Ahead, the pitch of the motor’s hum drops an octave, and I can hear fragments of a shout carry over the river’s sound. “What . . . do?”
Fyodor. Angry. A new surge of energy rushes into my veins and I swim even faster. Scoop, push, scoop, push. Between strokes, I can hear them both shouting the word “crazy.”
The motor cuts out altogether. Danny’s voice carries and I keep my head above water long enough to hear most of what he says: “Rather take my chances with the river.”
That’s my Danny.
Another small explosion echoes over the river. But no flare of color. This time the sound comes from in front of me, along with a little burst of light. Muzzle flash.
I fight against the NO screaming through every synapse and sinew and push myself to swim faster.
The splash I’m expecting reaches my ears between firework explosions. Danny in the water. Hit.
This time, instead of freezing, I leap into hyperspeed. He’s a lot more visible sitting in a boat versus his head sticking out of the water, especially in the dark. Now how will I find him before — ?
I can’t go there. I have no choice. Clandestine or not, I have to find him. “Danny!”
A directed sort of splashing approaches. The freestyle stroke? Paddling a little motorboat? Very disorienting to try to decipher in the dark. As long as it isn’t Fyodor, the hard part of the night might be over.
And the harder part would begin. There’s no bargaining with or punching or tying up the river. There’s only the current versus your muscles.
Facing it alone? Even more dangerous.
Facing it with a gunshot wound? Death. Just death.
Danny still hasn’t shouted back. The splashing has stopped. My heartbeat throbs in every aching muscle of my arms and legs. I tread water, scanning the river ahead with each firework. Every second takes us further from the show, and the less chance I have to see, to find him.
The river will turn and there will be city lights again in a few minutes, but if we get separated now, if Danny’s already under —
My rib cage turns into a vise. I rein in the panic and think. “Marco!”
I command myself not to count the seconds after my shout. But I can’t obey. Three. Four. Five.
“Polo.” It’s Danny — I doubt Fyodor knows how to answer — and he’s close. And his voice is strong. And I can breathe.
A yellow firework reflects across the river’s ripples and I find him. We both swim to close the gap before the light fades again. I grab his suit jacket and pull myself in to hug him quickly. You can’t tread water and hug for very long without somebody getting hurt.
He presses his cheek against my forehead, and a final phantom of worry dissipates: no beard. Not Fyodor tricking us.
But he’s still out there.
I’m the first to ask the question we both want answered: “Are you all right? Are you hit?”
“No.”
I grip his shoulder a little tighter. “No, you’re not all right?”
He pries my fingers from his jacket but keeps hold of my hand. “No, I’m not hit. Just cut. What about you?”
“Fine. Everybody should try the high dive. Where are you cut?”
“Hand.” It’s hard to tell when we’re both concentrating on staying afloat, but he sounds frustrated.
I have his left hand, and that seems okay. The water splashes into my mouth with a taste of dirt and I kick harder. “You get him?”
“Yeah, like that helps.”
I pull my hand free to squeeze his shoulder. “Everybody gets cut in a real knife fight.” I lucked out tonight. In more ways than one.
A red firework bursts behind us and I scan for Fyodor. His engine is still off, but he’s moving toward the middle of the river. We can’t let him get away that easily.
Until the motor growls to life. In the dark between pyrotechnics, without the city lights behind him, all I can tell is the engine sound’s moving away, much faster than we could swim.
“He won’t make it far. I slashed part of the boat,” Danny calls from my left. I didn’t realize I’d let him go.
“Nice. With what?”
It’s still dark, so he presses something smooth and solid into my hand. I take it — his Swiss Army knife. I could kiss him right now (except for, you know, everything else about right now). Maybe my fear at seeing Fyodor take off with him was a little premature, even if the sabotage attempt hasn’t sunk him yet. I can’t make out much detail, but I can see him flailing — or is he bailing? — with two hands. I wait for the next burst of light to watch more closely.
No sign of a gun.
