Page 29 of Harbored by the SEAL
There was just enough light coming from beneath a distant door to cast everything in the faintest shadow. They moved as a unit, quiet and stealthy, as Harrison led the way to the employee area. When they reached the door from where the light came, he stopped. “Are we ready?”
Four thumbs up.
Harrison pushed open the door to a commercial kitchen with one motion, his weapon drawn. He never had a chance to fire. Six men were waiting, their weapons trained on the door. Four of them fell with Harrison, shot by Cowboy and Hawk. The next two were just a moment behind.
Cowboy sank to the floor to check on Harrison. One shot to the head and multiple shots to the chest. There would be no saving him, and Cowboy mourned in the second it took Hawk and Matteo to make sure the others were dead. He stood and reloaded his weapon. “Beaudreau and Abby aren’t here. We need to find the power. The computers. The second bridge where they’re running the show.”
They were close. You didn’t encounter six armed men if you weren’t getting hotter. Where was the electrical center of a dance club? It had to be powering the lights or the music.
Music began blaring from the disco. “The DJ booth,” said Matteo.
“Wait,” said Jax. “He’s baiting us.”
“We still need to go out there,” said Cowboy. He turned to Hawk. “You’re with me. You two go that way,” he said, gesturing to another exit from the kitchen to the dance floor. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and turned on its flashlight. When each team was positioned at an exit, Cowboy turned off the kitchen light, opened the door, and slid his phone out into the room.
Gunfire exploded.
Cowboy moved into the room, Hawk right behind him, staying low and heading for the corner from where the shots were fired. The light from his cell phone was just enough to reflect off the glass of a structure beside the dance floor. The DJ booth. He ripped open the door and froze.
Silhouetted against the light of the room were two figures, one big and tall, one smaller. The tall one held a handgun to the head of the other.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” said a woman in a proper British accent.
Princess Violet.
“Let her go,” said Cowboy, training his weapon on the other man as best he could in the darkness.
“You think you’re saving the day, but you are too late,” said the man.
“We found your bomb in the theater. There isn’t going to be any explosion.” Cowboy’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could just make out the features of Beaudreau and the princess.
The first mate laughed. “You took out one bomb, and you think you saved the ship!”
A sickening wave of dread mixed with bile in the back of Cowboy’s throat. More bombs. “How many?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Because you want me to know. You want everyone to know exactly what you did.” Cowboy took a step closer to the pair.
Beaudreau’s elbow went higher in the air and the princess screamed. “You come any closer and I put a bullet in her temple. I’d hate for her to miss the show.”
“How many bombs?”
“Twenty. There used to be twenty-one—a very lucky number—then one of my men had an attack of conscience.”
Cowboy thought of the murder scene Harrison had found. The murdered crew mate. “So you killed him and threw his body overboard.”
“That’s right. Just like I killed the prince.”
The princess screamed hysterically and fought back against Beaudreau, swinging and punching. Her first outburst knocked his weapon to the floor. Beaudreau met Cowboy's eyes across the darkness.
Cowboy fired directly into the other man’s head. The first mate went down, his head hitting the floor with a sickening smack.
The princess covered her mouth but kept screaming. Cowboy went and put his arm around her. “It’s okay now, your highness.”
“I want my husband. He killed my husband.”
“Shh…” He tried to soothe her but his own emotions were screaming. It had been his job to protect them both, and his fault her husband was dead.
