Page 19 of Finding Elodie
It was a mistake, but Mustang wasn’t ready to let her go. Something was telling him she was right, that the safest place for her was right there with him. Especially after seeing her room. He didn’t want the pirates to get their hands on her.
“If you don’t do exactly as we say, you could get us all killed,” Midas told her.
“I know, and I’ll do what you tell me,” she promised.
“And if we say to go upstairs right now?” Midas asked.
Mustang looked back and saw Rachel wrinkle her nose before she sighed. “I’d go if you forced me to,” she said after a moment.
Mustang looked over at Midas, and they stared at each other for a long moment. They’d worked together long enough to be able to read each other pretty well. Midas finally shrugged and lifted his hand in the air and made a circular motion with his finger…essentially saying, “let’s get on with this.”
Mustang nodded at his teammate then turned back to Rachel. She was staring up where she thought his head was with a worried look on her face. He wanted to soothe the wrinkles he saw in her forehead, to tell her everything would be all right, but he was aware that they really did need to get going. Things would get very tricky if this ship grounded itself on a reef or even the coastline of Djibouti.
The engine room needed to be secured so they could return to the USS Paul Hamilton and the employees of the Asaka Express could get on with their lives. There were dead bodies to secure, and the shipping company would have to deal with the transportation of their employees back to the States.
In other words…they had shit to get done, and standing in a dark hallway staring at a woman who intrigued the hell out of him was wasting time.
“Stay close,” Mustang told Rachel. “And be as quiet as you can.”
She nodded, obviously relieved they weren’t making her leave.
Midas brushed past them and headed back down the hall the way they came. They needed to get to the engine room.
The next few minutes were tense as the trio made their way down the stairwell and entered the vast engine room. There were ducts and pipes everywhere. The lighting was eerie, as there were emergency lights scattered here and there that were on, illuminating some of the space while throwing other areas into shadow. The lights screwed with the night-vision goggles and both Mustang and Midas were forced to remove them.
They stood against the wall overlooking the engines for a long moment as they waited for their eyes to adjust. Rachel didn’t say a word the entire time.
Mustang studied the layout of the space. There was a catwalk running from the level they were currently standing on, across the vast decks below, obviously built so the workers could easily access the ductwork and pipes that ran across the space.
If they leaned over the railing, they’d be able to see all the way to the floor four decks below. According to what Rachel had said, there were offshoot hallways and work rooms on the lower three floors, all filled with machinery and containers built to hold trash, water, oil, fuel, and all other manner of necessary equipment needed to keep a ship this size seaworthy. It was going to be a bitch to clear this space, and the longer Mustang stood there, the more he realized they needed help. They could do a preliminary search, but anything extensive was going to take more bodies.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“We’re gonna need backup,” Midas agreed. “And shooting off any kind of round in here is seriously fucking dangerous.”
Mustang nodded. “Don’t get too close to the railing. If someone’s standing below, they could see us and pick us off.”
Midas nodded in understanding. “We’ll clear what we can, see if we can find some of the missing men. Then we’ll wait for reinforcements.”
Mustang knew he was talking to the rest of the team more than he was telling Mustang what to do. They were already on the same page. He’d had hopes that they’d be able to tackle this on their own, but seeing the blueprints didn’t convey how big this room really was and how many places there were for someone to hide.
The trio hugged the wall and headed around the perimeter of the room, making sure to stay away from the railing. They made it around to the left side and found a room filled with pipes that snaked every which way. Also inside, a small control room sat off to the right, the door standing wide open. There was only one emergency light in the ceiling, concealing more than it was illuminating because of the shadows created by the light.
“Stay here,” Mustang ordered Rachel.
He felt her fingers tighten on his belt loop for a second, then she nodded and let go of him. She brought the rifle that had been hanging on her back around to the front of her body and held it at the ready. She would’ve looked damn cute if there weren’t real bullets in the weapon and they weren’t in the middle of a deadly game of hide-and-seek.
He nodded at Midas, and they split up as they began to search the room. Their search didn’t result in finding any of the pirates or ship employees. So they continued into the next room, away from the main part of the engine room and where they’d left Rachel.
Their search continued into yet another room, and then one last small room at the end of the deck. While there, they finally found one of the crew members. He’d folded himself behind one of the large ducts.
“US Navy,” Midas said.
“Oh, thank God!” the man said.
“What’s your name and what’s your position on the ship?” Mustang asked.
“I’m Manuel. I’m the second cook.”
