Cranes hoisted buoys that resembled plastic orange garbage cans up the side of the Custom Venture.
“Buoys away. The rest is ready?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir,” Captain Chu said. “Chains have been connected between the three steel crates. I verified the detonator. My partner will set it.”
“Very well. I have one order of business left. Send two inflatable life rafts down to my deck. After that’s done, tell the ship’s crew to slack the mooring lines so I can cast off. I’ve been surfaced too long already.”
Over the Colorado, a bright yellow barrel — a pneumatically inflatable raft — dangled in a webbed cargo net. As the raft touched down, Jake watched McKenzie help two commandos hold it steady. The crane released the webbing and rose to retrieve another raft.
McKenzie and the commandos rolled the rafts into the vacant buoy holes, bolted the buoy hatches over them, and prepared the Colorado’s topside to submerge again.
“Captain, make sure you follow my plan,” Jake said as he watched McKenzie shut the hatch and seal the Colorado.
“Detonation will occur twelve hours from now,” Chu said. “I will see to it.”
“I hope so. If not, you might want to stay on the higher decks. Because if I don’t hear crates hitting the water within the hour, I will be pumping this ship full of torpedoes. Now get this ship out of my way, and make sure its rudder is over hard right so you don’t scrape my hull.”
Jake led Renard down through the sail as the Custom Venture slipped away from the Colorado. He stared at the ship’s control panel and McKenzie’s grime-covered face. Cheetah and Tiger were seated at the control yokes, and the rest of the commandos had assembled to observe.
“The bridge is sealed, Scott. Fill all tanks.”
Two hours after surfacing, the Trident slipped beneath the water.
Illuminated by floodlights, a crane swung a three-crate network containing the Colorado’s identification buoys across the Custom Venture’s deck. The crane lowered the network into the ocean, releasing it to Jake’s calculations and the laws of physics.
Captain Chu watched the first crate, filled with sand, slide under the ocean surface. Dragged by the first, the empty second crate followed. The final crate, empty sans the Colorado’s buoys and a depth charge strapped to its wall, kept the network afloat.
“The depth charge is pressure activated, sir,” Chu said. “It will not detonate on the surface.”
“You leave me no choice but to share your optimism,” Captain Martino said.
“Our work here is complete,” Chu said. “You may now continue your voyage to Marseille. My partner and I will be your personal escorts for the remainder of the voyage.”
CHAPTER 21
Wearing a trench coat over a charcoal Brooks Brothers sport coat and a black turtleneck, Grant Mercer sauntered out of the Windsor Hilton lobby in blue jeans and snakeskin boots. Stubble covered his chin and he was wearing dark sunglasses. A clip-on earring with a silver cross hung from his ear.
Mercer had driven the used Accord along I-94 to Detroit and had crossed the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor, Ontario. Once in Canada, he had dyed his hair from chestnut to sandy blond. Although he stood to gain great riches, he had tried to talk his friend out of stealing the Colorado.
He had expected Jake to fail and die, and when Jake had called him from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Mercer thought it had been the voice of a ghost. Worse, in his paranoia, he feared it might have been a federal agent simulating Jake’s voice.
Thoughts of ghosts and paranoia vanished as Mercer reached a street corner payphone and called his bank.
Jake had trusted him to receive each Taiwanese payment into his account and then divvy up each accomplice’s share. McKenzie, Bass, and Gant would each keep ten percent of the payments, Mercer twenty, and Jake fifty.
Mercer verified the latest payment.
“My account shows a deposit of forty million dollars, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” said an operator with a European accent Mercer couldn’t place.
Ten million down, and now forty more, he thought. And we’re only half way through.
“Good,” he said. “I’d like to make a few transfers to other accounts in your bank.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and read the account number written next to the name ‘McKenzie’.
“Four million to account number seven-three-two-four-four-nine dash seven-three-three.”
He continued with four million-dollar transfers for Gant and Bass. The last name on his list was Slate’s.
I could keep Jake’s twenty million for myself, he thought. Shit, I bet I could still take back the twelve from the other guys.
“Sir?” the operator asked.
“Yeah… hold on… I’m thinking,” he said.
Greed is good, he thought. But loyalty is better.
He decided to let Jake have his money.
“Okay, let’s transfer twenty million to fund number four-eight-eight-five-four dash seven-three-seven.”
Mercer waited for the confirmation.
“That’s it. Thank you,” he said.
Okay, Jake, he thought, I’m still with you.
With intent of leaving his Honda behind, Mercer drove to a used car lot. As he stepped out of the Accord, a fat man with slick hair approached him.
“What are you looking for?” the beer-bellied salesman asked.
“Look, man, a buddy of mine saw my wife and some guy making out in this car last week. I’ve had troubles with that bitch before, and I don’t want her getting this car in the divorce. It’s in decent shape.”
“Let me check her out,” the fat salesman said.
As the salesman checked out the Accord, Mercer decided to postpone the purchase of his next car. Better to clear his tracks by dumping his car here and getting the next one elsewhere.
“It’s not in too bad shape,” the salesman said. “I can take it. You want to use it as a trade in?”
“No,” Mercer said. “I just want to put this nightmare behind me.”
After paying American cash for a Ford Taurus on a second used car lot, Mercer drove along Route 401 toward Toronto. As the bleak sun backlit flat farmland, he reconsidered the dangerous role awaiting him if he continued to help Jake.
Signs indicated a handful of kilometers to Toronto, and Mercer faced a decision. He contemplated abandoning Jake for a life of independent wealth in Canada. He could continue to Montreal or even Quebec City, settle down, learn French, and enjoy his wealth. No one would find him.
As the off ramp for Route 400 north approached, Mercer remembered having promised Jake that he would go the distance. But by going the distance, Canada wouldn’t be far enough away to hide.
Mercer swallowed, uttered a curse, and chose to keep his promise. He turned onto Route 400 and pointed his Taurus at Ontario’s sparsely populated regions. At the top of the Great Lakes, he would then double back west — and then north — en route to Alaska.
By turning onto Route 400, Mercer had committed. With one hundred sixty-four thousand dollars in American cash and thirty-eight hundred Canadian, Mercer headed down the slippery slope of no return.
In his stateroom, Brody spoke with the Miami’s executive officer.
“Pete, I need you to be ready to do me a favor.”