Cheng hated the nautical-speak, he hated their boorishness, and he hated that his fate and the fate of his mission were in the hands of these idiots. He wanted to place bullets in all of them.
To add insult to injury, he saw the captain lose his balance as they entered the salon. The man recovered quickly, but it hadn’t escaped Cheng’s practiced eye.
“What can I get you to drink?” the hostess asked. “Rum runner?”
“No,” Cheng snapped. “No more alcohol, for anyone.”
The hostess looked at the captain, who waved the retort away. “Give us a minute, will you, Angie?”
The woman stepped out onto the rear deck with the princelings and closed the glass door behind her.
“My crew work for me, not for you,” the captain then said. “You don’t tell them what to do.”
The man had stepped on Cheng’s last nerve. Pulling out his pistol, he grabbed Medusa by his shirt, yanked him closer, and placed the barrel right under his nose. It sent bolts of pain through his injured shoulder, but it was a necessary show of force to earn the man’s respect. “Until we safely arrive in Cuba, this is my boat, and all three of you are my crew. Is that clear?”
The captain put up his hands, palms out, and replied, “Crystal clear.”
“I want you to sober up. Is that also clear?”
“I’ll have Angie put on coffee.”
“Good,” Cheng said, letting him go and reholstering his pistol beneath his shirt. “Now, I want you to show me our route, as well as the contingencies. Heaven forbid anything should happen to you, I want to make sure the rest of us will make it.”
“Heaven forbid,” the captain repeated, fully grasping the threat that had just been made. “Let me get Angie started on the coffee.”
He waved the hostess back in and pointed Cheng toward the bedrooms, one of which functioned as his office with all of his charts.
“No,” Cheng insisted. “After you.”
Shaking his head, the captain turned and led the man down the narrow gangway.
His office was dominated by a large map table with barely any space to maneuver around it. He signaled for Cheng to enter, but Cheng opted to step only halfway in and lean against the door frame.
“Suit yourself,” said the captain.
He turned up the marine radio so he could listen in on the traffic and then selected a map from one of many hung upon a rack bracketed to the wall.
Splaying the map on the table, the captain grabbed a pencil as well as a protractor, and was about to indicate where they were in relation to Little Torch Key when he heard a noise from the hallway and saw the panic in Cheng’s eyes.
CHAPTER 61
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The roar of the shotgun blast was deafening, even out on the aft deck where the princelings were watching the frenzied sharks gathered off the stern.
Immediately, the mate, Jimmy, cut the engines and when the students looked up at the bridge, they saw him looking at them with a pistol in his hand. Angie, the hostess, appeared in the salon with a sawed-off shotgun. From behind her, the captain came dragging the bloody body of their chaperone—the man who had collected them in Boston and was supposed to get them to Cuba so they could fly home. The man had never told them why, only that it was life and death, and that they were not to question his orders. While he bought their food or gassed up the van, they all whispered that it had to be because China was finally going to war with the United States.
The scene was beyond shocking. The men gasped. Daiyu screamed. The corpse was covered in blood and almost his entire face was missing. None of them had ever seen such a grisly sight.
If it weren’t for the clothing and the bits of jet-black hair that remained, they never would have even recognized him. Daiyu Jinping knew it was him, though. She could see the bandage beneath his shirt, on his left shoulder.
“Listen up!” the captain ordered, dragging the corpse onto the deck and dropping the legs with a thud. “There’s been a change of plans. Angie is going to hand each of you a cell phone. I want you to call your families back in China and tell them you’ve been kidnapped. In the draft folder of each of those phones are wiring instructions along with a price. If