“Will do,” Janie pivoted the chopper until Lauren nodded her approval.
“Too bad we can’t see the glacier from here,” Buck said. “That’d be worth seeing.”
“You can watch it here.” Lauren positioned her laptop so all three of them could see what happened when the explosives went off. “How far out is the da Vinci?”
“They’re inside the no-fly zone setting up at a thousand feet,” Janie replied. “When they’re ready, and all the cameras are rolling, they’ll give the word.”
Buck leaned over the seat to look at the computer screen. Janie’s eyes darted from the instrument panel to the computer and then back again. Overhead, Lauren saw the da Vinci fly past them toward the glacier. She still couldn’t believe that Donovan wasn’t aboard. The radio chatter between the tugs and the tanker died out, as well as communication between the tanker and the Coast Guard ships. The detonation itself would be done via remote control from the back of the da Vinci.
“Eco-Watch zero one is in position, all telemetry up and running,” Michael broadcast.
“Eco-Watch zero four in position,” Janie added.
“This is Coast Guard cutter William Flores. All parties are safe and accounted for. The area is secure for detonation.”
Lauren looked to the north. The glacier itself was obscured by the terrain, but the view from the da Vinci was crisp and clean. She could feel her pulse quicken as the next broadcast broke the silence on the frequency.
“Here we go then,” Michael said. “In five, four, three, two, one—we have detonation.”
On the computer screen, the first explosions threw up a geyser of snow and ice hundreds of feet into the air, followed by all two hundred fifty-two explosions in a carefully orchestrated sequence. Debris peppered the ocean in front of the glacier and thousands of small chunks of ice fell into the frigid water. A cloud of smoke and vaporized snow hung over the glacier and even above the beating blades of the helicopter, Lauren heard the massive explosion as it echoed off the surrounding hills.
“Wow!” Buck exclaimed.
Lauren frowned. She understood there would be a short delay after the charges went off, but so far nothing had happened.
All three of them stared at the computer screen waiting for the glacier to react in some way, but it sat motionless, as if it had shrugged off all of man’s attempts to impose his will on the million-year-old river of ice. At first a small sinkhole formed, then it grew larger and a fissure opened.
“Oh, no,” Lauren said as the crevice began to race the width of the glacier.
“What is it?” Buck asked.
“It’s too much,” Lauren said as the last of the friction gave way and gravity pulled a sixty-foot section of glacier into the ocean. The resulting explosion of water hid the beginning of a wave that formed underwater. Below the surface, millions of square yards of water were instantly displaced by the ice, and the shockwave that formed began to race the only direction it could, south toward the North Star. Lauren keyed her microphone. “All hands, the wave is going to be twice the size we anticipated. I repeat, the wave is going to be almost a hundred feet high when it reaches the tanker.”
“Oh, shit!” Janie yelled as she snapped her head around and then desperately tried to turn the helicopter.
Lauren caught the movement outside the same time Janie did. There was no time to avoid the hundreds of startled ducks frantically winging away from the deafening roar of the explosion.
Lauren winced as the birds slammed against the helicopter. Dozens of collisions peppered the fuselage, each as loud as a gunshot. With each hit, the Plexiglas spider-webbed, but held together. Bells erupted, and Lauren could feel the vibrations in the airframe change. Red lights flashed on the panel, and the dull roar from the turbine engine began winding down.
“We’ve lost the engine,” Janie yelled. “We’re going down. Brace for impact!”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Putting Amanda Sullivan behind him, Donovan walked into Signature Flight Support at John Wayne Airport. He discovered the BMW X5 that he and Erica had borrowed still parked in the lot of the executive terminal. He’d immediately called William’s phone and Garrick’s damaged voice instructed him to go to the Stratton house, alone. After the short drive, Donovan pulled into John Stratton’s garage and parked the BMW. He had no choice but to face Garrick one-on-one. As he slid out of the SUV, the weight of Erica’s pistol in his hand was reassuring.
Donovan opened the door that led into the house and found a body lying facedown in the hallway. A pool of blood had formed around the head. One of William’s bodyguards. In the instant his eyes had been drawn to the floor, Nikolett appeared behind him and pressed the barrel of a pistol against the skin of his neck.
