixed by bungee cord to racks along the bulkhead.

I rise up on my knees but lower back down out of view as a slight list to port becomes apparent. It takes me only an instant to realize the boat is turning to starboard. Seconds later it begins to slow.

Are we heading in to land? Pulling my phone out of my pack, I take it from its waterproof case and turn on the GPS. It takes a minute to catch the satellite, but when it does it shows that I’m a couple miles off the coast of the Croatian city of Rovinj.

Shit, I think. Talyssa wasn’t exactly right, but she was close. La Primarosa was coming to northern Croatia, but to a smaller port than Pula for some reason, probably because I spooked them into changing their plans.

Thinking over my next move, I decide to take advantage of the opportunity the nearby diving deck affords me. I shoot across the aft portion of the lower deck crawling on my hands and knees under the windows to the saloon, and I grab the first scuba tank in the rack. Working in the dark I strap a vestlike buoyancy control device to it, and then I attach the regulator and BCD inflator hose to the tank itself.

I grab a few kilos of lead weights and drop them in pockets in the vest to help me sink below the surface.

Now I open the tank valve and check to make sure it’s full, test the regulator and emergency regulator by sucking air from them both, and then screw the valve shut again. I move the entire rig into the corner and throw a towel over it.

I crawl back over behind the little bar, knowing that’s the best hiding place here on the aft deck, unless, of course, some jackass decides to come out to make piña coladas.

But as I rise, I check the saloon again and see a man moving up the circular staircase on the far side, thirty feet or so from me. He’s wearing a black polo and carrying a small submachine gun on his chest.

I duck back down to cover but keep my eyes looking through the glass.

Right behind the armed man I see a woman. She is young with short blond hair. I don’t know who she is, but when she is followed by more women and girls, and they, in turn, are followed by a second armed man, I know exactly who they are.

A total of eight sex trafficking victims walk across the saloon and towards the port-side hatch to the main deck. The lighting in the saloon is good, so I’m able to look over the faces, but of the eight women I see, I don’t see anyone who looks even remotely like the picture I saw of Talyssa’s sister.

They are dressed in warm-up pants and yoga pants and T-shirts and sweatshirts; it appears their captors are treating them a lot better here than they’d been treated in Mostar.

At first I can’t figure out where they are going, but the mystery about where the women are headed is solved thirty seconds later when I hear voices and then footsteps across the aft deck on the other side of the little bar. The women round the stern of the vessel, then head on to the starboard side, where they disappear, moving along together towards the bow.

When the entourage comes back around a second time a couple of minutes later, I understand. The women are being walked around up here for some air and exercise.

I wait for them to pass a third time, but before a fourth trip around the deck I see the girls walked back into the saloon and led back down the stairs belowdecks.

I like my hiding place, but it’s not going to get me anything I need, unless some guy who looks like a sex-smuggling mastermind happens to walk by alone on the aft deck. I decide again I have to go for the master stateroom, which means the staircase that runs up the brightly lit saloon thirty feet away, but before I can move, I see motion through the window again. Another group of women, seven this time, are brought up and walked through the port-side hatch.

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