Dark Salvation (DARC Ops Book 7) Read online

  She stood there for a moment, her hair crashing around her head, her clothes whipped tight against her body, and stared at what the crewmen had been running toward. A whole gang of them, some in raincoats, others in T-shirts. They were huddled up against the railing, holding something—no, someone—everyone grappling with a limb. Their voices rang out even above the wind, the sound getting more frantic with each listing of the haul, each wave forcing the ship high into the air, and then crashing back down deeper and deeper, until she feared they would slice through the water and strike the bottom.

  The ship rocked back one last time before the crewmen finally wrestled him aboard. They stood with him, holding him away from the railing. He wore plain clothes, a black jacket and pants. When his face would momentarily peek through the crowd, she could see his stony gaze. A fixed stare, down to the surface of the ship, and then back up into the sky past Annica. A face gray with wind and sadness. A beautiful, high-cheekboned sadness. Eyes that smoldered inward, deep into his skull. But no resemblance to anyone she knew, or expected to know.

  They trudged forward, the group of them, arms holding him up and steadying their catch. Their big fish for the day, a man of similar stature. He was tall, well built, muscles filling out his frame. A fellow crewman perhaps. You had to be strong in this line of work. His rescuers were talking to him, his head nodding slowly in response. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Annica felt compelled to watch this man, to solve the mystery by some inference from his looks. What had he done? And why?

  The reporter in her quickly gathered the facts. A man had been pulled aboard from the wrong side of the ship’s railing. It was definitely the wrong side, especially with the waves rolling several stories high. But it had happened, and for as quick as it started, the adventure seemed to be over.

  Still, she wanted to wait and watch. But someone’s hand got in the way, grabbing her shoulder, spinning her. Frankie.

  “Come on,” he said. “Leave it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Leave him.”

  “Leave who?”

  Frankie was holding her by the arm, practically dragging her back inside the ship. In the dry warmth, she took inventory. Her clothes were wet, hair heavy with rain, but she was fine. She pulled her arm loose from Frankie and wiped her face with it.

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding out of breath. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. Didn’t want him to see you.”

  Annica could still see the mystery man through a porthole, his rainy face glistening in the deck lights, switched on for the bad weather.

  “You might have to wait in your cabin till this blows over,” Frankie said.

  She kept her gaze at the window, to the storm outside. It showed no signs of letting up.

  2

  Cole

  They brought him to the captain’s quarters, still soaking but with a towel over his shoulders. A pair of hands, too, guiding him through the doorway and into a small room lined with nautical charts. They showed him to his chair. It sat opposite a metal desk and the captain behind it. Captain Konecny, the diminutive Serbian-American in charge of the mighty Batchewana. He sat there, tapping his pen against a hardcover book. Cole looked for the book’s title, but the spine was facing the captain.

  “I was hoping you could shed some light on this,” Captain Konecny said.

  “Okay.”

  “It was brought to my attention, that you . . . entered a restricted area of the Batchewana.”

  “I did?”

  “You did.”

  “Oh,” Cole said. “Where?”

  “On the other side of the fucking railing.”

  Cole took the towel and dragged it across his face several times. His hair and face were mostly dry. His clothes, however . . .

  “I’m not making a mess, am I?” he said.

  “I’d say you were.”

  “I mean your chair.”

  “I mean your stunt out there.” Konecny dropped his pen flat on the book. “Are you drunk?”

  Cole rose off the chair a few inches, sliding his hand underneath to check the wood. It was getting damp from his rain-soaked pants.

  “You’re drunk,” the captain said, this time with a hint of finality, like he’d come to some definitive conclusion.

  “Sir,” Cole said. “Captain . . . I wasn’t aware that it was a restricted area.”

  “You didn’t know that you shouldn’t hang off the fucking rails in forty-foot seas?”

  “It wasn’t my intention.” He waited as Konecny’s eyes narrowed on him. “Creating a panic like that, I mean. That wasn’t my intention. So I apologize.”

  “What was your intention?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you on any type of medication?” the captain asked, his head to the side. “And I mean any type.”

  “No.” His eyes drifted over to a map of the Pacific behind the captain.

  “Maybe you need some, then.”

  “That’s okay, Captain.”

  “I can arrange for something in the meantime. Two of my officers.”

  “I’m fine,” Cole said. “Without meds, or your officers.”

  “One for each arm. They could hold you down the rest of the way. We’re not too far off.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “A psychiatric hold,” Captain Konecny said, reclining back in his chair. “You know enough about the business. You know that I have that sort of authority.”

  “Maybe I’ll just head back to my cabin. And stay there.”

  “With Tom and Ed Park.”

  “No, that’s not necessary,” Cole said. “I’ll be good.”

  “You’ll be nice and quiet that way. We could even lock you in somewhere, for your safety.”

  Cole chuckled at the thought. He was an amusing man, this Konecny. A short, squat, and funny man.

  “Sure,” Konecny said. “Laugh. They’re ancient customs, the maritime stuff. But they still apply. Especially to the mentally deranged, like yourself, who can’t help themselves.”

