Chapter 3 #2
In the galley, Talon found signs of a skirmish that made his jaw clench.
There were broken dishes scattered across the floor like ceramic shrapnel, food rotting in the heat, and blood stains where a body had obviously been dragged from the area.
The metallic smell of blood mixed with spoiled food created a nauseating cocktail that made his stomach turn.
Talon carefully opened the interior kitchen door.
The old wood creaked on rusted hinges. There was a flame burning under a pot, the gas creating a low hiss that seemed unnaturally loud.
He checked each of the storage areas methodically, finding nothing but evidence of hasty abandonment.
Walking past the stove, he turned off the burner before he cautiously exited the area—no point in adding fire to their list of problems.
"Three tangos!" Hammer's voice crackled through the comms. Talon could hear the sounds of a short firefight through the comms and an echoing din in the belly of the cargo ship, the gunfire reverberating off metal walls like thunder in a canyon.
"One of them had a fucking machete," Hammer grumbled, breathing hard. "You’d think everyone has heard about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Doing ID kits now."
Talon moved forward, his senses hyperalert.
At the sound of metal against metal, a slight scraping to his left raised the hair on his neck.
He sidestepped and then slammed the butt of his rifle into a person’s face.
The impact was solid. A woman dropped to the ground and moaned, her hands flying to her bleeding nose.
"Cook. I'm the cook." She lifted her head, her hands shaking as she looked at Talon with tears streaming down her dark cheeks, mixing tears with blood.
Jug's voice over the comms told him deck four had been cleared.
"Jug, you and Wolf make your way to my location. One tango alive."
He kept his weapon pointed at the woman, though it didn't look like she was going anywhere fast. She was wearing a black muscle shirt, no bra, shorts, and flip-flops. Her rich brown skin glistened with sweat in the oppressive heat, and her eyes held the glassy look of someone running on pure adrenaline. But—and this was a big but—she didn’t look abused, no bruises, no ripped or dirty clothes, no reason to think she’d been manhandled or threatened.
She was too put together. Too clean, too …
fresh to have been on this ship and forced to cooperate, at least in his experience.
Maybe, but he’d verify she was crew before he took his weapon off her.
"How many pirates are aboard?" he asked, his voice flat and professional.
"I don't know," she said, keeping her hand pressed to her bleeding nose. "I've seen a handful. There may be more."
Jug arrived with Wolf, their boots echoing in the narrow corridor.
"She says she's the cook. Dude, check that against the manifest," Talon said, looking at Jug, who nodded in understanding.
Until they knew for a fact she was friendly, she'd be treated as a potential hostile.
It was nothing against her—it was just the way survival worked in their world.
"Jug, with me. Wolf, you have her and any others that make it out alive." Wolf nodded and motioned to the woman with his rifle, the gesture casual but unmistakably threatening.
"Go sit down over there. Don't move, don't speak, don't tempt me.
" The woman's eyes widened, and she scooted across the floor, using a chair to help her climb into the seat.
She landed heavily and stared at Wolf with the look of prey studying a predator.
The man would scare the shit out of Talon if Talon didn't know him better.
They continued to clear the decks. Three more tangos were eliminated in the process—that made seven. The cook said there were a handful, which meant nothing, so he was working under the impression that some were still unaccounted for, still breathing, still dangerous.
"Decks four through six are cleared. We've got signs of recent movement near hold seven. There's a makeshift lock on one of the containers. It looks wrong." Stryker’s voice carried the tension they all felt—something wasn't right.
"I'm heading that way," Talon whispered. "Continue on to deck eight."
"Roger, copy."
He motioned for Jug to join him, the silent communication flowing between them effortlessly, having developed over years of training and working together.
"I'll take hold seven. We need to clear the rest of the decks and get a crew on this ship to work on that equipment.
The cargo is too valuable to lose. If the pirates have signaled for help, it could be a long fucking night.
" Jug nodded and retraced his steps, heading for the stairs leading to the lower decks.
