by Jude Watson
“Right. And all the mermaids will drown, and the unicorns will save them. Kid, I don’t have time for this. I run a billion-dollar operation, do you understand? You’re in my way, and you know too much. All of you, kneel down. In a line, facing away from me. Hands on top of your heads.”
He’s going to execute us, one by one.
Ian could taste his own fear, acrid in his mouth. He felt suddenly light-headed. Yet at the same time everything was so clear. Possibilities whipped through his head at lightning speed. He saw pitfalls and dangers and outcomes. None of them were good.
He could also feel his friends behind him, breathing, scared, ready. The unsteady pitch of the deck underneath his feet. The fog leaving droplets on his cheeks. Life was so big and so close, it seemed impossible that this could be happening.
Amy stood slightly behind him, muscles coiled, waiting for an opening. He knew she was ready to strike.
Ham was to his left. Dan’s eyes were darting from the gun to the distance between him and Atlas. They were each ready to rush the guy with the gun.
Which was exactly what could get them all killed.
Ian had never been so afraid in his life. But he had just gone through every possibility in this scenario and rejected them all.
Except for one.
Atlas didn’t know who he was dealing with. Not just kids, but trained, strong attackers. Amy was a black belt, and Hamilton could probably bench-press a car to protect his friends. Dan was fearless and quick. If Atlas killed Ian, that would give the others enough time to rush him, get the gun. They’d only have a second, maybe two, but that was all they needed, and Atlas would never expect kids to be that fast.
“I’m not kneeling down,” he said.
Amy drew in a sharp breath.
“No, Ian,” she breathed behind him. She knew what he was thinking.
He wasn’t the self-sacrificing sort, but Atlas had placed him in that position.
Atlas swung the gun toward Ian’s temple.
“Fine,” he said. “You first.”
He stared into Atlas’s eyes. He saw no compassion, no mercy. Just a willingness to get the job done.
Behind Atlas’s head, a freighter moved toward the harbor. Their boat was angled parallel. That meant the wake would hit them broadside.
Which would give him one last chance. If he could stall.
“Before you do, you should listen,” Ian said. “We have absolute evidence that the ship is rigged to explode. I have it right on my phone. Let me show you. If you don’t look, you’ll regret it.”
“I never regret anything,” Atlas said. “And if the ship blows, no one can connect me with it.”
“We can,” Amy said.
“But you’ll be dead, kid,” Atlas said. He flourished the gun. “Didn’t you get the memo?”
The wave hit. Ian had watched it come over Atlas’s shoulder, rolling across the dark water. He was braced and ready. The boat lifted and pitched, and Atlas staggered.
It was all they needed.
Ian slammed into Atlas, aiming his hand in a lethal chop to the man’s throat. Meanwhile, Amy went in close with a roundhouse kick right at Atlas’s wrist. Ian could have sworn he heard the crack of bone, and Atlas howled. The gun went skittering on the deck and Dan dove for it. Hamilton crashed into a tottering Atlas with the full force of his body.
Dan threw the gun overboard. Atlas struggled to get clear of Hamilton. He broke free and barreled down the steps into the cabin. Ian realized he must have another weapon down there.
“Let’s go!” Ian shouted. He hit the winch that lowered the dinghy down and flipped the ladder over the side. “Move!”
Amy climbed down the ladder and threw herself in. Dan followed. “Ham, come on!” Ian shouted. He wouldn’t leave this deck until Ham was safely in the dinghy.
Ham had one foot over the railing as Atlas charged back up to the deck, holding a gun.
The crack of the gun exploded over Ian’s head as Ham scooped up the anchor and threw it. It connected with Atlas’s head, and he collapsed onto the deck with a clunk.
Ham vaulted off the railing and into the dinghy. Ian was right behind him.
“NOW!” Ian shouted, and with a mighty heave, Hamilton pushed them off.
The current drove them out, skimming over the chop. Amy shipped the oars and began to row as hard as she could. The fog wrapped around them.
“We made it,” Ian said.