I want to swim after Fyodor and finish what Danny started, but now that Danny’s safe, I don’t dare put him back in harm’s way. Fyodor won’t make it much longer. And even working with the current, swimming this long is catching up to me. (I told you I’m no Michael Phelps.)
I’ve got Danny. He’s alive and safe, and I can finally let go of the controlled panic that’s fueled me since I leapt off the yacht.
And suddenly, I’m so drained I don’t know if I can swim anymore. Again it hits me how much danger we’re in. If worse comes to worst, we can’t fight the river current.
I can just make out the lights ahead. Perfect.
If I die tonight, it will be in the middle of this city, in the middle of these people I’ve sacrificed so much to defend. The faceless masses, here and in the States, will never know what I did, what I gave up, what I became for them. I’ll get an anonymous star in a building no one’s allowed to visit.
I pledged my life for them and they don’t know. They don’t care. They can’t.
This? This is what I’ve been fighting so hard for? To save people I’ll never meet and sacrifice the ones I love? Somewhere at the back of my mind, I realize how easy it would be to stop fighting, to stop constantly kicking, and I almost — almost — think about letting myself go.
“Danny,” I gasp. Now’s not a good time to talk things out, but it might be our last chance.
He doesn’t turn around, just swims harder. I try to keep up, but my muscles can’t obey. He’s pulling away from me. On purpose? Or does he not know I’m falling behind?
After another minute or two of trying to swim and barely treading water, I can’t keep this up. It’s taking more strength than I have to accomplish nothing. With a final kick, I roll onto my back, point my chin at the sky and try to float.
I know, most people don’t have to try to float, but I have terrible buoyancy. My feet never make it to the surface, and within a minute, my body drifts downward, too. The water pressure closes on my chest. Even breathing is too hard.
Just when my thoughts hit the slippery slope to that desperate place we all hope doesn’t lurk in the corners of our minds, a hand catches my wrist. Danny.
“Stay close,” he says. “We’ll find somewhere to get out.”
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a weak little girl. But now, I have never been more relieved to have someone else to lean on.
Will was wrong. You’re never better off alone.
Unless we both end up dying.
Danny suddenly stops. A white firework illuminates his serious-as-aeronautic-design-flaws face. “I’m sorry.”
“We can talk—”
“I shouldn’t have called you Supermodel Barbie Talia.”
Seriously? That’s the thing that’s bugging him most? “Oh, good. Now my soul will rest easy.” I’d splash him if I had the energy.
I let Danny tow me for a few seconds, but I can’t drag him down. I do what little I can to kick and keep up. I have to live — because I will not be deadweight. I will not hurt Danny.
The minute I make that promise to myself, I see it, the light approaching. A boat. Fairly small, fast, but most of all, a hope for rescue.
I tug on Danny’s arm and he stops. “We have to get clear,” he insists.
“No, signal!” I try to say, but a swell slaps me in the face. I sputter for breath befor
e I remember I have the knife. It’s got a flashlight.
Man, I would feel really stupid about the mental eyebrow-raise I gave the first half dozen times I saw this knife, if I weren’t so focused on not dying.
I find the button, lift the knife above the water and signal SOS. The boat lights are getting closer. Oh, if they hit us —
I signal again, and this time the light flashes back. The engines cut out.
I shouldn’t be surprised at who I see aboard when the boat glides past. “Alex!” I shout. “Luc!”
“Talia?” Luc kneels at the transom and reaches for me. “We got a garbled message from Elliott.”
“He’s upstream. Kozyrev’s boat.” I tuck the closed knife in my bra and take his hands.
Luc lifts me out of the water and over the transom. He sets me on my feet, but my legs forget what to do and I collapse to the deck.
And I lay there. I’m out of the water. I lived.
I hear the slurping splash of them rescuing Danny. He hits the floor, the vibrations traveling through the fiberglass to me. His hand lands on top of mine.
If I had any voluntary control over my breathing right now, I would hold my breath until he moves. It’s a good thing I don’t. He doesn’t move. Then, at last, he wraps his fingers around mine.
There may be a little hope for us yet.
But the night is young. And that may not be a good thing for Elliott.
