Just something in the tone of Ryland’s voice worried Tabi, as she walked down the hallway, hoping she would find her room soon. As a sailing enthusiast, she had a very good sense of internal navigation, but this ship was giving her fits, and she’d already had to backtrack several times. But she was determined to see if her phone would work. His words had already been enough to send her hustling out of there. But the doctor had again asked her on the sly if she was available, in case he needed a hand.
“Absolutely,” she said, “but don’t you have a half-dozen people here ready and able to do this?”
“Maybe,” he said, “but we’ve also got two down in sick bay. And this isn’t something I want to start with somebody green.”
“Got it,” she said. “If you need me, I’m there.” She just hoped that it didn’t happen. It was one thing to be a surgical nurse in her nice perfect hospital, with a system that she understood, versus being here, dealing with something that was much more an off-the-cuff emergency surgery. But, because it was an emergency, she would help in any way she could. That didn’t mean it would be easy though.
Finally she stopped and stared at the room in front of her. She thought it was the right one. She quickly unlocked it and stepped inside, relieved when she saw her personal belongings on the bed and only hers. She hadn’t even considered that she could be rooming with a second person here. This was not a world that she wanted to live in. And, therefore, it wasn’t something that she touched on very often.
She walked to her phone, where she’d taken it apart and pulled out the battery, so it could all dry. Checking it, she realized it was pretty dry to the touch and popped it back together. She turned it on and actually had power. She quickly dialed the number Ryland had given her and waited for someone to answer.
“Identify yourself.”
Surprised for a moment, she replied, “I’m Tabi Sutherland, calling on behalf of Ryland Roscoe.”
There was a short silence on the other end, then he asked, “Where is he?”
“We’re both aboard a US naval ship,” she said. “Their plane was blown out of the air, and he and Garret managed to survive long enough for me to pick them up on my boat. We were heading toward the navy ship, when the weather came up. I have since lost my boat and am on board the naval ship as well.”
“Condition?”
Almost like a military drill, his clipped tone gave instructions for further information. “Garret is bad,” she said, not mincing words. “Likely internal injuries. They’re still assessing him. Ryland also has probable internal injuries, but nothing requiring surgery. He’s got several fractures, multiple stitches, and a dislocated leg, knee, and ankle, but he will survive. I believe his forearm on the right side is fractured, and he has several cracked ribs. In addition, he has some vertebrae damage, but he’s not talking about that.”
“That sounds like Ryland,” the man said, relaxing slightly. Then came another hesitation. “No sign of a third man?”
“If you’re asking about Bullard, Ryland said to tell you there’s been no sign of him that we’re aware of, but the Coast Guard is searching.”
“Damn.”
“He said something about you and the rest of his team needing to know that,” she said. “They’re getting excellent care right now.”
“Got it,” he said. “Do you have a location?”
“I can give you where we were,” she said, “but I can’t tell you where we are now because I don’t know our ship’s longitude and latitude.”
“We’ll find it.”
“If you say so. If you’ve got a way to get us off of here, you may want to pull some strings and make it happen. You also need to watch your backs, Ryland says. He thinks you might be in danger.”
“We’ll handle it. And we can get you off,” he said easily, “but we don’t want to cause any more damage to our friends’ condition by doing so in the meantime.”
“Then wait,” she said. “At the minimum, we need to find out how badly hurt Garret is.”
“Right. And we have your number,” he said and quickly repeated it back.
She frowned and nodded. “Yes, that’s quite true.” She added, “I’m a surgical nurse just recently out of Perth. I was on holiday on my boat.”
“We appreciate you picking up our friends,” he said, his voice much warmer. “Your good deed will not go unnoticed.”
She laughed. “And neither is anything required,” she said. “I just want to get home safe and sound.”
“Understood. We’ll stay in touch.” And, with that, the voice at the other end of the phone disappeared.
She put her phone on Vibrate, just when a knock came on her door. She almost wanted to groan because, so far, this place had been people upon people. She wouldn’t say anything, but the whole point of her holiday was to get away from it all. She opened the door to see the same petty officer waiting for her. She smiled up at him. “Is it dinnertime?”
