The Guardian's Wildchild (19 page)

Sidney was trying to hold back the tears. She felt like a fool. Her anger was more with herself than anyone else. How could she have been so stupid as to turn down perhaps her last opportunity to go home?

Sam stood up and ordered her to sit down. She refused. Sam took her by the arm and pushed her back into her chair. Grabbing another chair, he sat in front of her.

“Now, calm down.”

“I won’t calm down. I’m fed up with your bloody rule book and never knowing what’s going to happen next.” A tear escaped. Roughly brushing it aside, she continued, “And … ”

Sam decided to take extraordinary measures to regain her trust. Bending forward so his face was near hers, he whispered, “Sidney, there’s one thing I can say honestly but off the record.” He paused. “Admiral Garland is not my friend.” He stared intently into her eyes.

She breathed in the warmth of his scent. The tension in her gut gave up its hold. She raised her chin just a bit in an effort to appear defiant.

“Your boys live with him, don’t they?” She sniffed.

Sam had never told anyone about his boys living with Admiral Garland. “Commander Moon told you that?”

Sidney nodded. “Yes.”

“Thank you for your honesty. I’ll continue to be honest with you. For now, all I can say is that things are not as they appear. I’m grateful you decided not to leave the ship this morning.”

He resumed his military posture, stood up, and returned to sit behind Dr. Duncan’s desk.

“Now, I want to make one thing as clear to you as I have to my officers — there are specific people allowed to speak to you besides myself, Dr. Duncan and his staff, Commander Moon, and Lieutenant Bridges. Commander Moon is in charge during the night, and you must cooperate with him whether he is on duty or not. However — ” he brought up his hand with the index finger raised “ — at no time is anyone allowed to cause you pain of any kind. Understood?”

She nodded and looked away from the brown eyes. It was impossible to stay angry.

“And, anything even remotely connected with your activity at the base or your status as a prisoner is off limits to everyone. Therefore, you won’t provide information to anyone on this ship except to me. Any questions?”

She was still suspicious, but knew there was no point in debating with him. “No.”

“Dr. Duncan has advised me that you’re well enough to leave the infirmary. Therefore, I’m confining you to a locked room. No one will have access to that room other than Commander Moon and myself. The two seamen posted at your room will be responsible for ensuring you don’t wander off.”

He gave a hint of a smile, and Sidney found herself once again having to shield herself from his masculine charm. It was a most annoying predicament. Her anger was gone, but trust had jumped overboard. The feeling that he could be orchestrating this whole charade nagged at her, and he certainly had the means to create an illusion of hope. Yet his calm strength stirred her feelings for him. She had to admit that Captain Sam Waterhouse was more than her only hope for survival. He was a man who seemed to have the power to rule out her determination to be solely focused on her mission. She had to remind herself that he’d be pointing a gun at her head in a few days.

“Actually, Captain, I’m eager for some privacy, and I want to apologize for being so angry. I hope we still have an agreement.”

Sam stood and motioned for her to go into the infirmary’s main room. “Nothing’s changed. Now, let’s get started. Get your clothes from Phillip.”

“Do I need to bring towels and sheets?” she asked.

“No, the room is completely equipped — bathroom, linens, toiletries.”

“Does it have a window, er, I mean, a porthole?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Phillip handed over her jeans, socks, and jacket, cleaned and folded neatly in military fashion.

“Perhaps if you’re more cooperative, you could be moved to a room with a porthole later,” Sam said.

“Captain, if I’m more cooperative, I won’t need any room for very long.”

“Let’s just take this one day at a time. Now follow Lieutenant Bridges. Seaman Yarns and I will follow. Do you have everything?”

“Some of my clothes seem to be missing — underwear, blouse, shoes.”

“Must have been too badly damaged. You weren’t wearing shoes when you arrived.”

Sidney looked off into the distance, her eyes wide. “My shoes!”

“What about them?”

Sidney thought for a moment. A memory had flashed, and then it was gone. “Oh, nothing. Just thought I remembered something.”

“All right. Let’s go, Lieutenant.”

Sidney followed Bridges as he led her through hallways and down three flights of stairs. The hint of the evening’s daylight rapidly disappeared as she stepped further into the bowels of the ship. The thundering footsteps of the seamen’s boots spoke of their power over her. Artificial lighting brightly lit the corridors with a harsh greenish glow as steel rapidly closed in around her.

The few seamen they met along the way stood at attention as Sam walked by. She could hear their murmurs as they returned to their duties. At the end of a hallway, Bridges stood to the side. Sam opened a flap on the security system unit bolted to the wall and entered a code onto the numbered pad.

“Disarm and release,” he said

The unit’s red light flashed to green and announced, “Code and voice print acknowledged and approved. Open door within eight seconds.”

Sam pushed down on the lever and pulled the door open.

He motioned for Sidney to enter the small, austere room. It measured about ten by fifteen feet. A single bed with a gray mattress stood directly opposite the door against the far, white wall. A black metal bedside table and one gray metal folding chair were the sole amenities in the room. At the far corner was a white toilet against the same wall as the bed. Between the bed and the toilet was a gray locker. Next to the toilet on the adjacent wall was a white, pedestal sink with a bar of white soap on its ledge and a simple square mirror on the wall. On the floor beside the sink was a black garbage receptacle.

If it weren’t for the neatly folded navy blue linens and blankets on the bed, the room would’ve looked like a movie set from the era of black and white motion pictures. The room was illuminated by one ceiling fixture that shone so brightly the only shadow noticeable was the dark recess under the bed. Sidney noted a tiny video camera high on the wall above the bed.

