Dark Lies (DARC Ops Book 6)

by Jamie Garrett

  An hour later, she was aboard, walking the narrow hallway in the lower commons level. It was lit with a hard antiseptic florescent light that would remain that way for all twenty-four hours of the day. Beneath her was a short and stained carpet that almost turned her stomach to walk on—even with shoes on. Everywhere on the walls were scuff marks. It was definitely not a vacationer’s scene, but an area of complete and utter utility. There was nothing romantic, either, about the stale smell of dirty mop water that seemed to line the place. No, it wasn’t a fantasy getaway. It was just a getaway, maybe Macy’s if she could somehow make it out by the skin of her teeth.

  There would be no romance inside the rooms, either. Rows of gray metal bunkbeds, each lined with a bare Naugahyde mattress. The very look of it conveyed a sense of hardness, of discomfort. The type of bed one might see in a prison.

  There was no Tucker yet, either. Macy hadn’t seen him since boarding, when she was instructed to the very important task of “settling in”—as if she wasn’t a CIA-trained warrior, but just a woman. At worst, a homemaker, someone to oversee the important task of fluffing pillows and making sure the Naugahyde slabs had been covered with the right blankets.

  She sat on one of the hard mattresses, the material making a squelching sound with each subtle movement. What other tasks could she do? Something more suitable to her skill set, something like saving their asses and not sitting alone in this room. But maybe it was the end of that, the end of the line for that kind of excitement. And maybe, for her, it was for good.

  They were boarding the ship, “settling in.” What more could she do now? What more did she even really want to do besides just hang out like a stowaway?

  She could definitely resort to sleeping. Perhaps she’d make that her new hobby. The ship was large enough to not rock very much. And the mattress, while prison-like, wasn’t the worst sleeping arrangement she’d come across. It was definitely better than a pile of straw. The room, better than a cow-dung hut set next to a landfill. If everything went according to plan, she would soon be back amidst the Western luxuriousness of the United States. The creature comforts she had grown independence from. But she would also be amidst the source of so much pain, the government and the thugs themselves.

  A set of ominous-sounding boot steps approached down the hall. She waited, still sitting on the bed, as Tucker entered with a large duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He inspected the beds, and then fixed his gaze to hers. He shrugged and said, “Hi.”

  Inside the bag were several sheets and blankets. He pulled them out almost like a magic trick. Apparently, he’d taken it upon himself to do some of the homemaking. “Compliments of the captain,” he said, turning the bag over and emptying everything out onto the lower bunk across from her.

  “So,” she said. “Got your sea legs ready?”

  “Legs I’m fine with. It’s my stomach I’m worried about.”

  “Me too,” Macy said. “I’m always the first to get seasick. So far so good, though.”

  “Well, we’re still anchored at port.”

  “So?”

  He laughed. “You’re right. Let’s stay optimistic.”

  Macy got up from her bunk, stretched her arms, her back.

  “You’ll have to find something to keep you busy,” he said. “Physically, so you can be tired enough to sleep.”

  She knew exactly how she’d like to wear herself out. Multiple images ran through her mind, but she didn’t dare say a single one out loud. She didn’t have the heart to even joke, let alone flirt with him. Maybe she’d find someone else aboard, some other hunky crew mate. A fling. A raw and muscled deck hand she could keep warm with, and whom she could flaunt in front of Tucker. That plan lasted for all of three seconds, until Tucker flaunted that smile of his, triceps flexing as he pushed off the bed and moved toward the door, waving to it. “Ladies first,” he said.

  Why did it have to be him? The man who set her core fluttering and her heart pulsing with guilt at the same time.

  “Where to?”

  “I’ve got something to show you.”

  Macy followed him out of the room. She didn’t spare one thought to what he wanted to show her. No, she wanted to know what he was hiding. Hiding behind that smile.

  What made him so confident?

  As they approached the door at the end of the hall, the smell of ocean water grew even stronger. He guided her up the stairwell and through two more doors, and then out into the open air on the main deck.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “They’re done.”

  The cranes had all moved away, the shipping containers stacked up high in a giant multicolored cube.

  “We’re all loaded up,” he said.

  “When do we leave?”

  “Now.”

  Static-filled squawking sounded over Tucker’s radio, attached to his hip. He reached for it and held it to his ear for a moment before saying into it, “Tucker and Macy aboard.” And then he looked at her and said, off-radio, “Right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m aboard.”

  What other option did she have?

  “It’ll be good,” Tucker said. “Smooth sailing from here on out.”

  “You better hope so, for that stomach of yours.”

  There was more radio squawking, and then Macy felt a rumble underneath her as the massive diesel engines vibrated to life. Everything went quiet for a moment as the ship inched away from the slip, rocking gently, the silence broken up by one long blast of a foghorn.

  And that was it. No turning back now.

  “You excited?” Tucker said.

  Oddly, she wasn’t. She had expected to be, at least a little, but she couldn’t shake a dull, deadened feeling, like her body had lost all circulation. A confusion, too, as if she’d been knocked in the head.

