Chapter 3
She remembered the freezing darkness of that dreadful night, the sound of tearing titanium, and the terrifying gurgle of salt water rushing into the ballast chambers while Marcus shoved her toward the escape pod.
He had locked the hydraulic dog latch from the outside, yelling through the reinforced glass that someone had to survive to tell the command what truly happened. She had carried the agonizing guilt of his sacrifice ever since.
I survived the current and washed ashore near the remote Svalbard weather station, the text continued. A local fishing family hid me when armed contractors searched the clinics, realizing my survival was a massive liability.
Kristen turned the page with trembling fingers, her soldier's calm completely shattered by the reality unfolding before her. The world she thought she knew was tilting violently on its axis inside this humming pressurized metal tube.
For six years I worked under a dead sailor's passport across European freight yards, quietly gathering maritime manifests and company registries, Marcus wrote. I found the paper trail, Kristen. Every single dollar, ship, and offshore account.
The man who had financed the illegal salvage team that destroyed their vessel was an influential corporate financier based out of Boston. He used offshore hedge vehicles to strip maritime patents through illicit deep-sea recovery teams.
Kristen’s eyes dropped to the signature line at the very bottom of the second page, where an incorporated entity name was circled three times. It read: Vanguard Meridian Trust, Managing Director and Senior Partner: Julian Sterling.
A chilling chill rushed down Kristen’s spine, far colder than the Arctic water she had swallowed six years ago. The arrogant man who had just tried to drag her from her seat wasn't merely a rude traveler.
He was the architect of the sabotage that had claimed four members of her deep-sea dive unit. Fate had placed him directly in seat 3B beside her, entirely unaware of the ghost he had just attempted to bully.
She folded the letter deliberately, sliding it into her breast pocket right beneath the heavy silver insignia of her diver's trident. Her hands were no longer shaking; the familiar, absolute stillness of battlefield command returned completely.
Outside the cockpit door, Captain Reynolds lingered, checking his flight manifest while waiting for ground dispatch clearance. He caught Kristen’s gaze through the narrow galley opening and noticed the profound shift in her hardened expression.
Chapter 3
Kristen stood up smoothly from seat 3A, slipping her paperback into her small backpack without a single wasted movement. She walked toward the front of the aircraft, her athletic frame radiating an unquestionable aura of total authority.