LITMIR.BIZ

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ready to capsize.

      Perriman hand-signaled her to follow him. She nodded and fell in behind him as he raced silently up a set of metal stairs. He paused at the doorway to the next deck, peering through a tiny window before opening the door. Bracing herself against the wall as the ship rocked, she followed him into what looked like a small dining room.

      “Stay here,” Cole breathed.

      Gladly. She nodded and he disappeared behind a swinging door into the kitchen, according to the ship’s diagrams that they’d studied on the helicopter ride out here. Perriman swung back into view, staggering a little as the ship heaved.

      “Clear,” he announced.

      Deck by deck, the two of them cleared their way up the superstructure toward the bridge. Oddly, they didn’t run into a single crew member. Maybe the captain had sent everyone to strap themselves in the sleeping quarters below decks to ride out the storm. Cole had mentioned that such a thing was possible, so she wasn’t completely freaked out by how deserted the command portion of the ship was.

      They turned the corner to the last flight of steps leading to the bridge. Unlike the living areas below, this space was guaranteed to have crew members in it. Cole paused, checked over his shoulder that she was ready with her pistol drawn and then he charged the bridge.

      She went in on his heels, awkwardly spinning left as the deck tilted underfoot to cover Cole’s back as he spun to cover the right half of the space.

      “What the hell?” he exclaimed.

      The bridge was deserted.

      From up here, she could see outside again, and the ship rolled dangerously far over onto its side as she glanced out. From this high up in the air, the list was even more pronounced, and she all but froze again in panic.

      Perriman jabbed at his throat mike. “Bridge is abandoned. I repeat. Abandoned. Report if able.”

      Bass and Ashe both reported immediately that they’d been unable to find any crew members aboard the vessel.

      “Complete your search and join us on the bridge,” he ordered.

      She looked over the panel of controls. Every needle was at zero. The ship was completely shut down. This could not be good. “Can we start the engines or something?” she asked.

      “Diesel engines are not as simple to start as flipping a switch. But maybe I could get a generator online.” Perriman fiddled with a set of controls to one side of the ship’s wheel, and then swore quietly. She gathered that meant they weren’t going to get any lights on.

      “Batteries are dead, too.”

      “Has the crew abandoned ship?” Nissa asked.

      Perriman frowned. “They sent no distress signals.”

      “Maybe there was no time to send one?”

      “The ship’s still afloat. Granted not for long the way she’s listing, but still. We could send a signal right now if we had even an inch of battery power. I can’t believe they ran the batteries all the way down before they got out a call for help.”

      The door opened behind them and Nissa spun fast, jumpy as heck, weapon drawn. It was Bass and Ashe.

      “Funny thing, boss,” Bass said. “The generators looked like someone took a sledgehammer to them. The batteries were pulled free of their moorings and smashed up, too.”

      “The engines?”

      “I couldn’t see any damage at a glance,” Ashe replied. “But I got nothing when I tried to start up the diagnostic panel at the engineer’s panel. I looked under the console and found a bunch of ripped out wires beneath it.”

      Curious, Nissa dropped to her knees to take a peek under the dashboard in front of her. “Uh, guys. All the wires and conduits I’m seeing down here are trashed, too.”

      “So the ship’s been sabotaged,” Cole responded. “Why?”

      The ship leaned particularly far onto its port side just then and everyone grabbed on to something to stay upright. She stared in dread at the tall stacks of containers tilting perilously.

      “I’ve being doing weight and balance calculations on ships my whole naval career, and I’ve never seen a ship this badly loaded. The manifest showed the cargo spread out in three layers over the entire deck, not stacked six high all afore midships like this,” Ashe complained. “She feels too light in the water for the weight listed on the manifest, too.”

      Cole looked at him keenly. “What are you saying?”

      Ashe shrugged asking instead, “Hey, Bass. Are the holds full to the brim with wheat like the manifest said?”

      “Negative. All the holds are empty.”

      “Holy hell,” Ashe breathed. “Sir, we have to get off this ship immediately. She’s in imminent danger of capsizing.”

      “In case you hadn’t noticed, the storm’s getting worse. Fast. The idea was to turn this ship around and sail it back to New Orleans with the prisoner in custody.”

      Ashe replied urgently, “Even if we could get the engines running, this ship is top-heavy as hell and has no ballast below decks. I can’t believe she hasn’t gone over already. I’m telling you, sir, we have to get off the Anna Belle now.”

      “And you’re sure no one but us is still aboard?” Cole asked.

      Bass and Ashe both nodded and murmured in the affirmative.

      Perriman ordered tersely, “Let’s get out of here, ASAP.”

      After that, it was all elbows and assholes as they raced downstairs, Ashe’s warning ringing in Nissa’s ears.

      The trip back down the rope ladder of doom wasn’t nearly as bad for Nissa because she was so bloody relieved to be getting off the Anna Belle. She’d had enough of those rolls and those endless, breathless pauses while the ship debated capsizing.

      She landed in the SEALs’ tiny boat with relief. They might be a cork in this vessel, but it was better than being aboard the doomed Anna Belle.

      They untied their mooring lines and motored away from the big ship. Nissa had never breathed so big a sigh of relief to be away from the Anna Belle.

      “Nearest land?” Cole asked from his position at the tiller.

      “Louisiana coast. Nearly a hundred nautical miles,” Bass answered.

      Yikes. Even traveling at twenty knots, it would take them hours to make shore. Hours for the storm to intensify around them.

      They’d been lucky to catch a ride outbound on a big Coast Guard cutter heading into the gulf to take measurements of the approaching storm, but they’d made no arrangements for a lift back to New Orleans. The plan had been to sail the Anna Belle back.

      “Do we have enough fuel to make it?” Ashe asked practically.

      Oh, hell. Now she had running out of gas to worry about.

      “Close, but enough,” Cole replied casually.

      Jeez. What else could go wrong?

      “Give me a course heading for the nearest land,” Cole ordered Bass.

      While Cole steered, the other two men put up a framework of curved poles and stretched a tarp over them, lashing it down tight. It created a low clamshell covering over the vessel. It didn’t keep out all the rain, but it knocked down the worst of the water and wind. They still had to use a motorized pump to empty water out of the hull, and the ride was rough as all get-out. But after the rolling of the Anna Belle, this freezing-cold misery was a boon. And their boat wasn’t trying to capsize.

      Until Bass, on the radio again, shouted something directly into Cole’s ear off headset that put a grim look on the man’s face.

      Cole ordered over the

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