Sister Spy

by Laura Peyton Roberts

  Is it hungry?

  The weight in her buoyancy compensator pulled her gently to the bottom until one of her fin blades touched ground. With the exception of the fingers clenching her dive light, every part of her body had gone weak. She wanted to reach down and unstrap her knife, but her arm refused to move. She remained paralyzed on the bottom, shining a trembling light in the direction the shark had gone.

  If it's coming back, I at least want to see it. I at least want a chance to fight.

  But she still didn't reach for her dive knife. She couldn't help thinking that the moment she averted her eyes, the monster would charge back out of the darkness and snap her in half with one bite. Her chest heaved, wasting air, but she just couldn't make herself budge.

  I could go inside the ship. The thought was a ray of hope. I need to search it anyway. A shark's not going to follow me in there.

  Slowly, cautiously, she pushed up off the mud, barely kicking her feet. The moment she cleared the stern, she headed across the aft deck toward the back of the upper cabin, where she could make out the yawning black hole of an open doorway. She swam slowly toward the opening, every sense on alert.

  The rectangle of the doorway was tilted nearly horizontal by the position of the ship. Risking a burst of speed, she darted through it, immediately turning to face open water.

  The shark, if it was still out there, had not reappeared to chase her. She had made it. She was safe.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Sydney reached out a hand to steady herself against the doorway.

  Calm down, she told herself, taking more deep breaths. You need to be careful now.

  Diving in shipwrecks was always dangerous, and no one had been through this one first to remove the doors and hatches and clear the obstacles. There could be dangling cables, broken glass, jagged metal, dangerous gasses, or other hazards. If she became tangled up somehow, or lost, or if a door latched behind her, she could run out of air and drown. She let her feet sink gently, pulling her upright. One of her fins brushed an interior wall.

  Something slammed into her leg, then writhed away from it. Sydney screamed into her regulator, releasing a flurry of bubbles, as a moray eel lunged out of the darkness directly at her mask. The blunt-headed creature's mouth was open, revealing rows of needle-like teeth. Her dive light made mirrors of its bulbous eyes. Six inches from her face it changed direction and shot out the cabin door, disappearing into open water.

  Sydney choked and sputtered on the water she'd inhaled. The fact that the eel had been as afraid of her as she was of it did little to calm her down.

  Was it just cruising through, looking for dinner, or does it live in here? she wondered. If it lives here, am I going to find more of them?

  One thing was certain: She was going to be a lot more careful where she put her feet.

  Turning slowly, she faced the interior of the entry cabin and shined her light around, ready to begin her search. She seemed to be in some sort of navigation center. The wall in front of her contained a bank of instruments mounted at counter height, with a row of encrusted windows above and metal cabinets beneath. Removing her dive knife from its sheath, Sydney pried at the nearest cabinet, only to find it rusted shut.

  I should have brought a crowbar, she realized. And maybe some other tools.

  Abandoning the cabinets, she studied the instrument panel, then began fishing for items tumbled into the silty junction of what had once been the floor and a side wall, doing her best not to stir up the muck and destroy her visibility. She found the hardware from some wooden chairs, a pair of corroded binoculars, and something that might once have been rope—nothing that looked like a nuclear prototype or that could help her bash open a cupboard. She continued searching, going over every bit of the upper cabin, before slipping though a gangway and swimming into the heart of the ship.

  The ladder that led to the lower cabins was turned almost sideways now. At what would have been its base, a small galley hung over Sydney's head. Cupboard doors yawned open, the cupboard's contents having spilled some sixty years before. In the thick muck beneath her, Sydney made out the protruding shapes of pots and bottles. Reaching down into their midst, she plucked out a white coffee mug, its rim only slightly chipped. She imagined the man who had used it just going about his business, never suspecting until too late.

  Behind the gangway ladder was a closed metal door. Assuming it led to the engine compartment, Sydney decided to try her luck forward, in the passenger cabins. If Suler had been staying on board, the prototype seemed most likely to be there.

