LITMIR.BIZ

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she’d be all alone in that big house.

      Chapter Two

      A warrior never worries about his fear.

      —CARLOS CASTANEDA

      J.P. “Laz” Lazarus had reinvented himself more times than he could count. Captain of a Danish tanker wasn’t too far of a stretch from who he really was. He loved the ocean and had grown up in the warm waters of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

      He used his given name—J.P.—with each incarnation to remind him of the family he’d left behind eons ago. His last alias had been J.P. Crosby. But some things—like his love of the sea—had stayed with him.

      He’d been an idealistic eighteen-year-old when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and signed up for Navy SEALS. He’d become a SEAL, one of a team of men he considered closer than brothers. Losing them had forced him onto this path. He was a mercenary, a gun for hire, and that didn’t cause him to lose any sleep.

      He did what he was good at because frankly at his age—thirty-eight—it was too late for him to go back and try a new career. He wasn’t exactly qualified to do much more than this.

      And on a night like this, with the warm breeze stirring over the Indian Ocean and his team at his back, he didn’t want to be anywhere else.

      But talking to Daphne got him thinking about home. He had a place in the States that he went back to when he had some downtime. It wasn’t much. Just an old Florida coquina home on a remote stretch of unspoiled Gulf Coast in south Florida where he could just hang out and fish all day and then drive across Alligator Alley to Miami when he wanted to taste a bit of the nightlife.

      The Savage Seven had become his life and his family. The jobs they took working for different clients around the world had validated who he was in a way that nothing else ever had. The differences between Daphne and him were more pronounced than she could guess. He made his living taking lives; she saved them.

      “What are you doing? Savage and the team are ready to come on board,” Hamm said joining him on deck.

      “Quiet. I told Savage to hold because Daphne was just up on deck.”

      “Daphne? Do you mean one of the doctors?”

      “Yes,” Laz said, glancing over toward the gangway where she’d disappeared when he’d told her to go below.

      He hadn’t been sending her away only because he didn’t want her to know that his team was coming on board; he needed to keep the deck clear until they found out what they were up against.

      “We look clear. Savage, you’re okay to come aboard,” Laz said. He lowered the rope ladder over the side. The first man over the side was Jack Savage.

      He was their leader, and he was every inch the savage he was named after. He was as tough as nails and didn’t back down for anyone except maybe his sweet British wife. But even that didn’t happen too often.

      “Boss,” Laz said.

      “Romeo.”

      Laz laughed. “I’m not romancing anyone.”

      “Yeah, right. Just stay focused on the job.”

      “I am. Let me show you the passive system I’ve added to the bridge.”

      “Great. Hamm, show the rest of the men where to hide the weapons. We heard some chatter on the radio earlier. I think you should expect some action tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

      Laz led the way to the bridge and showed Savage all the systems he’d been able to put into place.

      “Since we are allowing the pirates to take the ship, I’ve added two recording devices here—one is video and audio, the other is just audio. The audio only is built into the radio and will allow you to monitor the frequency they are broadcasting on.”

      “That sounds good. I’ll need you to show Wenz how to handle the scrambler. We have had some problems with all of our communications.”

      “The salt air will do it every time. I will show him how to maintain all the radios,” Laz said. He was the team’s communications guy, as well as their transport expert. There wasn’t a machine that Laz couldn’t make work.

      “As long as we can keep the lines open, I’m happy. Do you need me to leave another man on the tanker?”

      “No. Hamm and I have it covered. Besides, at this point, if we had another man I think the crew and our passengers would question it.”

      “I agree. Who are the passengers? Your message was a bit garbled…you said doctors?”

      “Yes. They are going to Somalia, so we are going to take them close to the shore and they will take one of the speedboats there.”

      “Who came up with that plan?”

      “Their group. The plane they’d chartered was sabotaged.”

      “Why didn’t they turn back?” Savage asked.

      Laz shrugged. “I didn’t ask. But the fax I got from Maersk said that they were needed in Somalia to relieve the group of doctors who are already there.”

      “Will they get in the way?”

      “I don’t know. I’m hoping we can deliver them before we lure the pirates to the tanker.” Maersk was a shipping line and not a passenger fleet.

      Savage shook his head. “We can’t count on that. I’d recommend locking them up at the first sign of trouble so that we can keep them all alive.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Laz? You here?” Hamm said through the wireless earpieces they all wore.

      “Yes, what do you need?”

      “One of the men is up on deck.”

      “On my way. Savage, do you need anything else from me?”

      Savage shook his head. “Mann?”

      Laz heard the conversation via his earpiece.

      “We’re done. As soon as the deck is clear, we’ll meet you on the boat.”

      “Sounds good. We’re running silent now,” Savage said.

      Laz left his team leader and went back down to the deck to see what his crew member was doing at this time of night.

      The ship was always active and this time of night was no different. It had taken a lot of careful planning to make sure the deck would be empty when Savage and the team arrived.

      He wasn’t bothered that Daphne had been up on the deck tonight. He remembered his first time on the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. He’d been anxious to see how these seas were different than the ones back home.

      And he had found that for all that he was on the other side of the world there was sameness to the oceans. A feeling of home that came to him only when he was on the seas.

      And like that feeling of home there was now the familiarity of having to deal with a fractious member of his crew. Since they’d left port in Madrid, Fridjtof had been running around making trouble.

      Laz knew it was past time that he stopped it.

      Tankers were like a city at sea and he was the man in charge. Laz hated the bureaucracy that went along with being the captain. He wasn’t sure how Savage put up with it. Laz laughed to himself. Savage put up with it by ruling with a iron fist.

      More than once the Savage Seven had had a knock-down, drag-out fight to settle differences of opinion. Violence was its own kind of peacekeeping method for their team. And right now Laz was running high on testosterone. He needed to get rid of his excess energy. He couldn’t take it out on the small crew they had on the tanker, though.

      They were running with a small crew on this trip because of the recent piracy. Maersk and their

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