“What if we bump?”
“Try not to, but we need to be close.” I felt the grip of my Glock against the bottom of my vest. I hoped the tension screws in the plastic holster would hold the pistol securely, come what may.
“I’ll put you on her. You ready?”
“I’m ready.” I slapped him on the shoulder and gave a thumbs-up in front of his face. Kelly, now standing in the left bolster, returned my thumbs-up with a terrified smile more like a grimace. Topaz’s glowing green wake shot past our starboard side, a seething bubble freeway. At a hundred yards the silhouette of Topaz was visible against the stars. Nick trimmed the throttle, matching our speeds, walking the Pantera forward.
Topaz’s stern light was mounted on the centerline above her garage door transom. The light illuminated her full-width swim platform, twenty-five feet from side to side. A curved stairway on each side of the swim platform led up to the aft deck. Handrails on the stairs were my grabbing target. Glowing foam shot out beneath her swim platform as she flew through the salt water at thirty knots.
Nick continued to bring us in, reducing throttle until we nearly matched our speeds, our bow even with her stern. The 120-foot megayacht was up on a plane, creating a monster bow wave that shot out both sides, curling outward from her hull like the tops of breaking waves. Solid sheets of salt spray pelted us, their force like hail at that speed. The Pantera rolled inward as it climbed the portside hull wave. The gap between us widened and narrowed as we gained the final yards. Nick leaned forward, both hands gripping the wheel. I knew our boat would be hard for him to control as our hull climbed out of solid water onto Topaz’s seething hull wave.
My left hand was on the bolster’s grab bar, my right on the Pantera’s gunwale. I crouched and prepared to spring across the gap. The Pantera nudged against Topaz’s hull as we edged past her stern. Another few seconds and I was looking across at my landing zone. Her transom and swim platform were well illuminated by the white stern light. The gap between our vessels opened to a few yards and then narrowed again. I worried that we’d be sucked against the hull and rolled, or thrown outward and capsized by the curling hull wave if Nick couldn’t hold her straight on course in the frenzied water.
I couldn’t wait for a better chance. No guts, no glory! I stepped onto the Pantera’s six-inch-wide gunwale and without pausing vaulted through a yard of slashing spray.
****
The Pantera was sliding away as I pushed off, so the gap was greater than I had anticipated. I hit the outer edge of the swim platform, leaving my left side dragging overboard, but I managed to hook both arms around the bottom support of the stairway’s outer handrail. When my legs struck the ocean it felt solid, the way it feels falling from a ski at high speed. The force of the water bounced me upward and I was able to twist my body onto the swim platform. The water still roared beneath me, but I was out of its grasp.
I pulled myself forward onto my knees, crouched low against the bottom of the stairs and took inventory. My pistol and knife were still in place. My goggles had been swept from my head. My left leg felt as if it had been blasted with rock salt and my shoe was gone, torn away by the force of the water. I yanked off the other shoe and tossed it astern. The padded flotation vest was a bit restrictive, especially since it rested along the top of my knife and pistol, so I unzipped it and took it off, leaving it on the swim platform beneath the bottom step. I might need it later if I was leaving Topaz in a big hurry. My black T-shirt would not give me away in the darkness, so I left it on.
I looked behind but could see no sign of the Pantera on the black ocean. Topaz continued to roar along at the same speed, on the same course. I could feel her powerful German diesel engines rumbling, as well as hear the turbine exhaust. Other than being unexpectedly barefoot, I was in perfect shape to take control of Topaz and liberate Cori and Brooke. I crept up the portside stairs to the aft deck. Above and in front of the white stern light I was in nearly complete darkness again. The circular hot tub, empty now of water, occupied the center of the fantail.
There were about thirty feet between the hot tub and the back of the raised superstructure. I scurried past the permanently mounted deck furniture until I was against the sliding doors that led inside. They were solid up to waist level and glass above. There was no reason to keep these doors locked while underway at sea, but if they were, I could move around the superstructure on the narrow side deck to the bridge, all the way forward on this level. There would be doors on each side of the bridge and a watch stander inside, just a few yards away. But if I encountered any problem with the bridge wing doors I would immediately lose the all-important element of surprise, so those openings were not my first choice.