  “You don’t look very excited,” Tucker said after she mumbled the opposite.

  “Maybe I’m scared, then,” Macy said.

  He nodded. “I can understand that.”

  She felt the vibration again, the engines turning back over. The ship was moving quicker now, away from the port. She took a long, deep breath of the moist, salty air. If anything, it felt nice to be away from the mess that was Africa, away from the death. But still, even away from all that, there was fear.

  “Macy,” Tucker said. “No matter what . . . no matter what happens with us, I mean, I’m there for you. I’ve got your six. Okay?”

  “I know,” she said, feeling it, knowing it. She wanted to reach out to him, but instead she stayed clutched against the railing. “I’m there for you, too. Here for you.”

  It might have been the rocking motion, but Macy could have sworn Tucker’s head moved in, and lower, closer to hers, before a loud blast of the foghorn made him jump back, blank-faced and scared. He looked embarrassed after that, standing straight up, away from her. A moment later, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, those long fingers coursing through. “Anyway,” he said. “They’ll probably want to meet with us.”

  Macy couldn’t hold back an “Ugh . . .” like she’d been punched in the gut. She was getting a little sick of the DARC Ops meetings. It had been a very long time since she’d been accountable to anyone but herself. It was going to take awhile to get used to how the world worked again.

  “I know,” Tucker said. “I know.”

  She looked across to the ever-shrinking coastline, trying to get her head on right for the meeting. Perhaps the last of its kind until she could properly shut down and hide away from everyone, like a true castaway.

  “Hey,” he said, “I thought you wanted to be involved. You wanted to do something”

  “You’re right. Let’s do something.”

  29

  Tucker

  He’d watched her all through the meeting, noting the times when her attention waned and her eyes would drift sleepily to her phone. Noting, despite it all, how oddly fresh she looked under the greenish-yellow lights of the space they
’d repurposed as a war room of sorts. Macy looked healthy, almost happy. Or was it just that he’d felt so sick that anything aside from nausea looked out of place?

  “Right, Tucker?”

  He looked back at Jasper, through a cloud. He’d barely heard his name, and he could hardly see the man’s face. Jasper sat on the other side of the room, his body in far less light than Macy. Tucker’s eyes, having gotten used to that light, struggled to see anything else. Crap. He’d been staring at her for the entire meeting. Had anyone else noticed? They’d have to just about be blind not to at this point, and the DARC guys were no idiots. Apparently, they were also happy to let him lose his mind over Macy. His emotions were almost entirely wrapped up with her. Unfinished business, sexual or otherwise, had confounded him.

  Pay attention.

  Answer, Jasper.

  “Right,” Tucker said, guessing at the question. Something about sea pirates. “It’s a clear and present danger.”

  Jasper was at the front of the small navigation room, pacing in front of a group of mostly DARC Ops men and associates from the ocean freighter. Twelve men, some of them hired guns. Perhaps the next wave of recruits for Jackson’s ever-expanding army. Little missions like these, out of country, were opportunities for testing the waters. Especially in foreign waters.

  “These pirates can come heavily armed,” Jasper said. “In numbers, in waves and with a determination that can only be neutralized with an impressive show of force. That’s what it takes to repel them: overwhelming firepower. You hit them early, and you hit them hard.”

  Tucker appreciated the sentiment. He also enjoyed the pep talk. Compared to the first one he’d heard from Jasper, back in their hotel in Johannesburg, this one sounded a little more hard core. It sounded like the words of a man who’d recently been through some shit. And because of that, Tucker found it far more palatable. It even motivated him. He, like Jasper, and especially like Macy, was tired of being shot at by assassins or pirates. Despite his better judgment, that part of his reptile brain looked forward to a confrontation. A fun firefight on the high seas. It was something he’d always read about in history books, not exactly something he thought he’d ever actually do.

  “How are you with heavy arms, Macy?” Jasper asked.

  “Sorry, what?” She jolted upright in her seat.

  “What’s your biggest caliber?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . I’ve spent some time with an M60.”

  Jasper’s mouth hung open, closing only to repeat the word, “M60?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Do you consider that big?”

  He laughed. “Anyway, I don’t think we’ll have you posted anywhere. But if push comes to shove and we need some more arms, can we use yours?”

  “Of course. What else would I do? Read a book?”

  “We’ll have you get started on the nest training tomorrow. Tucker? You’ll take care of that?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking at Macy. “That okay with you?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  She smiled at him, a polite smile that one might share with a casual acquaintance. It was becoming clear to Tucker that if he was ever going to get back to the relationship he thought they’d been building before his monumental fuckup, then he was going to have to take a risk. Jump in with both feet, do something else that was also probably stupid, to break the tension once and for all. The idea of training her, in any capacity, was enough to get his heart thumping a little harder. He couldn’t spend another moment pretending to just be her friend. He wanted more. So much more.

  But did she? Would she ever?

  After another reminder from Jasper for everyone to wear their radios, and to do so at all times, the first meeting was adjourned. Everyone stood up and shuffled away, like they’d been on the ship for months. From the chatter, most everyone was tired and desperately wanted to hit the bunkbeds below—Naugahyde or not. But Tucker and Macy had one last requirement before they could have some “off time.” He had to show Macy to her secret accommodations, and he would have to do it without trying anything too crazy with her.

