Betrayal

by Tim Tigner

  She turned and dashed for the back of the garden, keeping an eye on the marina path as she went. She clutched the second walkie-talkie in her left hand like a lifeline. The garden ended with a thick row of hedges at the edge of the cliff. Wiley’s forebears had planted it generations ago for erosion control and to act as a natural fence. Cassi dropped to the ground when she reached them. Then she peeked back over the surrounding bushes and caught sight of Stuart.

  He was a couple hundred yards away, moving toward the manor house with a determined stride. To Cassi it appeared as though his forehead was being pulled by a rope, but her eyes were drawn to his hands. He held a Beretta pointed straight down in each. It did not take a psychiatrist to read that body language. He was a man on a mission, and that mission was her death.

  She zipped the walkie-talkie inside her jacket’s breast pocket and then climbed over the cliff-side and began working her way along the side of the cliff toward Wiley’s yacht.

  She moved more quickly over the slippery rocks than any sane person would consider safe, knowing that it would not take Stuart more than five or ten minutes to determine that the house was vacant. Even scampering at a dangerous clip it still it took her the better part of five minutes to reach the Norse Wind. Once aboard, she began hastily collecting the few tools her plan required. Her first stop was the closet in the guest stateroom, where she procured the Ping driver that Wiley used to launch old golf balls into Chesapeake Bay. Next she ran to the master bath where she raided the emergency kit for an air horn and a roll of medical tape. She stashed the three items near the aft gate and then ran up two flights of steps to the upper bridge. She grabbed the binoculars off the captain’s console, slung them around her neck, and then used a windowsill to climb up onto the cabin roof.

  Standing on the slick white roof with the radar station by her knees, her head was about thirty feet above sea level. If she strained her neck, that put her just high enough to get line of sight over the cliff to the front of the house. She had guessed that right. Two seconds into her watch, however, Cassi understood that her perch was both awkward and precarious. The rooftop was swaying beneath her feet, amplifying each little wave. After a couple of minutes of straining her eyes for Stuart, Cassi realized that her previous assessment was wrong. Precarious was an understatement. A single unexpected gust of wind could steal her balance and send her toppling over the edge and into a fall that would likely break her neck. She had not considered that aspect of the danger when formulating her plan, but she was not going to change horses in the middle of the stream. She did not have another horse. She would have to risk breaking her neck. The passengers on twenty-four planes were depending on her.

  She began to wonder what other unanticipated dangers awaited, and stopped herself. She could not afford to ponder them now. She could let neither her mind nor or her gaze wander, even for an instant. If she was not alert during the second it took Stuart to walk through the front door, he was likely to spot her first. Then he would shoot her off the roof of the yacht like a carnival toy. “Come on, Stuart,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Come on.”

  She heard a motorboat in the distance and her hopes began to rise. Perhaps the Coast Guard was returning. It sounded like a big boat, but she could not risk a look back over her shoulder, at least until it got closer. Stuart would also want to investigate the noise. She continued to study the front of the house, darting her gaze back and forth between the windows, the porch, the front yard, and the big green door. All appeared quiet. She began getting nervous. Had she missed him? Cassi knew that it was all over if she had. She was a standing duck.

  The tone of the distant motor changed, bringing the approaching boat back to the top of her thoughts. It was not a change in speed that caused the shift. It was the Doppler effect. The motorboat had continued past the island and was now receding. Cassi was about to turn to see if there was any chance she could signal the captain when she caught sight of Stuart.

  He appeared to be more of a shadow than a man at first, all clad in black and darting. She kept the binoculars trained on him with her left hand as she used her right to reach for the walkie-talkie. She brought it to her lips and pressed transmit. “Stuart!”

  She saw him drop to one knee as he pivoted to his left. She saw him bring both pistols up smooth as silk and then she heard them bark. As she brought the walkie-talkie back to her lips the Norse Wind was hit by the wake of the passing boat. The rocking motion caught her distracted and unprepared. As her balance faltered she flailed her arms to compensate, but it was no use. With visions of the jagged rocks and cold water below Cassi toppled over the edge.

