Kate Jones Thriller Series Vol. 2 Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CRUISING FOR DEATH

  YUCATÁN DEAD

  A ONE WAY TICKET TO DEAD

  The Kate Jones Thriller Series, Vol. 2

  By D.V. Berkom

  Copyright 2015 by D.V. Berkom & Duct Tape Press

  eBook Edition

  These books are a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, event or occurrence, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

  For more works by D.V. Berkom, please visit: http://www.dvberkom.com

  CRUISING FOR DEATH

  Paradise Lost...

  Kate Jones and her lover, Cole, are on a luxury cruise in the Caribbean when a passenger dies of an apparent heart attack and the ship is boarded by modern-day pirates. Along with two other passengers, Kate is kidnapped by a long-lost enemy who wants to settle an old score.

  Kate's vacation turns into non-stop action when Anaya's gunmen board the cruise ship and she finds herself on a jet ski surrounded by sharks, kidnapped, held captive, staked down over patch of fast growing bamboo, and drugged in a Voodoo ceremony. Add a 16th century Spanish shipwreck, hidden treasure, and an Obeah priestess and you've got trouble in paradise.

  Will Kate escape certain death or end up as shark bait in the middle of the Caribbean?

  It's adventure in paradise and promises all the fast-paced action readers have come to expect from the Kate Jones Thriller Series.

  YUCATÁN DEAD

  She was a dangerous man's lover...now she's his dangerous enemy.

  For Kate Jones, being on the run from her former lover--the vicious leader of a Mexican drug cartel--was never going to be easy. But with a new identity, a new lover, and a new life in Arizona, she was beginning to believe she'd made it through the worst.

  Then, in an act of twisted revenge, Kate's kidnapped and imprisoned by her deadly enemy, his intention to force her to pay back the money she stole before he kills her.

  Fate intervenes and she finds herself working against the cartels deep in the Yucatan with a group of off-the-grid commandos. From peaceful northern Arizona to the steamy jungles of Mexico, Kate Jones must decide for herself if she'll continue to run...

  ...or turn and fight the evil that pursues her.

  A ONE WAY TICKET TO DEAD

  Digging up the past can be deadly…

  After years of running from her ex—a vicious Mexican drug lord—and his subsequent death, Kate Jones is ready to bury the past and try to piece together a new normal. But first there’s a loose end to tie and it involves digging up old ghosts that are best left alone.

  Unaware her actions have attracted the notice of a powerful enemy Kate is plunged into a deadly fight for survival, as both her life and the lives of the children of a man she once loved hang in the balance. And, with the possibility of an informant inside the DEA, she doesn’t know who she can trust.

  From the emerald green shores of Seattle to the lush Yucatán jungle and unforgiving Sonoran desert, Kate Jones must once again face her past...and hope she survives.

  CRUISING FOR DEATH

  CHAPTER 1

  MARCELA'S SHRIEKS SPLIT the calm evening air. I raced up the steps to the upper deck two at a time, with Cole close behind me.

  She stood over a large, bulky shape on deck. As Cole and I approached the body, I recognized the jacket Karl wore to dinner earlier that evening. Unfortunately, Karl was still in it.

  We ran over to him and with some difficulty rolled him onto his back. I checked for a pulse but didn't find one, so I tilted his head and started CPR.

  “You got this?” Cole asked.

  I nodded my head between breaths.

  “I'll find the doctor,” Cole yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared down the stairwell.

  Karl's breath smelled like after dinner mints and Amaretto. I stopped giving him mouth to mouth and continued with chest compressions willing his heart to start beating. From the illumination of the deck light his face appeared pasty white with a bluish tint around his mouth.

  Marcela watched from the railing with a shocked look on her face. I continued the compressions until the ship's doctor touched me on the shoulder and indicated he would take over.

