Betrayal (36 page)

He studied the sliding glass doors three paces before him, the lighting working in his favor. The Marshalls were there. His rainstorm rumba had not been in vain. The distinguished couple was drinking red wine and chatting animatedly with another elegant pair. No one else was visible in the suite. Odi’s stomach did a nervous somersault. Where was the Secret Service? Something was either very wrong or very right. Perhaps Ayden had already been apprehended.

Straining to keep his nerves under control, Odi continued to examine the scene. The dining table before the Marshalls held several plates and bowls. The second he saw them, Odi knew he needed to see what was inside. If something was cream based, he was going to have to make a very awkward knock on their rain-streaked sliding door. He decided to sneak closer.
 

Dropping to his belly, he low-crawled through puddles to the wall. Then he slid sideways until he could peer around the edge of the curtains. The first thing he did was study the occupants, paying special attention to the hue of their fingers. Everyone looked fine and festive. Mrs. Marshall wore a red silk dress with a matching manicure, her companion a jungle-patterned pantsuit with gold jewelry and matching shoes. The men both sported dark suits with bright shirts sans ties. Their gaiety presented a harsh contrast to the torrent outside, and ran contrary to the danger lurking within.

Odi didn’t get it. How could they be so nonchalant? He stood up and turned his attention to the table, his stomach seizing that joyous moment to remind him that he had not eaten in twenty-four hours—excluding the Creamer. One of the bowls closest to him held mouthwatering strawberries, the other tempted him with mixed nuts. Further back was a crusty French baguette on a cutting board and a large wedge of ripe Brie. As his stomach grumbled his heart rejoiced. There was no chance of secreting Creamer in any of those. The Marshalls were safe for now.

While considering the option of knocking on the glass and confirming that Ayden Archer had in fact been captured, a squeak emanated off to his right side. As he pivoted to investigate, someone plowed into his stomach, sweeping him off his feet and into the air. Odi felt himself being carried backwards on his assailant’s shoulder but his exhausted mind took a second too long to react. Before he could gather his wits he was falling backwards through space. That sensation and a fleeting glimpse made everything instantly clear. Ayden had just hurled him overboard.

Chapter 66

Asgard Island, Chesapeake Bay

A
S
THE
C
OAST
Guard vessel dropped over the horizon and Stuart piloted into the marina, Cassi sprinted for the house, running as she never had before. Wiley kept a pair of miniature walkie-talkies in the coat closet by the front door. She needed them. As the Norse Wind’s motors had roared to life, she had cobbled together the components of a desperate plan.

She grabbed the pair of Motorolas and was out of the house within ninety seconds of Stuart revving the motors. He would be docking by now, she figured. She tested the batteries as she ran to the garden and found them strong.

Flanking the south side of the manor house was a mature and elaborate garden an acre in size. It ran all the way out from the porch to the cliff. According to Wiley, twelve generations of Proffitts had spent their declining years tending to that garden. Wiley was not declining yet, he had told her, so he employed a gardener. It was spectacular during the summer when the flowers were in bloom and the fountains were running, but even this time of year the ancient fruit trees and manicured maze of hedges gave it an elegant grace. This morning, however, Cassi did not notice the aesthetics. This was a battlefield.

She crashed through a hibernating rose thicket, ignoring the protesting thorns. Once she reached the garden’s center she plunged one of the walkie-talkies into the dense branches of a spherical sculpted hedge. She secured it at chest level, gauging the distance to be about twenty feet from the front corner of the porch. She turned it on, cranked the volume up to high, scampered back out of the thicket, and said, “Testing.” Her voice came back loud and clear. Motorola made great equipment. For a moment she had the feeling that this was actually going to work.

She turned and dashed for the back of the garden, keeping an eye on the marina path as she went. She clutched the second walkie-talkie in her left hand like a lifeline. The garden ended with a thick row of hedges at the edge of the cliff. Wiley’s forebears had planted it generations ago for erosion control and to act as a natural fence. Cassi dropped to the ground when she reached them. Then she peeked back over the surrounding bushes and caught sight of Stuart.

He was a couple hundred yards away, moving toward the manor house with a determined stride. To Cassi it appeared as though his forehead was being pulled by a rope, but her eyes were drawn to his hands. He held a Beretta pointed straight down in each. It did not take a psychiatrist to read that body language. He was a man on a mission, and that mission was her death.

She zipped the walkie-talkie inside her jacket’s breast pocket and then climbed over the cliff-side and began working her way along the side of the cliff toward Wiley’s yacht.

She moved more quickly over the slippery rocks than any sane person would consider safe, knowing that it would not take Stuart more than five or ten minutes to determine that the house was vacant. Even scampering at a dangerous clip it still it took her the better part of five minutes to reach the Norse Wind. Once aboard, she began hastily collecting the few tools her plan required. Her first stop was the closet in the guest stateroom, where she procured the Ping driver that Wiley used to launch old golf balls into Chesapeake Bay. Next she ran to the master bath where she raided the emergency kit for an air horn and a roll of medical tape. She stashed the three items near the aft gate and then ran up two flights of steps to the upper bridge. She grabbed the binoculars off the captain’s console, slung them around her neck, and then used a windowsill to climb up onto the cabin roof.

