The Malta Escape

by Chris Kuzneski

  Her mind was too focused on the events of the day.

  Over the past twelve hours so much had happened that it was tough for her to believe. It had started with an urgent text message from Petr Ulster, followed by an amazing opportunity to work with two men that she admired, topped off with a gunfight in one of the few places that she used to feel safe. To say her day had been an emotional rollercoaster would be the understatement of the year.

  No wonder she had lost control inside.

  She was still surging with adrenaline.

  And yet, she couldn’t stop beating herself up over the way she had stormed out. She was a fighter, not a quitter, but in this case, she had practically run from the confrontation as she scorched the earth beyond her with a series of fiery barbs.

  She had no idea why she had done that.

  To figure things out, she tried to block out the rest of her day to focus solely on her interactions with Payne. Until things had fallen apart at the very end, she had found him to be everything she had imagined and more.

  During her time at the Ulster Archives, she had heard so many stories about his exploits from Ulster that it had been impossible not to be impressed. For her, it was more than just his recent adventures with Jones, but also his career as a highly decorated soldier and his position as CEO of Payne Industries, where he seemed to spend most of his time doing charity work. She didn’t care about his money. She cared about his deeds and the man himself. Like a schoolgirl with a crush, she had followed his exploits from afar, never expecting to have the opportunity to meet him in person, let alone work with him on one of his missions.

  Her heart had leapt with joy when she saw him standing outside of the library. Somehow she had managed to play it cool when she had introduced herself to Jarkko, partly because she was in character as Lara Croft at the time. But her façade had started to crumble during her conversation with Jones. She was nearly as familiar with him as she was with Payne, but she had kept it together until she shook his hand and called him “David freakin’ Jones”.

  That’s when she had started to lose it.

  That’s when the fangirl had surfaced.

  By the time she had reached Payne in the greeting line, she knew she was in serious trouble. Her heart was pounding, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were as wide as saucers. For someone like Marissa, who went through life with headphones on in order to keep people away, these emotions were as foreign to her as the Maltese language was to Payne.

  She didn’t have the first clue how to proceed.

  Growing up in boarding schools around the world, she didn’t have much experience with the opposite sex, and the encounters that she’d had were mostly unpleasant. Because of her extreme beauty, she had been targeted by every creep who saw her from the moment that she hit puberty. At the age of thirteen, she was being propositioned by men of all ages, who had offered her everything imaginable for unspeakable deeds in return.

  Most people assume that beautiful women have it easy.

  But beauty has its drawbacks, too.

  To keep the predators at bay, she had built up walls, and she had been hiding behind them for years. Unlike many social-minded women who traveled in packs and used velvet ropes to separate themselves from undesirables, Marissa avoided cliques and clubs altogether, preferring the company of books to those who were only drawn to her looks. Although she’d had a boyfriend or two at Stanford—a school where the best and brightest intermingled, allowing her to temporarily experience human interaction without being placed on a pedestal by her classmates—she had very little familiarity with the feelings that had surfaced today with Payne.

  When their eyes had locked and their hands had touched, she had experienced a rush of emotions that was so electric that she was afraid she was going to fry. And as their gaze had lingered, she had sensed that Payne had felt it, too. That he had somehow looked past her beauty and the towering walls that she had built to protect herself, and had seen the real person inside, the one who longed for the type of connection that her parents never had. Although she wasn’t a romantic at heart, she still wanted to find someone who made her feel alive.

  And she had felt that way and more when they had met.

  But less than twelve hours later, she was pushing him away.

  Marissa cursed again, this time in Maltese, a trait she had picked up from her mother before her untimely passing. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out why Marissa had lashed out at Payne the way that she did. She had interpreted his comments about finding treasures without her as a sign that he was going to discard her, much like Marissa’s father had done with her and her mother. So instead of waiting for the axe to fall, Marissa had done the chopping herself, cutting Payne out of her life even though it was the last thing that she wanted.

  And to make matters worse, she had done it in front of his friends.

  She knew very little about men, but she knew that was a no-no.

  The male ego was such a fragile thing.

  Marissa was tempted to dust herself off and return to the scene of the crime to make her amends before his wounds had a chance to fester, but before she found the courage to do that, she heard the gentle creak of the side door, the same one she had stormed out of only minutes before. When she glanced over and saw Payne squeezing through the narrow portal, she felt her cheeks flush once again. But this time, she was better prepared to handle it. She took a deep, cleansing breath to calm her nerves, coolly brushed the hair away from her face, and tried to figure out what she was going to say to apologize for her outburst.

  “Marissa?” Payne said as he peeked around the corner. “May I come out?”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “Yes, of course. Believe it or not, I was actually getting ready to come inside.”

  “Oh,” he said, disappointed. “Don’t let me keep you. If you want to go inside—”

  “No!” she blurted, much louder than she intended. So she softened her voice and tried again. “No, that’s not what I meant. I was coming inside to speak to you.”

  “Really? That’s great!” He pointed at the cushioned bench that she was sitting on. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that hadn’t been slashed by Volkov. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  She patted the seat next to her. “Please, take a load off. It’s been a taxing day. And this bench is perhaps the most comfortable thing I’ve ever sat on. I’m not sure what it’s made of, but I’m guessing it’s the substance they would use to wrap a box of bubble wrap.”

