Page 84 of Uncharted

The engine is going to have to wait. Not only do I have to deal with the sabotage but the damn saltwater in the generator too. And the VHF radio is something I can do up on the bridge. Let my foot rest for a little while.

There’s a knock on the door, and Zane’s there. With a tray.

And I’m staring. “Is that an egg?”

“Yeah. So, don’t get mad.”

I have a feeling I’m going to get really mad.

“Right, so I was up early. Dante and Easton too. We were looking at the WaveRunners at the top of the boat.”

My gut is clenching. But Haley puts her hand on my shoulder, and I try and relax a little.

“Okay, so I’ll start with nothing else being broken. Kind of. Nothing important, that is.”

“Zane?” I growl.

“Right. Easton took the second shift. Sam was out. I don’t think I could have woken him if I tried. But then I couldn’t fall asleep, so I went up with Easton to the top deck, and then Dante came up right before sunrise.”

I grunt. “The Three Stooges?—”

“Maybe fast forward, Zane.” Haley slides out of bed, looking for her clothes.

“The front WaveRunner was up top, and the crane wasn’t attached to anything. Since they launched the transport during the evacuations?—”

“Fucking stupid,” Zane and I say together.

“When I stood on the edge of the antenna platform, I could reach the sling for the crane. It was high tide and?—”

He was damn right to be wary about telling me. I can already see where this is going. The WaveRunner could have crashed into the side of the boat. “Fucking hell, you dropped it off the side?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine.”

“What did Sam do?”

“He made the same face you did, ate the egg, then went to the wheelhouse and slammed the door.” Zane’s not standing close to the bed.

“That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. You could have ruined everything. I don’t even know who you are anymore. Even my fucking stupid engineers Mitch and Waldo wouldn’t have done something so asinine.”

Zane’s eyebrows go up in surprise. “Mitch wasn’t stupid. Same goes for Waldo.”

“What? What does that even matter now?”

“It could mean a lot.” Haley has found her shorts and is running her fingers through her hair. “We’re looking for who could have done the sabotage. If Zane says that both Waldo and Mitch were hiding their intelligence from you, that could mean it was one of them.”

“They both barely passed the test I gave them,” I say.

“Failing a test is easy,” Zane says. “Waldo had a lot of experience on tugboats. He was a deckhand. Said he’d even been a bosun once or twice off the Maine coast. But he wanted to try his hand at engineering.”

“Fuck, it could be one of them. Part of me was hoping it was just Emily’s boyfriend, Brick. But when would he have found the time? And when would he have even known what tanks to put those damn stickers on?” I’m staring at the tray. And then I realize I’ve gotten side-tracked. “Wait. How did you drop the damn WaveRunner over the side of the boat?” I have to take a breath. I’m starting to feel sorrier for my dad and all the stupid things Jared and I did on the farm in the name of saving time. “How did it end with eggs?”

“Sure...” Zane’s bouncing on his toes, and if it was anyone else telling me this, I would have already exploded. It ticks in the back of my head. That’s why Dante and Easton sent Zane down to tell me. “After I righted the WR and checked it over, making sure the lines were good and no gas was... right, I took it for a little spin. I zipped along the cliff away from our beach camp. The opposite direction of the cliff doesn’t go that far. In fact, there’s a cave. But that’s not where I found the eggs. The beach on the opposite side is exposed. And there were chickens. I followed one, but I couldn’t catch it. I did, however, find a nest with some eggs. And I came back. Chickens! How amazing is that? I’m thinking it must be kind of near where you found the Pomelo trees. I didn’t see any signs of anyone around. But I didn’t stay for too long. I wanted to get back.” Zane’s back to smiling.

My foot is throbbing now. And my brain hasn’t caught up with everything he said. “Back up. You said you almost didn’t damage anything. What did you damage?”

Zane’s bouncing back and forth on his heels. “The sling. We got the WaveRunner in the sling, then forced it over the edge. I put on a harness. Easton belayed me, and I cut the sling while pushing the WaveRunner off. I suppose that was stupid. But now we have eggs and a machine that doesn’t use as much gas as the tender.”

“And how are we going to get it back on the yacht at low tide when the surrounding reef is practically cutting through the water? The fact that the Rock Candy found this space in the reef to settle is lucky.”

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