He recognized the irony in that passage—the obligation he felt to right the many wrongs of those who failed their brethren and gave up the fight for the six counties in Northern Ireland. He knew that Gavin O’Hara had lost a brother, just as he had lost one of his dear cousins. But that should have only united the movement to deliver the crushing blow to those who occupied their land. Instead, too many had either laid down their arms or went on to voice loud opinions, calling for a peaceful resolution and a permanent truce—even if it meant giving up the revered land.
He could feel blood coursing through his veins at a breakneck pace. He inhaled and exhaled, then pressed the end of the syringe and watched the deadly mixture shoot into the IV.
Minutes later, he was waltzing down the concrete stairs, whistling a favorite Irish tune, “Oh Danny Boy.”
He’d visited over fifty countries during his life and had seen atrocities that most Americans couldn’t begin to fathom. And from all of that tragedy and senseless death, he had one prevailing thought: the weak would never win.
The doctor knew he possessed many godlike qualities to save human lives. But it took a very special human being to know for what purpose to take a life. He’d known for years that he was meant to shoulder that burden. And he relished it.
Many more would soon follow Gavin to hell. It was the doctor’s privilege and duty.
16
Administrative assistants could run the world. Or at least the world of the FBI.
That was my prevailing thought as chilled ocean water sprayed against my face. Jerry and I bounced inside a motorboat cutting across the dark and choppy Atlantic Ocean. Jerry had slipped a guy we’d never met a hundred bucks in cash to get us to the Double Barrel, a luxury yacht owned by Dr. Sean Maguire.
After spending a good part of the day with the team holed up in Brad’s loft, digging for tangible evidence that would implicate the good doctor and the Cullen brothers in the planning or execution of a terrorist act—at least enough to sanction an arrest warrant—Jerry and I decided to make an appearance at One Center Plaza. We knew Drake would be perched outside of my SSA’s office, ready to chew Jerry’s ass. Mine too, I was certain.
As it turned out, I was wrong. He wasn’t standing outside Jerry’s office. To get the punishment over with, we marched across the breezeway to Drake’s office. Whether we shared Jerry’s undercover operation or not was still something we were contemplating when we approached Stacy, Drake’s administrative assistant, a woman who had always possessed a sage wisdom, but she did so with an ultra-stealth touch. She never sought the spotlight, but whenever there was an issue, she would somehow come up with a solution. Not many people noticed how she artfully plugged all the gaps, certainly not Drake, who’d apparently been far too busy brown-nosing his management chain.
She gave me one of her quick winks as she lowered her red-framed bifocals, her silver-streaked locks blending in with the gray carpet and furnishings.
“He’s not in,” she had said before we could get a word out, her recessed eyes searching our body language for a clue.
She must have been able to sense the pressure we were under, or possibly Drake had shouted our names a few times when she was in earshot, maybe even seen a confidential memo or document floating around.
“He’s at a fancy social event honoring several government officials from Northern Ireland.”
The hair on the back of my neck went stiff. When we begged her to tell us where, she paused for a second and shifted her eyes back and forth. “It’s being hosted by the head of the Boston-Northern Ireland Business Development Group, Dr. Sean Maguire, on a luxury yacht in the Boston Harbor.”
Jerry swung his elbow into my shoulder. We knew exactly what we had to do. “We’d like to surprise the SAIC,” I told Stacy.
She just nodded with tight lips, the gesture indicating “this conversation never took place.”
The boat banked right, and I grabbed the side, my hands almost numb from the cold air hitting us like a freight train. The engine noise dropped in half as the driver pointed ahead. “There she is. Damn, she’s a beauty.”
We circled the enormous, brightly lit yacht, and I could hear music, see people wearing designer dresses and tuxedos. I flicked my fingers through my golden locks as we glided in behind three other boats also dropping off patrons.
“I guess it’s cool to show up fashionably late to one of these parties,” I said to Jerry.
