“Tell me, Shauna, do you still harbor resentment over your husband’s death? Is that why you’ve brought this man here, to assist in assassinating me?”
Shauna was quiet.
“What has she told you, Cawdor? That I killed her husband? Took her authority? Hah! Saved her pathetic little community is more like it!”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about how well you’ve been keeping an eye on the seafood,” Ryan retorted. “Not a flounder was overlooked.”
“Why are you here, anyway, Cawdor?” Poseidon said. “I know Shauna doesn’t have the necessary funds to hire you.”
Ryan kept silent. He almost said To chill you but curbed the impulse.
“Fate has placed you within my hands for a reason,” Poseidon mused. “Yes, you might think you’re here merely to take up some kind of cause against me, but I know better.”
“My boat ran up on a stinkin’ mine out near the commune. It was during that storm that swept through here last week back. Mine blew my ride all to hell.”
“That was your boat, you say.” Poseidon leaned on the wall, standing next to the sec man who was watching over the prisoners. “I wondered what had set off the charge.”
“Your mines killed my woman, Poseidon,” Ryan finally said.
“Nonsense. I’ve killed no one close to you.”
“You destroyed the most valuable piece of my life over paranoia and greed,” Ryan continued. “Now I’m here to destroy you.”
“So you say,” Poseidon answered.
“There’s no reason to be mining the Georgia coastline in the first place!” Shauna said. “Who do you think is going to attack? The Commies?”
“Actually it had crossed my mind, dear girl. However, the mines were planted there not so much to keep people out, but to keep your rabble on land.”
“You’re insane, Poseidon! You get more crazy every waking moment of your murderous life!” Shauna yelled out, her body shaking in anger, causing the chair to rock slightly.
“I knew it,” Poseidon said tiredly. “You are still annoyed over the removal of your husband.”
Shauna glared at the big man with a look of unholy hatred. “I swore I’d kill you. If there’s any justice in heaven, I’ll see the day pass where you’re dead at my feet.”
Poseidon shook his head and shrugged his massive shoulders. He looked at Ryan for agreement as he spoke. “Eric Watson challenged me. I fought back. He lost. End of transaction. Women take these things much too seriously. That’s one reason I don’t allow them on the base.”
Ryan snickered. “I have my own theory about that, sailor boy.”
“You’re wrong, Cawdor. About a lot of things.”
Shauna was so upset, her face was a bright blush of crimson. “He came to talk with you in peace and you killed him! Admit it!”
“I thought I already had,” Poseidon said mildly, stepping closer to the bound woman. “Still, I don’t need this mutie-loving slut making accusations or telling me what to do.”
Poseidon’s hands snapped down and clasped Shauna around the neck. Her back was half turned to him, but his freakishly large hands were able to completely envelop her throat.
As she cried out, Poseidon stopped her voice with a squeeze so tight, his fingers began to whiten from the pressure being applied.
“Who’s killing who now, Shauna, hmm?” he said in a voice so calmly modulated, he might have been describing the weather.
Ryan reared to his feet like a surprised stallion, slamming his body toward Poseidon, but the butt of the sec man’s rifle caught him once again, this time full across the back of the neck, blunting his frantic thrust. Ryan fell to his knees, his breath coming in gasps.
He watched as Poseidon’s viselike hands tightened and lifted up the dying woman from the chair. Shauna barely had enough life force left to struggle. Her legs kicked once, twice, then hung limp.
“Too late, Cawdor. Much…too…late.”
Chapter Twenty
“Remove…that,” Poseidon said, wiping his brow with an immaculate white handkerchief.
The Admiral was once again seated behind his majestic desk. He watched impassively as the sec man summoned two assistants, who arrived almost instantly and carried Shauna’s lifeless body out of the office.
“I do what it takes. My enjoyment of such actions is an occasional rare bonus. That bitch had been plotting against me for far too long,” Poseidon said. “The female mind is unfathomable.”