Targets Entangled (22 page)

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D
aegan had taken
lunch to Ferrin and after having made sure she was okay, he made his way back to the team ready room. She had mentioned the rumor regarding Chief Allen and Tami, but Starr had already checked into the matter. The findings were that nothing unethical had occurred. It was another dead end. He wasn’t buying that Tami’s murder had been a separate incident from the others either. He’d considered it, but then the facts didn’t add up. He was surprised to find Starr alone at the table, going over some files.

“Where is everyone?” Daegan asked, walking over to the small refrigerator that housed some bottles of water and a few of the team’s favorite sports drinks.

“They went to the galley for lunch, but they should be back in a few minutes,” Starr said, not looking up from what she was reading. She was tapping a pen against the papers in agitation. “I can’t find shit. Whatever it is, it isn’t here in the records. As for who had access to unlock the radio room, Chief Jackson came forward and said that the reason it took him so long to get to the radio room was that he couldn’t locate his keys. He finally found them on his nightstand.”

“So someone had access to steal them.”

“Yes, but he’d been in the mess hall. It could have been anyone.”

“I think everything is related.” Daegan took the seat he’d been assigned since the first day and untwisted the cap of his water. “I’m not so sure it has to do with Ferrin personally though. Have we checked all the crewmembers that are assigned to the radio room? Do any of them stand out?”

“I’ve gone through every personnel file and any red flags have been wiped clean as of an hour ago.” Starr stood up and stretched after having tossed her pen like a dagger at the pile of papers. Her agitation was evident, as was everyone else’s mood today as well. “Irvine can’t find anything either. He stated that the personnel interviews haven’t yielded a damn thing except gossip. If the DNA from McDaniel’s autopsy would ever come back, then maybe we’d have something to narrow the search.”

“What if there was a way to lure this person out?” Daegan asked, his mind running through various scenarios. “Think about it. The first incident that occurred was the fire in the galley. It was caught in time, but had that fire gotten out of control it would have made us pull into one of the ports along our route, thus delaying our arrival in the mission Area of Responsibility (AOR). Tami McDaniel was then murdered, so either she saw something, overheard something, or was just a pawn in this person’s game. Either way a murder should have theoretically prevented us from continuing on, but it didn’t quite work out that way since we thought we’d apprehended the perpetrator. Agent Joel was brought on board and then the investigation was handled by the feds and they seemed content with our investigating officer handling the follow-up details on board, allowing us to continue to our destination and preventing yet another potential delay.”

“What you’re suggesting would mean that this has something to do with us completing our mission inside a certain timeline,” Starr said, walking over to the coffee machine and pouring a cup. “I’ve thought of that, but then why not just take control of the bridge? And when you think about it though, no one aboard this ship knows the exact details of what our government contract entails. Or do they? There are three possible scenarios going on right now in the same AOR.”

“You have to admit, blowing up our radios is a sure fire way of stopping this ship. We wouldn’t have been able to continue for at least a couple of weeks. This whole thing seems to be about delaying our arrival by a matter of a week or two.” Daegan took a swig of his water as they both continued bantering back and forth about what these events could have been aimed for. He thought of something outlandish, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “You don’t think
The Promised Land
is being used to haul drugs, do you?”

“I had Trigger take Diesel over every square inch of this ship that he could squeeze his furry snout into. There’s not an ounce of illegal substance on board that we could find by the standard methods. Nice try, but not blunt.”

“Great minds think alike,” Daegan said, holding up his water in salute. His crack didn’t get a smile, but it did get one side of her mouth to turn up. It was something considering she was still pretty damned pissed. He wasn’t about to bring up him and Ferrin at the moment and stuck to the conversation at hand as Starr walked to her seat. “Back to luring this person out—what if we stopped the ship and announced that our helicopter was transporting Agent Joel back to
The Promised Land
due to a pending arrest?”

Starr lifted her brown eyes and met his gaze, obviously liking where he was going with this. Daegan leaned forward, about to explain his reasoning when the team entered the room. There wasn’t the usual smack talk and laughing that came from them being together. This situation had gotten them all bunched up, just as it had with the rest of the crew. They couldn’t continue on like this when they should be focused on the upcoming rescue mission.

“From the looks on your faces, I’d have to guess something else happened,” Gunny said, walking directly to his seat next to Starr. He didn’t bother to sit, but instead placed his hands on the back of the chair and leveled his gaze toward Daegan. “Is Ferrin all right? What’s up?”

“She’s fine, but I’ve given Starr something to think about. It’s something we need to discuss so that if it
does
go down, we’re all in position.”

“You mean we’re not going to sit on our thumbs and twiddle while this fucker goes around our ship trying to kill all of us?” Stick took his seat, patting his leg for Diesel to come sit by him. When he started stroking the Shepherd’s fur, he managed to contain his excitement at something being done. “Count me in.”

“We could be putting crewmembers at risk if this forces him or her into a corner. On the other hand, the delay would be minimal and it would almost certainly force whomever to act out in a last ditch effort to derail our arrival within the timeline. He or she would have to be a pretty cool professional not to suspect their cover might be blown,” Starr said, directing her statement toward Daegan. She waited until Doc had taken his seat before sharing what Daegan had come up with. “What Daegan suggested is setting a scenario where we parade a red herring—an impending arrest based on information developed by the FBI and wait for a reaction. We’d announce that Agent Joel is arriving at a specific time of the day chosen to our advantage and then watch and wait for the reaction it’s intended to draw out.”