  Or else in some secret compartment I'll never find without hauling this hulk to the surface and cutting it up with a torch.

  Unfortunately, that wasn't how SD-6 did things. Her branch of the CIA didn't concern itself with missions that could be handled in the open.

  The doorway to the first cabin on the uphill side of the boat was open, its metal hinges intact, its wooden door disintegrated. Sydney drifted up into the tiny berth, shining her light around. Two narrow metal bunks were affixed to the wall, their mattresses long since rotted away. A narrow locker contained rusted hangers and the soles from several pairs of boots. Anything else that hadn't dissolved had fallen down through the open doorway, piling up with the muck against the opposite side of the central passage. Backing out of the room, Sydney pushed her hand down into the mud a few times, feeling for a stainless-steel case. The ultrafine sediment whirled up around her, clouding the water. She had just decided to move on to the other cabins when a casual glance at her pressure gauge stopped her cold.

  That can't be! she thought, stunned.

  She was down to her last fifteen minutes of air. She was also forty feet underwater, and even after she swam up to the shallows, the trip back to the beach would take longer than twenty minutes.

  Backing up in a panic, Sydney turned and kicked along the ladder into the upper cabin. She hesitated at the doorway, wondering if the shark was still cruising around outside, but there was no time left to wait and see. Mustering her courage, she bolted out into open water and swam to her scooter. Checking the GPS unit, she memorized the true, adjusted wreck coordinates. Then, steeling herself for the worst, she switched off her dive light.

  The scooter pulled her swiftly through the darkness. Sydney kept her angle low, climbing gradually to achieve maximum forward movement. She hadn't been deep enough long enough to worry about decompression, but she needed to conserve each precious second of air. She kept her body as still as possible, relying on the scooter, but her mind was in total chaos.

  How did I use up my air so fast?

  It didn't seem possible. The only thing she could think of was that the combination of fear and exertion had caused her to use her supply at a greatly accelerated rate.

  Or there's something wrong with the tank. Or the regulator. Or the gauge.

  There was always a risk with new equipment. But bringing her own from L.A. had been out of the question. Besides, she had checked everything herself.

  Sydney consulted her gauges; she was ten feet below the surface, with maybe ten minutes more of air. Her GPS unit put her fifteen minutes off the beach. If she had worn her snorkel, she could have cruised just under the surface with only its tube above water, but she had foolishly decided she didn't need one.

  She was going to have to surface for the last part of her journey. She didn't see any way around it.

  Two hundred yards off the beach, Sydney's air ran out. She took her last breath and held it, angling the scooter up toward the surface. She didn't have to swim. If she could just hold on for the next five or six minutes without passing out . . .

  She didn't make it. Fifty yards off the beach, she cut the scooter's power and broke the surface. She treaded water, refilling her lungs, then sank a couple of feet and began swimming toward the beach, pushing the scooter in front of her. At last she reached the shallows. Ditching the scooter on the bottom, she eased her head into the air.

  The night was dark, but after
the blackness underwater, she found she could see pretty well. The shoreline was sharp, especially the narrow strip in front of the mangroves, but the trees themselves were a bank of shadows. Sydney removed her fins and planted her feet on the muddy bottom. She had just begun to stand when a flash of movement caught her eye.

  Someone was hiding in the trees.

  She froze, then slowly lowered herself back into the water, her gaze fixed on the mangroves. A twig snapped near the edge of the grove.

  And then she saw it—the back of a blond head dashing away toward the road.

  Ashley!

  Sydney didn't know whether to give chase or stay where she was and hope she hadn't been recognized.

  But if Ashley doesn't know about me, what is she doing here?

  Forgetting about stealth, Sydney charged out of the water, shrugging off equipment as she ran. She was only halfway to the road when she heard an engine start. Increasing her pace to a sprint, she arrived just in time to see a car pull onto the pavement and roar off toward Honolulu—no lights, no license plate. Sydney couldn't even tell for sure what make the vehicle was.

