Shiver of Fear (36 page)

The crane.

Sharon was out and beside her in a matter of seconds, nudging her toward the water. “Let’s go.”

She pushed Devyn forward. Wasn’t there security? Cameras? Customs to control ships in and out? She glanced around for one
of the many CCTV lenses that she’d seen all around Belfast, but if they were being watched, she couldn’t tell.

The boat, visible now despite the black paint, rumbled up to a long concrete dock.

Could she run? Could she scream? Were they expecting her, too? Why had Sharon forced her to come? Whatever she needed from
Devyn, she wasn’t getting it. No matter what.

The boat docked quickly, and a man emerged from the
back, dressed in black from head to toe, his face darkened with grease, barely visible.

With a solid grip on her arm and the pistol in her back, Sharon pushed her forward. “Here she is, Malik.”

He barely nodded as another man stepped out behind him, holding a container.

“Jesus Christ.” She yanked Devyn back with a gasp. “Baird! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hello, Dr. Greenberg. Did you really think you could outsmart me?”

Sharon pushed Devyn away like a useless sack, freeing herself to point the gun at Baird. “It wasn’t that difficult.” She lifted
the pistol to shoot, just as he tossed a silver canister in the air. It landed at Sharon’s feet. She leaped backward, turning
as voices and engines suddenly roared from behind them and a gunshot echoed over the docks.

“They got us!” One of the men yelled. Another shot exploded, and Devyn was forgotten in the chaos. Instantly, she took off,
covering her head when a bullet zinged past her, staying low and running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

Cars charged toward the water. In the air, a rumble and a blinding light from a helicopter. Then to her left, three, four,
five large black vehicles appeared from nowhere, lights on, men pouring out, all armed.

She didn’t know what was happening, who was good, who was bad, who would kill her, who might save her, so she just ran until
she reached the base of the crane. Gunshots exploded, men shouted, and the boat revved to take off. Devyn had no choice.

She’d have to go up the crane, with the hope that it would be the only safe place.

She seized the first rung of rusted metal and hoisted herself up, the bars of the ladder nothing but narrow, slippery bands
under her sneakers, her fingers stiff on the freezing steel handles.

Daring a look below, she saw the men in black move like ants around the fingers of cement that formed the channel. They fired
at the boat, but it still kept going.

She didn’t stop to watch but climbed with every ounce of strength she had.

If the wrong person saw her—Sharon or Baird or whoever the guy on the boat was—they’d shoot her. The wind howled, clanging
metal against the giant arm that stuck out another hundred feet over the water.

Finally, her hands hit solid flooring, and she pulled herself up to the arm of the crane. It was a long, narrow pathway made
of woven steel, tracks, and twisted cables running along either side. There was a railing, but it was nothing more than two
bars designed to hold the harness ropes.

The harness she wasn’t wearing. But if she could just wait this out, avoid being caught or spotted, she could get down and
get help.

Wind buffeted her, and she automatically dropped to her knees, refusing to look down as her palms scraped the jutting edges
of the tracks, her knees screaming in pain from the metal.

Staying flat was the only way to keep from being blown off. Or shot at. She took a ragged breath and laid her face against
the diamond-shaped holes in the metal, then closed her eyes, her hair blowing over her face. If she could just stay alive.

If Marc stayed alive.

She
had
to tell him how wrong she’d been. Wrong
about her mother, yes, but even more so, wrong about the genes. That woman—that horrible, heartless, hateful woman—might be
her mother, but she had nothing to do with Devyn. Maybe it was coming face-to-face with her, but something inside Devyn had
snapped, and she finally let go of those fears.

“Very clever!” The words floated on the wind and fell on Devyn, forcing her to turn around. “You must be my daughter after
all.”

Sharon’s face was bruised and scraped, her hair whipped into wildness. The Indian silk scarf hung useless from her wounded
arm, barely hanging on in the wild wind. In one hand, she still held the damn gun. And in the other, a silver canister.

“Looks like I underestimated Mr. Baird. No matter. He’ll have no credibility, and the SIS will still believe I’m their agent,
as long as I get rid of you.”

