He was probably trying to make sure the men who were checking the load didn’t see him, she thought and copied him. Then they reached the last row and there was nothing but empty deck in front of them and the bridge about a hundred feet away.
He waited and watched.
“What are we looking for?” she asked from behind him.
“I want to know how many men are on this ship and if they’re all armed. Some of these ocean liners work with skeleton crews. Everything’s computerized these days.”
“That the men at the treasury could take out all those guards means they must have been armed to the teeth.”
“Those men might not be here. They could have a connection in shipping who agreed to smuggle the goods out of the country. There could be only a handful of bad apples on this ship, the rest of the crew and the captain honest men. In which case, we can ask for their help. Maybe taking over the ship isn’t our only option. It could be as easy as capturing and immobilizing a couple of bad guys.”
He was talking as if he believed her innocence at last, but she noticed that he made a point of not turning his back to her. Still, at least he was willing to work with her. They could sort out the rest once they escaped. At least they were no longer locked in. She was feeling more optimistic by the minute.
But their hopes seemed unjustified when, a few seconds later, the patrolling seamen came into view, armed. Every last one of them.
She held her breath and pulled close to Istvan, the two of them sandwiched together in a small gap between two containers, her breasts pressed against his back as she peeked over his shoulder. This was the closest they’d been to each other, and she was suddenly aware of his well-built body, his wide shoulders, the strength of the man as he stood in front of her.
He had his gun in his hand, his other hand holding her back, his feet slightly apart. His body language couldn’t have been clearer. If anyone wanted to get to her, they had to go through him. A strange feeling seeped through her, part indignation that he would assume she needed protection, part something else.
She wasn’t used to feeling protected by men.
She’d certainly never been protected by her father who’d used her even as a small child as his “little helper” in his often dangerous business. Sure, she’d been sheltered and fed, but she’d had to earn that food and the roof over her head.
The men kept walking, talking too low for her to understand. She had half a mind to elbow her way in front of the prince, or at least right next to him, but the fact was, he had a gun and she didn’t. And while she was a self-sufficient and independent woman, she was also smart enough to correctly assess the situation they were in.
“This way,” Istvan said and moved to the right between the first row of containers and the second once the men passed.
They were hidden from view of the bridge, moving away from the men who were checking the deck. Regardless, he stole forward with caution.
And still neither of them saw the guy who’d been hiding between the containers until it was too late. He was seated, a bottle of booze in one hand, an AK-47 in the other. He immediately lifted the rifle.
Istvan jumped forward, knocking the rifle to the left while pressing his own weapon against the man’s chest and pulling the trigger. The body had muffled the sound, but it was still unmistakable.
“Come on.” Istvan tossed the dead man’s rifle to her, then ran, probably in case anyone had been close enough to hear the muffled shot and was coming to investigate.
The whole incident lasted less than thirty seconds, Lauryn thought bewildered, running after him, her heart still banging desperately against her chest. Violence always shook her. Even back when she’d made her living in ways less than one-hundred-percent honest, she never took a weapon to a heist, prided herself on being able to get in and out unseen, unconfronted.
The prince had been quick in a crisis situation, acted without hesitation, done well. Maybe too well, she realized suddenly, for a prince.
“Where did you learn all the cloak-and-dagger stuff?” she asked as they slowed.
“Basic self-defense training all the princes received.”
She nearly laughed. “I wouldn’t buy that at a two-for-the-price-of-one sale. Want to try again?”
“A couple of years ago, I led an expedition to the Middle East. I was searching for the remains of a caravan a Valtrian king sent to the Far East a few centuries ago. The whole caravan had perished. I was trying to find some trace of it and figure out what happened to them, but my crew and I ended up stumbling into the middle of some serious tribal warfare.”
She looked at him and felt her lips stretch into a shaky smile.
“What is it?”
“You live a more interesting life than I gave you credit for.”
He flashed a smile back, the first he’d ever given her. It transformed his face in the moonlight from handsome to dazzling, and she had to catch her breath.
