“Ah.” Ben read the acronym on the placard beneath the screen, having no idea what it meant. “The ECLRT.” As he spoke, a digital ship passed beneath the active cursor, and a box of data appeared. Location. Stats. Nice. He walked closer.
Mallory followed. “Right. The ECLRT. The long-range tracker.” He gave a tentative nod. “You’ve seen one before?”
“Oh, I’m a bit of a sea tech nut. May I?”
Before Mallory could answer, Ben took control of the mouse. A click on any Sea Titan vessel, highlighted in green, gave him the ship’s six-month port history. He moved from one to the next, down the European coastline. “Wow. You have quite a fleet. I assume the Princess is the flagship.”
“Not quite.” Mallory held out a hand to stop the advancing watch officer. “That’d be the Behemoth, our largest—currently the largest on earth. She makes runs out o’ the main facility in Valencia, on the Spanish Mediterranean.”
“The Med, huh?” A quick shift of the mouse set the cursor on the target. The history came up. A tingle passed through Ben’s chest. His long shot had paid off. He saw the telltale cities in the history. Tokyo in June. St. Petersburg in September. The Behemoth had been docked near the sites of two major bombings within days of each event.
No coincidences.
“She sure gets around.”
“True. The Behemoth is fast. She makes thirty-six knots on calm seas, twice as fast as the biggest ships coming off the lines only three years ago.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ben barely processed the man’s droning. The Behemoth had been nowhere near Rotterdam in October. Doing his best not to be obvious, he shifted the cursor back to the Princess.
Rotterdam. Pier 12. October 4–7.
They’d left a day before the failed bombing. Bingo.
This ship. This crew.
Ben turned to look at Mallory.
“What’s wrong, Agent Porter?” Mallory sounded cold—no longer the dutiful self-appointed deputy. “Ya look like that shower door jus’ knocked the stuffin’ outta ya again.”
“No. I’m—” He stopped. The room’s energy had changed.
The map screen and all its revelations had sucked Ben in, degraded his awareness. The watch officer stood at attention. Ben found himself under the hard glare of a black man in a leather Princess of Sheba jacket. The title embroidered under the ship’s name and the Sea Titan logo read CAPTAIN. The newcomer lifted his chin. “Thanks for the text, Mr. Mallory.”
Ben raised an eyebrow at the bos’n.
Mallory grinned. “I sent him a note, after ya woke me while puttin’ on ma trousers. I kept Shen from makin’ a fuss so we could get ya on board for a proper chat.”
The captain crossed his arms. “I checked with port security. No law enforcement agency coordinated a visit today. Why don’t you tell me who you are and why you’re so interested in my ship?”
30
When caught in the act, spies have a mantra. Deny, drone, counter-accuse. Deny all allegations. Drone on to confuse the enemy. Sow distrust among your captors by tossing out counteraccusations. Spies talk first. Fighting is a last resort.
Ben could feel the Glock’s weight at his back. He could hear the weapon calling to him. Most European ports didn’t allow crews to carry guns in port, even on board their own vessels. A quick threat of force with the Glock might get him out of this. But with the circumstantial evidence linking the Behemoth and the Princess to the Leviathan bombings, he doubted this crew followed such laws. These men had him cornered with three-to-one odds, less than optimal for a close-quarters gunfight.
Deny.
“Look, Captain. I’m Agent Tom Porter from Interpol. Just as I said. My HQ coordinated this visit with the port authority. How do you think I got past the gate guard? I’ll go talk to the security folks and straighten this out.” Ben started for the door.
The watch officer stepped into his path. “Interpol has no agents.”
Drone.
“A common misconception.” He slid a finger under the badge clipped to his lapel and lifted it an inch. “See? ‘Agent.’ Says it right here. The field division is new, created after 9/11. You know. September 11, 2001? The terrorist attacks? Took more than a decade to get the whole thing approved.” As he chattered, Ben placed his body between the watch officer and the captain, obstructing their view of each other.