I pressed my eyes against a bottom corner of the glass. I could see by the subdued interior night lighting that the aft part of the superstructure closest to me was a saloon or living area, with couches and tables on both sides. I didn’t see any sign of anyone still up. And why would they be up, after four in the morning? Topaz was running on autopilot, making a routine night passage down the protected waters of Exuma Sound. At this hour only a single watch stander would be on duty, sitting in a padded captain’s chair, glancing at the radar display now and then while trying not to nod off.
I’d been on a few two-deck megayachts like Topaz. The typical layout of the superstructure had the saloon and formal dining area all the way aft. Amidships would be the galley and kitchen prep area, and maybe a dinette. All the way forward would be the nerve center of the yacht, the bridge. I was heading for the bridge, but I wanted to get inside the yacht as far away from the watch stander as possible. The owner or another crewmember coming onto the bridge from the galley would be a normal nighttime occurrence and would not alarm him. If I could sneak up on the drowsy watch stander from behind and take him out, I would leave Topaz running on autopilot exactly as before. Then I would invade the private cabins on the lower deck one at a time, with a high likelihood of success as long as surprise was maintained.
My plan to ninja my way forward through the saloon would require stealth and utter silence, so I unsheathed my Ka-bar knife and transferred it to my right hand. The unsuppressed Glock would remain holstered on my right hip until and unless I needed to go loud. I grasped the curved metal door handle with my left hand and pushed it down ninety degrees. It was not locked. I slid the door open just an inch. No alarm sounded, no lights flashed. I stood fully erect so I could slip through the narrowest possible gap, and then I was inside and gently sliding the door closed behind me.
As I turned to move forward I was hit with what felt like a red-hot ax between my shoulder blades. My next memory was being face down on the cabin sole, jerking and twitching. I thought every cell in my body was exploding, that every muscle had ripped apart. After a time—seconds? minutes?—the all-encompassing pain disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving me with only spasmodic muscle control.
I heard a voice. “Enjoyed that now, did you?” I was surprised that I could hear anything, surprised that any of my senses had returned to functional normalcy. It took me a few moments to get reoriented and identify the man’s voice. English accent, deep and confident. A bouncy, jolly voice. I willed my head to turn to see him, and tried to get my arms and legs to follow my commands to force my body to rise. All I could see in the direction of the voice was a blinding white light. He barked, “No moving!” and the paralyzing pain was switched back on. There was no warning, no warm-up period, just the full agony again in an instant.
After another interminable period spent locked in a silent scream, the pain disappeared and I heard Trevor Ridley’s voice again. “Okay, Danny boy, we’re going to put handcuffs on you now. Just you relax and lie still, and you won’t get another shot of lightning. Think you can manage that?”
I knew what had happened: I’d been Tasered. A pair of thin electric wires leading to needle-tipped darts had produced that red-hot ax cleaving my spine. I pretended to comply until I felt someone else brush my s
houlder and I rolled that way, knocking him off his feet while sweeping my arms around my sides like a drunken Frankenstein. I was given another jolt but it lasted only a second, and when it stopped I knew that I’d dislodged a dart or broken a wire. I went to my knees and left hand, reaching for my Glock with my right, ready to shoot while charging like a blind tiger toward the sound of Ridley’s voice behind the glare. I was rewarded with another blast of high voltage, this time originating in my chest. As I toppled to the deck I was momentarily conscious of a white-hot explosion detonating inside the back of my skull, and then I was conscious of nothing at all.
3
I was under a great waterfall. The waterfall became a plunge into a millrace. Then I was being tumbled by a wave, the way it feels after a surfing wipeout. I was thrown on the shore and blinked my eyes open. I was half lying on my side while being pulled upright into a sitting position.
