He smiles without showing teeth. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
I think of Conrad, of Atticus, of Maverick, of Storm—men who will pull maps apart until the lines fall in their hands. Men who do not stop. The thought of them sits warm and solid in my chest.
Hold on. However this goes, just keep holding on.
We pass the open door of a stairwell. Down, it leads to the dark I found earlier. Up, it goes toward light. He nudges me up. I take the first step and feel the ache in my legs like a ground truth. The man behind me is quiet. The men with the rifles are quieter.
I keep moving.
10
Maverick
We don’t sleep.We can’t. Instead, we make a plan and execute.
Storm gets the hull name from his father’s Bureau friend and a breadcrumb trail that doesn’t look like any kind of trail until he draws a line through it.
Atticus locks down the inside of our house—people, comms, gear—while I work the phones that still pick up for me after midnight. Conrad takes the calls that need the Masterson name to open a door and doesn’t waste words on men who mistake breeding for power.
The ship’s name sits in my notes like a beacon leading us to Phoenix.The Amaranth Star.It has a flag of convenience, which according to the Bureau guy is a major red flag. Registering the ship in a different country provides a ship with far less oversight, making it anonymous and practically invisible on the waterways.
We see it, though, thanks to the way the puzzle pieces have started clicking into place.
The damn thing has container stacks tall enough to punch a hole in the horizon, a route that left Savannah, went dark, then reappeared southeast like it took a breath under water.
It fits all the parameters.
Atticus overlays pilot logs, tug chatter, AIS hiccups, and the timing of a “maintenance test” on a pier-side crane. The picture that emerges is ugly and clean and obvious enough that you hate yourself for missing it.
We’ve got a ship. We’ve got a corridor. We’ve got a clock for what’s been done and what still needs to be done.
And I know exactly who we need to help us with the biggest part of the puzzle—the actual rescue.
“It sticks in my craw to admit this, but we have to acknowledge that we are not exactly super soldiers who can scale a cargo ship, defeat some unknown enemy who’s probably armed with significant firepower, and then get our girl back across the ocean,” I say.
“I mean, I think we could handle the getting her across the ocean part,” Atticus says.”
Conrad says nothing, eyes narrowed stubbornly. Storm’s gaze flicks to him, and he throws his knife at the wall. The implication is obvious, and I pat his shoulder.
Figuratively. I would never do that in real life.
“Storm, if we had you against a few guys in a single container or whatnot, obviously you could take them. IF they didn’t have semi-automatics. But let’s think about this for a minute. Kidnapped…on a cargo ship…middle of the ocean…guys, she’s being trafficked. That means there’s gonna be some guns. Evenif we took a gun or two, I think we’d be outmatched.” I pause. “It’s not a weakness to admit we need help. Getting her back is the most important thing.”
After a minute Conrad heaves a sigh and rubs his eyes. “Agreed. Who are we thinking about contacting for the job?”
“I’m calling Blackvine,” I say. “I feel like they kind of owe us after the shit with the pharma—how it turned out tonotbe us—and they’re going to have the connections we need. And they said to call if we ever needed anything.”
Atticus scratches his jaw, stares for a minute, then turns back to his bank of computers.
“That could work,” is all he says. Conrad nods.
Taking a deep breath, I pull the number from my contacts list.
The man who answers is polite in the way expensive knives are—no wasted edge. “Mr. Locke,” he says, as if I’m my grandfather’s ghost. “This is a surprise.”
It is. After the mess just weeks ago with Blackvine thinking we were to blame for their missing pharmaceuticals, we all have ground to cover with each other to mend fences others broke. Reaching out to them will go a long way toward showing them we trust them, and vice versa. After all, Phoenix Jones is the most important thing in our lives.
“I’m aware,” I say. “And we’ll owe you, any favor you could ever call in. We need reach and expertise we don’t currently have. Boats with range. Eyes that aren’t ours. Paper that doesn’t say our names.”
