A submersible bobbed just beyond the pier. It was torpedo-shaped and painted black as pitch. They may have missed it altogether if not for the fact that the hatch was open and standing in the center of it was a man with the face of a medieval monk, all long and pale and slightly foreboding.
“Bonjour!” He waved up at them. “The problem on the beach has been eliminated,oui?” His French accent made it sound likezee problem on zee bitch.
Dagan didn’t answer, just lifted his hand. And that’s when another shot boomed through the night.
The round hit the railing two inches from Chelsea’s fingers, and thepingof the bullet against the metal sounded louder than a gong. Since she was holding on to the rail, the reverberation traveled up her arm and rattled her brains inside her skull.
Once again, Dagan was lightning fast. He swung around and fired.
Now, when taking a shot, a shooter had to consider environmental factors. Like wind and elevation. But Dagan was so skilled—or so battle-tested—that he did it all automatically. She couldn’t see where his bullet buried itself into Surry’s body, but Surry yelped and hit the deck.
Before she could do more than blink, Dagan was climbing the railing, holding a hand down and pulling her up beside him. Another bout of vertigo hit, the world doing a fast spin. But before she could get her bearings, Dagan squeezed her hand, his fingers so strong, his palm so warm and rough, and together theyjumped!
Chapter 41
He was dying.
He knew it as surely as he knew his mother had named him Steven Jonathan Surry.
The dark, nearly burgundy color of the blood on his hand when he lifted it away from the gruesome wound was highlighted by the relentless revolution of the lighthouse. His liver had taken the deathblow. And the pain… Oh, the pain was unlike anything he had ever known.
Pressing his blood-soaked hand back against his wound, he struggled to stand. His thoughts focused on his mother. He had failed her by failing Spider. But if, before he succumbed, he accomplished this one last task, then maybe…just maybe Spider would take pity on him.
He had heard stories of such. That if one were to fight for Spider ’til the end, Spider would have mercy.
The first step toward the end of the pier had Steven crying out. There was a breathtaking agony so deep inside. But he gritted his teeth, palmed his SIG, and pushed forward. His heart fluttered in an effort to pump what blood remained in his poor, ruined body. And by the time he made it to the railing, his boot was full of the stuff. It was warm and squished between his toes.
His vision blurred when he peered over the rail into the undulating water below. To his surprise and dismay, what he saw wasn’t the couple treading water back to shore. It was Beard. He was climbing into an oddly shaped vessel that rode low in the drink.
A submarine?If Steven hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed it. As for Chelsea? Regrettably, she was nowhere in sight. But he would take what he could get.
Lifting his SIG, he was disheartened to see his hand shaking.Needs must, he thought and stopped applying pressure to his wound so he could use his free hand to support his firing hand. He couldfeelhis liver leaking faster.
Closing one eye and sighting down the barrel, he gathered his strength to fire. Oddly, his muscles refused to obey, and before he could force them to his will, the hatch on the vessel slammed shut with a loudgong! Then the whole thing sank beneath the waves. A quietglug-glugand a faint eddy were the only things proving it had ever been there.
“No.No!” he cried, collapsing onto the pier.
Pain and anguish filled the spaces his leaking blood left empty. The echo of sirens was louder now. But he suffered no illusions that the local authorities would get to him quickly enough to save him.
He decided to use his final minutes to call Spider and beg. Not for his own life—that was already forfeit—but for his mother’s.
The mobile was hard to grip in his blood-slicked hands, but he managed to enter Spider’s number. When the man himself answered, his bored tone worked over Steven’s raw nerves like sandpaper.
“Sir.” Was that Steven’s voice? There was barely anything left of it. “I’m dying, sir. Sh-shot in the gut.” There was silence on the other end of the line, and Steven hurried to finish his report while he still had the breath to do it. “Morrison and I followed Miss Duvall from the fisherman’s house back to the Folkestone Harbor Arm. There was confusion. A gun battle. Miss Duvall and her partner escaped in a…asubmarine. But not…” He panted against the pain. “Not before I killed Morrison. Had to. He was going to give you up.”
Finally Spider spoke. “Give me up? What do you mean?”
“They th—” Steven gasped when a sharp pain arrowed through his gut, making him nauseous. He thought it possible he might die while tossing his cookies. But then the sickness subsided and all that remained was unimaginable agony. “They thought Morrison was y-you. That’s why they infiltrated his systems. They were looking for proof to bring you down.”
He could hear Spider fumbling with the phone. Gone was any boredom in his voice when he said, “Any idea whotheyare?”
“CIA? I don’t know. Maybe an…interagency effort.” Between gasping breaths, Steven managed to tell Spider about the supposedly dead but surprisingly alive Christian Watson. “He is with four others. They left in the fisherman’s truck and are being followed by Ramón, Morrison’s driver. I think they have the thumb drive because I heard the man with Duvall admit that the device wasn’t on him, but that he could get it. It would just take a little while. There—” Another pain lanced through him, the blackness closing in. “There might still be time to locate the others and find the drive.”
“Yes. Yes, there might. Even so, I need to begin transferring and emptying any accounts tied to Morrison.”
A herculean task, Steven knew. But if anyone could pull off making millions of dollars disappear without a trace, it was Spider. “Please, sir,” he finished with a crackling wheeze. “My mother… She is innocent. She—”
“Not to worry.” Spider’s voice was calm, almost blasé. “You did as well as can be expected, I suppose. I knew Morrison was a liability from the beginning, but…” Spider’s voice trailed off. Or at least Steven thought it did. It was becoming difficult to hear. Steven’s eyesight was almost completely gone now. He suspected his ears were next. “Miss Duvall and her companion are likely headed to France,” Spider continued as if they were having no more than a friendly conversation, as if Steven wasn’t, in fact,dying.
