by Steve Berry
Malone stopped reading.
He’d tried to take his mind off the situation by surfing the Internet, reading about pirates, a subject he’d always found fascinating, and the fate of Black Beard had caught his attention.
The pirate’s skull dangled from a pole on the west side of the Hampton River in Virginia for several years. That spot today is still known as Blackbeard’s Point. Someone eventually fashioned it into the base of a punch bowl, which was used for drinking at a Williamsburg tavern. Eventually it was enlarged with silver plate, but disappeared over time. He wondered if the Commonwealth had anything to do with that. After all, he assumed it was no coincidence that Hale had named his own sloop Adventure.
He checked his watch. Less than an hour till they landed.
He’d made a mistake reading about pirates. It only made him more anxious. For all of the romanticism associated with them, they were cruel and vicious. Human life meant little to them. Theirs was an existence based on profit and survival, and he had no reason to assume that the modern version was any different. These were desperate men, faced with a desperate situation. Their only goal was success, and who they hurt in the process meant nothing.
He felt a little like Robert Maynard on his way to confront Black Beard.
A lot had been at stake then, and was now.
“What have you done?” he whispered, thinking of Cassiopeia.
KNOX SHIFTED HIS POSITION, STAYING ONE LEVEL ABOVE-GROUND, keeping close to the outer wall, using the rubble for cover. Gaping holes stretched everywhere in the outer curtain, exposing a moonlit bay. A stiff breeze chapped his lips, but at least it flushed most of the bird pall away. He’d listened to the exchange between Carbonell and Wyatt and was trying to find a vantage point from which he could more closely observe their confrontation. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he could take them both out?
“Knox.”
He stopped. Wyatt was calling to him.
“I know where those two pages are hidden.”
A message. Loud and clear. If you’re thinking about killing me, think again.
“Be smart,” Wyatt yelled.
He realized what that meant.
We have a common enemy. Let’s deal with that. Why do you think I allowed you to have a gun?
Okay. He’d go along with that.
For now.
HALE STEPPED TOWARD THE CELL THAT HELD HIS THREE FEMALE prisoners. Kaiser’s hair lay matted to her head, her clothes soaked, but there was still something about her—a beauty that came from age and experience—that he would miss.
Along with her special garments.
“So you came to learn what you could? To find Ms. Nelle?”
“I came to try and right my own screwup.”
“Admirable. But quite stupid.”
He listened outside and was pleased to hear the rain and wind abating. Finally. Perhaps the worst of the storm had gone. His immediate problem, though, was more pressing.
He faced the woman he did not know.
Slim, toned, with dark hair and swarthy skin. Quite a beauty. Gutsy, too. She reminded him of Andrea Carbonell, which wasn’t a good thing.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Cassiopeia Vitt.”
“You were to be their rescuer?”
“One of many.”
He caught her point.
“It’s over,” Stephanie Nelle said to him. “You’re done.”
“Is that what you think?”
He reached into his pocket and removed the cellphone that his men had found on Vitt. Interesting device. It contained no phone log, contacts, or saved numbers. Apparently its only use was to send and receive one call at a time. He assumed it was something the intelligence community utilized.
Which made Vitt part of the enemy.
He’d already surmised that the other men had been sent to draw his attention while she made the extraction.
And the plan had almost worked.
“Do you work for NIA, too?” he asked her.
“I work for me.”
He gauged the response and decided that his initial assessment was correct. This woman would tell him nothing without prodding.
“You just saw what I do when someone refuses my questions.”
“I answered your question,” Vitt said.
“But I have another one. A much more important one.” He displayed the phone. “Who do you report to?”
Vitt did not reply.
He said, “I know Andrea Carbonell is waiting for you to report in. I want you to tell her that Stephanie Nelle isn’t here. That you failed.”
“There’s nothing you can do to me that would make me do that.”
He realized that was true. He’d already sized up Cassiopeia Vitt and decided she would play the odds. If he was right, and there were others monitoring her progress, when she failed to report, they would act. All she had to do was hold out until enough time passed.
“I don’t plan to do anything to you,” he made clear.
He pointed at Kaiser.
“I intend to do it to her.”
SEVENTY-EIGHT
NOVA SCOTIA
WYATT HOPED KNOX HEEDED HIS WARNING. HE REQUIRED A few uninterrupted minutes with Carbonell. Then he and Knox could play between themselves. And play they would, since he doubted Knox was simply going to walk away once he realized the odds had now evened. Had Knox found the two bodies? Probably. But even if he hadn’t, there was no reason for him to assume anyone else remained in the fort besides the three of them.
He descended to ground level, caution lacing each step, the night-vision goggles helping within the dark recesses. He found the base of the stairway, then a doorway that opened to the inner courtyard where Carbonell waited.
He checked his watch.
Nearly three hours had passed since he and Malone were underground. Every six hours. That was the rhythm—low tide to high.
“I’m here, Andrea,” he said.
“I know.”
Both of them remained concealed.
“You lied to me,” he said.
