Read The Sentinel for Free Online Page B

she says, “Don’t worry, you never did anything worth keeping. Sleeping mostly.” My eyes go wide when I see her hold up a small video camera. “When something needs to be recorded for the media, they call me. Know that I can spin it if needed. An edit here, a—” She sees my shocked expression. “What?”
    “You have the camera?”
    “It was on my hand when I woke up,” she says. “I strap it on pretty tight because McAfee has a pretty strict ‘you break it, you bought it’ policy. Why?”
    “Were you recording when I came onto the bridge?”
    “Yeah, McAfee knew you were coming. Asked me to record it.”
    “What?” This makes no sense. “Why did he want to record me?”
    She shrugs. “All I knew is that he wanted to record something and told me to start when he saw you coming.”
    I can tell she doesn’t have a real answer, so I file the question away for another time and ask, “Does the camera still work?”
    She looks down at it and says, “Huh.”
    “What?”
    “It’s still recording.” She switches the camera off.
    I hold out my hand. “Mind if I take a look?”
    Peach looks unsure.
    Jenny suddenly sits up. “I’d like to see that, too.”
    Peach and I turn toward her, surprised by her sudden rising.
    “What?” she asks.
    “You were awake that whole time?” I ask.
    “It’s a defense mechanism. The guys on the Sentinel are all a little…gabby. Like to talk after sex. So I’ve learned to play dead when I don’t feel like talking.”
    Peach lets out a pffft laugh that she was clearly trying to contain. “I do the same thing,” she says.
    I clear my throat, all business. I move my open hand closer to Peach. “The camera. Now.”
     

 
     
     
    7
     
    We huddle around the camera as it powers up. We’re like bunch of tweens at a sleepover—except that we’re lost in the Arctic Ocean and we’ll likely die slowly. But hell, that’s what some sleepovers feel like, too.
    Jenny’s suddenly struck by a thought. “Hey, how come we’re not flipping over?”
    She’s right. We’re all sitting on the same side of the raft and haven’t capsized.
    “The raft has a ballast system,” Peach says. “There are four ballast bags attached to the bottom of the boat. The water in them will keep us from flipping.”
    “Good to know,” Jenny says, happy to let it go there.
    But I can’t help but wonder, “How do you know so much about the raft?”
    She squirms a little, but says, “I’ve spent some time on one before.”
    Jenny understands the implications of her statement before I do and gasps. “You were in the Galapagos?”
    Ahh, the Galapagos , I think. The Sea Sentinel organization, of which the Sentinel is the flagship, has a year round presence in the Galapagos, hounding fishermen who illegally catch sharks just for their fins—a delicacy in parts of Asia. Last year there were reports of a confrontation at sea. Witnesses said that two boats collided and sank, but no survivors were found. The identities of the ships are officially a mystery, but with one of the Sea Sentinel’s Galapagos fleet missing, they were always suspected. But after an investigation revealed no missing people from the Sea Sentinel organization, they were cleared.
    Until now.
    The implications of this stun me. Sea Sentinel has murdered people. And Peach was part of it. She sees my growing rage.
    “I didn’t know they died,” she says, eyes beginning to water.
    “But you didn’t say anything when you learned they had,” I say. “Did you?”
    “He told me I would go to jail,” she says, and the tears break free.
    “Who told you?”
    “McAfee.”
    “He was there?” I ask. McAfee usually goes after the big PR campaigns. Whales mostly.
    “Thought we were being too soft,” Peach says “Took charge for a month.”
    “And rammed a fishing boat.”
    She nods. “But it wasn’t the Bliksem and we weren’t the Sentinel . Both ships just fell apart. We had a crew of ten. All of us made it into the