Eyes Only

by Fern Michaels

  Harry tilted his head to the side and fixed his gaze on Dennis, who immediately started to shake.

  “I said, ‘I think,’ Harry. I’m not 100 percent sure it will work.”

  Harry smiled.

  Harry never smiled.

  Greg Albright bounced up off his chair like he was spring mounted. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it! When? I’m ready right now!”

  “You need to cool your jets, young man,” Myra said sternly. “You do not do anything until we tell you to do it. Tell me you understand what I just said.” Her tone softened a little. “I understand how you are feeling right now, but you need to understand that if you do something that goes awry, all our planning will go down the drain.”

  Albright took one look at Myra’s fierce expression and sat down. He started to nibble on his thumb, his gaze sweeping the room, wishing for something that would give him hope. He saw nothing in anyone’s expression. His shoulders slumped. So close yet so far.

  Harry gave his slim shoulders a shrug as he got to his feet. “Take a walk with me, Jack. I need some exercise.”

  “You need exercise like I need a watermelon taped to my head. What’s up?” Jack asked.

  “You’re right. Something is off,” Harry replied as he and Jack walked outside.

  “What did we miss, Harry? It’s not like us to miss something. Yeah, maybe for a minute or two, but this . . . whatever we’re missing is crucial. I’d bet my life on it. We’re losing minutes here. I hate it when the girls cut it so close.”

  Harry looked at his watch. “The way Snowden drives, he should be halfway to the airport by now,” he said, looking up at the bright sun. “I don’t like this place, Jack. I can smell and sense the evil here.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Jack looked out across the deep blue of the ocean, the sun shimmering down creating little rainbows on the dancing waves. And then it hit him. Hard!

  “Son of a bitch! Harry! Listen to me. Those new gunslingers from Miami—they aren’t flying in. Well, they are, but they’re coming on a seaplane, not a regular 747. They’re coming here. We need to call Snowden to warn him and his people to get back here on the double. C’mon, Harry. Our current timeline just took a big hit.”

  Jack raced up from the water’s edge, across the small dunes, and literally belly flopped onto the lanai. “We gotta go now! Those new rotated security people aren’t arriving at the airport on the northern end of the island. They’re coming here by seaplane. They’re coming here!” he gasped like a fish out of water.

  “Hold on, Jack. How do you know this?” Annie asked.

  “My gut, that’s how. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Someone call Snowden. Isabelle, find Abner and ask him to break in, hack in, whatever the hell he does, to see what kinds of flights left out of Miami, if any. Nikki, round everyone up and get your gear together. We need to leave ASAP. We need to be inside that house before those creeps land. Otherwise, we abort the mission now, and once those guys arrive, Spyder will be as safe as he was in his mother’s womb. Shake it everybody. Move! Move!”

  The Sisters moved. The way they always moved when they were on a mission. Like a well-oiled machine. Within minutes, the women were on the Harleys and the boys were in the Rovers, with Greg Albright bellowing that it was about time. Dennis gave him a chop alongside his head, to Harry’s approval.

  “You need to pipe down right now, or I’m going to jam my foot down your throat,” Dennis roared into Albright’s ear.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Still in a daze at Snowden’s abrupt departure without a word, Charles and Fergus paced the spacious apartment over the boathouse. Both men walked over to the huge bay window that overlooked the whole island in time to see the Sisters mount up. Charles’s hungry gaze immediately found Myra, who looked to him like she’d been born to ride the Hog she was sitting on. He blinked when she steered the Harley to the front of the line. She held up her hand as an earth-splitting sound filled the air. Fergus almost jumped out of his shoes when he saw Annie sidle up next to Myra.

  Both men watched in delighted horror as Myra twirled her red neckerchief in the air and bellowed something neither man could hear. She peeled out. Evel Knievel couldn’t have done it better. Charles almost had an orgasm at what he was seeing.

  Charles turned to Fergus. “What do you think she said?”

