SEALs of Honor: Troy, Page 5

  “If you say so,” she said. “At the moment, I really want to go back on that helicopter with you myself.”

  “Of course you’re coming,” Troy said quietly. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “I don’t think it was safe to begin with,” she said, her voice a little raspy.

  “You could be right, but it’s definitely bad news now.”

  She nodded slowly, took a deep breath, and said, “So, what’s next?”

  “Let’s finish searching this area and then go up a level.”

  It took absolutely no time to finish that search, and, when they went up a level, they headed back into the dining area. Almost everybody was gathered there. The three company men were here too, and the one real company man talked to the group of crewmen. Mason stood to the side, looking bored. But his gaze narrowed when the three of them arrived.

  The company man, Gregor, looked at them, nodded, and said with a little relief, “There you are. I was wondering. We need to have a talk,” and he pointed at Berkley. “You missed your one-on-one meeting.”

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling very well.”

  Daniel just rolled his eyes at that. And even Jonesy snickered.

  *

  Troy watched the climate around him and saw that the atmosphere was strictly a male-dominant one. He didn’t think any female would have it easy on this rig. He’d been on several rigs with plenty of women, and it was no problem. But, if this kind of climate were allowed to fester, all hell would break loose eventually. Apparently it already had. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood protectively at her side. Jonesy appeared to catch his movement and glared at him.

  Troy just stared back. But Phil had him worried. Because he was openly glaring at Berkley.

  “Women are bad luck,” Phil said.

  “What? So you’re blaming me for everything that’s gone wrong?” she said in outrage.

  Troy reached out, gently grabbing her hand with his. She looked at him almost glaringly too, and, when he gave a tiny shake of his head, she subsided.

  Good thing, because this wasn’t the time for an all-out war. He understood her feelings on the matter, but it didn’t change the scenario they were in right now. Their subtle movements and silent communications were caught by everyone in the room.

  Some of the men hid snickers, and the others just glared at Troy. He stared calmly back, daring anybody to say anything.

  Gregor turned to her and said, “I want to speak with you next.”

  She nodded. “Absolutely.” As she headed forward, she went to loosen her hand, but Troy didn’t let go. She frowned at him.

  He smiled, leaned over, and gave her a quick kiss. He whispered, “Just setting the scene.”

  She growled under her breath at him.

  He chuckled and said quietly, “Worth it, if it keeps you safe.”

  She stopped at that and then gave a grudging nod. “Okay,” she muttered, “but I still don’t like it.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Nobody does. But, the fact of the matter is, something is very wrong here.”

  “Yeah, you think?” Her tone was caustic, but there was enough fight there to keep a smile on her face.

  He glanced at Axel and said, “I’ll go with her to the meeting.”

  “You do that,” he said, “and I’ll stick around here with the guys.”

  Troy almost laughed at that because Axel was anything but one of the guys. Still, he was somebody to keep an eye on things, whether these guys liked it or not.

  As soon as Troy got into the hallway, he looked behind him to see the three company men were still standing, talking business. But Mason watched them. His hands behind his back, he gave a thumbs-up sign.

  “Let’s go,” Troy said.

  “Was that really necessary?” she asked him.

  “Maybe not,” he said, “but, as long as they think something’s between us, they’ll think twice about coming after you to run into me.”

  “Will they though?” she said. “I’ve turned them all down.”

  “Of course you have,” he said. “It’s the only safe thing to do in this environment.”

  She laughed at that. “Yeah? But that’s what got my girlfriend in trouble,” she said, and this time her cry was broken, and her tears were close to the surface.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “We couldn’t believe it,” she said. “Who’d have thought that would be a problem here in the twenty-first century? In America—well, technically working with Americans, but we’re in international waters. Still, where we’re supposed to be a first-world country, the greatest place to live, blah-blah.”

  “It shouldn’t have been. That’s on management,” he said.

  “Right,” she said, with a snap of her fingers. “That’s who’s in the cooler.”

  “Who?”

  “I think those could be three of the management guys who are in charge of different divisions on the rig.”

  He stared at her in shock and quickly pulled her off to the side. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded.

  “Were they known to be missing?”

  She nodded again.

  “Who’s the fourth one?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. He looked familiar, but just one of many faces that I’ve seen. A lot of men were on this rig. And remember. I’m not here full-time, and my focus is pretty narrow.”

  He nodded. “Got it. But you know how this looks, don’t you?”

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking it looked like anything, until we saw Lionel there,” she said, “but now I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, I do,” he said, “and none of it’s good.” Troy understood exactly what she meant. It was a shock to find out the world around you was happening when you weren’t paying attention.

  Obviously there’d been so much chaos in the last forty-eight hours that something had gone on, and yet nobody knew anything. It was also obvious that the newcomers’ arrival was something nobody had expected. As such, whether the skeleton crew was trying to move the bodies now, to store them, or just hoped to keep everybody away from that section, the fact was, more bodies were there than should have been under any situation. And that was an issue of concern.

