Light does more than illuminate a room. It adds ambience and elegance as well as a certain style.
—HAMMER GIRL BLOG
When Grayson awoke, he was trussed up and in a place with no light. He shook his head to clear it, then became aware of the sloshing of water. He was tied up in a box of some kind. Clint’s words just before he knocked him out reverberated in his head. Have to hurt her.
He thrashed against his bonds, but the ropes lashing his wrists together didn’t budge. It was too dark to see, and the quarters were too tight for him to sit up, but he squirmed around trying to feel for anything he could use to cut through the rope. The box appeared to be empty except for him.
A motor rumbled from somewhere, and he had a sense of bobbing. Was he on a boat?
He had to get free. He rolled onto his back and tried to leverage his legs against the trunk, but the space was too narrow to get a good angle. He couldn’t even bang his feet against the metal in hopes someone would hear.
The boat lurched to the left, and Grayson’s head bounced up to hit the ceiling. After what seemed an eternity, the boat stopped, and he heard male voices in the distance. Footsteps came his way, and a key grated in the lock. The lid rose, and a bright flashlight shone in his eyes. Hard hands grabbed hold of his arms and hoisted him out of the trunk. Two of Nasser’s thugs.
“What’d you take him for?” The younger man shoved Grayson ahead of him to a dock, and they both leaped onto it.
Clint’s voice spoke out of the darkness. “Nasser wants him. He’s got plans for him.”
A chill ran up Grayson’s spine at Clint’s grim tone. Nasser’s plans were sure to involve torture and death.
At least his feet weren’t bound. If he found the opportunity, he’d race for the water and try to escape them. He turned his head slightly to look to his right and caught his breath when he saw a tall ship. It was too dark to identify. How far were they from people? He saw no lights in the distance except on the ship.
The men marched him along the dock to a skiff, then threw him into the bottom of it. He hit his bad knee and bit back a yelp of pain. Agony rose up his thigh. Gripping his knee, he sat up as the boat ferried toward the ship. Was Ellie on that ship too?
The skiff bumped the ship, and Clint yanked him to his feet. “Climb.”
If he had his hands free, Clint wouldn’t be able to shove him around so easily. He kept his head down as though he were resigned, but his mind raced with escape plans. He needed to get his hands free, and he needed a weapon.
Grayson rubbed his knee. “I’m not sure I can.” While his knee throbbed, it wasn’t as bad as he made out.
The younger man prodded him with a gun. “I’d just as soon shoot you and feed you to the sharks. Don’t tempt me.”
“Back off,” Clint snapped. “I told you—he’s Nasser’s.”
Grayson gritted his teeth and put his right foot on the ladder. Using more of his biceps and less of his leg muscles, he hauled himself up the ladder until he lay gasping on the deck.
A man waiting at the top hauled him to his feet and marched him into the hold. Grayson’s knee gave out as he started down the ladder, and he tumbled the rest of the way to the floor where he lay stunned. Pain hit his shoulder, and his knee increased its complaint to a scream.
His captor leaped after him and pulled him to his feet again, then guided him past some ominous-looking contraption to the bow of the boat. They had to thread their way through crates and barrels to a tiny cabin. The sailor shoved him inside and shut the door behind him.
The bomb was probably on this ship, and he had to stop it.
Ellie hadn’t wanted to see the tall ship quite this way. She stood on the deck of the Elyssa Marie with the stars gleaming down. It should have been a beautiful sight to see the ship lights ref lecting off the water in the strait, but this was anything but a pleasure sail. The ship was moving farther away from shore, and she had to fight with the terror telling her to fling herself overboard and swim for land.
Sailors, both men and women, scurried to their duties. Most of them appeared to be Asian, and none of them talked to her when she spoke. Maybe they didn’t even speak English. The answers were on this ship, and she couldn’t escape her duty to do what she could to stop the mass chaos and loss of life from radiation poisoning.
Isaac’s grip on her arm was hard, and she let him shove her toward the ladder to the hold. He’d refused to answer any questions on the ride here, and she’d finally given up and turned to watch the dark woods as his vehicle zipped past them. At one point she’d tested the door, but the lock didn’t budge. And it had been too dark when they passed another vehicle to motion for help.
