The Assassin's Wife

by Roger Weston

  .

  CHAPTER 43

  Ditching the truck in Boise, Lomax and Meg picked up a new ride and headed back to Moses Lake, Washington, where she had left Eric’s files in the storage along with the $7 million in cash. She was relieved to find that all of it was still there. For hours, Meg and Lomax watched Eric’s training tapes.

  Then she went through the files again. Meg looked for anything related to Paul Priest in Eric’s files. She sent Sikes an email asking if he had heard of Paul Priest or if Molly 2623 meant anything to him.

  A few hours later Meg received an email back from Sikes. He had done some preliminary research and found out that Paul Priest was a sailor from Bellingham, Washington. Unfortunately, according to the Seaman’s Union, he had gone missing nine months ago while ashore in the Philippines.

  Meg decided to check Eric’s laptop for information. There she found an email from Paul Priest in the inbox. It had been sent three days ago.

  Paul was worried because another Russian crewman had had an “accident” on The Sturgeon shortly after trying to steal a shore boat to escape in. It was getting ugly, Paul said, and he needed to be extracted soon.

  It sounded like Paul was helping Eric. Had Eric asked Paul to go aboard the Sturgeon to get the information he needed?

  Meg, pretending to be Eric, shot him an email, asking if they were planning to replace the deceased crewman and was it possible to arrange a switch and send someone else to the Sturgeon instead of the replacement crewman, or would they immediately spot this?

  She got a response within the hour. It said, “Eric, where the hell have you been? Why have you taken so long to get back to me? Yes, they are going to replace the unfortunate seamen. They’ve found a replacement and anticipate picking him up in Dutch Harbor, but what the hell difference does that make? Yes, your idea of doing a switch is plausible. I’m in charge of deck personnel and would be the one to report any irregularities, but it’s too risky so don’t try it. What can another infiltration accomplish anyway? If I can’t prove who’s behind this operation, what could someone else do? Security is tight. On the other hand, if the new person is meant to assist in my exfil, then go for it—but they’d better act fast because I’d be surprised if I could go more than a day or two more without being tagged.

  “Either way, I want a date and time for extraction. The Sturgeon is presently anchored between 51°21′N, 178°37′E and 51°39′N, 179°29′E near Amchitka Island. Hurry with my extraction. Suspect crew members are accident prone.”

  Paul included the new deckhand’s travel itinerary and personal information, and he said he would wait for verification from Eric of his plans. “I’ve overplayed my luck already,” he wrote. “Get me out of here.”

  Meg didn’t respond back to the email. She needed time to think. She looked at Lomax. “Pack up. We’re going to Alaska.”

  “You’re crazy. What are we going to find up there? I think you’re better off

  running. You can hide. At least your chances of survival are longer that way.”

  “Are you coming or not?”

  “Meg, you’re going to get me killed, but I told Eric I would help you…and I will.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Just back from Alaska, Marcel looked up at Jose, who took a seat across the desk from him, holding his briefcase in his lap. Marcel noted that Jose had never once put down his briefcase. He kept it on his lap or carried it at his side as religiously as if it had been handcuffed to his wrist. Jose’s muscles flinched, and Marcel started to sweat.

  “Like I told Carl,” Marcel said, “I prefer to work alone.”

  Jose lifted his smoothly-shaved chin. “I’ve seen the timeline in the Coles’ file. You’ve had a red hot trail and more than one opportunity to get the job done. Carl could have sobered up a hick bounty hunter and found her by now.”

  “Go to hell. Fact is, Carl’s been hauling my ass back and forth across the country so I can’t concentrate.”

  Jose shook his head in disgust.

  Marcel scowled at him and studied Jose’s hands again. Marcel hated working with a man with such soft hands. It made him nervous. Marcel’s cell rang, the shrill noise shattering the silence. He glared at the phone, dreading to answer it, but he had no choice. He rose and answered it as he strolled across the office.

