She looked him over for a long time. Clark had a feeling he knew what she was thinking, and when she spoke, she confirmed his suspicion.
“By yourself?”
Clark looked out to the open water in front of him as he manned the helm. “God, I hope not.”
Twenty minutes later, Kate brought John a cup of coffee and then she and Noah went back down below. Clark sipped slowly while focusing on getting as much out of the engines as he possibly could. His speedometer on the multifunction display of the boat read thirty knots, two and a half times faster than the top speed of the Irwin he’d sailed around the BVIs earlier in the week. It was an impressive machine, Clark thought, except for some blood on the floor and the pervasive scent of a half-dozen mercenaries.
He’d just taken a sip of coffee when he heard an unmistakable thud on the aft deck of the boat. More curious than concerned, he flipped on the autopilot, scanned the water ahead for a moment, then went to investigate.
He had just passed through the rear cockpit door when he felt something grab him from above. A line from one of the sails had been lowered around his neck, and now it choked him as whoever held on to it pulled him so hard his feet left the deck.
Straight ahead of him, at the stern of the boat and just in front of the dinghy, he saw a woman with auburn hair unfasten a parachute harness. She already had a pistol in her hand, and she raised it at Clark.
Clark struggled with the line around his throat, and while he lurched his head back, trying in vain to break the hold, he saw a man lying on the flying bridge just above him, reaching over with the line and heaving it with all his might.
The woman said, “Who else is on board?”
Clark couldn’t have replied if he wanted to, he just held on to the line digging into his throat, trying to keep his airway open. For one brief moment he reached down to his cargo pocket trying to pull his Glock, but the auburn-haired woman recognized what he was doing, so she stepped forward and removed the pistol before he could get to it. She racked the slide, ensuring there was a round in the chamber, then pointed it at Clark’s face. “How many more of you on board?”
Clark’s hands went back to the line, clawing into his own skin to get some relief from the pressure against his windpipe. He was seconds from losing consciousness. He’d left the SIG in the cockpit, and he couldn’t reach the knife on his ankle.
From nowhere, Noah Walker appeared in the cockpit just behind Clark, his eyes wide with terror when he saw the woman who had kidnapped him days earlier.
Martina Jaeger saw the kid and rolled her eyes. She took a step to the side and raised Clark’s Glock pistol toward the boy; she didn’t give a shit if the Russians wanted him alive anymore, because clearly the Russians couldn’t manage one fucking aspect of this operation.
Her gun arm reached by Clark, a foot from his left shoulder, and when he saw this he kicked with both feet, swinging as hard to his left as he could. He dropped both hands from the noose strangling him to death, and these hands fired out toward the Glock, surprising the woman aiming at the boy.
Clark grabbed the woman’s wrists, yanked back and torqued them around, and shoved the hands and the pistol they held under the lip of the flying bridge above him, slamming the barrel into the ceiling of the cockpit directly under the big man lying there above him holding the line around his neck.
The force of the impact between the pistol barrel and the cockpit ceiling caused the woman’s finger on the trigger to jerk, and the weapon fired, point-blank, into the ceiling. The bullet went through the wood, into the flying bridge, and directly into the chest of the man lying there holding the sail line around Clark’s neck.
The big man released his hold and Clark dropped to the ground, still holding the woman’s wrists, controlling the gun only enough to keep it away from him and the boy.
Noah disappeared down the companionway.
Clark and Martina wrestled on the aft deck, but only until the big man above them called out in a hoarse shout, “Ik ben neergeschoten!” I’ve been shot!
Martina Jaeger let go of the gun and stood, raced up the ladder to the flying bridge, and knelt over her brother.
It took Clark nearly half a minute to stand back up, since he could still barely breathe. When he stood he raised the Glock and saw the blood dripping into the cockpit through the bullet hole in the ceiling.
Above, the woman knelt over the wounded man, sobbing hysterically and then screaming in rage.
What the hell? Are these two assassins a couple?
Clark couldn’t see her, he could only hear her. He had no idea if there was a gun up there, so he retreated into the cockpit, directly below her.
Kate appeared in the companionway now, and tried to come up on deck, but Clark sent her back down, told her to take Noah back into the stateroom and lock the door.
This wasn’t over.
Clark knew he could fire through the ceiling again, and perhaps hit the woman, but if he missed he would go a long way toward revealing his exact location. Instead he moved out of the port side of the cockpit and tried to sneak a look above. Just as he did so, he saw the woman standing with a silver automatic pistol in her hands. Clark ducked back into the cockpit as a shot rang out. He had his Glock in his hand and pointed up at the ceiling, but he still didn’t dare fire up into the flying bridge above him, because she could easily return fire and kill him. He was a sitting duck below her.
As he considered retreating down to the saloon, the woman fired down, sending bullets into the sofa of the cockpit.
Clark aimed at the origin of the shots and opened fire now, dumping round after round straight up through the lacquered wood.
After nine shots he heard the woman’s pistol fall and bounce on the flying bridge above him. He ceased fire, listened as carefully as his assaulted eardrums would let him. Seconds later the woman fell off the bridge and onto the foredeck, slamming hard on her side. Clark kept his pistol on her as he approached, but soon he lowered it. She was unarmed, lying on her back with a gunshot to her stomach, and two more in her legs. Tears ran freely from her eyes, and blood filled her mouth.
Clark knelt down, laid the Glock on the deck behind him, well out of her reach, and lifted her by the head.
She looked up at Clark, blinked away tears. “Help me, sir. Please. I beg you.”
Clark didn’t know if there was much he could do, but he lowered her head back down and pulled out his emergency medical kit. There would be more first-aid supplies somewhere on the boat, but he didn’t want to take a chance looking for them. He opened a thick wad of bandages to put pressure on her stomach, then looked to the woman, saw her looking back at him through the tears. Clearly she realized she was being helped by the man she had just tried to kill, and she seemed surprised by this, but happy.
“Thank you, kind sir. Thank you so—”
Her eyes flitted away from Clark, focused to a point over his shoulder.
The eyes widened now. “No!”
Clark spun around on his knees. Above and behind him he saw Kate Walker, standing with the Glock pistol in her hand, leveled coolly at the wounded woman on the deck of the Spinnaker II.
“No one threatens my child and lives. No one.”
She fired once; the gun jerked and sprayed smoke and fire. Clark ducked down low, falling away from the wounded woman onto the deck. When he looked back, he saw that Kate had shot the woman high in the chest. Her eyes remained open, locked on the Australian mother standing above her, while a low, guttural gurgle came from deep in her throat.