The door to the infirmary was closed. McKenna turned the handle and pushed, felt resistance. Strange. The door was unlocked, but there was something blocking it from within. She pushed harder, and the door gave a little. She tried again.
Why are you even doing this? she thought. So something shifted during the wreck. What are you trying to prove?
She was trying to prove that there wasn’t a ghost, she decided. She was trying to prove to Court Harrington that he was wrong.
She pushed again. This time, something crashed to the deck behind the door, and the door fell open. And McKenna stumbled into the infirmary, and found herself face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.
76
Okura held the pistol level at the young woman’s forehead, trying to keep his hand from shaking.
“Get back,” he said, his voice ragged from days of silence, trembling from the fear and the sudden adrenaline rush. “No sudden movements.”
He’d been asleep in the sick bay, nothing better to do, when he’d heard footsteps approaching. Held his breath and waited, hoped the cabinet he’d lodged against the door would deter any visitors. Prayed whoever was out there would leave him alone.
But she hadn’t. As soon as Okura heard the door turn, he knew in his heart he was made. He’d muttered a silent curse, and reached for the pistol.
And of course, the woman—the salvage master—had felt the cabinet blocking the door and must have known what it signified. Okura had waited as she’d labored to move the cabinet, fighting his racing pulse and the nervous thrill that came with the knowledge that, yes, now he would have to shoot someone.
The cabinet fell. The door swung open, and the woman was there. And Okura was ready for her, ready, at last, for action.
EXCEPT HE’D MADE A MISTAKE, another one. As the young woman backed away from the pistol, Okura looked into her eyes and knew he should have pulled the trigger sooner, shot her as soon as he’d seen her, and finished the deed quickly, instead of letting the woman live long enough to show her face.
She was indeed young. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. She was scared, but there was something else, too, something like resignation—or disgust.
Okura motioned with the pistol, back, out of the infirmary and into the hall, buying himself time. Nearly tripped on the fallen cabinet and lost his balance, almost squeezed the trigger prematurely. The woman’s eyes got wider, like she’d seen it coming. Like she’d expected to be dead already.
Killing Tomio Ishimaru had been easy. The man was yakuza, a criminal, a killer himself—and he’d been half dead, anyway. Killing him had been no harder than killing an ant. A mosquito.
“Please,” the woman said. She held up her hands, backed away from him slowly. “Whatever you’re planning to do, think it over. I’m sure there’s a way we can get ourselves out of this.”
“Silence.” Okura followed her into the corridor. Motioned forward, toward the cargo stairs. He would have to kill her in the hold; the sound of the gun would be too noticeable here. Okura prodded the woman, pushed her toward the stairs.
He would have to kill this woman. Then he would need to escape. With luck, her mates wouldn’t discover her for hours.
“You don’t have to do this,” the woman said. “Whatever you’re doing here, it’s not worth killing me for, I promise. This isn’t the only way out.”
Fifty million dollars, Okura thought.
He held the gun steady. “I’m sorry,” he told the woman. “This is the only way.”
77
McKenna felt the barrel of the stowaway’s gun in the small of her back, her fear fighting with the realization that this ridiculous, improbable set of circumstances was how she was going to die.
Shot to death in the cargo hold of a shipwreck. In the middle of Nowhere, Alaska. Why? Who knows.
She might have laughed, if she hadn’t been so scared.
The stowaway prodded her down the stairs to the cargo holds. He was silent behind her, his breathing heavy. He didn’t want to shoot her, McKenna could tell, but she figured he’d made up his mind.
The worst part was not knowing why.
“Listen, what is it you want?” she asked him, trying to keep her voice light, conversational. “Why are you here? Whatever you need, I can help you.”
The stowaway didn’t answer.
“This is my ship now,” she said. “It’s worth a heck of a lot of money. Is that what you want?” She laughed. “Let’s make a deal.”
The stowaway laughed, too, but there was no humor in it. “You don’t have enough money to negotiate, I’m afraid.”
“Are you serious? My cut on this ship is thirty million dollars. That isn’t enough for you?”
“No,” the stowaway said. She felt his hand on her arm, firm. “Stop here.”
They’d reached deck eight. The stowaway nudged her toward the bulkhead door, and she caught his meaning and turned the wheel to unlock it. Opened the door, and stepped through. Walked a couple of paces into the first row of cars, the hold lit by a few feeble emergency lights and the beam of her headlamp.
She turned around. Slowly, so she didn’t freak the guy out, though she supposed it didn’t matter. If this guy was going to shoot her, she was going to see it coming.
No Rhodes ever died on her knees.
The stowaway winced as he looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said, and McKenna knew this was it. And then, just as the stowaway steeled himself to finally pull the trigger, just as McKenna closed her eyes and prayed it would be quick—
Court freaking Harrington poked his head out from the stairwell behind them. “Captain Rhodes? You down here?”
And the stowaway spun at the sound of Harrington’s voice, and then he really did pull the trigger.
78
“Court, get down!”
McKenna leaped at the stowaway as the gun roared, the explosion near deafening in the low cargo hold. Had just enough time to see Harrington go down, and then she was tackling the stowaway, football-style, wrapping both arms around the man’s waist and knocking him to the ground, McKenna close behind.
The pistol came out of the stowaway’s hands, jolted free from the impact. It immediately began to slide down the listing deck. The stowaway grabbed for it, missed, bucking McKenna off his back, but both of them were scrambling down, too, toward the distant portside, bilge water and darkness.
It was not a smooth ride. The deck was grooved steel, studded with anchor points. McKenna reached for a handhold, something to arrest her fall, her hands slick with engine oil and grasping at nothing, her body picking up speed as she tumbled down.
The fall took forever. Kicked the shit out of McKenna every inch of the way, tore up her knees, her legs, scraped open her palms and slashed at her arms. And then—SLAM—she collided with the hull on the portside of the ship, a foot and a half of oily water, her headlamp hanging off her head at a crazy angle, leaving her near blind and disoriented, the whole world a graveyard of ruined Nissans and steel.
McKenna struggled to her feet, feeling every fresh bruise. Fixed her headlamp and searched the gloom for the stowaway, found him three cars from the hull, bashed up against a front tire and reaching for the pistol.
The gun had become tangled in a web of tying straps just above the stowaway’s head, and somehow he’d had the presence of mind to stop his fall nearby. Now, as McKenna watched in horror, the man pulled himself to his feet, wiped his hands on his pants, and leaned down and picked up the pistol.