“Drop the gun. Put your hands up and slowly walk toward the kitchen.”
Donovan stepped around the corpse, and Nikolett prodded him down the hallway. As they walked through the opulent living room Donovan saw another body on the floor, William’s other bodyguard. Garrick and Nikolett’s entry must have been swift and brutal. Donovan remembered they’d been here once before and knew the layout of house. They probably had their own set of keys. William’s bodyguards hadn’t stood a chance.
“In the den. Garrick is waiting for you.”
Donovan entered the den and found William sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. His wrists appeared to be tied behind his back, his face swollen and bloody. Standing over him was Garrick Pearce, the man Donovan had sworn to kill. Garrick looked gaunt, almost hollow. His eyes were unmoving orbs. He could blink, but as Erica had explained, he had to turn his head if he wanted to look at something. Donovan could see the scar tissue from acid burns on his face and neck and hands. Garrick looked twenty years older than he was.
“Robert, you made good time. William and I were just talking about old times.”
“Takes a real man to hit someone tied in a chair, but then you always were kind of a pussy.”
Garrick’s expression didn’t change. It couldn’t, but his anger was obvious as he stepped forward and swung at Donovan’s jaw.
Donovan turned his head, the blow grazing his cheek. In one swift motion he swung and nailed Garrick in the mouth and nose with his fist. Blood exploded from Garrick’s face and he staggered away. Donovan’s smile was short lived as Nikolett delivered a savage blow to his lower back, collapsing him to the carpet.
Garrick held tissues to his face and stared blankly at Donovan. “I’ll give you that one. Now I’m going to ask you what I’ve been asking William. I’ve been going over his phone log. He had an incoming call from an unknown number just before we arrived. He then called Stephanie. Why? Where is she?”
“She’s in Europe.” Donovan tried to match the lie he thought William would have told. A small nod from his mentor told him he’d guessed correctly.
“Bullshit!” Garrick yelled. “Where is she?”
“Why are you doing this, Garrick? Why all the killing?”
“It’s a war.”
“You weren’t at war with the clinic in Germany. They helped you regain your sight. Why kill them?”
“Tel Aviv wanted to shut the place down. We took the job as payment for services rendered. That was strictly business.”
“What is it you think you’ve accomplished by spilling a million barrels of oil into Prince William Sound?” Donovan continued. “You and I both know Meredith would be horrified.”
“Meredith would love what I’ve done. Commercial fishing boats are under siege all over the world, being recalled by their owners. Fishermen are dying from improvised explosive devices planted in their gill and drift nets. We’ve created a frenzy. Two ships from Japan’s whaling fleet have already been attacked and sunk. Norway and Iceland have reported damaging attacks as well. Have you read about the vigilantes? All over the world people are hunting down and killing poachers. As for Alaska, when the ship finally does rupture, there will have been time for the entire world to catch up to the fact t
hat Eco-Watch was responsible. The media will have had hours and hours to run the video I made for them. Have you seen it yet?”
“Yes.”
“In the end, there will never be any drilling in ANWR, and for that, I’m so very happy. I think Meredith would be too. You, on the other hand, will probably be arrested, and good luck with all those Senate investigations and hearings. I hear they’re a bitch, especially when they discover who you really are. Eco-Watch is on life support and the plug is about to be pulled.”
“You’re right. You’ve brought about the end to Eco-Watch. There’s probably nothing I can do to stop that now, but the minute Eco-Watch is gone, the fear you’ve created will end. You’ll have changed nothing, certainly nothing lasting, and that’s why Meredith hated your tactics. Blood for headlines, and then, ultimately, failure.”
“The beauty of my plan is that once Eco-Watch is gone, I’m going to tell the world who you are. The world will never forget Eco-Watch, because they’ll never forget about the ruthless billionaire Robert Huntington who killed Meredith Barnes, and then faked his death to escape his crimes.”
“You always believed that the end justifies the means. That’s what Meredith hated about you, why she condemned you.”
