Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (19 page)

Chapter 25—Burns

Esther
’
s muscles stiffened.
She didn’t know how long they’d been
sitting there. The room was cold, and the man with the gun waved his weapon
menacingly every time she tried to shift to a more comfortable position. He had
a thick beard and close-set watery eyes. His expression was hard. He would have
no reservations about using that gun.

Without taking her
eyes off their guard, Esther moved her elbow to the side and found David’s arm.
She pressed against it, unsure if she was trying to give or take strength.
David didn’t respond at all, and she immediately regretted the action. She
pulled her elbow back, staring straight ahead.

Zeke and Harry
retreated to the other side of the room, by the door, and conferred in low
voices. Harry looked chastened, but he seemed to be arguing vehemently on some
point.

“You shouldn’t
have come,” David breathed.

Their guard gave
no hint that he’d heard.

“I had to.”

Their guard stood
and joined the other two by the door. His watery eyes didn’t turn away from
them, but he leaned in to say something to the others. Harry appeared to
disagree with him. Unlike the Harvesters, the men did not wear matching
uniforms. They would have fit in easily at the
Amsterdam
with their random assortment of salvaged garments.

“What are you
planning?” David asked. “This isn’t much of a rescue.”

“I’ll negotiate.”

“You’re not very
good at that.”

“Supposedly, you
are,” Esther said, “but it hasn’t been working out that well for you. You’ve
been here—what?—ten days and they won’t even feed you.”

“I’ve been bluffing.”
David dropped his voice even more, so Esther could barely hear him whisper when
she leaned closer. “I don’t have anything to bargain with.”

“You could have
told them who the real inventor is.”

“I would never do
that. Do you think I wanted you to end up in this cell? Thanks for handing
yourself over and undoing all my work to keep you out of this mess, by the
way.”

David shifted
angrily against the bare concrete wall.

“What were you
going to do? Starve?” Esther said.

“I was making
progress with Harry. He’s already slipped me food a few times. I’d have talked
my way out eventually.”

“Not if they still
think you know how to build the energy tech.”

“Shh. That secret
is keeping me alive,” David said, eyes darting to the three guards by the door.
“I don’t want them to know until they’re too fond of me to kill me.”

“The technology
isn’t worth dying for,” Esther said. That was one thing that had become clear
to her in this mess, even if other people didn’t see it yet. “Let’s just give
it to them and be done with it.”

“I wish they’d
sent someone besides you. Dirk or somebody,” David snapped.

Esther felt a
sharp sting in her chest. “I’m the one who has what they want. And I decided to
come on my own. Thought you might actually be happy to see me.”

“I want to see you
safe and sound on the
Catalina
.”

Esther scowled.
He doesn’t think I can do this. After all
we’ve been through!

“Hey, you! The
ginger one!” she shouted.

“Would you two
quit jawing,” said their bearded guard, walking back toward them with his gun
held low and level.

“I want to
bargain,” Esther said, staring down the barrel of the gun. It looked a lot
bigger from this angle. “I have something worth a lot more than two prisoners.”

“Shut up, Esther,”
David hissed.

“You said yourself
it’s a bargaining chip.” She had Zeke’s and Harry’s attention now too. “I want
to talk to Burns.”

“You’re in luck,
my dear.” The door had opened, and the man with the large holes in his ears was
stepping into the room. “My name is Burns. It’s a pleasure to meet the sea
demon who left such an impression on poor old Monty.”

Burns was all
wrinkled skin and jagged bones. Cheeks, elbows, even his sternum seemed to
stick out at odd angles. He looked taller than he had when Esther saw him on the
Amsterdam
by the Rusty Nail. She
wished she’d paid better attention to him then.

“I’m Esther
Harris. I invented the algae energy technology. David doesn’t know how to build
it.”

“She’s lying,”
David said. “She’s just trying to help me out.”

“No, listen.”
Esther jabbed David’s side and immediately regretted it when her elbow met his
terribly exposed ribs. “I have what you’re after—and I want to bargain.”