  “This is Carl.”

  “Yes,” Marcel squeezed his forehead, stood and leaned against a file cabinet.

  “I want you to scour Idaho for Meg until it’s raw. You do this right or you are finished—and I do mean finished.” The phone went dead.

  Marcel hung up the phone, his face flushed with intense stress.

  CHAPTER 45

  Meg crouched down next to John and his old fishing buddy, Jeffery Fogerty, who’d spent time in Iraq. Jeffery Fogerty had curly red hair and clear blue eyes. All three of them were hiding behind a stack of fuel drums on the tarmac of the Dutch Harbor air strip. They watched as two men walked toward a puke green Cheetah helicopter. Lomax looked at the photo in his hands. “That’s our man.”

  “Are you sure?” Meg said.

  “Ninety-nine percent.” Lomax looked at Fogerty. “You take a bird to Kiska and wait.”

  Fogerty nodded. “I get a signal from you…I’ll come and shake things up. Are you sure you remember how to fly one of these?”

  “I can manage.”

  Meg watched as two men got into the Cheetah and the rotors started spinning. “It’s all about timing,” Meg said, “and the time is now.”

  “Let’s go,” Lomax said. He rose and started jogging toward the helicopter. Meg followed.

  As they approached the helicopter, Meg began waving at the pilot as though there was something important that she needed to tell him. The pilot opened the side window.

  “There’s been a mistake,” Meg said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lomax open the passenger door.

  “What’s going on?” the pilot said.

  Meg gestured toward the dashboard. “We got a work order for this helicopter yesterday. Our mechanic has been tinkering with it, and the electronics won’t function until he finishes up.” She saw the passenger and the pilot raise their hands as Lomax confronted them with his pistol. Meg climbed into the helicopter and shut the door. Lomax cuffed them and then secured them to the bones of the copter.

  “Enjoy the ride,” Meg said. “You’re in no danger as long as you cooperate. We just need to borrow your bird.”

  “Where are we going?” the red-faced pilot said through gritted teeth.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” Meg said. “There should be some wonderful scenery,”

  As Lomax blindfolded the passenger, the pilot looked at Meg and said, “I recognize you. You’re that woman who’s number one on the F.B.I.’s most wanted.”

  Meg smiled as Lomax blindfolded him.

  “What about the scenery?” the man said.

  Meg tapped her fingers on the man’s knee. “Oh, you’ll enjoy it on the island. We’ll be dropping you off on Kiska for a day hike. I hear it’s a National Historic Monument. Only problem is no one visits because of all the unexploded bombs left over from WWII. But I’m sure you know all about that being a pilot in Alaska.”

  ***

  The Aleutian Islands were volcanic in origin, and the terrain was hilly and carpeted with spongy green tundra. Rolling, tussock hills rose dramatically out of the deep blue ocean, ending in jagged peaks.

  Meg looked over at John. “So, you know how to fly helicopters. Do you have any other special skills you want to share with me?”

  “No, I’m just an old football player. I learned how to fly copters so I could deliver food to hard-to-reach places. Oh yeah, I’m also pretty good at driving big-rigs.”

  While the chopper soared over the islands, Meg got out her make-up kit and went to work. Eric’s DVDs had taught her more about make-up and disguise technique than she had ever learned in the theater.

  She began by painting her nose with spirit gum and letting i
t dry, then pressing a ball of putty onto the bridge of her nose and spreading it with her fingers. After she smoothed it all over with a minimal amount of cream, her nose looked natural even though it now had a new slightly arched shape. She then blotted as much of the cream as possible.

  Next she applied liquid latex to pieces of torn paper towel and pressed the extra-thin toweling into the skin at the corners of her mouth and eyes, creating a rough and wrinkled look. This would fit with her hair, currently dyed black with streaks of blonde. After applying a couple more pieces of toweling to wet latex on the cheeks and chin, she applied base, covering the false nose and the rest of her skin with makeup. She trimmed her black-blond bangs and combed them down over her forehead, trimming them again, so they were cut straight across her eyebrows. By putting in colored contact lenses, she changed her eye color from brown to blue, and looking in the mirror, she saw a woman who looked far different than the head shots of Meg Coles that had recently been flashed on PC’s across the world.