The blast of a ship’s horn made them jump.
“We’re in the middle of a shipping channel with fog rolling in and a storm coming,” Dan said through chattering teeth. “And the current is pulling us out into the North Atlantic. But you can’t have everything.”
“We all did splendidly back there,” Ian said. “Now let’s get ourselves to shore. Amy, I have the greatest confidence in your muscles, but perhaps Hamilton should row.”
“Which direction?” Hamilton asked.
Ian looked around. He could see nothing. No lights, no buoys, no stars. The fog was so thick now it obscured every landmark. They could no longer distinguish the sea from the sky. It was all gray. Thick, impenetrable gray, with the cold black sea all around them and darkness falling.
“That is indeed the question,” he said.
Which was exactly when a loud blast from a ship’s horn reverberated across the water. Ian felt it as pressure in his ears and chest. Now they could feel the vibration of the great powerful engines.
The massive gray ship emerged from the fog straight at them.
“There it is!” Dan shouted as another earsplitting blast ripped through the air. “Ham! ROW!”
“Hang on!” Ian shouted.
The gray mass looked more like a building than a ship, or a gigantic tsunami made of metal. It bore straight at them.
Terror blasted through Amy as the wall of the ship headed for them, tons of steel and mighty power.
Hamilton’s arms moved like pistons, each stroke going deep in the water, pulling them away from the ship’s path. He kept them slicing through the water against incredible odds, just from the power of his arms and sheer will. The dinghy moved, incredibly slowly it seemed to Amy, but it moved, scudding across the water. They could be pulling out to sea instead of toward land but it didn’t matter, they had to get away from the massive ship, out of the shipping lanes, anywhere but where they were and with what could happen. She pictured the ship slicing into them, the boat splintering, their bodies tossed into the cold sea….
We’ve got to make it, we’ve got to …
Horn blasting, fog swirling, Ham’s desperate panting, his lungs on fire …
They cleared it by only yards.
Amy felt the immensity of the ship as the whole of it revealed itself as it slid past.
“Get ready for the wake!” Ham cried. “It could swamp us! We’ve got to head into it!”
A wall of water was coming at them. The boat heaved up, up, up, then slammed down. Water cascaded into the boat. They all screamed in terror as another wave hit.
“Hang on!” Ham howled, wiping water out of his eyes.
They hung on as the boat heaved and quivered and the water roiled around them. Amy was afraid the boat would break apart.
Then there was nothing but gray water and fog, and the slippery edge of the boat against her fingers. They rocked on midsize waves. The cold water was up to their ankles.
“Dan, Amy, start bailing,” Ian said in a clipped tone that rang with desperation. “Dan, use your hands. Amy, take this.” Ian took off his boot and handed it to her.
“You’ll freeze!”
“Better than drowning.” Ian took off his other boot.
Hamilton started to row again. “At least we know the ship is heading for the harbor.”
“But we’re still in the shipping lane!” Amy said. “We have to go right or left.”
“Wait, I have one piece of good news.” Dan’s voice sliced through the gloom. “I grabbed a phone on the way out.” He held up a phone.
&nbs
p; “Text Cara and see if she can get our position,” Ian said.
“And is there a flashlight app on that?” Amy asked. “We can use the strobe.”
Even though there was no longer a wake, the seas were choppy. The sleeting rain dripped down their necks, and soon they were all shaking with cold. Occasionally, a wave would splash over the edge of the dinghy. It was a small boat built for trips from the pier to a mooring. Not for this. Not for the choppy waters of an outer harbor. If they got swept out to sea …
Don’t think about it. Concentrate on bailing. On rowing.
“Did Cara answer us?” Amy asked Dan.
Dan paused in his bailing to check the phone. “She’s pinpointed our position!” He handed the phone to Ian.
Amy rubbed her hands together. She felt frozen and scared. They were bailing as fast as they could, but it didn’t feel as though they were making a difference.
“We’re not going to make it unless you BELIEVE it!” Ham roared as he rowed. “There is no such thing as ‘can’t’ in the Holt universe!”