  She saw a flash of white light and felt a searing bolt of pain shoot out of her upper left arm. She heard her humerus snap like a breaking bat. She fell a few more feet and landed with a thud on her back. Shocked though she was, Cassi managed to bring her right hand to her mouth to muffle her scream.

  She rocked back and forth for a moment, trying to ease the pain. She was aware that she was lying on the main deck, twenty feet below where she had stood a second before. It took her a second to realize what had happened. She had fallen and landed sideways on the port rail, snapping her humerus. Fortunately she had bounced back onto the main deck rather than into the freezing waters of the bay. Even in her agony Cassi also knew that she was lucky to have landed as she had. If she had hit her neck or back or head on the rail she would already be a corpse.

  Still fighting back screams and moans, she brought her eyes to rest on the walkie-talkie. She tried to focus on it and nothing else. It lay six feet away, further aft on the deck. She wriggled in that direction as though it were a desert oasis, her broken arm pulsing fire as she moved. She thought of the fire about to engulf twenty-four airplanes. That image fueled a reserve of strength. After seconds that seemed like hours, her hungry fingers enveloped the Motorola. She sucked in a deep breath and brought it to her lips.

  Chapter 67

  The SS Queen Mary 2

  ODI HEARD THE churning of seawater and the pounding of his heart. He smelled lilac perfume, cigar smoke, and brass polish. He felt a thousand drops of rain. Nothing focuses the mind or sharpens the senses like falling helplessly through space.

  As the rail disappeared above him he flipped and flared faster than a falling cat, moving with the reflexive conditioning of a hundred parachute jumps. Something red entered his visual field, eliciting a primitive reaction. His arms thrust out of their own accord even before the memory of a lifeboat canister flashed through his mind. His fingertips made contact but the surface was slick and curved so his hands slid impotently down its side. His panic peaked. He was still gaining speed. Knowing that the canister rim was the only thing between him and a watery grave, Odi curled his fingers into butchers’ hooks and willed them not to bend. They struck the rim an instant later.

  Odi stared up his hands in gratitude and wonder as they clenched the lip where the two canister halves joined. Meanwhile his legs continued to move as momentum swung them under the enormous canister. A split-second later the shock of his legs impacting the side jarred his right hand loose. Dangling on just four slim fingers, Odi felt gravity pulling his body downward as the driving rain pushed him from above. He teetered outward and caught a frightful glimpse of the churning black waters seven stories below. Fear fueled his left hand, turning it to stone. Swiftly but smoothly he brought his right hand up beside its brother.

  Thirty seconds after Ayden hurled him over a guardrail, Odi dropped back onto the safe side. His hands continued to tremble as he crouched there on the rain-swept deck, letting it all sink in. Despite being safe for the moment, he felt winded and shaken. He stared through the rails at the bottomless waters below, knowing that for the second time today he was supposed to be dead. He looked up at the huge protruding canister that had saved his life. Its red underbelly was slick with rain, and the droplets scurried across its surface, propelled by the gale.

  Odi knew that his survival was a miracle. He fel
t touched by the finger of God. He did not have to question the intervention of the Almighty. Odi understood. God had a purpose, and Odi knew exactly what that was.

  He shook off the water as best he could and brushed back his gel-slicked hair. Kostas’s glasses had fallen into the drink, but at this point that hardly mattered. To stop Ayden, Odi had to come into the open. He had to surrender his alibi.

