Scrapyard Ship Read Online Free Page A

victims. More laughter erupted from within the mess hall.
    Jason instinctually took action. In fact, not reaching for his sidearm was never a question. With no thought, no hesitation, he pulled his Sig Sauer P226 from his holster, leveled it, and squeezed the trigger. The pirate leader, the one holding the woman, was dead before he hit the ground—a small bullet hole in the center of his forehead. The woman jumped back and screamed again. But Jason didn’t stop there. He quickly followed up by squeezing the trigger five more times—also dead center shots to the forehead for each of the remaining pirates. They fell in near unison to the mess deck. Later, there would be conflicting reports from his SEAL team. Something about the other pirates reaching for their weapons, but Jason doubted that that was true.
    As events happened, the story was leaked to the press and immediately sensationalized to mega-proportions. International media and other news organizations had a field day. Before Jason knew it, he had been elevated to quasi-hero status: Lieutenant Commander Jason Reynolds inflicts sweet revenge on merciless pirates. But then it was up to a special U.S. Navy Tribunal to decide his fate. Would Jason face charges for second-degree murder and spend years of his life locked up somewhere in a brig, or would he be found innocent due to mitigating circumstances? Still at the tribunal stage, set up by the Judge Advocate General's Corps, a non-judicial preceding which comes before any kind of court martial. He’d been fortunate…not being required to wait out the decision process in a cell. He wasn’t sure if this was due to his favorable past service record or, more likely, his father being the famed Admiral Perry Reynolds.
    Now, looking over at Nan’s delicate profile, Jason wondered if she too thought of him as a cold-blooded murderer. Mollie laughed at something in the house. When she burst outside, she wore her deceased uncle’s catcher’s outfit from high school. Brian, shorter, stockier than Jason, was perfect behind home base. The hat was a little big for her and the catcher’s mask flopped around on her face. She tossed a baseball up in the air a few times—then back and forth into an oversized mitt. Giggling, she crouched down and outstretched the mitt in front of her chest, “You ready to play, Dad?  Come on… let’s play ball, sports fans!”
    Nan just shook her head. “Was that yours?” she asked, now smiling at Mollie’s antics.
    “No, Brian was the baseball player in the family—I was the football jock,” he replied, picking Mollie up and twirling her around, her laugh contagious. Jason set her down, and she dizzily scampered back into the house, the sounds of laughter following her.
    “Actually, I’m surprised that stuffs still around,” Jason said, sitting back down across from Nan.
    “For goodness sakes, haven’t you explored the house since you’ve been back?”
    “Not really, too many ghosts around here. What with Dad taking off, Brian never coming home and now Gus gone… I’m fine just hanging around the kitchen and family room.”
    “Oh, don’t be such a pussy,” she said, with a rye smile. “Anyway, how do you know old Admiral Perry hasn’t returned? Maybe he’s sprawled out in a bathtub back in there somewhere?”
    “Well, I’ve wandered around enough to know he’s not here. To be honest, it’s kinda creepy here; everything looks the same as it did fifteen years ago, when I went off to Annapolis. Brian’s room hasn’t been changed since he went into the service.”
    Nan’s attention was interrupted by something out in the scrapyard. With a furrowed brow she pointed. “You have someone working here, in the yard?” she inquired.
    “No, why?” Following Nan’s gaze, Jason saw who she was referring to. The short man was back. He was halfway down the same path Jason had chased him on last night—now pulling a flatbed cart that carried the same three metallic objects