She’d thought of him as a soft academic before who’d been bitten by the archaeology bug. Sure, he published a lot, but she always thought someone else did the lion’s share of the fieldwork. She couldn’t picture a prince with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, getting his hands dirty. But suddenly it looked as if there was more to him than being a high-born professor. Those princely manners hid a warrior spirit.
She couldn’t say she wasn’t fascinated by it.
“This changes everything,” he said.
She blinked, afraid for a moment that he could read her thoughts. “What does?”
“The man I shot back there. He will be missed. A thorough search of the ship will be conducted.”
“Maybe he was a stowaway.”
“He was a member of the crew, sneaking off for a drink.”
“Why? Those guys looked like nothing more than thugs. I doubt they’d frown on a little whiskey.”
“Maybe he was Muslim, forbidden to drink. He can’t very well do it in front of the captain or he’d be punished.” He cheered up. “If the crew is Muslim, it could mean we’re heading to one of the Muslim countries in the region.”
“And why is that good?”
“We’ll be there by morning.”
As opposed to being stuck on the ship for days for a cross-Atlantic voyage to South America or the United States. She was beginning to see his point.
Hopefully, the rest of the crew wouldn’t notice that one man missing until then. In the chaos of landing and unloading, the prince and she might be able to slip off the ship unseen and alert the authorities.
Not that life had ever been that easy for her, she reflected the next second as they came around the corner and ran right into the armed posse that was patrolling the deck.
“Why are you on my ship?” the captain was yelling at them in Turkish, waving the gun his crew had gotten off Istvan. His eyebrows were like fat, hairy caterpillars, wiggling with each word on a face that was lined by age and weather. He had a thick nose and a blunt chin he thrust out as he narrowed one eye. “Are you spies? Are you police?”
They were on the bridge where the instrument panels took up most of the space. The open sea was visible through a bank of windows, stretching endlessly toward the horizon.
“Stowaways,” Istvan responded in the man’s own language, glancing at Lauryn, who probably didn’t understand any of the conversation and was scared to death.
Not that she showed it. On the surface she looked as if she was holding up, which was good. He’d found that in situations like this, the key was not to show fear.
“Where did you come from?” Only the captain was asking questions. The rest of the officers worked the instruments. The posse that captured Istvan and Lauryn contended themselves with pointing their guns and looking menacing.
Istvan kept his gaze on the captain, ignoring the half-dozen weapons. “Valtria.”
“Stowaways from Valtria.” A bushy eyebrow went up. “I ask you again, what are you doing on my ship?”
The fact that this crew was armed, too, like the one on the riverboat had been, didn’t necessarily mean they were criminals. A lot of ocean liner crews armed themselves these days in response to the increasing pirate attacks off the coast of Africa. But the interaction between the captain and the crew said they were hiding something. And the captain was angrier than he should have been at a couple of stowaways. His small, calculating eyes kept returning to Lauryn and not in a good way.
“We’re running from the law,” Istvan said to distract him. If the man was doing shady business himself, he might sympathize.
“Why?” The captain pointed the gun straight at Istvan, his full attention back on him.
Istvan gave a small nod to Lauryn to reassure her, wishing she could understand what was going on, then put his hands up in a capitulating gesture. Now that he’d seen the crew and how well-armed they were, he had to accept that his plan of taking over the ship had been overly optimistic.
“You’re a rich man. No criminal.” The captain’s eyes narrowed.
And Istvan caught his mistake at once. Raising his arms caused his shirtsleeve to fall back and reveal his gold watch. Getting caught lying could be the worst thing at the moment.
The man cocked the gun. He didn’t look as if he was giving them another chance to explain.
But Lauryn rushed forth with an explanation anyway. “We only pretend to be rich. We’re thieves,” she said in near-perfect, unaccented Turkish.
Istvan stared at her. The woman was full of surprises. Definitely not one to be underestimated.