The captain had heard enough. He drew a SIG P2022, the same type Massir had carried in Rome. “I think this man needs to spend a day or two in a shipping container—at least until we put out into deep water. What do you think, Mr. Ruiz?”
The watch officer moved a corner of his jacket aside to show Ben a matching SIG.
Counter-accuse.
“Oh, wow. Guns. Did you know that’s illegal here? Mallory told me you were packing, but I didn’t believe him.”
For an instant, both men shifted their glares to the bos’n.
No more talking. Time to fight.
Ben jerked the watch officer into a headlock, using him as a shield and confiscating the SIG from its holster. During the flurry of motion, the captain fired. The watch officer let out a cry, hit in the shoulder. Ben fired back, and the captain clutched his chest. That left only Mallory, who didn’t appear to have a weapon. Ben smacked the bleeding watch officer’s head against the steel doorframe, shoved him at the bos’n, and ran.
“You’re a dead man,” Mallory called after him.
Maybe. The bos’n had lured him into a nightmare game of Chutes and Ladders, and Ben had no idea how to escape the board.
The gunshots brought security guards hustling in from both ends of the pier, all wielding MP5s and one holding the leash of a German shepherd.
Ben half slid and half jumped down each ladder. A bullet sparked off the deck in front of him as he reached the superstructure’s lowest balcony. Mallory leaned over the railing, two balconies above, lining up another shot. Ben fired off a round to force him back.
The dock security guards yelled at both men in English. “Drop your weapons! Hands up!”
Fat chance.
Alard the innkeeper shouted from the barracks in Dutch. Ben couldn’t understand him, but he got the gist. He’s on your side. He’s with Interpol.
The guards moved their aim up and down in confusion.
Two more crewmen appeared on the cargo deck, running beside the stacks—both armed. In seconds, they’d have a clear shot at the lower balcony, and they wouldn’t share the dock guards’ confusion.
Ben needed to move. If he crawled down the ladder to search the maze of lower decks and passages for a way out, they’d own him. He’d have to stay outside, in the fresh air. The gap between the balcony and the cargo stacks looked to be several meters. Ben pressed his body back against the superstructure for a running start and launched himself from the rail. His chest slammed into the closest container.
Bullets plinked off the steel as Ben scrambled over the edge and regained his feet. Mallory hadn’t heeded the dock guards’ warnings. One fired a burst to make him listen. “Put the gun down!” Ben kept on sprinting across the containers, leaping from one to the next.
A second burst whizzed past his ear. “You too. Freeze. Drop the gun!”
Yeah, right.
With a reaching leap, Ben caught the yellow clamp of a crane lifting a container from the stack. The guards quit shooting, perhaps unwilling to risk hitting the crane operator. Mallory had no such qualms. He kept shooting, but the container’s slow turn gave Ben cover. The operator bailed from his seat, slapping a big red kill switch on his way out.
The crane jolted to a stop, and momentum sent the container into a pendulum swing toward the dock stacks. Ben let go.
The added height helped him cover the distance, but shipping containers don’t make for soft landings. Ben’s touchdown crumbled into an ungainly roll that ended with his hard hat smacking the steel. He tore it off and chucked it away, grumbling as he scrambled to his feet. “Thanks, Kent.”
The German shepherd raced a
cross the dock, but Ben paid it no notice. The containers were three meters tall. No attack dog could jump that high. He kept low to avoid any shots, dropped from container to container until he reached the fence, and vaulted over, tumbling into the parking lot.
Less than a minute later, Ben swerved the Peugeot onto the pier access road. He glanced at the rearview mirror, expecting to see a lone barking dog at the fence. After all, his pursuers weren’t real cops.
Instead, he saw the gate rolling open and two security vehicles speeding out behind him.
He let out a disbelieving huff. Impressive.
“Okay, gentlemen.” Ben cranked the wheel, fishtailing onto the straightaway that led to the main port road. “Let’s keep playing.”
31
Concrete.
Snow.
Ice.
Cold winds in a northern port made for slick surfaces. Ben had helped Giselle choose the Peugeot’s 308 model for its handling, but she drove with a lead foot, and she’d been tearing around the Paris suburbs in that thing for a year. All four tires had seen better days.
