Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3) by John Cunningham (novels for beginners txt) 📕

“Contact your associates and have them surrender or he dies! Now!”

“Cant.” I pulled out my phone, pushed the on button. Nothing happened.

“Battery’s dead.”

“What kind of commando are you!?”

“If I don’t meet them on the fantail in five minutes they’ll blow this beauty up,” I said. “Be a shame, really.”

“You’ll die before that happens,” he said.

I checked my watch. “Clock’s running, Galey. You might want to get outside.”

“You’re lying!”

Another roar of gunfire echoed through the bowels of the ship, followed by distant footsteps behind Viktor Galey.

Damn!

Galey glanced backwards toward the rush of feet.

I tried to lunge past Thedford, but he dove forward first and slammed into the Russian.

“Motherfucker!”

BOOM!

Galey’s gun fired when Thedford hit him, but his arm had swung wide—Thedford drove him into the wall—and he crumpled. He was old and didn’t struggle, just fell to his knees with the wind knocked out of him. The sound of footsteps was getting closer.

I kicked his gun toward Thedford, who snapped it up.

“Let’s go!” I said.

We ran toward where the guards were headed when I first arrived, down into the lower levels of the ship. Thedford stuck close but to his credit ran steadily, even with the alarms blaring and his bandaged hand.

“Did you see where the launch area was for their powerboats?” I said.

“The one they brought me here on? Yeah, it’s up ahead to the right.”

The alarms stopped. The quiet that followed was eerie—had they apprehended the boys? Had Galey bought the lie about the explosives?

“This way!” Thedford said as he rushed down the hall ahead of me.

“Wait!”

He turned the corner and vanished.

I hurried after him and by the time I rounded the corner, he was turning left down the next hall, thirty feet ahead. I wanted to scream, but Thedford was hauling ass and I needed to catch up. I rushed up to the intersection of corridors, peered right, and found nothing—

“They’re up here!” an accented voice shouted from the hall behind me.

I took off after Thedford and about forty-feet up the cocoa leather-walled hallway found a door ajar. A peek inside revealed sporting equipment. I entered, gun first, and found him bent down in one of two matching, blue-hulled speedboats.

“There’s no keys!” he said.

I locked the door and shoved a cart full of scuba tanks in front of it before running over to the second boat—also no keys.

I pulled up the floor mat, found nothing, checked the console—nothing. Felt around the sides of the seats, nothing!

“You find anything?” I said.

“There’re some jet skis.”

I jumped out of the boat—the cramped room was full of water sports equipment. There had to be…there! On the wall near the door was a gray metal box. I pulled at the handle—it was locked.

A quick aim and eruption from the machine pistol knocked the box off the wall. It fell with a clatter to the floor, its door askew. A dozen different keys were inside the box—

The door handle rattled. There was a shout—could it be Boom-Boom? A loud series of knocks, followed by pounding on the door.

I scooped up a handful of keys and tossed them toward Thedford.

“Find one that fits the boat while I try to open the hull wall.”

A loud clanking noise filled the room as the men outside beat on the door with what sounded like a fire extinguisher. Next to the outside wall was a small panel with a half-dozen illuminated lights. They all glowed red.

I stumbled over a pile of swim fins and dive gear, rolled on the floor as more shouting from outside made my heart pound. At the console, each button had writing below it—in Cyrillic.

The pounding on the door began again.

I pushed all the buttons. The red lights turned green and the sound of whirring machinery filled the room. The exterior wall started to slide open.

I turned to Thedford, who held his hands up.

No keys.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Ziiinnnggg!

I ducked.

Someone was shooting at the hinges on the door. Bullets ricocheted around the little room.

The launch doors for the boats were now fully open. The harbor looked like an endless void lit only by moonlight shining on the scattered white hulls of boats at anchor.

I dove for the metal box, grabbed the rest of the keys, and jumped in the boat with Thedford. There was one on a small orange float—it fit the ignition!

A loud screech sounded and the door into the room collapsed in toward us, blocked only by the cart of scuba tanks.

The boat’s engine fired up.

There was a rope attached to a pulley in front of the boat. I aimed the machine pistol at it, pulled the trigger, and shredded the rope—the boat slid backwards as the door into the room fell to the side. The boat splashed into the water, which muffled the sound of revving twin props.

I pulled the throttles into reverse and my rope-burned palm stuck to the handle. The boat jumped backward and water sprayed up over the transom. A man pushed the door aside and aimed a gun at us. I pointed the machine gun toward the door and fired a burst at the scuba tanks—

WHOOSH!

A concussion of air and chunks of fiberglass, loose flippers, masks, and debris blasted out through the opening our boat had just vacated.

A swim fin hit the bow of the boat with a thwack and nearly knocked me to the deck.

I shoved the throttles forward.

“Get down!” I yelled.

The bow jumped as we shot ahead. I steered us toward the yacht’s fantail, searching for the boys. Galey’s men ran toward the stern. I reached the end but there was no sign of Diego or Boom-Boom.

Dammit!

I spun the wheel, cut behind the yacht, and started up the port side—up toward where I’d climbed the rope—

“Reilly!”

Up above were Diego and Boom-Boom, running and waving from the top deck.

I pulled back on the throttles.

“Jump!”

Both men hurled themselves over the side and landed with huge splashes in front of us. It was a five count before they