Keane slowly straightened. “Captured?”
“Yes,” Nico said briskly. “Bodies showed up a few days later, both shot. So we don’t know exactly what the hell we’ve got going on here.”
“What islands are around their last-known locations? How about any permanent houseboats? Hell, what about speedboats passing through here? Just what the hell is going on?”
“We don’t know,” Nico said. “But once the admiral heard about his daughter, he asked for a team to be brought in.”
“Of course he did,” Keane said, staring at the water in front of them. “Puget Sound is full of islands. Most of them uninhabited. About 99 percent I would say,” he said.
“That we know of,” Nico corrected. “The fact of the matter is, we have narrowed it down to the closest four islands, where we know these latest two women were washed off the boat.”
“Washed off in a storm or helped off?” Keane asked.
“Well, that’s one of the questions. Two men were on the boat with them—they both survived,” he said. They’re not saying much though. Only that a really bad storm came, and the women were washed overboard.”
“Life jackets?”
“Yes.”
“And how long ago?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Well, if they’re still in the water, they’re dead,” Keane snapped. “Hypothermia would have set in very quickly, and it doesn’t matter what kind of life jacket they’ve got on. It won’t keep them afloat for all that long, particularly if they’re dead.”
“We all know that, including the admiral. Especially the admiral. But, if the slightest chance remains that his daughter is alive out there, he wants to exhaust every avenue. The fact that we had a distress call after the prior incident, saying that first couple were captured, expands the potential scenarios.”
“And makes no sense at all. It’s not like we have pirates here,” Keane said, interested in spite of himself. “I guess I could do a whole lot worse than spending a few days on a boat looking for someone.”
“Less on a boat, more on the islands,” Nico said. “Another thing I can tell you is that some research is going on in that area.”
“What kind of research?” Keane asked, looking at Lennox, who was listening in on the call.
“Top secret,” Nico replied.
“So, a top secret installation is on one of these freaking islands, near where two people disappeared a week ago and two more disappeared yesterday morning. Those most recent two are probably in the ocean, but, because of this installation and because of the distress call, you’re afraid it may be something far more sinister.”
“Exactly,” Nico said. I can’t give you too many details because we just don’t have them. Apparently this research center involves a couple other countries, as well.”
“Don’t tell me—Russia, China, or both?”
“No, not necessarily. It’s somehow in conjunction with Japan.”
“Well, we are allies.”
“They’re not saying that the installation itself is in the wrong hands or that it’s operating illegally,” Nico continued. “Or that it even has anything to do with these missing people,” he said. “The other thing is that this installation isn’t manned all the time. It’s a bunch of machines, run by computer mostly.”
“What’s it tracking?”
“Something to do with weather patterns,” he said. “They are testing the technology. Technicians go to the island and check on it every once in a while.”
“So, like seismologists and the earthquake points, they monitor up and down the coast? They pull up the data, copy over the readings and then reset it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“So, does it deal with earthquakes too?”
“I think they’re probably taking readings of everything, but I don’t really know,” Nico answered. “They’re mostly concerned about tsunamis, I believe, so earthquakes are likely a big part of it.”
“Well, Japan would be interested in that, I suppose. Are tsunamis a big issue around here?”
“These islands are on the outside of Puget Sound, so they’d be the first ones to get hit, so maybe. But again, no people are there. Just equipment.”
“So you say,” Keane said. “What we really don’t know is if that island for the top secret research is used secretly for something else or if some crazies are out there, killing people. Really, logic doesn’t always apply to every situation.”
“True enough,” Nico said cheerfully. “But you’ll have as much assistance as you want.”
“Well, for a job like this, we can hardly use a huge team. We’ll draw way too much attention as we search those islands.”
“Exactly. We do have the coast guard. They’ll take you out to the area where these two women recently disappeared and show you where the other two disappeared earlier.”
“Do we have a location for that distress call?”
“We do, and it’s not the same exact location where these four people disappeared from,” Nico said. “I’ll send you all the data we have.”
