Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766)

by Caplan, Thomas

  “Very nice,” she said, as though she were his director.

  Ty permitted himself a grin, but before he could respond saw Jean-François approach with the Slav who had been stationed by the wheelhouse door. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” said Jean-François, making no effort to disguise the disapproval in his voice, “but we’ve had word—”

  “Word?” Isabella demanded. “About what, from whom?”

  “Our sources,” Jean-François explained, with a twinkle in his eye that suggested this was as far as he was willing to go. “Until we can be absolutely certain that there is no threat to you, it would be better if you remained belowdecks.”

  “Thank you for your opinion,” Isabella said, “but it’s a sunny day and I would prefer not to spend it inside.”

  “It would be better if you did, Miss Cavill,” Jean-François insisted, glancing at the Slav, whose right hand had by now settled into the side pocket of his tight black trousers.

  “Philip made it clear that I was free to do as I wished.”

  “Mr. Frost may have been operating under a different, now false, set of assumptions,” Jean-François replied.

  “Last time I checked, the lines of authority around here ran from me to the captain to you, not the other way around.”

  “These are special circumstances,” Jean-François declared, shaking his head in disgust, as though the embrace he’d happened upon had not only confirmed his expectations but provided him serendipitous leverage.

  “Get out of our way,” Ty demanded.

  But Jean-François stood his ground.

  “If there is danger, call the police,” Ty insisted.

  “We are better equipped to face down whatever threat exists than they are. Police are the same, all over the world. They do their job only after the fact. Now, for your own good, please follow my friend.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Ty said.

  “Only to your staterooms,” pressed Jean-François, “for your own safety.”

  “No,” Isabella said flatly, as adamant in her refusal as Ty.

  Jean-François’s use of the plural had at once rung in both their ears. Clearly his intention was to separate them, hold each incommunicado for however long it took Philip to execute his plan. Later, Ty supposed, Philip could make a show of blaming Jean-François, perhaps encourage Isabella to discharge him, but by then it would be too late. The warheads would have been transferred. They knew that their strength, probably their only hope, lay in remaining together.

  Again Jean-François gestured to the compact Slav, then showed them a smile ripe with confidence.

  “Are you going to shoot us?” Ty inquired.

  Jean-François made no reply.

  “Right here, in front of so many paparazzi?” Ty continued.

  Jean-François smirked. It was his most natural expression, Ty thought. “I don’t see any paparazzi,” Jean-François said.

  “That’s because they’re doing their job. They’re good at it. You have to give them that much credit. They lurk. They wait. Only when they’ve snapped their shutters do you sometimes see the telephoto lenses.”

  “It is a very nice bluff,” Jean François countered, “but I have my instructions.”

  “Yes, I forgot. You’re to keep us safe.”

  “That’s right, if possible.”

  “Suppose we jump.”

  “There’s a man in the water to assist you.”

  “He’s not bothered by the sharks?”

  “There are no sharks in these waters.”

  “You’re not handing us that old canard,” Isabella said, “about sharks being functionally extinct in the Med? What if a stray bull’s lost his way from the Atlantic?”

  Jean-François considered the question as the Slav drew closer.

  Ty moved farther away from Jean-François and his enforcer. “Man overboard!” he called out suddenly.

  Reflexively, Jean-François turned. He had no sooner begun to turn back than Ty was coming at him. Ty delivered a thrusting front kick to the steward’s stomach, knocking him onto the deck. “Grab his gun,” Ty ordered Isabella before the Slav could reach it. But for an instant, shocked by the abrupt violence, she froze. Then, trembling, remaining as far back as she could from Jean-François, she bent to collect the weapon. It was centimeters from her fingertips when she felt the pressure of the Slav’s coarse hand on the back of her neck.

  “Drop it,” he commanded. His voice was guttural, his English uncertain.

  Isabella hesitated, then slowly stood in compliance. The Slav motioned her toward the stern. His SIG Sauer withdrawn and unlocked but held out of view, he stepped with caution around Jean-François, then marched them in single file, with Ty in front and his own pistol in Isabella’s back.