  The flight over a desolate and gray stretch of ocean lasted for three hours. As the helicopter approached the ship, Meg saw something that she could not make sense of. The ship was massive, but the front and middle decks were covered with egg-shaped steel orbs as large as dump trucks. Square frames of steel were built around each of these orbs so that they could be stacked up like crates, three high. There must have been a hundred of them, and she’d never seen anything like them in her life. Also stacked on the deck were hundreds of regular shipping containers. The only clear area on deck was the helicopter pad.

  CHAPTER 46

  The Sturgeon

  Because of the gusty winds, Lomax made a rough landing on the ship’s helicopter pad. He and Meg stepped out under the whirring blades after deck hands secured the bird to the deck with safety lines. The noise had diminished to the point where it was possible to hear each other’s voices. They hurried off the raised platform at the stern and stopped by the railing. Stiff gusts pushed Meg, and she adjusted her feet so as not to lose her balance. There was nothing to say, but she held onto the rail for a moment and met Lomax’s gaze. Feeling a surge of anxiety, she adjusted her workman’s blue stocking cap as the cool wind shook her blond-black bangs.

  “Look,” Lomax said, leaning close to her. “I’ll be moving to and from the engine room for tools as much as I can get away with. I’ll snoop around, but I’ll need to make a show of working on the helicopter, so that you’ll know where to find me. Are you going to be alright?”

  She looked into his eyes and felt his concern. “Don’t worry.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Meg put her hands on her hair so the wind wouldn’t whip it around. “I don’t know. Depends what happens.”

  “Keep me current on where you are and what’s happening, but of course be discrete about talking into your mike.”

  She nodded and started to turn, but felt his hand on her shoulder.

  He gently squeezed it. “When this is all over …” He paused, but the silence communicated more to her than words.

  “Don’t say it.” Meg averted her gaze.

  He stepped closer to her and put his arms around her, pulling her tight. “Just be careful.”

  Meg gave him a quick hug, and then hurried away without looking back. With Lomax making a show of working on the helicopter, Meg was on her own to locate Paul, find out about the ship operations, and collect evidence. Everything in her made her want to run back to Lomax and tell him that they’d made a mistake, that this was too risky and that maybe he was right that they should leave immediately and run away to Central America. But no, she would not do that. She’d learned from Eric that she must not believe appearances, no matter how frightening they appeared. Yes, if she and Lomax were caught, they would be trapped in a totally isolated place. But it was also clear that Harding was determined to silence her, and that her only hope was to secure damning proof of what they were up to.

  Walking hesitantly up the side walkway, Meg was cut off as two men pushed open a metal door and stepped out of the accommodation and into the walkway in front of her. Like at the sand and gravel pit, she saw men wearing white radiation suites. They ignored her and headed toward the front of the ship.

  “This is a mess,” one of the men said, gesturing toward the turbulent ocean. “The barometer is dropping fast.”

  “They really think they can keep her steady with the side thrusters?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Anybody tell them this is looking like a nasty storm?”

  The man grunted.

  “Are we going to haul up the tenders?”

  “Waiting for orders. We’ve still got people ashore.”

  Meg wondered why people were ashore, but she wasn’t about to ask. She stood at the rail as the ship rose slowly on a long gray ocean swell and sank into the following trough. As the boat crested on the next swell, she caught a glimpse of an island in the distance. It was a long, barren island that stretched across the horizon like a massive snake.

  Meg heard a lonely screech. An enormous bald eagle soared overhead.

