“No one can come aboard, Lieutenant. Sorry,” he said, not sounding very sorry, his face like a slab of stone.

14

Ruby walked across the yard, cursing to herself, sweat dripping down her back. She was slow to anger normally, a get-alonger by nature. But she’d about had it.

Most of the Surmount’s sailors were outside now at the bottom of the mess steps. They were smoking and kicking a hacky sack around. One of them had a football, and they were laughing and carrying on like middle schoolers with the teacher gone as they tossed it back and forth.

Beyond them in the shadow of the mess hall was a bleached-white wooden picnic table next to an old grill that was Cheeto-orange with rust. Ruby sat down at it, looking out at the endless turquoise Caribbean behind the building.

How far to Florida, she thought, if she started swimming now?

“Hey,” said a voice behind her.

The short blond surfer kid diver looked even younger in his ironed uniform. And cuter in a cute little brother sort of way. He looked like a Catholic grammar school eighth-grader on picture day.

“Hey,” Ruby said as he sat down across from her.

“This sucks, huh?” he said. “I saw you head over to the ship. What’s the story?”

“They won’t tell me.”

“I’m Steve, by the way. Steve Vance,” the diver said, offering his hand with the green shamrock tattoo on it.

She shook, smiling at him.

“I’m Ruby,” she said, dispensing with all the navy protocol rank bullshit that she actually despised.

“Hey, Ruby, you want to see something?” he said, waving his phone at her.

“Tell me you got the Wi-Fi password,” she said, tenting her fingers in prayer.

“No. Better,” he said, handing over his phone.

There was some kind of video queued up on the screen. When she pressed the play triangle, it showed a bright beam of light in dark water. After a moment, coral passed at the edge of the light and then a pale aircraft fuselage appeared along with a porthole plane window.

Ruby hit the screen, pausing it.

“No way!” she said. “But I asked Martin for the dive footage, and he said it was unavailable.”

The diver gave her a wink.

“Yeah, well, can’t hurt to take a copy for myself, can it?” he said, looking around. “Believe it or not, Lieutenant Martin can be a prick. He got a shippie shit-canned for getting loaded on board last trip out, a good buddy of mine, who was the best sailor in the entire seventh. I tried to tell Martin that he had just found out his girl was leaving him, but he couldn’t care less.

“I yelled at him pretty good in front of everyone at dinner about a week later, and since then, he’s been busting my chops pretty good. Any screwup, he could just blame me, right? So that’s what the folks at GoPro are for. I’m documenting everything I do. I have to cover my ass.”