  Gratefully, I sat back with dimming hope for Karl's resuscitation, watching as he unpacked a defibrillator. I pulled my shawl closer. Cole wrapped his arms around me while we waited. He had a calming presence I'd noticed competent law enforcement always seemed to possess. He'd had plenty of opportunities to hone that talent as the sheriff back home in Durm, Arizona.

  Having no success, the doctor turned and shook his head, signifying he could do nothing more. Marcela burst into tears. I walked over to her and placed my shawl around her shoulders.

  “What happened, Marcela? What did you see?”

  She shook her head. “I don't know. I was searching for Gabriel and when I came up here, I found Karl…” She sobbed into her hand. “He was just lying there, not moving. I didn't know what to do.” With this, she turned and laid her head on my shoulder, wet tears soaking through my thin blouse. A small crowd of passengers was growing around Karl.

  I glanced at the doctor as he recorded the time of death in a small notebook. “What do you think?” I asked.

  He stood and closed his notepad, sliding it into his shirt pocket. “It appears to be a heart attack. He is a very large man and is at the age for such a thing.”

  I looked at Karl's lifeless body. At least the wealthy manufacturer died on a Caribbean cruise, doing something he enjoyed. I only hoped I'd be so lucky.

  With my track record, the chances of that were slim.

  I'd learned things usually have a way of going sideways, especially when you don't expect it. It hadn't been easy, looking over my shoulder for years, waiting for my past to catch up with me. So far, I'd dodged killers hired by my ex, Roberto Salazar, and barely escaped with my life from disgraced DEA agent, John Sterling, both of whom I'd helped put in prison a decade before. The other man I'd testified against, Vincent Anaya, hadn't personally tried to recover the money I'd stolen. I assumed he preferred to leave that to his underling, Salazar.

  A full year had passed since my run-in with Sterling, who I left buried deep in an abandoned mine in Arizona. With Sterling dead, that left Anaya and Salazar, neither of whom were members of my fan club. My contact in the DEA assured me Salazar's operation was quiet, having been absorbed into one of the larger drug cartels operating in Sonora, Mexico. Anaya had been released from prison the previous year and seemed to have slipped under everyone's radar. That had me worried.

  When Cole surprised me with the ten-day trip onboard the exclusive cruise ship to the Caribbean, I had visions of snorkeling in jade-green water near deserted beaches and making love in the shade of a coconut palm, not giving CPR to a German industrialist.

  ***

  THROUGHOUT THE NEXT day, as the ship sliced through the waves toward the next port of call, the usual chatter and antics of the cruisers were muted, the main topic of conversation being Karl's death. Cole and I decided to take a walk along the promenade deck after lunch in the balmy sea air and ran into an older gentleman named Harv, whom we'd met at dinner the evening before.

  Harv hailed from Virginia and was on the cruise at the urging of his two sons, both of whom gifted him the luxury vacation in an effort to get him to move on with his life after the death of his beloved wife. Harv smiled when he spoke of the boys and shook his head wryly when he explained why he couldn't or wouldn't move on.

  “Jeanne was the best woman a man could ever want. I'd never be able to replace her, and don't want to. Those boys,” he shru
gged. “I know they mean well, but they don't have a clue about true love.” He looked off in the distance and sighed. “You can't replace perfection.”

  Cole ran his fingers through my hair, a smile on his face. I smiled back, warming to his gesture.

  It turned out Harv was somewhat of an expert in piracy, or, as he put it, nautical robbery. He kept us enthralled late into the afternoon with tales of historical Caribbean pirates and the ports of call they favored. One in particular intrigued me, a woman named Anne Bonny, who sailed the Caribbean as a pirate in the sixteenth century. There were other women who took to the life as well, and Harv regaled us with stories of several. I wondered at their courage, to defy convention in such restrictive times and live a life with a certain kind of freedom not afforded women then.

  Of course, most met a violent end except for Anne, who apparently lived well into her dotage.