“So, we’re not up against anything other than Mother Nature potentially or some psycho?”
“We don’t know what we’re up against,” Nico said. “So don’t make any assumptions that would close off any possibility.”
“Great,” Keane said under his breath. He looked at Lennox. “Sounds like we’re heading out today on a cruiser.”
“The coast guard will meet you in two hours and twenty minutes at the GPS location where the women went overboard,” Nico added.
“So we’ve got transport to get there on time?”
Lennox tapped Keane’s shoulder and pointed. Not too far off the wharf was one of the large coast guard cruisers. “So we’re going on the Acadia?”
“Yep, you sure are,” Nico said, with a laugh. “Gear’s already on board for both of you. A Zodiac awaits you at the end of the wharf. The driver will find you.”
“Meaning, we’ve already been tagged, and they’re just waiting for me to get off this call?” Keane asked.
“You got it. I don’t need to tell you that somebody’s daughter is out there.”
“Two somebody’s daughters, right?”
“Yes. Two women. Plus, remember the husband and wife from a week ago who are now dead.”
“And who were they?”
“Electronic reports are coming your way.”
Keane stood and looked at the end of one of the docks and saw a Zodiac watercraft with a seaman sitting in the front and staring at him. “I see our ride,” he said.
“I’ll send you more information when you’re on board.” And, with that, Nico hung up.
Keane pocketed his phone and motioned Lennox toward the wharf and asked, “You ready for a swim?”
Lennox gave him a big beefy grin. “I was born ready for swimming,” he said. “Why do you think I joined the navy?”
“Well, for this job, it sounds like we maybe should have gone into the coast guard,” Keane joked.
“Same diff,” Lennox said. “But a little bizarre.”
“The whole thing is bizarre,” Keane said, “and hardly a black-ops mission.”
“Disappointed?”
“Kinda, yeah,” Keane admitted. “I get that some of these jobs are pretty wild and wonderful, but I was hoping for a little bit more than the usual for me.”
“Who knows what this one could be?” Lennox said. “Besides, I’m just backup anyway.”
Keane snorted at that. “As backup, you’ll be right in the middle of it,” he said.
“Good,” Lennox said. “I hate being bored.”
Sandrine Coulter opened her eyes enough to realize she was still in whatever cell they’d been tossed into. Nearby, her best friend, Brenda Leigh, was barely conscious, her eyes fluttering as she struggled with a head injury. Sandrine rolled over and crawled to the side of her friend. “Hang in there,” she whispered.
“I don’t feel so good,” Brenda whispered. “What the hell happened?”
“Well, I know we left the boat,” Sandrine said, with an attempt to crack a joke. “But I think you were swept overboard, and, when I saw you in the ocean, I jumped in after you.”
She kept another suspicion in the back of her mind because she had no valid reason for contemplating the idea that they may have been pushed. Except that she’d received a nudge as she went over. But that would call into question the actions of the two men they’d been sailing with. “We were on the sailboat,” she said to Brenda. “Remember?”
“Yeah. What happened to Greg and Scott? Are they here with us?” Brenda’s breathing was low and shallow.
“I don’t see them,” Sandrine said. “Apparently somebody saved us, and we’re in some shelter that’s keeping us out of the weather,” she compromised. She was very concerned that their reality was much worse, but Brenda didn’t need to know that, at least not yet. “Just rest,” she said. “You’ve got a head wound. It stopped bleeding, but you’ve probably got a concussion.”
Brenda gave her a lopsided smile. “Always giving orders,” she whispered.
“Well, if you’d listened to the one about tying yourself to the sailboat,” Sandrine said, “you wouldn’t have washed overboard.”
“Or I would have washed overboard,” she said, “and been drowned while towed by the sailboat.”
“Not likely,” Sandrine said. “I’d been keeping an eye on you pretty steadily.” She hated to remember the horror when the catamaran had run into trouble in the storm and that Brenda was missing. Then Sandrine caught sight of her best friend in the ocean, crying out for help.
