Deadline

by L. T. Ryan

  “They weren’t the kind of guys who dressed like that to impress the company board. Got me? They were like us. Any idea who else might be around?”

  I could hear Frank tapping on his laptop keyboard. He didn’t have to ask me to explain any further. He’d spent enough time in this business that he’d developed the eye for picking out another killer. “I’m not getting anything. You get a good look at the guys?”

  “Just one,” I said. “He got out of the car. Spanish, maybe Italian. Short dark hair. Short beard. Like I said, dressed nice.”

  “Coincidence, maybe?”

  “Nah, they were watching us.”

  “You sure Bear hasn’t gotten into anything while there?”

  I lowered the phone. “Bear, you dealing drugs or weapons or anything like that out here?”

  The big man laughed. “Tell Frank to go fuck himself.”

  “I heard that,” Frank said.

  “He said go fuck yourself, Frank.”

  “Yeah, I think I got that.” He banged on his keyboard a bit more. “I’ll put some feelers out, but right now I’m not seeing any activity out there. Maybe it was a couple crooks who were thinking of shaking you down.”

  “Us?” I said, picturing the sight of Bear and me on the sidewalk. A linebacker and his defensive tackle ready to gobble up the trash so I can bring down the runner. “You serious?”

  Bear and I were the last two people a couple of thieves would look at and decide to rob. But I could see this wasn’t getting us anywhere, so I cut it short.

  “So what’s the deal?” I said. “Where’s our girl?”

  “I’m gonna text you some information soon. Just keep heading toward London while I finalize your travel arrangements. Trying to keep you out of the air so you can hang onto your weapons and phones.”

  “In other words you don’t have a solid contact for us at our destination.”

  Frank ignored the question. “I’ll hit you up soon.”

  That was it. The call ended, and we were left waiting for the follow-up from Frank.

  After a few minutes, Bear said, “You believe him?”

  “About those guys?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, they didn’t fit the bill for the kind of dudes that’d be after us, and they weren’t common criminals. Not with those shoes. Not dressed like that.”

  “I’m just gonna file it away for now,” Bear said.

  I agreed. We had to focus on what was ahead of us. If those guys showed up again, we’d deal with it then.

  The text arrived from Frank. I read it aloud to Bear. It contained three bits of information.

  Lowestoft. Yacht club marina. Captain Shue.

  A follow-up message a few seconds later said Frank would reach out to us again soon.

  In other words, don’t attempt to make contact. I wondered who was on his ass over this, and what they would do if we failed. Or worse, if we were caught out here.

  “Feels like we’re playing a damn game,” Bear said. “What’s next? Searching an old manor house for a damn butter knife?”

  The thought had occurred to me, too. And it left me questioning whether Frank knew more than he let on about the men we saw in town. I know he didn’t plant them there to keep an eye on us. He had the Audi to keep track of me. So why were they there? And was their presence the reason why he was doling information out in bits? Did he send me into this mess knowing that the situation was hotter than he’d let on? Fact was we wouldn’t talk if caught. And we couldn’t if we didn’t know everything.

  “Wonder how much this Captain Shue is gonna tell us?” Bear said.

  “I doubt much, if anything. Probably doesn’t know anything more than what Frank told him. I’m guessing he’ll ferry us on to our next stop. Another contact. Another bit of information. Hell, we’ll probably make our way all across Europe in this manner.”

  He laughed. “Wait until Sasha finds out. She’ll bitch me out for taking her dream honeymoon without her.”

  “Hear from her yet?”

  He nodded. “She texted me on my cell a little while ago. Apologized for the dramatics. Said she understands the position we’re in. Said to let her know if we get caught in a bind and she’d put everything she could on it.”

  That would be a disaster. Not only would that pinpoint our location at the time, but it’d land her in a world of trouble.

  “If only we could get away with that,” I said. “Frank has someone watching her every move now. The moment she logs onto her computer they’ll record every keystroke.”