  The motion of the ship was gentle even though turbulent waters swirled around her. The waves were like legions of doomed soldiers, as far as she could see and far beyond, generation after generation, trudging through the vast solitudes in wretched obedience. The sky was as gray as the ocean, and it cast a shadow on everything. The gloom even covered a deck hand that was coiling big ropes.

  Meg turned to face her task. She walked to the main deck where several men in white radiation suits worked the cranes. She stood at the corner and watched them work for a few minutes. One of the men spotted her and came over.

  “What are you doing out here without your suit on?” he said.

  Meg smiled. “I just got here.”

  The man glanced out across the tormented ocean. “I was wondering who’d shown up. Hell of a day to fly.”

  “It wasn’t so bad when we left.”

  “What are you here for?”

  “I’m Ronnie Gales, the new deck hand.”

  “Gotcha.” He turned to his companion. “I’ll meet you in the control shack after I help this lady find Allen.”

  Meg shook her head. “I was told to report to Paul, the deck boss.”

  The man shook his head. “Paul stole a boat and left. Guess that means he quit. For now, the deck boss is Allen. I’ll take you to him.”

  Meg was careful not to show the fear that was racing through her. The deck boss would quickly realize she didn’t know anything about deck work or ships.

  “Actually,” Meg said, “I’m feeling a bit nauseated from the flight. Maybe I’d better just sit down for a while, and then I’ll check in.” Oh, great, Meg thought, a supposed sailor who gets motion sickness.

  The man narrowed his eyes at her. “Fine, but you shouldn’t come out here without a suit on. Follow me.”

  He led her down the walkway to a door leading into the accommodation. They entered a locker room where over a dozen white radiation suits hung on hooks around the perimeter.

  He led her to a door that said “Purser” and knocked, but nobody answered.

  “What’s this?” Meg said.

  “Office. Myer needs to check you in and get you set up. Looks like the slob is milking the clock again while the rest of us actually work for a living. Look, come with me. I’ll put you in Paul’s old cabin. When you’re feeling better, hunt Allen down. Meantime, when I see him, I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.”

  They found Paul’s old cabin four doors down.

  “Thank you.”

  Meg turned away from him as he walked away. She entered the room, locking the door behind her. Some of Paul’s things were still there, so she did a quick search. Nothing of interest turned up. Of course, if he had any evidence, he would have taken it.

  Now that Paul had fled, Meg would have to improvise.

  She left Paul’s cabin and stole outside on deck.

  Th
ere was a large deckhouse structure that was built out of plywood. The door was open, so Meg looked in while walking by. It seemed as if all the occupants were transfixed by what was happening on the video monitors in front of them, so Meg lingered by the door for a moment. When nobody said anything or even took notice of her, she stepped inside. The video footage that held their attention was amazing, and Meg found herself just as engrossed as the two men at the controls. They watched as an underwater volcano erupted. The deep sea environment was illuminated by a light that must have been attached to an underwater camera. No one said a word. It was incredible footage of nature’s fury.

  Then Meg felt a large hand grasp her tightly by the arm.

  Meg spun her head around. A burly Asian man held her tightly and led her forcibly away.

  CHAPTER 47

  Wheelhouse

  A tall man with pale skin and white hair leaned against the port windows of the wheelhouse and studied Meg as if she was a specimen in his laboratory.

  “Meg Coles. You’re very persistent, aren’t you?”

  “I’m Ronnie Gales,” Meg said. “I was sent here to work as a deckhand.”

  He smiled without parting his lips. “If you weren’t in the wrong place doing the wrong things, I might not have recognized you. Maybe if the helicopter had departed as it normally does. I don’t know. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Carl.” He gestured widely with both arms. “I have cameras all over the ship, and I am aware of your background in theatre. Your disguise is first class, but perhaps you forgot to consider that I am not easily fooled.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t like the way you are treating me, and frankly, sir, I quit. I’ll be leaving right away.”

  Carl laughed and looked at the goon who had brought her up to him. “Did you search her?”