The guys had turned around the sailboat and thrown her a lifebuoy, but, when she couldn’t grab it, Sandrine contemplated going into the water after her, when suddenly she was in the water anyway. She had replayed the scene in her head over and over. Had she imagined feeling a literal nudge, or had she jumped in instinctively to help her friend? Going after someone in the open ocean in the midst of a storm was a recipe for two deaths.
Unfortunately she had no clue what happened after struggling to stay afloat as the catamaran was tossed farther and farther away from them.
The women were now in a room, almost like a root cellar, with a dirt floor and made of rock on three sides, but the double doors in front of her were interesting. She’d tried everything, but they didn’t open, and that’s where her fear began. She refused to even contemplate being a prisoner.
The immediate problem was that Brenda’s head wound hadn’t been treated. They had no bandages, and the wound hadn’t even been cleaned. Her hair should be clipped away and stitches put in. She wasn’t lying on a clean bed and was instead on the dirt, where they had been tossed. Exactly the same position Sandrine had found herself when she’d woken up the first time. She glanced at her friend. “Any idea who brought us here?”
“No,” Brenda whispered. “I just woke up here.”
“Me too,” Sandrine said. She got to her feet and walked to the doors for the umpteenth time. “There’s a double door,” she said, “but I can’t open it.”
“Somebody’s got to open it from the other side,” Brenda said. “Lots of big doors are like that.”
“Which is a stupid system,” Sandrine said caustically, looking around again. “I mean, if you’re inside, how do you get out? Another door should be here too.”
“There could be,” Brenda said. “I’d get up, but, every time I lift my head, the pain is excruciating.”
“Stay still,” Sandrine said, moving beside her friend once more and dropping beside her. “Definitely don’t move. I’ll see if there’s any way out of here.”
“Don’t forget to look up or down,” Brenda muttered, just as her eyes fluttered closed again.
Sandrine sat back on her heels, wishing she at least had blankets to cover Brenda. Her friend would catch a chill lying on the ground like this. It was a warm July day, but, after being in the water, their clothing was still wet, and, with that head injury, Brenda wasn’t likely to handle the additional stressors on her body that well. It was getting light enough now that, with any luck, Sandrine could do a full search. She had tried earlier, but it had been pitch-black. Not much had changed with the lighting right now, but enough sunlight came through the cracks around the doors that she could see better.
She walked to the wall and very carefully moved along, looking and feeling the surface until she came all the way around to the doors again. The problem was, it was all rock. Wherever they were, it was like a rock cave, almost like a ravine with some man-made roof on top. She could see beams closing it off, but the beams rested on the rock walls, so somebody had taken a natural formation and had adapted their needs to the existing rocks. It wasn’t that the ceiling was superhigh either, but Sandrine had nothing to stand on.
When on her tiptoes, Sandrine could reach up and feel the wood, but she couldn’t apply much pressure to lift up a beam. And the wood was covered on top. She didn’t know if it was topped by a mossy or a grassy slope by now or whether more wood or even roofing tiles were purposely laid down.
She returned to the double set of doors that should have opened from the center outward and checked the pins on the sides. The doors were made of wood, not steel, but some crossbar must have been on the other side because she couldn’t see any latch between the two of them but did see a shadow, and she wondered if a two-by-four blocked the doors from opening. Which would make it very hard for her to get out. She didn’t have anything small enough to fit in the crack between the two doors, and yet strong enough to lift the beam on the other side. Somebody had put her and Brenda in here and had secured the doors deliberately.
She hesitated calling out but knew that her friend needed help, plus Sandrine didn’t want to stay locked in here another minute. Taking a deep breath, she placed her mouth close to the crack between the two doors and called out, “Hello? Hello? Can you open this door, please? My friend needs help!”
She wasn’t sure what to expect, but, when no answer came, she returned to her friend and sat down. Brenda was unconscious again, her breathing shallow and low. And, just when Sandrine thought all was lost, she heard footsteps. She raced to the door and waited.