Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (22 page)

When Mercy at last reached her cabin, she shut and locked the door behind her. Trembling and light-headed she had to sit on the edge of her bed and tuck her head between her knees to keep from passing out.

“Bastard!” she gasped.

It took her a good fifteen minutes to catch her breath and calm down. But when she did, and her head finally, blissfully cleared, she wondered if her encounter might actually have brought her one step closer to the opals. Or, at least closer to one of Chameleon terrorists. It was time she found out. 

                                          23

Mercy steered the Zodiac away from shore while Glen sat in the bow with their equipment. Night had already fallen, and the inflatable dinghy’s outboard motor sped them between assorted watercraft that had anchored in the bustling harbor. She had left the Bellamys’ yacht in Charlotte Amalie earlier that day, thanking the couple for their hospitality and wishing them well during their final days in the islands before sailing north.

She’d immediately filed a new report at the dead drop. She was on a first-name basis with the bartenders at Tickles by now, they saw her so often. Every time she stopped by to leave or pick up a message, she had to order a beer or something to eat, even if she wasn’t hungry. She felt like an idiot. Surely a quick call on her cell phone to Margaret Storey made more sense. Or a text! But no—the Red Sands agent insisted they keep their communications low tech after the emergency call she’d made on the night of Yegorov’s assault.

Although Mercy had found not a speck of evidence that the opals were onboard the Mystic Voyager, she was convinced the captain was hiding something. Whether his arrogance and suspicious attitude had anything to do with the heist in Australia, she had no idea. But he seemed far too wary of her, and of anyone else who came near or onto the yacht. She’d requested further instructions from Margaret regarding Jobson, the Bellamys, and Voyager.

Meanwhile, she and Glen would check out the container ship, still moored in the harbor and awaiting a dock for unloading.

“I’d rather be up there,” Glen called to her over the grumble of the outboard, gesturing toward the island’s dark hillside behind them. The happy plink-plink-plonk of steel drums, festive laughter and shouts from the carnival crowd wafted across the water.

Mercy smiled at him. “I can almost hear the rum flowing.”

“And conch fritters and chips sizzling.” Glen drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, either in ecstasy or sublime pain. “I swear I smell jerk chicken.”

She smiled. “I’ll feed you when we get back, Turtle. You’re the one who said that nighttime was the perfect time to sneak onto Seafarer.” Indeed, she could barely see his face in the moonlight. “You chickening out?”

“Like hell. Anything you can do, I can do better.”

She rolled her eyes although she knew he couldn’t see her. “Oh, please.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a long-term side effect of Red Sands’ training.”

One she understood only too well. She’d always been prone to competitiveness. She supposed that started with her early training for swim meets. But there was also something addictive about meeting danger head on, taking risks ordinary people would walk away from.

Mercy steered the Zodiac in a lazy loop around the harbor, studying the great, gray hulk of the merchant ship from a safe distance. She hoped any crew that might remain on watch would see their inflatable as no more threatening than the little water taxis and charter boat dinghies that ferried passengers to and from anchored yachts and the carnival.

“That looks like a boarding platform, don’t you think?” She pointed to a low floating dock amidships the Seafarer.

Straightening up in the Zodiac’s prow, Glen nodded. “Right. I watched the public water taxi make four trips, transporting the ship’s crew to shore. That should leave only a handful onboard as night watch.”

“We should wait another half hour,” Mercy decided. “By then the party and noise should be at its max.”

“Fine. You’re sure the Bellamy yacht is clean?” Glen asked.

“The captain acts like he’s guarding Fort Knox. But unless the opal ore has been broken down to small stones and secreted here and there all over the boat—”

“I don’t think there was time for them to do that.”

“Exactly. Besides, you’d think I’d have come across a piece or two by now. But there’s nothing. I’ve looked everywhere.” She had theorized one possible explanation though. “Jobson might be using his job on the yacht as a cover. You know, to enable him to rendezvous here in the VI with the shipment, without being too obvious. Kristen did say he was a last-minute substitute for their regular captain.”

