CHAPTER 29
Gemma
The green sweep of the radar screen is the only thing keeping me anchored to reality.
I sit in the passenger seat of the Audi, my knees pulled up slightly to ease the dull, constant ache in my ribs.
The heater is blasting, but I am still shivering.
Outside, the storm is a solid, impenetrable wall of black rain and howling wind, battering the car with enough force to rock the suspension.
Ben is sitting in the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield into the dark. He hasn't spoken in twenty minutes.
I focus entirely on the ruggedized laptop mounted over the center console.
The screen displays a digital map of the North Sea. There are two distinct blips. One is large, moving slowly and steadily northeast. That is the Iron Tide , the syndicate freighter holding Pippa.
The second blip is much smaller. It is moving at a terrifying speed, cutting directly through the heavy swells, closing the distance between the coast and the freighter.
That is Callum.
"He’s going too fast," Ben mutters, finally breaking the silence.
He leans closer to the screen, tracing the trajectory of the small green dot.
"The sea state is a level six right now.
Ten-to-fifteen-foot waves. If he hits a trough at that speed, the hull of the inflatable is going to snap in half. "
"He knows what he’s doing," I say, my voice tight.
"Gemma, nobody knows what they’re doing in a hurricane in a thirty-foot boat.
" Ben rubs his bruised temple, letting out a heavy sigh.
"He’s pushing the engines to the redline because he knows the freighter is about to cross into international waters.
If they cross the line, the syndicate can request a naval escort from a friendly privateer. "
I grip the edges of the laptop screen. "How far away is he?"
"Three nautical miles."
I reach for the encrypted radio sitting in the cup holder. I press the transmit button.
"Callum," I say, pitching my voice loud enough to be heard over the static. "You are three miles out. The freighter has maintained its heading, but they’ve dropped their speed by two knots. I think they’re fighting the swells."
Static hisses over the speaker for a long, agonizing moment.
"Copy," Callum’s voice finally crackles through. He sounds out of breath, the roar of the twin outboard engines and the crashing waves nearly drowning him out. "I have visual on their stern lights."
"Are they running a radar sweep?" I ask, pulling up a secondary diagnostic window on the laptop to check for active sonar pings from the freighter.
"Negative," Callum replies. "The storm is creating too much surface clutter. Their screens are blind."
"Okay. Approach from the port side aft. It’s the blindest spot on a commercial freighter."
"Understood."
The radio clicks off.
I stare at the small green dot on the screen. It is inching closer to the larger blip. Two miles. One mile.
"He’s in their wake," Ben says quietly.
I don't blink. I watch the two blips merge on the radar screen until they are entirely indistinguishable from one another.
"Callum," I say into the radio. "You’re right on top of them. Do you have a boarding point?"
There is no answer.
"Callum," I repeat, my grip tightening on the plastic casing of the radio. "Do you copy?"
Static.
"The storm is interfering with the signal," Ben says, though his voice lacks conviction. "Or he dropped the radio when he made the jump."
"He wouldn't drop the radio." I press the transmit button again, my thumb trembling. "Callum, answer me."
The silence from the speaker is deafening.
I look out the windshield at the dark, violent ocean. He is out there, climbing up the side of a moving steel wall in the middle of a hurricane, entirely alone.
If you don't come back...
I will.
I close my eyes, forcing the panic down into a tight, hard box in the back of my mind. Panic doesn't help him. Panic doesn't help Pippa. I have to be the anchor.
"He’s on the ship," I tell Ben, opening my eyes and staring at the radar screen. "He’s on board."
"How do you know?"
"Because the small blip hasn't reappeared behind the freighter," I point out, tracing the digital wake of the Iron Tide . "If he fell, or if the boat sank, the transponder would still be pinging from the water. The signal merged. He made the jump."
Ben lets out a slow breath. "Okay. Okay, so he’s on the ship. There are twenty armed men on that freighter, Gemma. And Arthur Vance."
"Arthur doesn't know Callum is coming," I say, my voice hardening. "He thinks Callum is dead in a shipping container in London. He thinks he won. He’s going to be relaxed."
"Arthur Vance is never relaxed," Ben corrects me. "He’s a psychopath with a trust fund. He’s going to have guards posted at every access door."
"Then Callum will go through the guards."
I turn back to the laptop. I can't see what is happening on the ship. I can't hack into their internal security cameras because they are running a closed-loop system, completely isolated from the internet. I am blind.
