The Last Spymaster (53 page)

Feeling more in control, she untied the rope and rowed around to the distant side of the
Mango Blossom
. As she approached, the river quaked from the vibrations of the ship’s idling engine. Tightening her grip on the oars, she pulled hard through the prop wash. She had two options to get aboard—shinny up one of the anchor chains and squeeze through the hawseholes, or if she was lucky, the captain had ordered preparations for the pilot boat, and she would find a ladder draped over the hull.

As she skirted the ship, she looked up. The white hull was a precipitous wall, at least eighteen feet from shuddering waterline to deck. With relief, she saw a rope-and-wood ladder. She pulled alongside. As she looked up again, she swore a string of silent oaths, cursing her short height. Her boat was lower in the water than a pilot boat, which meant the gap between her and the bottom rung was too great to jump. Suddenly she heard Jay’s voice inside her mind:
Use what you have.

She attached a magnetic grip to the steel hull and tied the anchor rope through the grommet. She crossed the oars over the prow in an X and lashed the intersection. Pushing the boat out until it was at the end of its tether, she braced the oars’ paddles on the far side of the prow’s bench and leaned the top of the X against the ship. Scanning around, she clambered up the oars, grabbed the ladder, and climbed. At the top, she drew her Walther. Part of the plan was that Jay and Raina were to have blown the gangplank. So far, the plan seemed to have worked—none of Jerry’s thugs was in sight.

She opened the gate and rushed along the mountain range of containers, checking through the stacks to the other side of the ship. She paused only to peer inside three lifeboats that looked like small space capsules, completely enclosed except for igloo holes for entry. All were empty.

As she straightened, she looked along another steel ravine between the containers. On the other side, one of the multistory cranes that had loaded the ship blazed with light, and its elevator cage was rising. As she studied the glass front, her throat tightened. She recognized the faces—they were Ghranditti’s people. She bolted.

Surrounded by the gray bulkheads, Jay took Litchfield’s gun, stepped back, and slid it into his waistband. He tried to stop the image, but for a moment he imagined Kristoph lying broken and alone at the bottom of the Swiss gorge. This bastard, Litchfield, had murdered Kristoph. His muscles pulsed. Rage rolled through him.

“He’s mine!
Mine!
” Feet pounding, Raina ran out from the stairwell. As she closed in, her furious breathing resonated with his own.

Litchfield’s back went rigid. “You don’t understand—”

“Like hell we don’t!” The thunder in his own voice jerked Jay back from the edge.

But Raina was like a wildcat, all sinew and revenge. Distancing himself from his emotions, Jay watched her holster her pistol and slam Litchfield into the steel bulkhead.

“You fucking monster!” Fists knotted, she hammered Litchfield’s kidneys. “I want to see your face before I erase you. Turn around. You goddamn killed Kristoph!”

As Litchfield grunted with pain, Raina smashed the ball of her foot into his knee. He staggered, recovered, and rammed an elbow back, connecting with her ribs. She gasped, but in seconds a HideAway knife—short, easily concealed, and lethal—materialized above her knuckles.

In midturn, the CIA man froze. He stared at the glinting blade.

Jay focused. “Stop, Raina. No!”

“I’m not finished!”

But when she glanced at him, Jay saw she had worked off enough of her fury.

He glared at Litchfield: “Tell us where Bobbye Johnson, Ghranditti, and al-Hadi are, or I’ll let her carve you.”

Raina’s voice was suddenly soft, almost caressing. “Think about a Thanksgiving turkey, Larry. Skin, meat, joints. That’s you. One slice at a time—until I dismember you. I’ll make sure you live to the end. My pleasure.”

Litchfield’s expression smoothed, grew neutral, the experienced covert operator. Ignoring Raina, he addressed Jay: “The Majlis al-Sha’b is your enemy—not me. Kristoph’s death was unfortunate but unavoidable. We didn’t know he was yours.”

Raina’s voice rose. “You think that’s an excuse?”