The Jolly Boy squatted on his heels in front of me, holding a metal pitcher and grinning. Cold water was streaming off my head and face. Ridley was wearing black combat boots and cutoff camouflage pants in the old British Army disruptive pattern. His massive thighs practically filled them where his skin burst from the roughly cut hems. A green wife-beater tank-shirt revealed the lurid tattoos extending from his thick forearms up to his ox-wide shoulders. If I weighed two hundred, he easily went two-fifty, and not an ounce that I could see was fat. Multi-colored snakes, skulls, daggers and naked women cavorted in unlikely poses across his rippling muscles. I tried to lunge forward at him but was stopped short. My wrists were bound to something behind me.
Smiling, he said, “How’s your head, Yank? You have a nice nappy-nap?” This was my first close-up view of Ridley. He had squinty blueberry eyes and the same red, peeling nose and unkempt mouse-brown hair I’d seen before. Thinning in front—in five years he’d be bald on top.
I stared at him and then looked around. The world swam back into focus. I was in the main saloon on Topaz. My hands were connected to something behind me. I looked up and around me and put it together. My back was to a wet bar, and my wrists were chained around a raised footrest. Beige carpeting beneath me. A few yards across the saloon were a cream-colored leather couch and matching leather easy chairs. Glass-fronted shelves displayed small Greek, Roman, African and pre-Colombian sculptures. Prechter’s taste leaned toward satyrs, nymphs, and phallic statuary. It was daylight outside and the yacht wasn’t moving. That meant we were either docked or at anchor someplace. I’d boarded Topaz to rescue Cori and Brooke, and all I’d managed to do was get myself taken down like a bleating calf in a roping contest.
Ridley said, “You thirsty?” He held the stainless steel pitcher to my lips and tipped it up. A lot of it spilled, but I managed to get a few good swallows of cold water into me before he took it away. I noticed that he had two fresh gouges across the left side of his throat from below his ear to his Adam’s apple. He’d left them undressed, and they were still livid and seeping a little blood. Somebody had recently marked him, and I thought about the shirt pocket I’d found by Brooke’s car.
I looked down at myself. It was not a hopeful picture. My chest was bare, and there were still-oozing wounds on my right pectoral where the second pair of barbed Taser darts had been ripped out. I was still wearing my tan cargo shorts, but without my belt, my knife or my pistol. My eye was drawn to Ridley’s wide leather belt. He had a sheath knife fastened to it on the right side. Not just any knife—my own USMC Ka-bar knife. Black nylon sheath, and brown stacked-leather grips. Bought years ago at the main Exchange on Camp Pendleton, back in California. Damn.
Ridley said, “Chin up, Yank, all’s not lost. Pull yourself together! I don’t want to chase a beaten dog. What’s the sport in that?”
I could think of nothing to say in reply. What would have been the point? Right then, I was a beaten dog. Maybe a shred of pride left, but no realistic hope.
“Danny boy,” he said, “you have got to be the biggest fucking idiot I ever met. We saw your boat on the infrared FLIR video from miles and miles away. You should see that camera up on the radar mast. Sixty-power zoom telescope for day, infrared and starlight for night. All gyro-stabilized it is, steady as churches. Point it anywhere that you like by remote control, just like a bleedin’ video game. Fantastic bit of kit. What’s this, says I, a hot little speedboat coming up our wake? Bears watching, says I. Oh yes, bears close watching!”
Then Richard Prechter entered the saloon and sat on the leather couch a dozen feet across from me, his arms spread out on the backrest, his legs crossed casually. He was wearing new-looking trail sandals, khaki shorts and a matching shortsleeve safari shirt. His gold Rolex on one wrist, a gold bracelet on the other. Black hair gelled and combed back. Lively green eyes and ferret face, but somehow attractive, at least when he was smiling at you.
“Well, well, well. Dan Kilmer, in the flesh! I’m so glad you could make it. Cori has told me so much about you that I feel like we’re already old pals. We’ll explore how you managed to do it later. For now, I just want to focus on our having a truly memorable weekend.”
