as sad, light as well as dark. And though she’d starred in a couple of romantic comedies early in her career, her bread and butter was the action-adventure film. She looked her best on screen when she appeared to be kicking someone’s ass. She even hoped to do her own stunts someday, to get a deeper connection to her characters. But at the moment, her management was dead set against that idea. Stunt doubles still threw the punches, took the tumbles, crashed the cars.
Emma was just too valuable to do them herself.
* * *
THE IMMACULATE PERCEPTION sailed through the evening, gliding atop the quiet sea.
It was not entirely alone. The Omani Navy had provided an armed frigate, currently sailing a quarter mile behind, to watch over both megastar and mega-yacht during this part of the journey. A favor from her friend, the Sultan of Oman, the warship was scheduled to stay with her until an Egyptian patrol boat met the yacht off the Red Sea island of Perim around midnight. From there, the Egyptian navy would take over escort duty right up through the Suez Canal.
A small glitch arose in this plan, though. Emma was below in her luxurious cabin, staring at proofs of her new children’s book, Everyone Wants to Be Me, when word arrived that the Egyptian boat had been slightly delayed due to some celebrity reporters demanding they come aboard and record its cruise. Her personal physician had just left, having injected her with her nightly cocktail of mood elevators and sleeping aids, and she was already feeling the effects.
The plan now was for the Egyptian vessel to rendezvous with the mega-yacht just before 1:00 A.M., a little north of Perim. This was not a problem. Though low fuel had forced the Omani frigate to turn back at 12:30 A.M., by that time, the Egyptian patrol boat was just ten miles away. Considering the two vessels were heading right for each other, The Immaculate Perception would be without escort for less than twenty minutes.
But that’s all it took.
Because just as soon as the Omani ship disappeared over the horizon, the pirates struck.
* * *
THEY’D BEEN LURKING off Perim, hidden among the rocks near the island’s treacherous south side.
Using two fast boats, each carrying six heavily armed gunmen and extra fuel tanks, they’d come up behind the yacht and, hidden by the darkness, climbed aboard unmolested. Only when two of the pirates appeared in the yacht’s control room did the crew know something was amiss. The vessel’s onboard security team, four bouncers from Ankara, vanished in an instant. Once the yacht’s captain realized how quickly they were being overrun, he ordered his fifty-five-man crew not to resist. He also suggested Emma’s entourage do the same.
It all happened very fast. Sixty seconds after climbing aboard, the dozen Somali pirates were in control of The Immaculate Perception.
* * *
WHEN THE FIRST pirate walked into Emma Simms’s cabin, she thought he was one of her waiters, inexplicably dressed in blackface and rags.
“Why are you in that getup?” she’d asked him.
The man didn’t speak English, but he didn’t have to. He simply raised his AK-47, fired a burst into the ceiling. Then he yanked her to her feet and began to drag her up to the main deck.
“No!” she screamed, terrified—but it was no use. He pulled her up top where she saw the crew had been made to kneel against the railing, her own contingent right beside them. The pirates’ two large speedboats were tied up alongside the yacht, which by now had stopped dead in the water.
Armed men were everywhere: up on the bridge, on the foredeck, up on both helicopter pads and along both rails. From what Emma could see, everyone else on board had been aware of the pirate attack long before she was.
“So what the hell is this?” she suddenly bellowed to no one in particular. “These guys came looking for me last?”
Two pirates blindfolded Emma and her stylist and forced them into one of their speedboats. Emma complained loudly, slapping and kicking the gunmen, but to no avail. The rest of the pirates looted the yacht, robbing everyone on board and stealing Emma’s extensive sunglasses collection. They disabled the yacht’s engines and shot out its radio equipment, then left.
Had it been another time and place, the pirates might have stolen The Immaculate Perception itself.
But not tonight.
Emma had been their target all along.
3
THE TRIP TOOK two hours, a lot of it over choppy water.