“Did you expect that I wouldn’t?”
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?”
He heard her chuckle. “Come on, Jonathan. You’re not some rookie agent. You’ve been around. You know how this is played.”
He did. Duplicity was a way of life in intelligence. But this woman had gone beyond the norm. She was using him. Nothing more, nor less. He had little or nothing to do with her goal. He was simply a means to that end. And though he was being paid well, that did not offer her immunity to do with him as she pleased. Besides, she’d come here to kill him, never intending for him to enjoy her money.
“What’s the problem?” he asked her. “You can’t have me talking to anyone? I know too much?”
“I doubt you’d say anything. But it pays to be one hundred percent sure. Did you really find those pages?”
“I did.” Not exactly true, but close enough.
“And why would I believe you?”
“No reason I can think of.”
He knew the idea was to keep him talking so her men could zero in and finish him off.
“There’s no need for this hostility,” she said.
“Then come out and face me.”
He removed the goggles.
Knox was nearby, and armed. He could feel him. Hopefully, he’d do more listening than acting, since he wanted what Andrew Jackson had hidden here, too.
CASSIOPEIA COULD DO NOTHING. TWO OF THE CREWMEN HAD yanked a screaming Shirley Kaiser from the cell while three more trained guns on her and Stephanie. Shirley was dragged into another cell, two down, a clear view of her through the open bars. Her wrists and ankles were taped to a heavy oak chair, her mouth gagged, her head shaking in protest.
The two men with guns had withdrawn from their cell.
She and Stephanie stood alone.
“What do we do?” Stephanie whispered.
“If I don’t make the cal
l, the cavalry is coming.”
“But there’s no telling what’s about to happen to her. How much time do we have?”
“An hour or so till dawn.”
Another man appeared, carrying a black leather bag.
“This is our company surgeon,” Hale said. “He tends to our wounds.”
The doctor was a solid, bland-faced man with closely cropped hair. His clothes were soaking wet. He laid the bag on a wooden table in front of Shirley. From within, he withdrew a set of stainless-steel bone shears.
“A doctor is an important member of any crew,” Hale said. “Though he didn’t fight or defend the ship, he always received a higher portion of the booty than a regular crewman, which everyone gladly paid. That remains true today.”
The doctor stood beside Shirley, holding the cutters.
“Ms. Vitt? Ms. Nelle?” Hale said. “I have no patience left. I’ve dealt with deceit until I’m sick of it. I want to be left alone, but the U.S. government will not do that. Now my home has been attacked—”
The plywood covering the prison door burst open and three men entered, shaking rain from their coats.
They were about the same age as Hale.
“The other captains,” Stephanie whispered.
KNOX EASED HIS WAY CLOSER TO WHERE WYATT AND CARBONELL were confronting each other. He wondered if Carbonell realized Wyatt was drawing her close, allowing her to think that she retained the upper hand. He could hear snippets of their conversation as he maneuvered to a point directly above them. Rocks and rubble made the going slow, the loitering birds an aggravation as he had to be careful not to disturb them, a change in their rhythmic cooing a clear alert to his presence.
Wyatt had said that he’d found the pages. Was that true? And did it even matter anymore?
Maybe.
If he could return to Bath with Wyatt and Carbonell dead and the two missing pages in his hands, his worth with the captains would multiply a hundredfold. Not only would they be legally protected, but he would have saved them all.
That prospect was appealing.
He held the gun tight.
His targets were now just below him.
“All right, Jonathan,” he heard Carbonell say. “I’ll face you.”
HALE DID NOT APPRECIATE THE INTERRUPTION FROM HIS COLLEAGUES. What were they doing here? This did not concern them. His house, not theirs, had been attacked, and they hadn’t lifted a hand to help. He watched as they spotted the body on the floor, one ear missing, a hole in the head.
“What are you doing?” Bolton asked him.
He was not going to be reprimanded by these fools, especially in front of his men and prisoners. “I’m doing what none of you has the courage to do.”
“You’re out of control,” Surcouf made clear. “We’ve been told that there are nine dead men outside.”
“Nine men who attacked this compound. I have the right to defend myself.”
Cogburn pointed to Shirley Kaiser. “What did she do to you?”
None of the three had ever met her. He’d made sure of that.
“She is part of the enemy.”
Though the prison building sat on Hale land, the Articles expressly made it neutral ground where they shared jurisdiction. But he was not going to tolerate any interference.
“That woman there.” He pointed at Vitt. “Came with the others and attempted to free my prisoner. She killed two of our crew.”
“Quentin,” Surcouf said. “This is not the way to solve anything.”
He wasn’t going to listen to their cowardice. Not anymore. “The quartermaster is, at this moment, retrieving the two lost pages. They’ve been found.”
He saw the shock on their faces.
“That’s right,” he said. “While you three slept, I saved us all.”
“What are you about to do?” Bolton asked, pointing at Kaiser.