  Chapter 68

  The SS Queen Mary 2

  AYDEN PLAYED WITH the condensation on the side of his frosty mug, waiting for Breaking News. There had been no word of a threatened terrorist attack, and now that Odi was dead Ayden knew there would not be. He checked his watch and smiled. The planes were in flight. He was moments from making a difference to the world, moments from saving the children—if the bombers had gotten aboard; if they had the courage to swallow; if the Creamer worked; if, if, if …

  He took a long swallow of Boddington’s and looked around the modern nightclub of the grandest vessel ever to grace the seven seas. Club G32 was dimly lit but brightly furnished. Colorful roving lights moved randomly around, pulsing and flashing with the hypnotic music. Why they called the club G32 Ayden neither knew nor cared. His only interest in G32 was the bank of television monitors it sported on one wall, one of which was tuned to CNN. Even sitting just a few feet away, however, he could not hear the broadcast over the blaring music. He knew that would all change soon. Soon the world would stand on its ear and he would be able to hear a pin drop.

  With the announcement of the first exploding airplane, someone would turn the volume up. When the second aircraft blew, even the deaf DJ would take notice and turn the music off. By the third everyone would be standing openmouthed, staring at the reports jamming every screen. That was why Ayden had come to G32 rather than watching in his own suite; he did not want to witness the birth of the new world alone. Oddly enough, he wished Odi could be there, Odi and Arvin.

  But he was alone, and that was just as well. He could not permit himself more than a few minutes’ celebration. He still had work to do. Once the pattern was established—only SASC-member planes—Marshall’s phone would start ringing off the hook. That was when he would order coffee. That was when the chairman would get his Creamer. That was when—

  A red banner began flashing on the CNN screen. Ayden stared at the welcome words: Terror Strikes. He stood up and moved to within inches of the hanging screen. There was a volume button on the bottom edge. He turned it up. “... more than a dozen flights. Though details are still sparse, CNN has just received an amateur video. We need to warn our viewers that it contains graphic content.” Ayden caught himself grinning ear to ear at the prospect of seeing the first pictures, not for what they would show, but for what they would represent. He wondered what the image would be. A flash in the sky? A plummeting plume? A smoking crater? Or all of the above?

  Chapter 69

  Asgard Island, Chesapeake Bay

  LYING IN A crumpled heap on the deck of her ex-lover’s yacht, Cassi prayed that his shadowy accomplice was still on the front porch. She screamed into the walkie-talkie. “You’re too late, Stuart. Odi’s already gone. He swam to the mainland—with a waterproof bag tucked inside his wetsuit. Wanna guess what was inside?”

  It was a short message, but it ought to be enough—she hoped. When Stuart’s reply came, it was not what she expected. “It was me, you know. Not Sal. Not an accident. I played you like a violin. I—“

  She turned off the walkie-talkie. Stuart could troll all he wanted; she would not take the bait. It did not faze her that the daycare center bombing was a setup. That incident was trivial compared to what lay before her now.

  She permitted herself a long moan. Her left arm was in agony. She rolled her head and used her right arm to pull her shirt away from her body. She inspected the damage. Her arm looked like a garden snake that had swallowed a mouse. The swelling was intense, but concentrated. Her humerus had obviously broken clean through. The bone was not protruding through her skin, however, and given the level of bruising her veins and arteries appeared to be intact. She would live. She wished she were as optimistic about the twenty-four planeloads of passengers whose lives hinged on her performance over the next few minutes.

  She allowed herself one final sobbing wail, then she steeled her will and said, “No more.”

  Using her right hand to keep her left arm steady, Cassi rolled up onto her feet. White-hot bolts of pain radiated sporadically from her shattered arm. She did her best to ignore them. The painkillers in the first-aid kit she had raided earlier beckoned her with a Siren’s song, but she had no time for such a diversion. Stuart’s search of the garden would not last forever. Once he satisfied himself that she was no longer there, he would understand that her taunt had been a diversion. He would make a beeline for the boat. She had to be ready.

  She staggered to the aft gate where she collected her stash of supplies—the driver, the air horn, and the tape. Once on the hard dock, each footfall sent a shockwave trumpeting up her spine and down her arm where it detonated an explosion. She looked ahead at the marina’s staircase, and winced. Each of the thirty-six steps represented a mountain of pain she had to climb. Cassi wedged the driver between her teeth in place of the proverbial bullet, and had at it. At one point she saw a flash of white light and felt herself starting to faint. Still she moved on. She could not help but picture jagged bone grating nerves and slicing flesh. Still she moved on. As excruciating as it was she knew that worse was yet to come. Still she moved on. “Twenty-four planeloads,” she repeated to herself. “Twenty-four.”

