Sam Carver carried the unconscious Parker Drayton over his shoulder and through the closest door off the rig’s helipad. An office of some sort, it looked like. A cheap vinyl sofa, mildewed and tattered, still sat over on the right. Smelled like hell, but it would do. Might damage the merchandise to just throw him down on the hard floor. He deposited the limp body and reached for the small backpack he’d slung over his free shoulder, the one holding a few pieces of equipment necessary in his line of work. Like handcuffs.
Parker moaned. Shit! Probably should’ve cuffed him on the chopper, but with that damn dose of happy juice, Drayton should be out a longer than this. He dropped the backpack open on the rusted metal desk and dug with one hand. He held a Glock steady in the other, pointed straight at Parker, just in case he roused completely before he was properly secured.
Parker gasped, his hand going to his throat as he struggled to sit up.
“Lie down!”
“Can’t…can’t breathe…”
“Lie down, damn it!” What the hell? Drayton hadn’t even looked at him, hadn’t seen the Glock. And was gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
“Can’t…gotta sit…can’t breathe…”
“Lie down!”
Well, this was going to hell in a hand basket. Drayton’s face turned pale. Beads of sweat popped up on his face. His lips were turning blue. Bad reaction to the happy juice?
“Asthma…gotta have…inhaler…”
“Oh, shit! Where is it? Where the hell’s your inhaler? C’mon, man, if you know you got asthma, you gotta carry one!”
“Back…pack…where’s…back…”
“Christ! It’s on the damn chopper!”
“Gotta…have…” Parker fell back on the sofa, hands clutching his throat. Now his nails were blue. And Sam Carver, not that that was his real name, was in deep shit. When this employer said keep a mark healthy, he damn well meant it.
“Hang on, man! I’m going, I’m going!” He tore out the door, leaving it wide open, and raced back to the helipad.
Parker’s hand moved to his jeans pocket. Damn, but this was cutting it close. His fingers were almost too numb to feel the fabric. He fumbled, tried to grasp. His fingers slid off the slick sides of the bottle. He knew he only had time for one more try before he passed out.
There! He brought the magic bottle to his mouth and pressed down. Hssssssss. One more hit. Hsssssss. The magic vapor rushed through his lungs, banishing the elephant crushing his chest back into invisibility. Ordinarily, after an attack this severe, he’d lie back a few minutes and recoup. He didn’t recall an attack this severe, not since he was a kid and asthma first raised its ugly head, and the severity was completely his fault since he’d let it go on so long. No choice there, though, and his lucky day he’d even had an attack, he had them so seldom. Hell, even Katherine had never seen him have an attack. Coulda probably faked it, but it just wouldn’t have had the same effect. Nobody fakes blue lips.
Okay, all the recovery he had time for. Up and at ‘em. His eyes raced around the rig’s old office. He needed something heavy enough to knock that fake pilot out as he came back through the door. But the office held only the mildewed sofa and rusting desk, not even a desk chair. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have tackled him as he came back in, but these circumstances weren’t ordinary, and Parker wasn’t quite back to prime peak performance. Next plan. Just get out the damn door, find a weapon, ‘cause surely on this mostly metal rig, there’d be a nice heavy piece of loose metal, and wait his chance.
Parker peered out the open door and looked around. Sam Carver or whatever his name was still had his back turned, leaning over the passenger seat of the chopper, arms moving wildly as he searched. Parker grinned, glad he’d tossed the bag over the seat and not just dropped it in the floorboard. Sure would’ve been nice if the helipad was a bit farther away but it was where it was. And it was time to go. He slipped out the door just as Carver turned.
“What the—stop! Stop, dammit! Don’t make me shoot you, man!”
Ping! Ping! Two bullets ricocheted off metal. Parker didn’t slow in the slightest, heading for the turn that would take him out of sight.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Parker tried to think. How many shots in a Glock magazine? Hell, he didn’t know, and assumed it would depend on the model. Which he also didn’t know. He’d recognized it as a Glock, but he hadn’t really looked at it that close, all things considered. Like trying to breathe. Hell of a lot more than five, though, and he seriously doubted his abductor had only one clip. So counting bullets was out. Just keep going. The best of all possible plans.
Except for one slight problem. This walkway dead-ended into nothing but an open platform. Maybe it had descending ladders, though.
Ping! Ping! Ping! “Don’t make me shoot you, man!”
Parker doubted seriously if killing him—at least this early in the game—was the prime objective but didn’t doubt for a minute shooting him would be considered a viable option. But this wasn’t an old western movie and nobody taking a bullet from a Glock was going to utter a mild ‘damn’, calmly wrap the bullet hole with a bandana, and keep on running. More likely they’d be writhing in a prone position with a shattered bone while they bled to death.
Ping! That one was aimed closer, almost at his feet. Much more of this and a ricochet was going to get him if the actual bullet didn’t. Enough already. Parker swerved to his left and dived off the walkway into the Gulf waters below. His abductor’s shout followed him down.
“Are you fucking crazy, man?!”