  In the distance, along the cabin wall, Isabella espied one of the chrome emergency buttons that were spaced at crucial intervals about Surpass. This morning’s brilliant sunlight danced upon its surface, which was etched with a stylized silhouette of a human figure adrift upon the sea. As the Slav forced their retreat at a steady, cautious pace, Isabella prayed her abductor had not spotted it as well. Only a few steps more, she told herself, edging closer to the cabin wall. As she came alongside the button, she let her right ankle twist suddenly, then broke her fall with her hand, allowing her an instant to depress the OVERBOARD button. At once a siren wailed and was quickly followed by the dash of several members of the crew toward the starboard side of bridge deck. Behind them three Slavs kept watch.

  The sudden alarm and frantic maneuvers disoriented their captor, as did the approach of small boat traffic. But his hand retained a firm grip on his pistol. To stall for time, Isabella drew a deep, exaggerated breath as she recovered herself, then struggled to stand. Perhaps Ty had been right about the paparazzi lurking over the horizon, she thought. He was used to them. She wasn’t. Regardless, theirs were not the only craft now closing in on Surpass. The enlarging flotilla included pleasure boats of curiosity seekers, local fishing rigs and a few commercial transports, all lured by the enticing siren with its intimation of trouble aboard the magical yacht that for days had dominated the harbor and transfixed them. In the distance a shriller siren intensified. Soon Ty could make out a police boat racing toward them.

  The Slav was growing frantic, Ty thought, as he helped Isabella resume her stride and then, with lightning speed, pressed her against the cabin wall and turned to face the Slav directly. He quickly assumed the juchum seogi, the Horse Riding Stance he had learned from tae kwon do, drew in his feet and bottom, let his knees drift sideways until they were over his toes, and tightened his core muscles. In the next instant he raised his hands, crossing them before his face. Then, as the Slav raised his pistol, Ty delivered a percussive hand strike to the man’s wrist, dislodging his weapon. Before the Slav could retrieve it, Ty managed a dynamic front kick, a mae geri, to the man’s groin, followed by a harai goshi, a sweeping hip throw, that landed the Slav squarely on the deck. After the Slav rebounded but before he was fully upright, Ty seized his upper arms and managed a morote seoi nage, a two-arm shoulder throw that landed him, with a splash, in the Mediterranean.

  “As I said, you’re a man of surprises,” Isabella told Ty as he gathered her to him.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Go where?”

  “Ashore.”

  “Follow me,” Isabella said, leading him urgently up the stairs to the owner’s deck before the conquered Slav’s comrades could reach them.

  Crispin was there, standing to starboard and looking, with a mystified expression, toward the sea. “What’s going on?” he asked. “How many men are overboard?”

  “Only one,” Ty answered, revealing the silenced SIG Sauer he had appropriated from the Slav.

  “How did it happen? He couldn’t have slipped and
gone over the guardrail.”

  “I threw him,” Ty said.

  Crispin did not immediately reply. Instead he regarded the pistol in Ty’s right hand. Eventually, in a soft, wary voice, he said, “There’ll be no need for that.”

  “That’s good, because I like you,” Ty told him, after a few seconds allowing himself the hint of a smile.

  The black man in the kilt said, “My loyalty was always to Mr. Santal. Now it is to you, Miss Cavill—if you wish it, that is.”

  “I do very much, Crispin,” Isabella told him. “Now that that’s settled, we need to get into Ian’s cabin.”

  Crispin nodded. “In due course,” he said, “we’ll change the iris and palm-print scans to yours.”

  “When we have a bit more time,” Ty suggested.

  “Certainly,” Crispin said, then, employing the electronic key Ian had bequeathed to him, unlocked the door.

  “They’ll figure out where we are soon enough. Let’s hurry,” Ty said.

  They were standing on a marble mosaic floor before an expanse of mahogany paneling. “Crispin?” Isabella asked, her voice conveying urgency.