He held up the phone. “I need a call made. Ms. Vitt will not cooperate. I’m simply going to motivate her. I assure you that if I don’t act we will all be visited shortly by a contingent of federal agents, this time with warrants.”
He watched as that realization took hold. The attack tonight had been a rogue action designed to catch him off guard. The next round could be different. More official. He still did not know what had happened in Virginia. For all he knew the authorities already possessed the requisite probable cause to act.
“Quentin,” Cogburn said. “We’re asking you to stop. We understand you were attacked—”
“Where were your men?” he asked them.
Cogburn said nothing.
“And yours, Edward? John? I’m told that not a one of your people came to our defense.”
“Are you implying we had something to do with this?” Surcouf asked.
“It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
“You’re insane,” Bolton said.
He gestured for his men to train their weapons on the captains. “If any of them makes a move, shoot him.”
Guns were leveled.
He motioned, and the doctor nestled the shears to the base of Kaiser’s middle finger. Kaiser’s eyes went wide.
He turned to Vitt.
“Your last chance to make the call. If not, I’ll start snipping off fingers until you do.”
SEVENTY-NINE
NOVA SCOTIA
WYATT WATCHED AS ANDREA CARBONELL STEPPED FROM THE shadows and into the moonlight. He’d just checked his watch and noted that time was running short. He caught her shapely silhouette and saw the outline of a weapon in her left hand, the barrel pointing toward the ground.
He, too, stepped out, a gun in his right hand, pointing down.
“It shouldn’t have to come to this,” she said. “You should have just died.”
“Why even involve me?” he asked.
“Because you’re good. Because I knew you’d be tough when others weren’t. Because nobody would give a damn if you disappeared.”
He smiled.
She was still buying time for her men to act.
“Do you care about anything beyond yourself?” he asked.
“Oh, my. Jonathan Wyatt going soft? Do you actually care about anything other than yourself?”
Actually, he did. There wasn’t a day that went by he didn’t think about those two dead agents. He was alive thanks to them. They’d done their job, drawn fire, and the mission had been a success because of their sacrifice. Even the admin board had voiced that finding.
But he’d never sacrificed them to save himself.
Not like this woman.
The only human life that meant anything to her was her own. That was the worst part. You were a good agent. Malone’s comment to him after the board’s verdict, when they confronted each other, his hand at Malone’s throat.
Yes, he was.
He wanted to know, “Did you send those men into the Garver Institute?”
“Of course. Who else would have done it? I thought it a good opportunity to eliminate you, Malone, and the man who broke the cipher. But you were lucky there. So was Malone. Come now, Jonathan, you knew all along I was using you. But you wanted the money.”
Maybe so. And he’d also made it this far, covertly shifted his position from defense to offense.
A fact Carbonell did not, as yet, understand.
“The spring gun yours, too?” he asked.
She nodded. “I thought it a good way to divert attention from me. If your foot had not stopped the door, I would have flung it open and stepped out of the way, barely escaping harm.”
“Sorry to interrupt your plan.”
She shrugged. “As it is, things have turned out even better. Lots of possibilities here. Where are the two pages?”
That was the one thing holding her back. She could not make a move on him until that question was answered. Her orders to her minions had certainly included a proviso that their location was vital before they acted.
“I can show you,” he said. “I haven’t had an oppor
tunity to retrieve them.”
“Please do.”
He knew she could not resist, so he gestured toward his right and, together, they reentered the great hall where he and Malone had fought. He found the hole with the rotted timbers and pointed. “Down there.”
“And how do we get there?”
He’d already thought about that. The upper wall walk was lined on its inner edge with a rope barrier that stretched through iron holders. Not much protection, but enough for someone to be aware of the danger. After eliminating Carbonell’s two men, he’d removed the nylon hemp and coiled about fifty feet into his backpack.
He slid the pack off his shoulders and said, “I came prepared.”
CASSIOPEIA CONSIDERED HALE’S QUESTION. HE’D CHOSEN THE right victim. If either she or Stephanie had been strapped to that chair, neither would have spoken, since the only bargaining power they possessed was holding out.
But Shirley Kaiser would not understand that.
The woman’s eyes were bright with fear as she stared at the steel shears centered on her middle finger. Shirley shook her head, signaling No, please no. But she could do little to resist.
“You know you can’t call,” Stephanie whispered.
“I have no choice.”
“Yes,” Hale said, noticing but not hearing their conversation. “Talk it through. Make the right choice. Shirley is counting on it.”
The three other captains stood and watched.
Guns remained aimed at them.
Cassiopeia could not allow this to happen, so she said, “Give me the damn phone.”
MALONE TIGHTENED HIS SEAT BELT AND PREPARED FOR LANDING. The descent from thirty thousand feet had been rough. The pilot had informed him that the storm was moving north and that they were skirting its trailing southern edge. Edwin Davis had called twice to say that nothing had been heard from Cassiopeia, but no further gunfire had been heard, either.
Which did not comfort him.
He’d already reloaded his weapon and stuffed two spare magazines into his jacket pockets.
He was ready to move.