  Finally the three company men stepped into the hallway to follow Troy and Berkley.

  With her close at his side, Troy headed toward the office in command central. She walked through the command post, heading to her computer, checked her log, then nodded, and carried on. He raised an eyebrow. Under her breath, she whispered, “Just making sure nobody touched it.”

  He nodded, and the three company men stepped inside the office, closed the door, and then drew the curtain, so that nobody outside could see them.

  In a low voice she said, “Just in case you think this is private, it’s not. Anybody standing outside right now can hear us.”

  At that, Mason sucked in his breath, then looked at her and said, “Where is a quiet place then?”

  She shook her head. “There really isn’t one anywhere. Between cameras and nosy people, almost everywhere is suspect.” She motioned toward the room behind them. “But that storeroom is probably the best of them.”

  They headed into the back storeroom, which was a tight squeeze for all five of them. Good thing Axel had stayed with the crew.

  As soon as they stepped inside, Mason asked Troy, “Have you found anything?”

  “Bodies,” he said, “eight of them.”

  Gregor sucked back a breath. “Seriously? I thought four were missing.”

  “Well, I’ll say four aren’t missing now, because eight are dead here. But, for whatever reason, it’s quite possible they want you to believe that four of those bodies won’t be here if you were to come looking.”

  “What do you mean?” Mason demanded.

  Nelson leaned against the back wall and studied the two of them together. But he didn’t say a word.

  Troy
gave him a half nod, then explained what they’d found.

  “So Lionel didn’t die in the accident?” Gregor asked.

  Troy shook his head. “Both Lionel’s and Charlie’s bodies were warm. Obviously they’re cooling now. But I’d say they haven’t been gone for long. This morning I’d say.”

  “And nobody expected us to be here at all,” Nelson said. “So are you thinking those two would get deep-sixed first?”

  “Exactly,” Troy said. “We’ve moved Lionel’s body into the freezer section. We’d really like you to take him back with you for an autopsy.”

  “Consider it done,” Gregor said in a harsh tone. “Jesus Christ, what’s been going on here?”

  “Potentially a lot, though some you may know,” Berkley said, speaking up. “And a lot you’ve probably ignored.”

  He raised his eyebrows and stared at her.

  She identified herself and said, “I’m sure you heard about the three women who were gang-raped during their stay here.”

  Gregor’s face paled. “We heard rumors of a sexual assault,” he said cautiously.

  She immediately shook her head. “No. Not rumors, and don’t soft-sell it as sexual assault. Take that directly as gang rape. One of them was my friend. I saw her and photographed her injuries afterward. I also got her off this rig as soon as I could.”

  Nelson straightened up and came over, fury lining his body. “In a climate like this,” he said, “that is bad news.”

  “It’s bad news anytime,” she said, her tone gaining a bit of temper.

  “Could she identify her attackers?” Mason asked.

  “My friend was blindfolded.”

  Mason spoke up. “You told us about Tabitha. Is that who you’re talking about?”

  She nodded. “Tabitha won’t talk about it much. She’s too traumatized by it all. We have spoken, and I’ve told her that I’d look into it, but she was terrified I’d be next. She didn’t, doesn’t,” Berkeley corrected herself hastily, “know about the other rapes. My priority was getting her away, and I pulled every favor I had to get her on the next flight out.”

  “So then how will we prove what happened to her?”

  “Well, I sent semen swabs off to a private lab,” she said, “with my own money. And I have the photographs. She also needs to see a shrink. I’m trying to get her to do that, but, while I’m here, she’s not being very cooperative.”

  “Of course not,” Mason said, running a hand through his hair. “She wants to put it off, not think about it at all.”

  “Well, she won’t be able to as soon as I can land and be with her,” Berkley said. “I’d really like to leave with you today, if I could.”

  “The weather has taken a downturn,” Gregor said. “According to the pilot, we might not be leaving at all.”

  “In that case,” Troy said to Mason and Nelson, “you better be armed.”

  “That bad?” Mason asked, but already he knew.

  “Something’s definitely wrong here,” Troy said. “And that’s in addition to the dead bodies and the three women who were raped. So, Lionel is the brother of Daniel, the foreman, who’s having a hard time right now. He flat-out told me that his brother is missing, and instead his brother is in the cooler. Lionel and didn’t die in that explosion two days ago but sometime within the past twelve hours. According to Berkley, Lionel was gay. Something that he tried hard to keep quiet but—” Then he stopped, looked at Berkley, and said, “Wait. Berkley, any chance that Charlie, the man in the body bag beside Lionel, was his lover?”

  “It’s quite possible,” she said steadily. “I don’t know. Again I come and go from this place, and I kept a schedule that didn’t match up with all the staff.”

  “Can you leave?” Gregor asked. “How much value are you adding by being here?”

  “I can work via remote access,” she said, “but you also need to know a hacker’s going through your files.”

  “What?” he said in outrage. “Did you cut him out?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m tracing every spot he touches, trying to figure out what he’s after.”