He tried to use the worn treads to his advantage, drifting through the corners while the dock cops played it safe behind him.
Ben had to give them credit for a solid response time. If he had to guess, the embarrassment of letting a bomber escape their net had forced them to sharpen up. But dock cops in Ford Focus hybrids were no match for a trained tactical driver. He’d lose them soon without a problem.
Sirens wailed ahead and to Ben’s right. Red and blue lights flashed.
He slapped the wheel. “Seriously?”
Two Dutch police cruisers—VW Golfs—came flying in from the west, side by side, blocking the main port road and Ben’s best route of escape. Judging by the rooster tail of white powder, both were sporting snow tires.
The approaching cruisers forced him to continue south over a small bridge. He smashed through a lowering barrier arm and sailed across train tracks into an odd suburban mix of warehouses and brick homes. A reflective street sign read Welkom in Neiuw Engeland.
Behind him, dock security peeled off to let the professionals take over. Ben would have to step up his game. He bounced over a roundabout island, corrected for the side skid that followed, and stepped on the gas. The first cruiser slowed to follow the street. His partner jumped the island like Ben and took the lead.
Canals.
Rivers.
Too many bridges—each one, a choke point. If more cops joined the chase, Ben’s luck might run out. He needed to escape into the rural area to the southwest where a host of interconnected farm roads meant more options.
A street sign flew by, pointing west. Ben recognized a name from his drive into the port. Haringvliet—a long lake formed when the Dutch dammed off a North Sea inlet. That place might offer exactly the escape route he needed. He let the intersection fall behind, waiting for both cops to cross, then hopped the curb into a parking lot serving two warehouses.
He made a wide arcing turn on slick asphalt. Too wide. Ben grimaced a split second before he sideswiped a snow-covered car. White powder showered his windshield, but the impact corrected his trajectory. He flipped on the wipers and punched the gas, downshifting to recover some torque.
The gap between the warehouses had looked plenty wide from the street. A closer look made Ben second-guess, but the cops were too close. He gritted his teeth and committed. The Peugeot shot through the gap. His left side-view mirror—the only one remaining—snapped off with a flash of sparks.
The police cruisers, apparently unwilling to sacrifice their mirrors, skidded sideways to a halt.
Ben spat out the other side into a shallow rear lot and jumped the sidewalk. He hit a westward street at an easy angle for his worn tires. No one followed.
He passed the next cross street. Again, no sign of his pursuers. Only fields and a smattering of houses lay ahead. Another street sign for the Haringvliet lake confirmed he’d found the correct road, and he put the Peugeot into fifth to build his lead. If the cops stayed gone, they’d spare him from the dangerous stunt he’d planned for his escape. But Ben wouldn’t bet his life on it.
To spies, phrases like They’re gone or We’re home free are as bad as black cats and broken mirrors. A rookie who jinxes the mission with an early celebration is likely to get a slap upside the head and a bad reputation.
Colonel Hale and years of mission experience had taught Ben to fight off such phrases, but like any man fighting pink elephants, he couldn’t stop I did it from entering his brain.
Lights flashed in his mirror. Both police cruisers cut through the grass from a side road less than a hundred meters behind him.
Ben had never been fond of Europe’s rural roads. Deep ruts and stone walls squeezed two lanes into one. His grip tensed on the wheel. One mistake would end this chase.
Twice, Ben had to slow for jinks in the road. Both times the cops and their snow tires cut his lead. No matter. He still had a plan. Maybe.
On the way in from Belgium earlier in the day, he’d driven the full length of the Haringvliet—a lake two kilometers wide and nearly thirty kilometers long. The brackish water of Rotterdam’s port remained clear, but the freshwater lake had frozen over. The dams at either end were the only routes across, separated by thirty kilometers of winding shore roads. No cops were foolhardy enough to follow him onto the ice. If Ben could cut across the middle, he’d lose them for sure. A big if. He had to wonder, how thick was the ice?