Parker’s eyes widened. That damn fake pilot might have something. Only a crazy man would’ve dived off a metal rig’s walkway without checking to see what metal might be lurking beneath. Well, only a crazy man or one being shot at. He tried to pull his legs, turn his body, but no way was he going to miss it completely. The big support girder below him rushed forward, and his legs exploded into agony below the knees. He fought to retain consciousness as the water closed around him and struggled back to the surface, using his shoulder and arm strength. His legs weren’t cooperating, they were numb. Broken? And if they were, was it a compound fracture, blood from torn flesh pooling in the waves around him, turning him into shark bait? He couldn’t worry about that right now. He had to get back to the support beams to find something to hang onto before he’d have the luxury of assessing the damage. Damn good thing he worked out with weights regularly. No time to lose, either; he could hear the pounding of running feet on metal, his kidnapper racing to the edge to check his whereabouts. Parker maneuvered toward the closest underpinning and disappeared beneath the walkway just as Sam Carver raced to the edge and peered down.
Sam shook his head. Damn, damn, damn. Talk about things going to hell in a hand basket. Where the hell was Drayton? Had he even come up? Shit, there was a steel support girder right in the way. If he’d conked his head on that on the way down, he was unconscious at best, dead at worst. And if unconscious, he was a drowned rat by now for sure. The boss was not going to be happy. Maybe he didn’t even need to tell him?
Carver trotted back to the helicopter and picked up the radio mike. Play by ear time. Keep the boss happy—and for now, ignorant—and then he’d have time to start looking around, see if he could spot Drayton anywhere. Though how he was going to retrieve him if he did spot him, he didn’t have a clue, seeing as how Drayton wasn’t going to be particularly cooperative about it.
“Okay, we’re on the rig. Waiting orders.”
“Drayton conscious yet?”
“No.”
“How much you give him, for crissakes? He shoulda been awake by now. I got to let baby boy talk to Daddy before too much longer, Daddy ain’t no fool. He wants proof his boy’s alive.”
“Maybe he’s got a lower tolerance than most guys. It happens.”
“Check in when he wakes up.”
Carver grimaced. Well, just shit. “Will do. How long am I sitting here?”
“You’re the pilot, look at the damn flight plan. This is an initial inspection, two-three hours each at the first three rigs in the line. You been there how long? Twenty minutes? You need a calculator?”
Damn, only twenty minutes? “Just seems like it’s been longer, is all.”
“When he wakes up, you’ll have somebody to talk to. Not that he’s gonna be particularly friendly, I wouldn’t imagine.”
“Nope, that’s for damn sure.”
“So just sit there. Check in with me as soon as he’s awake enough to be coherent. Which oughta be damn soon. And stick close to the radio ‘cause I’ll be checking in with you.”
Sam winced as the radio signed off. The boss didn’t know the half of it. He grabbed the binoculars from the chopper and walked back to the site of Parker’s disappearance. The only thing he could think of was a cruise up and down all the platforms. What he’d do if he sighted a floating body, he didn’t know, since he had no means to retrieve it. No matter whether it was alive or dead.
Underneath the rig, Parker clung to the support girder and studied the understructure. Not exactly the type of inspection he’d had in mind on this trip. On the up-side, this was a damn sturdy rig, holding up nicely against the relentless ocean. He’d heard the pounding of running feet over the walkway but hadn’t heard any sounds of movement in the last several minutes. And probably wouldn’t unless the pilot decided to start running again, and why would he? No, he was cruising the walkways slowly, hoping for a sighting. A sighting he wouldn’t get because no way was Parker moving into view.
His legs ached like a bitch, the left worse than the right, but there weren’t any streams of blood swirling around him in the water. His left foot felt numb, too. He needed to get out of the water, assess the damage. And think. Horizontal girders stretched above him. If he could just reach high enough…nope. Wasn’t going to happen. He squinted and focused on the platform he’d been heading for when circumstances forced the nose dive into the Gulf. Just as he’d thought. Descending ladders. Not that they did him much good. His legs weren’t going to be of any use in climbing it, not right now, anyway. He had hopes his right leg was just bruised but didn’t hold much hope the left leg wasn’t at least cracked. He felt the flesh swelling out, tightening his jeans. It’d take a while to climb it using just his arms. Too long. It wouldn’t take the pilot long to climb down it, though, not if he decided to. But that pilot wasn’t too damn bright. Still, best to keep an eye out for him, just in case.
So. Somebody’d gone to a hell of a lot of trouble and pre-planning to kidnap him. There wasn’t much reason to kidnap him unless somebody wanted something. Money maybe. Maybe something else. What they wanted was irrelevant. To get it, they’d have to contact his father. If they’d already made contact, his father wouldn’t be taking this lying down. He’d have already brought in the proper authorities. And if he knew his dad, those authorities wouldn’t be the ones most folks would think of, and he wouldn’t be contacting the main switchboard number, either. He’d be using some private unlisted ones. The pilot wasn’t bright enough to have done this all by his lonesome, so the question now was—had they already contacted Justin? If they had, all he had to do was stay alive till they got here. One thing about GPS trackers, they’d know for sure the chopper had been at the first rig. But if they hadn’t, they could just abort the whole thing, ditch the chopper, make it look as though there’d been a crash, and who’d be the wiser? Parker sighed. It was gonna be a long day.