Apocalyptic Pirates 5, page 28
But I realized the bolt was locked back, and my magazine was empty.
“Shit!” I yelled. “I’m out, too!”
The dragon rushed at us as I snatched my knife from my belt.
“Drew! Good Pirates!” a shout came from the track.
The soldiers had piled out of the Jeeps and fallen into a firing formation with their guns trained on the black dragon.
“Duck!” they yelled.
The dragon bunched its muscles, snapped open its wings, and hurled itself at us.
I hit the dirt and dragged Shannon, who was nearest, down with me. The others followed suit.
A thunderstorm of firepower went off and set my ears ringing.
The dragon gave the beginnings of a roar that broke off halfway. I had the sensation of something huge passing over us. And then there was a thump that shook the forest floor.
“Come on! Run! Vamos!” the soldiers yelled in encouragement, and their frenzy broke through the bells in my ears.
I staggered to my feet and saw the weaselly black body of the dragon lying sprawled on its side with its corpse ragged with red bullet wounds.
“Vamos!” Sergeant Rodriguez shouted.
I hurled myself up the slope, onto the track, and into the waiting Jeep.
The others followed me, and within seconds, we’d slammed the doors shut, the driver started the engine, and we were carefully rolling our way the hell out of Dodge.
As soon as I got my breath back, I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket. The camera was still filming, so I stopped it and began scrubbing back through the footage to see what I’d captured.
“Did you get it?” one of the soldiers asked me with wide eager eyes. “Did you get the footage that we needed?”
The Sergeant looked at me hopefully.
“Oh, yeah,” I said with a grin as I held up the phone. “I got everything we need right here.”
Chapter 18
“It’s going to be too dangerous for you to stay much longer in Panama,” Sergeant Rodriguez said as we left the forest behind us and headed back onto the highway. “The Coast Guard have your descriptions, and as soon as the video gets posted, they’re going to connect the dots, if they haven’t already.”
“Um, excuse me?” Shannon stared at him. “The Coast Guard have our descriptions?”
“They have a whole fucking file,” I said with a grimace. “They’ve got our descriptions, our photos, our backgrounds, details about our families, you name it.”
“What photo did they use?” Dia asked with her eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“That’s what you took away from this?” Shannon asked in an incredulous voice.
“I’m curious.” Dia shrugged. “Aren’t you?”
“No,” Shannon insisted.
“Yes,” Ally said at the exact same time.
“They used headshots for Shannon and Letty,” I said. “You were both smartly dressed, so I guessed they might have been for work.”
“Ugh,” Letty groaned. “I bet that’s from my realtor profile.”
“Mine will be from college,” Shannon said, and then she shrugged and grinned. “Oh, well. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, then I don’t look too bad in that one.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured her with a grin. “You all looked great.”
“Which one did they use for me?” Dia persisted.
“It was a selfie,” I said.
“Oh, cool.” She relaxed. “All my selfies are fire.”
“What about mine?” Ally asked with a slight nervous note in her voice.
“It looked like a professional portrait,” I said. “It had one of those faded backdrops like they use in a studio.”
Ally’s brow wrinkled for a second, and then she rolled her eyes.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “That’ll be Lonnie’s and my first official portrait as a married couple. They must have cut him out of it.”
“Good riddance,” I commented.
“Yeah.” The redhead heaved a sigh. “That was really early on, maybe like a month after we’d gotten married. And even then I was starting to feel miserable. He kept flirting with the photographer, and when I tried to chat with her afterward, he basically told me to shut up.”
“I’m sorry.” I leaned over and put my hand over hers.
“Oh, well.” She sighed again. “That part of my life is over now. Thank God. It’s just unpleasant being reminded of that.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Letty said with a sympathetic look on her face.
“Hopefully a dragon ate him balls-first,” Dia said.
Ally snorted a laugh, and it was good to see that sad, faraway look in her eye vanish.
“All that being said,” the Sergeant continued. “I will advise Commissioner Hernandez on our return that you are to be transported away from Panama immediately tomorrow morning.”
“Uh, there’s just one problem,” Shannon said.
“The yacht,” Ally finished.
“That’s being taken care of,” I told them. “The Commissioner agreed to transport us and the yacht in a cargo carrier through the Canal and across the Panama Bay to a safe drop-off point where there aren’t so many Coast Guard ships.”
“Okay.” Ally nodded. “But if there’s so much as a scratch on the yacht when I see it again, I will be having words with the Commissioner.”
“No you won’t,” Shannon said in scandalized tones.
Ally grinned at her and winked at the Sergeant who was eyeing her with trepidation.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’m joking. It’s covered in scratches from the dragons, thieves, and cartel members we’ve dealt with.”
“Ah. Um, okay,” he stuttered.
Poor guy.
I smiled to myself. I was going to miss the Sergeant when we left Panama behind.
The journey back to the city was smooth and swift. There was another of the sleek, black cars waiting for us at the same rendezvous point as before, and the women and I left the Jeep and piled into the car with the Sergeant.
I sank into the fine upholstered leather seats with a sigh of relief.