Hammer and Stryker had heard him direct Jug, so there was no need to announce his presence. The less chatter, the better.
Talon moved down the hallway to the hold on deck seven that Stryker had found suspicious. Each step took him deeper into the ship's belly, farther from fresh air and safety.
The air was cooler here, like the ship had been specially chilled on this deck.
The temperature difference raised goose bumps on his arms, despite his tactical gear.
He stepped into the hold and swept his light across the space, the beam cutting through darkness thick as velvet.
There were smaller containers at all angles, stacked hastily like a child's blocks.
Tarps hung over openings of containers that had been broken into.
One emergency light, obviously powered by a dying battery, blinked and dimmed as he watched, casting everything in intermittent yellow pulses. The ceiling and walls were slick with condensation that dripped steadily, creating a constant percussion against the metal floor.
He walked carefully through the maze of containers and found what Stryker had called weird.
A steel container, about six feet by six feet square, was pushed toward the aft bulkhead.
Talon scanned his memory for any indication of a steel container on the shipping manifest. To his knowledge, there was none.
This could very well be where the yellowcake uranium was being stored.
Which was the reason they were all there, risking their lives in a floating graveyard.
He approached silently, his MK18 barrel sweeping the area as he moved.
Every shadow could hide a person with a weapon, and every sound could be the last thing he heard.
Stryker was dead-on. Something was off. The floor directly outside the container was immaculately clean.
There were no prints, no scuff marks, no blood stains.
Someone had taken great care to sanitize this area.
On the edge of the door frame, there was a dark red smear.
Blood. Not thick enough to be mortal injury, but an injury, nonetheless.
Talon scanned the area one more time before kneeling and examining the red stain with his tactical light.
It was almost like a handprint had brushed against the steel.
Perhaps someone had touched or grabbed at the side of this door while bleeding.
A struggle? He nodded to himself. Someone didn’t want to be put in this cage.
He glanced at the door itself. A thick chain with a massive padlock secured the door tightly.
Not standard shipping procedures. Maritime cargo didn't require prison-grade security unless it was hiding something that shouldn't be found.
Or perhaps something the pirates wanted to lock up and forget.
He swept the area one more time, his training demanding absolute certainty of his security, before he reached back to his pack and pulled out his bolt cutters.
The tool felt solid and familiar in his hands.
It took two bites, one on the shackle and one on the secondary link, before the chain released and slithered through the steel handle of the door with a metallic wail.
The sound echoed in the hold. Talon slid back into the shadows and waited in case the noise pulled a pirate from a hole.
Nothing. He slowly secured the bolt cutters, raised his rifle, and moved out of the shadows to open the door. The hinges protested with a groan that seemed to echo through his bones.
The stench hit him first. It was the smell of human filth and sweat, encased in stale metal and the absence of fresh air.
The odor was overwhelming, concentrated in a space too small for human habitation.
The interior was utterly dark, a void that seemed to swallow his light.
He switched on his tactical light and swept it to the left, the beam cutting through darkness as thick as tar. Nothing.
He swept right.
A figure curled in the far corner moved, huddling closer to the steel wall like a wounded animal seeking shelter. Talon looked behind him one more time, ensuring he was alone, before stepping forward into the container.
A woman. Barefoot and shaking, arms wrapped around her knees in a defensive posture that spoke of prolonged terror.
Her wrists were zip-tied, the plastic restraints so tight that dried blood caked the plastic and the skin around the ties, creating dark dried rivulets down her hands.
Her hair hung in wet, sweaty ropes around her face, and her clothes were in tatters—stained with blood, dirt, and filth that told a story of brutality and neglect.
The woman didn't scream, nor did she flinch as he approached. She did blink against the light, squinting as if trying to understand what she was seeing. Her eyes held the hollow look of someone who had given up hope, who had retreated so far into survival that recognition came slowly.
"Dude, I have a live female held in a metal container. Standby."