“It is, indeed,” he said with a smile.
She pocketed her phone and said, “I’ll keep this with me, unless I’m not allowed or something.”
He shook his head.
“Good,” she said. “I contacted Ryland’s friends at his request, to let them know where he and Garret were. I’ll need to see him again after dinner.”
“If you remember the way, you can go right after dinner. And ask the doctor about times when the sick bay is open, so you’ll know when you’re allowed to be there,” he said with a cautionary note.
“Right,” she said. “I don’t know how anything on board works.”
“And nobody expects that you should,” he said, “but, if you have any questions, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best.”
“Right,” she said. “I appreciate the dry clothes.”
“Even with the wet feet?” he asked, looking down at her shoes.
“Well, at least they’re canvas,” she said. “By morning, they’ll probably be dry.”
“If you give them to me,” he said. “I’ll make sure they dry overnight. We can toss them in the dryers.”
“I imagine your washing machines here are a fair size.”
“They’re huge,” he said. “Also lots of them.”
“I imagine so,” she said. “I appreciate the dry clothes and the fact that I’ll be getting my others back. A good night’s sleep will show me a whole different world.”
“It will, indeed,” he said. “And hopefully the squall will have passed as well.”
“I was calling it a squall when the winds came up,” she said. “I think we’re well past that now.”
“It is pretty rough out there,” he said.
“And yet this ship is so big, we don’t even notice it.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” he said with a smile, “But even she can get to rocking when it gets bad.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s not bad yet then,” she said, laughing. “I’m not sure I have too much interest in seeing it get bad …”
“Interest?”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, laughing. “Just that, I don’t want to be out in the storm anymore. So, if I get to enjoy a nice quiet sail until we’re back on shore, that suits me.”
He said, “A word of warning, it’ll get noisy when we go up to dinner.”
“Right. Does everybody eat at one time?”
“No,” he said. “We run shifts here, like everywhere else.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “I’m really hungry.”
He stood in line and introduced her to the seamen working the line, as they went through getting food. By the time she had a full tray of roast beef, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, and steamed vegetables, she was in awe. “I can’t believe you can eat like this.”
“Good food is part of keeping a happy crew, you know? It’s how a system like this works,” he said. “Just imagine the dissension we would have if nobody was happy with the food.”
“I guess,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s amazing.”
He escorted her to an empty table and said, “I’ll get some juice and water. Can I get you one?”
“Yes, please, to both.” She waited, looking around to see a few curious gazes sent her way, but generally everybody ignored her as they went about eating their food. But then they probably only had a certain amount of time before getting back to whatever work they had to deal with. Ships like this had to be run with an exact schedule, to keep things from coming apart.
She was amazed at the number of people here and how seamlessly everything seemed to run. By the time Joe returned, she’d already dug into her food. When he set the juice down in front of her, she looked up, smiled, and said, “This is delicious.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m really hungry myself.”
She took a sip of her water too and looked around. “Does everybody know about the rescue that happened today?”
“Sure,” he said. “Plus, there are announcements. We do take part in a lot of rescues. So, although it’s a major traumatic event for you, it’s commonplace for them. No offense intended.”
She laughed. “No. Of course not. I understand.” As she finished off her plate, she sagged back and said, “You don’t realize just how much a home-cooked meal like this really hits the right spot.”
“Especially when you’re tired, cold, injured, traumatized, in shock, and—” he just continued to list off various states.
“Right,” she said. “I did see some dessert up there.”
He looked at her in surprise and said, “Go. Help yourself. By the time this lot has been through it, there won’t be any dessert left.” He added, “Would you mind grabbing me another bun, so I have something to sop up this gravy?”
She agreed and made her way back to the lineup and picked up a bun for him and a huge piece of chocolate cake for her. It had some hot liquid center to it. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it looked delicious. At the drinks station, she grabbed coffee for the two of them and came back. “I didn’t know if you wanted a coffee,” she said, “but I decided I’d grab you one just in case.”
