“Go away?” the German man asked Cilla. “What are you saying? You know this man?”
Cilla gulped down a sob and pulled herself tall. “Hauptmann Kraus, this is Lieutenant Mackenzie.”
Hauptmann Kraus? Her Abwehr handler, and Lachlan’s breath turned to ice in his lungs. With his body concealed low in the boat’s cockpit, he slid his revolver from its holster.
“You stupid girl!” Kraus wheeled on Cilla. “You blew our cover. Is this—is this Samson?”
“Yes,” Cilla said, more a sob than a word. “He’s Samson.”
Kraus let out a sharp cry, grabbed Cilla by the shoulders, and shoved a pistol to her temple. “Help us to your boat, Lieutenant, or she dies. You love her, ja?”
Lachlan’s heart seized. To save her life, he had to play Samson, had to pretend Cilla was a true German spy, he knew it in his gut. But how could he? He was no actor. He forced his brain to recall everything he knew about Samson, what Samson would know, how he would feel.
“Samson?” Lachlan poured all his love for Cilla and all his fury at the situation into his voice. “That’s how you see me, Cilla? Aye? As Samson to your Delilah?”
“That’s right.” Her sharp tone would have slashed out his heart, were she not acting. “That’s all you are to me.”
“You’re a German spy? Aye, you are!” He thrust a finger in her direction. “A spy! I loved you. Ilovedyou. And you betrayed me. How much did I tell you about British ships? About Scapa Flow? You took advantage of me—of my love. Go ahead, Kraus. I dinnae want her. Shoot her!”
Kraus jerked his head back.
Lachlan had stripped away Kraus’s most potent weapon—Lachlan’s love for Cilla. If Lachlan didn’t care whether Cilla lived or died, Kraus had no leverage to force his way onto Lachlan’s motorboat.
His boat bobbled in the current, turning her broadside toMar na Creag, and Lachlan shifted his hand with the revolver behind his hip. The distant rumble of engines meant the British destroyers would arrive soon, far better armed than Lachlan. Kraus would be captured, and Cilla would be freed. MI5 would see to it.
Kraus prodded the gun to Cilla’s temple, tilting her head. “I will not allow them to capture us. If your ships come, I’ll shoot her, then myself.”
“Let him,” Cilla shouted. “I’d rather die than be trapped in Scotland again, trapped with the likes of you. Go away!”
No.His throat constricted and strangled his cry, and no sound came out. She was trying to save him, but he couldn’t—he couldn’t let Kraus kill her.
If only he could get Kraus away from Cilla.
A bit of Cilla’s storytelling ways prickled his mind. And he knew how to do it.
45
With cold steel pressing her cold temple, Cilla begged Lachlan with her eyes.Let me go. Let me go.
“You cannae fool me, Kraus.” Lachlan climbed out of the cockpit onto the deck, his coat unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. He threw a punch in Kraus’s direction. “You dinnae care about her life any more than I do.”
He was acting, and she loved him even more for it, her Scottish warrior taunting his foe. But what was his strategy?
“But your life? Och, you care about that.” Lachlan shook a finger at Kraus. “You care about your precious Führer, and you want to keep fighting for the Fatherland. So you need my boat. Fine. Come over here and fight me for it. Fight me man to man. A square fight, aye? This boat has no weapons.”
Cilla winced. What was he doing? Kraus had a gun ... which wouldn’t fire if wet. And Lachlan—he gestured wildly, but with only one arm, his other arm hidden behind his body.
Lachlan’s boat might not have any weapons, but he did.
“Come on, Kraus!” Lachlan flung his arm in an aggressive arc. “I dare you. Or are you a coward? Afraid to fight me, old man?”
Kraus swung the pistol away from Cilla’s head.
Two blasts pounded her ears, blinded her.
Her high-pitched scream merged with a lower-pitched scream across the waters.
Lachlan crumpled down into the cockpit.