“She didn’t hate me. You lured her away from me with your wealth, so you could kill her. Meredith hated you. I can tell you from experience that there’s a certain clarity that forms when you’re locked up. She experienced that in her final days when she was held prisoner. She saw you for who you really were.”
“We were engaged,” Donovan said. “You never knew that, did you? I’d asked her to marry me, and she said yes. I wasn’t her murderer. I was going to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“You’re making that up,” Garrick snapped. “There was no way she was ever going to marry you.”
“The picture you left on the bridge of the North Star was taken when we told William we were engaged. You can see the ring.”
“She didn’t wear a ring. You weren’t engaged. The media would have been all over that announcement.”
“She didn’t wear it in public for that very reason. She didn’t want to pull the focus away from the Costa Rican summit, which was only six weeks away. We were going to wait until afterward to make our announcement.”
“Where’s the picture?”
“You stole them, didn’t you?” Donovan slowly pulled the photo out of his wallet and handed it over. “We were in Washington. We’d just had dinner with William. If you look close, you can see the ring.”
Garrick struggled with his damaged eyes, but when he angrily flipped the picture to the floor, Donovan knew he’d seen the diamond. “Garrick, I didn’t kill her. I loved her. I still love her, and just like you, I try to honor her memory and all she stood for each and every day. We’re not all that much different, you and I. Look, you have money now. Use it for things that would make Meredith proud of you. It’ll never bring her back, but it keeps her memory alive. Live a life that’s worthy of being linked to hers.”
“We’re nothing alike, I can assure you. Locked up in that hellhole of a prison, I examined every second of your existence with her. It’s obvious you killed her. You betrayed her, left her to be held prisoner, and then allowed her to be executed. Where were you when all of that was happening?”
“I was there, searching for her.”
“You were holed up in the most expensive hotel suite in San Jose. You never saw the brutality she no doubt suffered, and you certainly didn’t see the expression on her face when they pulled the trigger. You didn’t see the life slip from her eyes as she toppled over and bled on the floor.”
“And neither did you.”
“I’ve been where she was, in a prison with no hope. She and I are alike in that respect. You, on the other hand, have known nothing but luxury.”
Donovan could see that Garrick was getting himself worked up; he was pacing back and forth, gesturing with the heavy, forty-five-caliber pistol. “I did everything I could. I had the money, I practically had to smuggle it into the country, but I had it, and was willing to pay. I’d have given it all away to save her life.”
“That’s what never made sense! You were Robert Huntington. You could do anything you wanted, and what you wanted was exactly what happened. Meredith died, and the world lost its greatest voice against industrialists like you, like John Stratton. Meredith hated you people and you killed her.” Garrick stopped pacing, stretched out his arm, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to William’s temple. “I’m going to show you how it feels to be helpless, for you to actually witness the pain of a loved one’s last moment alive.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“We’ve lost power!” Janie said as she battled the crippled helicopter.
“We have to make it to the ship!” Lauren yelled, terrified as the helicopter pivoted three hundred sixty degrees as it plunged downward. She saw water, sky, and then steel. If they ditched, it would put them directly in the path of the huge wave they’d created.
Janie used what little control she had and arrested their free fall only seconds before they hit the deck. The landing skids of the Bell crumpled from the force of the impact and absorbed much of the energy. The main rotor blades buckled and sliced into the deck, instantly exploding into pieces of deadly shrapnel. The fuselage whipped around, and Lauren saw they were hurtling toward the towering six-story-high superstructure of the North Star. As the steel wall filled the shattered windscreen, the battered body of the helicopter made one last partial rotation. The tail boom hit first. The passenger compartment slammed into the crumpled boom, tipped on its side, and came to a rest.
Hanging by her harness, Lauren was enveloped by the unmistakable smell of fuel. At first she thought they’d ripped a hole in the deck of the tanker until drops of jet fuel began to drip from above.
“Get out!” Buck yelled, dropping to the deck, then turning and ripping open the door next to Lauren. “Everyone out! Now!”
Lauren released her straps and fell into Buck’s waiting arms. He quickly placed her on her feet and then repeated the process with Janie. Lauren could see blood on Janie’s forehead, her eyes were closed, and she was cradling what was clearly a dislocated elbow. Then she heard the whoosh of the fuel igniting.