Jay kept his focus on Litchfield. “We’ve figured out about the backdoor. That’s why you needed Kristoph.”

For a moment Litchfield seemed surprised. “Should’ve known you would. It’s just what America needs. Sun-Tzu said it best—‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear a hundred battles.’ With
the backdoor, we’ll learn everything about them—who they are, what they’re planning.”

With effort, Jay made his voice reasonable. “The rest of the shipment is too damn dangerous. You’ve got to help us stop it.”

Litchfield shrugged. “In our business, risk taking never ends—it just gets more zeroes behind it. You taught me that, Jay.” Bitterness flashed across his aquiline face. “Besides, you’re nothing but a goddamned asshole traitor. How could you have sold us out? Didn’t you think about us? You were a giant. We looked up to you. We wanted to be you. But now you don’t have to matter anymore—because I’ve
topped
you!”

Pain washed over Jay, the pain of failure. Espionage’s corrosive forces changed one in ways one did not see and then could not look at. It had happened to him, but he had never guessed Palmer Westwood and Larry Litchfield would sink so low. Now Litchfield was the real traitor.

“Where are Bobbye, Ghranditti, and al-Hadi?” Jay demanded again.

The CIA man checked Raina’s blade, then homed in on Jay. “By now the captain’s figured out how Ghranditti’s men can swarm the ship. You’d be smart to jump into the river and swim for it, Jay. You used to take my advice—do it now. Let the operation alone. It’s for the good of Langley.”

Jay stared. Litchfield no longer understood a damn thing. “Where are they!”

There was a small, satisfied smile on Litchfield’s lips, and his eyes glittered, radiating an odd kind of achievement. “The bridge,” he said simply as he clasped his hands behind his back.

Jay frowned, sensing something was wrong. He studied Litchfield, saw his shoulders adjust. And then he knew—

Litchfield’s arm swung around, a pocket gun in his fist, trained on Jay.

“Watch out!” Raina shouted and leaped.

As Litchfield pulled the trigger, Jay dove to the steel deck.

Raina slashed the HideAway knife deep across Litchfield’s throat, rotating it to rip the flesh. A torrent of blood erupted. Litchfield hesitated, then his black brows beetled in puzzlement. He opened his mouth to speak, but blood poured out, and he sank cross-legged against the bulkhead, dying.

Pain ricocheted through Jay’s mind from the searing bullet that had
gashed across his temple and scalp. He tried to blink away the burning pulses. A hot wash filled his ear and flooded his neck.

In a shocked reverie, he watched Raina drop beside him, opening her backpack. Her hair was a wild confusion of black curls. Her blue eyes were pools of worry.

He rallied. “I’m okay. I’ve seen him put his hands behind his back like that a thousand times. Stupid of me to miss what he intended. I guess he learned something from me after all. Good work.”

“You scared me to death.” Watching over her shoulders, she unscrewed the tube of special antibiotic gel and squeezed. “You’ve got a furrow a mile long. This will sting, then it’ll set and stop the bleeding just as it did on Elaine’s finger.”

The deckhouse door banged open, and a gust of fresh air burst in. Elaine leaped nimbly inside, a furious cyclone in black. Her gaze sharp, she crouched, her Walther in both hands, as she checked cautiously around.

“You made it!” Jay said.

Raina smiled warmly at Elaine. “I knew she would.”

Elaine ignored their welcome. “Jerry’s men are boarding!” she warned.

Jay nodded. “Let me up. Lock the door, Elaine. We’re going to the bridge.”

“Not me.” She spun and ran back outside.

Marie Ghranditti awoke with a start, fear oozing from her veins. She focused on the moonlight streaming in through the portholes of the ship’s stateroom, then on the children and nanny, sleeping shadows on sofas and the other bed.

Now she remembered—Martin had brought them here while he finished business, scheduling everything as he always did. She wondered whether all men who craved danger were like that, finding compensation in controlling others since they could not control themselves. Now he was back in the weapons game with some new deal that was making him nervous. Tonight she had made herself pay attention.

