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wooden deck where she’d stood just seconds before.
    Another burst of gunfire had Ensign Sampson staggering backward, his pristine white uniform blossoming red. He fell with a crash. Rebel quickly ducked out from her cover, returning fire as she grabbed Sampson’s collar and dragged him behind a tubalike vent.
    Pock-pock-pock came Chet’s covering fire. Followed by a howl from one of the assailants. With an ugly sneer and an uglier curse, the third Arab shooter spun and ran straight toward Rebel.
    “I don’t think so,” she muttered and took aim. But before she could pull the trigger, he screamed and grabbed his side. His gun skittered across the deck, along with streamers of blood. For a second, all was silent.
    Montgomery ran and turned him onto his back. He appeared dead. Ensign Chet tackled the first man with a set of handcuffs. Rebel checked Sampson’s pulse. It was weak but steady, thank God.
    After gingerly scooping up and pocketing the dead man’s gun in case he wasn’t as dead as he looked, she cautiously crept forward and glanced around. Something moved, a flash of black in her peripheral vision. She whirled. Nothing there . Was that a splash? Or just the slap of the waves trapped between the two vessels . . . ?
    She crouch-ran to the yacht’s main salon door, which stood wide open, waving back and forth with the rise and fall of the ocean swells. Hmm. Maybe she had seen someone running past. She peeked into the salon. Clear . She ducked down and crept through the salon door, halting to listen carefully.
    “Rebel?” Helena’s hesitant voice sounded in her ear.
    She jumped, startled. Sweet goodnight . She had totally forgotten about the phone call. Heart pounding, she reached for her earpiece. “Not now, Helena.”
    “Alex needs to speak with you,” the other woman said before she could hit the off button. “Right away.”
    “He’s got my number,” Rebel bit out, hating that she couldn’t make herself just hang up on her friend. She squinted and peered deeper into the salon. Not that she and Helena had ever been genuinely close friends. Especially after she and Alex had become engaged. That had killed any chance of a real friendship.
    “I have your number, too,” Helena returned with an edge of accusation. “You never answer either of our calls.”
    A small thread of guilt tightened around Rebel’s heart, then twanged painfully. She had been close with Alex. But he was the one who’d ended their friendship when she’d attempted to move on by finding herself another man. Admittedly, she had not chosen wisely—the man being Wade Montana, her boss. Former boss. But that really wasn’t Alex’s concern. Or relevant at the moment.
    She eased out a measured breath. “Fine. Tell Alex I’ll answer next time.”
    “Tell him yourself,” Helena said. “He’s not really speaking to me.”
    “Leaving a man at the altar will do that,” Rebel muttered, tilting her head at a strange sound.
    But other than a huff on the phone, all she heard was the tick tick ticking of the door waving back and forth.
    She frowned. Or was the ticking noise on her phone? It sounded more electronic than—It was coming from her phone. But—
    “Rebel, there’s really something you should know about Alex and me—”
    With a sudden start she recognized the sound.
    Oh, no . No, no, no .
    She hit the off button for real this time, and sprinted out of the salon.
    “Abandon ship!” she yelled, rushing toward Chet and Montgomery as they led the shooter who was still alive toward the Coast Guard vessel. “Bomb!”
    The two ensigns halted for a nanosecond, then sprang into action. They shoved the injured prisoner through the gate onto the RB-M, and Montgomery secured him to the rail with a Flexicuff. Rebel did a sliding dive to grab Sampson’s collar again, hauling him furiously toward the gangway opening.
    Chet rushed to untie the lines while Montgomery made a dash for the RB-M’s bridge. Sampson groaned as the