“When I was young, in my country thieves got their hands cut off.” The captain’s scowl deepened, but at least he wasn’t shooting. He was measuring up Lauryn.
Istvan used the distraction and eyed the man on his right. He might be able to lunge for the man’s rifle. He shifted his weight, getting ready.
“Lucky for us, you’re not a policeman.” Lauryn smiled with a hint of teasing.
The captain smiled back and Istvan did a double take.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that you’re lucky.” He swept his gaze over her from head to toe. “You don’t look like a thief.”
“Let me reach into my clothes and I’ll prove it to you,” she challenged him.
Armed men stood behind them, their guns pointed and ready to shoot. The captain nodded to the goon behind Lauryn and the man moved his rifle barrel forward so that it would touch the back of her head.
She rolled her slim shoulders for a brief second before she reached into her waistband and brought out a pocketknife, tossing it onto the floor at the captain’s feet.
“That’s mine!” One of the armed men stepped for ward, flashing her a dark look.
A watch came next from her bra, similarly claimed.
Then some pocket change of Turkish currency from her socks, a lighter from her shoe, a blue medal of the evil eye—a common charm in the Middle East. By the time she tossed a small black book on top of the heap, the men looked ready to strangle her, but the captain was laughing, the lines around his small eyes crinkling with mirth.
“And he’s a thief, too?” The man pointed at Istvan with the gun that he’d relaxed during the performance.
Istvan’s muscles stiffened. Now they would expect him to put on a show like she had. Brilliant. Because, of course, he had absolutely nothing.
But Lauryn said, “Mostly I’m the thief and he’s the muscle.”
The man nodded at that, looking Istvan over one more time, his gaze settling on his left wrist. “The watch?”
“An excellent fake.” He pulled it off immediately and held it out, an offering.
One of the men snatched it out of his hand and the expensive timepiece immediately disappeared.
Istvan didn’t care about the watch. He kept stealing glances at Lauryn. When on earth did she have time to pick these men’s pockets anyway? Their struggle when they’d been apprehended had been brief, had been kept brief purposely by Istvan because he didn’t want her to get hurt.
The captain shoved the handgun into his waistband, a calculating expression coming to his face as he glanced from one stowaway to the other. “Maybe we’ll be friends, eh?”
The rest of the men still had their weapons aimed. They weren’t as amused by Lauryn’s party tricks as their captain.
The man assessed the prisoners for another few seconds, then seemed to come to a decision when he turned away from them, looking out to sea. “Take them to one of the aft storage cabins. I’ll deal with them when we reach Mersin.”
The crew grabbed them and didn’t worry much about bruising. They were shoved forward, taken down narrow hallways and stairs, a rifle barrel stuck between Istvan’s ribs to guide him to their destination. He took note of every turn, the location of every door.
Then they were stopped and he was thrust forward into a small cabin. Lauryn came next, pushed with enough force to lose her balance. He caught her before she would have crashed into the metal shelving that nearly filled out their makeshift prison cell. She felt fragile in his arms, although he knew she was anything but a lost little lamb. He’d seen her in action.
The door closed and locked behind them before they could have turned and tried any trick for getting out of there. She stepped away without looking at him, brushed her clothes off and took a minute to survey the place. “Welcome to the presidential suite,” she said in a wry tone.
Hardly. The storage cabin was barely three meters by three meters with a single porthole, which was their only source of light. The switch for the metal-mesh-protected bulb overhead was outside the door and the men hadn’t cared enough to turn it on for their prisoners.
His stomach growled. He ignored it. He had a feeling it’d be a long time before any food came their way. Lauryn didn’t exactly steal herself into the men’s hearts when she’d picked their pockets.
Her performance was more than confirmation enough that at least some of the things rumored about her had to be true. But because her “skill” saved their lives, he couldn’t very well hold that against her just now.
“You speak very good Turkish.” He checked the shelves, but found nothing beyond spare parts for the ship’s machinery.
“I traveled a lot with my father when I was younger.”