  That's it, she thought, sick at heart. If my cover wasn't blown before, it's totally shattered now.

  8

  Sydney had to collect her diving gear before she could leave the harbor. Then she lost more precious time examining her rental car for bombs, bugs, and other signs of Ashley's presence. Finally, she called Wilson.

  “I think I'm in trouble,” she whispered, sinking low in the driver's seat. The car was stuffy, but she kept the windows up, paranoid about being overheard.

  “What kind of trouble?” Even at that early hour, Wilson's voice crackled intensely, as if he'd already downed two pots of coffee. “What's our status?”

  “I don't have the package.”

  “Why not?”

  “I verified your survey. But as far as the item of interest goes . . . I had some technical problems.”

  “So is it there or not?”

  “I don't know.”

  Wilson sighed impatiently.

  “It gets worse,” she told him. “I think my cover's blown.”

  “You think?”

  “It's blown,” she admitted miserably. “This has been the worst night ever! First, we had to go on this stupid dinner cruise, and I thought Francie—”

  “Do I have time for this?” he interrupted harshly. “Who ID'ed you?”

  “Her name is Ashley Evans. She's in the sorority.”

  “Who does she work for?”

  “I don't know.”

  “What the hell do you know?” he exploded. “I send you out to complete a mission, and so far all you're doing is whining.”

  Sydney sucked in her breath, wounded.

  “I don't even know why you're calling,” he said. “If this Ashley is a threat, you know what you have to do.”

  She hesitated.

  “Right?” He sounded two seconds short of blowing a vein.

  “Right,” she agreed quickly. “I'll take care of it.”

  Wilson hung up. Sydney tossed the phone into the passenger seat and backed the car out of the bushes, tears stinging her eyes. She had thought of Wilson as a second father—tough, but kind. There had been nothing kind about that phone call.

  All I wanted was advice, she thought, pulling onto the road without checking for traffic. I didn't need him to go off on me.

  And how, exactly, did he expect her to deal with Ashley? She had said she'd take care of it, but she didn't have the first clue what that entailed.

  Except that he'd made it sound kind of ominous.

  He can't be suggesting I hurt her.

  Can he?

  For a moment, Sydney forgot to steer. Her wheels drifted over a row of reflector bumps, the sudden thumping snapping her back to her senses.

  Of course not! He probably meant I should keep an eye on Ashley. Find out who she works for.

  There was only one problem with that plan.

  First she had to find Ashley.

  There was no sign of Ashley in the hotel lobby. There was no sign of anyone, except a single yawning front-desk clerk. The lack of activity was hardly surprising at that hour; after all she had been through, it was a miracle Sydney was still awake. Only adrenaline was keeping her going—but she was still buzzing with that.

  She had driven through Chinatown on her way back, hoping to find Ashley at the warehouse. No one had been there, though, and after staking it out a few minutes, Sydney had decided to check the hotel. She had parked her rental car in a different garage—just in case—and walked nearly a mile to the Waikiki Princess. Now she hesitated in the lobby, wondering whether she should approach the clerk about Ashley's whereabouts. Would he know if she was in her room?

  She had begun to walk toward the desk when a sudden noise behind her made her whirl around.

  “Surprise!” Noah cried, grinning from ear to ear.

  Tired, scared, and frustrated, Sydney lashed out without thinking. “You have got to stop sneaking up on me! A guy could get killed that way.”

  Noah's smile dimmed. “I'll take my chances.”

  “I don't like your odds. What are you doing here, anyway?”

  He was wearing red shorts, flip-flops, and the loudest flowered shirt on Oahu. If his cover was the world's most color-blind tourist, he had it totally nailed.

  “I thought you'd be happy to see me,” he said. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  She stared, trying to understand.