  “She knows it.” Bear rolled down his window and stuck his hand into the stiff breeze. “And I’m sure she has ways around it. Whatever she does, she’ll take care to be clandestine about it.”

  Bear reset the GPS with our new destination, then found a jazz station.

  “You remembered,” I said.

  He shook his head. “How could I forget?”

  CHAPTER 12

  The yacht club looked similar to any other I’d seen. The few cars parked in the lot were upward of a hundred grand each. The few people we saw that weren’t front-line employees were dressed in clothing brands I’d never wear. Little whales on their pastel shirts. It wasn’t until we got to the marina docks that we saw working men scrubbing decks and hauling gear. Yacht crews hired by millionaires.

  A silent wind blew cool air across the sea, disrupting the surface with small white caps. The boats rocked in their slips. Grey clouds bunched together above.

  We stopped a worker for directions. “We’re looking for Captain Shue?”

  He pointed in the direction he’d come from. “Last row, last slip on the right.”

  “How’d you like to own one of these?” Bear said as we passed what was easily a twenty-five million dollar boat.

  “Can’t imagine the fuel costs,” I said. “And I’m not too keen on having a full-time crew, which you’d probably need on a vessel like that. I mean, I guess you could do it alone, but it’d be a pain. What’s the point of having a boat like that if you’re not relaxed while on board?”

  “I guess I see your point,” he said, gaze still fixed on the boat. “Still, it’d be nice to set off in one of those.”

  I spotted a white and blue catamaran and pointed toward the vessel. “That’s more my style. Can sail or use the engine. Big enough for an ocean crossing. Plenty of room for a family. Perfect for the Caribbean and island hopping.”

  He nodded, staring down at the catamaran like it was a target as we passed. “How much would something like that go for?”

  “Probably as low as quarter of a million used, maybe a bit less if you’re willing to put a little work into it. If buying new, half a million to a million would get you a pretty nice one.”

  “You always talk about this, Jack. Retiring on a boat or an island. Why haven’t you? Christ, I know money isn’t the issue unless you’ve taken up losing at gambling recently.”

  “I guess I just haven’t had the chance.” I glanced up at the thickening clouds after hearing the crack of thunder. “Something always happens. Even when I cut down my ties to no one, something frickin’ happens and I’m caught up in a mess like this one. Penance for the crimes I’ve committed.”

  “We committed,” Bear said.

  I shrugged. “Don’t take responsibility for me and my actions.”

  “They were all sanctioned.” He held his arm out in front of me as though we were in the car and he’d slammed on the brakes.

  I stopped, turned and faced him. “Yeah? What about all those ones we did for the love of money?”

  He broke his stare long enough to tell me he didn’t truly believe what he said. “Ain’t no one we took out that didn’t deserve it.”

  “That’s true.” I looked out over the sea. It had darkened with the increased cloud cover. “But it doesn’t make it right.”

  Bear rotated his head until his neck popped. Another tell. “If we didn’t do it, someone else would’ve. Better we
got paid for taking out the trash. At least that’s how I think of it.”

  “I suppose.”

  “No supposing, man. That stuff is in the past. You got a little one to think about, just like me with Mandy. We’ve made a good bit of coin. Put it to use after we finish this. Get away from this life. Far enough away that these people can’t reach you anymore.”

  His thoughts echoed my innermost dialogue. Finish this, then it’s time to move on.

  “Problem is,” I said, “they’ve got long arms. Long enough to reach anywhere we can travel.”

  Bear hiked his thumb up and toward the catamaran. “Get on one of those and you’re as good as a ghost.”

  The sun hovered over the horizon to the west, peeking through a break in the clouds. We had thirty minutes or so of light left.

  “Look,” Bear said with a simple gesture.

  I tossed a quick glance toward the sunset again and spotted a car making its way through the parking lot. I’d seen it earlier that day.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yup,” he said. “Sons of bitches from earlier.”