“Shit,” Dia exclaimed. “Are you telling me that it’s barely past lunchtime?”
“Whoa.” Letty blinked. “We did all that in one morning?”
“We left early,” the Sergeant pointed out. “And the roads were clear, so we made good time.”
“Still.” Shannon shook her head. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah.” I thought of my phone carefully tucked away in my pocket. “It only took one morning’s work to potentially change the world.”
“Change the world?” Dia raised her eyebrows.
“By helping Panama expose what’s happening down here, we’ve helped prevent a war with the United States. And when the video goes out and we show what the Coast Guard is doing…” I shrugged. “I’d say that’s pretty world-changing.”
“You’re right,” she acknowledged, and then gave a little chuckle. “It just feels weird to think I was part of a mission that could change the world.”
“There you go,” Shannon teased her. “You do have some merits, after all.”
Dia rolled her eyes and grinned.
When we reached the hotel, we rode the elevator upstairs to our rooms. The Sergeant informed us that we were to wash, change our clothes, order room service, and spend the rest of the afternoon doing what we wanted in our rooms before we could meet the Commissioner at dinner, where he would debrief us.
“Does the Commissioner just really like doing things over elaborate meals?” Dia cocked an eyebrow.
“I believe he feels the setting will put you at ease,” the Sergeant explained.
“See, that’s nice of him, isn’t it?” Shannon nudged Dia in the shoulder.
“Alright, alright, fine,” Dia complained as she rubbed her shoulder. “He’s very nice and lovely. You happy, lovebird?”
Shannon’s cheeks blushed red, and she shot Dia a murderous glance.
The Sergeant’s brow furrowed as he looked in confusion between the two women.
“Don’t mind them,” Ally told him with a smile. “It’s an inside joke.”
“And not a very funny one!” Shannon aimed another nudge at Dia, but the Latina woman dodged and skipped away to her own suite with a cackle of laughter that echoed through the fancy hallway.
I was glad to shower and change my clothes. Dragon blood had somehow worked its way into every pore and crevice of my body, and I had to scrub vigorously behind my ears and shampoo three times before I got it all off me.
Even though I couldn’t help wondering if it had all somehow been exfoliating and nourishing my skin this whole time. Hell, maybe rich women all over the world would soon be getting dragon blood facials for the ultimate glow up…
I cringed at the idea.
There were more clothes laid out for me in the bedroom: a casual t-shirt with some smart chino shorts, and the same suit I’d worn the night before, only it had been cleaned and freshly pressed so it looked practically unworn.
There was still a long time before dinner, and my stomach was rumbling, so I got dressed in the shorts and t-shirt and went to knock on the doors of the women’s suites.
The first two rooms seemed to be empty, which was explained when I knocked on the third door.
“Come in!” Ally’s voice sang out.
I went in and found all four of them lounging around in bathrobes with their hair wrapped up in soft, fluffy towels.
“Drew!” they cried.
“We’ve ordered room service,” Dia said.
“We ordered more than enough for everyone,” Letty added.
“They’ve got a DVD player!” Shannon said with a grin. “We’re thinking about having a movie marathon before dinner.”
“Oh wow.” I chuckled as I looked over the stack of DVDs they’d set up on the table. “Legally Blonde. Happy Gilmore. Groundhog Day. The Lawnmower Man?”
“Oh, my god, you have to see The Lawnmower Man,” Letty gasped theatrically. “It is literally the worst film.”
“And that’s a good thing?” I guessed.
“Good and bad don’t come into it.” Letty shook her head. “It moves beyond those concepts. The Lawnmower Man just is.”
“Oh, my god,” Dia groaned.
“What?” Letty asked defensively, and then she ducked as Dia threw a pillow at her. “Oh, my god, can you not?”
“We’re watching Legally Blonde,” Dia announced. “I feel like something fluffy and empowering.”
“No, Groundhog Day!” Ally insisted.
“How about we let Drew choose?” Shannon suggested. “We’ve kinda monopolized the movie choices lately.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Letty said. “So, Drew, what do you think?”
“Pick your poison,” Dia declared.
“Uh…” I laughed. “Okay, well, now you’re just putting way too much pressure on me. I can’t make a choice with all of you looking at me.”
“How about we close our eyes?” Dia suggested. “You pick a movie and put it on, and we won’t know what it is until it starts.”
“Deal.” I nodded.
The women closed their eyes, and I flipped through the DVDs. I selected one and fed it into the player, then quickly clicked through the menus to get it to start playing.
“Okay,” I announced, and I sat down on the couch with the women all around me.
The women waited breathlessly. Then they burst out laughing as the opening scene of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl started playing.
“Hey, it’s on brand,” I chuckled.
“Good choice,” Dia said with a grin.
They all snuggled close to me, and for the rest of the afternoon, we did nothing except eat bread pudding and work our way through most of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Despite all the room service we ordered, it wasn’t enough to spoil our appetites, and by the time a server knocked on the door and told us to get ready for dinner with the Commissioner, we were more than ready to eat another meal.
