Instead of heading to his rack, Pete turned toward the escape trunk where Finn McCallister was being held prisoner.
He saw the bottoms of McCallister’s feet against the grate, motionless. It looked like he was sleeping, his head hanging, his mouth open. His face was somewhat hidden in the shadows inside the trunk, but Pete could see that he looked haggard, exhausted. His uniform had been ripped, like Pete’s. The captain awoke with a start.
“Pete!” he said, overjoyed to see him. He jumped down on his hands and knees so his face was against the grate. “Are you alone?”
“I am,” he said.
“I knew you’d be back,” he said. “You’ve got to get me out of here.”
“I’m trying … to figure out what’s going on.”
“Do that,” he said. “Keep your head up. You can’t trust anyone right now.”
“Can I trust you?”
Finn looked stricken. “Of course,” he said.
“How much do you know about my orders?”
The captain looked confused. “Everything that I could read,” he said. “And what you told me after I read them, when you came on board. You said the Alliance had identified this epidemic as a massive threat, not just to the war effort, but to humanity. I also saw in your service jacket that you’re an engineer, not a doctor; that’s why I brought Haggerty in the loop. We’re the only ones aboard who know the full patrol order.”
“How much do you know about the epidemic?”
He shook his head. “Not much. We’ve been at sea so long … but I know everything has changed up there since we left. You showed me the projections, though, showed me what it was doing to the civilian population. And…” He hesitated.
“What else?”
“Your wife,” he said. “You told me your wife was killed by the disease.”
Pete was rocked by a real sadness, a profound sense of loss. A memory of her flashed in his mind, blond hair, blue eyes. The death of his wife, he knew, was what had put him on the boat somehow, the event that set him on a path that ended onboard a nuclear submarine. And while it made him tremendously sad, he was grateful to Finn for sharing this information with him, to give him a real memory that he could build upon. He decided at that moment to trust McCallister.
“There’s a lot I don’t remember,” said Pete.
“About?”
“The mutiny.”
McCallister shook his head, still angry with the memory.
“Moody has gone completely crazy,” he said. “It all really started when that shadow boat showed up. With your orders, and that boat tailing us, she just started getting increasingly paranoid. Frank—that idiot—convinced her that someone had been giving our position away somehow. We had a huge fight in the control room; none of us had slept for days. She wanted to shoot the shadow boat, I ordered her to stand down, and then Ramirez ran out of the room. Alarms started going off, fires broke out—it looked like someone was trying to sabotage us.”
“Ramirez?”
“That’s sure what they thought. And they assumed we were in on it together—the two Navy guys aligned against the two Alliance officers. So she snapped, and here I am.”
Pete hesitated for a moment. “I think I killed Ramirez,” he said.
“Jesus, Pete, really?”
“I woke up with a gun in my hand, and he was dead.” He looked at his feet, unable to face the captain. “I guess that means that one of us, me or Ramirez, was a traitor.”
McCallister shook his head again. “I don’t know what happened, Pete. But I do know this: those two maniacs are the only traitors. And god help us with them in charge.”
Pete looked into Finn’s eyes, and believed him. “I’ll get you out of there,” he said.
“Please do,” said McCallister. “But don’t let it get in the way of the mission.”
“The mission?”
“We have to get that cure,” he said. “Whoever finds it first will control everything. We have to make sure we get to it before anyone else does. I have no idea what’s going on up there,” he said, pointing upward. “Eris Island may be the last piece of land the Alliance holds. It should be—it’s a goddamn fortress surrounded by ten thousand drones. But if we can get the cure, and secure it for the Alliance, then we win.”
“I’ll get you out of there,” Pete said again. He started looking around for whatever implement had been used to bolt the grid in place at McCallister’s feet.
“It’s in that locker…” said McAllister, sticking a finger through the grate and pointing.
Pete opened it and saw a large wrench. He started to get it out.
There was a sudden whoosh below their feet.
“Are they shooting torpedoes?” asked the captain, recognizing the sound, alarm in his eyes. “What are they shooting at?”
“No,” said Pete after a moment, realization setting in. “Getting rid of Ramirez’s body.”
Their ears popped as pressure changed in the boat as a result of the shot. Then they heard footsteps on the forward ladder, and locked eyes.
“I can wait,” said McCallister.
“I’ll be back,” whispered Pete, returning the wrench to the locker.
“Hold on,” said Finn. “Before you go,” he pulled a key from around his neck, “take this. It’ll give you access to everything in memory on the central computer. There’s a key slot in the deck right by the main console in control. No one even knows it exists, it’s unique to Polaris submarines. I designed it myself.”
Pete took the key and looked at it. It was a simple, flat steel key with no identifying markings. “Old-fashioned,” he said.
“Yeah, old-fashioned. Like me,” he said. “Now, get out of here before anyone sees you talking to your traitorous captain.”
Pete walked away quickly and hung the key around his neck. As he did, he was surprised to find another key already hanging there, this one painted red.