Chapter 13: The Final Recording
Mercer wanted me to doubt her.
That was his weapon.
Not the pistol in his hand.
Not the explosives beneath the ship.
The doubt.
“My mother tried to expose Arthur,” I said.
“After she helped him.”
Mercer claimed Eleanor had lured Elias to the harbor after Arthur threatened to take me away.
She believed Arthur only wanted to frighten him.
Instead, Arthur killed Elias.
Eleanor panicked and helped conceal the crime because she feared losing me.
Only later did she begin collecting evidence against Arthur.
The truth was uglier than the story I wanted.
But people are not divided into heroes and monsters as cleanly as Arthur believed.
My mother had made a terrible choice.
Then she spent the rest of her life trying to correct it.
“That does not save you,” I told Mercer.
“It should save your illusions.”
“I do not need illusions.”
Hannah shifted slightly.
Her hands were working against the rope behind her back.
I kept Mercer talking.
“Why protect Arthur?”
“Because Orion could have changed naval warfare. Politicians would have buried it in committees. Arthur understood power.”
“Arthur understood profit.”
“So do nations.”
Mercer raised the master key.
“This device will be sold before sunrise. With the money, I disappear.”
“You will never leave this ship.”
He smiled.
“Neither will you.”
The deck tilted.
Water had reached the lower compartments.
My radio crackled.
Grant’s voice returned.
“Celeste, I disabled the heartbeat trigger, but there’s a second detonator.”
“Where?”
“On the bridge.”
Mercer lifted his left hand.
A black switch rested beneath his thumb.
Hannah suddenly kicked backward.
Her heel struck Mercer’s knee.
I lunged.
The pistol fired into the ceiling.
Mercer dropped the master key.
Hannah rolled across the deck.
I fought Mercer beside the navigation console while the ship leaned farther into the water.
He was older, but stronger than I expected.
He drove me against the glass.
Pain tore across my scars.
Then he reached for the detonator.
Hannah grabbed the master key and threw it toward me.
Mercer saw it.
He abandoned the detonator and chased the key.
I caught it near the open bridge door.
Mercer struck me from behind.
The key slid across the wet deck and disappeared through a drainage opening.
Mercer screamed.
The only device capable of activating Orion was gone.
Then the ship’s alarms changed.
Grant’s voice came through the radio.
“The flooding reached the main electrical system. We have twenty minutes before the lower decks collapse.”
Mercer laughed.
“You destroyed the key, Commander.”
He pressed the detonator.
Nothing happened.
Grant had disabled it.
But Mercer still had one final weapon.
He opened the ship’s emergency fuel valves.
May you like
Flames erupted below us.
And the same white-hot bulkhead that had scarred me years ago began closing across the only escape route.