“And now we know that the Hawaii-bound ships have been cleared,” Glen added.

Mercy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah, I just heard today. They were clean. So the opals need to be here in the VI. Somewhere. Unless all the intel we’ve received is wrong.”

Mercy’s stomach clenched as she thought about the increasingly likely chance of the mission’s failure. Her right hand still on the engine’s tiller, she knotted her free fist in her lap. “What do we do if both the yacht and the container ship check out? What if the information from Australia has been wrong all along?”

“We get to go home?” Glen hadn’t taken his eyes off of the immense ship as they circled it again, spiraling in closer and closer. Clearly, the man didn’t have as much personally at stake as she did.

No opals, no Talia. Geddes had never actually said that, but his intent was clear enough to Mercy. Trying wasn’t good enough. Results were what counted.

“What do you say we wrap this up tonight?” Glen said. “Home sounds damn good to me, since you won’t let me eat.”

“Wimp,” Mercy muttered good-naturedly.

She cut the engine, letting the little boat drift toward a cluster of dinghies rafted up in the middle of the harbor, less than a hundred feet from the cargo ship. A single anchor had been dropped from one of them to keep the group from drifting. By now, only the running light of an infrequent power boat zipped across the black water of the harbor, its engine’s sputter indiscernible from the ruckus of the carnival on the hillside above.

“We swim from here to the boarding platform,” she said.

“Right.” Glen leaned over the side, grabbed the fat rubber tube of one of the other inflated rafts, pulled the Zodiac over to it and made fast a line. “You ready?”

Her heartbeat suddenly went erratic. Terror or excitement—Mercy couldn’t say. The moon, a brilliant crescent moments ago, tucked itself behind a cloud. She swallowed once, then again, and took a breath to steady her nerves. “Let’s do it.”

Glen dug their equipment from beneath a tarp laid in the boat’s bottom. They’d agreed to keep it simple: masks and snorkels. No fins to drag around with them once they were onboard the cargo ship. Air tanks were too cumbersome and created another problem, since they had no place to hide them while they were searching the ship. They wore wetsuits underneath loose cotton trousers and shirts, which they now peeled off.

Mercy clipped a flexible styrene belt around her waist as a southerly breeze stirred the harbor, kicking up whitecaps. Clipped to her dive belt were a marine utility knife, Ziplock baggie for samples of the opals if they found any, a multi-purpose tool that flipped open to provide a wire cutter and assorted mini-tools, a marine flare and waterproof flashlight. Glen carried a similar compliment of goodies.

She strapped a Ruger pistol encased in a water-tight pouch to her thigh. “We split up as soon as we’re on board,” she whispered.

Glen nodded, although he’d argued against this earlier in the day. She knew he felt responsible for her—a male-female thing. Sweet but impractical.

Glen would search the upper three decks and bridge. Mercy, everything below, straight down to the bilge or as much as time allowed. All they had to do was locate evidence that the purloined gemstones were onboard. Once they were sure of that, Red Sands could tip off USVI Customs agents, who would seize the ship, search it, and hold any contraband.

Mercy watched Glen slip soundlessly into the water. When she first met him, she’d thought:
scrawny…unkempt
. Now, in a wetsuit, he looked lean and strong. She tugged her mask down over her face, adjusted the snorkel in her mouth. Sitting on the black rubber rim of the Zodiac, she tumbled backward into the warm harbor water with a soft splash.

Swimming without fins was slower and not as quiet as with them. But she kept her body just beneath the water’s surface to reduce resistance and noise. At first she and Glen swam side by side. She kept checking for approaching watercraft that might cut across their path. The prop on even a small boat could slice through flesh, as proven by the many manatees, seals, and whales scarred or killed by careless boaters. At the halfway mark, Mercy sensed Glen was struggling to keep up with her. She slowed down, surfaced, and spit out her mouthpiece.

“You all right?”

He flipped over onto his back and lifted the snorkel clear of his lips. “Christ, you aren’t even breathing hard.”

