096:

Robert leaned forward with the pitch of a slightly rolling sea, a wavelet smacking the bow, and sending salt spray up the side and into his face as the crew of the pirate boat tied them off, he held up his hands, looking as innocent as possible. Overhead, the sun was now bright, glaringly so, and he squinted at the cruiser, aligned with six or seven visible crew, dark shadows on the other prow.

A seagull screamed. He looked up like a silly tourist might, someone who'd never seen a seagull and was enchanted by the fact that it could fly...

One guy was yelling in Spanish, but he ignored him, even though he understood the threat perfectly. He kept repeating one word...

"Amigo...." He said over and over, rolling his eyes back and forth between the crew members trying to determine who the leader was. Trying to continue the impression that he was a helpless tourist.... A gringo....

The whole event took less than a minute.

The six man crew left their safe haven, full of themselves, sure of their success: boarded his vessel and yelled at him. He maintained his position until he was surrounded and then gave the sign, and his men surrounded the pirates just that quickly. Now who was stupid?

Maybe there were other guys on board the pirate boat, maybe... but so far they hadn't showed themselves. His men jumped on board and searched, coming up with several weapons, and a couple more men. Piss ant pirates. Amateurs. They were lucky to have caught such an inexperienced group. Real pirates and they would have been dead by now.

Rory determined who the leader was, by his mocking attitude, called him a piss ant pirate, clumsy and undisciplined and then sat him down at the com table and told him their plan to rescue Melia Mann Patrick. It took less than five minutes and more than a million dollars, but it was doable... and they bought it. Robert locked the boat's owner up in his own private hold as collateral.

They'd agreed without a fight, having been cocky and too sure of themselves, they now had no advantage at all. There were other, bigger fish in this sea, with bigger guns and bigger things at stake, but they were glad to go after and thwart the plans of Carlos Villarino, who had been a thorn in their sides for more years than one.

The information that the pirates had that Robert didn't was that Villarino had captured Kell Stevak, and was holding him. And that he not only wanted Melia Mann Patrick delivered to him personally, but he had sent out a fleet of his own pirates to capture her. She was in their custody at that very moment.

Robert was nodding. "Tell me something I don't know." He grunted, staring at the map of the Caribbean that they had scrolled up to. He hadn't known about Kell, but he didn't want to let on.

"Why do this pirate Villarino, he a porn dealer, a scum bag. Why he want the girl? She too visible. A celebrity!" One of the now colluding pirates asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Robert shook his head. "It's complicated, but her parents believe that Melia and her sister have something that Villarino needs."

All eyes in the room shot to him and he had the grace to look away. He wouldn't tell any of them the real reason Carlos Villarino wanted Melia and Megan. That he wanted to harvest their vital organs to keep his grandson alive. The evidence was too damning, too intimidating, too... wrong. He had to protect her before she ever got to Cartagena.

"Where is the boat?" He stated gruffly and the eyes that had shot to him in curiosity now returned to the computer screen. The most vocal of the pirates pointed to a small bleep on the screen.

"Your computer has located it here." He said. "About forty miles away from us right now. If we plot an intercept course...." Again eyes rose to meet his. "You are sure this computer has located the exact boat?"

Another thing he absolutely couldn't and wouldn't tell anyone on board. For one thing, they'd all think he was crazy. They all already thought he was crazy. They thought he'd named his own computer Hugh. But Ryan Patrick and Richard Mann had hooked him into this labyrinth of technology in the last few hours, and a mainframe with a mission.

And these cryptic words. "Hugh is Jared."

But Robert took it to mean that the computer was Jared's tool while he was an international agent, one of the best in the world. And somehow, Ryan had inherited it, and was able to transfer it to him, and use it to his advantage.

He stared out the window above their heads at the puffy clouds in the distance, at the white caps blown about by the stiff breeze, at the rocking, lumbering boat docked next to his gorgeous yacht. What would he give up to free Melia, to secure her safety?

It. All of it.

He could see her in his mind's eye, her pretty, dimpled cheeks smiling in compassion with him, not at him, Melia had never condescended to him, never, she was as real and as guileless as a summer day. To him, she was fresh and unique, and utterly beautiful. And he'd come to the conclusion in the last few hours that his minor attraction, the one he'd been slowly pursuing over the last several months, had become something meaningful and sweet to him, something he didn't care to give up. If he got her out of this, he was prepared to court her completely, he had to, she had come to mean much more to him than he'd ever thought he was capable of. The thought of losing her now was anathema to him. Not acceptable. At all.

*****