  “I think she said, ‘Let’s rumble!’ I think all bikers say that when they take off. I read that somewhere a long time ago,” Fergus said, dithering. “Would you look at those ladies go! I don’t know about you, Charles, but I’m getting a hard-on just standing here. Those are our women!”

  “Why are we still standing here?” Charles demanded.

  “Because Snowden told us not to move or leave, that’s why,” Fergus shot back.

  “Let me get this straight, Ferg. You want to stay here because he said so. Well, you can stay, but I’m leaving. Join me or not,” Charles huffed as he hustled to the door.

  Fergus raced after him. “Where are we going, and how are we going to get there? I counted the vehicles. They’re all gone.”

  “Then we walk, jog, run, whatever it takes. Think of this as our daily exercise routine. We need to get in shape, anyway. As to where we’re going, this is just a guess on my part, but I rather think the gang is headed to Spyder’s mansion. For all I know, they might be planning on blasting their way in. We need to be there if that happens. We need to be there, period.”

  “Don’t you think we might be a distraction, Charles? I, for one, certainly don’t want to throw off their timing, and you know that will happen if we show up.”

  “You have a better idea, Fergus?”

  “Actually, I don’t. You were always the planner. You always said, ‘When in doubt, do nothing. ’ So, what are we doing?”

  “We keep going. When you stop, you drop. You know that, Ferg. I think we can handle whatever comes our way.”

  Fergus nodded, but he wasn’t so sure about handling things on their own. When they’d tried that back in England, they’d been blindsided, and they’d ended up here, under Hank Jellicoe’s watchful eye. But, loyal to the core, he followed Charles, his heart beating faster than that of a racehorse crossing the finish line.

  The airport was small, like all island airports. But unlike most island airports, which were busy, this one was not. Snowden hopped out of his all-terrain vehicle and ran up to the check-in counter. He talked bullet fast as his eyes raked the board overhead. No incoming flights were due until tomorrow. When the pretty blonde behind the check-in counter confirmed what he was reading on the board, he turned and raced back to the all-terrain vehicle.

  “The guys were right. There are no flights due in today. Not till tomorrow. Emery was right. They’re coming on a seaplane. You don’t need an airport or a runway for that. Goddamn it! This has been one damn snafu after another. Burn rubber, Pete,” he told his driver.

  “Time?” Pete, the driver, bellowed to be heard over the ocean’s roar.

  “Don’t know much about seaplanes. My guess would be anytime soon,” Snowden bellowed in return.

  “You planning on a shoot-out O.K. Corral style, boss? Or are we the welcoming committee?”

  “For now, let’s go with the welcome wagon. I managed to jam all the signals coming into the island, so if nothing went wrong, Spyder has not been able to contact his crew. They’re coming in blind, and I’m hoping what they will be seeing, which is us, won’t set off any alarms. I think we can pull it off. If not, oh, well, then it’s O.K. Corral time.”

  “Six of us and twenty of them. Not good odds, boss.”

  “Mom! Mom! Come quick,” Gretchen Spyder shouted at the top of her lungs. “God, Mom, hurry up! We need to get to the front door. Look outside! They’re all here! Mom, what does this mean?”

  Felicia Spyder kicked off her spike-heeled shoes and ran as fast as she could to the front door, where Gretchen was waiting for her. She opened the door wide just as a batch of Harley-Davidsons ground to a
halt. Four Range Rovers stopped one after the other in a straight line. People appeared out of nowhere.

  Greg Albright broke ranks and ran forward. “Gretchen!”

  If Felicia hadn’t been holding on to her daughter’s shoulders, she would have toppled out of the wheelchair. They all watched as Greg scooped Gretchen out of her chair and danced away, their lips locked together.

  “Well, that went rather well,” Annie said, a smile on her face. “Mrs. Spyder?”

  “Please don’t call me that. My name is Irina Dasha. Angus named me Felicia when he took me away. Just for the record, his birth name is Feodor Kostya Spyovich. Please tell me you are here to take me and my daughter to safety. Please tell me that.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Myra said gently. “But first we have some business to take care of. Where is your . . . that man?”

