Son of Cerberus (The Unusual Operations Division Book 2) Read Free Page B

through the water toward the end of the dock told Germaine that it had only seconds before driving itself headlong into the cement moorings. He had to act quickly or risk losing a perfect safety record. The thought that people might be aboard didn’t even cross his mind. 
    In an instant he made the jump from the end of the dock onto the ship’s main level. He took off as quickly as he could down the length of the bow toward where the controls of the ship were sure to be. If this thing was going to slow down enough to stop itself from gashing a hole in the bow large enough to sink her, he would have to cut propulsion immediately.
    He rounded the corner onto the ship’s main level deck and bolted up a ladder that Germaine knew would take him to the control room. It was a large compartment through which he could see the fog sliding past huge glass windows. As he had expected, it was completely abandoned.
    Though Germaine didn’t have much experience with ships, he had been aboard a yacht or two and knew what to look for. The control levers for the forward thrust were just where he had expected them to be, right near a huge wheel that controlled the rudder. Without a second thought, he yanked the controls into full reverse.
    With a sudden shudder, the ship immediately started slowing its approach. He hoped and prayed that it would be enough, but knew it that it wouldn’t stop the ship from at least contacting the pier. A sudden jolt and enough forward momentum to throw everything that wasn’t tied down forward told him that he was right. The ship had slammed into the end of the pier, though with considerably less momentum than it otherwise would have.
    Cursing to himself, he pushed the throttle back into neutral and smashed his fist against the mahogany desk near the controls. It cracked a little beneath his powerful blow, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He was going to have to write a mountain’s worth of paperwork on this incident. In the worst case scenario, he might lose his job. Though there was nothing Germaine could do to stop the incident from happening, it still went on his record.
    All around him, instruments glowed softly. Though the ship had been the quietest he had ever heard, it was obvious there was some power being applied. He took a moment to look around. The cockpit was lit with the dullest of glows from lights near the floor, colorful paintings hung on the walls, and everything seemed extravagant. It had everything a man could ask for.
    “Stupid assholes,” he muttered as he turned around to leave. Someone had to be down in the decks below him. There had to have been someone who steered the yacht this far. When he found them, he was going to wring their neck. A faint tune was audible now that he was on board. It must mean someone was down there—hopefully they had come to their senses by now.
    “Is anyone on board this ship?” he roared as he made his way down the rungs to the main level. Someone was bound to hear him yelling and whatever drunkard might have been piloting the yacht was about to experience more than he could have bargained for.
    As he stepped off the ladder, lights started appearing within the interior of the ship. They were dim, but he figured it was from the tint on the windows. It was only when he approached the sliding glass doors that he noticed there was no tint. The lighting system had either been damaged or the obviously wealthy owners had invested in mood lighting. He threw the door open and started to scream, but something else came out of him instead. It was the sound of horror meeting confusion.
    “Ungh,” he groaned.
    Before him lie the most gruesome thing he had ever seen. Over an unnecessarily loud music system, effectively muted by the thick glass, was a sea of blood. Large globules moved this way and that with the boat as they trailed away from five or more seriously disfigured corpses. Faces that might have once been normal had been ripped to shreds,