  “Just think of it as a cruise ship,” Tucker said, holding the door for her to the outside. “Like an ocean liner.”

  “Without alcohol,” she said, play frowning.

  “I bet the deck mates have some,” Tucker said. “Probably some heavier stuff, too.”

  “How about Dramamine? Think they have that?”

  “You’re feeling seasick already?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me too, but . . .”

  “I’m not sure what it is,” Macy said. “I’m just feeling . . . weak.”

  She walked across the deck, her hand skimming along the rail. The wind blew hard against her face and she blinked against it.

  “You don’t look weak,” Tucker said.

  “You don’t look like a jerk.”

  He had to check her expression after that one. She’d said it too matter-of-factly, her face too muted until a hard shove into Tucker’s shoulder gave her away. Her smile gave it away, too.

  “I’m not a jerk,” he finally said, acknowledging immediately that it sounded childish.

  “Of course not.” She stopped alongside the railing, looking out toward a setting sun. He saw it first in her eyes, the golden red reflection. Her skin glowed with it. When he turned his head to look at the sunset directly, it was almost subdued in comparison to her beauty.

  “Are you really showing me to my shipping container?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? Of course.”

  Macy was looking down now. Far below, something was floating in the water. He peered over the edge, at a piece of metal floating by. A bicycle?

  “Alright, come on,” Tucker said. “Time to check out your suite.” She followed him down onto the main storage deck, both of them walking along a narrow trail of non-slip tape as they walked between the two mountains of storage containers.

  “I wonder what’s in these,” she said, tilting her head way back to see the tops of the multicolored mountains. “Besides enriched uranium.”

  Tucker quickly shushed her. But she just turned at him and smiled. “Who are you afraid of?”

  He wasn’t sure, himself.

  Macy grinned, knocking on the metal side of one of the metal shipping containers. It sounded hollow. Suddenly, it seemed little frightening to think of Macy being alone in one of them. But she was still smiling, knocking against the metal again and whispering into it, “Hello? Anyone in there?”

  “What are you doing?” Tucker asked. “Looking for a neighbor?”

  Macy turned away from it, her expression suddenly grave. “Is it true that they pack hundreds of people in these things in China?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s kinda creepy,” she said, walking away from the container, her smile fading.

  He kept moving. Macy was obviously feeling a little punchy. He couldn’t blame her in the slightest, but maybe finally getting settled might help calm whatever storm was going through her mind. There was no way he was getting any peace any time soon, but he could do that for her. On top of that, he hadn’t seen her room yet, either, and he was eager to make sure it was safe, and now, that there wasn’t anything “creepy” about it. He’d heard that it was “furnished” somehow. What had they managed to throw together so quickly? A bed with a bucket next to it? It didn’t matter that much, he supposed. She wouldn’t be spending much more than a few hours inside.

  “I’ll have breathing holes, right?” She said. She’d moved ahead of him during his musings, and Tucker stepped quickly to catch up. “Someone poked those in the top, like for a jar of bugs?”

  “The containers aren’t airtight.”

  “So that means it’ll sink if it falls off the side of the ship?”

  “Alright,” he said. “Enough catastrophizing.”

  “Sorry,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve just learned to always expect the worst.”

&n
bsp; “No kidding.” He came to a stop at her container, spun around, and looked her over. He wanted to ask her if Jasper had talked to her about hacking into her phone, to ask if she was still mad at him. Instead, he reached over and pressed his hand into the metal side of the container, where the shape of a door suddenly appeared. That was the trick, to press it in and let the door swing out. “Voila,” Tucker said, pointing to the magic trick he’d just performed. “We had them cut a door into it and rig it up. It’s seamless if you don’t look too closely.” He held the door open wider, his eyes still on her face, studying her reaction to the proposed room.

  “Umm . . .” She laughed nervously.

  “What do you think?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Step inside.”

  Macy looked back to him. “You first.”

  “What?”

  “You go first?”

  Did she really think that he’d close the door on her and lock her in? At this point, he couldn’t be sure how real her reactions were, and how much was stress finally catching up with her. Either way, he’d do anything to help her trust him again. He walked in first. “Come on,” he said, walking further in, waving her on. “There’s no light, so you’ll have to use a flashlight, or your phone.”

  Macy didn’t use either. The space remained dark, except for the dim rays of an orange sunset reflecting in from the other containers. It reminded him of the truck, how she looked there, the ephemeral glow of her outline as she walked in.

  “I can’t see,” she said.

  His hand went out and touched the fabric of her shirt, and then her arm, Tucker’s fingers wrapping around and guiding her close. She felt loose in his grasp, cooperative.

  “Where are you taking me?” she said, her voice low.

  His feet backed up into the soft edge of her bed, almost tripping him. He was still holding her hand.

  When she let go, Tucker sat on the mattress. He patted the bed with his palm. Would she sit next to him?