  He handed her the electronic key.

  Flanking a small landscape by Matisse were two identical niches, each of which held one of a pair of jade owls. Isabella brought the electronic key to within an inch of the left eye of the owl on the right, and in immediate response the wall opened toward them.

  “I did not know you knew,” Crispin said.

  Isabella winked. “Little girls can be more observant than you might think.”

  The pie-shaped section that had spun forward was the size of the compartment of a revolving door. Ty followed Isabella, squeezing into what, on closer inspection, appeared to be a lift. The air inside was cool, almost frigid.

  “I’ll be back,” Isabella told Crispin.

  “Of that I’ve no doubt,” Crispin said, and smiled. No sooner had he spoken than he felt pressure in the small of his back. The man holding the pistol was as close as a dancing partner, and across the cabin now stood yet another Slav, also with his weapon withdrawn. Between them a weakened Jean-François hovered in the entrance to Ian’s quarters.

  “It would be a pity to have to kill him,” Jean-François said directly to Ty, then let his gaze wander quickly to Crispin and back.

  “Yes,” Ty said, “I wonder how you would justify that as being for our own good.”

  Jean-François snickered. “You think you are very clever, don’t you?”

  “I take a dim view of being kidnapped, as does your mistress.”

  “What are you up to? Why are you here?”

  “Let me ask you the very same question.”

  “The man with the gun asks the questions. Isn’t that the way it is in every film?”

  “Some of us like to break the mold,” Ty said.

  Jean-François nodded. In a more ominous tone, he said, “Step out of that lift, please.”

  Ty raised his arm to block Isabella. “This boat will be crawling with police and with the press right behind them any minute now. Surely you understand the futility of trying to hold us.”

  “Not at all,” replied Jean-François. “I have my orders.”

  “Which, if I remember correctly, were to keep us safe?” Isabella said.

  “To keep you here,” Jean-François corrected.

  “Whatever’s happened up to now could be written off as miscommunication,” Ty told him. “Think about it! Beyond this point it’s piracy.”

  “‘Beyond this point,’” Jean-François repeated with a dismissive laugh, “will lie only oblivion if I allow you off this ship. I would far prefer to take my chances in court, especially a Moroccan one, than with . . . well, never mind all that. I don’t know what you are planning or how much you know, but I think it must be a great deal more than you’ve let on.”

  “Philip will kill you when he hears what you’ve done,” Isabella bluffed.

  “There is always that possibility, but look who’s talking. When he sees the two of you in tomorrow’s tabloids, somehow I don’t think it will be me he’ll want to kill.” The commotion on deck was growing louder. Jean-François cocked an ear toward it. “Now, I am only going to ask you this one more time,” he warned.

  Ty hesitated, still restraining Isabella.

  “Go!” Crispin cried out suddenly. As he did so, he placed his right leg behind the Slav who held him at gunpoint, lowered himself into a squat, grabbed his assailant’s knees, then rotated his body before throwing him onto the cabin floor.

  “Down!” Ty commanded in a booming voice. It was the voice of a younger man, ready to kill, unready to die. Shoving Isabella to the floor of the tiny lift, he fell into prone position, withdrawing the loaded SIG Sauer and taking aim.

  Crispin had pinioned the Slav with his left knee and was now planting his right knee to the other side of the man’s head in order to pinch and squeeze it, then draw out the man’s arm and crack his elbow.

  As the second Slav was preparing his shot, Ty fired at him but narrowly missed when his target suddenly shifted position. Immediately, the second Slav got off a single shot that grazed Crispin’s left shoulder. Ty took aim a second time, counting down, in silence: one . . . two . . . three. His bullet entered between the intruder’s eyes.

  Jean-François moved toward the gunman’s pistol.

  “Forget it,” Ty advised him.

  But Jean-François pressed on.

  “I told you to forget it.”

