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 sunkensalvagevessel. 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 himthere. 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’twaitfor 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...
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 theMariner’s Gambitat the location, but instead a large salvage vessel was anchored at the coordinates. That made much more sense. TheMariner’s Gambitmight 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?”
