Thriller (24 page)

next question—why aren’t we using her to plant the transmitter? First off, she doesn’t have direct access to Fletcher. He never

meets Prince at the office, only in public places where he has

multiple escape routes. Second reason is, even if I could arrange

some scenario to get the secretary next to Fletcher tonight, the

woman is not what I’d call grace under pressure. If I send her in

with an agenda, Fletcher will pick up on it right away.”

“Why not just approach Fletcher directly? You certainly have

the manpower.”

“True, but then we’d have to bring in the locals. Prince has many

friends on the inside, people who can be easily bought. There are

extradition issues and some others that don’t concern you.

“Look, Marlena, I can understand why you’re nervous,” Lee

said. “But you’ve got to trust me when I say I have all the bases

covered. The watch in your purse is equipped with a listening

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device, so we’ll all be listening in. If there’s a problem or a change

in plans, Jacobs will get word to you. And if I think you’re in danger, I’ll pull you out. We’ve got a boat standing by, just in case.

You’ll be fine as long as you remember this rule—under no circumstances are you to go anywhere alone with Fletcher.”

“Jacobs mentioned that.”

“Head over to the party around eight and get a feel for the

place. Your name is already on the guest list. The set of keys on

your bed belong to a black Mercedes parked out in the back lot.

The directions to the club are under the seat.”

Marlena stared out at the water.

“Wipe that look off your face,” Lee said. “Everything’s going

to be fine.”

You keep saying that,
Marlena thought, wondering who Lee was

really trying to convince.

The yacht club was located at the opposite end of the island,

a remote and stunningly beautiful spot overlooking a sprawling

dock packed with sailboats and yachts. Apparently, this was the

place to be if you were in the market for a trophy wife or a sugar

daddy. There wasn’t a woman here over the age of thirty-five, each

stunningly beautiful and wearing a dress worthy of a red-carpet

show. Now Marlena understood Lee’s obsession about picking

out the perfect dress.

It was coming up on ten. For the past half hour, Marlena had

been forced to listen to a fossil named William Bingham, aka Billy

Bing, the Mercedes King of Fresno, California, talk about sailing

the way you’d talk about great sex. As she pretended to listen,

scanning the well-dressed crowd for Malcolm Fletcher and

Jonathan Prince, her thoughts kept drifting back to the postcards.

This wasn’t the first time she had purchased something for her

mother after she died—this past Christmas she had dropped

two hundred dollars on a cashmere sweater at Talbots. It wasn’t

like she could take the sweater or the postcards to her mother’s

grave. Ruthie Sanchez didn’t have a grave. Like so many 9/11 vic-
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tims, her remains were never found—and they would never be

found because Marlena had signed away all rights to her mother’s

remains in exchange for a lucrative settlement that had allowed

her to put her severely autistic brother in a special home.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of psychology

would say her need to purchase gifts for her dead mother was

about not wanting to let go. Fine. But there was another reason,

something Marlena had told no one, not even her therapist.

Every time she held the postcards, the Christmas sweater, the

crystal vase she had bought on the first anniversary of her

mother’s death, the feeling that kept boiling to the surface was

outrage. The hijackers and planners, the CIA and FBI bureaucrats and politicians who had ignored the warning signs—Marlena wanted to take these people and, just like in the Bible, stone

them to death over a period of weeks. Thinking about the different ways she could punish the people responsible—
that
was

the feeling that kept coming to her over and over again.

Marlena snapped her mind back to the present. Billy Bing was

still talking; something to do with golf. Thank God, here came

the waiter with her glass of wine.

“A gentleman at the bar wanted me to give this to you,” the

waiter said, and handed her a folded napkin.

Written in black ink was a message:
Use phone on top of cooler

inside boat
Falling Star,
near end of dock. Untie boat, then call and

follow instructions. Jacobs
. A phone number was written under

his name.

Marlena politely excused herself from the conversation and

headed for the docks, remembering Lee’s words from this afternoon:
If I think you’re in danger, I’ll pull you out of there. We’ve got

a boat standing by.

So something
had
gone wrong, and now she was in danger.

Heart pounding, she stood on the dock in front of the
Falling

Star,
an oversized Boston whaler, the kind of charter boat most

likely used for deep-sea fishing. The boat was dark and empty,

but the one moored next to it, a Sea Ray motor yacht, was lit up

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and packed with well-dressed people drinking highballs and

smoking cigarettes and cigars.

Marlena took in her surroundings. A lot of people were milling

around on the docks but nobody was heading this way.
Okay, get

moving.
She stepped on board the
Falling Star,
feeling it rock beneath her heels, and set her wineglass and purse on the table inside the cabin. Under the table were two matching extra-large

Coleman coolers wrapped in chains and secured by padlocks. A

third Coleman sat against the wall behind her, near the cabin

door. This cooler wasn’t locked; the chains had been removed

and lay in a ball on the floor. Sitting on the cooler’s top were two

items: a cell phone and a set of keys. The top, she noticed, wasn’t

fully shut.

As instructed, Marlena went to work untying the boat from

the dock, glancing up every few seconds to survey the area. People were minding their own business, their laughter and voices

mixing with the old-time jazz music coming from the Sea Ray.

After she hoisted the last rubber fender onto the stern, she moved

back inside the cabin, grabbed the cell and dialed the number

written on the napkin.

“Don’t talk, just listen,” said the man on the other end of the

line. His voice was deep and surprisingly calm
. Must be one of the

two agents she hadn’t met—the ones monitoring from the house
, she

thought. “The keys on top of the cooler are for the boat. Drive

out of the harbor. Get moving. We don’t have much time.”

