Breaking Through (23 page)

Today’s the real deal.

It’s not a simulation.

I stare at myself in the mirror for a full minute, and my fingers are steady as I sweep my hair up into a ponytail. It’s the first time I’ve looked at myself since the wall inside my head came crashing down. Since my memory returned.

I almost don’t recognize the eyes peering back at me. Before, they were insecure, distant, and frightened. Now, determination blazes in every darkened speck of blue. High cheekbones accentuate the resolve I see. In less than twenty-four hours, I hope to be face-to-face with Cara. This time, I’m the one who will be handling
her
death certificate.

After I woke up by myself in Riley’s bed this morning, I sought out Kray. We finalized our plans, working through every angle in case we get separated. I’m confident, though, because we’ve been through Riley’s plan a million times in simulation now, and he’s not one to stray from them. That bodes well for Kray and me; we know exactly what to expect.

Riley doesn’t though. A small part of me feels guilty for keeping him in the dark, but this war is mine and mine alone. I won’t put Riley in danger for my sake. If I could keep Kray out, I would. Unfortunately, the mind reader always gets his way. Ability perk.

I crack my neck to both sides, then reach for the rest of my clothing. I slip on the black bulletproof vest and secure it around the black long-sleeved shirt hugging my body. Skin-tight black pants that would remind me of leggings if the material were cotton, not this thick, waterproof, clingy shit. Military-grade black boots fit over the tapered bottoms. I pull the laces tight, then stand up to check myself out in the mirror one last time.

I’m ready.

And nothing’s going to stand in my way.

I slip the notes into the inner pocket of my vest before I open the door. Kray standing on the other side, arms crossed and waiting for me, isn’t surprising. I don’t speak as I step into the hallway and close the door behind me.

“Still set on the plan,” Kray says, reading my mind.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh I don’t know. The fact you’ve completely fallen for a certain Navy captain, perhaps?”

“That doesn’t change anything.”

Kray spins, beaming. “Aha! You didn’t deny it! You’re in love with the cap.”

“I didn’t say that,” I reply, pushing past him. “And I didn’t think it either.”

“After-hours slumber parties have done a real number on you, princess,” he says as he jogs behind me up the stairs.

On the top deck, I face him. “How I feel about Riley won’t matter as long as Cara’s alive. According to Haskal, she’ll stop at nothing to get ahold of me, so whatever I have with Riley is irrelevant until she’s dead. That’s the only thing I need to think about right now.”

Kray cocks his head. “And the notes in your pocket?”

I feel my shoulders fall. Then I dig out one of the two copies and hand it to him. “If things don’t go according to plan.”

“Well, my plan is to give this letter back to you and make you tell him yourself. And I don’t do plan Bs.” He still takes the note and tucks it into his vest pocket.

“Thanks, Kray,” I say, wrapping my arms around him.

“Save the sap, princess. ’Cause I ain’t saying goodbye.”

“Which makes me love you that much more.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m the most lovable person on Earth.” He kisses the top of my head. “Come on. We’re going to be late for takeoff.”

We walk in silence the rest of the way, the sun beating down on us. A warm breeze gusts up, and I breathe in the salty freshness of the ocean air. It’ll be ten hours before my lungs are filled with this kind of freedom again.

When we get to the stern, everyone else is there, standing in a semicircle with Riley in the center. His gaze floats over Britta’s head and lands on me. He holds my stare, concern glazing over his golden irises. This mission is dangerous enough without the added bonus mission he knows nothing about.

I break away, unable to look at him any longer. Afraid he’ll see through me and stop me from what I have to do. Keeping him in the dark has nothing to do with my trust in him; this is about revenge.

Kray takes the spot beside me, and we listen to Riley’s last minute directions. We must have everything memorized down to the tiniest detail, he says. Nothing we haven’t heard before, but he drills it into us one more time.

“Any questions?” When no one speaks, he nods. “All right. Everyone inside and take your seats.”

Sickles is the first to climb down the ladder and onto the miniature submarine. With one foot on a rung and the other on the roof, he motions for Britta. She descends and disappears through the circular door. One by one, the rest of the crew follows suit until it’s just Riley and me on deck.

“You were gone when I woke up,” I say, like it’s an excuse for avoiding him up here.

“I had a lot to take care of this morning. I didn’t want to wake you.”

I glance over the railing. Sickles is standing there, waiting for me. “I guess I’d better get down there.”

I swing a leg over the side, but Riley grabs my wrist. “I meant what I said last night. Whatever happens out there won’t change that.”

My first thought is that he somehow senses my side-plan, and he’s giving me permission to go through with it.

Then I remember the last thing I’d heard before I drifted off last night.