  “You have to get him out of there,” Gregor said, moving a couple steps forward, pacing, but the storeroom was way too damn small. He ended up slumped against the far wall. “Jesus, what a nightmare.”

  “Another thing you need to know is,” Troy said, “several of the bodies in the cooler are likely managers from this rig.”

  “I assumed,” Gregor said. “It’s one of the reasons chaos ensued immediately. Once the top guys went down, nobody else knew how to handle themselves.”

  “But that’s not normal, is it?” Nelson said quietly. “Three of your top managers?”

  “Who are the others?” Gregor asked.

  “I don’t know,” Troy said and turned to look at her. “Can you bring up your photos?”

  She quickly brought out her phone and flipped through them—past Lionel, his friend Charlie, then stopped as she got to the photos of the six in the cooler. Three she suspected were managers. “Who are they?”

  “Don’t know that one, but that’s Stedman … and this guy must be a crewman … but this one is Doug … and Pete,” Gregor said, stopping. “Three managers among the dead here. In fact, Pete was here early, as part of the takeover that was happening. We were doing a complete sweep of the staff, breaking up the group here. We had heard a lot of problems originated here, then after the sexual assault rumors,” he said, holding up a hand to stop Berkley’s hot response, “we decided to break them up and to move them around different rigs.”

  “Moving them elsewhere doesn’t solve the problem. The men here are trouble and would be anywhere else,” Berkley said. “Not all of them. Some are damn good guys. But then you get the bad apples, and they’re just ugly.”

  “Which is what we were trying to avoid,” he said quietly.

  “Too little, too late,” she snapped.

  Troy reached out a hand for hers and squeezed it. “I understand how much this hurts you,” he said, “but right now we have to make sure that everything stays calm, quiet, and under control. We have eight other crewmen on this rig beyond us, and all eight could have had something to do with those bodies in that cooler.”

  “It’s not even a matter of extra bodies,” Mason said. “We were told flat-out four were missing.” He turned to look at Gregor. “Did you know anything about deaths being reported?”

  Gregor shook his head. “No. I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “I knew about four missing, and these management guys were three of them,” Mason said.

  “However, none of you are really putting together something here though,” Troy said, trying to keep the conversation under control. He gripped Berkley’s fingers, and she subsided. He looked at Gregor. “The thing is, if those managers died in the explosion, I’d eat my hat.”

  Gregor stared at him in shock. “What are you saying?”

  “No signs of violence, like from a blast, appear on any of the men in that cooler down there that we could determine,” he said. “So, however those men died, it wasn’t from an explosion.”

  Chapter 5

  Berkley looked at the three company men, seeing the shock in their faces. “With the caveat,” she added hurriedly, “that we couldn’t see their whole bodies. But, no, none had massive burns or blackened faces or obvious bloody wounds, nothing like that. Now were they shot or stabbed in the back or poisoned or something else? We don’t know.”

  All three men slowly nodded.

  “Interesting point,” Mason said, studying her. “And, of course, that’s the reason for getting the bodies off here sooner rather than later.”

  “Yes,” she said, “and Daniel’s brother in particular.”

  “And why him again?” asked Gregor. “Why him?”

  “Because, based on one of our current theories, he was targeted for being gay,” she said.

  “And we know for a fact he and the other guy near him didn’t die two days ago,
” Troy added. “They died much later. Like today.”

  “Well, the pilot says we’re not going anywhere today,” Nelson said, relaxing against the other side of the storeroom, his arms across his chest. “But, if we’ve got murderers on our hands here, that’s an entirely different story.”

  She nodded grimly. “It’s been such chaos here. I can’t confirm that any of these remaining men are responsible. Tons of other crewmen have been coming and going over the last two days.”

  “Of course there have been,” Gregor said. “We had to get everybody off.”

  “Exactly. And, just because these are the men who are here now,” Troy said beside her, “they make for great suspects.”

  “Meaning that the last person off-loaded could have been the murderer, and nobody would know,” Berkley stated.

  Troy nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Is anybody here someone you suspect?” Mason asked her.

  Now all eyes turned to Berkley. She shrugged. “A suspect? Not necessarily, no. Are there some I don’t like? Yes, absolutely. Are they all women haters? No, not necessarily, but women don’t belong here. This group is homophobic, sexist, and probably racist. Although I’m not sure about that last part.” She tilted her head to the side. “In this world, black men still rate above white women.”

  “Not an uncommon thing in these areas, where it’s mostly a man’s world,” Mason murmured.

  She gave a clipped nod. “Still, it’s not something I’m particularly used to seeing all that often. Only on the rigs.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Troy said. He looked over at the other three. “What do you want us to do?”

  “I want to get our other two men onto the rig safely and without being seen,” Mason said. “That’s the priority right now for you and Axel. We’ll keep Berkley with us, and we want her to keep working on her computers.”

  Troy hesitated.

  Mason raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

  “A lot of cameras are on the rig,” he said. “We could use her help shutting them down as we go, or we need to take the entire system offline,” he said. “Just long enough so that we get our crew on board and get them stashed somewhere.”