In Rides Trouble by Julie Ann Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

answered, slapping his hand over the mouth of the small, hogtied pirate kneeling in front of him. The guy kept on screaming, “Parley, parley, parley!”
    Frank grunted, motioning for Bill to remove his hand. The little pirate— dude, is that an eye patch?— relieved of Bill’s restraining hand, took a deep breath before he started begging, “Please, sir, please—”
    “Shut up,” Frank barked. “This isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean , and you’re not Jack Sparrow… or One-Eyed Willie, for that matter. There is no parley.”
    Bill made a face, then glanced at the gaudy little jewel glued to the center of the pirate’s eye patch and burst out laughing.
    Frank felt one corner of his mouth twitch before he glanced into the shadowed corner of the Hamilton ’s big bridge where the pirates had stacked the tanker’s crew together like a pile of sweating sardines. Angel murmured reassurances to the wide-eyed hostages as he sliced through their restraints, but when he caught Frank looking at him for verification that Becky was somewhere in there with the rest of the tanker’s crew, he shook his head.
    Yeah, that would’ve been too easy. Obviously she was still being held down in the engine room.
    “How many are down in the engine room?” he asked One-Eyed Willie, who was still pleading, blubbering, and switching back and forth between English and his native language in such rapid succession that Frank’s temples started to pound. “How many!” He grabbed the guy’s shoulder, giving it a hard shake.
    Oh man, was that a…? Kee-rist , it was. An actual tear leaked from the corner of the pirate’s one good eye. The guy…kid really—if One-Eyed Willie’d seen his twentieth birthday then Frank was the bleeding Tooth Fairy—was trembling so hard, he feared the little shit’s yellow teeth might rattle right out of his head.
    Taking a deep breath, praying for patience, he bent until he could peer into the young pirate’s tear- and sweat-soaked face. Damn, the guy needed a Kleenex in a bad way, but Frank tried his level best to ignore the giant snot bubble threatening to burst when the One-Eyed Willie sniffled.
    “What’s your name, son,” he said, grinding his back teeth against the burning desire to wrap his hands around the bastard’s neck and just wring the truth from him. Every second Becky remained unaccounted for was one second too long.
    “G-Ghedi,” the young pirate whispered, his eye huge as he took in Frank’s size and shrank away like Jack must’ve after he climbed up the beanstalk.
    Yeah yeah, Frank got that a lot.
    “Well, Ghedi, I know from surveillance photos that at least two of your number are piloting the skiffs back to Africa, but that leaves one of your group unaccounted for. Is he down in the engine room with Becky? Is he somewhere else?”
    “No, no, no,” Ghedi shook his head, and Frank warily eyed that snot bubble. The thing was going to burst any minute, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it did. “She alone. Other men, they all on boats back to Somalia. She alone. She all alone, work on engines.”
    Narrowing his eyes, Frank got as close to the guy’s face as he figured was safe, “If you’re lying to me, fuckwad, I’ll kill you.”
    “No lie. No, no, no lie.”
    Bill nudged his arm and leveled his gun at One-Eyed Willie’s leaking nose. “Well Boss, let’s go get our girl.”
    Frank didn’t bother with a response or wait to give Bill instructions to stay and guard the pirates, he just turned tail and made like Carl Lewis as he raced toward the engine room.

Chapter Four
    “Hello, Rebecca.”
    The words, spoken over Becky’s left shoulder in that deep, grumbling voice, nearly had her dropping the wrench and sliding to a weepy puddle on the floor.
    Thank you, sweet Lord, we’re saved.
    She’d just spent the last three minutes arguing with herself about whether she should ignore Sharif’s warning and attempt an escape. She’d figured she