  Later, after dinner, most of the passengers headed into the nightclub for the evening's show. Situated in the middle of the ship on an upper deck, the large room boasted a stage at one end and tiers of small tables surrounding a lighted dance floor. Cole, Gabe and I snagged a table near the stage, saving extra chairs for Marcela and Gabe's friend Stefano, who would join us later.

  Gabe was Gabriel de la Vega, a well-known expert on sixteenth century Spanish shipwrecks hired by the cruise line as part of their onboard seminar lineup. Tall and lean, the Peruvian's demeanor suggested his intensely intellectual nature, and was in stark contrast to his assistant Marcela's overt sexuality. Cool and rational versus hot and impulsive; the two were a study in opposites.

  We'd just ordered our drinks when Marcela showed up, exotic in a short red, off the shoulder dress with five-inch heels and fire-engine red lipstick. Gabe pulled out the chair for her to sit.

  “Mind if I join you?” A tallish man in his early forties dressed in a tan sport coat placed his hand on the back of Marcela's chair, indicating the seat next to her.

  “But of course.” Marcela uncrossed her legs and smiled warmly at him. I checked Gabe to see his reaction, but he appeared unperturbed.

  The man introduced himself as Larry, a restaurateur from British Columbia. I tried not to stare. A nagging sensation told me I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't place him.

  Stefano arrived moments later, apologizing profusely for his tardiness. A celebrated Brazilian football player and Gabe's best friend, he had a compact bearing, was a head shorter than Gabe and all I could say is that he smoldered. Women practically sustained whiplash when he walked by, whether they were with someone or not. He moved with a lucid grace and self-confidence that created throngs of adoring women blatantly offering themselves up for a possible tryst. I slipped my hand in Cole's, glad to be with a less volatile partner. My experiences hadn't been too positive with fiery Latin types.

  The emcee took the stage and after a couple of jokes fell flat, introduced the band. I didn't quite catch the name, but it sounded like The Party Hounds. They played a mixture of calypso, Reggae and older rock and roll. It had been a while since Cole and I had gone dancing and we decided to let loose. Larry and Marcela seemed to hit it off, so I danced with Gabe, as well. Predictably, Stefano's dance card was full before the first dance ended.

  A couple of hours later, I was leaving the ladies room and walking back to our table when a staccato burst of machinegun fire erupted from within the club, followed by screams. Paralyzed, it took me a second to register what was happening.

  Now completely sober with adrenaline pumping through my veins, I thought through various scenarios but couldn't think of one that made any sense. Images from long ago flashed through my mind.

  Not again.

  As I moved down the hallway in the direction of the gunfire, Cole was foremost in my mind. He was a professional, I told myself. He knew what to do in this kind of situation. He'd be fine.

  Hyper alert, I made my way around the outside of the club to the back hallway and slipped through a door that opened to the backstage area. Then I moved closer to the stage. Someone wept softly on the other side of the curtain.

  “Silence,” a man's voice shouted. The weeping stopped.

  “There will be no more outbursts of any kind. We will only remain until we find what we came for. If anyone tries to stop us we won't hesitate to use force.”

  I crept to an opening in the curtain and peered through.

  The man had his back to me and wore a military style uniform with combat boots. He held a machinegun with the butt on his hip, barrel angled carelessly to the side. Four other gunmen stood nearby, dressed similarly to the one on stage, all with automatic weapons pointed into the crowd.

  I checked the rest of the room. At first relieved, fear slid to my stomach as I caught sight of Cole, Gabe and Marcela still seated at our table. Gabe and Marcela looked shell-shocked, while Cole's expression was a study in calm certainty. Stefano and Larry were nowhere in sight.

  What the hell was going on? Who were these men? They were dressed like pseudo-militia, but why were they threatening cruise ship passengers? Were they looking for money? Valuables? I needed to do something. But what? I had no gun, no weapon of any kind. I didn't think I'd need it on a cruise.

  Lesson learned.