I love you
, he’d said. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right or if I’d already been asleep and dreamt the words. I’d mouthed them against his neck, just to taste how they felt on my lips, but there was no way he’d heard me. He couldn’t have. Right?

I study him for a second, trying to decipher from the look in his eye how I should respond. He doesn’t give me a chance to figure it out though. He takes my face between his palms and kisses me. Like he did last night, with reckless abandon. Like—

It’s our last.

I hold my breath, wondering if I’d ever share this with him again. Dread shoots down my throat and catches in my chest. It lodges there. Expands and almost convinces me to forget about Cara. To come back to the ship with Riley when it’s all over.

“Shit,” Sickles says from behind, breaking Riley and me apart.

I glance over my shoulder, and he’s standing there—
right
there. Then I notice the surface of the ocean laps against my boot instead of twenty feet below me like it should.

Sickles grins. “Must have been one helluva kiss.”

Riley gives me a worrisome onceover, ignoring the commander. “Might as well get in.”

I nod and do what he says. Riley follows me inside, and we take our seats on opposite ends in the minisub. From the seat next to mine, Kray watches in silence as I pull the seatbelt over my shoulder and click it in place. The whole time, I feel him fiddling around in my head. He’ll be up to date in thirty seconds flat.

Riley gives Sickles a thumbs-up as he closes the hatch. Darkness engulfs us for a moment before the dim overhead lights switch on.

From the outside, Sickles radios into our earpieces, “All’s clear. You are free to make your descent.”

“Copy that,” Ivan, our pilot, replies. “Take care of yourself out here.”

“I’ve got a wife and three kids, waiting for me. I have to get home to them.”

“Yeah, you’d better,” she answers.

I close my eyes as the sub begins to sink. Kray squeezes my hand. He’s still inside my head, watching the horrific nightmare replay in my mind—me inside the capsule, plunging lower and lower under water.

Metal creaks. My stomach churns, and I can’t breathe. I can’t—

“Nautia.”

Riley’s voice breaks through, and my eyes fly open, finding him instantly. A quick scan and I see water seeping through the air-tight hatch, and half an inch sits on the floor below my feet.

“Control,” Riley mouths.

I suck in a breath and hold one palm out over the water and the other toward the hatch. The leak subsides and the water retreats, leaving the floor dry.

“This is not that,” Kray whispers to me. “You’re not alone here, and Cara isn’t the puppeteer—
you
are.”

I rest my head on Kray’s shoulder. “Yeah. And I’m gonna keep it that way.”

The ten-hour trip
hugging the western Japanese coastline is torture. The torturous part isn’t the sound of Kray’s snores, or Haskal’s knuckle-cracking, or Britta’s nervous sighs every fifteen seconds. It’s the fact that Nautia sits so far away from me.

She’s quiet. Focused inward. I want my arms wrapped around her.

“Barton,” Ivan hollers to me from the cockpit. “Japanese government. Frequency two.”

“Britta,” I say. “You’re up.”

Her hands tremble as she unbuckles herself. She wipes her palms on her vest and shuffles over to the empty seat beside Ivan. After strapping in, she glides the headphones on, but only one speaker rests against her ear. The other hangs off the back of her head.

A male voice echoes into the sub, and Britta responds in an accent that sounds native. Bad blood has existed between Korea and Japan since before the Korean War, and I’m counting on that to work in our favor; an enemy of Korea is a friend of Japan. Britta goes back and forth with the Japanese operator for ten minutes before she takes off the headphones.

“We’re clear until we enter Korean waters,” she tells me.

“Offer of assistance?”

“I declined, like we’d discussed.”

“Good.”

Japan received a half-truth, but the Koreans will get a full-blown lie. The minisub we’re in was designed to resemble a deep-sea research vessel, and the story Britta will feed them is that we’d gotten off course. I don’t expect them to buy it for long. Just until we get to the beach at Wonsan.

Britta stays in the co-pilot seat, her exhales tapering off to even breaths. She quickly moves on to biting her nails, though. I glance over at Nautia and catch her stare. She offers a small smile before looking away again. The little action guts me. In the water, she’s safe. But in Wonsan? If she weren’t so goddamn necessary for this mission, I would have made her stay on the
Triton
with Sickles.

I can lose her.

Silence descends over the crew. Nautia’s eyelids fall closed as she leans against Kray. Her shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm, and I relax a little. My crew is ready for this. We’ve trained hard, and in the last week of simulations, I’d noticed a change in the Specials; they’ve become soldiers.

Later, Britta puts her headphones back on. She answers the person speaking to her in Korean. Her face scrunches up as she acts out her part of getting off course during the alleged dive we’re on. The rehearsed story is that our radar stopped working. Our research team set out from Wonsan hours ago and the lab is sending assistance to lead us back to shore.

