Breaking Through (15 page)

Zander Roan: telekine, deceased on mission

At the bottom, one name stands out. It’s not listed with the others.

This name I know very well. Because I asked her over and over and over again about my brother.

Commanding officer: Cara Prior.

One thing’s for sure: if Riley was telling me the truth about not knowing about Nate, then whatever access Haskal gave me usurps that of our captain. I need to know where he’d gotten it.

I don’t sleep, and I don’t attend morning training. No one expects me to anyway. After lunch, though, I go to Room 112, making sure to avoid any crew members. I enter and close the door behind me.

I cross the room and slam my hands on the table. “It worked.”

Haskal blinks. Leans back and crosses his arms. “What worked?”

“The log-in code and password. They actually freaking worked!”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

I slide myself into a chair and fold my hands in front of me. “That was a high-security log-in. Where did you get it?”

Haskal scratches at his chin. “‘Thank you’ is the response you’re looking for. And you’re welcome, sweetheart.”

“I’m not screwing around, Haskal. How did you get that kind of clearance?”

“It wasn’t assigned to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Is it Barton’s?” I ask straight-out.

“Trouble in paradise, sweetheart?” Haskal says, and I’d love to smack the smirk off his face. Instead, I settle for glaring.

“Does the log-in and password belong to Riley?” I repeat.

Haskal leans forward, the smirk becoming smoldering. His gaze dips to my breasts, then back up to my eyes where they belong. “How much is that information worth to you?”

“I’m not in the mood for your shit, Haskal.”

“That’s not what I asked. You used what I gave you, so you owe me. That was the deal.”

I shoot up from my chair, energy flowing through me. “Fuck you and your deal!”

The ship rocks, but I don’t try to stop it. I need answers, and I need them now.

“Calm down, Nautia,” Haskal says. “Tell me what you found out.”

“You first,” I grind out.

“I’ll make this easy for you. Whose name did you see in Nate’s file?”

The ship goes still. The waves disperse at my shock to Haskal’s question.

He drills into me, waiting, and before I have time to think, I answer, “Cara Prior.”

My teammate nods. “The log-in and password? They belong to her.”

I don’t let my disappointment
show when Nautia’s presence is absent for training. Instead, I concentrate on getting Kray, Haskal, Gibson, and Britta ready for battle. It’s been almost three weeks, and their stamina is improving, so I add two more miles to the morning run.

“Are you serious?” Britta whines.

“Let’s move,” I say.

“Why does Nautia get to skip out?” she asks.

“Due to recent events, Nautia has been excused until further notice.” I meet Kray’s stare. Long enough to confirm that he knows she quit. The others don’t seem privy to the information, though, and I’m still hoping she’ll change her mind.

“How is that fair? She’s the one who almost killed us all, and
we
have to run extra laps while she gets a vacation?” Britta says.

“Officer Tyler, you continue on this trajectory, and I’ll add another mile,” I warn, lenient with her because of her age. “Now move out.”

I don’t wait for more retorts. I turn my back to them and start to run. To clear my mind. Breathe in the fresh, before-sunrise air my lungs crave. It’s the one time of day when I don’t have to think; I just have to run.

When we’re finished with our a.m. routine, we do target practice in the shooting range. Britta’s accuracy impresses me, hitting the bull’s-eye eighty percent of the time. Her level of concentration also keeps her mouth shut, which I appreciate even more today, since my thoughts travel often to Nautia. I force them away each time they surface because I have recruits to train right now. I can’t let Nautia distract me.

Unlike Britta’s, Kray’s aim is deplorable. I stand behind him as he brings in his dummy to switch out the paper.

He examines his first round, searching all four corners. Clearly overthinking it.

“There are no bullet holes. What are you looking at?” I ask.

“How is that possible?” he mutters.

We both glance over at Britta, who is reeling in her third bullet-covered dummy. The red circle in the middle is completely blown out, and there’s a perfect kill shot in the middle of the dummy’s forehead.

“Damn, she’s smug,” Kray says.

“Take it back down,” I say, nodding to his dummy. When it’s there, I give Kray some pointers and have him level up a bit. His next shot hits the dummy’s shoulder.

“Much improved,” I congratulate. I stand there as he fires off a few more rounds. Though none are deadly, most make contact. “Keep practicing.”

When I go to check on Gibson, Kray stops me. “Are you letting Nautia out?” he asks, his voice low so only I can hear him.

“I’m working on it.”

“Working on what? Getting a helicopter here?”

“It seems you have an opinion on the matter. Let’s not dance around it.”

“All right. You can’t set Nautia free. She’s on the verge of something big. I haven’t told her, but that wall in her head? It’s beginning to crack. I don’t know if it was that giant wave and what happened to her out there, or if it’s something else. But when that thing crashes”—Kray shakes his head—“she shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’d send her back to Brighton. She’d be under Cara’s charge again,” I reason.

“Yeah, because Cara did such a great job reeling Nautia in so far,” Kray deadpans.

“Three weeks out here, and I haven’t done much better. She’s almost sunk this ship three times, and she doesn’t want to be here. Keeping that kind of untrained power locked up would be stupid.”

Kray chuckles. “For a smart dude, you like to make up excuses, don’t you?”

“Shields, I am your commanding officer—”

“Doesn’t count when we’re discussing Nautia,” Kray says, waving me off. Mind readers tend to be cocky, but Kray goes above and beyond. If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t allow this insubordination. But Kray has discovered my weakness for this girl, and he has no problem exploiting it.