The women got dressed in their amazing gowns, and this time I got to watch the magic happen before my very eyes. They helped each other with their hair, and Dia produced a red lipstick from her rucksack for everyone to use.
“Damn,” I chuckled. “Where did you get that from?”
“I have my ways.” Dia waggled her eyebrows mysteriously.
“I’m just glad that you remembered to bring it with you,” Ally said as she carefully applied the lipstick to her luscious mouth.
There was something incredibly sexy about all four of them wearing the same red lipstick. They posed together in front of the mirror, and I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face as I watched them preening in front of the glass.
“Well,” Shannon exclaimed. “We all look pretty fine, I think.”
“I think so, too,” I said.
“Drew!” Letty squealed. “You’re not dressed yet!”
“It’ll only take me a moment,” I told her with a smile. “I wanted to see you guys get dolled up first.”
“We’ve just got a few finishing touches to attend to,” Ally said. “Then shall we meet you in the hall?”
“Sure thing,” I replied.
I went back to my room and hurried into my suit. My stubble was still tight enough that it didn’t look messy, so I just worked a bit of product into my hair until it looked purposefully tousled rather than unkempt.
Then I went out in the hall and tapped on the women’s door, which immediately opened.
“Mmm,” Letty purred at the sight of me.
“Damn, Drew.” Shannon bit her lip. “You clean up nice, don’t you?”
“That is one exceptional suit,” Ally said.
“And one exceptional body inside it,” Dia added with a smirk.
“Well, thank you.” I laughed to hide my self-consciousness. “Are we all ready to head down now?”
“Sure thing!” Dia declared. “I’m starving.”
We walked down to the dining hall, and when we entered the room, it was just the Commissioner sitting at the head of the table with Sergeant Rodriguez sitting on his left.
“Ah, there you are,” the Commissioner greeted us with a smile. “The Good Pirates.”
The Sergeant blinked at the sight of the women, swallowed hard, and then resolutely fixed his attention on what the Commissioner was saying.
“The Sergeant tells me that the mission was a complete success.” The Commissioner looked around at us as we took our places around the table. “Not without losses, of course, I understand that several of our men lost their lives. But the footage was secured?”
“Yep.” I took my phone out of my pocket and handed it over to him with the video loaded and ready to play. “I managed to do some of the edits this afternoon on my phone and cut out any moments where it seemed like we were accompanied by armed men.”
“Thank you.” The Commissioner looked through the footage with a furrowed brow.
He nodded a couple of times before handing the phone back to me.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think you’ve done even better than I hoped,” he responded. “Thank you, all of you. You’ve exceeded my expectations.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“You’re welcome, sir,” Shannon added, and then shot Dia a filthy look as the other woman nudged her playfully in the side with her elbow.
“We’re glad we could help,” Dia said innocently.
The servers wheeled in the trays of food and started filling our dishes with a steaming paella.
“From the video footage,” the Commissioner mused. “It seems as though the majority of the nests you saw had already been raided.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Either the Coast Guard personnel had already got to them, or the predators in the area were taking care of it.”
“We saw an ocelot stealing and eating dragon eggs,” the Sergeant said. “Until the Coast Guard sailors shot it.”
“Of course.” The Commissioner sighed.
“I found that kind of cool, though,” Dia said as she loaded her fork with paella. “Like a documentary.”
“I’m sorry?” The Commissioner raised his eyebrows.
Dia’s mouth was too full for her to answer. She chewed frantically, but I thought I should step in.
“Not cool that they shot the ocelot,” I explained. “But cool in the way that the ocelot was there. It was like seeing nature reassert itself.”
“Yeah.” Dia finally swallowed. “It’s kind of like seeing the planet heal itself, you know? The ocelot was just eating dragon eggs like it had done it a hundred times before.”
“I think I see what you mean.” The Commissioner slowly shook his head, and from the polite tone in his voice, I wasn’t sure that he did actually see what Dia meant.
“I think it’s about seeing the dragons becoming a part of life,” I tried to explain. “They’re entering the food chain, but they’re not always at the top, just like other predators aren’t always at the top. The ocelot could have been eating crocodile eggs, but at that moment it was eating dragon eggs because that was what was nearby and so it filled the ocelot’s need for food. Does that make sense?”
The Commissioner was silent for a moment. He reached for his glass and took a sip of water.
“I think what Drew means,” Sergeant Rodriguez said with a slightly anxious note in his voice. “Is that the natural world is assimilating the dragons into its natural order.”
“Yes, I see that, Sergeant,” the Commissioner replied.
Rodriguez looked down at his plate with a chastened expression on his face.
“But you don’t like that idea,” I guessed.
“You do like it?” he replied with his eyebrows raised. “You like the idea of the dragons becoming accepted? Becoming normal?”
“Well…” I paused because I didn’t want to offend the Commissioner. “I just don’t think we have that much choice about that anymore. Whether we like it or not, the dragons are a fact of life now. We have to work to accommodate them.”
“And think of all the benefits they’re bringing,” Letty added. “It’s not how any of us would have liked to see a medical breakthrough of this scale, but the fact is that it’s happened.”