He nodded once, his unblinking eyes scanning the yacht. We were helped on board and never asked to produce an invitation. I guess if someone had the balls to approach a yacht the size of a basketball court and three decks high, they most likely had the money or credentials to belong. I did receive a few stares from the staff. My khakis, scuffed boots, and stained, blue North Face jacket must not have impressed them. Shocking.
Jerry pulled me to the side as a number of folks at the bottom of the staircase fake-hugged and admired each other’s diamonds.
“I don’t have a clue how this big party plays into what Sean has planned for the Northern Ireland officials.”
With a hand shading my lips, I said, “How do we even know they’re the target? We’ve got nothing that tells us yes.”
“And nothing that tells us no. Right now, it’s the only bright and shiny object that gets my attention. Be on the lookout for Patrick or his brother Dermot. Sean will know something is up once he sees me, but at this point, we can’t really play coy.”
I followed the throng to the bottom of the stairs, where a staff member with a thin goatee and a sharp, blue uniform put his hand in front of me, his face etched with a derisive stare.
“You may now proceed up to the party,” he said.
I purposely looked over my shoulder to no one. “Thanks.” I arched an eyebrow for Jerry’s benefit and plodded up the steps. I paused at the top, taking in the breathtaking décor, what looked like mahogany trimming, lots of leather, and shiny gold accents. The space was enormous. It was a floating mansion. I felt a buzz in my pocket and quickly glanced at my phone. A text from...Lee Dawson? My heart skipped a beat and not for the right reasons.
Alex, I’m stateside and just picked up Shaheen in a raid outside of Philadelphia.
I could feel my pulse throbbing in my neck as I continued scrolling.
It’s not Ahmed. It’s his half-brother, Abdul.
I turned to convey the intel to Jerry but didn’t see him near me, so I went back to my phone.
Abdul admitted to helping steal an advanced mooring mine and selling it; said owner was targeting a yacht in Boston Harbor. I notified US Coast Guard. Call me!
I recalled my dad—who had served in the Coast Guard—showing me pictures of mooring mines and their destructive capability.
Jerry pulled up next to me, his posture unnaturally rigid. I whispered, “Jerry, you won’t believe this shit. My MI6—”
A metal jab into my kidney. I jerked my head around to see the man with the thin goatee raising his eyebrow, gesturing his head to the right. His arm and his pistol of choice was covered with a white kitchen towel.
“You speak, you die.” His dark eyes appeared to be sprinkled with specs of orange and red. “Move.”
I did as he said and ran into another flight of stairs.
“Up. Go quickly, but no more than one step in front of your fat friend.” I went up first, followed by Jerry, and then the man carrying the pistol.
By the time we got to the next deck, the man told me to go up one more flight. I thought about reaching out for someone or just running away, but I knew this guy wasn’t fucking around. An image just pinged my brain, and I took a quick glance over my shoulder. The man’s prominent jaw. He looked like the same guy I’d seen guarding Maguire’s estate.
I turned back as I reached the last step, and another henchman—also dressed in blue, but with the added touch of a sailor’s cap—had opened the door to the bridge, a pistol at his side. I walked in and saw the chiseled profile of the man from the medical gr
oup photo—in the brochure I saw in Ezzy’s room—standing at the helm, his hands grasping two knobs on the wheel. I found that odd, considering we weren’t moving.
“Did you know this vessel contains unidirectional carbon fiber material as reinforcement in critical areas?” He turned and glared at me. He appeared to purposely avoid looking at Jerry, who moved up next to me. “Unidirectional carbon fiber has ten times the strength of fiberglass.”
I had no clue why he was giving us the specs of his gazillion-dollar mansion on water.
He then raised a finger. “And our fuel tanks are six millimeters thick, the same thickness used on military vessels.”
He cocked his head just slightly. And still, the sparkle of his hazel eyes glared only at me, as if he refused to give my SSA any attention. At least not yet.