I hate being blind.
"Can you pull the schematics for a standard syndicate freighter?" I ask Ben.
He nods, reaching over and typing a rapid sequence of commands into a secondary window. A blue-and-white architectural layout of a cargo ship appears on the screen.
"It’s a standard layout," Ben explains, pointing to the different sections. "Cargo holds in the bow and midship. Crew quarters and the bridge are in the stern superstructure. If Arthur is holding Pippa, he won't put her in the cargo hold. It’s too cold, and it’s not secure enough."
"He’ll have her in the superstructure," I agree, studying the layout. "Probably near his own quarters, so he can control access."
I trace the path from the stern deck—where Callum likely boarded—up through the exterior stairwells to the upper decks of the superstructure.
"There are three choke points," I say, tapping the screen. "The main deck access door, the central stairwell, and the corridor leading to the VIP cabins."
"If he triggers an alarm at the main deck door, they’ll lock down the upper levels," Ben says. "He’ll be trapped in the stairwell."
"He won't trigger the alarm."
I stare at the schematic, my mind racing. I need to give him an advantage. I need to do something other than sit in this car and wait.
"Ben," I say, looking up at him. "Does the freighter have a satellite uplink for navigation?"
"Yeah, of course. All commercial vessels do."
"Is it connected to the internal power grid?"
Ben frowns, processing the question. "Yes. The bridge uses the sat-link to download weather patterns and update the navigation software. Why?"
"Because if the sat-link is connected to the power grid, it means there’s a bridge between the external network and the internal systems." I pull the keyboard closer to me. "I can't hack their cameras, but I might be able to overload the primary breaker for the superstructure."
"You want to cut the power to the ship?"
"Just the lights in the crew quarters and the hallways," I clarify, my fingers already moving across the keys, searching for the specific satellite frequency of the Iron Tide .
"Callum operates better in the dark. If I cut the lights, the mercenaries will be blind for a few seconds before the emergency backups kick in. It gives him a window."
Ben stares at me, a mixture of awe and terror on his face. "You’re going to hack a moving ship in the middle of a hurricane."
"I stole four billion dollars this morning, Ben. This is just a light switch."
I find the frequency.
The connection is incredibly unstable, dropping packets of data every time the ship pitches violently in the swells. I have to write a looping script that continuously forces the connection, hammering the ship’s external firewall until it finds a micro-fracture in the code.
It takes me twelve agonizing minutes.
Connection Established.
"I’m in the navigation sub-system," I say, sweat beading on my forehead despite the cold air in the car. "I’m routing through the diagnostic ports to reach the power management grid."
A complex schematic of the ship’s electrical system replaces the architectural layout.
"Okay," I murmur, tracing the digital lines. "Primary generators are in the engine room. Secondary breakers for the superstructure are located on Deck 3."
I highlight the breaker node for the interior lighting.
"I can trip it," I tell Ben. "But I can only do it once. The system will recognize the anomaly and lock me out of the diagnostic port within seconds."
"We don't know where Callum is on the ship," Ben warns. "If you cut the lights while he’s in the middle of a firefight, you might blind him instead of the guards."
"He has night vision," I say confidently. "He packed it in the duffel bag at the airport. He wouldn't board a dark ship without it."
I look at the radio sitting in the cup holder.
"Callum," I say, pressing the transmit button. "If you can hear me, I am going to cut the primary lighting in the superstructure in exactly thirty seconds. Put your optics down."
I release the button.
Static.
I look at the digital clock on the laptop screen. I count the seconds down in my head.
Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.
I don't know if he heard me. I don't know if he is standing in a hallway, or if he is already dead in the cargo hold. I just have to trust that the man who survived an explosion in a steel box is currently moving up those stairs.
Three. Two. One.
I hit the Execute command.
The screen flashes green. A confirmation message appears.
Breaker Tripped. Circuit Open.
I lean back against the passenger seat, my chest heaving. "It’s done. The lights are out."
Ben stares out the windshield at the dark ocean. "Now we wait."
We wait for ten minutes.
The silence in the car is suffocating. The only sound is the relentless drumming of the rain against the roof. My ribs are throbbing, a deep, persistent ache that the ibuprofen is no longer masking.
I pick up the radio again.
"Callum," I whisper, my voice cracking. "Please."
The speaker hisses.
Then, a voice cuts through the static.
