Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (21 page)

“I’m exhausted,” Mercy said. “I think I’ll go to my cabin, call it a day.”

“Me too,” Kristen said. She turned to make motherly cooing sounds over a sleeping Amos. “Come on, big boy, time for bedsie. I’ll help you if you wake up just a little. Can you walk?”

“Uh, huh.” He groggily pecked her on the cheek. “Yer too good to me, babe.”

“I know,” Kristen whispered then turned to Mercy with a contented smile. “You’ll be all right on your own?”

“Sure.”

Once the couple had disappeared below deck, Mercy lingered, hoping for an opportunity to continue her search. The crew took away dirty dishes and glasses, folded and stacked deck chairs, and then disappeared—to their own quarters, Mercy assumed.

She stood at the rail, gazing out across the gorgeous, moonlit bay. The air smelled honey-sweet with invisible blossoms. She’d never seen stars so pin-point bright, duplicated almost perfectly on the water’s calm, dark surface. Like tiny rhinestones sewn on black velvet—above and below her.

Only three other boats had picked up mooring balls in Hawk’s Nest Bay. All of them sailboats and much smaller than the Mystic Voyager. But they were a good distance away, allowing privacy for everyone. On the surrounding hillsides, a few lights winked into the darkness. There might have been three or four houses hidden in the trees but no more than that. Most of the island was reserved as a National Park, no additional construction having been allowed for decades. It was such a primitive scene, easy to imagine the island being totally uninhabited a hundred or more years ago. And so beautiful. So romantic.

“Sebastian,” she sighed aloud. “God, how I wish you were here.” At the sound of his name on her lips, she felt a surge of emotion and had to fight back tears.

Was it a mistake to fall for such a strong-willed and dedicated man? Although he was entirely different from Peter, the two men did share an obsession with control. Not just of their own lives but of the lives of people closest to them.

Why did loving a man always seem to require a woman to give up her soul and destiny as well as her heart? Love didn’t seem to work that way for men. They always kept an essential part of themselves.

Pushing aside unhelpful thoughts, Mercy turned to go below deck. If all seemed quiet, maybe now would be a good time to investigate the bowels of the yacht. Since that was the only place she hadn’t yet seen, eliminating those areas would mean the opal ore must have been transported by another means.

She started toward the open door that led to the interior companionway, but just before ducking inside she sensed a shape looming above her. Startled, Mercy looked up toward the navigation bridge. Her breath snagged as if caught on something sharp.

No longer in his crisp white uniform, Captain Jobson stood nearly invisible against the night sky. He wore dark indigo jeans, a black turtleneck jersey only a shade darker than his skin. The whites of his eyes and a sudden flash of white teeth made his face look demonic. Without knowing how she knew it, she had the distinct impression he'd been watching her for a while.

Because he’s guarding Amos’s precious cargo and I worry both of them? Or…?

It occurred to her that the Bellamy couple might have no idea they were carrying a shipment intended to fund terrorist activity. Jobson, with or without partners in the crew, might have arranged to hide the opals on the ship before Amos and Kristen came onboard in Adelaide.

But if that were so, how had he distributed so much weight and bulk in the boat without Amos becoming aware of the stowaway cargo? And without Mercy finding any trace of it? This was yet another reason for suspecting the commercial container ship as the carrier of choice.
Unless the ore itself was never shipped.
Geddes and Storey had mentioned that possibility. Some time—how much, she wasn’t sure—had passed between the assault on the mines and the actual departure of the Mystic Voyager from Australia. If the veins of opal were removed from the basal rock first, then only the pure gemstones would need to be transported. Chunks of the precious mineral the size of a baby’s fist would be worth tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more.

Mercy looked up at the bridge again. Jobson still stood at the rail, amber eyes trained on her with the predatory intensity of a panther. She lifted her chin and met his gaze, refusing to be intimidated.

“Good night, Captain,” she called up to him.

A beat, then his bass growl: “Good night, Ms. O’Brien.”

