by A. J. Thomas
Nate let out a slow breath and nodded. He fumbled getting the car back into gear, then pulled forward toward the office that was tucked into a tiny air-conditioned trailer just a hundred feet ahead.
Just as the guard said, people were scrambling to move cars out of the way so they’d have room to park.
“In case this turns out to be one of the few times I get to say I told you so, I am really sorry,” Sean muttered. “First I made you go talk to Bruce with me, and now this. I never meant for—”
“No.” Nate cut him off. He stopped the car right where they were and leaned toward Sean, twisting so he could reach him with his left hand. “Don’t apologize for any of this shit. I’ll admit I was angry about Bruce, but responsibility for that’s on me. Even if he’s not guilty, I want Bruce to suffer. I want him to face actual consequences for how he treated you. I hate that you’re trying to defend him, but if you did anything else, you wouldn’t be you. I know you’re a better man than I am. I just try to do the right thing when it’s not too much of an inconvenience, so it’s hard for me to trust that you’re not doing this so you can go back to him when it’s all over, because I wouldn’t put this much effort into helping someone without some kind of personal stake in the outcome. But I’m just going to have to trust that you really are as altruistic as I know you are, and you’re going to have to trust that I fell so hard for you that I’ll help your bastard of an ex just to make you happy.
“As for this…,” Nate said, glancing around at the port where their car seemed to have attracted the attention of every person in the area. “Even if one person, or a few people, genuinely want to hurt you over this case, there must be almost a hundred people here. Including port authority officers—and they’re not private security, they’re cops. Nothing is going to happen.”
Sean nodded nervously and hoped Nate was right.
“Would you feel better if I sent a text to Hawk and my dad, letting them know where we are in case something happens?”
“Yes,” Sean said.
Nate traced his fingers along the line of Sean’s jaw and set his forehead against Sean’s, a gesture somehow more intimate than Sean had expected.
Chapter 14
“THIS IS a little awkward,” Nate whispered after they parked. The scurrying sailors and engineers who had been running around when they’d pulled up had all stopped. “I don’t think we’ve got any hope of finding someone who could get us copies of the logs.”
The Republic Sea was still tied up next to the long concrete pier, and a small group of people in CPG’s yellow polo shirts were moving toward them quickly. Nate grabbed his briefcase and looked at Sean before stepping out of the car. “Do you want your wheelchair?” he asked.
Sean shook his head and picked up his cane.
“You!” an older man from the advancing group yelled. “Is he here?”
“Mr. Gallagher?” Nate asked, recognizing the man as he came closer. What the hell was CPG’s Chief Research Officer doing here?
His hands were covered in grease and dirt up to the elbows, and he looked angry. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Wilkinson. Trying to get anything done with four bloodsucking lawyers getting in the way hasn’t worked.”
“What are you doing to my pump assembly?” Sean snapped. He was still struggling to move away from the car door on his cane. “You’re destroying everything!”
Gallagher actually looked relieved. “Lord, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. You might not remember me, but I’m—”
“I remember you, Mr. Gallagher. You’re the asshole who brought Lancaster to that meeting with Harrison and Poole.”
“I prefer to think of myself as the damn fool who believed Lancaster when he suggested he could help smooth things over. And I’m not destroying anything. I’m trying to pick up all the pieces Lancaster left behind, which you’re more than welcome to come see for yourself. But first….” Gallagher squeezed his eyes shut, his entire expression reflecting more remorse than Nate expected. “There’s something that I think you’ve got a right to see. And your lawyer too. Heaven knows where this is going to end.”
“Bruce Lancaster did this?” Nate asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
“Near as we can tell. But I dare say that doesn’t matter now.” Gallagher cocked his head to the side, considering Sean critically. “Do you think you’d be able to managing the gangplank and a set of stairs?”
“No,” Sean said immediately. “The gangplank, maybe, but….”
