Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“Hey!” yelled a man in shirt sleeves. “Where’s your ID badge? You can’t bring a dog in here!”
I had to move fast before I got thrown out. I saw a flight of stairs and pounded up them to the top floor. Behind me, the guy yelled for me to come back.
I burst out of the stairwell into the room with sloping glass windows I’d seen from below. It was a control room. People sat at computer screens, their faces lit with reflections of shipping routes, maps of the port, and the glowing, colorful rectangles of thousands of shipping containers. It was quiet and calm.
Until I showed up. As I marched in, my hip knocked against a stack of papers on a desk and the whole thing toppled to the floor and spread out into a wide fan. Rufus bounded in behind me, his tail clearing desks of trinkets and coffee mugs. Everyone looked round.
“Who the hell are you?” a woman’s voice demanded.
I turned. She was in her forties, wearing a headset and a trouser suit, and she stood in the very center of the room so that she could see everyone’s screen and what was going on outside the windows. I didn’t need to look at her ID badge to know she was in charge.
I hurried towards her. A security guard moved to intercept me from the back of the room.
The woman frowned. “Who are you?” she asked again. “You can’t be in here!”
I stopped right in front of her and now she wasn’t mad, she was scared. She backed away from me and the security guard started to run. Shit. I was looming. I’d spent so many years looming and scowling and scaring people away, I’d forgotten how to switch it off. I opened my mouth to speak but those cogs and gears were all jammed tight again. This wasn’t like talking to Bethany, with her patience and cool, calming voice. Everyone was staring at me, defensive and worried.
I looked down at myself. Bearded and long-haired. Nearly seven feet tall. My clothes were torn and mud-stained from my run through the forest, blood was soaking through one sleeve where a few shotgun pellets had winged me and a big German Shepherd was prowling around my legs. I’d be scared of me.
The security guard put his hand on his gun. “Just back away, pal.”
I had to talk to this woman. Convince her to help. But she was the first person I’d had to really talk to, other than Bethany, in six years. “I—”
Feet pounded up the stairs. The man in shirt sleeves from downstairs appeared, along with another security guard. “Sorry, Nina, he got past me. C’mon, outta here!”
I stared down into the woman’s eyes. She was scared and I didn’t know the words to say to put her at ease. “I—”
The security guards each grabbed one of my arms. “Come on, buddy, let’s get you downstairs.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I hunkered down, bending my knees until I was at eye level with the woman. And then I forced myself to talk like I did to Bethany. I had to not growl or snarl or grunt. Just speak.
“Ma’am,” I said, “My name’s Cal Whittaker and...I need your help. To save ten women, including the one I love.”
The security guards started to pull me towards the stairs. I let them because if I resisted, they’d reach for their guns. I kept my eyes on the woman—Nina, the guy had called her. And I prayed she could see in my face that I was telling the truth.
“Wait,” she said.
The guards kept pulling me. The guy in shirt sleeves scowled. “He’s just some homeless guy.”
“Wait!” ordered Nina. Everyone stopped.
Nina walked over to me. She looked down at Rufus, who immediately sat and looked up at her with eyes that would have melted a heart of stone. She looked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s a shipping container somewhere on your dock with women inside,” I told her.
Nina blinked. “If...that’s true then we can get the police involved—”
“There’s no time! It got here hours ago, it might already be on a ship!”
Nina debated for a second. “Do you know the container number?”
“No. I know it’s red.”
The whole office gave a despairing sigh.
“I know it came in by truck a few hours ago and I know the ship’s heading to Russia!” I told them.
Nina crossed her arms and frowned at me, trying to figure out if I was a crazy timewaster. I stood there trying to look as sane and sincere as I could. The guy in shirt sleeves shook his head at Nina. She glared at him. Bit her lip….
“Marcus,” she asked, without taking her eyes off of me. “Do we have anything heading to Russia today?”
A guy in his twenties tapped at his keyboard and then turned to her, pushing his glasses up his nose. “There is one...the Charodeyka. But...that’s leaving now.”