The man on the phone told her where to find the switch for

the lights. Marlena started the boat. The twin engines turned

over, the floor vibrating beneath her as she increased the throttle and slowly eased the boat away from the dock with one hand

on the wheel, the other pressing the phone tightly against her ear.

Something heavy landed on the stern. Marlena whipped her

head around, her panic vanishing when she saw Barry Jacobs,

dressed in the same dark suit as the waitstaff, step inside the cabin.

Thank God
, Marlena thought. Jacobs, red-faced and sweating,

yanked the phone away from her and tossed it against the floor.

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Marlena stared at him, dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to

speak, the words evaporating off her tongue as Jacobs shoved her

up against the wall.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“You told me to take the boat out.”

Jacobs dug his fingers deep into her arms. “Don’t lie to me, or

I swear to Christ—”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Marlena said. “A waiter gave me a

note written on a napkin. Your name was signed on the bottom.

It said to—”

“And you just came down here?”

“Lee said if there was a problem, you’d get word to me—”

“Where’s this note?”

“In my purse.”

“Get it.” Jacobs released her and took control of the wheel. He

increased the throttle, and the boat lurched forward.

Glass shattered inside the cabin. When Marlena stepped inside, she saw that her wineglass had fallen to the floor. The

cooler near the cabin door had moved. Drops of blood were

leaking around the seams of the cooler’s half-opened top. Marlena reached down and opened the cooler.

As a forensics specialist, she had seen her share of dead bodies, the dozens of different ways human beings could be cut, broken and bruised. But seeing the way Owen Lee had been

dismembered sent a nauseous scream rising up her throat.

“
Barry
.”

Then Jacobs was standing next to her. He slammed the

cooler shut.

“Relax, take deep breaths,” Jacobs said as he escorted her to

the seat. “I’m going to call the command post.”

Jacobs held out his cell phone. Marlena stared at him, confused.

Something hot and sharp pierced her skin. Marlena looked

down at her chest and saw twin metal prongs attached to

wires; Jacobs was holding a Taser. The charge swept through

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her body, and the next thing Marlena saw was her mother

clutching her hand as they fell together through an electricblue sky.

Marlena heard splashing. Her eyes fluttered open to moonlight.

She was still on the boat, lying across one of the padded seats

set up along the stern. All the deck and interior lights had been

turned off, as had the engine. A cooler lay on its side, opened. It

was empty.

Something heavy bumped against the boat. Marlena had an

idea what was going on and went to push herself up but couldn’t

move. Her hands were tied behind her back, her ankles bound

together with the same coarse rope. She swung her feet off the

seat and managed to sit.

She was out in open water, far away from the harbor. Zigzagging along the sides and back of the boat were several distinctively shaped dorsal fins. And those were just the sharks she

could see.

“There’s no need to panic, Marlena. I’m not going to feed you

to the sharks.”

She turned away from the water and looked up into Malcolm

Fletcher’s strange, black eyes.

Marlena backed away and fell, hitting her head against the side

of the boat before toppling onto the floor. She lay on her stomach, about to roll onto her back—she could use her feet to kick—

when Fletcher’s powerful hands slid underneath her arms and

lifted her into the air, toward the water. She tried to fight.

“Despite what the federal government has led you to believe,

I have no intention of harming you,” Fletcher said, dropping her

back on the seat. “Now, I can’t say the same is true about Special

Agent Jacobs. Lucky for you I was on board to put a stop to it.”

Fletcher’s face seemed darker than in the surveillance pictures, more gaunt. He was impeccably dressed in a dark suit without a tie.

“Before I cut you free, I’d like a piece of information—and I’d

190

appreciate some honesty,” Fletcher said. “Will you promise to be

honest with me? This is important.”

Marlena nodded. She took in several deep breaths, trying to

slow the rapid beating of her heart.

“Those postcards you purchased earlier, who were they for?”

The question took her by surprise.

“I bought them for my mother,” Marlena said after a moment.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“How did—? Yes. She’s dead. Why?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“She died on 9/11. She was inside one of the buildings—the

north tower.”

“Did you have a chance to speak with her?”

“Not directly. She left a message on my machine.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘I love you, and remember to take care of your

brother.’ There was some background noise, and then the cellphone signal cut off.”

Marlena thought about the other voice on the tape, a man

whispering to her mother. A friend at the FBI lab had enhanced

it:
“Hold my hand, Ruthie. We’ll jump together.”
The crazy thing

was how much the man sounded like her father, who died when

she was twenty. Or maybe she just wanted to believe her mother

hadn’t been alone during her final moment.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Fletcher said, and meant it. “Excuse

me for a moment.”

Fletcher ducked inside the cabin. Water splashed along the

back and sides of the boat. A moment later, he came back, dragging a hog-tied Jacobs across the floor. Fletcher propped Jacobs

up into a kneeling position directly in front of her. A piece of duct

tape was fastened across Jacobs’s mouth.

“Remember what I said earlier about confession being good

for the soul,” Fletcher said to Jacobs, and then tore off the strip

of tape.

Jacobs stared at the sharks circling the boat. He swallowed sev-
191

eral times before speaking. “I sold you out to bounty hunters

working for Jean Paul Rousseau. Stephen, his son, was a federal

agent, part of a team sent to apprehend Fletcher.”

“Those agents were sent to kill me,” Fletcher said. “I acted

purely out of self-defense, but that’s a story for another time.