  Eighteen stairs into her climb she had to stop. Sweat was gushing from her face. Her heart was pounding two hundred beats a minute, and her arm was so swollen she thought that it might explode. She took a deep breath, and continued, counting each stair off like a battle won. When at last she got high enough she peeked over cliff’s edge. Stuart was nowhere in sight. Relief swept over her like a warm wave. Her struggles had not been wasted. The passengers still had a chance—if she hurried. Stuart would be coming any second now. He knew the yacht was what she wanted.

  She took the Ping driver from her mouth and laid it down along the base of the fourth stair down from the top, noting with satisfaction that the handrail’s supporting brace camouflaged the protruding club-head. She withdrew the air horn from her pocket and unrolled a foot of medical tape. She looked down to take a deep breath and saw that a puddle of sweat was forming between her feet. This was it, she realized, the point of no return.

  She risked another peek over the top of the stairs and saw him. Stuart was just leaving the garden, walking briskly in her direction. She shot back down, ignoring the jolt of pain. She did not know if he had seen her too. At this point it did not really matter.

  Using her chin and knees and one good hand, she positioned the cardboard roll over the air-horn’s button. She pressed down on the roll. The air horn began to blare. She knew the sound was coming but it still frightened her it was so loud. Wrapping as fast as her awkward appendages were able, she tried to lash the roll down so that it pressed the button, but the jet of air caught her jacket and the air horn flew from her grasp. Reflexively, she grasped at it with her left arm. Flames erupted around the break and again a searing flash consumed her eyes, but she caught it. She knew that Stuart was just seconds away. She could not fold. Summoning all her reserves of willpower and strength she continued wrapping until the roll was secure. She scooted four steps lower and stood. She aimed for the roof of the yacht and lobbed the air horn toward the sky with the arcing throw used on hand grenades.

  Cassi ignored the missile the instant it left her hand. For better or worse, her only die was already cast. As it arced through the air she slipped under the staircase rail and climbed beneath the stairs. Endorphins were overriding her pain at last. Her body knew that it was do or die. She heard the horn clatter onto the cabin roof as she reached up for the Ping. She followed the sound of the horn as it slid off the roof and plummeted to the main
deck where it continued to emit a muffled wail. Stuart would be running full out with the assumption that she was signaling a passing boat.

  She strained to hear the sound of pounding of feet. Only then did Cassi realize that her ears were still ringing from the air horn’s close-up blast. She felt a surge of panic. She was lost if she could not hear Stuart’s approach. She closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing as she focused on nothing but her ears. Better.

  Fishing line! The thought leapt unbidden into her head. She should have used fishing line. Now it was too late.

  She felt the stairs vibrate before her damaged ears registered the accompanying noise. The muscles in her shoulder went tense. She only had one chance to pull off a split-second move. If she got it wrong, Stuart would shoot her at point-blank range. Twenty-four planeloads of people would die. Battered body or not, she felt primed like never before.

  His foot hit the top step hard enough to make it clang. She sprang the millisecond she heard the second footfall—hitting three steps lower than the first. She thrust the shaft of the driver upward along the railing posts until the handrail supports blocked its ascent on both sides. The shaft of the driver now spanned the stairway, creating an unbreakable tripping force. She braced herself.

  Chapter 70

  The SS Queen Mary 2

  SOAKING WET AND wild eyed, Odi attracted inquisitive glances as he ran through the corridors and down the stairs to the third deck. As he entered the grand atrium, his eyes flashed about in search of a phone. To his left a bartender polished glasses. She was trying to look perky although she was obviously bored. To his right a hostess sat bent over a map, assisting an elderly couple with their shore plans. Aside from them and a half-dozen sad souls mindlessly pouring money into melodious slots, nobody else was around.