Page 121 of Ship Outta Luck

THIRTY-THREE

DEAN

The sub surfaces,divers popping up around it, and my eyes dart around until I find June’s dark hair. Rain drizzles steadily, the gulf’s surface frothing and dangerous. Still, she wears a massive smile, waving at me from the water.

The Coast Guard allowed her to borrow one of their underwater cameras after she relentlessly hounded them about it. Dropping words like “priceless artifacts” and “go down in history for ruining an archaeological treasure,” and my personal favorite, “lawsuits from UNESCO, Spain, Mexico, and my university.”

When she mentioned the words “international incident,” I had to turn away so no one would see me laugh at the brow-beaten expression on the captain’s face. She finally relented, allowing June to accompany them once she provided digital proof of her diving and research credentials. No military officer wants to be in the news for fucking up an archaeological or historical site, and June knows it.

I am so fucking proud of her.

They insisted she wear one of their wetsuits, and I can’t take my eyes away from her as she loads into the Zodiac boat and motors back to the cutter. The wetsuit fits her like a glove, all curves and muscle. The zipper down the back teases me, reaching from the top of her neck to the round curve of her ass.

The sub clangs as it hits the deck of the cutter. Stepping forward, I help the remaining crew secure it to the boat. My fingers itch to open it, to finally get closure. There’s a fuck-ton of evidence in it, and from the weight the winch registers, more than drugs.

Good.

Pierce’s involvement stinks.

Where there’s one bad agent, there are usually more.

I swallow, rubbing a hand across my beard. It’s one of the things Thompson and I worry about. Us contractors, we don’t get the same benefit of the doubt.

Which means we need to be really fucking careful not to blow the tentative contracts we have.

We’re good at being careful.

I wince. Usually.

This sub might be the key to something that’s been forming for years. The same thing Fiona hinted at before the military rubbed her foreign agent affiliation in my face. Before they said leave or be fired.

Stomach clenching, I rake a hand across my scalp.

Either the evidence is in there and we have an uphill battle to fight, or it isn’t and we have a lot more fucking work to do.

A crew member hands me a crowbar and Thompson, opposite me, catches my eye and nods.

“Do it, Evans.”

“Could be classified.”

“It’s not officially classified until an analyst wearing a pocket protector decides it’s classified, and you know it. Besides, if it’swhat we think it is, it’s time-sensitive.” His words are loaded with meaning.

The crew member shifts nervously next to me, and I fix the man with a hard stare until he wanders off to a safe distance, eyes firmly on the sea. The captain remains, a grim expression on her face.

The crowbar fits neatly into the slit of the metal hatch and I grunt, leveraging my weight on it. Mud and silt drip onto my shoes, cold and wet. The hatch pops open with a metallic clang, and the captain hands me a flashlight.

“Thanks,” I say gruffly, clicking it on.

The high beam illuminates the interior. Dry. Everything in it is dry. Drugs, packed neatly in taped up bricks, stacked all together. Not as much as I assumed.Minor drug shipment.Sweeping the beam along the interior, something else catches my eye.

“Thompson, come look.” I push aside the drugs with the flashlight, careful not to smudge any possible fingerprints.

A metal crate. The tell-tale symbol painted in fluorescent yellow on the box.

“Fuck.” Thompson breathes. “You were right.”

“Captain, we need to call this in,” I say, hoping to god the metal crate is sealed correctly.

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