“We have to go up!” Lauren could see enough of the ocean to realized that the sea was pulling back from the reef; the wave was almost on them. With Buck carrying Janie, the three of them escaped the heat from the fire and found the first flight of stairs. Lauren led the way, taking the steps two at a time. She reached the first landing, turned, and tried to make it to the hatch that would allow them to reach safety inside the ship. She moved three steps before the rising heat from the furiously burning helicopter drove her backward.
“Go to the next level!” Buck urged.
When Lauren turned toward the bow of the North Star, she saw that the underwater shockwave had reached shallow water. The wave was beginning to build as the surge slowed, the water behind had nowhere to go but up. The water was already higher than the deck and growing. She felt the ship began to rise as tons of water surged beneath the hull. The bow rode up to meet the surge and then vanished under the onslaught of the monstrous wave. Lauren fought the urge to scream. The wall of water was going to strip them off the ship like insects.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Nikolett’s head snapped backward and a plume of bloody mist exploded from her shattered skull. Garrick flinched, his lack of peripheral vision forcing him to turn toward Nikolett as she collapsed. Garrick pivoted toward the door, raised his pistol, and fired two shots at a figure in the hallway. Without hesitation, Donovan lunged forward toward Garrick as the sound of the gunshots filled the room. Garrick spun back toward William and pressed the barrel of his pistol to William’s temple. Donovan managed to reach out and slapped his hand on top of Garrick’s forty-five just as Garrick pulled the trigger. The flesh between Donovan’s thumb and forefinger pinched beneath the hammer, stoppi
ng it from striking the firing pin. Donovan crashed into Garrick as both men fought for control of the gun. With one hand still attached to the gun, Donovan used his free hand to hit Garrick as hard as he could in the face. Fresh blood spewed from Garrick’s nose and mouth. He punched Garrick in the face twice more, but Garrick rolled away, and in the process the pistol ripped a chunk of flesh from Donovan’s hand. Garrick fumbled to clear the hammer, and Donovan turned and dove toward Nikolett. He reached her corpse as Garrick aimed through bloody and swollen eyes and fired wide. Donovan picked up Nikolett’s pistol, pointed it at Garrick, and pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked in his hand, and Donovan watched as a bloody hole formed in the center of Garrick’s chest. Donovan kept firing until Garrick sank to the floor and his newly repaired eyes went sightless.
Leading with his gun, he kicked the forty-five out of Garrick’s dead hand, stepped over Garrick’s body, and went to the doorway. There was a figure lying on the floor.
Donovan sank to his knees and brushed the blond hair away from Erica’s face. He saw an entry wound in her abdomen, the blood pooling beneath her. “Stay with me, Erica, don’t leave me.”
Erica moved her lips, and Donovan leaned down to listen. Her words hardly more than a whisper.
“I couldn’t find you. Our promise to each other—finish job. Remember?”
“I remember,” Donovan said as his eyes welled up with tears.
“Are they dead?”
“Yes, you saved us.” Donovan found her hand and clutched it with his own, remembering her solemn promise that if something happened to him, she’d kill Nikolett and Garrick.
She winced as if in pain as she struggled to speak. “Are you really him?”
“Yes.”
“You changed. I like you,” Erica said, her voice fading as her breathing became more labored. “My bag—strap, files. Neptune Trident. In German.”
Donovan heard her last breath slowly escape, her grip on his hand faded and then there was nothing but silence. His eyes filled with tears as he gently checked her motionless pupils and felt for a pulse that he knew wasn’t there. He closed her eyelids, leaned down, and kissed her for the last time. He had no idea how she’d gotten from the hospital in Anchorage to this hallway, but he felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude mixed with a depth of loss that he couldn’t begin to absorb. He wiped away his tears. She’d given him the password for the files. Her last act had been to give him the information he might need to protect himself. An open sob escaped from deep inside and he shook his head against the unbelievable anguish. He sat with her, collecting himself, then finally found the strength to get up and go to William.
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