They reached the ladder, and she wrenched her arm free. “Where are you taking me?”
“Why, to your sister, of course. Isn’t that what you wanted?” He inclined his head. “What are you waiting for? She’s down there.”
Dead? She was afraid to ask so she started down into the darkness.
When she reached the floor, she paused to let her vision adjust to the dimly lit space. She was in a huge area with no cabins. Various machinery parts she couldn’t identify occupied the space, and it wasn’t nearly as finished or as beautiful as Lavender Lady.
An older Asian man grabbed her arms and propelled her toward the stern. He opened a door and shoved her inside. She fell onto a hard, wooden bench.
“Ellie?”
She looked up at the familiar voice and saw her sister, pale and disheveled, sitting on the bench. “Mac? Mac, you’re alive!” In seconds they were in each other’s arms. She didn’t mind her sister’s greasy hair and rank body odor. She was alive. That was all that mattered.
Mac pulled back to stare in her face. “How’d you get here? You shouldn’t have come.”
Ellie told her about Isaac’s offer to show her the ship. “I wanted to try to stop the bomb. I-I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. We all thought you were dead.”
“Well, it was supposed to look like that. I was really stupid, Ellie. I thought he loved me.”
“Isaac?”
Mac shook her head. “Tarek Nasser. We were making it look like I was dead so I could go with him. We’d taken blood over several weeks’ time and planned to spill it on board. With my disappearance, I would be presumed dead.”
How incredibly cruel to preplan something like that. Didn’t she think of how Ellie would feel? “That’s what happened.” Ellie’s gaze landed on a crusted-over cut on Mac’s forehead. “But then you were really attacked?”
Her sister nodded. “I came to in a cellar. Tarek found out I’d gone to the FBI. I never intended to turn him in—I just wanted him to cancel his plans.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“He and Isaac are setting off an EMP bomb. It will launch from here into the atmosphere to take out electronics in the area and scatter radiation all along the Pacific Northwest. ISIS then plans to mount an attack in San Francisco.”
Exactly what Lance had told them. “We have to stop it.”
“I tried to convince Tarek, but he’s firmly aligned with Isaac. Everyone calls Isaac ‘Wang,’ which means ‘king’ or ‘ruler.’”
“I thought Isaac was Jewish. Why is he involved in this?”
“He’s the liaison with the North Koreans. When he was getting his doctorate, he sneaked into North Korea on a dare, was recruited by them, and has been on their payroll ever since.”
It still made no sense to Ellie. “Why would he betray his country?”
“He’s heavily into politics, and he’s disillusioned with America. He feels an EMP war would shake things up, take us back to basics, and make the citizens remember who we were when we first became a nation.”
“But people would die.” Why did anyone become this radical? Ellie couldn’t wrap her head around it. “We have to get free and stop this. Gray doesn’t know where I am.”
“Gray?”
“He’s the Coast Guard investigator here looking into the theft of the cocaine.”
Mac’s face reddened. “I was so stupid, Ellie. Looking back, I realize just how stupid. I hate that you got dragged into this. Did Isaac get the message in the mah-jongg tiles?”
It all clicked. “He’s been targeting me because of the message? There was a picture in the box that Gray said was some kind of hidden message. I think the FBI is still working on figuring it out.”
“It’s the codes he needs to set off the bomb.”
“Does that mean Wang can’t detonate it without that message?”
Mac shook her head. “I’m sure he had the codes delivered another way by now.”
Ellie moved close enough to bump shoulders with her sister. “I’m just overjoyed you’re alive. Listen, I have an idea. Can you ask a sailor to let you go to the bathroom? I’ll distract him, and you can get up top. You’re a strong swimmer. Get to shore and call the FBI.”
“I-I don’t know if I can make it, Ellie. I’m still so weak and dizzy.”
Ellie stared at her sister’s face, still bruised. Even her hair held traces of blood. They must not have allowed her a shower since she’d been attacked. Though Ellie wasn’t a strong swimmer, she had to try. “Okay, I’ll get help.”
Mac adjusted her posture and raised her voice. She shot off a rapid-fire question in Korean. A few minutes later a sailor stepped into the room and grabbed Ellie by the arm. He pulled her into the bigger room, then shoved her toward the head.