Not fear.
Recognition.
He had been on deck when Kane kicked me.
“They said you fell,” he whispered.
“You saw what happened.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t let anyone convince you that you didn’t.”
I kept moving.
By the time I reached the ladder to Deck Four, the ship had slowed.
A rescue boat was finally being prepared aft.
Kane’s voice came over the internal communications system, controlled and irritated rather than frightened.
“All personnel not assigned to recovery operations will remain at stations.
Petty Officer Cole suffered an accidental fall during an unauthorized movement near the rail.”
Unauthorized movement.
I stopped beneath the speaker.
There it was.
The first lie was always the easiest one.
The next lies required maintenance.
I climbed the final ladder.
The restricted Deck Four passage was nearly empty.
At the far end stood the compartment that had occupied three weeks of NCIS briefings before I came aboard.
Gray steel door.
Electronic lock.
No identifying markings except a cargo control plate whose numbers had been painted over twice.
Two days earlier, I had walked past it with a routine inspection clipboard and asked Kane’s logistics chief what was inside.
“Machinery,” he had said.
I asked what kind.
He stopped smiling.
That had been my first useful answer.
Now I reached the door and waited.
I did not have authority to break the lock myself.
That mattered.
Kane had survived as long as he had because he blurred rules whenever it served him, then weaponized those same rules against everyone else.
I was not going to give him that advantage.
Heavy footsteps approached behind me.
Kane appeared at the end of the passage with two members of the ship’s security detail.
His face changed when he saw me.
For perhaps half a second, Colonel Victor Kane looked genuinely afraid.
Then the mask returned.
“How did you get back aboard?”
I held his gaze.
“Same way I was trained to.”
He looked at the wet deck beneath my boots, then at the compartment door beside me.
That second glance lasted too long.
“You’re confined to medical,” he said.
“You are disoriented and possibly injured.”
“I remember your boot just fine.”
One of the security sailors shifted uncomfortably.
Kane noticed.
“Petty Officer Cole fell during a physical confrontation she initiated.
There will be an inquiry.
Until then, she is relieved of duty.”
I took the packet from beneath my jacket.
Kane’s eyes dropped to the seal.
That was the moment he understood what I was.