  “I can help myself,” Cole said. “I’ll behave. I promise.”

  The captain gave a quick nod to someone at the door. And then he looked at Cole. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Cole got up and left the room, unassisted.

  The door to his private cabin closed with a satisfying click. He was alone again, this time indoors. The last time had offered fresh sea air, an invigorating breeze, and a nice view into the dark-blue oblivion. It was what Cole had to look forward to, before sets of hands had come rushing in, snatching him up and away. Those hands carried him over the rails and then propped him back onto his feet. One of the hands wasn’t so friendly, smacking him hard across the face. Then the voices came in, asking him—in a wide range of politeness—just what the hell he was doing out there.

  He didn’t have an answer.

  He stripped out of his wet clothes, peeling them off and hanging them over the back of a chair. He stood in the middle of his room, naked, thinking that he should have gone out that way. Symbolically. And maybe they’d be a little less inclined to grab him. Bare-ass naked.

  Or maybe not.

  He climbed into bed, pulling the sheets over himself, halfway up his chest. With his head stretching back against the pillow, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  He saw the ocean again, the choppy tops of waves swelling against the haul, lifting him up high in the air. Then pitching him down, deep and dark. The oblivion again, it’s cool expanse staring back at him. What else was waiting under those choppy waters?

  A cheap Mozart ringtone pulled Cole away from the sea, his attention focused on the vibrating piece of plastic on his night stand. He wondered for a second if the plastic was hard enough, and if he could throw hard enough, for his smart phone to make it clear through the glass of his porthole. If anything deserved to be at the bottom of the sea, it was that damned phone. And perhaps the person on the other end.

  “What do you want?” was Co
le’s greeting.

  Silence was his response.

  Cole checked the screen again, double-checking for a name, a number. But nothing showed up.

  “Hello?”

  Not even static. Just dead silence. He waited a few seconds before powering off his phone, shutting it down completely, and tossing it across the bed. It landed next to his foot. Cole’s leg moved underneath the blanket, the fabric bunching up into a wave that pushed the phone to the edge of the bed. And off the bed, his phone hitting the floor with a plastic slapping sound.

  Cole stretched out and closed his eyes again, and saw nothing. No choppy seas. No island work. No expectations at all.

  3

  Cole

  They would be waiting for him at Hilo Harbor. He expected this. And he expected they’d want to have “the talk.” The management had been going over Cole’s coworkers in similar fashion, each of the security guards being invited into the meat freezer for what they said were “wifi” reasons. Then they’d slam shut the heavy metal door, and the fans would kick on, and they’d be “safe” to have a private conversation. Cole had heard about it all the way from the mainland, how cold it could get in there.

  There were other rumors, too, about men who’d end up staying in the freezer indefinitely. Working as muscle for Blackwoods Security Corp meant that Cole was literally a piece of meat for them. He was treated and paid as such, and for the most part, he was fine with it. But living like a piece of meat and going out like one were two entirely different things.

  Before stepping into that freezer, he wanted to be damn sure which outcome was more likely.

  He’d start off by slipping away from the cargo ship, and Port Hilo, the second his feet touched the steady ground of Hawaii. Too many people knew his face at the harbor. Even from a distance, his lumbering walk screamed “Cole.” So he’d disguised himself the best he could with big aviator sunglasses and a LA Dodgers hat pulled close. But there was nothing he could do about that walk. When he tried, he felt utterly stupid and more exposed than before. He moved slower, his strides unnaturally shortened, his hips tucked awkwardly. Halfway through the harbor compound was as far as he could go without drawing too much attention—or pulling a hamstring. The rest of the way was flat-out Cole, as fast as he could, past the gates and into one of the curbside taxis.

  He ordered the driver to take him five blocks away, quickly, to a seedy dive bar on the outskirts of the tourist sector.

  “I was gonna offer you a lei,” the driver said, stuffing a neon pink garland back with the rest in his glove compartment. He didn’t explain the change of heart, but Cole knew it had something to do with how he’d talked to the driver, and where he’d asked to be dropped off. It wasn’t exactly the tourist vibe. That bit of exuberance had worn off years ago, along with the rest of his old naiveties about the world and the shipping industry that made it go around.

  He stepped out of the cab without a lei and without knowing exactly what to expect inside the Crow’s Nest, except its typical darkness. It was midday and they already had the neon going, the karaoke playing without a singer. Just the background tune to a song he might have heard a thousand times. Something he’d known from grocery stores and 1-800 numbers, only wordless and in the background to his conversation with Tai, a sixty-year old Vietnamese hustler who looked half his age. He grinned over the bar at Cole. One gold tooth shone in the bar light.

  “Hey, Sailor,” Tai said, laughing.

  “What did I say about calling me Sailor?” Cole pulled out a stool from under the lip of the bar and sat opposite the cagey bartender. “I’m not even a sailor.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s that all from, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cole reached over the bar and grabbed a little square napkin. He dropped it in front of him and said, “Any of the guys come in here today?”

  “Your guys? No. Not yet.”

