“Give me the keycard for the end door,” I said.

“I don’t have it,” he muttered. “Only the captain and the doctor have the master codes.”

“You’re lying,” I said.

I reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick ring of keys and a plastic security badge.

The badge had a magnetic strip on the back.

“Please,” he said, his voice shaking. “I just do the maintenance.”

“Where are the kids?” I asked.

He did not answer.

I pressed the steel barrel harder against his skin.

“They’re in the hold,” he whispered. “The transport is coming in twenty minutes.”

“Who is running the transport?” I asked.

“The men from the harbor,” he said. “They have a truck waiting at the private dock.”

I grabbed the collar of his jacket and shoved him into the utility locker.

I used a heavy plastic zip-tie from my pocket to bind his hands behind his back.

I stuffed a clean towel into his mouth to gag him, then shut the door and locked it from the outside with his own key.