Gallagher stared at Sean, then nodded. “Right. I’ve got the one we pulled in Corpus Christi torn apart on the dock already, and we’ll take some video so you can see the one that’s still on the ship for yourself. Archer,” he said to one of the men flanking him. “Do a walk-through of the engine compartment again. Get footage of every detail and a close-up of the inside of each cylinder.”
“Cylinders?” Sean exclaimed. “The piston cylinders? You broke down the entire engine without removing it from the ship?”
“The what?” Nate asked, staring between them.
“The engine that powers the thrusters is basically like the one in most cars,” Sean explained quickly. “It moves a turbine instead of a drive train, and it’s a hell of a lot bigger, but it’s the same mechanism. And you don’t rip either of them apart while they’re still hooked up to shit.”
“I wanted answers, and that engine is already scrap,” Gallagher explained. “The first one we installed after the accident, which ran without a hitch since July, died abruptly, right when the ship was going to pull out about four weeks ago. It took us a week to put in another new one, brand-new, and it didn’t make it past the docks. Three engines, all with the same problems. Come over here,” he said, nodding toward the tangle of parts on the dock.
As they drew close to the dock, Nate was stunned to realize how much the Republic Sea had changed. The ship itself was more like a commercial fishing boat than anything. The white hull was covered in barnacles and rust, just like before. But the last time Nate had been here, the aft deck had held gigantic coils of hoses and cables along with compression tanks and the pump and engine assembly Sean had helped to build. If Nate hadn’t seen it before, he wouldn’t even be able to guess that anything was amiss. But where there had been a functional and clean-looking mechanical system months ago, the aft deck now held nothing but bits and parts, as if someone really had ripped the entire thing apart. When Nate had first started investigating the case, all of the equipment had been painted black, with various graffiti-like designs decorating the tanks and sheet-metal casing. He hadn’t realized they were Sean’s work at the time, but he’d been struck by the detail and depth from the start. And they were all gone now.
Whoever had torn apart the pump system had been thorough.
Nate looked around at the bits and pieces they passed, trying to spot any of the black paint or bright colors. There wasn’t a single bit of black paint, and he wondered at that. It hadn’t been cheap spray paint, but professional-looking enamel. It wouldn’t have worn off in a matter of months.
“These aren’t yours,” he said to Sean.
Sean was staring at the pieces as he tried to keep up with Gallagher. “They’re not,” he agreed. “This is the old pump system. We broke it down and put it into storage once we assembled the tanks and compressors on board. How did you know?”
“You painted them,” Nate said smugly.
“Do you remember the components of your pump assembly and sensor relays well enough that you could identify any of them?” Gallagher asked.
“Well, yeah. The parts we managed to source from manufacturers… not so much. But the custom pieces we machined here, I would recognize. Where is everything?” Sean asked, looking at the mess spread out around them.
Gallagher folded his hands together. “That’s the big question. And you may have just answered it.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll see.” Instead of stopping by the pump equipment, Gallagher led
them to a massive engine that had been set up on a series of metal sawhorses. “I was in Corpus Christi yesterday, trying to figure out just why the engine powering the bow thrusters on the Sea failed that day. Seemed like a reasonable course of action, since the replacement we installed died the same way. The Sea has been stuck here for over a month now.”
Nate couldn’t help but be curious. “The crew said they were stuck in port because of the case.”
Gallagher raised a single eyebrow at him and bent over the top of the engine. “Our attorneys said we’d have weeks before they needed to be back. If the ship could have gotten under way, it would have. I tinkered with the engine in Corpus Christi until I found the problem. When I got here, I pulled this one out of storage and found exactly the same failure. After Lancaster was arrested, I got too impatient to wait until we could pull the ship out of the water, so I just took it apart as-is. All three are the same. Gaskets shredded, scarring inside the cylinders, and silicon dioxide clogging the oil filters.”