  Payne laughed as he sat down. “That’s a pretty sophisticated metaphor. Try not to use those in front of Jarkko. His head might explode.”

  She smiled. “I don’t know about that. He pretends to be dumb for comic effect, but I get the sense that he may be smarter than the rest of us.”

  Payne nodded as he squeezed the seat cushion with both of his hands. “You’re right about both things. This seat is unbelievably comfortable—so much so I want my coffin to be lined with this stuff. And Jarkko is highly intelligent. He speaks five or six languages and knows the seas better than any instructor I ever had at the Academy. I’m lucky to call him my friend.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  He glanced at her. “Why’s that?”

  She smiled. “I like it when we agree on things.”

  “Me, too,” he said as he turned his body to face her. “Listen, about my outburst inside. I honestly didn’t mean to—”

  “No!” she blurted. “Stop right there! It’s totally my fault. I shouldn’t have reacted the way that I did. This is your mission—”

  “No,” he said as he vigorously shook his head. “There’s no need to fall on your sword. I raised my voice in an inappropriate manner and said something I didn’t mean to say in the heat of the moment. Seriously, I have no idea where that came from. That’s not like me at all.”

  She shook her head, too. “It wasn’t inappropriate! You were exactly right. You have accomplished m
ore in your lifetime than I could possibly accomplish in mine, yet I was lecturing you about your methodology. Obviously your tactics work just fine, and it was foolish of me to insinuate otherwise.”

  “Stop. Just stop. You know damn well that we don’t stand a chance in hell of finding the treasure without you. Sure, we’ve had some success in the past, but our team will be much stronger if you’re on it. So please accept my apology and come back to the squad.”

  “Only if you accept my apology for storming out like a drama queen.”

  He nodded and stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

  She grabbed his hand and smiled. “Deal.”

  For the briefest of moments, their hands lingered, skin on skin, as they stared at each other in the moonlight. But unlike the giddy awkwardness of their initial introduction, this somehow felt right, as if they were meant to be entwined—and that sensation freaked them out more than the gunfight at the library. They both let go at the exact same time, running from the feelings that both of them shared, while turning their attention to the undulating sea.

  “You know,” Payne said just to fill the silence. “For a moment there…”

  She glanced at him, hopeful. “What?”

  His mind churned, looking for the right thing to say. “For a moment there, I thought we were going to get into a fight while we were trying to apologize.”

  “Me, too!” she said with a disappointed smile. “We kept talking over each other, trying to take the blame, when both of us knew that you were clearly at fault.”

  Payne laughed. “Hold up! Is that how you remember it? As a highly trained historian, you sure take a lot of liberties with the past. I think if you take a closer look at your terms of surrender, you’ll see that we agreed on joint custody of the blame.”

  “My terms of surrender? I distinctly remember you offering your apology before I followed your lead, which means it was your surrender, not mine.”

  “Holy crap,” Payne said. “We’re doing it again. What is wrong with us?”

  She shook her head in frustration. “I have no idea.”

  Then they sat in silence for several uncomfortable seconds.

  “Anyway,” Payne said as he stood from the bench, “it’s great to have you back on the team. There are four cabins on board, so each of us will have our own space. Choose whichever one you want, and make yourself at home. I know Jarkko will try to offer you his stateroom, but for health reasons, I highly recommend one of the guest cabins.”

  She stood as well. “Are you coming inside?”

  Payne shook his head. “I’m a troubled sleeper, so I always take first watch. I’m ninety-nine percent confident that the Russians won’t be coming back tonight, but I need to make sure.”

  “If you’d like, I could keep you company for a bit.”

  Payne smiled. “As much as I appreciate the offer, I think it’s best if you got your rest. It’s been a long, emotionally draining day, and we’ll need you at the top of your game in the morning when we figure out our next move.”

  She nodded. “You’re probably right. Some rest will do me good.”

  “Jarkko has some clean clothes and supplies down below. After you take a shower, have DJ take a look at your wound. I know from personal experience that he’s a master at first aid.”

  “Okay,” she said as she squeezed past him to get to the side door. As she did, they briefly touched, chest against chest. “Don’t stay up too late. You need your rest, too.”

  Payne nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

  She sighed as she turned and walked away. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Thursday, June 14

  St. Julian’s, Malta

  Payne opened his eyes in the starboard guest cabin and slowly focused on the two oval windows in the right-hand wall. Bright sunlight poured into the wood-paneled room, revealing two side-by-side bunks separated by a narrow gap and a stretch of beige carpet.

  When Payne had crawled into his berth just before dawn, he had chosen the less-damaged mattress on the left and had fallen right to sleep. Prior to that, he had spent half the night on watch regretting what he had said to Marissa, and the other half regretting what he didn’t say. Although his therapy session with Jones had helped him to better understand his intimacy issues, he wasn’t ready to get involved with a woman he didn’t know.

  Particularly one he kept arguing with.

