Inexplicably — maybe even unreasonably — Scorpion’s words stung her. She looked to David, but he’d already broken eye contact and was on his way back to the others.
She’d never felt more alone.
Boxers looked happy as hell to be back in the driver’s seat. He drove the eight-year-old nondescript Chevy crew cab at posted speeds and obeyed every traffic sign. The nightmare scenarios lay in unanticipated turns of fate. In this case, the worst of the worst would be some kind of routine traffic stop where they were found to be carrying an arsenal of weapons and explosives.
The mood inside the vehicle was dark with anticipation, but Jonathan sensed something more.
“Don’t think badly about her, David,” he said. “She got spooked. No shame in that. Better to find out now than when we’re in the thick of things.” He turned in his shotgun seat to address David and the First Lady face-to-face in the back. “But she’s the one, understand? We had one extra set of hands, which means that only one person had the luxury of backing out. She took that off the table for both of you.”
“You give a lot of lectures to people,” Yelena said. “Did you know that?”
Jonathan smiled. “Ma’am, I’ve seen shit go wrong in a thousand different ways, and I’ve never seen them go wrong the same way twice. When that happens, there’s only two ways to go. You can panic and die, or you can improvise intelligently. The lectures are meant to scare you into being decisive if the time comes.”
“Decisive about what?” David asked.
“About taking action. About trusting your gut and never acting out of fear. If you have to run away, run away, but don’t turn your back on the guy who wants to shoot you. And for God’s sake, if it comes to that, be the one who pulls the trigger first.”
Jonathan thought it notable that Yelena’s eyes showed no emotion. They were the eyes of a hardened warrior, so focused on the mission that risks didn’t matter. David, on the other hand, looked like a kid in a classroom trying to memorize every word for an upcoming exam.
“Remember,” Jonathan said, “Nine times out often, if you need to shoot, all you need to do is throw a lot of lead downrange. If our really spotty intel is correct, there will be exactly four good guys on the island, and that’ll be the PCs, Big Guy, and me. Try really hard not to shoot us.”
“I’m going to try really hard not to shoot anybody,” David said. He cringed after he said it, probably because of the way the words echoed those of his girlfriend. Or whatever the hell she was to him.
“Not shooting at anybody is even better,” Jonathan said. “After we launch the boat, your job is to get the hell out of Ottawa and into Quebec. Do not speed, do not allow your firearms to show, and in general try to be invisible.”
“How long do we wait?” Yelena asked.
Jonathan didn’t understand the question.
“On the other side,” she expanded. “How will we know if we’ve waited too long?”
“Jesus, lady,” Boxers said. “They’re your blood. You tell me.”
“I don’t think she’s talking about running away,” Jonathan said. “I think she’s wondering how long to wait before she takes the fight directly to the bad guys.”
She nodded.
“I don’t have an answer for you,” Jonathan said.
“If it comes to that, we’re going to be very far out of position,” Yelena said. “We couldn’t possibly help you from the other side of the river.”
Jonathan’s gut flipped. He didn’t like people messing with his plans. “Mrs. Darmond, with all respect, if Big Guy and I can’t handle this rescue, there’s not much that you’ll be able to add.”
“I can add firepower.”
“You can stick to the damn plan,” Jonathan said. He felt anger rising. “When we come out of there, and the world is on fire, we’re going to be outnumbered by a lot to one. Our only advantage is confusion and speed. We’re going to get in that boat, and we’re going to scream across six hundred yards of open water. That shouldn’t take more than a minute or two, once we’re in the boat. Your grandson is going to be cold and he may be wet, and he’s definitely going to be traumatized. Do not leave us waiting.”
Yelena’s eyes never changed. “I hear you,” she said.
“And you’ll do it.”
“I’ll make sure she does,” David said.
Somehow, that didn’t make Jonathan feel any better.
Len Shaw checked his watch for the thousandth time. The transfer trucks were due anytime now. Against his wishes, Dmitri had dictated that the shipments be made all at once, rather than piecemeal, which would have been Len’s preference. Dmitri’s feeling was that it was better to open the doors one time and monitor the exchange of materials in one continuous flow.
Len understood the logic of that — in fact he had difficulty articulating an argument against it — but he was concerned about the appearances of it all.
Saint Stephen’s Island lived largely unmolested, as its own entity in the middle of the Canadian capital. Police rarely ventured out here, and when they did, it was always during the day, and it was more out of curiosity than any professional concern.
Now, Dmitri was committing them to long motorcades of traffic with dozens of voices all rising past the limits of the walls to bounce across the water to raise people’s curiosity. Len worried that curiosity would lead to concern, which would lead to a telephone call to the police, which would in turn vastly complicate everything. Dmitri wouldn’t hesitate an instant to engage the police in a gun battle. In Dmitri’s mind — the mind that was so poisoned by Soviet indoctrination and so encouraged by the new power grabs by the Russian leadership — hurting Canada was the same as hurting the United States.
Dmitri had reached that point in his life when he just wanted to hurt people. It was unfortunate that at that precise moment, Len had reached the point in his own life when he treasured peace over war.
And now, on top of all the weapons, he had to deal with celebrity prisoners. That was sheer madness. The stepson of the president of the United States. Rationalize as you wish that the Americans were powerless to react to this affront, but the reality was that Dmitri had poked a stick directly into the most secure hornet’s nest on the planet, and it was unreasonable not to expect consequences.
Soon, though, it would end. In less than an hour, the trucks would arrive. Among the trucks would be a van that would spirit the Mishins on to their next station, wherever that was, and come dawn, Len’s life would settle back to something that resembled normalcy.
Then, two days later, America would be under attack.
Mother Russia would once again be feared, and her allies — Iran, Syria, Lebanon, China (an ally not yet to be trusted) — would make the moves they’d been waiting for a generation to make, without fear of retribution. NATO and Israel growled like fearless dogs when their American handlers were firmly in their corner, but would they be so bold if the Americans slid into isolationism? Or, as one of Len’s favorite Western expressions went, would their asses be able to cash the checks their mouths had written?
He suspected not. Certainly, his handlers in Moscow suspected not.
When it all was done, all Len wanted out of this life was to be able to turn this remarkable island into the tourist attraction it had the capability to become.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Boxers piloted the Chevy around the curve on Ottawa River Parkway, and as he slowed to take the truck and the boat over the curve to head toward the water, he corrected abruptly to the left and continued around the circle to take another pass.
“I had someone on my tail,” he explained.