With a sudden twitch, he shifted his gaze down to the crowd of people below. I wondered where in that mass of importance and money was Drake, or the Northern Ireland officials. Hell, maybe Jaw Man’s or Maguire’s other flunkies, the Cullen brothers, had already quietly disposed of the Irish visitors. Perhaps we’d crashed their party at the wrong time.
I recalled Lee’s message about a stolen mooring mine. If this other Shaheen, Abdul, was indeed working with Maguire, was the man who saved lives for a living on some type of suicide mission that would destroy the entire yacht, killing what looked like two hundred people?
The thumping bass from music on a lower deck vibrated under my feet, and I picked up the scent of spinach and artichoke. I spotted a half-eaten plate of appetizers on a raised chair on the other side of the bridge. Maybe Maguire wanted to die on a full stomach?
I suddenly realized there was no gun pressed against my back. I strained my vision left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of the two guards, the positioning of their weapons. No such luck, and I didn’t want to turn my head and risk being caught looking around. Not yet. We must have at least a few minutes to figure a way out of this mess.
Maguire jerked his head to the left. “Jerry, do you know the definition of a traitor?”
I could hear Jerry pumping air in and out of his big schnoz, but he didn’t answer.
Maguire held out his hand and pretended to pull a trigger. In the blink of an eye, I heard a sickening thud as something hit the back of Jerry’s head, and he screamed out, dropping hard to the floor in front of me. I reached for him, and out of nowhere, a fist connected with the side of my face. I collapsed like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer. My entire head reverberated from the jarring blow. Opening my eyes, all I could see were bodies, shoes, and the floor...and everything was tilted. I blinked once while touching my face and could already feel a bulging knot. Another blink and I spotted Jaw Man flexing just that, his jaw. He then jabbed his gun into the back of Jerry’s thick neck.
Maguire crouched lower, then grabbed Jerry by his scruff. “The answer is: a person who betrays a friend, his country, or a given principle. Did you hear that, Jerry?”
I could see blood trickle around a crevice in Jerry’s neck, his eyes wide with anger as saliva spurted out with each heaving breath like from the blowhole of a whale.
I pinched the corners of my eyes, then felt my equilibrium return as I spotted Jaw Man’s buddy standing calmly by the frosted glass door, one hand clasping the other that held the pistol in front of his waist. Other than the gun, he looked like a bellman.
Maguire smacked Jerry across the face. “It’s a cause. The cause for Irish unification. It’s your roots...your fucking family, Jerry, and you have fucked them over, just like Gavin O’Hara, just like those priests, and just like those government officials on that yacht moving up on our starboard side.”
A jolt shot up my spine, and I forced myself up from my knees, grabbing the edge of the expansive control panel for balance. I could see white, orange, and green lights outlining another massive yacht drifting across the shimmering water.
“That’s the Double Barrel Two,” Maguire said, now standing and admiring his trophy.
He owns a second one?
“It holds a special place in my heart.” He placed his hand to his chest. “And my affection will only increase as I...no, we watch it crack in two and sink to the bottom of the Boston Harbor. What do you say, join me?”
“What the hell are you talking about, you sick bastard?” Jerry said with a strained, gurgling wheeze.
Jerry didn’t know about the stolen mine.
“Four of the six government officials from the place that calls itself Northern Ireland are just like you, Jerry. They are backstabbing traitors. Here in the States we call them Benedict Arnolds. They either supported the British regime outright or sold their souls to the devil. You know how?”
Jerry lifted his eyes. “How?”
“They had the gumption to actually turn over names to British intelligence. These four so-called officials, the priests, and Gavin O’Hara. It’s fucking treason, Jerry.”
“How would you know?” I said.
The doctor turned his sights down to me. “Because we had one of our own on the inside of MI5.” He returned his vision to Jerry. “And how do most countries deal with treason?”
“All you want is to see people die,” Jerry huffed out. “You’re nothing more than a gutless terrorist.”