Mercy felt the weight of his trailing glare as she ducked into the companionway. She decided she couldn't risk leaving her cabin that night. She was almost certain Jobson would be on the prowl.

                                          22

The next day Voyager motored through Sir Francis Drake Passage, between the two islands of St. John and Tortola. They dropped anchor in the pristine blue waters of Leinster Bay. Mercy remained acutely aware of where everyone was on the boat, but kept a particularly close eye on Jobson. The ebony-skinned captain with sharp Carib features and tawny eyes sometimes disappeared for hours, only to rematerialize where and when she least expected.

Tonight would be her last good opportunity to investigate the forbidden compartments of the ship. The next day they’d head back to St. Thomas and the crew would begin laying in provisions for the trip north. Amos had tolerated her, she assumed, as a pleasant distraction for his wife while they were in the Caribbean. But Mercy wouldn’t be invited to accompany them to Canada.

She had studied the blueprints of each deck and found what she believed was more than enough room in compartments fore and aft of the engine room for hiding contraband. Now she had no choice but to wait until the early morning hours to see if she was right. She’d noticed the night before that, while they were at anchor, no formal night watch was posted. If anyone in the crew had been assigned to watch for trouble—an anchor breaking loose or the unlikely intruder—she didn’t see them. And no one challenged her when she walked out on deck at four o’clock the next morning. Thankfully, there seemed to be no security cameras onboard.

She spent the day idly lounging on the sundeck, gossiping with Kristen, instructing her in swimming, snacking from the constant supply of freshly sliced melon, kiwi, mango, and pineapple provided by the chef. She did nothing to chance arousing suspicion. She hoped that Jobson and his crew, not to mention Amos, would be so totally convinced of her harmlessness that they would drop their guard long enough for her to complete her search of the bilge level of the ship—the most likely place remaining for the opals to be. To do that, though, she needed to wait until dark.

Mercy turned in early that night, feigning exhaustion from a day in the sun. She kept to her cabin, nervously reviewing the blueprints of the ship’s interior with the aid of a pencil flashlight. She plotted and re-plotted the safest way down to the engine room and the bilge beneath it. There were three possible routes—fore, aft, and mid-ship. She memorized the maze of stairwells and hatches, in case she needed a fast escape route.

At two a.m., now truly weary, she stretched out on her bed and tried biofeedback exercises to force her muscles to relax and ease the throbbing in her head. An hour later she was up again, feeling no better but too anxious to rest. This was the ideal time for her search. Two hours before the earliest rising crew members began their day, and long before Amos and his bride rose to be pampered by them.

Dressed in navy-blue exercise sweats and athletic shoes, Mercy let herself out into the corridor after checking to be sure it was empty. She moved silently. In the unlikely chance she ran into someone, she could pretend to be jogging along the wide teak decks and up and down stairwells—as she had done on other mornings. This was the only way, Kristen had explained, anyone could exercise on a boat that didn’t have a gym. Indeed, an exercise room seemed the only amenity Voyager lacked—no doubt not a priority for Amos, who appeared never to have exercised a day in his life. Unless you counted the calories burned while skirt chasing.

Descending two full levels, Mercy located the passageway to the engine room. She continued down another flight of metal stairs. At the bottom was a door marked “No Admittance”. She twisted the handle. The door opened. She slipped inside then stood still, held her breath and listened.

She heard no one moving around. The latch clicked softly shut behind her when she released her hold on the door.

To her right stood a generator the size of a FrostKing refrigerator. She supposed it ran the AC throughout the ship, the hot water heater, and refrigeration units in the ship’s kitchen, above where she stood now. Further to the right, behind the generator, she found another walk-in refrigerator, separate chest-freezer, a wine cellar, and cupboards crammed with food items. Amos would never go hungry.

Mercy quickly searched every corner, every crate, barrel, and carton. She dug down through bins of produce, examined frozen steaks in the freezer and sacks of flour stored in sealed plastic boxes meant to keep out insects and moisture. Nothing looked, felt, sounded, or smelled like opals—that is, if rocks actually had a scent.

