Chapter 39
Cressida glared at Captain Malloy as though that would make any difference in her predicament.
She’d been transported from his smaller trawler—the Mariner’s Gambit—to a much bigger vessel.
A state-of-the art salvage craft. He’d taken her to a spare room without a porthole and shoved her into a chair, then he bound her wrists and ankles.
“You betrayed my father. He trusted you.” I trusted you. “And you lied to me.”
She had to find a way out of this. Braden might not have a clue where she was.
If he happened to see the Mariner’s Gambit leave the bay and was following, then he was going in the wrong direction.
This operation involved multiple parties, which they already suspected.
Someone well-funded was backing this project—she’d suspect a rogue nation or terrorist cell.
Her ankles were bound but not to the chair. At least her wrists had been secured in front of her, but the duct tape had been put on too tight. “Can you at least untie me? My hands are getting numb and it’s cold, so that makes it worse.”
She wanted to point out that Malloy now had the coordinates, so why did he need her? But that seemed counterintuitive to her survival. “Please tell me what this is all about.”
“You already know. It’s tucked in that brain of yours.”
“Know what? I don’t know anything. It’s a shipwreck, that’s easy enough to guess.” She’d landed on nuclear submarine but hoped and prayed that she was way off. Oh, Lord, let it not be that!
“Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet, but you would have if you had kept going with your article.”
“My article. How do you know about that? I hadn’t published it. There’s no way you could know.” But her mother had known. Her boyfriend had known. And . . . Commander Elias Steel. Navy Salvage Officer—the man she had planned to interview—had known.
“That boat racing toward us on your first day when I brought you here? Those men are the enemy. They’re after the same thing I’m after, only working for our enemies.”
“You don’t think you’re a bad guy?” she asked. “You abducted me. You feel like an enemy to me.”
“For all the right reasons, honey. And you’re alive.”
“And tied up.”
“This show isn’t over yet. I have work to do. Now sit still and be quiet if you want to live.”
He left her alone in a room with a chair and a bed. Nothing else. Very spare quarters indeed. She heard him lock the door. Tied up inside a locked room.
She would continue to try to get out of the tape. Cressida closed her eyes, calmed her breaths, and prayed.
Lord, please let this not be about a nuclear submarine that some bad people want to recover for material to create a dirty bomb.
She didn’t know much about the usability of old weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. Could it degrade underwater? Even if it did, it would remain radioactive and could be used for a dirty bomb, couldn’t it?
Weren’t there easier ways to get those kinds of materials to cause trouble?
She couldn’t be part of this. Didn’t want anything to do with it.
They were not going to let her live, no matter what Malloy said.
She couldn’t be sure who he was really working for, and maybe he wasn’t even sure—if he believed this was an operation sanctioned by the US Government.
He must be a fool, or so greedy he allowed himself to be fooled.
Cressida hopped over to the door and wanted to pound on it, but where would that get her?
The thrumming of the engines went silent. The vessel was no longer moving.
Had they made it to the location? Her breathing hitched up.
She did not want to be aboard this vessel messing with radioactive material.
How could this happen? She had to escape this room.
But how? Cressida heard footfalls. Boots.
Not Malloy’s cadence. She’d seen other men with guns—security?
—and then others here to work the salvage equipment, navigate this vessel.
If she escaped, where would she go? How would she evade the others on the boat? Still, she wouldn’t just sit here and wait for someone to come and kill her. Malloy had underestimated her if he thought locking her in this room would keep her here.
Wrists and ankles still bound, Cressida hopped as she dragged the chair—the action much harder than she’d imagined—into place by the door where she could strike unseen. The lock clicked and the door swung open. From behind him, she brought the chair down hard at the back of a man’s head.
He collapsed.
At first she didn’t recognize him, and then she froze.
Deputy Riker?
Oh no! What have I done? He’d come to get her out of this. He’d gotten here so fast—he must have followed her somehow or taken a helicopter. Still, she would have expected Braden, who was with the same sheriff’s department, to be the one to find her. Not Deputy Riker.
But wait . . . he wore the same black shirt and pants as the rest of the crew and wasn’t dressed like a deputy, so he wasn’t here on official business? Was he working with Malloy? Someone else?
She felt for a pulse and found one. At least she hadn’t killed him.
Just given him a grand concussion. No time to worry about him.
She found a pocketknife on his body and cut off the tape from her ankles and then, after several attempts, was able to cut through the tape around her wrists.
She had the slimmest chance of getting out of here.
Even if she found a skiff she could use to escape the larger vessel, if anyone spotted her leaving, they could still catch up to her and take her down. Maybe waiting in the cell was the better choice. No. Once someone decided she held no value, she’d become shark food and dumped in the ocean.
Malloy might think he wasn’t going to kill her, but this secret was far too big, and to some, she wasn’t worth it. They had let her live long enough to find the truth—the coordinates. And . . . she should sabotage this entire vessel to prevent them from getting what lay at the bottom of the ocean.
All this research and looking into shipwrecks for her father, and Cressida never would have imagined herself in a covert operation to retrieve fissile material in whatever form from a sunken salvage vessel.
If she survived, she probably wouldn’t even be allowed to write about it—it would be considered classified.
She looked at Deputy Riker. She couldn’t just leave him there.
Cressida tugged him completely inside the room—which wasn’t easy.
She removed his guns and knives. His radios and communication devices.
Removed his black shirt and cap and put those on.
Maybe the disguise would be just the thing to save her.
Then she shut the door and locked him inside.
He was a bad guy until she learned otherwise.
No one on this vessel could be trusted until she knew better.
Standing in the dim hall of a shiny new research-salvage vessel, she focused on what came next. Beyond sending a message to Braden regarding her location and need for assistance . . . she needed to act now. While she couldn’t wait for help, she could hope it would come in time.
She had two choices. She could figure out how to shut down the power and permanently damage this operation before escaping on a skiff. Or she could do nothing and escape now.
Neither of those options seemed remotely possible.
Here goes nothing . . .