  “He’s got himself locked in his suite in the back of the house. It’s like a bunker. He literally seals himself in there when he’s alone. He’s waiting for his new security team to arrive. Today, sometime, though I don’t know when. What can I do? How can I help you?”

  “Can you reach him by cell phone?”

  “Yes, normally, but nothing in the house is working. Everything is full of static. I saw a TV program once where that happened because someone was jamming the frequency or something like that,” Irina said. “Can you really take me and my daughter away from here?”

  “Yes, my dear. Gather up what you each want to take with you, but first show us where . . . Mr. Spyder is hiding out.”

  “With pleasure.” Irina risked a glance at where Greg Albright was still holding her daughter. They were smiling at one another, their eyes and their expressions saying it all. Their grip on each other was fierce. “Follow me.”

  “I can’t believe this. I simply cannot believe this,” Irina said over and over as she raced along the path and pointed to a section set off from the main part of the house by a covered breezeway. “There are no windows. The door is specially made. A while back, Angus boasted that not even a rocket launcher could penetrate the door. I believed him.”

  “Okay, Felicia . . . Irina, we can take it from here. Go back to the house and gather your and Gretchen’s things. Where will you go?”

  “First to Miami, so my daughter can have her operation. I have to pack up my jewelry so I can sell it to pay for the operation. I have no cash money. Then, when Gretchen is safe and she has recovered and can walk again, and is with the one who I hope will be my new son-in-law, I will go back to Russia to see my family, and perhaps if I can find a way, I’ll bring them here so we can all be a family. Thank you so much for coming. Gretchen and I had all but given up hope of ever being able to leave here. You are a godsend to us both.”

  Irina raced off, while Albright and Gretchen continued to bill and coo at each other, oblivious to everything else on the planet.

  The group huddled. What to do? How to do it?

  “No windows to shoot out,” Jack said.

  “A door a rocket launcher can’t take out,” Sparrow said.

  “His lair is a stand-alone structure,” Ted said.

  “But,” Harry said, holding up his hand and pointing to the breezeway, “that’s just a plain old stucco wall at the end of the breezeway. Take one of those massive Range Rovers and back it right up and into and through the wall. It might take you a couple of tries, but I think those trucks have the horsepower to do the job.”

  “Brilliant, Harry, just brilliant,” Jack said, clapping Harry on the back. “I’ll do the honors.”

  In the blink of an eye, Jack was behind the wheel of a champagne-colored Range Rover. He slipped it into gear, backed up, then shifted again to go forward so that he could drive into the breezeway. He plowed down a row of sweet-smelling bushes full of crimson flowers. He straightened the truck out, moved forward again, then shoved the gear into reverse and floored the pedal. The air bag exploded on impact. When he finally extracted himself, Jack looked into the rearview mirror to see how much damage he’d done. Not too much, by what he could see. He called out to Sparrow, who was assessing the damage.

  “Maybe two more good hits, Jack. You need to use one of the other trucks since the air bag went off. You okay?” he asked as an afterthought.

  “Good to go,” Jack said as he hopped out of the Rover. “Ted, move it, okay?”

  Ted slid behind the wheel and mowed down the other side of the sweet-smelling bushes in his haste to get out of Jack’s way.

  The Sisters cheered Jack as he slid into a money-green Range Rover and fired it up.

  “Be careful, honey,” Nikki called out.

  Jack grinned. He loved it when Nikki called him honey. She called him other sweet names, but he liked honey the best. He waved to indicate he had heard her and would be careful.

  The moment Ted had the champagne-colored Rover a safe distance away, Jack maneuvered the money-green one forward and floored the pedal in reverse. An air bag hit him for the second time, but he knew he’d knocked through the wall, because a cheer went up behind him. He jumped out and down and looked to see what damage he’d done. Enough, he saw, that they could gain entry to Spyder’s lair if they went single file, one person at a time, but first they had to move some of the chunks of masonry out of the way.