“Is that so?” Burns’s
expression gave nothing away.

Esther shifted her
legs in front of her, easing the stiffness in her muscles. She met the bearded
guard’s eyes defiantly as she moved so she could sit straight, facing Burns
head-on.

“I have some
conditions,” she said. “First rule is you do nothing more to hurt David
Hawthorne. If he so much as misses another meal, you’ll never get the
technology, even if you hang me by the toes from a mast.”

“And what makes
you think we won’t simply hang
him
from a mast until you tell us everything?” Burns said pleasantly.

“I’m here to get
him back,” Esther answered. “I don’t give a shit about you or the Calderon
Group or who gets the technology. But if you hurt him, all bets are off. I’ll
choke on my own tongue before I tell you anything.”

Burns chuckled and
pulled up the rickety chair. “You’ve found a rather feisty advocate, haven’t
you, Hawthorne? So what’s the truth? Does she really know a few things about
the energy system? Perhaps she worked on it a bit and hopes to pass off
secondhand knowledge in this little plea bargain.”

“I invented it,”
Esther said before David could answer. “No one can install it better than I
can. You know what this technology means; otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to
so much trouble to capture Hawthorne. I’ll give it to you here and now if you
agree to my terms.”

Burns chuckled
again. It sounded like an engine sucking the last dregs of diesel from its
tank.

“I’ll play along,”
he said. “What’s the second condition?”

Esther leaned
forward. “After the tech is installed in all your ships, we get a ride off this
island directly to the location of our choosing.”

Burns waved his
four-fingered hand. “Of course you’ll want to be shipped off to that floating
apartment block you call a ship.”

“I didn’t say the
Catalina
. I said the ship of our choosing.”

David shifted
beside her. There’d be time to tell him about Zoe later.

“Fine. Fine. If
the tech works like your salesman says it does, we can take you all the way to
Panama.”

“And my third
condition—” Esther began.

“Aren’t your life
and freedom reward enough?”

His voice was
nonchalant, but Burns was twisting his nine fingers together eagerly. He must
sense he was close to victory. His foot tapped, betraying his impatience.
Esther knew she could ask for any quantity of fuel or supplies and he would
give it to her.

“I want Hawthorne
with me at all times while I work,” she said. “To assist me.”

“Aha. So he is a
mechanic after all. Very well. I think you’re full of whaleshit, Ms. Harris,
and you don’t know a thing about the technology.” Burns stood, his chair squeaking
against the linoleum. “Our inventor friend Hawthorne here has simply realized
his little starvation game isn’t going to pan out. Convenient of you to show up
as a scapegoat.” He sneered. “You are welcome to have Hawthorne ‘assist’ you,
and as I have been telling him, you’ll have all the supplies you need. When
we’re satisfied that the technology is all you promised it would be, we’ll ship
you out of here, no harm done.”

“That’s
acceptable,” Esther said. She felt like she’d been running, but she forced
herself to breathe slowly.

“You see, Hawthorne,”
Burns said. “That wasn’t so difficult. You should have given in to us days
ago.”

David didn’t
respond. Esther couldn’t sense anything from him and she wished that he were
easier to read. Burns snapped the fingers on his good hand, and the bearded
guard lowered his gun.

“Any chance we can
get something to eat?” Esther said.

Half an hour later
Esther and David were seated at the folding table, with a steaming plate of
shellfish and an assortment of dark-purple sea urchins between them. A big
stack of graying, pulpy paper sat beside their meal. Burns had told them to
start by drawing out the design, though Esther knew she could build it without
any notes.

“This is too
easy,” David said after swallowing a mouthful of shellfish. Despite his extreme
hunger, he maintained his impeccable table manners. Esther dug into her meal
with more gusto.

“Speak for
yourself,” she said through her food. “I had to fight my way through whole
ships of pirates to get here.”

“I mean Burns,”
David said. “He agreed to your terms too quickly.”

“Why wouldn’t he?
The worst that can happen is we’re not able to complete the technology, and
then he dumps us in the sea. It’s not much of a risk for him to give us a
chance. And when we do build the technology successfully, he can easily drop us
off somewhere. This energy tech is worth way more than one trip, and he knows
it.”

