Chapter 10 #2
Riley called him back in. “Take your lunch and ashtray with you. And I’m going to remind you once that this is a no-smoking operation. I will report you if I see you smoking in off-limits areas.”
“Yeah. Got it,” Webb muttered as he gathered his things.
Alone again, Riley’s hand tightened briefly on the edge of her desk. She’d won that round, but beneath the surface, there was a tremor. The feeling was just enough to remind her she wasn’t immune to the ghosts people saw when they looked at her.
For the next two hours, she forced herself into the rhythm that had always been her anchor. Files were sorted. Computer passwords updated. Operational reports reviewed and annotated. The familiar cadence of analysis steadied her breath and her mind.
The longer she worked, the more the tension in her shoulders eased. The more she worked, she also remembered. She’d earned this seat. She’d fought for this authority. And no whispered judgment or skeptical glance could take that away.
The water processing station lay twelve kilometers from the main compound, perched where the Senegal River met the Atlantic. On paper, it was an innocuous site, but Riley’s eyes locked on the satellite images glowing on her monitor, and her pulse spiked.
It was less than three kilometers from where the cargo ship MV Calypso Queen had anchored for its “inspection” before the pirates boarded.
Her hands trembled on the edges of the desk. The coastline hadn’t changed. The rocky promontories jutted out like jagged teeth. The stands of mangrove trees cast the same restless shadows on the shallows. The same blue-green water stretched wide and endless.
You don’t have to do this, the voice whispered. Delegate the inspection. Find an excuse. Stay away from the water.
But even as the thought formed, Riley dismissed it.
She hadn’t flown halfway around the world to hide in an air-conditioned office.
She’d come here for two reasons: to prove to herself and her father that she could face her demons and to dig into the discrepancies she’d found in Bolivia and Indonesia.
Neither goal was achievable if she avoided the coast.
Her phone rang, the vibration rattling faintly across her desk. The caller ID froze her breath for a beat.
Talon.
She closed her office door, turned the lock with a soft click, and only then answered. “Hello, stranger,” she said, surprised at how normal her voice sounded, considering the way her pulse roared in her ears.
“Riley.” His voice—low, steady—rolled through the line, richer than she remembered from the few words they’d shared over a year ago. “Jesus, it’s good to hear your voice. How was the flight?”
Her throat felt tight. “Long. Bumpy. Full of people who stared at me like I was a circus act.” Her laugh was brittle around the edges. “But I made it.”
“How are you feeling? Really?”
It was such a Talon question—blunt and impossible to dodge. Over the past year, he’d become adept at hearing the truth buried under her practiced answers.
“Terrified,” she admitted quietly. “Angry that I’m terrified. Determined not to let it win.” She turned her chair toward the wide window, the glinting metal of the processing facility visible in the dying sunlight. “Actually … I think I’m doing okay. Better than okay, maybe.”
“Tell me.”
And so, she did. She told him about reclaiming her office, about Marcus Webb’s thinly veiled attempt to sideline her, about the orders she’d given that no one had dared ignore. As she spoke, the taut band around her chest eased.
“I gave orders today,” she said finally, the pride in her voice startling her. “Real orders to people who thought they could push me around. And they listened.”
“Of course, they did.” There was steel in Talon’s voice now, a fierce undercurrent that wrapped around her like armor. “You’ve always been brilliant, Riley. The fact that some assholes hurt you doesn’t change that.”
Her vision blurred unexpectedly, the sting in her eyes sharp but clean. “I think I’ve missed this. Talking to you, I mean. Really talking.”
“I missed it, too.” His voice softened, intimate in a way that threaded heat low in her stomach. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. In the same country, breathing the same air.”
“Same terrible, dusty, oppressive air,” she teased, but her lips curved.
“Same beautiful, challenging, infinite air,” he countered without hesitation. “God, Riley, I can’t wait to see you. To actually see you, not just picture you in my mind.”
Her breath caught. “When?” The question slipped out before she could swallow it back.
“Soon. I have to coordinate with a couple of schedules, but soon. Maybe next week?”
“I’d like that.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
They spoke for another twenty minutes about logistics, his training schedule with the SRF, and her environmental compliance inspections. But beneath the professional exchange was a live current of anticipation, charging every word.
“I should probably let you get some rest,” Talon said at last. “You’ve had a long day.”
“Talon?”
There was a pause, that almost-audible shift when his full attention landed squarely on her. “Yeah?”
“There’s another reason I’m here,” she said slowly. “Beyond proving I can handle the field again.”
“What’s that?”