  They all fell to it while Espinosa moved the money-green Rover to a safer spot.

  Inside Spyder’s lair, all manner of bells and whistles were going off. The sound was deafening. Spyder’s alarm system was going crazy, the sound bouncing off the walls.

  Angus Spyder stood rooted to the floor. He felt fear and rage consume him as he tried to think of what he could do to save himself. He looked at the white noise coming from all his computer monitors, listened to the shrieking whistles. He looked at his Bloomberg terminal and cursed. As far as he was concerned, he had all the money in the world, and it wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good right now.

  With nothing else to do, he cowered in the corner.

  And waited.

  Chapter 22

  Nikki led the way, her gaze sweeping her surroundings. She marveled at the space, thinking it hadn’t appeared from the outside to be as big as it was. She estimated the bunker to be about two thousand square feet. And not a window in sight. But the bright light more than made up for the lack of windows. Solid was a word that came to mind. Safe and secure were two more words that invaded her mind. Then she wondered how any human being could live like this.

  “Look, there’s a full gym. And there’s a hot tub and a tanning bed. I thought someone said the guy was a pissant. Why does he need all this equipment?” When no answer was forthcoming, Kathryn continued to follow Nikki, who was in the lead.

  The door at the end of a short corridor was closed and locked. Annie peered at the door, at the lock, and decided it was an ordinary interior door with a standard lock. She pulled her gun from the small of her back. She waved the others to the side in case of a ricochet and fired. The sound was earsplitting. Sparrow moved forward and hit the door with his shoulder, causing it to fall inward. Sparrow bent down, picked the door up like it was a toy, and tossed it across the room. A painting full of red and orange slashes fell to the floor. The others peered at it, shrugged, and moved into the room to see Angus Spyder curled up in a corner.

  “Abner, unjam everything,” Annie ordered.

  A wicked gleam in his eye and an even more wicked grin on his face, Abner sat down to do as ordered.

  Angus Spyder straightened his back, then hunched forward. “You are trespassing on private property. I demand that you leave, but before you do that, you will please pay for the damage you’ve done to my home.”

  Annie laughed. “That’s not going to happen. Take a look around, Mr. Spyder. Do you see how many we number? Of course you do. Just so we’re clear on things, we are in charge. End of story.”

  “Well, there are a few other things you should know before the end of the story,” Myra said. “For starters, your wife and daughter will be
taking the speedboat out to your yacht. They’ll weigh anchor and be off to Miami within”—she looked at her watch—“fifteen minutes. Gretchen’s friend, Mr. Albright, did join us, and he’s with her as we speak. He is the father of the twins. The man you moved heaven and earth to find but couldn’t. We found him. Your daughter will live happily ever after with no interference from you from this day forward. Her children, who you so desperately tried to find, will live wonderful lives, and one day, when they are old enough, they will come to know their biological parents.”

  “We’re good to go,” Abner bellowed. “What do you want me to do now?”

  “Find all his passwords and give away his money,” Isabelle bellowed in return.

  “By the way, Mr. Spyder, we don’t want you getting your hopes up that aid is coming. That new crew you hired from Miami . . . you know, the ones who encountered engine trouble and were forced to travel via seaplane, they aren’t going to be able to help you. When they land, they will be taken into custody,” Jack said, hoping what he was saying was true.

  “What are your passwords, Spyder? I’m waiting,” Abner singsonged as he flexed his fingers to get the show on the road.

  Everyone turned when Irina blew into the room like a wild wind. Her gaze swiveled around the room till she spotted her husband. Her eyes narrowed as she advanced farther into the room.

  Maggie Spritzer, the closest to Irina, thought of her as a stalking cat. They all watched, their eyes wide, as Irina moved closer to where her husband cowered in the corner. Her eyes were narrowed to feline slits. Before anyone knew what she was doing, one foot struck out, then the other as she brought her closed, clenched fists down on Spyder’s neck. “How’s that feel, you bastard? Huh?” Then she rattled off a string of what they all thought were Russian obscenities.