Voss heard a click on the comm and then a low hiss that hadn’t been there before, followed by the lieutenant’s voice. “I read you, Dr. Boudreau.”
“Special Agent Turcotte and two of his people have arrived. We’ve entered the accommodations block on the deck level, port side. Where can we be most useful?”
“I’m right underneath you, Doctor—”
Over the comm, Voss heard a soft double thump followed by a hiss and realized they were still firing gas canisters into rooms down there. She faltered a little. Fresh canisters meant they were finding enclosed spaces where the sirens might be hiding. The things might well be conscious and waiting in the dark below.
“—if you want to take the aft stairs, I’ll have someone waiting, and we’ll put you all to work.”
The lieutenant was as good as his word. When they reached the next level down, where pipes hissed and gas had gathered at the ceiling like a yellow-tinged cloud, a sailor awaited them. He gestured for them to follow and they did so, but Voss glanced warily through every doorway they passed — mostly storage and some electrical systems — and she noticed Turcotte and O’Connell and David himself doing the same.
Her own breath sounded much too loud inside the mask and her pulse throbbed in her temples.
And then they were at the top of another set of metal stairs in an open area where Lieutenant Cryan and three other men waited. Perfunctory introductions were made, and then the lieutenant gestured toward the metal stairs.
“Dr. Boudreau—”
“David.”
Voss rolled her eyes in the gloom of the ship’s innards. First name basis during a government operation? Maybe she had been wrong about him having charisma when he wasn’t being in charge. Or he thinks of his grandmother as Dr. Boudreau and wants to leave the name to her, she thought, and hoped that was the answer.
“David,” the lieutenant confirmed, “we’re headed down to the engine rooms. I’ve got a team of four sailors on deck, searching for open containers and checking any that are unlocked. The Coast Guard detachment — twelve seamen — are searching the forward holds. You’re welcome to join either of those groups, or head down with us.”
“We’re with you, Lieutenant. The sirens’ natural habitats are dormant volcanic islands. They’re going to seek out heat, and the engine rooms are probably where they would find it.”
The Navy officer glanced at the nine-millimeter pistols the FBI agents carried.
“Then maybe you’d better take up the rear.”
Turcotte started to argue, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a gas-masked head popping up from the stairwell. Voss and the others weren’t on the same channel, but she heard the man’s muffled voice through his mask.
“Lieutenant, we’ve got a trail of blood down here.”
Cryan glanced at David, then at Voss and the other two FBI agents. “Switch your comms to channel three.”
Then the lieutenant started for the stairs, following the sailor down into the gloom. So far, everywhere they had walked, the interior lights still worked. But as Voss looked deep into the deck below them, she realized that most of the lights down there were out — and if the electricity still worked, that meant they had been broken in order to make it darker down there.
“Any bodies, Mr. Stone?” Lieutenant Cryan asked.
Voss followed Turcotte down, with O’Connell behind her. She saw the Counter-Terrorism agent stiffen at the mention of bodies.
“A little respect,” Turcotte said. “These people were my squad.”
“No disrespect intended,” the lieutenant replied. “You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Stone.”
At the bottom of the stairs, they gathered in a pool of wan light that came down from above, surrounded by shadows. Voices and footfalls echoed from farther forward, the rest of the lieutenant’s team.
“No bodies, sir,” Stone said.
“But you found something?”
“Yes, sir. Bones, sir.”
72
Tori had never been on a chopper before — she felt sort of silly even thinking of the thing as a “chopper”—but the experience turned out to be vastly different from what she expected. Instead of feeling in danger of falling, riding in the back of the helicopter with a handful of armed sailors gave her a sensation not unlike being on a bus. Sure, the chopper dipped and turned in ways a bus never could, but she felt safe and secure, even without being strapped in.
From the helicopter, the island had a pristine tropical beauty. Seeing it from above, she thought it looked like paradise — an island Eden — but she knew all too well that there were many things that seemed perfect and beautiful on the surface and turned out to be ugly and rotten inside.
“Are you all right?” Alena Boudreau asked.
Tori glanced over at the silver-haired woman, thinking Dr. Boudreau must be talking to her, but the question had actually been directed at Josh. He had laid his head back against the curve of the helicopter’s inner wall and closed his eyes. Now he opened them, blinking in surprise.
“Me? I’m good, yeah. Thanks for asking, Doc.”
His eyes were glassy. Tori had not noticed before, but now she stared at him, confirming it. She had seen the effects of drugs in the eyes of men too often to mistake it for anything else. Josh was high.
Of course he is, she thought. He got shot yesterday, and had the shit kicked out of him. He must be doped to the gills. Josh had already told her Dr. Dolan had given him painkillers, but she had been too focused on other things to wonder just how big a dose would be needed to numb the pain of a gunshot wound.
Now she was worried about him, and a part of her resented that. After the humiliation she’d felt upon learning of his deception, Josh Hart’s well-being ought to have been the last thing on her mind. And yet she could not help it. Despite the painkiller haze he must be in, his eyes met hers across the helicopter’s wide bay. They sat on benches opposite each other and she resisted the urge to look away. Why did you even come with us? she wanted to ask.
But she thought she knew the answer, and if she turned out to be right, it would only piss her off more. Better for her to tell herself he had come along for the helicopter ride, or because he wanted to see the island for himself, or to look out for the FBI’s interest in the case, than to think he wanted to watch over her and keep her safe. To hell with that. Tori had looked for men to protect her long enough. Far too long.
Dr. Boudreau glanced back and forth between the two of them with obvious curiosity but said nothing. The woman intrigued Tori. How had she come to the place in her life where she could push around branches of the military, not to mention the FBI? Her confidence and the calm that radiated out from her filled Tori with admiration and envy. She had a grandson, but if Tori had to guess, she would have said the older woman was single. No ring, for starters, but beyond that, she seemed so full of purpose that Tori found it hard to imagine Alena Boudreau relying on anyone but herself.
“So, Dr. Boudreau,” Josh said, “do you think Dr. Ernst will get a corpse for her dissection table?”
He had to practically shout to be heard over the helicopter’s rotors. Tori raised her eyebrows, thinking the question odd and abrupt, and wondered if that was the painkillers talking or if Josh had sensed the woman’s attention and hoped to deflect it.
“I hope so,” the woman replied. “But that’s a secondary priority.”
Paul Ridge, who sat next to Tori, perked up at that. She had been quickly introduced to him on the deck of the Kodiak, just before they had climbed into the helicopter, and thought he seemed interesting. Ridge also radiated a fear and anxiety that Tori considered totally appropriate. No matter what he’d been told — or what any of them had been told — they couldn’t imagine what they had gotten themselves into. Ridge knew enough to be afraid of the unknown.