Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3)

by Christine Kling

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” Cole said.

  When Riley closed the door to their stateroom, she leaned against it. The cabin looked like it should be photographed for some yachting magazine. At the head of the queen-sized bunk, a stylish fabric-covered headboard ran beneath the large windows along the port side of the boat. All the furnishings, from the partner desk to the cabinets and drawers, were beautifully crafted in cherrywood. Soft blinds now covered the windows, and the lighting from the recessed spots in the overhead was lovely. But Riley didn’t know if she would ever be able to feel at home there.

  She crossed to the head compartment. While she might not be ready to use a dishwasher, she was happy to take advantage of the big tub and shower and the plentiful hot water. She stripped off her clothes and examined herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Sailing had kept her fit these past few years, and her suntan was just starting to fade. She turned aside and examined her scarred back and shoulders. Even the old injury didn’t look quite as bad when the skin around it was brown instead of white.

  Riley adjusted the shower flow and stepped into the tub. The hot water stung her skin, but it felt marvelous. She washed her hair and scrubbed her body. The tension of the day sloughed off her like old skin.

  After she’d dried off, she wrapped a white towel around her body and carried another with her out through the door to the aft deck. She leaned on the railing as she toweled her hair dry. A change in the weather had left the air warmer and drier than it had been on their first visit to Malta. Her hair, though it now fell past her shoulders, dried quickly as she ran her fingers through the damp waves.

  She hadn’t heard him enter their stateroom or step out onto the deck. When with both hands she lifted her hair off the back of her neck to dry it in the night air, his warm lips kissed her right at her hairline, and she gasped in both surprise and pleasure.

  His hands slid around her waist, and she felt his hot breath on her ear when he said, “My God, Riley. If you could see yourself out here in just that white towel.” He rained kisses down the side of her neck and across her scarred shoulder.

  Riley’s lips parted, but her brain was so overloaded with trying to process the sensations, it was all she could do just to breathe.

  He slowly turned her around and ran his fingertips across her forehead to push her hair back from her face. His sea-green eyes reflected the many lights shining on Valletta’s fortified walls across the creek. “I came up here to finish the conversation we started in town today, but when I saw you standing out here, looking so soft and sexy, I realized I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to argue. I just want to love you.” He leaned in and kissed the hollow of her neck, and her knees threatened to give way.

  “Cole—” She tried to say his name, but it came out as a long moan. The last thing she wanted to do was distract him at that particular instant, but leaving things unsaid was what had got them here. “You’re making it too easy for me.”

  He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant, but his low laugh, and the kisses that were headed for the edge of her towel, gave her his answer. But he deserved more. She slipped her fingers into his hair on either side and lifted his head up until they were eye to eye.

  “This is important, Cole. I need to say it.”

  “I’m listening,” he whispered.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath, then said, “I am so sorry.”

  “Riley, you don’t—”

  She shook her head to silence him. “Yes, I do. I should have told you about Diggory sooner. I can come up with a million excuses and reasons, but that’s not really it.” She found it difficult to speak with those green eyes of his locked on hers, but she needed to say this. “I’ve never felt such hate for a man. I think part of me hoped that by not telling you, I could continue to believe he was dead.”

  He pulled her in tight and placed one hand on the back of her head so her face rested against his chest. The rhythm of his heartbeat filled her ear.

  Speaking into his chest, she said, “While I was accusing you of being crazy, I was acting even crazier.”

  “Shhhh.” He stroked her hair and kissed the crown of her head. “After all that man has done to you, you have the right to be a little crazy where he is concerned.”

  “What does he want with us, Cole?”

  “I’m not sure this is about us.”

  “You think this is just another job for him?”

  “I’m guessing he’s working for the Knights of Malta now. Bones wouldn’t have him back.”

  She leaned back so she could see his face. “He’s dangerous.”

  “I know that. Probably even more so now that he looks like a freak.”

  “He’s not sane, Cole. I don’t frighten easily, but Diggory Priest scares me.”

  He slid the back of his fingers down the skin of her cheek. “Riley, you don’t have to take him on alone. We are a team now.” His touch raised goose bumps on her arms and made her nipples harden.

  She reached up and pulled at the neck of his T-shirt. She ran her fingertips over the two words tattooed on his collarbones: Carpe Diem. “Seize the day,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Yup. That’s my motto. Or the night, as the case may be.” He leaned in then and pressed his lips against hers, gently at first. Then as his arms tightened around her, his mouth opened, and their tongues entwined in a delicious dance.

  Her mind was so focused on his kisses, she was not aware his hand had moved until his fingertips slipped under the hem of her towel. She moaned with pleasure as his feathery touch made little circles on the skin of her thighs. Wrapping one leg around his, she slid her bare foot up and down his calf. His hand kept moving ever higher up under her towel until he touched the spot that sent jolts tingling through her.

  She broke off the kiss and inhaled sharply as she gripped him tight to her. Her legs trembled, and she felt as though they might soon crumple beneath her.