Esther reached for
another sea urchin.

“I wouldn’t be too
sure,” David said. “There’s not a man on this island who would stop him from
slitting our throats after the separator is complete.”

“I assume that has
been the plan all along. He won’t want anyone else to get their hands on the tech.
That’s why I said we have to stay together,” Esther said. “We need to escape,
and this buys us some time. You won’t be much help building the system, so you
can work on our exit strategy.”

“There will be a
catch,” David said. “Something we haven’t thought of yet.”

He pushed his
broken glasses up on his nose.

Esther tipped the
last sea urchin onto David’s plate. “We have to risk it,” she said, “unless you
have a better plan.”

David smiled,
sending a warm tremor through Esther’s body. “I’ve missed your confidence,
Esther,” he said. “You’re good in a crisis.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

They
sat silently for a moment as they chewed the tough urchins. Esther reached
forward to squeeze David’s wrist, then changed her mind halfway there and
reached awkwardly for another chunk of shellfish.

Chapter 26—The
Workshop

“
Hand
me those pliers,
”
Esther said.

“Sure.”

“Not those. The ones with the yellow handle.”

“These ones?”
David held up a different pair.

“Yeah. Now hold
this panel out of the way for me while I adjust this tubing. Not there, just
here, exactly where it is now, see?”

Esther and David
moved awkwardly around each other in the cramped space. They’d been in the
workshop provided by Burns for three days. Despite the coldness that hung in
the mists around the Island, the workshop was stifling. Esther’s patience was
wearing thin as David shuffled around her and clumsily tried to help her with
the machine.

“Stop moving. I
need you to be still.”

“Quit snapping at
me,” David said. “You’re impossible to work with.”

“I’m the one doing
all the work here. Made any progress on our exit strategy lately?”

Esther moved
David’s hands sharply to the left as he let the panel drift away from its
precise position again.

“We can’t get out
of here without inside help.”

“There has to be a
better way. Stop moving! You need to spend more time on it and less time
sleeping and playing cards with Harry.”
And
chatting with that woman
, she wanted to say.

David shook his
head, and the panel in his hand slid a fraction of an inch.

“He’s still our
best bet. He has a natural sense of fairness, and he doesn’t want Burns to kill
us.”

“That strategy
worked out
so
well before I got here.
Let go. I’ll do it myself.”

Esther pushed
David’s hands away from the machine a little harder than she meant to. He gave
an exasperated sigh and went to sit on one of the cots that had been set up for
them in the corner.

She felt bad for
snapping at him and for giving him a hard time about sleeping. He still wasn’t
in good health. They were fed regularly now, but he needed all the rest he
could get before they made their getaway. When they’d moved down to the
workshop on Level 7, David had crashed on a cot and slept for eighteen hours
straight. Esther used that time to get a jump on the energy system, resting for
a few hours at a time.

But while he was
asleep,
that woman
had come to see
him.

Esther had just
woken from a quick nap on the cot beside David’s. She rubbed the sleep out of
her eyes and sat, pulling her knees up to her chest. David looked so peaceful,
with his blond hair pushed back on his forehead and one arm tucked underneath
the thin pillow. He didn’t snore or move, breathing slowly and heavily. His
sunken cheeks revealed what he had been through since being taken from the
Amsterdam
. Esther felt a tight pain in
her chest as she watched him, listening to the quiet deep in the rock of Calderon
Island. They weren’t safe here by any stretch, but they were finally together.

Then the door
opened.

The woman who came
in was tall, with copper-colored hair. She wore soft, flowing trousers and a
sleeveless shirt exposing delicate arms and an elegant pattern of freckles. She
looked all too familiar. The image of this woman pressing up against David at
the Rusty Nail and crossing the gangway of the
Lucinda
with him flashed like lightning in Esther’s head.

She leapt up,
scrubbing her fingers through her hair, and stood in front of David’s cot.

“So,” the tall
woman said.