  “They gotta be Frank’s guys then.”

  “Call him.”

  I pulled out the phone and navigated to the recent calls list. “Dammit, blocked number.”

  “You don’t have another number for him?”

  “Not that I’d compromise this phone by dialing. Come to think of it, the only number I can recall for him is almost ten years old. I’m pretty sure it went away along with the SIS.”

  The yacht club parking lot had filled up about halfway. The sedan snaked around cars, headed toward the marina entrance. They drove past our position. It didn’t appear that they had spotted us.

  “You wanna wait on them?” Bear asked. “Or move?”

  We were close to the last pier. “Let’s move. Maybe we can find this guy before they find us.”

  “Afraid of a little confrontation?”

  “We don’t know these guys, Bear.”

  He laughed. “Never stopped us before. You tired of fighting?”

  A little of the Bear I knew had returned. I hoped by morning the rest of him would show up. It’d be easier to wrap this up with my partner beside me.

  “I’m just willing to take the door that leads out,” I said. “I’m assuming these guys tracked us via the car. Maybe that’s Frank’s doing. Perhaps Frank’s guy in London was a plant.”

  Bear considered this for a moment. “For who, though?”

  “Pick an acronym. Could be British Intelligence, terrorists, I really don’t know. Could be on Sasha’s payroll and all this is to make sure I’m not in country to screw up any plans. Maybe Ahlberg. It’s possible they are Frank’s guys after all. But I got a feeling that once we’re on a boat out of here, we’ll shake free of them for good.”

  I looked back and spotted the sedan parked in a spot close to the marina entrance. The men hurried toward the building.

  “Let’s move,” I said.

  We traveled down the final pier. Most of the boats there were darkened. They rocked amid the small surf. A couple had lights on in their cabins, or string lights illuminating the deck. There was conversation and laughter and drinks being poured and glasses clinking. An elite world oblivious to what was happening around them.

  Bear stopped, turned around. He had his hand on the sidearm tucked in his waistband.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Thought I heard something,” he said.

  I looked back, saw nothing. “There’s some deckhands up ahead.”

  We approached the young men.

  “Captain Shue,” Bear said. “Where can we find him?”

  One of them pointed toward the last boat. Right where we expected the man to be. The vessel looked to be about a forty-footer. As we approached, I noticed the stencil along the side. It read Captain Shue. It wasn’t a person we had been sent to look for. It was a boat.

  “Hello?” Bear leaned against the ramp. The rails creaked and bowed out under his heft. “Anyone up there?”

  A man stepped out of the shadows onto the sunset painted deck. He had long, dark hair and a beard to match that covered his neck.

  “We received a message from a mutual friend to find the Captain Shue,” I said.

  He reached into his pocket. I grabbed the butt of my pistol. He smiled, pulled out his cell. He swiped the screen a few times, glanced at us, back at the phone and then at us again. Finally, he gestured for us to board.

  He jutted his chin toward the end of the pier after we’d boarded. “Friends of yours?”

  I steadied myself and adjusted to the rocking. I saw the men hurrying toward us.

  “Christ,” Bear said.

  “They’ve been following us,” I said to the man.

  “Then I guess we should get moving,” the man said. “Either of you have sailing experience?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Then you can help me.”

  There wasn’t much needed to get the boat moving. The guy had been expecting us and was prepared to depart. The men following us must’ve noticed the flurry of activity. They started running, and drew their weapons two slips away. We were already a hundred feet out by the time they reached where we’d been docked. The Italian looking guy extended his pistol toward us. His partner forced the guy’s arm down before he could get a shot off.

  A few minutes later my adrenaline settled. The men wouldn’t catch us now, even if they commandeered a ship. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  “You guys safe on the boat?” Frank said.

  “Barely,” I said.

  “How so? What happened?”

  I strained to see the marina in the fading light. It looked like a black bump against a veil of deep purple.