  Something between a deep laugh and a growl rumbled in his chest. “I think it’s time my fiancée and I broke in the bed in our new home.” He reached down, lifted her up in his arms, and carried her inside.

  Leonardo da Vinci International Airport

  Rome, Italy

  April 23, 2014

  When the cab pulled to the curb and he saw the driver, Virgil considered waving him off and waiting for a different cab. The scraggly beard, Afghan cap, and long shirt spoke louder than words. Virgil didn’t want to be late, though, so he threw his pack in and handed the driver one of his address cards. Then he settled back into the seat, hoping that the driver would just get him home as soon as possible.

  But it was still Rome. And it was rush hour. They weren’t even out of the airport before they hit the stop-and-go traffic.

  Virgil could feel the driver sizing him up in the rearview mirror.

  “You speak English?” the driver asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “American?”

  “Right.”

  “I come from Syria.”

  “Great.”

  “Damascus. Have you ever been there?”

  Virgil’s head was going to explode if this guy didn’t shut up. “Is there anything you can do to get us there faster? Don’t you know any back roads or shortcuts?”

  “I don’t know these words short cuts.”

  “Never mind.”

  “I like American president Barak Hussein Obama.”

  Oh please. Just take me out and shoot me. Or let me shoot him.

  “Are you American soldier?” The guy was grinning like a fucking monkey, like he was wishing he had a grenade to throw into the backseat.

  “Just shut up and drive.”

  Virgil pulled his phone out and checked his email again. They’d set up another Skype call for tonight. She said in her email that her mom was supposed to be out of the house, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught talking to him.

  He’d decided to fly back to Rome when he’d l
earned that there were only three flights a week from Djerba to Malta. He couldn’t even be sure the boat had gone to Malta. Too much was happening back in Rome, and he was needed there, too.

  He hadn’t brought his laptop along on the trip down to Tunisia, either, and he wanted to make a video call to his daughter. He hadn’t figured out how to do that on the phone yet. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t any reason for him to have to stay in Tunisia any longer if Thatcher was gone.

  The problem was, he didn’t know where.

  Virgil wondered what he would tell Signor Oscura, if anything. He’d covered his tracks in Djerba. No one knew about the submarine. He had driven down the coast and taken a hotel room and kept watch on the site, but they hadn’t returned that night or the next morning. That meant they had found what they were looking for in the wreck. Virgil had checked the Internet on his phone to see if they popped up on the AIS Shipfinder site, but he’d had no luck there. Maybe they headed to Malta or Sicily or even back to Turkey. He knew it would take time for them to arrive anywhere. When they checked in with the authorities, he would know soon after. He had used one of the Order’s members who worked at the CIA. And then he would go find out what they’d found on the wreck. In the meantime, he would go home and talk to Bonnie.

  The driver was trying to start a conversation again, but Virgil tried to ignore him.

  “Mister? Mister?”

  “Hey, I’m trying to work.”

  Virgil wondered what her mother had told her about him. The ex knew about some pretty bad shit, but she didn’t know the half of it. He’d told her too many stories back in the beginning.

  “Mister? The police are ahead. It is for the canonization. Roadblock. You want me to take different way?”

  “Just get me to the address on that card as fast as you can. And be quiet.” You stupid raghead.

  Five million extra people invading the city. That’s what some in the media were predicting. This new pope had decided to make saints out of two ex-popes on the same day. A double canonization. People were flying in from all over the world, and it was wreaking havoc on the already-bad traffic situation in Rome.

  The phone in Virgil’s hand started to ring.

  “Hello?”

  “How dare you contact her without talking to me first.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb, you asshole. You know who this is.”

  “Hey. She’s my kid, too.”

  “You lost your rights to Bonnie when you signed those divorce papers.”

  “I think she should know her father’s side of the story.”

  “Oh really? What should I say, that her father is a fucked-up old man? Or maybe I should tell her what a monster you really are.”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, just my opinion.”

  “Leave her alone, Virgil.”

  “She reached out to me, Shawny. She’s curious. If you try to stop her, you know she’ll hold it against you.”

  “I don’t want her to have any contact with you. I’ll make it your fault.”

  “Of course you will. Brilliant. You don’t think she’ll know you’re lying? And what’s this she was telling me about some gym teacher who’s a perv? Guy named Nader? What is he, an Arab gym teacher? What kind of fucking school you got her going to?” Virgil saw the driver look up at the rearview mirror.

  “Shut up, Virg, or I swear to God I’ll tell everyone what I know about you.”

  “You don’t know anything that anyone cares about.”

  “I know what you did in Iraq.”

  “What do you think I did in Iraq?” Again those eyes watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “I think you murdered people.”

  “You’ve got that wrong.” Virgil stared into the eyes in the mirror. “I killed the enemy before he killed me.”

  Manoel Island Yacht Marina

  Marsamxett Harbour, Malta

  April 24, 2014

  Cole came down the stairs from their upper-deck cabin and found Theo at work in the galley, with his dog sitting attentively at his feet.

  “There’s coffee in the pot.”

