Breathless. Sharron McClellan
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her pocket, she handed it to Al.
Silently, he read it, stroking his chin as he took in the information. “That’s a little far out,” he finally said. “Can I ask how you came by these coordinates?”
“You can, but then I’d have to kill you,” she replied, falling back on the well-known quote.
“Fair enough,” Al said.
Jess smiled. Few people gave in that easily, but Delphi said he’d worked with the government before so it wasn’t a total surprise that Al asked pertinent questions but didn’t press when she wasn’t forthcoming.
Setting the paper aside, Al took the wheel, and Jess realized they’d cleared the small port and were entering open ocean. Al pushed the throttle forward. She heard the slight whine as the engine increased in rpms and the vibration beneath her feet increased.
The engine hiccuped then resumed.
The men glanced at each other at the same time, and Zach started toward the door. “I’ll go check it out, Dad. Why don’t you come with me?” he asked Jess as he walked past.
Crap. She knew what this was going to be. A talk. An apology. Something that would make her uncomfortable.
Might as well get it over with, she decided and fell in behind him.
“I wanted to apologize for last night,” Zach said, once they were in the hallway.
She almost stopped walking. “Last night?”
“I should have warned you about the whole trial-by-singing thing.”
“Oh. Yeah. It was a little embarrassing but I’ve been through worse.”
“Marine?”
She did stop. “I never said…”
He kept walking. “You have that look.”
She hurried to catch up. “What look?”
“Jarhead.”
“Thanks,” she said, frowning. It was a common term, but she hated it. She thought it made Marines sound dumb, and the men she knew were anything but stupid. Arrogant? Yes. Pain in her ass? Definitely.
But not stupid.
Not if they wanted to stay alive.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he explained, eyes widened as he saw her reaction to the term. “I know most people hear jarhead and think that means someone who takes orders without thinking. Dumb. Whatever.” He thrust strong fingers through his hair in frustration as he tried to explain himself. “I didn’t think that. I don’t think that.”
“Then what do you think?” Jess asked, as they continued to the engine room, not eager to let him get away without explaining himself. She’d been uncomfortable. Now, it was his turn.
“I’ve worked with Marines before. A few rescue teams to be specific.”
Just as Delphi said.
Zach continued, “They pay attention. To everything. And they will do anything for each other.” He glanced back at her, smiling. “You’re like that. My men were in trouble, and even though we embarrassed the hell out of you, you were right there.”
“You’re my crew,” she said, uncomfortable with the praise.
They reached the engine room, and the twin engines ran loud but steady as Al held them on course. No smoke. No fire. All seemed normal.
Until she looked up at Zach.
Head cocked, his eyes were narrowed.
“What?” Jess asked. “What’s wrong?”
He held up a finger, indicating that she should be quiet. Walking over to the right engine, he kneeled down, peered between the moving parts and stiffened. “Jess?”
She hurried over, kneeled beside him, and he pointed at something. “Any idea what that could be?”
Her eyes widened. Metal casing. Wires. Timer. She knew what it was, and the thought made her gut twist. “Yes. It’s a bomb.”
Jess slid out from under the engine and sat up. Whoever had set the device was good. Very good.
Luckily, she was better.
“Well?” Zach asked. At his feet were the tools she’d requested.
“They used an rpm sensor on one of the propeller shafts to trigger the timer.”
He appeared confused, but she suspected it wasn’t that he couldn’t figure out what an rpm sensor did but it was residual shock from finding a bomb on his ship.
“It’s a cheap part,” she explained. “But clever. It reads the revolutions per minutes of the shaft, and as we speed up it converts them to miles per hour based on the circumference of the shaft.”
Zach looked up and to the right, his expression blank as he sorted what she was saying. When he looked back at her, she knew she was seeing the geek. The man that made millions with a single, complex thought.
In this case, not so complex, but so far out of his realm that it seem fictional. “So when we reached speed, it triggered the bomb.”
“Yes.”
“Will it detonate if we stop?”
She shook her head. “No. But it’s not going to stop the timer, either.” She braced herself, waiting for the panic that was sure to follow that statement.
He nodded, taking in the information. “This means they knew the circumference of the shaft. They know boats. Timing.”
Jess cocked her head, surprised at his calm demeanor. She’d expected fear, but instead he’d accepted the situation with unnatural calm.
Maybe his previous government missions were more dangerous than Delphi let on, and he was more accustomed to danger than she knew. Or perhaps it was simply denial. Either way, it worked for her and there was no time to analyze his psyche.
“Possibly,” she said, continuing Zach’s train of thought and adding her own. “Or they had plenty of time to figure it out while we were at the bar last night,” she said. An alternative thought crossed her mind—that one of his crew set the bomb—but she didn’t voice her suspicion.
Zach had kept cool regarding the bomb but she suspected that accusing one of his crew of espionage would send him over the edge.
“What does all this mean to us?” Zach asked. “Do we have time to go back to port? Get the crew off and then deal with this?”
“I’d rather not,” Jess said. “We need to stay out at sea. If I screw up, I’d rather do it in the middle of nowhere.”
“Good point,” Zach said. “But what about my people?”
His people. She prayed that none were involved in setting the device. “Of course,” she said. “We can stop the boat and put them in the life raft.” She nodded toward the rigged engine. “If this goes south, I don’t want their deaths on my hands.”
“How long do we have?”
She took a deep breath, held it and focused. “The timer is set for an hour, and we have about fifty minutes left. I want you all in the raft in five minutes.”
“There’s a bomb on the boat?” Liz’s voice squeaked. She was the last to arrive when Zach called for “all hands on deck.” The rest of the crew still stared at Zach, stunned.
All of them.
Not involved, Jess thought with relief. She’d seen enough, knew enough, to know a lie when she heard one, and the entire crew looked as if they’d been knocked upside their heads with a mallet.
“That’s what I said,” Zach said. “Now, everyone in the raft. Jess and I are taking