I could lay here recovering all night, but I know I really can’t. Alex helps me and Danny to sitting and gives us each a Coke. Canadian Coke is mostly the same as American, despite rumors to the contrary.
Caffeine and I do not mix, and not in the Mormons-aren’t-“supposed”-to-drink-cola way. In the I’ll-have-a-headache-and-not-be-able-to-function-for-thirty-six-hours way. But I need the sugar (well, fructose/glucose, as they use in Canada) and, yes, the caffeine. I chug the whole drink, stopping only once for air, and promptly belch. Danny, Alex and Luc stare back with the same half-haha, half-huh? expression.
“I’m guessing you’re not out on patrol?” I toss the can in the garbage.
“They scrambled the squadron after you people dropped the ball on babysitting Timofeyev.”
Oh, sure. When things go well, with Alex we’re a “we,” but when something goes wrong, all of a sudden we become “you people.” I don’t bother to rein in my defensive tone. “I didn’t drop the ball. I had to be exfiltrated after he tackled and groped me.”
Danny’s head snaps to me. “He did what?”
I hold up a hand. “I’ll live.” I turn back to Alex and Luc. “Timofeyev is out there, but I don’t think he’ll make it far. We need to get to Elliott. I had to leave him with Kozyrev.”
Alex and Luc exchange a glance. A doesn’t-she-know? glance. A should-we-tell-her? glance. They can’t have reached Kozyrev’s boat already. They were coming from the opposite direction and last I knew, the engines were out on the cabin cruiser. But they definitely know something they’re not telling me. Something bad.
I can’t even look. “What?”
Luc meets my gaze. “After Elliott’s message, the Ottawa Police received an emergency radio locator beacon signal. Automatic activation.”
I shake my head, sure I look as uncomprehending as I feel. What does that mean?
He holds up a neon yellow walkie-talkie. Just like the one I saw in Elliott’s hands.
“They activate automatically under fifteen feet of water.” Luc doesn’t have to say the rest: when you sink.
“No,” I insist automatically. “He can’t be. He’s still on the yacht.” Then I remember Alex and Luc don’t know being onboard might be worse than being in the water. “Kozyrev’s GRU.”
Grim horror creeps over their faces and they both look upstream.
It’s something really bad.
I pull myself above the side of the boat and follow their line of sight. All I can see is a circle of bright yellow glowing on top of the water. I squint and lean closer, like that will make a difference with the distance and the dark.
But then I make out a misty arc hitting the glowing shape. Water. A fireboat.
My heart attacks my ribs. The papers on the burner. My fault. Again.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Alex and Luc don’t have to be told twice (let alone three times). They jump back to the helm and the copilot’s seat and hit the throttle. I almost forget to grab onto something before we accelerate.
I knew I made the right choice going after Danny. I knew it. Until this second.
I left Elliott. Left him grappling with an enemy spy. Left him to be trapped by a fire, a fire he didn’t know about. Left him when he was hours away from becoming, or might already be, a father.
When he left her to rescue me — I left him.
Even the wind against my wet skin and clothes can’t chill me as much as what I’ve done.
It’s only a minute to the boat. We approach and the firefighters warn us not to come too close until Luc whoops our siren. Like Don’t worry, we’re spies. We’re fireproof.
Yeah, we’re not. Unfortunately for Elliott.
The firefighters flash lights and sirens right back, shouting, waving their arms from the deck. Like that could stop me from going after Elliott.
Alex and Luc pull close enough we can feel the waves of heat oscillating with the movement of the flames. Close enough to jump. Alex cuts the engines.
Luc leaps from the railing of our boat onto the very back edge of Kozyrev’s. The rear deck isn’t on fire, but smoke pours from the sliding door to the cabin.
Alex makes the jump next, and I move to follow them.
Danny grabs my arm. “Talia, we need to leave this to the authorities.”
I can’t decide what kind of look to give him. He’s a smart guy — again, more A’s than the first volume of the encyclopedia — and it takes him approximately 0.7 seconds to figure it out. He lets me go. “Be careful.”