“What do you
want?” Esther said.

“I went to visit
David this morning and was told he’s been moved here with a . . . friend. I
don’t like being made to walk all the way down to the lower levels.”

She had an accent.
French, Esther thought.

“David needs
rest,” Esther said. “I guess you’ll have to walk back up again.”

The woman didn’t
move. She studied Esther, an unfriendly smile spreading across her face. “You
must be Esther. I’ve heard about you.”

Esther didn’t
answer. She wanted to ask whether the woman had heard her name from David or
from one of the Calderon guys. She wanted to know how often she visited. She
had used David’s name in a very familiar way. This woman had facilitated his
capture from the
Lucinda
and apparently
hadn’t done anything about him being starved. There couldn’t be something going
on between then, could there? Esther crossed her arms and waited as the other
woman looked her up and down.

Finally, the woman
laughed. “Tell David that Chelle came to see him,” she said, turning to go.

“If I remember,”
Esther said. “I have lots of work to—”

The door slammed
before she could finish. Esther felt like she’d been slapped.

By the time David
woke up, she had been heavily immersed in her plans for the energy system. She
snapped at him when he rose, bleary-eyed, from the cot. Hurt and confusion had
crossed his face for an instant, but she hadn’t been able to take it back.
David tried to help her with the machine, but he was still weak, and his
efforts were inept. Esther couldn’t bring herself to ask about Chelle. The
woman’s visit had stolen all the words she planned to say to him. She didn’t
know what to do now.

Chelle had visited
twice more, and she and David chatted and laughed in the corner while Esther
worked. Esther and David had talked less and less, and soon silence had set in
like a persistent cough.

Esther felt tense
all the time. She worried about Zoe and what would happen if they didn’t get
out soon. She had to finish building the system as quickly as possible. She
felt taut, like a wire, aware she was pushing David away yet unable to release
the pressure.

Now David was
wrapped in a blanket, a board across his knees. He sketched on the leftover
paper: ship designs most likely. She remembered the posters and drawings that
had been tacked to his cabin wall in the
Galaxy
Mist
what seemed like a lifetime ago. She wanted to go over there and lie
beside him. She wished he’d slide down and put his head on her chest the way he
had in that same cabin the night they’d spent together. She wanted to reach out
to him, to see if he still felt whatever had compelled him to abandon his life
on the
Galaxy
to help her, whatever
had compelled her to chase across the sea to save him. Thinking about it was
agonizing. She hated him for making her feel so confused. But she had to keep
working. They had to get out of this mess, and then maybe they’d see where they
stood.

Harry the guard
came into the workshop, followed by Chelle. They went over to the cot to talk
to David, and Esther ignored them a little too intently. Chelle sat beside
David and leaned close over his shoulder to examine the sketch. Esther still
hadn’t asked him why he’d invited her back to the
Lucinda
that night—or why he was still friendly with her now.
She didn’t want to know.

Chelle let out a
laugh like rain on sea glass, and Esther scowled. Didn’t David find that laugh
annoying by now? She watched them over the top of the separator as she tightened
bolts on the outer casing. Chelle laughed again, this time joined by the two
men. Was David leaning closer to her?

Suddenly there was
crack as the head of the bolt Esther was tightening broke off. Her wrench
clanged against every part of the machine as it fell to the floor. Esther dove
beneath the generator to retrieve it, her face burning. She refused to look at
the trio on the cot as she stood up and slammed the wrench back into the
toolbox. Now she would have to drill out the broken bolt and replace it. She
scrubbed a dirty hand through her hair.

“I need access to
the ships,” she said, speaking in the general direction of Harry and Chelle
without making eye contact. “I’ve done as much as I can on the components here,
and I need to take measurements before installation.”

“All right,
Esther, it’s not a problem. Calm down,” Chelle said.

I am calm
,
Esther
thought. She bared her teeth in what she hoped looked like a smile. Chelle
managed all the traffic in and out of the harbor. David insisted that they stay
on her good side in case she proved to be a more useful ally than Harry.