“Ah, thanks for that,” he said. “I’ll be nice and walk you back to the medical bay afterward.”
“And that’s why I did it,” she said with spirit. “Because, Lord knows, it would take me forever to find it on my own.”
He laughed. By the time he was done, and she’d finished her coffee and dessert, the room had more or less emptied.
“Wow,” she said, staring around. “That’s an awful lot of people in and out in a relatively short time.”
“Yep,” he said, “but we all have a purpose.”
She nodded and waited until he had his dessert.
At that point he said, “Come on. Let’s go. You’re getting antsy.”
She smiled and asked, “How can you tell?”
“Could be your fidgeting,” he said.
Indeed, she was playing with the handle on her coffee cup and moving the cup around in gentle circles. She laughed. “The things you don’t realize you do, until it’s pointed out to you.”
He hopped up, and together they carried their dishes over. He showed her how to sort through and distribute the trays and the dishes. Then he led her outside the dining room. “Everybody has to help keep their corner of the world as clean as possible around here,” he said. “There are too many of us, and it all piles up if we don’t.”
“Hey, I’m all for it,” she said, laughing, as he led the way through the ship again to the sick bay. This time, she tried to memorize how to get there from the mess hall.
He turned and said, “By the way, if you need a snack or something hot to drink later tonight, you can come back up and get it. There’ll always be something.”
“Good to know,” she said. “Hopefully, once I get to bed, I won’t budge until morning.”
“I hope so,” he said, then pointed up ahead to the double doors. “I’ll leave you here. I have to report to my duty officer.”
She smiled and called out, “Thanks.” Pushing open the doors, she headed into the calm atmosphere of the clinic. One person was in attendance at a desk on the far side. Tabi lifted her hand and said, “I just came in to see Ryland.”
“Are you okay to go in on your own, or do you want me to go with you?” the woman asked.
She looked at her in surprise. “I’m fine to go in alone, assuming he’s awake. I don’t want to wake him up, if he’s getting some rest.”
“I think he’s awake. He just finished dinner not too long ago.”
Tabi nodded, walked to his room, and called out softly, “Ryland, you awake?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She stepped closer and saw a table with an empty tray and dirty dishes sitting beside him. “I just finished eating too,” she said with a smile. “Did you enjoy it?”
He nodded and smiled. “It was good. Nothing like a warm tummy.”
She nodded and smiled. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she said, “It works.”
His face lit up. “Did you contact them?”
“I did,” she said. “So they know about you and Garret, and I told them that there was no sign of Bullard.”
He nodded and sank back. “Thank God for that,” he said. “Did they say anything else?”
“No, he just asked me a bunch of questions about what I knew, where I was from, things like that,” she said, with a shrug. “Honestly they seemed to be more interested in knowing what happened to the plane and what happened to you and, of course, how bad Garret was.”
“Of course,” he said, with a note of satisfaction. “They’re not only my team, they’re my friends. Obviously they’re concerned about us.”
“Well, now they know,” she said. “I doubt there’s anything they can do, but, if there is, I’m sure they’re on it.”
He rolled his head toward her and smiled, as he said, “You can bet your ass they’re on it all right.”
*
That was excellent news about Tabi getting the phone call through to Cain. Ryland had been wondering, worried about how to get a message out that he and Garret were alive and that Bullard needed to be searched for. He had to be out there somewhere. Bullard was a tough one, and Ryland would not mark him as missing or dead at this point in time.
Just because nobody knew where he was, well, that was often Bullard’s way. The fact was, as far as Ryland was concerned, the plane crash was sabotage, and he knew that Bullard would immediately be considering that himself. That fact alone created a lot more reasons why Bullard would likely stay under, if he’d survived.
Their debris had drifted a long way, spread out over at least a one-mile-long area, with the tides spreading it even farther. It would have been pretty damn easy for Bullard to not see them either. As it was, it was good news all around.
He looked at the woman who had rescued him and asked, “I don’t suppose you’d make another phone call, would you?”