  A minute later, a rum and coke sat sweating on Cole’s napkin. He picked up the glass, with the napkin still clinging to it, and took a long sip while watching the blurry shape of Tai getting another glass ready. “No,” Cole said. “I just have time for one.”

  “Just checking on your guys?”

  “Yeah. I’ll check back a little later.”

  “I’m not sure if they’ll be here today,” Tai said.

  “I thought you just said they would.”

  Tai leaned against the bar, leaning in close to Cole. He spoke quietly. “You sure you don’t want another?”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  Tai was still close. Still quiet. “Everything alright with you, Cole?”

  Cole shrugged.

  “Because I heard it’s not.”

  “What’s not?”

  “They saying you’re quitting or something? Is that it?”

  Cole wasn’t surprised at how fast the news had traveled. It was erroneous news, but news nonetheless. “What else are they saying?” he asked.

  “Are you?”

  “Am I quitting? No. Fuck no, I’m not quitting. Who said that?”

  He started pouring Cole another drink. “I’m telling you this because I like you.”

  “I like you, too, Tai.”

  “Ice?”

  “No thanks. Who’s been talking to you?”

  “They’re all talking,” Tai said. “They say you’re flaking out.”

  Cole could only chuckle at that. He reached for his new drink.

  “Are you flaking out?”

  “I wouldn’t be in here if I were,” Cole said.

  “I have no idea what you would or wouldn’t do. I know you like rum and cokes.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. I feel like whatever I say here’s gonna get around before the day’s out.”

  Tai frowned. “I said I liked you.”

  “Then let’s just keep things quiet for a while.” He stared at his bartender, offering a little smile when the next song came on. Soft rock made even more bland by its wordlessness.

  Tai seemed immune to it. He’d probably heard it all before: the karaoke and Cole. “Is there someone after you?” he said finally. “Someone I can look out for?”

  “Sounds like they’re all after me.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Tai said. “Will you still try to work?”

  “Yeah, if I can.”

  “They think you went nuts or something. That’s all.”

  “You sure?”

  Tai shrugged and said, “Sure. We all go a little nuts. I’m nuts.”

  Cole threw a few bills on the bar top. “Do me a favor?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Let me know if anyone comes around for me.”

  “Want me to call you?”

  “I want you to call me.” Tai drew someone a small glass of beer.

  When Tai returned, he asked, “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, stop watering your drinks so much or you’ll make me switch to beer.”

  “You can’t do that, Sailor. There’s no profits in beer.”

  “You’re probably watering that down, too.” Cole turned around to scan the exit, making sure no one had followed him in last minute. The music was still playing. The stage, lit up but empty. “And what’s with the karaoke? Someone come by and repossess the PA system?”

  “Microphone’s dead.”

  “That’s not all that’s dead in here.”

  “Yeah,” Tai said. “You’re next.”

  When Cole turned back to the bar, he saw that Tai’s face was unsmiling. Almost cold. He nodded sharply in reply. “See you around.”

  As he walked out of the bar, Cole wondered about the probability of getting out of his latest jam—which seemed to get worse by the minute. The plan was to sneak into Hawaii undetected, or at least have his latest personal turmoil go undetected by his bosses at Blackwoods Security. But as he walked down the alley next to the Crow’s Nest, with the particular sensation of being followed, he knew that he’d failed at both.


  Cole was back in Hawaii. Loud and clear. And yes, he’d had an episode on board the Batchewana. He hadn’t done himself any favors with that one. The guys at Blackwoods Security, already on the third month of their internal investigation, had been snooping closer and closer to Cole. It was clear that they’d already suspected him due to some ill-timed utterances and his sloppier work pattern. But this ordeal on the boat could have sealed his fate.

  He was probably better off sealing it himself, going through with it, taking that last leap off the railing.

  4

  Annica

  The alley didn’t provide much cover. Annica would have to wait some time after he set out before she could follow behind, a long way off. She hoped she was not so far back that she might lose him around a quick corner. The way he moved seemed to suggest that he’d break out in evasive action at any moment, that he knew he was being followed. Normally she was able to tail someone without being detected. Jackson at least had been good for something.

  She clung to the midday shadows like a determined predator, stalking her prey along the walls of this narrow back alley. It was also a tactic of a determined reporter, hot on the trails of an important story. Only she wasn’t sure what was waiting for her at the end of the alley, if it would end up being a story at all. A dead end, maybe. A waste of time, leaving the cargo ship and taking a chance on this strange man.

  They called him Sharky. A nickname from the boat, something she learned onboard after the rumors began to swirl with the swirling seas of the storm. It didn’t match anything in her contacts. Nor did it seem to make any outward sense. Sharky. What the hell kind of name was Sharky?

  She supposed it was fitting of someone who worked the high seas.

  It its uniqueness, it was also fitting.

  She’d first seen him on the ship, hanging over the railing, a look of calm on his face, while his shipmates tried desperately to drag him back in. His actions in the last two days, even his face when she was lucky enough to catch a glance, screamed story. It screamed follow me. It appealed to her instincts as an investigator. And as a woman. His eyes, him, screaming: help.