“Sand?” Nate asked. “That’s what silicon dioxide is, right?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sean said, looking confused. “There would have to be sand getting into the engine oil.”
“That’s right,” Gallagher said, nodding quickly.
“But there couldn’t have been. The thrusters are in the water, so they might get sand in them, but the engine is a closed system. Even if there was water getting into the engine compartment, it wouldn’t get into the oil reservoir. The oil couldn’t have been contaminated.”
The look on Gallagher’s face was almost proud. “Couldn’t have been, but was. Normally we could flush the oil out, replace all the gaskets and filters and whatnot. But the damn stuff is sticking to each cylinder wall and valve, because it’s not just sand.”
“Now, wait a minute. The accident report just said a gasket had failed,” Nate said, looking at Gallagher suspiciously.
The old man nodded to a small pile of blackened, shredded rubber near the engine. “It did fail, because the sand in the oil ripped it apart. And we examined every single millimeter of this damn thing. There is no mechanical failure or leak that can account for it. Wilkinson, come here and stick your hand in this thing,” Gallagher said to Sean.
To Nate’s surprise, Sean didn’t hesitate. He set his cane against the sawhorse and leaned over, reaching into a long metal tube that was wider than his arm. He pulled his hand out quickly, rubbing his fingers together. “It’s binding,” he said, glancing at Gallagher. “It’s binding to the oil.”
“I had it analyzed. Sand with traces of industrially refined, calcium-based bentonite isn’t something that you’d find running around or on a sand bar.”
Sean’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth opened. He stumbled backward, apparently shocked, and would have fallen completely if Nate hadn’t moved to catch him.
“Sean?” he asked, glaring at Gallagher. “What the hell does that mean?”
Sean lunged toward Gallagher, his expression furious. It took all of Nate’s strength to keep him from attacking the older man.
“It’s fucking clay!”
“A very specific clay,” Gallagher confirmed, looking proud. “It isn’t something that the ship could possibly pick up hitting a sandbar. It’s used in a concoction called ‘greensand.’ Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Lancaster used it extensively in our machine shop.”
“Sean?” Nate asked, holding him tighter.
“Let go of me!”
“You need to calm down first.”
“We used it to cast custom parts. You make a 3-D print out of the part, pack greensand around it to make two halves of a mold, then pour in the metal you’re casting. And the only way it could have gotten from the machine shop to the thruster engine is if he ordered someone to put it there!”
Gallagher sighed. “This might come as a surprise to you, but CPG paid for regular maintenance for this ship. It obviously wasn’t done, but invoices were filed, bills were paid, and everything seemed to be accounted for. We’ve managed to trace the money to manufacturing companies and a few telecommunications companies. That money, Mr. Wilkinson, seems to have been what funded your prototype.”
“What are you talking about?” Nate demanded.
“We didn’t authorize the purchase of any parts or equipment, or sign any contracts, to build or operate Mr. Wilkinson’s pump system. Lancaster didn’t get you permission to build this thing, he embezzled money to do it. The first time I, or anyone else at our corporate offices, heard about your pump design was when our inspection team came aboard after the accident and asked what the hell it was,” Gallagher said calmly. “Which was a pity, because from what I saw after the accident, it really was a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, sometime over the last two weeks, your equipment has disappeared. The pressure sensors are gone, along with all of the equipment for downloading and processing the seismic data, and the compression tanks that aren’t from the original pump system have been punctured. It’s gone, and what isn’t missing has been destroyed.”
Sean seemed to shrink in Nate’s arms, his anger dripping away. “Are you saying that he….” Nate wasn’t even sure what he was trying to ask.
“How long does it take the oil in this engine to cycle through, do you think?” Gallagher asked Sean, ignoring Nate.
“I….” Sean shook his head. “It’s oiltight, so about twenty seconds?”
Gallagher nodded. “About that. And if you were venturing a guess, how long do you think it would run once oil with this gunk in it circulated through it?”