So it had all come down to this. After days of dogged pursuit of these people, on the one-yard-line on the last play of the game, I’d been ambushed, Tasered, knocked out cold and chained to a wet bar’s footrest. Neatly mousetrapped within twitchy whiskers of the cheese. The only thing that kept me from considering it the worst possible moment of my life was the thought of what was coming.
Prechter turned to Ridley and said, “He doesn’t look so scary down there, does he?”
“Just another skinny Yank is all I see. I sure hope he perks up.”
Prechter relaxed into the center of his leather sofa and studied me. “From listening to Cori, I’d thought you were seven feet tall. She told us you were some kind of superman. You were going to find us and cut off our heads if we didn’t let her go. Really, she said that. Cut off our heads!” He chuckled, and Ridley joined him in their private joke.
“Cori thinks the world of you,” he continued, “but I wasn’t too worried. I mean, she was sleeping with you, right? You’d expect talk like that from a girlfriend. But then one of my men went missing under, ah, unusual circumstances. Archy Mildenhall ring a bell? Yes? No? Maybe?
“Well, let me tell you, that bit of news set my antennae spinning, oh yes it did. After that, I listened more carefully to what Cori had to say about one Dan Kilmer, a Marine sniper at one time. And then, surprise of surprises, you popped up at the conference in the Fontainebleau. I wasn’t even sure it was you—not until I did a background check on Marcus Garnet and found out he was an invention. Then I knew. Let me tell you, I was floored—and that doesn’t often happen.
“So naturally I was watching for you on Sunset Isle. You do seem to have a talent for improvisation. Impressive. Most impressive. But that wasn’t all, you weren’t yet out of tricks, oh no! You managed to climb right up onto my yacht, underway, and at night.”
Prechter slowly clapped his hands in a mock applause. “High marks for that, my boy, high marks. Yes, it was all quite impressive, right up until then. Eventually you’ll tell me all about how you did it. Who helped you—because surely you’re not doing this on your own. Who gave you the false symposium credential. Who gave you the speedboat. How you followed us. Who’s driving your boat. Oh, I have a long list of questions you’re going to answer for me. Somebody has been helping you, and I intend to find out all about him.”
Ridley asked, “Are we going to interrogate him before, or after?”
“Oh, after! I wouldn’t want anything less than Dan’s very best efforts this morning.”
“But he might not be alive to interrogate…”
“Hmm…that’s true. But I’d hate to diminish our enjoyment. You know me, Trevor, all too well. Pleasure before business! I’ve spent the last hour thinking up a truly delicious scenario. But it won’t work unless Mr. Kilmer is at his very best.”
****
The door to the aft deck slid open. The sam
e door I’d slipped through with such high expectations. Two men entered the saloon. One of them was older, tall and hard looking. The second man was younger, shorter and softer. They had to be the other Topaz crewmembers Archy had mentioned. Andre the chef was a Belgian, and there was a Serb, Milan Vukosomething. Vukojebina? Yes, Milan Vukojebina.
It was a simple matter to determine that the younger of the two was the Belgian chef. Perhaps thirty. Sloping shoulders, a weak chin and down-set hound dog eyes. Over a white T-shirt he wore an off-white photographer’s vest with a dozen cargo pouches. They might have been full of cameras, lenses and batteries, or guns, C-4 and grenades, for all I could tell.
White stretch jeans bolstered and girdled his pelvis and squeezed his belly upward, and then I understood the extra-long vest better. It hung low enough to mostly hide his spare tire. So Andre was vain, at least about that aspect of himself. On his feet, what else but white leather high-top sneakers. I wondered, did he always wear white, or did he wear different colors for different occasions? Maybe the white theme was the chef in him. Maybe it just simplified his dressing. Or maybe he dressed all in black on alternating days.
Milan Vukojebina was the tallest of the crew, standing at least six-five. He was older than Prechter, so he was in his late forties or early fifties, with deep creases around his eyes. He was not as physically intimidating as Ridley, but he was still an imposing man. The Serb was more of a wiry type, with a hawk-like intensity in his black eyes and a small mouth that seemed stuck in a smirk.
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