  Defiant, Jean-François grabbed for the silenced SIG Sauer P220. When he had it in his grip and had begun to pivot but before he could take aim, Ty fired two fatal rounds into his chest.

  “How badly were you hit?” Ty called out to Crispin.

  “I’ve been hit worse,” Crispin answered, instinctively disparaging the sharp puncture, deeper than expected, from which blood had now begun to pulse.

  “They’ll get you to a doctor,” Ty said, hearing the approach of others on the stairs.

  “More of a nurse’s job, really,” Crispin replied, the lilt of his voice reassuring. “Wherever you’re going, I’d go now if I were you.”

  Ty stepped into the elevator, dragging Isabella with him. “Do you still have that key?”

  She opened her palm.

  “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

  Isabella nodded, presented the key, and at once the door swiveled closed.

  “Whew,” Ty said, exhaling as the lift descended. “Now that we’ve saved ourselves, let’s go save the world. What do you say?”

  “Do you think we have a chance?”

  “There’s always a chance,” Ty said.

  Chapter Forty-four

  “This is—was—Ian’s private lift,” Isabella explained to Ty. “It operates in a high-security, fireproof shaft on its own power source. On every level its exterior door is disguised. As you might imagine, Ian liked to appear and disappear by surprise.”

  “That would seem to have been entirely in character. What did Crispin mean when he said he’d ‘been hit worse’?”

  “He fought in the Gulf War, with the British army. Ian met him just after that.” Isabella studied Ty. “It’s pretty obvious that you’ve also seen combat.”

  “Once a soldier, always a soldier?”

  “Once a spy, always a spy?”

  So smoothly and quietly did they land on LEVEL ONE—SUB that they were both taken by surprise when the lift stopped and a door slid rapidly upward on the opposite side of the compartment from the one by which they had entered. Beyond, in an eerily silent high-tech crypt, stretched the same woven-steel treadway Ty had encountered upon first coming aboard Surpass in Cap d’Antibes. At the end of it, low in her berth, sat an elliptical submarine whose pontoonlike hull had b
een painted in the variegated blues and greens of sea camouflage. Using touch-screen controls mounted in a nearby wall, Isabella opened the clear-domed passenger compartment at the craft’s center, then followed Ty aboard. Inside were seats for six passengers, in three rows of two, and a tortoiseshell dashboard that made the interior redolent of a sports car.

  “Have you done this before?” Ty asked.

  “Never,” Isabella said.

  “Would you like me to have a go at it?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, do you?” she replied, pointing to an LED screen on which appeared a list of commands: PREPARE DEPARTURE, DEPARTURE, GPS WAYPOINT ORIGIN, GPS WAYPOINT DESTINATION, DEPTH, SPEED, OVERRIDE. “This thing could be run by a child in a bath.”

  “If you say so,” Ty said.

  “I do. Ian wasn’t mechanical. He appreciated machines but saw their role as freeing human beings like him to think about bigger things. Beyond that and the predictable masculine taste for gadgets, particularly the latest ones that no one else had or could get hold of, he wasn’t interested.”

  In no time the transparent roof snapped tightly back into place atop the submersible and the shadowy berth filled with enough seawater for the magnificent toy to float. When the twin hatches beneath it opened, it descended like a diving bell into the Mediterranean.

  Outside, caught in the strong, conical beams of the submarine’s searchlights, dolphins frolicked among a hundred other colorful varieties of fish while coral formations, anchored to the rocky seabed, flowered in bursts of vivid peach and perfect white. Algae lined the undulating floor of the ancient sea, coming ever more sharply into focus as they descended.

  “Is there a phone on board?” Ty asked. “There must be.”

  “I reckon,” Isabella said, and pushed the icon for a telephone in an upper corner of the touch screen. “It’s got to be the same as on the tenders. When you hear a tone, just speak the number you want.”

  Ty did as she instructed and a few seconds later heard Oliver’s voice boom from the speaker.

  “Bloody hell!” Oliver exclaimed. “What the fuck happened? Where are you?”