  Besides, he had more important things to focus on. There was a treasure to be found, Russians to be dealt with, and a hearty breakfast to be eaten.

  But definitely not in that order.

  Much to Payne’s surprise, he spotted a suitcase sitting inside his cabin door. It was the same suitcase he had bought (and filled) at the Point Shopping Mall and had left in his hotel room the day before. On a trip filled with luggage misadventures, this was the most curious of them all. He had no idea how his bag had surfaced on a yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean.

  Lacking the sustenance to think clearly, he half-assumed that he was still sleeping and the suitcase was just a figment of his imagination, but when he opened it up, it didn’t contain a mass grave of rotting corpses, a disease-ridden village filled with dying children, or any of the horrific images from his military career that had haunted his dreams at various times over the years.

  Instead, it was stuffed with clean clothes and toiletries.

  Needless to say, it was a pleasant development.

  Payne grabbed a quick shower in the tiny bathroom before he went about his morning routine. Ten minutes later, he was wearing brand-new threads—a black T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, low-cut socks, and black tennis shoes—and ready for chow.

  Fortunately for the safety of everyone on board, Payne detected the aroma of food and followed it to the galley, where he found Jones standing next to several cartons of takeout on a fancy silver platter. Payne glanced out of the glass-lined saloon and realized they had pulled up close enough to the rocky shoal behind the Corinthia Hotel to get ashore.

  “Good afternoon, princess,” Jones said as he fist-bumped his friend. “I was just getting ready to wake you. I didn’t know if you’d want breakfast or lunch, so I ordered both. Call me crazy, but I had this weird feeling that you’d be hungry when you got up. Am I psychic or what?”

  Payne nodded his appreciation. “Thanks for the food and my bag.”

  Jones shook his head. “Don’t thank me. Thank the hotel. I didn’t want to leave my post while you were sleeping, so I called the front desk and said we had spent the night on the yacht and asked them to fetch some things from our room. They didn’t even blink an eye. Then they asked if they could do anything else to make our stay more pleasant. And I go, ‘as a matter of fact, there is’. I said we’re hungry and need some grub, and they say, ‘shall we bring it to the yacht?’ And I go, ‘hell yeah! Bring that shit out to the yacht.’”

  Jones laughed at the memory. “At this point, I’m feeling like a total rock star, and they say, ‘is there anything else we can do for you, Mister Payne?’ Because, you know, I’m using your credit card, so I’m obviously pretending to be you.”

  Payne rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

  “So I go, ‘my girl Marissa needs some new clothes’—because, she does. I mean, her dress was torn and covered in blood, and we don’t have time to drive over to her place. So she reluctantly gets on the speakerphone, tells them her size, and they say, ‘no problem.’ At this point, Jarkko is starting to get jealous, so he grabs the phone from Marissa and tells the hotel that his liquor supply is empty, which doesn’t faze them at all because we’re fucking rock stars on a boat. So he orders some really nice spirits—I’m talking top-shelf stuff that I’ve never even heard of and will definitely cost you a fortune—and once again, they go, ‘no problem.’”

  Jones rubbed his chin theatrically. “Which got me thinking. I mean, they said ‘no problem’ for everything we requested, so now I’m wondering, where do they
draw the line? I’m literally wondering, what could I ask for that would be a problem? I mean, these people aren’t wizards. There has to be something I can ask for that would actually cause them to say, ‘sorry, Mister Payne, we just can’t do that—that’s beyond our capabilities as hotel genies to grant you this wish.’ So I glance at Jarkko, who’s still holding the phone, and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing as I am. Somewhere in that depraved mind of his, he’s running through a list of items that are so outrageously forbidden that even he couldn’t obtain them on short notice.”

  “And?” Payne asked, growing more curious.

  “Obviously Jarkko is feeling the same rock-star vibe as I am, because that crazy bastard goes, ‘we require an albino tiger for a Viking blood ceremony.’”

  Payne laughed. “He did not.”

  “I swear to Odin, he did.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Jon, I’m not shitting you. There was a slight pause, then the hotel genie whispers, ‘does it have to be alive?’ Which freaks out Marissa but gets Jarkko so excited that he starts to chant in a Viking dialect that has been dead for centuries. So I grab my phone from Jarkko, who is now dancing with a kitchen knife, to keep this conversation going, and I say, ‘that depends. Give me an ETA for each scenario.’ And he goes, ‘2:00 p.m. for alive and 2:01 p.m. for dead’—which, I’m guessing, means the genie is going to kill the tiger himself.”

  Payne kept laughing. “The guy called your bluff.”

  “Here’s the thing, Jon. I don’t think the genie was bluffing. There’s actually a billionaire on Malta that has an albino tiger, and I truly believe in my heart that he was willing to drive over there and put a bullet in its tiger brain in order to meet our needs as a guest of his hotel.”

  Payne laughed louder. “How’d it end?”

  “Believe it or not, this genie starts pressuring me for an answer. He goes, ‘which would you prefer, dead or alive?’ Seriously, what kind of question is that? Who would actually say that to a guest? Well, you know me. I’m pretty quick on my feet, so I say, ‘we need time to consult the oracle.’”