“Cara’s given me compass headings.” Ian accessed the app. “Ten degrees to the right, Ham. Steer us home!”
With Ian directing and bailing, they made slow progress. Ian squinted off to his right. “I think I see a light!” he shouted. “Look!”
Amy squinted. The fog was shredding into patchy areas. It lay more thickly on the water, but she was just beginning to see a shape.
“It’s land!” she cried. “I see lights! I see them! That way!”
From across the dark water a light blinked three times.
“Look!” Dan shouted. He engaged the strobe on the phone and signaled back, holding the phone high. After a moment the lights blinked three times again.
“Woo-hoo!” Ham screamed. “All right, you landlubbers, we’re going to BEACH THIS THING!”
When they heard the dinghy scrape over the rocks, they crawled out. They collapsed on a rocky beach.
“I thought we were done for,” Amy said, her mouth against a slimy rock. After a few seconds she raised her head. “I hear … traffic. What a beautiful sound!”
She turned and looked at Dan. He appeared pale, exhausted, his hands gripping the sand.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I got us back into this.”
Dan struggled to sit up, his eyes on Ian and Hamilton as they stumbled up the beach toward a parking lot.
“C’mon, guys!” Hamilton called.
Lights flashed as a car door opened, and Cara and Jonah tumbled out. Cara hurtled herself at Ian and hugged him. Jonah clapped his arms around Hamilton.
“Truth?” Dan asked. “We both know we couldn’t live with ourselves if we turned our backs on them.”
He rose and put his hand out to help Amy. She put her icy hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet. She was startled at his power. When had her baby brother become as tall as she was? When had he developed this wiry strength?
“After this —” she started, but he interrupted.
“There is no after this,” he said. “There’s only now. There’s only stopping it.”
Amy forgot, sometimes, that her jokey brother had a way of seeing the world in terms of what was essential. She had a tendency to overcomplicate things. She relied on him for how he could lay things out, sum it all up in a simple truth.
There was only now. There was only stopping this. Yes.
“We have to get it back,” she said. “All of it. Grace’s house, the family.”
Dan’s face tightened. There had been times when Amy had been afraid of that look. Afraid that Dan was too young to look so hard.
Now she had to admit how much she relied on his toughness.
“Oh, we’ll get it back,” Dan said, his eyes glittering. “That’s a promise.”
Rain drummed against the windshield of the rental car. Cara kept the motor running. She’d been blasting the heat, so that the car was toasty warm. It calmed their shivering, but not their nerves.
“The ship must be coming into port now,” Ian said. “Halifax could blow sky-high.”
“So. Which way should I go?” Cara asked, her hands on the wheel.
Nobody said what they all were surely thinking. If they were too late, shouldn’t they be leaving? Should she head to the airport?
A sudden gust of wind shook the car. Amy glanced from one pale face to another. She knew that they all felt as she did. They couldn’t leave the city. Not even if there was just a minuscule chance to save it.
“We need to go to the police,” Cara said. “Even if nobody believes us.”
“It could be the only option left,” Amy agreed quietly.
“But the Outcast said no outsiders,” Dan pointed out.
Nobody said anything for a long minute. They were trapped.
“As Dan would say, I blew it,” Ian said. “I overplayed my hand. I threatened Atlas, and we all came close to getting shot.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, bro,” Jonah said. “Focus on the problem.”
“You didn’t leave that boat until you knew we were all safe,” Amy said to Ian. “That’s leadership. You were willing to be killed to save us.”
“What?” Cara asked. She whipped around to look at Ian in the backseat. “What did you do?”
“He basically walked right up to a guy with a gun and said, ‘Shoot me first,’” Hamilton said. “Bravest thing I’d ever seen, dude.”
“Or the stupidest!” Cara exclaimed.
“I know I often fall into the ‘stupid’ category with you, Cara,” Ian said, his face flushing. “But in this case, it was necessary.”
Amy almost groaned aloud. No, Ian! Cara was trying to let you know she cares about you! He could be so clueless when it came to human emotion!