“I’ll also need a
few of your mechanics to help me with the installations so they’ll understand
how the system works,” Esther said.

“Yes, yes.” Chelle
waved a delicately freckled arm and turned back to admiring the sketch. She
leaned in closer, pressing her chest against David’s arm.

“And I’ll need
Hawthorne with me,” Esther said a little louder than she intended, “to help.”

Chelle laughed her
annoyingly tinkling laugh. “He’s not really a mechanic. We all know that by
now.”

“It’s part of the
deal. Burns promised.”

“I’ll be there,”
David said. “Why not? If nothing else, it’ll be nice to see the harbor.”

His words stung;
she couldn’t deny it. Did David have to act so indifferent to her in front of Chelle?
The embarrassment was excruciating, especially when Chelle followed up his
words with yet another laugh. That was it. Esther didn’t have another kind word
to say to David Hawthorne.

She turned back to
the separator, a hulking contraption that would provide enough biofuel to power
the entire island. Esther had been able to modify her ship generator plans to
suit the Calderon Group’s base. Her hopes of a land-based power source had been
unfounded. The Island currently ran on extravagant amounts of stolen crude oil.
It would run out eventually. They really did need her. She hadn’t even begun
installing anything in the ships yet because she needed to build this machine
first. The good news was that plenty of algae grew in the waters around the
Island. The Calderon Group would be totally self-sustaining soon.

From the outside
the separator looked a little like an old ship, an ugly hunk of metal taking up
a good quarter of the floor space in the workshop. The most important part of
the machine, the algae chambers, looked like a row of portholes on a cruise
ship. They already had permanent green tints from the test runs. Pipes the
width of Esther’s wrist moved the separated algae oil to the refinery and then
moved the fuel to the huge generator. Wires snaked away from it, connecting to
a row of circuit breaker panels. Conduit wires ran from there to different
parts of the base. The circuitry was all already in place from the old power
system, and Esther was quite proud that she had been able to adapt her system
to work with it.

The base was a
former research facility buried in the island, with just one level sticking
above the rock. Harry had told them that when the Calderon Group discovered it,
the workshops and labs had been ransacked. They must have been stocked with
weather-monitoring equipment of some kind, but everything had been destroyed or
taken away when other groups of survivors found the island. Nothing edible grew
on it, so no one else had lived there when the Calderon Group arrived and
decided to make it a permanent base. Still, Esther had been able to find enough
materials amongst the spoils of their salvaging operations to construct the
large separator and several versions of her prototype for the ships. Each time
she refined her design. She’d already decided on a few modifications she’d like
to make to the
Catalina
and the
Lucinda
if she ever got back to them.

“Esther, did you
hear me?”

She jolted as if
she’d been shocked by the wires she was adjusting. David had come over to her.

“What?”

“Chelle says we
can get to work on the ships first thing tomorrow morning. You ready?”

He faced her
across the separator, with his back to the other two.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Can you show me
how to splice this connection again?” David tapped a group of wires with one
hand and brought his other finger to his lips. He tossed his head slightly in
the direction of the cot.

Harry and Chelle
were engrossed in a discussion of one of the drawings. He was laughing at
whatever she was saying, a wheezy, overloud sound. Neither looked over at the
two prisoners.

“Okay,” Esther
said slowly. “First you need to select the right material. Check to make sure
the wire isn’t rusted out.”

She retrieved a
length of wire from the workbench and guided David’s hand along it, feeling for
any roughness that would indicate corrosion. His fingers were long and slim,
smooth against the calluses on her hands.

“What’s up?” she
said in a lower voice.

“I think I know
where Neal’s satellite phone is,” David whispered. “Chelle might be able to get
me close to it.”

“Really? Then you
measure out the wire. Be sure to cut extra so you have some slack.”

Esther
demonstrated, her heart thudding. A breakthrough. Finally.

“I’m going to try
tonight. There’s some sort of celebration in the main canteen on Level 2. I
went up there a few times before you arrived. And before they started starving
me, obviously. I’ll just need to slip away for a few minutes.”