At first she’d been utterly clueless as to how the Columbus family made their millions. She was happy to stay in the kitchen, minding her own business, creating delicious food for Paul and his frequent guests. But eventually she was clued in that the man she worked for was beyond evil. He didn’t care who he hurt, as long as he found a way to make money illegally.
Everything she was surrounded by in his home had been purchased with dirty money, even the food she used to find such satisfaction in preparing.
Knowing she didn’t have time to reminiscence over all the mistakes she’d made in her life, Elodie entered the officers’ mess room. All the rooms in this part of the ship were connected in one long horizontal line. First was the officers’ mess, then the officers’ pantry, the galley, the crew pantry, and then the crew mess. There was a door in the galley that led to a hallway containing the food storage rooms. There was a general freezer, a fish freezer, three refrigerators, and several pantries for dry food storage.
She’d scoped out all the cabinets she could fit in, and even how she might be able to get to the elevators and stairwells undetected if she had to. She wouldn’t have the first clue where to hide down in the engine room, which was another reason she wanted to come here. This was where she was comfortable. She knew if the pirates decided to stay for any length of time, they’d make their way to the galley, as Manuel had said. While that made things more dangerous for her, she would also do what she could to make sure their trips to the galley were as short as possible.
Keeping the radio tucked into a large pocket of her cargo pants, Elodie worked as fast as possible. She moved three bundles of bottled water into the main kitchen area, where they’d easily be seen. Then she took out several boxes of crackers, a few loaves of bread, and bags of potato chips, and strategically placed them around the galley and both crew pantries. Generally, the food was stored in cupboards, secured so the boxes and cans wouldn’t go flying in rough seas. She wanted the food to be readily accessible for the pirates but at the same time, she didn’t want it to look like anything had been left out intentionally. She wanted the pirates to think they’d hit the mother lode with the food in plain sight, and not bother to dig much deeper.
Elodie ran her arm across her brow. She was sweating and hated not knowing what was happening high above her head in the bridge. Were the pirates onboard? Had they gotten into the bridge? Were they hurting the captain and the other officers?
And most importantly, what did they want?
The radio she’d stuffed in her pants squawked, scaring the shit out of Elodie.
“Holy crap!” she exclaimed, putting one hand over her racing heart and using the other to pull out the radio. The voices were muffled, but she could hear heavily accented males yelling, and Walter trying to placate them.
Confused about what she was hearing, Elodie stood in the middle of the galley trying to decipher what was going on. It took a minute, but she finally realized that someone had activated a radio up in the bridge, and it was broadcasting everything that was happening to the others onboard.
Chills raced up her spine as she listened to Walter doing his best to calm the pirates. It was hard to figure out how many there were, but it seemed as if it was more than a handful. Her stomach clenched in fear. The more pirates there were, the easier it would be to control the ship, to leave some up with the captain and the officers on the bridge and send others to prowl the decks, looking for crew and anything of value they could steal. The last thing Elodie needed was to be held for ransom. Her face would be plastered all over the news…which meant Paul Columbus could use his extensive mob network of soldiers and associates to find her.
“Where is the safe?” one of the pirates asked loudly.
“Not here. It’s downstairs in one of the chart rooms,” Walter told him.
“You go, get money.”
“You can have all the cash we have, then you’ll go,” Walter said.
“No go,” another man said sternly. “You take ship where we say. Our men come on. You open containers.”
“That’s…it’s not safe,” Walter stammered.
“No care. We open. You drive!” the man shouted.
Then Elodie heard scuffling and more shouting. A gunshot went off—and she held her breath, waiting to hear who, if anyone, had been hurt.
“Stop! Okay, okay! We’ll open whatever containers you want, but don’t shoot that thing again!” Walter yelled desperately.
The pirates merely laughed.
“We shoot when and where we want. We shoot you if you do not give us what we want. No hostages, too hard to get money. But if you don’t do what we say, we kill,” one of the pirates said.
“You can’t shoot Walter,” Elodie whispered. “We need him to drive this damn thing.”
As if the captain could hear her, he said, “If you kill me and my officers, this ship will run aground. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is tricky as hell to navigate.”
“I am fisherman. I can drive boat,” one of the pirates said, unconcerned.
Elodie snorted. Driving a super ship like this one was way different than the skiffs the pirates were probably used to.
“We know there are others onboard,” someone else said. “We will find and start killing them if you don’t do what we ask.”
“Nobody needs to get hurt,” Walter said quickly. “We’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt my crew.”
There were more scuffling noises and the pirates began to talk amongst themselves in a language Elodie couldn’t understand.
Things were getting out of hand, and she was terrified. But Walter had said he’d called the authorities. Someone would come to help them, wouldn’t they? Didn’t the US Navy have ships in this part of the world? It was unfathomable that these pirates could just steal a huge cargo ship like this one.
Deciding her best bet for now was to lie low, Elodie exited the galley and went into a dry goods pantry. There was a cabinet at the back of the room she knew she could fit into. She squeezed herself into the cramped space, moving large bags of potatoes and other goods back in front of her. It wouldn’t fool someone if they were really looking for people hiding, but she thought it should be good enough if someone merely opened the door to glance inside.
She held the radio in her lap and stared down at it. She couldn’t really see in the dark, but the lights on the device calmed her. Mentally, she began making notes on what she was hearing. She didn’t know if they would be of any use, but maybe after they were rescued, she could help recount what had happened.
Elodie didn’t do drama. She was a chef, for goodness sake. How could one person get into so much trouble in one lifetime? Paul Columbus had already vowed to kill her for refusing to do his bidding, and now she was hiding from pirates on the high seas.
All she’d ever wanted was to live a quiet life. Maybe find a man and get married, have a kid or two, and cook food for a living. Now she was thirty-five years old, and somewhere along the way, her simple life plan had been seriously derailed.
This cargo ship job had seemed like such a blessing. She could get out of the country and away from Columbus and his network, who were trying to eliminate her. What could be better than being isolated on a ship in the middle of the ocean? She’d be perfectly safe.