I give him a single nod, climb on the railing and jump. Again. I honestly couldn’t imagine ever using this when we practiced leaping off a boat at the Farm, but now I’m glad this is part of the CIA standard curriculum. Sort of. (Even if we didn’t practice in dresses.)
One foot lands on the edge of the deck and I totter. My balance shifts and my stomach plunges. I grab a chromed-out support strut for the sky lounge to keep from pitching into the water. The gate to the rear deck is already open. But I’m not following Luc and Alex any farther than that. There’s no one down in the cabin — no one except Ivan and Volkov.
I stop at the cabin door. “There are two lackeys tied up in the bathroom!”
I can only hope they heard. I run up the molded stairs to the second level of the boat. No Kozyrev. No Elliott. Nothing but flames.
And there’s no way I can get through to the bow. Fire blocks the path on this side. I dash through the sitting room where I fought with Smokey the henchman. The walkway’s slick with water from the fireboat. The hose is moving toward the bow, and I follow the arc of the spray.
But they’re going too slow. It’s their job to be thorough. It’s my job to be there for Elliott. I can’t let him down again. I won’t.
Maybe Will was half right. Elliott was better off alone.
I grab the railing, hold tight and plunge into the spray. I’ll be honest: it hurts. The sting feels like shards of glass slicing my skin.
But it can only last a few seconds, so I push through. The glass pieces turn to dust and then to nothing, and I dare to open my eyes.
If this were a movie, Elliott would be sitting on a hog-tied and long-defeated Kozyrev, grinning amid the flames and asking what took me so long.
In case you haven’t noticed, my life isn’t that kind of movie.
Five feet in front of me, Elliott is hanging in the air. Kicking. Kozyrev’s on the flybridge, leaning over the windshield, suspending Elliott by a metal chain around his neck.
I can’t move. I have to.
Kozyrev jerks the chain and Elliott strangles
out a hoarse gag. He’s got ahold of the links, but that’s all he can do. His shoes can’t get traction, sliding over the slick wet fiberglass, inches above the bench sculpted into the bow.
That’s what I need to do. I run to grab Elliott’s feet and push, stepping onto the bench. His back slides up the boat’s front. I can feel when he hits the metal trim on the windshield.
Elliott turns, grabs the windshield and hauls himself over the top. Grateful for the nonslip stippling on the walkway, I skid back through the spray of glass-water and back to the pass-through to the helm.
The firefighters’ hose has done some good, because where before I could see only flames and shimmering heat, all that’s left now is steam.
Crossing that smoldering rubble is the second stupidest thing I could do now, but the stupidest is abandoning Elliott yet again. The blackened wreckage stretches between us, a route I never tried before it was reduced to steam and ash and embers. I don’t know what’s safe or what’s solid. I suck in the hot, thick air and move steadily, rolling my feet like a firewalker.
After what feels like ages, I part the billowing steam curtain and step onto cool, solid, not-at-all-shifting ground again. I’m through. I can take a breath away from the clinging humidity, but I won’t breathe easy until Elliott and I are off this deathtrap.
On the bridge a few feet away, Kozyrev swings the chain at Elliott’s head, and Elliott dodges. He looks like he’s caught the links with his face once or twice, and they’re both flagging. We’ve been gone at least twenty minutes. Have they fought that entire time?
Dread isn’t the only thing making my feet drag. The caffeine hasn’t exactly delivered on its promise, but my presence alone can tip the scales. I look for something to throw. Nothing.
Then there’s plan B. “Hey, Kozyrev! Ty menya dostal, ty neprigodnyi kozyol!” It’s not much of an insult: you got me up to here or I’m fed up with you, you useless billy goat. (Okay, in Russian, it’s a little more offensive.)
But has the intended effect: still whirling the chain, he hesitates a fraction of a second and his eyes shift to me.
Ducking, Elliott grabs Kozyrev’s wrist and pushes it toward his head. The chain whips around to catch Kozyrev. The blow startles him long enough for Elliott to wrench the links from his fingers.
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 24