AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let’s go,” he said.
While the portion of the deck where they were standing was relatively dark, the area around the crane was awash in floodlights, reflecting off the top of the white superstructure.
The three of them crept along the deck in the opposite direction, guided by Gomez. The equipment room was located two decks up, right under the bridge and next to the captain’s quarters. Once they were indoors they’d be on their own, out of Gomez’s view. The door closest to the stairway they needed was right beside the ship’s orange free-fall lifeboat, a bullet-shaped craft locked into a downward-facing cradle for quick escapes in an emergency.
The door had a thick glass window inset into it. Eddie poked a tiny camera above
the sill and watched the wireless feed on a handheld screen. The hallway was empty.
He went inside and listened for footsteps or voices. Hearing nothing, he waved for Murph and MacD to follow him. They moved to the stairs quickly, knowing the longer they were out in the open, the likelier it was that they’d be discovered.
They went up two flights of stairs and found the equipment room underneath the bridge. They would have walked right in except for one small problem—the sturdy metal door was padlocked.
“Looks like someone ain’t too trusting,” MacD said, examining the brand-new combination lock.
“It’s just supposed to be electrical and fiber-optic trunk lines and some control equipment,” Murph said. “Why would they lock it?”
“Only one way to find out,” Eddie said. He dug into his pack and removed a collapsible bolt cutter. He extended the titanium-reinforced handles.
“Guys,” Gomez said, “two guards just walked into the superstructure. They didn’t look like they were in a hurry, but they could be headed your way.”
To punctuate Gomez’s warning, the sound of two guards talking rose from the stairwell and was getting closer.
As Eddie clamped the bolt cutters around the hasp of the padlock, MacD said quietly, “If they notice the lock is gone, we’re gonna have some party crashers.”
The voices got louder. Eddie knew they were committed, and he pressed the strong bolt cutter’s handles together. The hasp of the combination lock snipped in half as if it were made of plastic. Eddie removed it and pocketed the pieces.
They hustled inside the dark room, and Eddie shut the door behind him.
Using a flashlight to guide him, Murph stuck a thick, square panel with a screen the size of a small tablet computer against the inside of the door, held in place by magnets at the corners. He pressed a button, and the screen on the panel came to life. The door was thick, so the voices outside were muffled as they approached, and the footsteps were impossible to hear.
The two guards didn’t slow down. They ambled by, still talking. Soon, even the muted voices were no longer audible.
“Turn on the lights,” Eddie said.
Murph found the switch and flicked it on.
The ten-foot-by-ten-foot room was unassuming, just a collection of conduits and LCD control panels on the walls around them. No stacks of dollars or euros, no poor souls being trafficked, no piles of smuggled Uzis and AK-47s. Just the equipment room they were expecting.
At least that’s what Eddie thought until Murph said, “Some things are different here.”
“What things?” Eddie asked while MacD kept an eye on the door.
“There are more conduits than the CIA schematics showed.”
“Conduits for what?”
“I don’t know.”
Eddie was curious about what was locked in there, but it wasn’t important to their mission. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get the navigational data and leave.”
“In a jiffy,” Murph said. He cut into one of the conduits and exposed the cables inside. He attached clips to the wires and connected the leads to his tablet computer, immersing himself in the task as his fingers danced across the screen.
“Someone else just walked inside,” Gomez said over the radio.
“More guards?” Eddie asked.
“No, this guy looks like one of the crew.”