Standing on the slick white roof with the radar station by her knees, her head was about thirty feet above sea level. If she strained her neck, that put her just high enough to get line of sight over the cliff to the front of the house. She had guessed that right. Two seconds into her watch, however, Cassi understood that her perch was both awkward and precarious. The rooftop was swaying beneath her feet, amplifying each little wave. After a couple of minutes of straining her eyes for Stuart, Cassi realized that her previous assessment was wrong. Precarious was an understatement. A single unexpected gust of wind could steal her balance and send her toppling over the edge and into a fall that would likely break her neck. She had not considered that aspect of the danger when formulating her plan, but she was not going to change horses in the middle of the stream. She did not have another horse. She would have to risk breaking her neck. The passengers on twenty-four planes were depending on her.

She began to wonder what other unanticipated dangers awaited, and stopped herself. She could not afford to ponder them now. She could let neither her mind nor or her gaze wander, even for an instant. If she was not alert during the second it took Stuart to walk through the front door, he was likely to spot her first. Then he would shoot her off the roof of the yacht like a carnival toy. “Come on, Stuart,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Come on.”

She heard a motorboat in the distance and her hopes began to rise. Perhaps the Coast Guard was returning. It sounded like a big boat, but she could not risk a look back over her shoulder, at least until it got closer. Stuart would also want to investigate the noise. She continued to study the front of the house, darting her gaze back and forth between the windows, the porch, the front yard, and the big green door. All appeared quiet. She began getting nervous. Had she missed him? Cassi knew that it was all over if she had. She was a standing duck.
 

The tone of the distant motor changed, bringing the approaching boat back to the top of her thoughts. It was not a change in speed that caused the shift. It was the Doppler effect. The motorboat had continued past the island and was now receding. Cassi was about to turn to see if there was any chance she could signal the captain when she caught sight of Stuart.

He appeared to be more of a shadow than a man at first, all clad in black and darting. She kept the binoculars trained on him with her left hand as she used her right to reach for the walkie-talkie. She brought it to her lips and pressed transmit. “Stuart!”

She saw him drop to one knee as he pivoted to his left. She saw him bring both pistols up smooth as silk and then she heard them bark. As she brought the walkie-talkie back to her lips the Norse Wind was hit by the wake of the passing boat. The rocking motion caught her distracted and unprepared. As her balance faltered she flailed her arms to compensate, but it was no use. With visions of the jagged rocks and cold water below Cassi toppled over the edge.
 

She saw a flash of white light and felt a searing bolt of pain shoot out of her upper left arm. She heard her humerus snap like a breaking bat. She fell a few more feet and landed with a thud on her back. Shocked though she was, Cassi managed to bring her right hand to her mouth to muffle her scream.

She rocked back and forth for a moment, trying to ease the pain. She was aware that she was lying on the main deck, twenty feet below where she had stood a second before. It took her a second to realize what had happened. She had fallen and landed sideways on the port rail, snapping her humerus. Fortunately she had bounced back onto the main deck rather than into the freezing waters of the bay. Even in her agony Cassi also knew that she was lucky to have landed as she had. If she had hit her neck or back or head on the rail she would already be a corpse.

Still fighting back screams and moans, she brought her eyes to rest on the walkie-talkie. She tried to focus on it and nothing else. It lay six feet away, further aft on the deck. She wriggled in that direction as though it were a desert oasis, her broken arm pulsing fire as she moved. She thought of the fire about to engulf twenty-four airplanes. That image fueled a reserve of strength. After seconds that seemed like hours, her hungry fingers enveloped the Motorola. She sucked in a deep breath and brought it to her lips.

Chapter 67

The SS Queen Mary 2

O
DI
HEARD
THE
churning of seawater and the pounding of his heart. He smelled lilac perfume, cigar smoke, and brass polish. He felt a thousand drops of rain. Nothing focuses the mind or sharpens the senses like falling helplessly through space.

As the rail disappeared above him he flipped and flared faster than a falling cat, moving with the reflexive conditioning of a hundred parachute jumps. Something red entered his visual field, eliciting a primitive reaction. His arms thrust out of their own accord even before the memory of a lifeboat canister flashed through his mind. His fingertips made contact but the surface was slick and curved so his hands slid impotently down its side. His panic peaked. He was still gaining speed. Knowing that the canister rim was the only thing between him and a watery grave, Odi curled his fingers into butchers’ hooks and willed them not to bend. They struck the rim an instant later.

Odi stared up his hands in gratitude and wonder as they clenched the lip where the two canister halves joined. Meanwhile his legs continued to move as momentum swung them under the enormous canister. A split-second later the shock of his legs impacting the side jarred his right hand loose. Dangling on just four slim fingers, Odi felt gravity pulling his body downward as the driving rain pushed him from above. He teetered outward and caught a frightful glimpse of the churning black waters seven stories below. Fear fueled his left hand, turning it to stone. Swiftly but smoothly he brought his right hand up beside its brother.
 

Thirty seconds after Ayden hurled him over a guardrail, Odi dropped back onto the safe side. His hands continued to tremble as he crouched there on the rain-swept deck, letting it all sink in. Despite being safe for the moment, he felt winded and shaken. He stared through the rails at the bottomless waters below, knowing that for the second time today he was supposed to be dead. He looked up at the huge protruding canister that had saved his life. Its red underbelly was slick with rain, and the droplets scurried across its surface, propelled by the gale.