‘Not at all, I was just heading back down,’ Ore said slightly too quickly. She was already halfway out of the room. She heard Chuck offer up another back slap and a ‘I don’t blame you, Captain. If I was ten years younger …’ as she scuttled down to the deck.
The journey back was uneventful. Ore sat in the salon willing the hour to pass faster. She needed to know what Daniel had to tell her. Mel had reverted back to sullen teenager mode and ignored Ore the whole way, seemingly texting non-stop, most probably messaging her girlfriend.
Claude and his men were nowhere to be seen. Ore imagined them squirrelled away somewhere below her, hunched over that mysterious box and exchanging ideas on how to take over the world.
Back inside the hull ofLady Thalassa’smarina, Mel was the first to disembark, notably not acknowledging Chuck as she climbed onto the gangway and raced off. Chuck waited for Claude and the pair watched as that same crate was loaded off the boat by the divers, before they too got off.
Ore hung back, and when Daniel appeared she kept it brief: ‘What time?’
Daniel was lithely hopping on and off the boat, tying variousropes to various hooks lining the dock. He barely looked up from what he was doing, and despite herself Ore took a second to admire his athleticism.
‘Usual spot, twenty-one hundred hours?’ Daniel suggested.
All this sneaking around was kind of exciting. ‘Copy that, Captain,’ Ore said, resisting her incessant urge to salute.