Mercy stared down at the floor beneath her feet, thinking. Was there anywhere at all she hadn’t searched? The floor itself was constructed of nine-square-foot industrial-weight aluminum plates with inset rings for latches. She pulled each hinged section open and up, supported it on the metal rod provided, and lay down flat on her stomach. Pointing her penlight into the dark underbelly of the boat, she peered into the bilge. It was damp, oily, and stank of seawater and petrol. But she saw nothing but insulated wiring, pipes, and mechanical connections. No room for slabs of sandstone or crates of gemstones.

For the next twenty minutes she performed similar searches of the rest of that lowest deck. And found nothing.
I give up,
she thought.
She’s clean.

Coming back up onto her knees, Mercy replaced the last floor panel, listened for a moment, heard nothing then moved with stealthy steps back through the passageway in the bulkhead and toward the stairs leading to the decks above.

“Funny place to work out.”

Mercy swallowed a shriek of surprise and willed her body not to jump.

“Captain. Good morning.” She turned to face Jobson. He was back in his mercilessly starched, white uniform. The short sleeves revealed impressive musculature from biceps to forearms. She swallowed and coaxed up a smile. “I guess I forgot to turn around when I passed the crew’s cabins. It’s so easy to get lost on a ship this big. I was hoping I’d run into someone to point me out of this maze. Lucky you came along.”

He jabbed a thumb at the sign over the bulkhead she’d just stepped through: Crew Only. “You also forgot how to read?”

Mercy’s mind refused to work for a full twenty seconds’ worth of panic before she hit on the best response. She shot back her shoulders, glared up into Jobson’s hostile face, and then responded with a society maven’s crisp attitude of superiority. “I’m a guest on this ship, Jobson. Need I remind you—I'm not one of your t-shirted drones. I can go where I please.”

“No, you can’t.” An arm of welded-steel shot out. She instinctively ducked, thinking he was about to hit her. Instead, he braced the heel of his hand against the ship’s hull, blocking her way. He leaned in. “As long as I’m captain of this ship, madam, I’m the one who makes the rules. You stay out of my engine room. Stay out of my way. And confine your ramblings to the passenger levels. The mechanical rooms are off limits because they are dangerous. Any number of bad things might happen to someone who nosed around here.”

She forced a laugh. “You don’t frighten me, Captain.”

But he did. He terrified her.

She had no weapon, no room in the cramped underbelly of the ship to out maneuver him. All he had to do was give her one fierce shove. If her head cracked on the iron bulkhead she’d be out cold, helpless. If not dead.

He glowered at her, his amber eyes ablaze with fury. “I catch you messing about again and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” She lifted her chin and glared back at him. “You’ll make me walk the plank?”

The man seemed to swell sizes larger with barely contained rage. Pearl-white teeth flashed. “Don’t test me, Ms. O’Brien.”

Mercy saw an opening. She ducked under his arm. Miraculously, he didn’t stop her.

Restraining the urge to break into a run, she clomped up the interior stairs in a show of haughty disdain. Part of her had wanted to apologize to the man, an automatic reaction for trespassing. But his threatening words and posturing screwed with her head and made her want to run. She’d had to remind herself that the wealthy aren’t intimidated by and don’t run from their servants. And that’s all Jobson was—a hired hand—despite his pretty white naval uniform and bossy attitude. And so she’d stood up to him, maybe even taunted him, because that was part of her legend.

Mercy burst into the briny, early-morning sea breeze blowing across the open deck, heart still racing, dawn still an hour away.

Had she pulled it off? Would he accept that she had gotten herself lost while jogging around the ship?
Damn!
She couldn’t be sure. She started moving again, staggering slightly when the ship bobbed over a low incoming wave. She felt vaguely dizzy and off balance following her encounter with the brute, worried he might come after her, even jump her from behind. After all, there were no witnesses to stop the man or report him if, in a fit of temper or suspicion, he attacked her. She regretted provoking him, although it had seemed the appropriate reaction at the time.