  “The guys we ran into in town showed up,” I said. “You find anything out yet?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “We’ve been monitoring for any kind of chatter, but there hasn’t been a single lead.”

  “You’re not screwing with me, right, Frank?”

  “You think they’re my guys?” He laughed. “You’d be dead already if they were. Hell, I could’ve taken you out when we met.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  “Jack, take a second and think this through. This snafu doesn’t just affect you and Logan. My ass is on the line. Everything I’ve worked for, that I’ve built, my new position, it’s all on the verge of falling apart. Hell, I’m the architect of the original damn mission. I’ll go down as hard, if not harder, than you two. So get this through your thick skull. I am on your side, one hundred percent. You fail, I’m done. I have more than a vested interest in this situation.”

  I watched Bear take a sip from a beer bottle and gestured for him to grab me one, too.

  “And when this is over?” I said.

  “We’re through,” Frank said. “I’m shredding all your files, physical and digital. You won’t exist anymore.”

  “I have your word?”

  “Yes, you have my word.”

  “And what’s that worth these days?”

  I hung up the phone before he could answer. Trust him one hundred percent? I didn’t trust him even half a percent. The phone buzzed in my hand. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again. Eventually I answered.

  “What?”

  “The hell you want me to say, Jack? Huh? Want me to apologize? All right, I apologize. I’m sorry for every goddamn bad thing I ever did to you. That better?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I hung up again, this time tucking the phone away in my bag.

  CHAPTER 13

  I’d fallen asleep about an hour after my last conversation with Frank. Bear and I had managed to catch up for a bit. We took the time as an opportunity to forget about the job for a while. To forget about the woman we wrongly killed all those years earlier.

  And to forget that there were two men following us, with obviously bad intentions. I had thought we would be free of them after setting sail. Now
I doubted we’d seen the last of them.

  I woke as the sun crested the sea, painting the waves red. I exited my small cabin and found the captain standing in the wheelhouse. His unwavering eyes stared out over the barren seascape. I wondered if he had slept at all that night.

  Bear greeted me on the deck. The steam from his coffee rose up and quickly dissipated on the blustery deck.

  “Where can I find some?” I said.

  He pointed to the open door. I found the coffee pot and a mug and filled up. It was cheap grounds, but that didn’t matter. I took a swig of the earthy brew. The burn on my tongue continued down my throat. Back on the deck I took a seat opposite Bear. A cool breeze washed over the deck. It sprayed us with bits of foam and water. I licked my lips, and savored the salty taste. Reminded me of fishing in the gulf with my brother Sean and sister Molly.

  Bear gestured toward the south with his mug, which read “#1 Pop-Pop.” I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a narrow beach in front of a long row of trees.

  “Where do you think we are?” I said.

  “Belgium? Netherlands?” He shrugged. “Considering we’re seeing ocean to the east, I’m guessing we’re sitting north of the Netherlands.”

  Made sense. Would we continue on to Ahlberg’s native Scandinavia? Was she hiding out there? Frank had provided limited details. Made me uneasy. Every future move hinged on us making it to somewhere else first. Planning was impossible. We were subject to the whims of others.

  “Think we’re gonna see those guys when we dock?” Bear said.

  I had avoided thinking of them most of the morning. “Can’t say either way. Guess if we do, we take care of them.”

  “Have you considered that they might work for Katrine Ahlberg?”

  “It’s crossed my mind. I mean, the woman has made it almost ten years without anyone suspecting her to be alive. She has had every resource available to her. I wouldn’t doubt that she had a considerable amount of money in a numbered account. Maybe she opened a joint account with her sister before we killed the woman. Would have allowed her easy access to funds in the event she was ever on the run.”

  He uncrossed his arms, leaned forward, nodded. “Probably bought herself a couple hired hands. Reached out to a few Agency contacts. She had to have friends somewhere, right? All that money. Pretty simple to dole out a couple handouts.”