She took a labored step forward, fighting the wind but managing to hold up the canister in one hand and the gun in the other.
“If you can hang on until that chaos down there is over, I’ll let you climb down before I kill you. Otherwise, I’ll shoot
you up here and you’ll fall.”

Sharon waved toward the ground and the movement freed the scarf, sending it sailing into the air, black and gold, floating
like a fallen leaf.

“It’s a long way down,” Sharon said.

Devyn stole a look at the flying scarf, hope surging. Maybe someone would see it and realize she was up here.

Hope evaporated when the scarf snagged on a hook of the crane, still a good hundred feet in the air. The wind would tear it
to shreds before anyone ever looked up and saw it.

Sharon let out a rueful laugh. “Hell, I hate heights, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Devyn whispered.

“Of course you do,” she said softly. “You’re just like me.”

No, she wasn’t. And she’d die trying to prove that.

M
arc reached the shipyard at the precise moment that the SIS moved in. In his stolen black Saab, he slipped through the gates
with the other cars. When they moved in, he held back, not wanting to draw attention. When the agents finally made it to the
edge of the wharf, he parked and followed the shadows, gun drawn, head down.

So far, so good.

“Hey!” A man jumped him from behind, giving his neck a good crack. “Who the blazes are you?”

Shit. They had perimeter guards. He really didn’t want to kill an MI5 agent, but he would to save Devyn.

“American,” he said. “There’s an American hostage.”

The man loosened his grip and another jogged over, looking warily at Marc over a Barrett M82 rifle.

“Hey, I know you.” His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “From the bell tower.”

Marc recognized the MI5 agent instantly. “Nigel Sutton.”

The other man shrugged but didn’t lower his rifle.
“What the hell are you doing here? Still chasing Dr. Greenberg?”

“She took an American hostage. I think she’s on that boat.”

The boat was already surrounded, men being thrown on the ground, guns drawn.

“You’re wrong,” the man said. “She
is
the American hostage. That’s part of the operation.”

No, it wasn’t. And Marc knew that as well as he knew his name. That woman had sent the men to kill him, and she wasn’t working
for SIS or Baird.

“Listen,” the agent said. “I don’t know what the fuck you want with that woman, but she’s on our side, and unless you want
to be collateral damage, this is an official SIS operation and you are not welcome.”

“She
isn’t
the hostage,” he insisted, managing to break one arm free, the one that held his gun. He stuck it right over the Barrett.
“And she isn’t on your side. She’s on that fucking boat with another woman and I’m going to get her.”

The other man stared him down.

“Hazmat’s here,” Marc’s first attacker said, inclining his chin toward a team of men in hazardous-material suits surrounding
a small container on the dock. Around them, agents were dragging perps away, two in cuffs, one in dark Muslim garb with a
gun to his head.

“We got the bastard,” the agent said with a grim smile.

Marc eyed the man. “Who is that?”

“Malik Mahmud Khel, the second in command of Pakistan’s powerful Shia militant organization, Tehrik-e-Jafria.” He grinned
at Marc. “Bet the fucking CIA couldn’t
have done that any better. Though we did have some help from your Dr. Greenberg.”

“She’s not mine,” Marc ground out. “So where the hell is she?” And, Jesus Christ, where was Devyn? His body ached from the
need to run toward that boat and get her.

“They’ll get her.”

A man who looked like he was in charge barked orders, spoke on a phone, and directed the hazmats to place their haul in an
armored vehicle. Behind him, three men boarded the boat, all armed with rifles, shouting as they went.

Suddenly, those same men leaped off the boat, shouting. Everyone in the vicinity dropped to the ground.

“Bomb!”

The word settled in Marc’s brain the very instant the boat exploded in an orange fireball, flames shooting thirty feet in
the air, the noise rocking the docks, cracking the air, rattling the giant cranes above, and throwing all of them back a few
feet.

The sound was still reverberating as he scrambled to his feet, starting to run.

Both men grabbed his arms. “Nobody survived that motherfucker,” the agent said sternly. “Just consider this a favor and get
the hell out of here.”

Marc shook the agent off and got five steps away before he had him again.

