Chapter 2 - The hatch that should have stayed shut
Every face on that deck turned with Kane.
The Deck Four hatch did not swing wide all at once. It shuddered first, resisted, then lifted with the sound of a sealed lie breaking open. A smell of oil, rust, and trapped heat poured out.
Lieutenant Jonah Reed climbed out first.
The last time most of the crew had heard his name, Kane had announced he had been transferred at the previous port for “administrative instability.” That was what Kane called men who stopped obeying quickly enough.
Reed looked like someone dragged out of a grave.
His uniform was torn at the sleeve. One eye was dark with bruising. Dried blood marked the side of his neck. Behind him came Chief Engineer Rafael Alvarez, gray-faced and shaking, and a third sailor I did not recognize, both hands bound with snapped zip ties.
For three heartbeats, no one moved.
Then Reed lifted his head and said, loud enough for the whole deck to hear, “He locked us in the void.”
Kane recovered first.
“Arrest them,” he snapped. “All three. Petty Officer Cole included.”
No one obeyed.
Not immediately.
That hesitation mattered more than any accusation.
By then, a rescue line finally dropped over the side. I caught it with numb fingers and hauled myself high enough for two sailors to pull me over the rail. The deck slammed into my knees. My ribs burned. Salt water streamed from my coveralls.
Corpsman Leah Bennett crouched beside me.
“You breathing?”
“Badly,” I said.
“Good. Stay that way.”
Reed staggered forward, pointing at the black case strapped to my chest.
“That camera is mine,” he said. “And those drives aren’t the half of it.”
Kane’s jaw clenched so hard I thought I heard his teeth.
Over the loudspeaker, Ward’s voice returned.
“Resolute, hold present course. No one is to interfere with Petty Officer Cole, Lieutenant Reed, or the secured evidence. Federal boarding team inbound.”
Kane looked toward the radio mast, then toward the bridge.
“Cut external broadcast,” he ordered.
Lieutenant Nora Ellis, the deck officer, didn’t move.
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
Ellis’s face was pale. “NCIS is using a secure military channel.”
“Then kill local speakers.”
She hesitated.
That was the second hesitation of the day.
Kane noticed both.
He stepped closer to her, lowered his voice, and smiled the way men smile when they want their cruelty to sound administrative.
“Lieutenant, I am still your commanding authority on this deck.”
Ellis swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
The speakers died.
The deck did not become quiet.
It became watchful.
Kane pivoted back to the crew and lifted his voice.
“You are witnessing an active intelligence breach. Lieutenant Reed has been conspiring with unauthorized investigators. Petty Officer Cole is not what she claims to be. Every one of you will return to assigned stations.”
Again, no one moved quickly enough to satisfy him.
Reed laughed once, ragged and ugly.
“Tell them why you kept two hundred cases of water below Deck Four while you rationed the crew.”
That landed like a shot.
Kane turned on him.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know about the cargo too.”
Kane’s expression changed.
Not panic.
Calculation.
He was no longer deciding how to silence a witness.
He was deciding whether to sacrifice the ship’s schedule to save himself.
Then he looked at Ellis and gave the order that told me exactly how frightened he was.
“Change course ten degrees west,” he said. “Now.”
May you like
That was not our route.
And hidden somewhere beyond that route, I suddenly knew, there was someone waiting to receive what Kane had not yet managed to move.
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