“Now,” Ian continued, “I agree that we need to bring in the authorities. I just don’t think we’re going to get far walking into a police station. They won’t believe us, and it will take more time than we’ve got to establish that we’re not crazy pranksters. We’re not dealing with days anymore. We could be dealing with minutes. This storm has pushed up the timeline. The ship is in port. We have to do something. But who’s going to believe a bunch of kids?”
“That question seems to come up a depressing amount when you’re a Cahill,” Dan agreed.
Jonah suddenly started to wiggle in his seat, trying to get his fingers down into the front pocket of his jeans. He fished out a business card and held it up. “I have a way. Head for the pier.”
It took all of Jonah’s persuasiveness and star power to get Bill Hannigan to agree to meet them. It was a busy night at the port, and Mr. Hannigan was in charge of making sure every ship met its berth safely. Dressed in a slicker and hard hat, he checked his watch impatiently as Jonah and the others arrived.
They huddled against the rain as Mr. Hannigan listened to Jonah’s explanation of how he’d been researching at a pier and overheard the information about setting off an explosion on the Aurora.
Hannigan checked the manifest. “It’s refrigerator parts from Suriname,” he said. “Pipes, liners, coils.”
“But the ship’s captain was arrested three years ago for illegal weapons trafficking,” Amy said, showing him the article on her tablet. “He works for James Atlas.”
“And I heard the guy mention his name,” Jonah said.
“I know who Atlas is,” Mr. Hannigan said with a deep frown. He looked out at the pier, where the Aurora was docked. “Haven’t cleared the ship yet. The crew is still aboard.”
“I guarantee you, Mr. Hannigan,” Jonah said. “Something funky and explosive is on that boat.”
“Ship,” Mr. Hannigan corrected, but his gaze was hard as he stared at the Aurora.
“What are you going to do, sir?” Ian asked. “There really isn’t any time to waste.”
“The thing is,” Mr. Hannigan said, “doing my job is as much about instincts as your job is, Jonah.” He spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Security, I have a level five alert
. Yes, you heard me correctly. Meet me on the deck of the Aurora. Now.”
They found Atlas with the captain in the wheelhouse. Atlas wore a bloody bandage on his head and an expression of deadly rage when he saw Ian, Amy, Dan, and the others walk in with Mr. Hannigan.
“Bump your head, Atlas?” Mr. Hannigan asked.
“Do I know you?” Atlas said coolly.
“You’re about to.”
Atlas flicked his gaze to the group. “You’re listening to children’s stories?”
“None of your business.” He turned to his two security officers. “Detain them,” he said curtly, and suddenly the executive in the gray suit they’d met the day before turned into an action hero. He began to snap orders, ignoring the captain’s bluster and Atlas’s threats.
“This is legitimate cargo, and you are wasting everyone’s time,” Atlas said. “You’ll be sorry you did this.” He said the words lightly. He was a man who didn’t need to threaten. Just his presence there was enough.
Atlas took a step toward Hannigan, just a half step. His voice was low. “Moving cargo is what I do. Delays cost me. And I’d pay a great deal to avoid it. That’s why I have friends in high places.”
A bribe. A threat.
Amy felt the charge between the two men. What sickened her was that of the two of them, Atlas was far more powerful. He had billions of dollars behind him. Hannigan was a good man in a tough job.
She’d seen a whole lot of injustice in the world in the past few years. People who suffered, people who died. People who got power and didn’t deserve it. People who got pushed around. Life isn’t fair, her math teacher Mr. Alessi used to say when they’d moaned about a surprise quiz. How could she, that twelve-year-old Amy sitting in class, worried about a quiz, have known how deeply true that was?
“That sounded like you are bribing a port official,” Hannigan said. He spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Search every corner of this ship.”
Atlas looked at Amy. “You’re dead, you know,” he told her. He said it as though they were having a conversation. “I don’t care if you’re a kid.”
She gave him a cool glance. “I don’t care if you’re a criminal. Look me up when you get out of jail.”