“Listen to me!” The agent threw him back with the same force as the explosion. “The only reason I’m not putting a hole in
your arse is because you didn’t put one in mine. Now, go!”

Sirens screamed and more men yelled as his captors took off. Marc stayed rooted watching in disbelief as
smoke puffed skyward from the explosion, the hazmat truck already rolling away, their dangerous cargo escaping what was no
doubt a suicide bomb planted in case things went wrong.

Was Devyn on that boat?

The only answer was the metal ropes of the crane’s empty counterweight clanging on the pulleys overhead, hollow and haunting.

He’d failed. He hadn’t protected her. He sure as hell hadn’t rescued her. He’d left her with her own mother, and now he followed
the trail of smoke into the night sky, his eyes filling, his soul aching.

Did she die thinking she was just like her mother? God, he hoped not. He started to close his eyes, but something caught his
attention in the sky, something fluttering from the flatbed that hung from a pulley high in the air.

He couldn’t look away from the flash of gold, the shimmer of black, the flapping of…
silk
.

He’d just touched that silk, made a tourniquet with it. Breaking into a jog, his gaze locked on the ladder that led up to
the base of the crane, he ignored a shout in his direction. He snagged the bottom rung and yanked himself up, launching forward,
climbing as fast as his feet would move.

About a hundred feet off the ground, he looked out to the narrow section of trolley line that ran down the arm and hung over
the concrete below and saw movement on the track.

Just as his foot hit the next railing, a gunshot blasted through the air, the bullet whizzing by his head. His hand faltered
and his foot slipped, his whole body whipping to the side. A blast of wind nearly shook him loose as he fought to swing back
into position.

He’d almost regained his footing, using all his strength, when he looked across the crane’s arm directly into the barrel of
a gun. Behind it, white hair flew in the wind, the same wind that pinned him back so effectively it was impossible to do anything
but wait for Sharon’s next shot.

Choking on smoke, Devyn’s gaze stayed riveted on the fire in the water, her whole being clinging for life as the crane arm
swayed from the impact of the explosion.

Another loud noise rocked the metal under her, and Devyn shrieked, turning to see Sharon braced like a gunfighter, the pistol
aimed toward the ladder. Was someone coming up?

Devyn fought the wind, determined to see around Sharon, who blocked her view of the ladder. And what she saw stole the breath
from her body.

She clamped her mouth closed to stop from crying out as Sharon fired again, the recoil shaking the crane, the bullet missing
its target.

Marc gripped the ladder and battled his way up, his face pulled in determination, his life hanging by two narrow metal bars.

With her back to Devyn, Sharon steadied her hands to take another shot. Dragging herself up with superhuman strength, Devyn
managed a kneeling position. She gripped the railing and pulled herself to her feet.

As Sharon turned, Devyn kicked out one leg, nailing the other woman in the hip and knocking her off balance. She struggled
to get her footing with one hand holding the canister, the other arm flailing with the gun, enough time for Devyn to kick
again, her foot aiming for the pistol. She made contact and sent the gun careening into the air.

“Goddamn you!”

“He already did,” Devyn said, fury bubbling up. “He made me waste my whole life wondering about you!” She kicked again, but
Sharon dodged the blow and lunged toward Devyn, tearing the top off the canister and waving it at Devyn.

“Botulinum in a bottle,” she screamed over the howling wind. “More deadly than the gun.”

“Then we both die.”

Sharon shook her head violently. “I can manufacture the antidote in a matter of minutes. No one knows I work for Malik. The
SIS will call me a hero, and you will be… a shame. Good-bye, my child.” She reached for the canister.

“I’m not your child!” Devyn spat the words and used the rage in her heart to take one more kick, but it almost toppled her.
She frantically reached for the guardrail, missing it the first time, then grabbing hold just as Sharon lunged forward and
cracked Devyn’s head with the canister.

She let out a shriek and grabbed wildly for the safety rail, but Sharon thrust toward her again. Left hand behind her on the
railing, she flailed to fight her off, hitting the cylinder.

As she did, Sharon let go of it, and Devyn’s fingers closed around metal still warm from Sharon’s touch.