She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “What number?” she asked, as she pulled out her phone. He read off the number, and, when a woman answered at the other end, he reached out a hand.
Tabi handed over her cell, and he said, “Ice?”
“Hey, Ryland. How was the trip?”
“A little rough,” he said. “We were blown out of the sky. Garret is badly hurt, and Bullard is missing. Garret and I are on a navy cruiser, out in the middle of the ocean.”
There was a short gasp and then a moment of silence.
He winced, remembering the relationship that Ice had with Bullard. “I’m sorry,” he said regretfully. “No easy way to tell you something like that.”
“No,” she said, her voice faint, before it strengthened and became brisk. “Do you have the coordinates?”
“I have the approximate coordinates, where we went down, yes,” he said. “Where we’re at right now, I’m not sure. I know that the US Navy is getting ready to get us off here, depending on the weather. We’re in the middle of a big storm.”
“They’ll wait for morning,” she said. “You’re safe where you are, and, unless Garret needs emergency surgery that they can’t provide on board, they’ll probably keep you there.”
“That was my take too,” he said. “I don’t want to think about Bullard hanging on to a piece of plywood out in the middle of the ocean, like we were.”
She paused, then asked, “How badly hurt are you?”
“I don’t deserve to be alive,” he said boldly. “But I’ll be honest and say the damage, though it’ll hurt like shit for quite a while, is rather minimal. My right leg was dislocated at the ankle and knee joints, several fractures on the tibia, right arm, and a couple fingers that I don’t know if they even x-rayed or not, but they’re probably broken. Still, not a whole lot we can do about it.” He held up his right hand and twisted it around, noting how much swelling was going on in his fingers. “The back, a couple ribs—you know.” He tried to pass it all off.
Her tone was very sympathetic when she said, “At least you’re alive. And Garret?”
He heard the note of fear in her voice. “He’s alive,” he said softly, “but he’s in bad shape. I know one of his legs was looking beyond rough, but it’s soft tissue damage that I’m really worried about. And the fact that he hasn’t woken up, from whatever knocked him out. Well, I’m afraid of a brain injury.”
“If anybody can pull out of it, it would be Garret,” Ice said. “Is a doctor there for me to talk to?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, looking around. He held a hand over the receiver and asked, “Is a doctor here? Ice is looking for an update on Garret’s condition.” He watched as Tabi walked through the double doors out of his room and told Ice, “Tabi has gone to see if anybody is out there at the moment.”
“Tabi?” Ice asked curiously. “Navy?”
“No,” he said. “Angel.”
She gave a snort at that.
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “She saw us on our makeshift raft. I don’t know how. Probably from the birds flying above. She was out sailing and came to check it out and managed to save the two of us. Then headed toward the navy ship that met us, and they managed to get us to the ship via a Zodiac, but the storm really came up in between the two trips to get us both off. She lost a mast, and then her boat went under. It’s all the navy could do to save her at that point in time too.”
“Damn,” Ice said. “You’ve really been in hot water, haven’t you?”
“Icy, freezing cold water actually, but yes,” he corrected. “When I get back on my feet, I’ll do something about her boat.”
“And I’m sure you’ll get lots of help with that from the rest of us,” Ice said swiftly. “Anybody who does a good deed, like saving the two of you, deserves at a bare minimum to have her property replaced. Did she get hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so.” But he stopped and said, “Shit. You know what? I didn’t even ask her.”
“Well, you probably should,” she said, with a note of humor. “When you get guardian angels like that, it’s always a good idea to keep them in good shape, well rested, and knowing they’re appreciated, in case you need them again.”
“True enough,” he said.
Just then Tabi walked back in and shook her head.
“No, on the doc right now,” he said into the phone.
“Fine,” Ice said. “I’ll go through official channels and get it within the next hour anyway.”
He had no doubt about that. “If you find out something, let me know.”
“And how would you like me to do that?” she asked.