She grinned. “One reason they chose me for this gig.”

He made a face at her.

Seafarer now loomed over them, easily as tall as a six-story building. Mercy knew from her briefing materials that the ship would draw at least fifteen feet of water. The steep iron sides of the hull reached up over twenty feet of water level.

They swam toward the launch platform. She’d seen the crew lowering it earlier in the day. Mercy guessed it would remain down until the crew returned. As soon as they determined no crew member was in sight, Glen levered himself up onto the hard rubberized surface.

Mercy joined him. She clipped her mask and snorkel to her belt. She crouched to keep a low profile while Glen made sure no guard stood just inside the hatch. He gave her the all-clear sign.

Thirty minutes,
Glen mouthed, tapping his watch.

She checked her watch. It was now 11:04 p.m. They’d meet back at the platform at 11:34. The carnival would still be going strong. She nodded and started to move slowly toward the yawning black opening in the side of the ship.

He reached for her arm, stopping her. “If I’m not back here,” he whispered, “you leave without me.” His eyes told her he was dead serious.

“Glen—”

“You’re not back, I leave. Same deal. One of us has to report in. Right?”

She bit her bottom lip, her stomach doing flip-flops, but nodded.
Right
.

Mercy had expected to need her flashlight to illuminate her way. But the exterior companionways glowed a dull crimson, the blood-red color of the special lights enabling sailors to see charts in the dark without dilating their pupils and causing night blindness. Tunnel-like passageways snaked through the interior of each deck; these were made visible by long marine-grade fluorescent bulbs.

Mercy decided to start her search in the lowest regions of the ship and work her way back up toward Glen. She crept down deserted stairwells, moving lower and lower within the ship. Not one guard or sailor did she see.

Claustrophobia began to set in as hatches to the outside decks and even the portholes became less frequent. Soon she was sealed in by solid steel walls, beneath water level. She might as well be in a submarine. The air smelled foully of oil, with a metallic tang and the lingering residue of cigarette smoke. The ship was silent except for the rhythmic creak and groan of metal expanding and contracting, and the slosh of water against the outside hull. Then the late-night round of fireworks began—
pop, pop, boom!
—greeted by distant cheers from carnival goers.

She turned another corner, and nearly walked straight into a seaman.

With a silent gasp, Mercy jumped back behind the wall, out of sight. She held her breath. Nothing. He wasn’t moving. Had he spotted her? If he had, wouldn’t he be upon her by now? She peered around the corner at him. He was leaning against the frame of a hatch, smoking and watching the fireworks burst in brilliant chrysanthemums over Charlotte Amalie. She waited, trying to figure out how to get past him, hoping no one came up behind her. Then a muffled voice called out, and the sailor flicked his glowing cigarette butt over the side of the ship. With relief, she watched him turn around—returning to his duties, she supposed—and disappear inside the ship. She slipped silently past the door and down a long stairwell.

Mercy finally reached the lowest level. The bilge was dank, thankfully uninhabited, and wasn’t a place she cared to linger for long. She stood on a metal grate suspended over standing water that apparently wasn’t enough to trigger the automatic bilge pumps and looked around: pipes, electrical conduits, gauges…but her inspection uncovered no stolen ore.

She moved up to the next higher and drier level. Her pulse ripped along a good twenty beats a minute faster than normal. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand and not think about what would happen to her if she were caught.

She discovered an immense cargo hold.
Great!
Shipping containers of aluminum and high-impact plastic stood in ranks, chained to steel barriers to keep them from shifting as the ship rocked in high seas. The damned things looked impenetrable. It occurred to her that, at the very least, she’d need a crowbar (more likely power tools) to break the shipping seals and get inside individual containers. The crew would immediately know that someone had tampered with the shipment. She berated herself for not thinking about this ahead of time. Maybe Glen and Margaret had believed they’d be able to use tools they’d find on the vessel? You certainly couldn’t swim with a crowbar between your teeth, and she didn’t know where to look for one.