“I may need some tools.”
“Briggs, I’m starting to get scared. I was scared before but it was fuzzy, like I was watching it all through a camera.”
This was both a good sign and a troubling one, Tanner realized. He’d been through it himself. His sudden appearance in Lorient had jarred her. Reality was slipping back into focus. With it, however, would come an awareness of what she’d gotten herself into. There was little Briggs could do to forestall it.
He reached through the gap and gripped her hand. “It’s okay. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get through this. Before you know it, you’ll be back home.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. You can do this, Susanna.”
“Someone’s coming,” she rasped. She pulled her hand free and slipped away.
Just before dawn she returned, shoved a cloth bundle, through the gap, then disappeared again.
Inside the bundle Tanner found a bottle of water, three slices of bread, two apples, and an empty liter bottle he assumed Susanna intended as a latrine. Tanner found himself smiling; this was the Susanna he knew: always thoughtful, always pragmatic. He ate the apple, took a few sips of water, and set the rest aside.
The day passed without incident. Several times he heard footsteps outside his cave and voices speaking in German, but they never lingered for more than a few minutes. By mid-morning the sun had risen high enough that patches of sunlight found their way into the cave. He adjusted his body to take advantage of the warmth and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing and watching the sky pass overhead.
By mid-afternoon they’d been at sea nearly sixteen hours. By his calculations they were probably somewhere off Bordeaux, approaching the northern coast of Spain. A sharp breeze had kicked up and the air seemed warmer.
As darkness fell, Susanna returned. “How are you?” she asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” Tanner replied. “Thanks for the supplies.”
“I got a look at the door to the hold. The padlock on it is bigger than my fist. I don’t see how you can get through it.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Something else: We’re making a stop later tonight. I overheard the captain and Litzman talking. I think we’re picking someone up near Saint Sebastian.”
“Any idea who?”
“If I had to guess I’d say Jurgen. Litzman sent him on an errand a few days ago. He’s the only one missing.”
“Where’d he go?”
“That much I know: Tangier. I also stole another look at the chart, but there’s still nothing marked beyond Gibraltar.”
“That’s fine,” Tanner said. “You’re doing great.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“A pillow?”
“I’ll try—”
“I’m kidding, Susanna. I’m okay. Worry about taking care of yourself.”
Shortly after midnight, Tanner came awake. The freighter’s engines had changed pitch, then died, followed a minute later by the clatter of the anchor chain running out. Above, the sky was clear. He could see a slice of white moon.
In the distance he heard the sound of a motorboat approaching. The engine faded to an idle off the port beam, where it puttered softly for a few minutes before revving up again and speeding away. Footsteps clanged on the accommodation ladder.
“Willkommen, Jurgen!” Briggs heard, followed by a quick exchange he couldn’t follow.
Another voice said, “Ist es bereit?” It’s ready?
“Ja, es ist unten.” Yes, it’s below.
The conversation tapered off as the men walked away. A hatch slammed shut.
A few minutes later footsteps approached Tanner’s cave and stopped. One of the crates shifted. Tanner’s heart leapt into his throat. He heard the flick of a lighter, then smelled cigarette smoke. A pair of voices began murmuring in German.
The Sorgia began wallowing. Before Tanner could react, an apple slipped from his bundle, rolled across the deck, and slipped through one of the gaps.
“What’s that?” a voice said in German.
No, no, no …
“Someone must have dropped it,” the other man replied. “It’s yours now.”
“My lucky day.”
Tanner let his breath out.
With a crash, the crates tumbled around him. Tanner found himself staring into the glare of a flashlight. To his right he could make out the tip of a rifle barrel leveled with his head.
“Stehen Sie auf!” voices shouted. “Hände hoch!”
Tanner raised his hands and stood up. From out of the darkness he saw a rifle butt arching toward his head. He tried to duck, but was too slow. He felt himself falling backward. Everything went dark.
25
Marseilles, France
Courtesy of Walter Oaken, FedEx, and the all-night internet cafe Cahil used to transmit updated photos of himself back to Holystone, sixteen hours after parting company with Tanner in Lorient, he was armed with a new passport and international driver’s license.
He caught the afternoon AOM shuttle from Lorient to Marseilles’s Marigane Airport.
Oaken’s search for the name Fikret Zukic had turned up only one hit in Marseilles, which didn’t surprise Cahil. Aside from the basics — name, address, and nationality (Zukic was a naturalized French citizen, having emigrated from Sarajevo three years earlier) — Oaken found little information on the man. Zukic had no arrest record in either France or Bosnia; he wasn’t on any Western intelligence agency’s watch list; and he had no credit history.
According to Oaken, Marseilles had a significant Balkan immigrant population, many of whom lived in near-poverty conditions. Several Marseilles neighborhoods well known as enclaves for immigrants bore the names of their home countries: Little Sarajevo, Zagreb City, Ville Tirana. These were tight-knit communities that mixed little with the rest of the city — let alone the police — so for Fikret Zukic to be something of a mystery wasn’t surprising.
Oaken arranged for Cahil a meeting with a U.S. naval commander assigned to the consulate’s NCIS, or Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which wore a lot of hats for the consulate, including that of counterintelligence. If anyone had a feel for the shadowy side of Marseilles’s Balkan community, Oaken explained, it would be this man. How he knew the Navy man or how he’d finagled the meeting, Cahil didn’t know. It was, he suspected, yet another example of what Briggs had long ago named the “Walter Oaken Secret Friends Network.”
As Cahil stepped off the jetway, a man standing beside the cordon raised a single finger and gave him a nod. Cahil shook the extended hand. The man said, “Alex?”
The name caught Cahil off guard for a moment before he remembered Oaken had renamed him for the passport. “Right. Thanks for meeting me.”
“No problem. Call me Bob.”
Bob was dressed in blue jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and hiking boots. His hair, Cahil noticed, extended well below his collar. Whatever role Bob played at the NCIS, Bear guessed it rarely involved the wearing of a uniform. “Got any luggage?” Bob asked.
Cahil nodded to his duffel. “Just this.”
“Good, come on. I’ve got a car waiting.”
Bob drove him into Marseilles proper and parked in the Old Port, near the Panier, a collection of medieval-esque neighborhoods between the Town Hall and the Vieille Charite. As he climbed out of the car, Cahil could see the Panier’s tightly packed and colorful houses rising up the hillside, seemingly stacked one on top of the other.
“Some of the brick in there is over three hundred years old,” Bob said as they started walking.