She struggled up, gingerly testing her body. She felt better, stronger. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and walked quietly to the door. Cracking it open, she heard only the muted rumble of the ship. She hurried down the corridor, reading numbers. At last she found the right door. Someone had attached a padlock to it.

“Hello,” she whispered. “Are you in there?”

“Who are you?” a voice answered.

“Marie Ghranditti. If I free you, will you help me take my children away from my husband?”

“He’ll never bother you again.”

Marie ran to the deck’s axe and fire extinguisher, but the glass-enclosed case was locked. There was a handle, but if she pulled it, the ship’s alarm would sound. She looked around desperately. The officers’ quarters were on this deck, just beneath the bridge. She listened at a door, heard snoring, and moved on, listened again, and opened it. The cabin was dark, quiet. Praying, she flicked on the light. The cot was empty.

She rushed to the closet, studying the clothes then two shelves of mountaineering equipment. She tore through everything, discarding rock-climbing boots and ropes and pulleys and pitons and a peg hammer . . . and stopped, frustrated. Then focused on the hammer. Gripping it, she chose a sharply pointed piton and ran again.

“I’m back,” she whispered at the door. “I’m going to break the lock.”

“Hurry.”

Looking around anxiously, Marie inserted the piton and hit it until the padlock snapped. Inside the cabin, the woman was waiting, petite and furious, fists on hips.

“I need a cell phone,” she ordered. “Pronto!”

Marie led her at a fast clip back to the stateroom. Sliding inside alone, she rummaged through the nanny’s purse and carried her cell back into the corridor.

The woman snatched it, dialed, and spoke swiftly into it: “Is the forward deployment standing by at Warrenton?” She listened. “The target is a container ship, the
Mango Blossom
.” She described the location and problem.
“I need rapid insertion!” She snapped the cell closed and gazed appraisingly at Marie. “Where did you find that hammer and piton? Maybe there’s something else I can use.”

Again they raced off. But as they passed the cabin where the woman had been jailed, they heard catlike footfalls. They glanced back. Marie fought terror as she stared at an M-4 and then up into the cold face of the steward who aimed it at them.

Jay and Raina pressed back against the bulkhead, she on the step below his, both out of sight of the corridor. As they had ridden the elevator up from the deck, Jay had pulled the faceplate off the terminus buttons and installed a delay timer on the wires while Raina set more det cord. Exiting at the officers’ deck, they had padded up one flight to this position just beneath the bridge level.

The bridge emanated a threatening hush, palpable. They heard no voices, not even the shortwave radio, only the mechanical clicks and whirrs of the navigation and other technical gear. It was eerie—a ship’s bridge was always manned. Ghranditti or al-Hadi or both had cleared it and were probably nearby, planning something. There was perhaps another minute before the elevator would arrive.

He cocked his head, listening to gunfire on the main deck, the noise muted by the bulkheads. “Elaine’s trying to hold them off down there.” He kept his voice low.

Raina’s glance was compassionate. “She has a chance—she’s like a foal finding her legs. She’s on her way to being very good.”

He nodded. “I hope she makes it, Raina. You did.”

“You and I also made a lot of mistakes. And paid high prices.”

“I know. But Elaine was already headed into field ops. She just didn’t know it yet.” He studied her, drinking in the smooth lines of her face, the curve of her chin, the glow in her eyes. If he did not survive, at least he’d had this time with her.

“But now neither of us can go back,” she reminded him.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” She smiled, her love for him naked.

A lump formed in his throat.

A bell rang once, announcing the elevator’s arrival. Their trance broke.
In unison, they raised their pistols in both hands, tucking them against their pectorals, ready. They breathed in for a count of four, held their breaths for a count of four, and exhaled for a count of four.

As they repeated the drill, Jay felt his heart rate decelerate and his nerves quiet while his senses grew more acute. He tracked a single set of feet hurrying from the opposite direction of the navigation center toward the elevator. He checked, saw a square, heavy back pass by.

He mouthed the identity to Raina:
Ghranditti.