Chapter 40
“Hold it here.” Braden stared through binoculars. “We have to figure out how to get in close enough to get on that boat without them seeing us.”
He’d thought they would find the Mariner’s Gambit at the location, but instead a large salvage vessel was anchored at the coordinates.
That made much more sense. The Mariner’s Gambit might have been able to do some salvaging, but not for the remnants of a vessel that supposedly salvaged a nuclear submarine.
This incident of a foreign nuclear submarine getting this close to US soil had been kept well under wraps for far too long.
And as he looked at the sophisticated vessel, his heart sank. He should have known. Should have suspected—this was big. Who was behind it? Their government? Another government or regime? Or just a rogue group wanting to get their hands on dangerous materials left in the ocean?
Diggins stood next to him and pressed his hand on the binoculars to lower them. “Staring at that thing isn’t going to get her back or make this any easier.”
“Got any ideas?” Braden asked.
“A couple. We could just go in. Let them take us.” Diggins’s tone sounded serious.
“And get ourselves killed?” Braden looked him over. Was that head injury finally confusing him? “How does that help Cressida?”
Diggins pressed his lips into a hard line. “You don’t even know if she’s on the boat. You don’t know if she’s alive.”
Not what he wanted to hear . . . or think about, though Diggins wasn’t wrong. “I have to believe she is.” I can feel it.
“I guess I could have said more early on. I’m sorry I didn’t. But the day she got here and asked about me, I had a feeling that something like this was going to happen. So I’ve been preparing. I have tanks. We could go in that way. Maybe they won’t see us.”
“Scuba tanks? I didn’t see them.”
“They’re ready. Four sets. I thought there’d be more of us. There’s only two.”
For now. Braden hoped he had help coming. “You dive?” Why was he asking? This news shouldn’t have surprised him.
“Would I have tanks if I didn’t? The bigger question is—do you?”
“I have experience, yes.”
Diggins nodded. He steered his boat away.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“If we can see them, chances are they’re going to see us sooner than we’d like. We’ll get the tanks, get suited up, and take a skiff in closer. That’ll be harder to spot.”
Braden looked through the binoculars again and watched the vessel fade away on the horizon.
“Let’s say we get onto that rig,” he said. “Then what? How do we find her? How do we get her out of there alive?” He was usually the one explaining the plans to others. But he was always open to suggestions.
“I brought the tanks. I’ll let you figure out how to save the day.”
“Seriously? You trust me with your life?”
“Didn’t say that. I trust you with your life and hers, and I won’t be far behind.”
Braden didn’t want to put the older man in danger. Especially now that he knew Diggins’s shocking relationship to Evelyn Monroe, he wanted to deliver him back safely. He wanted that anyway, but he wanted this for Evelyn as well. She’d lost enough.
And now he understood. The real treasure Diggins had been searching for aboard the Endeavor Spirit, or Specter’s Bounty, hadn’t been artifacts—it had been his son, Caleb.
But Caleb had been long dead, lost in the depth of the Pacific Ocean by then.
Maybe Diggins had hoped to discover something to bring closure to his own grief .
. . and to Evelyn’s. She’d spent her days by the ocean, gazing out at the horizon, watching, waiting—knowing deep down that her son would never return but unable to let go of the hope that the sea, which had claimed him, might somehow give him back.
Still, did Evelyn know that her husband was alive?
Or had Diggins hidden that truth from her, waiting, watching, and protecting?
They were the same—Evelyn and Diggins—in the way that mattered most. She helped those in need, giving them safe harbor, including the liveaboards in Hidden Bay, while Diggins—her long-lost husband she believed deceased—mentored those in need.
Braden prayed for a good ending to their story.
Still, he didn’t understand. “Why does Evelyn keep you at a distance? Does she even know about you? That you’re still alive?”
“She left me for dead to prevent her father from trying again. I don’t blame her for that.
She saw me once . . . in Forestview . . .
but looked the other way after reacting like she’d seen a ghost. If she believed that I was still alive, then she walked away because she doesn’t want to lose me again.
I know that about her. She’s lost a son and her husband—twice, she thought.
In my quest to find him—buried in the ocean—I had hoped to bring her closure as a gift, but I failed us both.
As for the truth I asked Cressida to get from her—I simply wanted to know if she ever loved me, and if she still loves me now but she’s just too afraid. ”
That might be the saddest love story Braden had ever heard. Too much tragedy in one lifetime.
Diggins drew in a breath and lifted his shoulders.
“But today, everything changes. Today, this all ends, and if she still loves me and wants me, we’ll be together.
” He chuckled. “I’m not sure I could get accustomed to her lifestyle, nor she mine, and maybe we’ll love each other from afar like we’ve done for decades. ”
“Let’s make sure you get the chance. I’d prefer it if you remained here on the Sea Reaper and wait for me to return with Cressida. It’s too dangerous for you to go with me. I don’t know what we’re going to face.”
“I can help you, son, and I’m going.”
Braden had called in additional resources, texting to ask Thatcher to send their reserve deputies—Hawk and Cole, both skilled in military maneuvers—to meet him at the coordinates.
He couldn’t be sure if Thatcher had even received the text because he hadn’t heard back.
He’d tried again but his communication failed.
But he certainly couldn’t trust that Trent had called in the resources like he assured Braden he would.
And here he was—just him and Diggins. Hawk and Cole hadn’t shown up. Though he could use their skill and knew he could trust them both, he couldn’t count on them to be here if they never got the message.
“Let’s do this.” Braden had never been on shakier ground.