  “Did Wilson send you? Because if he did I'll—”

  “Maybe we can talk outside,” Noah interrupted.

  Grabbing her by the arm, he propelled her through the open-air lobby, out onto the first terrace.

  “Are you crazy?” he whispered. “Dropping names in public?” Stars winked overhead and a slight breeze rustled the palms, but neither Noah nor Sydney noticed the romantic setting. “What's the matter with you?”

  “I'm having a bad night.”

  “Thanks for making it mutual.”

  His words drew her up short, making her feel guilty on top of everything else.

  “I'm sorry, all right? You just couldn't have caught me at a worse time.”

  Noah looked offended. “It didn't sound like a bad time on the phone this afternoon.”

  “Things were different then!” Even she could hear the shrewish edge to her voice. She took a slow, deep breath. “Listen, do you want to go sit by the swimming pool?”

  “Do you?”

  The boyish smile had vanished, replaced by his usual cautious expression. She had caused that, she knew, but she was too tired to repair the damage. Leading the way down to the glowing pool, she selected a double lounge chair at the farthest edge of the deck. There, sitting next to Noah in the shadow of the immaculate landscaping, she tried to explain.

  “My mission's in the toilet,” she said, twisting around to see his face. “But since you're here, I assume you know that.”

  “Sydney, I came to see you. I don't even know what your mission is.”

  “You . . . What?”

  “I took some personal time. After we talked on the phone, I started thinking about how nice a few days in the islands would be, and how maybe you and I could spend some time together. But if your mission is in trouble . . . What's going on?”

  “It's nothing. You really came to see me?”

  He shrugged. “When I devised that brilliant plan, it seemed like a good idea. It could have been those beers I had with lunch.”

  “No. It's sweet.” She reached to touch his knee, then chickened out.

  “So what's the story here? What's the problem with your mission?”

  “It's nothing,” she lied again, not wanting to look like a loser. “I'll take care of it.”

  “But if you thought Wilson sent me . . . Does he know there's a snag?”

  “Yes. He knows all about it,” she said tensely.

  “And what did he say to do?”

  “He said to hand
le it, and I will. What ever happened to ‘just here to see Sydney'?”

  “Did it occur to you that I might be able to help?”

  “I don't need any help, Noah.”

  That was the biggest lie of all. She'd have jumped on the offer of assistance from anyone else in SD-6. She just couldn't stand to fail in front of him.

  “Okay,” he said coolly. “If you don't want to trust me, that's your call.”

  “It's not that I don't trust you.”

  “No, forget it.” He was way more offended than necessary. “Forgive me for even asking.”

  “Don't be like that.”

  “Like what? How am I being, Sydney?”

  “The same as always!” she said, exasperated. “It's all about the mission with you. It's always about the mission. It's only about the mission.”

  “Is that so?” His voice was a mile away. “If that's how you feel, then maybe I'd better leave.”

  Tears welled up to her lashes. The lump in her throat hurt so much she could barely breathe. She nodded once, then closed her eyes.

  “Maybe you'd better,” she said.

  The chair rebounded as Noah stood up. There were no good-byes, no parting words, only the sound of his flip-flops retreating across the concrete.

  She listened until she was sure he had gone.

  Then she finally let herself cry.

  This has been the worst night of my life!

  In the past few hours, she'd blown her mission, her cover, and any chance she'd ever have with Noah.

  Wilson was mad at her.

  Ashley was in hiding somewhere, probably trying to figure out how to kill her.

  Even Francie, her supposed best friend, was down on her for jumping off that stupid boat.

  And who cares if she wasn't actually in the water? Hasn't she ever heard of gratitude?

  Sydney choked back a long, shuddering sob. Francie would come around eventually. But Noah . . .

  Is he ever going to speak to me again?

  Hunched over on the hotel lounge chair, tears running down her face, Sydney felt completely, utterly abandoned. With SD-6, college, and now AKX, she had never had more people in her life.