Sam stepped into the room close behind her and shut the door. She stepped away from him, and nodded with approval at the space.

“This is good. I’ve never had a master en suite attached to my bedroom before. It’s very clean, too. Who’s your housekeeper?”

She wasn’t going to let him see her crumble, not for a second. The room wasn’t the problem. It was the ceiling, its one, cold, lifeless eye glaring down on her. It grated at her skin like a badly tuned violin. If there were an opening to the outside world, a tiny window, it would have been at least tolerable.

Sam didn’t sway from his stiff manner. “You’re the housekeeper for this room. You’ll be expected to keep it clean and tidy.”

“I hope I measure up. I’m not the best housekeeper. Usually there are a few dust bunnies in my humble abode, might keep a spider to two as a pet.”

“There are a few more rules you need to know about.”

“I should have guessed.”

He ignored her comment. “The camera over the bed is monitored by only myself from my office. A record will be kept of who enters and leaves this room twenty-four hours a day. No one can enter this room except by my voice command. I’ll release the locking mechanism via my office comlink and observe on my monitor all activity at this doorway. Understood?”

Sidney tilted her head to the side. “Are you more worried about someone getting in, or me getting out?”

He hesitated. “There will always be two personnel guarding the entrance to this hall and your door.”

“You’re very thorough, Captain.”

“Thanks to you, we’ve found where things were getting slack. The admiral has come to the same conclusion. There will be no civilians allowed on the base from now on.”

Sidney held her breath. The news was a shock. The underground would have little chance of retrieving the hidden memory rod if they hadn’t already. Now it looked like the mission was all for nothing. Time was running out. The admiral would have his demonstration the following week, and the world would go mad.

Sidney endeavored to hide her alarm. “All because of one lost visitor?”

She thought she saw a hint of a smile on his face. This time, though, she resisted being led into surrendering her trust to a false benevolent master. She moved farther away and turned her back to him. Opening the locker door, she noted fresh towels, an extra blanket, disposable cups, and pajamas. A white plastic box sat on the top shelf.

As she closed the door, she asked, “Are there more rules, sir?”

“You’ll be required to be up and dressed for breakfast by oh-seven-hundred hours. You’ll be notified via the intercom in this security unit one hour in advance of mealtime. You’ll be escorted to my office to pick up your food tray. The same will occur for lunch at noon and dinner at six o’clock. You’ll be interrogated after at least one of those meal times every day. You’ll be allowed exercise on the ship’s main deck for half an hour twice each day — at ten o’clock and at four o’clock. That schedule may vary depending upon what work is being carried out on the ship. Any questions?”

She stepped forward toward Sam, almost shyly, worried about the whimsical nature of her need. “One question. Can I have a candle?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He smiled. “You said you had ‘one’ question. That’s two.”

“Touché,” she said, not showing the least bit of disappointment.
He’s infuriating. Arrogant! Playing his one-sided games at his whim,
she thought.

“You’ll find some supplies in the box on the shelf in the locker.” He paused just as he grabbed the door’s handle and glanced back. “My turn to ask a question. What was it you remembered about your shoes?”

Sidney shrugged. “Being in a cold space.”

As he pushed the door open, he again stopped and turned around. “That’s all?”

Gotcha
, she thought. “That’s more than ‘a’ question.”

Sam nodded as if to say, “Ah, yes,” stepped out of the room, and shut the door.

Once he’d left, Sidney breathed a sigh of relief. Alone at last. No one to spy on her and probably no unexpected interruptions to her meditation sessions. The bleak room suddenly felt almost like a luxury. She looked forward to the chance to tune in again to the Guardian sacred truths — she’d been slowly slipping away from their harmony and power.

As she made her bed, she thought about Frank Butchart. Time away from the Guardian’s protective shield had left him vulnerable to Dark influences. Exposure to corruption, fear, and greed was like being sucked into a spiral of mental anguish. Solitary confinement was actually a blessing. It would give her the time and space to reconnect with her people and the sacred truths and avoid the same fate as Frank.

Filling the sink with warm water, she washed her body and hair, savoring every precious minute alone. She put on fresh pajamas and used a towel to dry her hair. With her evening chores finished, she took the extra blanket from the locker, set it on the floor, shut off the light, and sat on the blanket in her lotus position. She took time to just be — free in her space and her thoughts. Holding her index fingers to her thumbs, she closed her eyes, breathed, and drifted into a world Captain Samaru Waterhouse couldn’t control.

12. Hanging on to Secrets and the Sacred

Monday Morning, July 8, En Route To Peru

Monday morning, Sidney awoke in her cell’s black tomb. She immediately assumed her lotus position and breathed deeply, confident her internal alarm clock had stirred her to life to give her this time to prepare for the day’s task of survival. After meditating, she made her bed, paying meticulous attention to detail — not something she was in the habit of doing with her own bed at her island home. She considered it worth the effort, just in case Mr. By-the-Book Waterhouse was capable of softening enough to reward her with a candle.

It felt great to slip on her jeans, even as frayed as they were. The jean jacket was too warm in the tropical heat, but it would have to do. With nothing else to wear underneath, she had to keep it zipped up.

A familiar voice came over the intercom. “Miss, you have one hour to report for breakfast. Acknowledge!”

“Yes, Captain. I’ll be ready.

She busied herself washing, brushing her teeth, and combing her hair. The mirror reflected back the image of a woman who’d matured much since the previous week. A woman not about to spend her last days groveling for a candle.
Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask once more.
Regardless of whatever he was about to throw at her, she was prepared to stand her ground. She had resources far beyond his understanding. It was a fact she had to keep reminding herself of more often than usual, which caused her concern.