Chapter 77 - The Price of Blood
The water inside the well was rising rapidly, sloshing over the catwalks as another massive wave slammed against the open sea-doors. The *Caspian Ghost* shuddered, listing seven degrees to the port side as her ballast tanks flooded uncontrollably.
"You gave my home to Clara," I said, my voice cutting through the damp roar like a scalpel. "You took every dime I sent home from the Middle East, every bonus I earned while swimming through mine-strewn harbors, and you handed it to a criminal."
"She had debts!" Arthur screamed, spit flying from his lips. "She owed thirty million to men who don't negotiate! They were going to murder us, Marcus! You had the money! You had the clearance! If you had just given her the security access codes from your naval command terminal, none of this would have happened!"
"So you decided to sell the United States Navy instead," I said, stepping within five feet of him. "You signed off on an attack against an active-duty frigate. You left twelve American sailors burning in an engine room off the coast of Oregon."
"They're just soldiers!" Arthur cried out, clutching the hard case tighter against his ribs. "They knew the risks! But this... this is our survival! There is fifty million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds and offshore keys in this case! Take half, Marcus! Take half and come with me! We can reach the European sanctuary before sunrise! We're blood! You can't shoot your own father!"
I looked at the man who had raised me, the man who had looked me in the eyes when I was nineteen years old, heading out on my first deployment, and told me that service to the nation was a sucker's game. He hadn't changed. He had merely grown more desperate, his greed mutating into outright treason.
"My father died the day he sold my home to buy champagne for traitors," I said quietly.
Arthur’s eyes flashed with a final, desperate madness. He dropped his hand toward his heavy wool coat, his fingers wrapping around the grip of a compact snub-nosed revolver he had concealed in his pocket.
He was slow. Pathetically slow.
Before he could even clear the holster, I stepped in, driving the muzzle of my MCX into his collarbone. The bone gave way with a sickening snap. Arthur shrieked in agony, dropping the revolver as it clattered across the wet diamond plate and slid over the edge into the black water.
I ripped the pelican case from his grasp and threw it onto the upper deck, then grabbed him by the front of his soaked coat and slammed him against the submersible's steel hull.
"The party is over, Arthur," I whispered into his ear.
Behind us, the ship's emergency sirens shifted tone—a rapid, high-pitched warble that signaled catastrophic hull failure. Over the tactical radio, Miller’s voice burst through the static:
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"Marcus! Get out of the well! The bridge crew scuttled the sea valves before we could neutralize them! The bow doors are jamming open—the ship is taking on thousands of tons of water every minute! She's going down by the head!"
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