The Peugeot crested a low hill, and the lake came into view. White. Pure. Dusted with snow. Ben drifted onto the shore road and accelerated southeast, steeling himself for the upcoming stunt.
Well ahead, skiffs lay overturned on the shore, covered with tarps for the winter. A boat ramp. Ben planned to slow fifty meters out and turn to hit it at the correct angle. With too much energy and not enough angle, he’d miss the ramp, jump the bank, and spin helplessly across the ice—assuming he didn’t crash right through.
More lights.
Ben’s heart sank. Two new cruisers came at him from the opposite direction. They’d boxed him in.
He shoved the pedal to the floor. The tachometer redlined. The engine screamed. He had to reach the ramp before the newcomers cut him off.
The Peugeot won the race, but not with enough margin to slow and change Ben’s angle to the boat ramp. At the last second, he shifted into neutral and cranked the wheel hard over.
The tires failed to catch. Ben slid off the ramp and jumped the bank sideways. The rear tires hit the ice first. The Peugeot whirled into a sickening spin.
The car traveled a good distance from the shore before the spinning stopped, far enough for the cold air of the oncoming dusk to quiet the policemen’s shouts. Not one risked stepping out onto the ice. Ben found that more worrisome than comforting.
The cops crouched behind their doors, guns pointed through rolled-down windows.
Ben ignored them. The engine had quit. After a few coughs, it started again. He put it into first and tried the gas. The tires whined and kicked up snow, but nothing else. After a few breaths, he tried again, and this time the whine of the tires ended with an ugly crack. Ben stopped and killed the engine, as if that made any difference. The ice squeaked.
The vehicular ballet had put him on the Peugeot’s lee side, shielded from his law enforcement fans. Small favors. Ben shoved an arm through his backpack strap and opened the door. He slowly shifted his weight onto his leg and climbed out, raising his left hand high. The ice answered his first step with an awful creak. “Nicht schießen!” Don’t shoot! He chose German to keep them guessing. No reason to make identifying him later any easier.
One Dutch cop answered in the same language. “Hände hoch!”
“Ja, ja.” Ben gave him a tired wave. Placing his second foot on the ice sent stark white cracks out in all directions. He resigned his mind and body to a single, terrible fate.
“Hände hoch!”
“Ja, ich habe Sie gehört. Aber schieß
en mich nicht, schon gut?” He meant that one. Yeah, I heard you. Just don’t shoot me, okay? As he answered, Ben let the SIG he’d taken from the watch officer hang low, out of sight. He sucked in a deep breath and fired straight down into the lake.
32
The cold threatened to crush Ben.
When the ice gave way, his ankle had been caught in the car’s door. He let Giselle’s beloved Peugeot drag him down, eyes closed. He saw her. Smiling. A little mischievous. Beautiful. But as his skin lost all feeling, he lost his grip on the vision. Her features faded, replaced by Clara’s.
Four or five meters below the ice, the car hit bottom and the door swung out. His eyes popped open. Frigid lake water seared his pupils, without the rapid relief of numbness afforded to his skin. For his eyes, the burning never ceased. Ben had experienced that pain before. Of the varied specialized survival courses in Hale’s schoolhouse program, he’d hated Arctic week the most. But he’d gutted it out and learned.
Every frozen lake has a thermocline, with the bottom up to eight critical degrees warmer than the top. Blindly beating at the surface ice is a death sentence. Stay low, where the view is broader and the water warmer. Assess the surface above to find holes or weak points in the ice. If you can overcome the pain of opening your eyes, you might survive.
Ben stayed low and assessed the light and shadow above. Before going down, he’d noticed an island more than halfway across the lake, some hundred fifty meters southeast of his position. He did his best to pick a bearing off the car, prayed he’d chosen the right shadow, and launched himself off the hood.
Was he kicking? He struggled to tell, unable to feel his legs—unable to feel anything but the cold threatening to slice through his eyes and into his brain. Oh, how he wanted to close them. He fought off the temptation. The slightest deviation from his course could mean the difference between life and death.
The Paris Betrayal Page 13