“However long it takes for the valve seals to fail,” Sean said miserably. “With the clay in it… minutes.”
“Six minutes,” Gallagher said quickly. “We tried it ourselves and timed it. Lancaster went out of his way to keep your design a secret, to hide the money he allocated to pay for it in the ship’s maintenance costs. And he’s sabotaged the ship twice in the last month so he could steal or destroy every piece of your pump system.”
Nate felt nauseous. “But you’re saying this is why the thrusters failed that day, why Sean got hurt.”
“I can identify the mechanism that caused the engine to die,” Gallagher said. “But I have no idea why it happened.”
“They tried to kill him,” Nate growled. The accident that had torn Sean’s life to pieces wasn’t the result of negligence or carelessness.
Nate held him close as Sean trembled against him.
“No,” Sean said, his voice shaking. “Even if he did cause the thruster engine to fail, he couldn’t have known I’d be up there. There was no way to time something like that unless he was on the ship, and he wasn’t.”
“I agree,” Gallagher said. “The only thing that engine grinding to a halt should have done was send the ship straight to dry dock. The engine would have been replaced, and a few weeks later, it’d be back in the water. I’m guessing that was when Lancaster originally planned to take all this apart. The only thing I’m confused about is why he waited. Why not remove the entire thing before you came aboard full-time? What changed?”
“I finished it,” Sean muttered. “I cleaned up the code, finished more simulations and testing, and updated the control system. I installed the new software the day I came back.”
“And three days later, the ship suffered a major mechanical failure that would have given Bruce time in port to steal it,” Nate said, feeling hollow.
Gallagher crossed his arms. “For what it’s worth, I’m sure Lancaster didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. Equipment fails—it happens and we replace it. But when someone gets hurt, we investigate. That included inspecting every inch of this ship as soon as it pulled up to the docks. When I saw that the pump system had been altered, I figured that the changes contributed to the accident, so I kept the ship in port and went over it with a fine-tooth comb. When we talked to the crew about it, Lancaster and Alden made the whole thing out to be a project that Lancaster designed and you helped build.”
“But it wa
s mine. Everybody knew about it. Everyone on the crew knew what I was working on.”
“I can’t pretend that anything we can offer you could make this right,” Gallagher said. “But I am sorry that you got caught up in this.”
Nate let Sean turn in his arms to bury his face against Nate’s shoulder. He tried to think of something he could say, anything that might make this blow hurt less, but that didn’t seem to be possible.
Sean looked up at the equipment and debris on the concrete around them. “It was mine,” Sean said again, his expression stricken. He gestured to the equipment and whimpered. “And he destroyed it.”
“I’m sorry,” Gallagher said again. “It ain’t even my baby, and I feel the same. I think the whole issue is a bit moot now, but if you want to rebuild it, or if you should ever want to tinker around in our machine shop, we’d take you on as a consultant.”
Nate glanced up sharply. “Nothing’s moot,” he snapped. “Just because one of your employees caused Sean’s injuries while committing a crime doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.”
Gallagher pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving a finger-shaped grease mark behind. “Jesus H. Christ, I’m beginning to see why Harrison says you’re a relentless bastard. Of course we’re still responsible. The settlement offer hasn’t changed. Offering him some space to work doesn’t have a damn thing to do with that. Everybody else had to look up what bentonite was, including me, and even then it took us days to figure out where it had come from. It took him about five seconds. Despite everything he’s been through, I can’t imagine it’ll be long before he wants to turn his mind to something new, and I would hate to miss whatever he comes up with next.”
“But you still want Sean to sign the idea over to you,” Nate said bitterly.
“Young man, up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t convinced that Mr. Wilkinson had actually done any of what he’d claimed. Being able to actually talk to him, instead of to an attorney, has cleared that up. Son, if you want to patent the process or copyright the control-module software, we won’t dispute it. But if you choose to, we’d be more than happy to negotiate a license agreement.”