The Steel Shark

Chapter 43

Vivian kept her head on the desk to which she’d been handcuffed. It had been worth all the language training she’d ever taken to overhear that the women planned a large-scale attack, today. The target was something bigger than the tanker they’d already sunk. Hundreds of people were going to die if they succeeded. After that, Laila wouldn’t balk at killing Vivian. Barely noticeable collateral damage.

She leaned forward as far as she could, forehead sliding across the cool surface, then yanked back hard. No give. She had maybe three inches of movement.

Bracing her legs against the wall, she pulled with all her strength. The cuffs slid forward, cutting into her good hand. The table support didn’t budge. She kept yanking against the table, but it didn’t help. To make matters worse, the cuffs were on too tight, and her left hand was going to sleep. At least the cast protected her right.

She looked around for another way out.

“Who are you?”

Vivian started and looked at the woman in the bed. She’d assumed the woman was unconscious or dead. “Elena Torres.”

“Nahal. Why are you here?” The small woman struggled into a sitting position. Dark circles smudged her pale skin. She looked fragile.

“I was taken. Why are you here?”

“I am part of the crew. Why were you taken?”

Vivian gave her the same explanation she’d given to the women on deck when she’d been captured. It didn’t sound as convincing this time.

“Nonsense,” Nahal said. “You are Vivian Torres, bodyguard to Joe Tesla.”

Vivian shrugged, but her mind raced. “I am not this person, Miss Nahal.”

How had Nahal recognized her? And who would she tell? Vivian yanked on the cuffs again. They didn’t budge.

As if reading her thoughts, Nahal said, “I saw your picture online. Your boss is a hero.”

Tesla, a hero? “My boss?”

“He’s accomplished some incredible feats of hacking, some public and some not.”

That sounded like him. Vivian moved the cuffs back again. Maybe if she could remove her cast, she could slide her hand out. But even if she had the tools for it, Nahal could call for help long before she got her arm out.

Nahal gushed like a fangirl. “Lucid’s facial-recognition algorithm is amazing! Complex, but so very elegant. After he left the company, their security got weaker and I managed to hack a copy. That never would have happened if he’d stayed, of course.”

What were the odds she would end up locked in a room with a Joe Tesla groupie?

“Are you guys sleeping together?” Nahal leaned forward. “What’s he like?”

Vivian wouldn’t have answered even if she hadn’t been pretending not to be herself. Instead, she tried to look puzzled.

“Your face is distinctive, you know. Everyone’s is. I’m sure Joe has told you. You probably know more about facial recognition than most experts.”

Now she was calling him by his first name.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have amazing symmetry around your eyes?” Nahal went on. “It’s rarer than you think, and it’s considered very attractive. No one else in the world has eyes like you, of course, or like me. But the tiny scar in your eyebrow would give you away even if your eyes were closed.”

Vivian had been nicked by a piece of shrapnel in Afghanistan. Most people didn’t even notice it. “My eyebrow piercing? I was a silly teenager.”

“Shame on you for trying to fool me.” Nahal shook a finger at her. “Your scar came from shrapnel from the IED that killed the man you wanted to marry.”

Vivian swallowed. This woman had done her homework, and she seemed a little crazy. Sane people didn’t hijack submarines, but Nahal seemed crazier than Ambra or Laila.

“I downloaded your military records. Tesla’s woman, how could I not?” Nahal fell back against a bunch of pillows. “You don’t approve of how my country treats women.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your dishonorable discharge, Sergeant Torres.”

More denials seemed useless, so she decided to stay quiet and see where this was leading. Her situation couldn’t get much worse. Now, that was probably just a lack of imagination. Things could always get worse.

“Only someone as smart as Tesla could have tracked us down. It was Laila’s misfortune to run into Tesla’s submarine.”

Not just Laila’s misfortune.

“I voted to deal with Prince Timgad in a more subtle fashion, but Laila’s the captain, and I can’t do much from sick bay.” Nahal fidgeted with her blanket. “I thought I knew her. I thought her different from her family history, kinder, more noble. Do you believe we are more than just our genes?”

“Yes.” Although Vivian had to admit she was more similar to her mother than she liked. “We make our own choices, and we can change.”

“Nobody expected you to not follow orders, did you know? I read your whole file, things you probably haven’t even seen yourself. Your commander fought hard for you. He blamed it on the stress of your beloved’s death. But I don’t think so. You have a nobility about you. You are strong, and you protect the weak. It’s why you had to do what you did. It’s why you became a bodyguard. It’s why you love Joe Tesla so.”

She didn’t love Tesla. She cared about him. She liked him. She felt guilty she’d let him down on the first night she was supposed to be guarding him. But none of that was what Nahal was talking about. Vivian knew she had a habit of protecting the weak. She found it more inconvenient than noble. Either way, she wanted Nahal to keep talking. Maybe she could become an ally.

“Laila is not so noble as you. Or as I want to be. At first, she was. She was ready to save the world when we stole this submarine. But now I think she did it to get revenge against the prince. Revenge against her father. Nobility is about grander things than hate.”

Nahal looked at Vivian like she expected an answer.

“You stole this submarine?” Vivian kept the accent, just in case.

“Of course we did. And of course you know.”

For all she knew, they were on a government-sponsored mission and the submarine was right where it was supposed to be. But she decided not to pick a fight and stayed quiet.

“Laila has developed a taste for killing since we got this sub — the prince, the tanker, Rasha. I didn’t expect it from her, even though that streak of madness runs through her family. I thought it would have spared her, since she is a woman and the others are all men.”

“Is she going to kill me?”

“I wouldn’t. Ambra wouldn’t, but Laila will if she gets a chance.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s changed. And she wants to preserve her secrets — she took this sub, she killed her own brother, she has killed others, and she will do more killing when the time comes. But, if you’re here, it’s not much of a secret, is it? Your appearance means Tesla has found our sub. He probably filmed it. He probably even knows where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

Vivian hoped so, but she thought Nahal might be giving Tesla a little too much credit. “Then why not let me go? If I’m no threat and there’s no secret, why keep me here?”

“This is bigger than you. Bigger than us.”

“If I’m supposed to die for this, why not tell me why?”

And Nahal did. If Nahal was right, Vivian, once a soldier and always a soldier, understood. It was bigger than her.