Chapter 46
CHARLIE
X.C. recoils from my comment about his plan being good. I don’t mean good as in altruistic or beneficial; I mean good as in elegant, air-tight, and deviously well planned.
He narrows his eyes, assessing me.
“What made you this way? To think this is OK? You want to create chaos to pave the way for billionaires to make more money?” I can’t hide the disgust in my voice.
“I want to see the world developed, and this is the way it gets done. Business. The way it always has. People bitch about colonialism, but, hey, it worked.” X.C. gestures around him, as if the interior of this ship were somehow evidence of peak civilization.
I am rendered speechless by his disregard for lives lost and history forever altered by greed.
“Didn’t you used to have ideals? Wasn’t there a reason you joined the navy?”
I think of Declan. How he does the right thing because it is the right thing to do – even when no one is watching. How his idea of rebelling as a teen was to join the Naval Academy instead of West Point. How did X.C. ever disguise his true self from Declan, and for so long?
X.C. huffs in frustration. “Yes, for service and duty. And after nineteen years, I was honorably discharged.”
This man has no honor, is all I can think.
My silence invites him to elaborate further. “Nineteen years. Not twenty. No pension. No lifetime healthcare benefit. A parting ‘fuck you’ for my years of service. So now I’m working for a team that pays. Up front and in full.”
Money. Money has corrupted him, like so many men before him. Like waking to find myself tied to a chair, it’s a pathetic cliché.
X.C. resumes his pacing, done with our conversation.
His shoes make this annoying squeak every time he turns. The sound refuses to fade into white noise, demanding my attention.
My legs and arms vacillate between the tingles of my limbs falling asleep and the deep pain of being stuck in this position. I wiggle my torso and roll my shoulders. I move my stiff neck from side to side. The satisfying crack is nothing compared to the slight jump X.C. gives at the sound. Good.
My options are slim. Do I bargain for my life? Do I offer to join the Order and become a double agent just to escape and deal with the consequences later?
Uncle Ollie and Declan will never agree to sit quietly and ignore the impending attacks.
They would never let innocent people die if they could stop it.
I know, deep down, when X.C. asks them to trade my one life for the lives of many that they will agree, but keep working to find the arms, thwart the threat, and save as many people as possible.
They’ll fight to save everyone – including me, because they aren’t going to take this man at his word.
I don’t either. Which is why I know that even if I live through the summer, I don’t trust X.C. to release me once the attacks are carried out. No way.
At best, Oliver and Declan acquiescing buys me a few extra weeks as the ship makes its way from Tampa to Africa to find a way to escape. Once these terror attacks and arms exchange are complete, I’ll be collateral damage.
I tell myself this is good. I can surely think of a way to escape in all that time. Declan and Oliver will make it happen.
X.C. arrives back in front of me again. His sidearm is on display. The survival instinct in my mind tells me I need to get my hands on that weapon.
The realist in me recognizes that another scenario could play out. Uncle Ollie and Declan could refuse X.C.’s scheme and vow to stop the Order. At which point, X.C. (or Blaed, wherever he has disappeared to) could pull a gun out and kill me. It is a true no-win situation. Yeah, this sucks.
I do another visual survey. The lights give me a better outline of the shape of the interior holding space.
There’s a cargo bay door ahead, maybe thirty feet away.
Forty? If I can get up and somehow untie my feet, I can get to freedom.
Of all the times I’ve lamented that I couldn’t run, this is the one time I truly, physically, can’t.
The irony would kill me, if X.C. weren’t likely to do so in the near future.