“
Ani ani. Yeongusoneun jiwon-eul bonaegoissda
,” she says, waving her hands in front of her. She pauses, listening. Then she swivels to me. “They’re contacting the lab.”

“Sickles,” I intercom in.

“Yes, sir?”

“Intercept the call and reroute it to a dead line.”

“Copy that.”

I follow our location on the radar screen. We’ll have to surface at least 500 feet out and swim the rest of the way to shore. We’re forty-five minutes from that. Adrenaline surges in me; I was built for this.

I unbuckle, stand, and clap my hands. “Listen up, everyone.”

Arms stretch, vocal chords groan, bones crack, but all eyes gravitate to me. I explain the situation and remind everyone of the contingency plans.

“Any questions?” I’m not surprised there aren’t. We’ve been over this a million times. “All right. Get ready.”

Britta’s speaking again—arguing, from the sound of it. Then she throws the headphones off. “They didn’t take the bait. They’re sending a sub.”

“Okay. Plan B. Keep to our current coordinates. We need as much distance as we can get.”

“Yes, sir,” Ivan says.

Twenty minutes later, I spot the Korean submarine on radar. We have four hidden missiles on board, but using them right now would be suicide. They’ll have more, and we’re not here to declare war.

Their vessel radios in, Britta answers the call, and keeps with the research story.

She mutes the transmitter. “They’re demanding we go topside.”

“Ivan, how much farther we got?” I ask.

“We’re eight miles out.”

Too far.

“Tell them we’re having technical difficulties.”

Britta relays the message. I lean forward on the back of Ivan’s seat, checking the screens. The terrain beneath us is flat and open. Not good for hiding a sub.

“They’re giving us five minutes,” Britta says, setting a timer. “Or they lock missiles on us.”

“Where will that put us, Ivan?”

“Closer. We’ll have a two-mile swim to shore.”

“And the topography?”

Ivan presses a button and the screen expands. She studies it for a second, then points to a low area. “There. It drops fifty feet.”

“Can we make it there in under five?”

“Five and a half, maybe.”

“We’ll be dead by then,” I mutter. I turn around, and Nautia looks up. “Can you hold them off for thirty?”

“Yes. Tell me when,” Nautia answers.

I watch the timer count down one minute. Two. Three.

“Two-minute warning,” Britta announces.

I glance at Nautia. She’s sitting at the edge of her seat, back straight and knees at a ninety degree angle to the floor. She meets my stare, waiting for my signal.

“Ninety seconds,” Britta says. “Seventy-five…one minute.”

I give the nod. “Nautia, go.”

She raises a hand in front of her and begins to create small circular movements. Within seconds, loud shouts erupt through Britta’s headphones and become frantic. Whatever Nautia is doing to them is working.

“They’ve engaged a missile,” Britta translates.

“Must be an invisible one,” Ivan says, checking the radar.

“Nautia?” I say.

Concentration lines her forehead. Her eyes teeter back and forth behind her eyelids. When they stop she says, “I’ve got it. Sending it east.”

“Two hundred feet until we break the surface,” Ivan announces.

“Missile two engaged,” Britta says. “Shot.”

Nautia focuses again. “All clear.”

Ivan twists to me. “One hundred fifty feet, Captain.”

“All right. Gather your gear. As soon as I open the hatch, we’re swimming. Haskal, you’ve got the Koreans from that point on,” I say.

Haskal
tsks
. “Cake.”

“Captain!” Britta yells. “They’re radioing in for backup!”

“On it,” Haskal replies. He reaches out into the space in front of him, fingers splayed, feeling the air. Then he grins. “Finding metal under water is a fucking delight.” He curls his fingers inward like he’s crushing a soda can. “Transmission denied.”

“Seventy-five feet,” Ivan says.

“Soldiers, this is what we’ve trained for. Stay in communication, and be safe out there.” My gaze lands on Nautia as I say the last part.

Ivan begins her countdown. “Twenty-five feet…fifteen…ten…five.”

I grab the ladder and thrust it downward. I climb up, unlock the seal, and hit the hatch twice. It pops open. Cool ocean breeze brushes over the cavity, creating a low drone. I jump out onto the deck as Ivan announces she’s powered the sub down to standby.

I sync the Digi on my wrist, which will sync everyone else’s too. If something happens to me, the master will automatically switch to the next in line and mine will self-detonate.

Gibson is first to join me on deck, followed by the rest of the crew. Kray has both his and Britta’s equipment strapped to his back. Ivan is last. She closes the hatch and seals it with a code on her Digi.

There’s nothing more to say. I hold Nautia’s gaze. Steely ocean blues peer back at me, and I’d give anything to pull her against me just to feel her body one more time. Instead, I stand up straighter, give a nod to my crew, and dive off the side.