creeping around the room? Dilara hadn’t known Locke long, but she knew that wasn’t his style. He would have answered her. Something was wrong.
With a jolt, she realized the answer. Someone else was in the room.
The bathroom door was ajar, but she didn’t want to take the chance that whoever was out there would see her peeking. She needed to keep the person off guard. Without a weapon, her one asset was surprise.
“I’m just changing,” she said, attempting to maintain the same tone of voice. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She removed her high heels.
She took her compact, opened it to use the small mirror inside, and backed behind the open door, which hid her from the view of the bathroom mirror. She lowered the compact mirror out of eye level and used it to see the reflection in the bathroom mirror. If she timed it right, she could make the most of her surprise advantage.
The first thing she saw was an outstretched arm holding a gun slowly advancing toward the bathroom. Then the face came into view. It was Svetlana Petrova, the woman who had killed Sam Watson.
Dilara lowered the compact and waited until the hand with the gun protruded into the bathroom. With her full weight, she slammed the door shut.
Petrova’s hand was crushed into the door frame, and she screamed. The gun clattered to the floor. Dilara rushed to pick it up, but Petrova was more resilient than she expected.
The door slammed inward, knocking Dilara backward into the shower. She bounced off the tile wall, using the momentum to launch herself at Petrova before she could reach the pistol.
She aimed her head like a battering ram and threw her shoulder into Petrova’s stomach. She heard an “oof!” of air escape from Petrova’s lungs, and she pile-drove Petrova into the bedroom floor.
While Petrova lay on the floor gasping for breath, Dilara scrambled back into the bathroom. She scooped up the pistol and pointed it at Petrova, who looked at her with an odd smile.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right here,” Dilara said.
“Because I wouldn’t like it,” said a voice to her left. She glanced in that direction and saw Sebastian Garrett aiming a gun at her. Like the one she held, it was equipped with a silencer.
“Put your gun down,” Dilara said, “or I’ll put a bullet in her brain.” She hoped she sounded determined. She’d handled guns all her life, but she’d never shot anyone before.
“Then I would have to shoot you, and I don’t think you’d like that.”
“I’m serious. I’ll do it.” And it suddenly occurred to Dilara that she would.
“You might, but that counts on me caring about Svetlana more than I care about killing you. Are you willing to take that chance?”
Dilara saw the look in Garrett’s eye and realized that he was a true sociopath. He didn’t care.
“You hesitate because you think I’ll kill you anyway,” Garrett said. “I promise you, if I wanted to shoot you, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I am an excellent shot.”
Dilara couldn’t argue with that reasoning. Her best bet was to find out what they wanted. She dropped the gun.
Petrova took it and stood. Dilara expected a reprisal, maybe a smack in the head, but it didn’t come.
“So what now?” Dilara asked.
“Our work here is done. We’re leaving the ship, and you’re coming with us.”
That explained why they couldn’t have her bruised and bleeding. Too many questions on their way out. Petrova retrieved Dilara’s shoes from the bathroom.
“Where are we going?” Dilara said as she put on the heels.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” Garrett said. “But I guarantee it will be better than being on this ship.”
She nodded. Her chance might be to alert someone to her predicament on the way out.
“And I know what you’re thinking,” Garrett said as he led her to the door. “If you try to tell anyone that you are being taken off the ship against your will, we won’t shoot you. We’ll shoot whoever you signal.”
As they walked down the corridor, Petrova kept behind her with the gun hidden under a shawl wrapped around her arm.
“I saw how you hung on to Locke’s arm during the party,” Petrova said, her voice dripping with ridicule. “You can forget about him. You’ll never see him again. He’s as good as dead.”
THIRTY-SIX
Locke and Perez took the glass elevator down to a floor two decks above the central atrium. On the way down, Locke could see crew members beginning to clean up after the gala, but passengers still wandered along the atrium and lingered at several of the bars along the sides.
They exited the elevator and started walking aft.
Locke had no idea what was so important for Perez to show him, but he couldn’t get the FBI agent to tell him.
“What are we going to do about Garrett?” he asked Perez. “We’ve only got a few hours before the Genesis Dawn sets sail.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Raid his room. If I’m right, he’s got some kind of device hooked into the ship’s ventilation system. I don’t think he’ll activate it until he’s off the ship, but if we can catch him with it, it’ll prove that he’s behind this.”
“You know, Dr. Locke, you lost a lot of credibility coming here without telling me. Why didn’t you tell me your suspicions about Sebastian Garrett when I spoke to you yesterday?”
“At the time, I didn’t know. Even after I got the information that he might be involved with building that bunker I told you about, I had no firm evidence. I wanted to talk to him myself, and I thought you might interfere if I told you I was coming.”
“You’re damned right I would have! Although Sebastian Garrett is involved with the Holy Hydronastic Church — which the FBI has been investigating for some time without finding a single crime — to accuse one the country’s richest men of involvement in this Project Whirlwind is a serious charge.”
A red light went off in Locke’s head, but he didn’t know why. Something about what Perez said was off.
“Agent Perez, you checked all of the luggage, didn’t you?”
“All of it. We found some contraband, but nothing that suggested a bioweapon.”
“And Garrett’s bags?”
“I’m telling you it was all searched.”
They reached an outdoor cabin at the end of the hallway. Locke wasn’t satisfied by Perez’s answer. Garrett had to get the device on board somehow. His luggage would be the logical method, but how would he get anything through the bag search?
Something wasn’t right. Locke put his hand on his belt and fiddled with his Leatherman.
“Have you spoken to Aiden MacKenna or Grant Westfield?” he asked.
“Don’t know them.” Perez swiped his key at the door. He let Locke walk in first.
Locke was a step in when he finally understood why the red light went off. Project Whirlwind. That was the name it had during the short time that Locke worked on it. But the name had been changed to Oasis when it was transferred to Coleman, and Project Oasis was what he called it when he talked to Perez the day before.
Only he, Dilara, Grant, and Aiden knew the connection between Whirlwind and Oasis. If Perez never heard about it from them, there was only one way he could have known about Whirlwind.
Perez was in on it.
The cabin was a two-room suite like the one he and Dilara had. If it had been some kind of control room, Locke would have expected to see agents sitting at high-tech equipment. But the living room area was empty.
All of those thoughts happened in one step. In one movement of his foot, Locke had gone from utter safety to grave danger. He kept his gait unchanged, but he couldn’t reach for his Glock, which was under his left arm. If he did, Perez would see the move before he had the gun out.
Instead, he slipped the Leatherman out of its holster and flipped open the folding knife.
“So what are we doing here?” he said. At the same time, he crouched down and whirled around. Perez had