“Because I care about her too,” he answers the thoughts I wasn’t careful enough to hide. “This isn’t about you or me. It’s about her and completing this mission. Look, we both know you’ve broken into her head. Training, time,
something
caused those cracks in her wall. Whatever it is, more of it will eventually break the wall down.”

“She doesn’t trust me anymore,” I admit.

“Doesn’t matter. Nautia doesn’t really trust anyone, but she doesn’t need someone she can trust right now. She needs someone who will break through to her whether she likes it or not.”

“All right. You’ve been inside her head. Any advice?”

His answer is immediate. “Don’t take her shit and fight like hell.”

Nautia doesn’t show up for dinner. I haven’t seen her since last night, so I make her a plate of food and head down to her cabin.

I knock on the wall beside the sheet I hung up last night. “Nautia?”

When she doesn’t answer, I push the material to the side and look in. Her laptop is open, bed is made, and the floor is dry. Otherwise, the room is empty. There’s a notebook on her desk, and even from where I stand, I see “TM1,” “Nate changed the formula,” and “Cara Prior involved” scrawled across the page. I move a little closer and scan her other notes. Some of it I know; it’s privileged information. Where did
she
find it?

I slide my finger over the cursor pad on her laptop. The computer is locked, but I’m the one who issued her log-in and password. I type in her military ID number and SSN, hoping she hasn’t changed the password yet.

She hasn’t. I’m in.

The Navy personnel site glows on the screen—Nate Olson’s file. How did she get access to this?

I speed-read through the page.

Nate was the inside man? I need to find Nautia if this is what she’s been doing all day. She’s probably a mess. The analytical part of me knows her state isn’t good for the ship and my crew, but the part that cares about her is what has me running from the room.

My guess is she’d want to be as close to the ocean as possible, so I run up to the deck. Search the 01 level and don’t find her. I consider E-deck, thinking it’s the lowest point of the ship. Technically, she’d be under the surface of the water down there. I descend the stairs, but stop when I hear the click of metal snapping against metal. The door to Training Room 4 is ajar.

I peer through the crack. Nautia is at one of the stations, her lower lip clasped between her teeth. Frustration lines her forehead.

She picks up a piece of the disassembled rifle, her eyes darting from one end of the table to the other, searching for what it connects to. Her fingers trail over possibilities before she finally chooses one. Then she snaps and locks it into place.

I watch her until she has the AR-15 fully assembled. She slaps the timer beside her and groans. Her time beats her base, but is nowhere close to acceptable. She didn’t make a single mistake, though.

She shakes her head as she takes the gun apart, ready to try again. Before she begins, I widen the door and enter. Blue-green eyes hold my stare, and I’d love to know the thoughts spinning behind them. This girl is a mystery. A safe I’m dying to unlock.

“The order in which you assemble it is important,” I say, walking over to the table. “Think of it as a puzzle, only opposite. With a puzzle, you create the frame first. All the flat edges. With this”—I pick up the trigger—“you need to start at the center and work your way out.”

I rearrange the parts, laying them out in the correct order from left to right. Then I place the disconnector into the trigger assembly. I move down the line as I explain. “If you give each piece a number, and memorize which number you assigned to each piece, this will become very simple. See?” I hold up the finished weapon for a moment before I take it apart and line up the pieces again. “Try it.”

Nautia’s gaze falls to the table. She hits the start button on her stopwatch and begins like I just had. Working her way down the line, she assembles the weapon without a hitch. Ninety seconds later, she’s holding the fully assembled rifle.

I grin. “Nice job.”

She sets the gun down and looks at me. Her pink lips press together, drawing my attention to them. If this table wasn’t separating us, I’d probably be tasting her mouth right now. Instead, the block of plastic between us keeps me from her.

“I’ve changed my mind. I want to be reinstated,” she says.

“On what grounds?” Regardless of what she says, I’ll do it. Not seeing her again is not an option.

Her nostrils flare, fighting emotion. “Because of Nate. Because he was involved in TorpMissionOne. He started this—died for it—and I want to finish it. Like you said, it’s my responsibility.”

“It’s not one you carry on your own, Nautia. We’re a team out here.”

Her voice is small, vulnerable. “Nate had a team too. They abandoned him.”

“That was his team, not yours. We won’t abandon you.”

It takes me all of two seconds to decide to come clean. Tell her everything I know, because she was right. She deserves all of the information she can get.

“TorpMissionOne was a failure from the beginning,” I start. Then I reiterate what Admiral Melene explained to me, including the fact that Cara Prior was the lead. “We’re going in to clean up the mess.”

“The formula,” she says. “The Navy had it correct, right? No mistakes?”

“For macrometallium, yes, but not for hydroplexasma. Two years ago, Yun Ji-jin was on the verge of perfecting that one, and we believed we had what he was missing.”

“Did we?”

“To my knowledge, whoever they’d sent in undercover was to confirm the formula’s accuracy, then they were to send the information back. That information never came.”

“The inside man was Nate,” Nautia says. “I know that for a fact now. And I’m sure he had the correct formula, but he didn’t hand it over. I think he gave North Korea the skewed one.”

“He disobeyed orders? Why?”

“I don’t know. My guess is that Cara does, though. We can contact her.”

“Our communications to civilians has been cut. Classified operation,” I remind her. “And even though Cara led TM1, she’s been discharged.”

Nautia’s silent for a moment. Again, she purses her perfect lips, and I’d love to end this conversation now and kiss them. Her eyes flash up at me. “There might be another way. Come on, let me show you something.”