He winced and said, “This is Tabi’s phone. You could always send her a text message, at least over the next twenty-four hours maybe, while we’re both confined to the ship. I have no idea when we’ll hit land, so I don’t know what we’re doing after that. Tabi was on a holiday, and honestly I’m not even sure what part of the world we’ll end up in.”
“Good point,” she said. “Maybe Perth, depending on where you’re traveling right now,” she says. “I’ve got you heading toward Australia.”
“We were flying over the Micronesia Islands.”
“Maybe,” she said. “This computer, although it’s supposed to be updated, is plotting the coordinates a bit off. Probably due to the storm. I’ll find out for you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “And Bullard?”
“You know me. I scuttled up to send a crew while we were chatting,” she said. “We’re on it.” And, with that, she hung up.
He laughed and returned the phone to Tabi. “There’s nobody in the world like Ice,” he said, in admiration.
“Your girlfriend?”
He looked at her in surprise and then smiled. “No, she’s married to another good friend of mine,” he said. “But they’re two peas in a pod, and I’m absolutely delighted. Actually I find that my faith in human relationships centers around what they have,” he admitted. “And I don’t mean to be metaphorical or anything, but what they have between them is very special. And they’re all good friends, even better friends of Bullard’s,” he said sadly.
“Well, there’s no way to know yet about Bullard,” she said. “You survived, so there’s a good chance he did too. That debris was scattered a long way.”
“Well, I’m really hoping so,” he said, “and I know, if anybody out there will get to the bottom of this, it’ll be him.”
“And you,” she said shrewdly.
He frowned. “And here I was thinking I could hide that need to get answers from you,” he joked.
“No point,” she said. “Besides, why would you want to? If somebody blew you out of the sky, then it’s pretty damn obvious you’ll want to find out who it was.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And that’s a hard place to even begin investigating from, as evidence is streaming across the ocean, especially when I don’t even know where the hell I am, in terms of my physical condition.”
“Actually I’m surprised you’re even allowing that to stop you from thinking along those lines.”
“I’m not allowing anything to stop me,” he said, feeling his irritation grow. “But stuck out in the middle of the ocean on a naval vessel limits my options, you know?”
“I guess it depends on how badly hurt you are,” she said, studying him.
“Besides, I’m not sure I want to leave Garret.”
“And sometimes we have to,” she said gently. “Just because there’s no way not to.”
He frowned and then gave a clipped nod. “If there was a way to go back, I would.”
“Can you think back to how somebody could have planted a device like that?”
“We stopped in Honolulu for gas,” he said. “So it’s quite possible, but I’m not sure that it was then. It could have been planted before that, even in Texas.”
“And triggered how?”
He gave her a hard look. “In this day and age, a phone call could have triggered it.”
“Did you hear a phone ringing?”
“It didn’t have to be up in the cockpit with us,” he said quietly. “Triggers are tiny, and a cell phone could have been put in, close to where the bomb itself was.”
She crossed her arms and stared at him. “The back end appeared to blow from my vantage point. So it would have been someplace around the back section of the plane, I would think.”
“And that’s important too,” he admitted. “Only three of us were on the plane, when we stopped for fuel. It could have been on the outside of the plane. We did get off and walked around to stretch our legs a bit and checked a few things, but I certainly didn’t go under the tail end, and I didn’t see anything suspicious on the inside.”
“But how big would it have to be?”
He frowned, thinking about that. “Not very,” he said. “Probably the size of a fist would have done it, if it were placed properly.”
“So then, depending on how it was covered up,” she said, “it could have been disguised quite well.”
“Unfortunately it was,” he said.
“So now that you have some idea of what, you really need to know now the why.”
“And,” he snapped, “I need to know how.”
“What would that give you?”
“Hopefully the person on the other end. The son of a bitch who placed that bomb.”
“Do you have that many enemies?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I don’t regret any of them.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Isn’t that something you should regret?”
“No,” he said. “That is definitely not something I would ever regret. Every enemy I’ve made was because I was helping the good guys take down the bad guys. But bad guys tend to have very long memories.”
“Ah,” she said. “Are you military? Or special ops or … something?”
“Or something, yes.”