We near the port and I ask Oliver, “What’s our plan? Come in hot? Split up?”
Oliver gestures for me to pop open the glove compartment. One handgun is in there. I check and it’s loaded. “I have another in the back.”
I nod, grateful that I don’t have to tell him my handgun is in the glove compartment of my SUV, which is at the safehouse because I spent the night there.
“We have a shipment of leftover shirts heading out today from the Tampa shipyards,” Oliver explains. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I bet whatever ship it’s on, that’s where they’re keeping Charlie.”
I remember this now; Charlie was managing something about it when we were in the storage unit.
“Have you neutralized Ian?” I ask Oliver.
He pulls up his phone and the video feed for the safehouse. Ian is rocking on the floor next to the metal door to the tunnels, his face scrunched in pain.
“He isn’t the only one who knows his way around a keyboard,” Oliver says with a wink. “Jammed the wireless signal. Even with his unlimited data, he’s not getting a message in or out of there. And I’m not about to let up on the alarm either. Let him burst an eardrum for his trouble.” Oliver pockets his phone.
I give him a nod, because it’s not my place to tell my boss “good work!” but with Ian contained, we now know there shouldn’t be any extra surprises waiting for us inside.
The shipyard is locked on a Saturday morning so Oliver parks outside. I get out and tuck the handgun into the pouch at the back of my cycling jersey. Oliver heads to the back of his SUV and opens his toolbox. Roadside tools, a set of shears, and a spare gun are what he needs.
First, we use the jack to prop the car and Oliver turns on the hazard lights, giving us a plausible explanation for the car being on this stretch of road. The shears cut a perfect line in the fence so we can sneak in. Now all we have to do is find the right ship.
I give a nod to Oliver and we get moving. There’s no time to waste.
I’m coming for you, Charlie.
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?