  “Why do you think I’m down here so early? It smells great.” Cole filled his favorite mug—he’d bought it at Ocracoke Island the year he’d met Theo there.

  A mechanical voice said, “Beat until creamy two-thirds cup sugar, three-quarters stick butter, three-quarters teaspoon grated lemon zest.”

  Cole peered around Theo. He had two big mixing bowls on the counter, several bananas, and a collection of other ingredients. His phone was resting in the open pages of a book.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Making my auntie’s recipe for banana bread. I haven’t scanned her book of Caribbean recipes into the computer yet, so I’m using the OCR text reader on my phone.”

  “Need any help?”

  “Not really.”

  Cole exited the galley, went around the corner, and slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, which looked into the galley. “And to think I lost sleep last night worrying about us flying off to Rome and leaving you alone and vulnerable on the boat.”

  Theo laughed out loud. “That’s good, mon. I don’t think that’s why you lost sleep.”

  Cole decided to ignore his first mate’s comment. There were few secrets on a boat—even one as big as theirs. “Well, you know the big blond guy might be coming around looking for what we found on the Upholder.”

  “And if he does, this time I will have the security system on. With all the workers coming and going in the yard, I got lax. No more. Yoda’s now receiving data from the magnetic sensors on all the doors and opening windows, the floor pads under the welcome mat, the rugs in here and in all the staterooms—”

  Riley’s bare feet appeared coming down the stairs. “Are you telling me Yoda knows when we step out of bed in the morning?”

  “Pretty much. See that little white thing, up in the ceiling there, that looks like a thermostat? That’s a tri-mode PIR detector. It can—”

  Riley was about to fill her cup of coffee, but she stopped, holding the pot up in the air. “Wait a minute, back up.”

  “Okay. It’s a passive infrared sensor that detects motion.”

  “A motion detector. Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “PIR motion detectors detect the infrared radiation emitted by an object. In our case we have them all over the boat, inside and out, but they are designed only to detect something as large as a human. Birds landing on the boat, or even the dog walking around, won’t set them off.”

  She slid onto the stool next to him wearing a thin-strapped, form-fitting tank top and boxers. She hadn’t combed her hair yet, and Cole thought she looked fabulous.

  “Riley, what our resident geek is trying to tell us is that we don’t need to worry about going off and leaving him alone on the boat.”

  The mechanical voice said, “Beat in two large eggs, one cup mashed bananas.”

  Riley turned to look at Cole, tilted her head to one side, and raised her eyebrows.

  “He’s making us banana bread.”

  “Muffins,” Theo said.

  “He’s got this app on his phone that allows him to use the phone’s camera to scan text using OCR and convert it to speech. He can read the labels in the grocery store, a posted bus schedule, or a restaurant menu.”

  “It also tells me the value of coins and bills in twenty-five different currencies.”

  “And we’re supposed to be worried about him?” Riley said.

  “She’s got a point,” Theo said. “It’s the two of you I’m worried about. We think Diggory Priest and the Knights of Malta are after the shield to get this treasure, whatever it is. But you two are planning to fly up to Rome, walk right into their headquarters, and steal this valuable old book of charts out of their library’s special collection.”

  “That’s more or less the plan,” Cole said.


  “That’s sounds to me like barely half a plan. Cole, you’re the one who’s always reminding us how dangerous these guys are.”

  Theo spooned the batter into the muffin cups. At least, most of it was going into the cups. He opened the oven door and slid the pan in. After he closed the door, he turned around. Dabs of flour on the dark skin of his face made him look like he had war paint on.

  “Come on. I know there has to be more to this plan.”

  Cole said, “There is.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “Okay.” Cole didn’t want to tell Theo the plan because he wasn’t happy with it himself. While he and Riley had chatted in bed that morning, he’d tried to convince her to let him go in, but she was adamant that it had to be her. Now he told Theo, “We’re going to pick up some odd clothes and a wig, and Riley is going to go in.”

  “Alone?”

  “As she continues to point out to me, my face is better known. I have actually had my photograph circulated by folks on the lookout for me. She’ll have on makeup. Only someone who knows her well would recognize her.”

  “Cole got on the Internet this morning and found a rare-books dealer in London who has a copy of the same sea atlas. He sent the info to a printing-and-graphics firm in Rome. They are going to make a mock-up copy for us.”

  “That was fast.”

  “It won’t be cheap,” Cole said. “The pages inside will be blank, but the outside will be a decent reproduction. She’ll carry it in a big shoulder bag. When she asks the librarian to study the sea atlas, she’ll take it to the farthest table. When the time is right, she’ll make the switch.”

  Theo looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “But what about security? Surely these Knights of Malta have some kind of electronic security system for the books in their library?”

  Cole nodded. “We talked about that. There are photos of the Magistral Library on the Internet, and we can’t see any system, but if there is one, then Riley is just going to find a corner and photograph the sea atlas the best she can with her iPhone. But ideally, we’d like to get a look at the real thing.”

  “And what about the shield?”