Chapter 12 - The Keel Shaft
Maya scrambled up the vertical maintenance ladder as hot steam billowed around her ankles, stinging her skin through her wet clothes. Gunfire chewed through the iron rungs beneath her boots, sparks spraying across the dark chamber. She did not look down. Julian was behind her, his heavy combat boots slamming against the steel frame with rhythmic, terrifying speed.
They reached the secondary access hatch—a circular iron bulkhead sealed with four heavy rotating lugs. Maya thrust the titanium pin of the Montblanc cap directly into the central keyhole, turning it with both hands.
The internal tumblers clicked with a heavy, oiled snap. The lugs retracted. Julian slammed his shoulder against the iron plate, forcing the door inward, and shoved Maya into the narrow vertical escape trunk before throwing his full weight back against the hatch to slam it shut.
The heavy steel sealed just as a hail of lead peppered the outside surface, sounding like pebbles thrown against a tin roof. Julian threw the manual locking dogs, securing them inside the iron belly of the ship.
""We have five minutes before they bring a cutting torch,"" Julian panted, his chest heaving, his dark hair soaked with sweat and condenser water. A dark smear of blood stained his left arm where a ricochet had grazed the meat of his shoulder.
""The bridge is three decks up,"" Maya said, her voice tight but calm. She tore a strip from the hem of her shirt and handed it to him to bind the wound. ""Arthur’s private safe is behind the navigation charts.""
Julian wrapped the cloth around his arm, pulling the knot tight with his teeth. He looked at Maya in the dim red emergency lighting of the shaft. ""When we get up there, if Evelyn has the upper decks surrounded, you take the charter and jump from the stern. The tide is turning outward; it'll carry you past the breakwater to the public marina.""
""I’m not leaving you behind to take the blame for this scuttling,"" Maya said, her eyes burning with fierce defiance. ""We walk out with the injunction together, or neither of us walks out.""
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Julian stared at her for a second, then a faint, genuine smile broke across his scarred face—the first time he had looked like the older brother she remembered from childhood. ""You really are Arthur's daughter. Stubborn to the bone.""
They climbed the final thirty feet of the trunk in silence, reaching the disguised teakwood panel that led directly into Arthur Vance’s private stateroom behind the ship's secondary bridge.
