The Janson Option Read Online Free Page A

and all his guests were watching the release of the tender in the work lights. The stern port opened. The boat started sliding out the back and into the water behind the ship. Adler ran.
    Maxammed and Farole saw him reflected in the glass, whirled as one, striking on instinct as cats would claw at motion. Maxammed fired two shots before he realized the fool had nowhere to go. It was too late. Shatteringly loud in the confined space, they knocked Adler’s legs out from under him. He skidded across the teak deck and crashed into the railing that surrounded the stairs.
    â€œI hope you didn’t kill him,” Maxammed said to Farole.
    â€œWe both shot him.”
    â€œNo, I pulled my gun up. Only you shot him.”
    Farole shook his head, knowing that was not true. He changed the argument, saying, “But you said you didn’t need him.”
    â€œTo frighten him, you idiot. He’s the richest of all.”
    â€œWe still have the ship.”
    â€œIf the ship is worth half a billion dollars,” Maxammed asked scornfully, “how much is its owner worth? Pray you didn’t kill him.”
    Adler clutched the back of his thigh in both hands and tried to sit up. His face was slack with shock. He looked around the bridge, cast a disbelieving look at the pirates and hostages grouped at the aft windows. Then he sank back on the deck, still holding his leg.
    Maxammed watched the rich people gather around him, the women holding hands to their mouths, the men staring wide-eyed. “Oh my God,” whispered one. “Look at the blood.”
    There was so much blood on the deck that Adler appeared to be floating on it. He looked, Allegra Helms thought, like a swimmer doing the backstroke in a red pool. The New York woman whispered, “We have to stop the bleeding. It severed an artery. See how it’s pumping?”
    It was spurting rhythmically, the pulsing against his trousers as if a mouse trapped in the linen were trying to batter its way out.
    â€œTourniquet,” said the white-haired diplomat. “He needs a tourniquet.”
    Maxammed shouldered them aside and knelt in the blood. He unbuckled Adler’s belt, yanked it out of the loops, dragged his trousers down to his knees, shoved one end of his belt under his leg, pulled it above the ragged wound the bullet had furrowed in his flesh, slipped the tongue through the buckle, and pulled it tight.
    The blood kept spurting. He couldn’t hold the belt tightly enough.
    â€œUse this,” said Allegra, handing over her scarf. Maxammed tied it around Alder’s thigh and thrust his SAR in the loop and turned it like a lever, drawing the cloth so tightly that it bit into the flesh. At last the blood stopped spurting.
    â€œHold this here,” he told her.
    She knelt beside him in the blood and held the gun in both hands. She fancied that she could feel Adler’s heart beating through the steel. It felt very weak, and she was struck by her ignorance. She knew not even the most basic first aid, and she was helpless to save his life.
    He opened his eyes and they locked on hers. She felt the beating slow. He tried to speak, and she leaned closer to hear. “Hey, Countess? Don’t hate your father for groping the servants.”
    In a moment of insight as sharp as it was unexpected, Allegra Helms realized it was probably the gentlest thing the man had ever said, and she whispered as intimately as pillow talk, “I don’t hate him. He’s just not my favorite relation.”
    â€œWho’s your favorite?”
    â€œCousin Adolfo. Since we were children.”
    â€œKissing cous—?” Adler’s body convulsed. Allegra lost her grip on the tourniquet. She tried desperately to tighten it again. Then she saw that it didn’t matter. Where his blood had spurted, it now just dripped.
    â€œOh my God,” said someone.
    Allegra stood up and backed away. But she could not tear her eyes from