Free Hunter by Chris Allen Page A

men crouching low behind the rounded flanks of the vessel. Unlike the policeman at the helm, they were dressed in scruffy, ragtag clothes, with long hair and beards, brandishing an assortment of weapons from Kalashnikov assault rifles to FN Herstal shotguns to Makarov pistols. The Zodiac was now 100 yards from the Florence; close enough for the four hostile silhouettes to be seen from the mega-yacht.
    *
    "Everybody get below decks, right fucking now!"
    The voice, full of tension and insistence, roused Charly like a slap to the face.
    Wrenched from siesta, she awoke to the terrifying sight of a man brandishing a large gun on the decks above her, yelling at those aboard to get below. Charly sat bolt upright, heart racing furiously beneath her breast.
    Get below? Why? What was happening? Who was he?
    She tried to call out in distress, but couldn't make a sound. Her eyes darted left and right, searching anxiously through the billowing white curtains for the source of the turmoil. She reached for her cover up but realized she didn't have it. She could only hear the voices of the crew yelling and the unmistakable voice of the man with the gun barking at everybody. Why had nobody come for her? Where was  Raoul? Through the noise on board and the frightened volume of her own breathing, Charly heard the sound of an approaching engine. She grabbed a large towel and wrapped it defensively around her vulnerable, near-naked body. She rushed from the marquee, calling for Raoul, calling for somebody, anybody to come for her, to tell her what was happening, to protect her.
    "What's going on?" she yelled. But now there was no one to answer her call; no one at all.
    A long burst of automatic gunfire erupted from the stern. Charly screamed. There was more, this time from the port side. There came another loud burst, and another. Within seconds an exchange was underway between security men onboard the Florence and the ragged figures aboard the rapidly approaching Zodiac.
    Oh my God! Charly fell to the deck in fetal-like self-preservation. Gingerly, she inched to the edge of the deck and peered out. Down the port side toward the stern, the Zodiac was powering across the dead-calm sea toward the Florence. A security man, who Charly now recognized to be the same man with the gun who'd been yelling at everybody to get below, was at the stern of the yacht shooting ferociously at the Zodiac. With every deafening staccato burst, Charly's heart skipped and her knuckles clenched, but she could not avert her eyes from the mayhem. This is not happening, she thought. This is not happening!
    As another hail of bullets exploded close by, she saw him beneath her, on the portside. Raoul had a gun and was shooting at the Zodiac. Overwhelmed, Charly staggered to her knees and then to her feet, on the verge of shocked collapse, grasping for rails, anything, to steady her as she looked frantically for shelter.
    The Zodiac was closing fast and the shooting intensified from both sides. The security man at the back of the Florence was hit by a full burst from an AKM. The 7.62mm ammunition tore through his body and launched him over the side. He fell face down upon the surface of the water, dead.
    Flattening herself against the deck, Charly cowered, not wanting to draw any attention. Terrifyingly, a recent CNN story on piracy flickered strobe-like through her thoughts.
    Soon the firing had all but stopped and she could hear brutal yelling, lots of it, at the back of the boat. It sounded as bad as it could get. Dread filled Charly's heart. Raoul!
    Charly was close to a lifeboat so she crawled under it, squeezing her body into the tiny space beneath the hull. Crying quietly and scared out of her mind, she summoned her survival instincts and laid still. There was a splash, as though someone had been thrown overboard, and screams from the crew. Voices drew closer, toward the front of the boat, toward her. No! No! A burst of gunfire was followed by more screaming from the