  I tore myself away from the curtain and moved along the back of the stage to another door that led to the main passageway. I had no idea what I was going to do, but inaction wasn't an option.

  Removing my sandals, I ran barefoot along the carpeted hallway toward the stairwell. I needed to move up a level to get to the ship's bridge. If they hadn't yet taken control, there was still a chance to fight them off if I warned the captain in time. I reached the stairs and took two at a time, pushing through the panic.

  How did they get onboard with their weapons? Had they boarded when the ship was in port and loading supplies?

  I made it to the upper deck and hurried along the walkway, past the volleyball net and deck chairs. The bridge loomed in front of me with its full bank of windows. Lights from the ship's console glowed through the glass as I neared the outside door. It opened and a shadowy figure appeared. I ducked behind a stanchion. A gunman with an AK-47 walked out onto the deck.

  Shit.

  My breathing heavy from fear and exertion, I slipped behind the bridge to the other side of the ship. Sucking in deep gulps of salty air, I leaned against the railing.

  Think, Kate. I could go back to the club and try to come up with a plan to subdue five machinegun toting militia men. That probably wouldn't be effective, since I had no weapon. All of the people in the club were in danger. Cole was in danger. There had to be something I could do.

  I thought about checking the crew's quarters, but realized if they'd taken the bridge, they'd probably beaten me to it. The doctor would have some type of communication equipment in the infirmary; a satellite phone at least. It was possible they hadn't thought to secure that area.

  Turning, I happened to glance down and noticed light glinting off the water. Puzzled, I tried to make out what it might be, but it was a dark night and dark water. I decided to get a closer look.

  Not wanting to alert anyone to my presence, I moved silently to another set of stairs and peered through the steps. No one was below me and I quickly made my way down a level. Once on deck, I crossed to the railing and leaned over.

  I'd found how the gunmen had boarded the ship.

  CHAPTER 2

  I RAN DOWN another level and stopped directly above where the smaller boat was tied to the ship. They’d thrown grappling hooks over the side and climbed aboard on ladders. There didn’t appear to be anyone guarding the vessel. I’d heard of modern day pirates who boarded yachts and even an oil supertanker, but from what I knew, most of that kind of activity happened in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast, not the Caribbean. Then I figured, why not? It would be easy pickings. There were so many tourists with money floating around down here, how could a pirate lose?

  I considered disabling their boat but discarded the ide
a. What would that accomplish? If they wanted to leave and it pissed them off, would it make them angry enough to kill? I wondered why the ship's radar hadn't tracked the vessel's arrival. Or, maybe it had. It was possible they planted a co-conspirator in the wheel house.

  Realizing I was wasting time standing there, I hustled to the infirmary. The windows were dark. I tried the door, but it was locked.

  Next, I tried the doctor's stateroom. There was no answer.

  With nothing more I could do at the moment, I headed back to Cole and the gunmen, trying to think of some way to get him and the rest safely out of the club. It wouldn’t be easy without weapons. I'd have to create a diversion. I moved through the door that led backstage, proceeded to the curtain and peeked through.

  Relief replaced fear as I located Cole, Gabe and Marcela standing on the dance floor. At least they hadn’t started shooting anyone yet. It looked like the gunmen had rounded everyone up and herded them into the center of the room. They’d closed the three entrances to the club and posted a guard at each. One of the gunmen was collecting passenger's smartphones, Blackberries and iPhones. The guy I’d seen issuing demands earlier paced back and forth in front of the stage, glancing at his cell phone and smoking a cigarette which he abruptly dropped and ground into the floor.

  Everybody except Cole looked scared and I knew from experience that when you had that many fearful people in one room, odds were someone would try something foolish. At that moment an alarm sounded and the disco lights started to flash. Over the loudspeaker, a woman’s prerecorded voice intoned, “Do not panic. This is an emergency. Please refer to the evacuation manual located in the plastic sleeve on the back of your stateroom door. I repeat, do not panic.”