“Just you, then,” Laila said.
“Muhjaa will go first so that she can watch Torres descend. You may either board before Muhjaa or after I do.” Jin’s gun didn’t waver.
Laila didn’t want to look weak in front of Ambra, but she also didn’t want a confrontation with Jin. She would lose. Jin was armed and ruthless. As children, they had told stories about sea monsters, and the stories had ended with Jin saving them, because she was the only woman they knew who was strong enough to take on any monster.
“I will precede you,” Laila said. “Since I am captain.”
Unhurriedly, she walked to the sail and climbed inside. The tube was barely wider than her shoulders, and the metal rings felt cold under her palms. In a breach of etiquette, Muhjaa clambered in a few seconds after she did and practically stomped on her hands.
Laila wanted Aunt Bibi’s women off the ship as quickly as possible, so she said nothing.
Torres climbed down awkwardly, clearly trying to keep weight off the arm with the cast. Muhjaa’s gun was trained on her the entire time.
“Don’t fire,” Laila said. “A bullet would ricochet around the compartment and do who knows what kind of damage.”
“If you don’t want me to fire, don’t do anything suspicious,” said Muhjaa.
Jin came down last, and Muhjaa’s gun never wavered from Torres’s worried face.
“Lead,” Jin barked at Laila.
Laila passed through the bridge and went to her own stateroom. The only place to keep a prisoner. Her submarine didn’t have a brig. Her crew squashed themselves against the sides to let her party pass.
“Here.” She opened her door.
Muhjaa went in first, then Torres, then Jin. Laila squeezed in last, and Ambra peered in from the corridor.
Nahal was asleep on her bed. Meri had insisted they clear up space in sick bay in case they needed room for casualties during the battle. Laila had volunteered her quarters, as she wouldn’t need them until this was all over anyway. Nahal was sound asleep. Meri had picked up additional medical supplies from Aunt Bibi, and she planned to keep Nahal knocked out until they could get her to a real hospital.
Jin put a handcuff on Torres’s casted wrist, yanked her forward until she was seated at Laila’s fold-down desk, threaded the handcuff through the support, and handcuffed Torres’s wrist on the other side. She could barely move.
“Ouch.” Torres hunched forward. “This hurts me.”
“She can’t sit like that for twelve hours!” Ambra said.
“She can. She does.” Jin looked at Laila. “She stays here until you are done. Then you do as Miss Bibi says.”
“Of course.” Aunt Bibi hadn’t said she needed to be alive when she was dumped offshore.
Jin and Muhjaa stepped out of the tiny room and into the corridor. Without a word, they marched back the way they’d come. As angry as she was at Jin for the way she’d treated her, she was envious of her quiet, single-minded attention to duty. Ambra could learn from it.
“Why this?” Torres rattled her handcuffs. “I am not a criminal.”
“It’s just for a few days,” Ambra said. “Then we’ll let you go.”
Torres still looked frightened. “Why not let me go now? I can help. I’m a good cook.”
“We have a cook.” Laila practically pushed Ambra out the door and closed it.
She and Ambra stood in the corridor, and Ambra looked at the closed door.
“Soon, we’ll take out the ship and go our separate ways,” Laila said. “We can release this Torres woman then.”
“She has nothing to do with any of this,” Ambra said.
“And we’ll let her go.”
“We can still turn back.” Ambra gestured down the corridor. “Go undercover. Stop killing.”
“We did this for a reason. Those men died for a reason.”
“What about Rasha? And the people who will die on the ship?”
“Casualties happen in war. If we sink that ship, we save many more lives than we take. It’s why we took the Siren. You know this.”
“But we have time to take a different path.”
“You swore an oath,” Laila said. “To me. To our shared mission. We cannot falter. We are almost there. Now get the Siren untied from the Pearl. As soon as we’re clear, we follow the trajectory to Prince Timgad’s ship.”
Ambra dipped her head and left. Her shoulders brushed both sides of the corridor as she walked. Ambra was practically as big as Muhjaa.
They would encounter their target soon. She just had to keep her crew focused for one more day and this would be over.
Chapter 43
Vivian kept her head on the desk to which she’d been handcuffed. It had been worth all the language training she’d ever taken to overhear that the women planned a large-scale attack, today. The target was something bigger than the tanker they’d already sunk. Hundreds of people were going to die if they succeeded. After that, Laila wouldn’t balk at killing Vivian. Barely noticeable collateral damage.
She leaned forward as far as she could, forehead sliding across the cool surface, then yanked back hard. No give. She had maybe three inches of movement.
Bracing her legs against the wall, she pulled with all her strength. The cuffs slid forward, cutting into her good hand. The table support didn’t budge. She kept yanking against the table, but it didn’t help. To make matters worse, the cuffs were on too tight, and her left hand was going to sleep. At least the cast protected her right.
She looked around for another way out.
“Who are you?”
Vivian started and looked at the woman in the bed. She’d assumed the woman was unconscious or dead. “Elena Torres.”
“Nahal. Why are you here?” The small woman struggled into a sitting position. Dark circles smudged her pale skin. She looked fragile.
“I was taken. Why are you here?”
“I am part of the crew. Why were you taken?”
Vivian gave her the same explanation she’d given to the women on deck when she’d been captured. It didn’t sound as convincing this time.
“Nonsense,” Nahal said. “You are Vivian Torres, bodyguard to Joe Tesla.”
Vivian shrugged, but her mind raced. “I am not this person, Miss Nahal.”
How had Nahal recognized her? And who would she tell? Vivian yanked on the cuffs again. They didn’t budge.
As if reading her thoughts, Nahal said, “I saw your picture online. Your boss is a hero.”
Tesla, a hero? “My boss?”
“He’s accomplished some incredible feats of hacking, some public and some not.”
That sounded like him. Vivian moved the cuffs back again. Maybe if she could remove her cast, she could slide her hand out. But even if she had the tools for it, Nahal could call for help long before she got her arm out.
Nahal gushed like a fangirl. “Lucid’s facial-recognition algorithm is amazing! Complex, but so very elegant. After he left the company, their security got weaker and I managed to hack a copy. That never would have happened if he’d stayed, of course.”
What were the odds she would end up locked in a room with a Joe Tesla groupie?
“Are you guys sleeping together?” Nahal leaned forward. “What’s he like?”
Vivian wouldn’t have answered even if she hadn’t been pretending not to be herself. Instead, she tried to look puzzled.
“Your face is distinctive, you know. Everyone’s is. I’m sure Joe has told you. You probably know more about facial recognition than most experts.”
Now she was calling him by his first name.