It isn't Callum.
"Gemma?"
The voice is high, trembling, and laced with absolute, disbelieving terror.
My heart stops completely.
"Pippa?" I gasp, pressing the radio tight against my mouth. "Pippa, is that you?"
"Oh my god, Gem," Pippa sobs over the line. The sound of her voice—the familiar, sharp London accent completely broken by fear—makes the tears I have been holding back for two days finally spill over my lashes. "I’m here. I’m okay."
"Where are you?" I ask frantically. "Are you safe?"
"I’m in a hallway," Pippa says, her breath hitching. "The lights went out, and then... there were gunshots. So many gunshots. And then this terrifying man in black gear kicked the door of the cabin off its hinges and dragged me out."
I let out a wet, breathless laugh. "That’s Callum. He’s with me."
"He’s terrifying, Gemma. He’s covered in blood."
"Is it his blood?" I ask, the panic instantly returning.
"I don't think so," Pippa whispers. "He just handed me this radio and told me to talk to you while he reloads."
The radio crackles, and the deep, rough rumble of Callum’s voice replaces Pippa’s.
"The lights were a nice touch," he says. He sounds out of breath, but his voice is steady.
"You heard me," I breathe, wiping the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand.
"I heard you. It gave me the corridor."
"Do you have her?"
"I have her," Callum confirms. "We are moving toward the stern deck. The extraction boat is still attached to the mooring line."
"What about Arthur?" I ask, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.
There is a brief pause on the line.
"Arthur is no longer a variable," Callum says flatly.
A cold shiver runs down my spine. I don't ask for details. I don't want to know how he killed the man who ordered my fingers broken. I just want them off that ship.
"Get off the boat, Callum," I say. "The storm is getting worse."
"We are at the deck now," he says. "I am putting the radio away. I will see you on the dock."
The line clicks dead.
I drop the radio into the cup holder, leaning my head back against the seat, completely exhausted.
"He got her," I tell Ben.
Ben lets out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief, dropping his head onto the steering wheel. "I told you. He’s a ghost."
We sit in the car, watching the dark harbor.
Twenty minutes later, the faint, guttural roar of twin outboard engines cuts through the sound of the wind.
I sit up, ignoring the sharp pain in my side, and peer out the windshield.
A massive black inflatable boat tears through the rough water of the harbor, cutting a sharp wake as it heads directly for the slip where we are parked.
Callum is standing at the center console, steering the boat with one hand. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead, his tactical gear soaked with ocean spray.
Sitting on the deck of the boat, huddled under a heavy yellow rain slicker, is Pippa.
Callum cuts the engines, letting the boat glide smoothly into the wooden slip. He grabs the mooring line, tying it off with practiced efficiency, before turning and lifting Pippa onto the dock.
I don't wait for Ben. I push the passenger door open and stumble out into the rain.
"Pippa!" I yell, half-running, half-limping down the wooden dock.
Pippa turns around. She looks terrible. Her clothes are dirty, her face is pale, and she is shivering violently, but she is alive.
She runs toward me, throwing her arms around my neck.
I hiss in pain as she bumps my ribs, but I wrap my arms around her tightly, burying my face in her wet hair. She is sobbing, gripping my jacket as if she is afraid I might disappear.
"I’m so sorry," I whisper, holding her tight. "I’m so sorry I dragged you into this."
"You didn't drag me," Pippa cries, pulling back slightly to look at my face. "I brokered the job. We both knew the risks." She wipes her eyes, looking past me. "Is that the guy?"
I turn around.
Callum has stepped off the boat. He is standing a few feet away, watching us. He looks exhausted, lethal, and entirely out of place in a normal emotional reunion. The MP5 is still slung across his chest.
"Yeah," I say softly. "That’s the guy."
Pippa looks at him, her eyes wide with lingering terror. "He killed six men in under a minute. He didn't even blink."
"I know," I say.
I let go of Pippa and walk toward him.
Callum doesn't move. He watches me approach, his dark eyes searching my face for any sign of fear or revulsion after what Pippa just told me.
I don't give him any.
I stop in front of him, reaching up to rest my hands flat against the cold, wet nylon of his tactical vest.
"You brought her back," I whisper.
"I promised I would," he replies, his voice a low rumble over the sound of the storm.
He raises his hand, his freezing fingers brushing a wet strand of hair out of my eyes.
"Let’s go home," he says.