Her gaze dropped to the manifest files scattered across her desk, the numbers that didn’t add up, the discrepancies that mirrored patterns she’d already seen in South America and Southeast Asia. Patterns her father had waved away.
“I’ll tell you when I see you,” she said. “Face-to-face.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe it is.” Her voice was steadier now, anchored by resolve. “Or maybe it’s just my imagination.”
After they hung up, Riley sat in her office, watching the sky outside her window bleed from molten gold into deep crimson. Tomorrow, she’d drive to the coast to the water processing station uncomfortably close to the site of her worst memories.
She’d conduct her inspection. Smile for the cameras. Deliver every bit of the professional competence she’d fought to reclaim.
And she’d start looking for patterns in the shipping manifests. Discrepancies that might explain why her father had been so quick to dismiss her concerns.
In a few days, she’d see Talon again. She’d look into the eyes that had been her lifeline through a thousand texts. She knew she could trust him with the suspicions gnawing at her.
The Sahel had nearly broken her once. But as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky, Riley felt something she hadn’t in a year. It was an almost fierce joy that built in her chest. She wasn’t running from her ghosts anymore. This time, she was hunting them.
The convoy to the water processing station kicked up a plume of pale dust that hung in the air.
It kind of drifted there, like a veil, held aloft by the intense heat.
Riley sat in the rear seat of the lead SUV, letting her nails bite lightly into the leather armrest as the landscape shifted from scrubland to coastal terrain.
The air changed first. Even through the air conditioning, she could smell the ocean. It was faint but unmistakable. Her chest tightened. She shifted her focus to the steady rhythm of her breath.
Twelve kilometers from Arjun Ridge. Less than three kilometers from where the MV Calypso Queen had anchored. Her reflection in the tinted window showed her chin lifted, eyes steady. No one in the convoy saw the way her left hand curled briefly into a fist.
As the coastline came into view, flashes of blue-green water appeared between stands of mangrove.
It glittered in the sun, beautiful, true, but it still scraped against her nerves.
She made herself catalog details like she was filing a compliance report: water depth, visible infrastructure, proximity to the river mouth.
Not proximity to the spot where she’d screamed until her voice went raw.
The station came into view. It was a low sprawl of concrete and corrugated steel buildings built right at the mouth of the Senegal River. Large cylindrical tanks rose behind fencing topped with razor wire, and the hum of pumps was faintly audible even over the SUV engines.
Her driver glanced back. “We’re arriving, Ms. Shoemaker.”
“Good.” She kept her voice crisp. “Remind the inspection team—hard hats, safety vests, compliance cameras rolling the moment we clear the gate. We’re not here for show; we’re here for verification. Let’s make it look like both.”
The driver nodded, radioing the message back to the trailing vehicles.
As they rolled through the station’s security gate, the tang of brine mingled with the smell of hot machinery.
Local contractors in faded coveralls paused to watch the convoy.
Riley stepped out as soon as the vehicle stopped, the salt air hitting her like a heavy wave.
Her boots crunched on packed gravel, the sun baking down on the open area.
A facility manager approached, clipboard in hand, his expression faintly wary.
“Ms. Shoemaker,” he greeted.
“Let’s keep this efficient,” she said, holding his gaze. “Start with the intake pumps, then filtration, then output tanks. I would like to review all your operational logs from the last six months. And your hazard response procedures both written and demonstrated.”
He hesitated. “Demonstrated?”
“That’s what I said.” Her tone sharpened, not because of him but because her heartbeat was climbing again at the faint glint of water beyond the intake pipes. “If a containment breach occurs, I want to see exactly what happens. My approval depends on the efficiency of your response.”
The team moved as she directed, and they became a flurry of clipboards, cameras, and notes.
Riley moved with them, every step controlled, her questions sharp and precise.
She reviewed intake calibration, checked filtration efficiency, and verified output testing protocols.
Every answer was noted. Every gap was flagged.
They skirted the outer walkways toward the river mouth, the blue-green water flashing in the sunlight. Her pulse thudded hard in her ears.
Not the same ship. Not the same day. You’re here because you chose to be.
The inspection wrapped two hours later, the station manager sweating but compliant.
“Your paperwork is cleaner than I expected,” Riley said, flipping her clipboard closed. “But I’m going to want quarterly audits from now on. Full transparency.”
“Yes, Ms. Shoemaker.”
Back in the SUV, the salt air still clung to her. Her hands itched faintly, and her feet still vibrated from the movement of the station’s catwalks beneath her boots. But when she looked down at her notes, her handwriting was steady.
She’d done it. The water hadn’t won.