Maguire didn’t respond for a few seconds, then he leaned toward me. I flinched, thinking I was about to receive another crushing blow to my head. I could smell the mixture of sweat and sweet aftershave. He said, “There is a sewage tunnel under the harbor right about there.” He drew a line across the harbor with his pointed finger. My eyes continued along the imaginary path until I found a beacon shining across the way. That looked to be Deer Island, home of the sewage treatment plant. Where Patrick and Leo’s fathers had worked construction many years ago. Had Patrick somehow used his knowledge of the plant and the underwater tunnel to release this high-tech mine?
“The Double Barrel Two is moving at a slow pace, but another hundred meters or so and the force of the exploding mine will literally split the hull like a cracked egg.” He used his hands to pretend to snap an egg in half.
“What about all the specs you gave us about the structure of the yacht?”
“It just shows you how powerful this bomb is. But the most impressive thing about this bomb is that it picks up on a specific vessel’s sonar, and then pulls itself toward the vessel like a magnet. It’s quite ingenious.”
Given our predicament and his demented nature, I could only think that I needed to get him off his game, even if it meant more immediate harm to us.
“You just love stroking your ego, huh, Sean old boy?”
He slowly turned his head, his eyes narrowing. I raised to my feet and pointed a finger right at him.
“Abdul Shaheen stole that mine, gave you this idea.”
“Wait, who is Abdul Shaheen?” Jerry asked from all fours, Jaw Man still holding a gun to his head.
Maguire’s eyebrow twitched as he studied my face. I could feel the lump on my cheek growing like Pinocchio’s nose.
“You have very good sources, Alex Troutt.”
“We have Abdul Shaheen in custody.”
“What?” Jerry asked.
“You are bluffing!” Maguire pounded his fist against the metal siding of the control panel. “Otherwise, the Coast Guard and Navy would be on top of us as we stand here.” Maguire and I locked in a staring contest. Then I heard a ship’s horn, and I turned my gaze to the waters.
“That was the Double Barrel Two. They’re right on time and heading straight for the target,” Maguire said.
“And the captain and crew on board have no idea?”
“None. They simply believe they are on the yacht that carries the most important people. As it turns out, they will be nothing more than our midnight fireworks show.” A clap of laughter escaped his lips, and then, as if he had now finally let go of his inhibitions, he chuckled nonstop, without taking a breath, for a good twenty seconds.
With his laught
er chiseling into my aching head, I turned back to the yacht moving closer and closer to its annihilation. My breath fluttered from a palpitating heart.
“Jerry, please stand next to me and watch this momentous occasion. Come on,” Maguire said.
Lifting to his knees, Jerry cocked his head and then hurled a wad of spit right at Maguire. The disgusting loogy dripped off Maguire’s arm, and I watched his face pinch into a web of rage.
“Kill him. Now.” Maguire flicked a wrist at Jaw Man, while turning back to the sea. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the goo from his sleeve.
I took a step toward Jaw Man, whose neck was bulging with blue and green veins. His eyes jerked my way, but he kept the gun on Jerry. The man in the sailor cap lifted his gun hand and aimed it at me.
“Kill them both,” Maguire ordered with his back to us.
My breath hitched in the back of my throat.
The man in the sailor’s cap smiled, exposing a chipped tooth. I raised an arm, as if that could stop a bullet, and...
The door rammed open, knocking the cap right off the sailor and his gun to the ground. I couldn’t see who’d done the deed, but I didn’t waste time looking. I dove at Jaw Man—who was still holding a gun to my friend’s head—tumbling over Jerry and taking Jaw Man to the ground with me. I grabbed his gun with both hands and twisted it back and forth. He grunted, then punched and clawed at my face. I tried biting him, but he shoved the palm of his hand into my nose. Realizing how our legs were entangled, I let go of the gun, grabbed his head with both hands for leverage, and shoved my knee upward with everything I had.
Air grunted out of his lungs as his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
“Stop moving or I’ll blow your balls off.”
Flipping to look over my shoulder, I saw a man holding a Glock toward the other guard, now on the ground with his hands locked behind his head.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Maguire slinking his arm inside his coat.
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Alex Troutt Thrillers Box Set) Page 74