Gunny whistled and tilted his head as he considered the proposal. Daegan could already tell by the look on Stick and Trigger’s faces that they were on board. Doc was rubbing his chin as he weighed the pros and cons, but then eventually nodded.

“It could work.” Doc nodded toward Gunny. “Your thoughts?”

“I’m in agreement, but we’re jacking the risk of this nut-job panicking and harming someone else or planting another device of some kind.” Gunny looked at Starr, who had picked up her pen and was now twirling it in her fingers. “I guess it all depends on if we think this fruitcake will continue with the pattern he’s already established.”

“I don’t think that’s the question,” Starr said, glancing over toward Daegan. “What happens if he or she doesn’t react in any way or he suspects we’re trying to draw him out and lies low? Then we’ve wasted days of preparation, a day’s delay in movement to the AOR, and still be where we started out…which is on a ship with someone who is out to sabotage
The Promised Land
.”

“Or Red Starr,” Daegan pointed out, dropping his water bottle in his lap. The ship must have been going through some rough waters as the sea state was a little strong today. “Let’s face it. We have no idea what this person’s endgame is all about.”

“It would make things a hell of a lot easier if we did,” Trigger said, running a hand through his thick hair that was in need of a cut. The man’s hair was longer than anyone else’s on the team, but it fit his personality. “I’m with Stick. Count me in. It’s better than doing nothing.”

“It’s a go then,” Starr stated, clearing the paperwork in front of her so that she could use the tablet to control what was projected on the screen. “This ship is too big for us to monitor every nook and cranny, so we’ll need some trusted crewmembers to fill in the gaping holes that we’ll have. I have a handful of security personnel that I
do
trust in this situation, so we’ll work with what we’ve got in S-2.”

Daegan studied the diagram of the ship that Starr had selected to display on the screen. For the rest of the afternoon and evening they went over strategy, positions, and various scenarios of what could and probably would go wrong. Starr and Gunny decided the sooner, the better to implement the plan and would inform the crewmembers chosen to help. It was a unanimous decision not to tell anyone outside the team, not even those assisting. They would just be informed a little earlier that Agent Joel was coming aboard and that she expected trouble. There was less likely of information leakage that this was nothing more than a bluff.

“It’s after twenty-one hundred and we’ve only taken time to eat dinner.” Starr didn’t shut everything down, most likely because she intended to stay in the room and continue working. The team was aware of her dedication and yet they all agreed she went above and beyond what anyone should physically do on a daily basis. Daegan figured it had more to do with the fact that she replaced her dead husband with the organization he’d left behind rather than her love for what she did. “Go get some sleep and we’ll reconvene back here at zero five hundred where we’ll go over everything a couple more times to ensure we’re not missing anything.”

“Is it our plan to still stick with tomorrow afternoon as our target time?” Daegan asked, not liking that he couldn’t tell Ferrin. It was for the best, but he still would like to prepare her in some way. The only saving grace was that she would be off shift if they continued with the timetable they’d instituted and not have to stay behind and somehow become a target. “Right after second rotation begins?”

“Yes, for now.” Starr reached for her empty mug and stood, obviously with the intention of drinking some more and staying behind while the men were dismissed. “We’ll see how we feel in the morning about what we’ve put into place.”

“Hit me up.” Gunny held out his mug for Starr to take although she stood there looking down at him. “What? You think you’re the only one entitled to work long hours? Where the hell am I going to go?”

“I don’t need handholding, Gunny.” Starr snatched his cup out of his hands and walking over to the coffeemaker. “And if you make a wiseass remark about—”

“You’re mistaking me for Einstein,” Gunny said with a smirk, throwing Daegan under the bus. He flipped Gunny the bird when he wouldn’t shut up. “For how smart he is, one would think he’d have figured this whole thing out by now.”

“It wasn’t Einstein who put dog shit outside of Starr’s stateroom,” Trigger muttered, although he was loud enough for everyone to hear. “Dickheads.”

Starr was woman enough to pretend not to hear their banter and engage in an all-out shit war with Trigger. The two of them had been going at it since the ship had left San Diego, although neither one had done anything recently since the turn of events nor had the guys instigated it further. For someone of Gunny’s size and leadership, he continued to play the innocent.

Diesel was the first at the hatch and it was evident that just talking about his excrements made him need to check out the conditions on the weather deck. The team disbanded for the evening and Daegan made his way to his own stateroom where Ferrin should be waiting for him. He’d thought of her all day and those few stolen moments at lunch hadn’t been quite enough. She’d delayed giving him any answer, but her still being in his bed this morning had given him enough of an interim response that he’d eased off. He wasn’t the type of man that needed to hear the words to know what she was feeling.

“Are you going to tell her?”

Daegan had felt Stick’s presence down the corridor and had known the question was coming. He reached his stateroom, but he didn’t enter it right away. Instead he glanced over at his friend who looked as if he could use a good night’s rest. There was no judgment on his face, but there was a time to make one’s own decision and a time to follow orders.

“No. I gave my word to the team and I intend to keep it.” Daegan rubbed the back of his head, a tension headache beginning to make itself known. He’d take a couple of aspirin and then spend the next couple of hours collecting on a debt that he was owed. “I just needed to know that she wouldn’t be trapped in the radio room or someplace where I wouldn’t be able to get to her if I needed to. I’ll say something along the lines that whatever happens tomorrow she is to follow orders. I can’t be doing my job while I’m worried about where she is or whether she’s safe.”

“I get it,” Stick said, slapping Daegan on the shoulder as he walked around him to go to his own cabin. “Night.”