“We could wait for the Kraken. Didn’t you say you called for the Coast Guard?”
“Cressida doesn’t have the time. If they show up, that’ll help, but I can’t wait.”
If anything happened to him today—then what would happen to his niece?
What would happen to Cressida?
He had never been more uncertain about a plan, but he was willing to go the distance and give it all to save lives, even if that meant losing his own.
He and Diggins grabbed the tanks and prepped the skiff.
They’d have to wait until it was totally dark and hope and pray the vessel hadn’t completed its task and moved on.
He hated leaving Cressida there—if she truly was there.
But he knew she was. Someone had taken her.
She had the coordinates, and now here they were at those same coordinates.
The whir of an approaching vessel set off alarms in Braden’s head.
The skiff was attached and waiting for their mission, and they would be donning their scuba suits shortly.
He looked through his binoculars and could barely make out the silhouette of a RIB—rigid inflatable boat, often used by the Coast Guard and military—carrying two men. Relief rushed through him.
“It’s Hawk and Cole.”
“You trust them?” Diggins asked.
“With my life.”
The RIB sidled up to the Sea Reaper, and Braden assisted the two men onto the vessel. He gave them what little information he had.
Hawk’s frown deepened as he listened, then he shook it off and managed a grin. “You’re in luck. Cole here has brought everything but the kitchen sink. This’ll be just like old times.”
“We were never on a mission together.” Cole crossed his thick arms.
“Separately, then, it’ll be like old times, except I was always in the air.” Hawk crossed his arms too and stared his brother down.
“All right, boys. What you got and what’s the plan?” Diggins sounded impatient.
Braden was too relieved to be impatient.
“We brought scuba.”
“I already got that,” Diggins groused.
“Do you have waterproof comms?” Cole asked. “Handheld sonar devices? Underwater night vision?”
“No. I don’t have the resources for that. You boys use your own equipment, then.”
“We could use that and a plan,” Braden said.
As soon as he realized his friends had arrived—and now, finally, he would actually call them friends—his mind kicked into gear with a plan of his own.
“Trent is running this operation. He was probably a government operative, planted years ago when Evelyn moved here, to watch and wait for news of the location. But his behavior tells me he’s no longer working for the government, and this is his own private operation.
Before I knew this, I tasked him with calling in resources.
Thatcher’s the one to discover the truth about Trent. ”
“He called us up and out to help,” Hawk said.
“I warned him that as far as additional resources, he should move with extreme caution given that his calls for assistance—the Coast Guard or the Feds—could be conveyed to Trent and warn him that we’re coming.
Surprise is to our advantage. No telling how big Trent’s network must be to have pulled this off. ”
“Understood,” Braden said. “Octavia Dane knows, and I’m counting on her to call in the appropriate authorities.
But here and now, we can’t know who to trust. It’s just us, the Timberbrook County Sheriff’s Office, working far from our jurisdiction to save Cressida Valentine Dane per her mother’s request—a VIP in the US State Department.
Even so, we go into this with great risk, not only to our lives but to our reputations.
Our goal is to save Cressida, but we need to also prevent that salvage vessel from obtaining nuclear material. ”
“Whoa . . . whoa.” Cole threw up his hands. “Nobody said anything about nukes.”
“I don’t have time to explain. Waiting for help to arrive risks Cressida’s life and the lives of many other people if the wrong parties get their hands on it. Are you in or out?”
“I’ve been in since I got your message from Thatcher, who, by the way, told us, and I quote, ‘Do what you have to do out there—we’ll deal with the fallout later.’ So let’s hear the plan. We make a great team.”
“A former DSS special agent. A former Night Stalker pilot. A former Green Beret. And an elderly artifact smuggler. I agree,” Braden said. “We can do this.”
Thatcher had their backs, which he hadn’t doubted.
Octavia would have their backs too—this was about her daughter.
“Our goal is to disable the vessel and prevent it from retrieving the salvaged contents of a nuclear submarine that are allegedly on the Vanguard, another salvage vessel lost at sea. I’ll approach underwater and take out the external surveillance.
Once that’s done, you three can prepare to board and secure the deck.
We disable the power and communications. ”
“Oh, did I tell you we brought night drones?” Hawk laughed. “I’ve been playing around with them—”
“Focus,” Cole said.
“You can use those to create distractions while we board and take control of the deck,” Braden said.
“Get Cressida. Take Trent and secure him while we wait for the Coast Guard, or whoever shows up to take over. We don’t know when they’ll arrive.
We go in as if we’re on our own. Then we go public with this. ”
“You don’t think it needs to remain a secret?”
“Secrets get out, and the wrong parties are about to get their hands on significant materials because of a secret kept too long,” Braden said.
“What if this all goes south? What then? We can’t let them get their hands on this stuff,” Cole said.
“What’s your plan?” Braden asked.
“I suggest explosives to completely destroy the vessel.” Cole tugged scuba suits out of their gear. “Prevent the salvage and prevent the escape. Whatever it takes.”
Braden didn’t like that plan, but Cole was right. “Are you saying you brought explosives?”
“No,” Cole said. “But I could use what they have on the vessel. Chances are they’ve got them.”
“We stay in communication the whole time,” Braden said. “I get Cressida and get her to safety, then and only then do we completely disable the vessel—that is, if things go south as you said.”
“Do you know she’s there?” Hawk’s tone sounded heavy.
“She’d better be,” Braden said. “And my guess is that she’s already planning her escape.”
But what he couldn’t voice, the words he wouldn’t put out into the air—Cressida was running out of time.