“Alexis Schultz!” Sam’s mind cleared suddenly from the fog of misperceptions.
“Yes!” Margaret looked surprised. “How did you know she was aboard the Antarctic Solace?”
“Because she was the only person left on board when I reached it seven days ago.”
“Christ! She was there when you found it! Why didn’t you say? Where is she now?”
Sam grinned. It wasn’t every day he got to genuinely see the Secretary of State pleased about something. “On board the Maria Helena, why?”
“You left her alone?” She looked horrified.
“Yes, Genevieve’s there. Why?”
The Secretary of State stood up to move. “Because right now she’s probably the most dangerous person alive.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Genevieve was dicing vegetables in the kitchen of the Maria Helena. She’d developed a unique range of skills in life, but cooking had come naturally to her even before she started her apprenticeship under a three hatted French sous chef. Tonight she wasn’t cooking anything so difficult. Instead she was preparing a multitude of nutrient rich vegetables and diced bacon for minestrone soup. She’d already decided it was precisely what Sam and Alexis needed after the troubles of the past few days.
Okay, it was probably just what Sam needed. Alexis, she wasn’t so sure about. Alexis was lying on the couch in the living room opposite the kitchen and continued to read and then re-read several well-handled pages of a dead man’s journal. Over the course of the past hour Alexis had been insistent that she hear the thoughts of a troubled dead man who’d been in love. As far as Genevieve was concerned, Alexis looked as though her world had been crushed. It wasn’t just the news that her colleagues had been murdered. Everything about her life had been reduced to a wreckage of lies and deceit culminating into a field of missed opportunities.
Genevieve finished with the food prep. She quickly cleaned and dried the nine inch carbon fiber cutting knife before placing it in the top drawer. The bacon and finely chopped onions fried in a pan while the pasta boiled in the broth. Genevieve added the vegetables and adjusted the gas flame until the saucepan stopped boiling. Ten minutes later she tasted the soup with a wooden spoon. It lacked salt, she decided, but was otherwise perfect.
She heard the door to the outside deck open. “Is that you, Matthew? Dinner’s nearly ready, but I thought we’d wait until Sam, Veyron and Elise were back.”
Genevieve listened, but there was no reply.
Alexis sat up and frowned. “I’m sorry, did you ask me something? I’ve been such a wreck lately, it’s not like me.”
“No. I thought I heard Matthew.” Genevieve held out her hands in front of her to hush Alexis. Her instincts told her to listen hard — there were footsteps. They were quiet, but definitely inside the main cabin and they were coming towards them. She looked at Alexis and mouthed the words: “Hide. Now!”
Genevieve switched the gas burner underneath the pot of minestrone soup on to full. The flame hissed and began heating the liquid. She then turned to grab a knife or anything she could possibly use as a weapon — and was confronted by five frogmen.
They wore black dry-suits and military grade Viper S10 rebreathers. The sort of hard-surfaced, recirculating and fully enclosed breathing apparatus preferred by most navies. Their faces were concealed by reflective full faced dive masks. Each carried Heckler & Koch MP5s. She looked at the man closest to her. He had a single red band on his left shoulder and she wondered if he was in command. At a glance she noted the ambidextrous, four setting trigger position on his weapon was set towards the red number 30 — meaning it was positioned to fire in fully automatic mode.
She turned and smiled. Her striking blue eyes and short cropped hair made her appear elfish and gentle. She feigned a coy and polite smile. “May I help you gentlemen?” Her words were soft and clear, and showed no sign of concern, as though she’d expected their company for dinner. Perhaps she’d assumed they were part of the U.S. Navy SEAL’s teams.
The first frogman grabbed her without pausing to answer. She would have screamed if she were allowed, but a gloved hand smothered her mouth. Genevieve pretended to struggle for a moment and then let her muscles relax completely. She gave the appearance of being weak, vulnerable and docile. Like a woman brought to Antarctica only to cook and serve in a man’s world.
“I’m afraid we’re not here for dinner, darling,” the man said. His left arm held her; wrapped forcefully around her neck. “We won’t be long. We’ve come for Alexis and then we’ll be on our way. If I take my hand off your mouth, are you going to scream or do anything stupid to alert the rest of the crew?”
Genevieve tasted the saltwater on the gloved hand still stifling her mouth and making it difficult to breathe. Unable to speak, she shook her head.
“Good.” He pressed the barrel of the MP5 into her back hard, for good measure. “No need for anyone as pretty as you to get hurt.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, subserviently.
“Now I need you to call for Alexis. We know she’s down here.” He relaxed the pressure of his left arm on her throat.
“She’s no longer on board,” Genevieve said. “She went over to the Antarctic Solace with one of the other members of our crew.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” The man tightened his grip on her neck. “Because that means we’re going to have to go over there to get her and I’m afraid we can’t have you tipping anyone off about us coming — so I’m going to have to kill you.”
Genevieve felt the barrel move up to her chest and said nothing.
“It sure is a waste to destroy something so beautiful!”
“Stop it!” Alexis screamed and crawled out from behind the couch. “Leave her alone. I’m the one you need.”
“Right you are, Alexis.”
Two of the five men quickly grabbed her. The other two guarded the exit. The fifth person, the one who still held Genevieve, barked the order, “Bind her wrists, and attach the weight — then we’re out of here.”
The two men holding Alexis bound her wrists with cable ties. The shorter of the two then removed three lead dive weights from his dive belt and bound them to her ankles. He then released a large amount of air from his buoyancy control device so he would remain neutrally buoyant.
Alexis wriggled. “No. Please, I don’t want to drown!”
“Quiet!” The Frogman next to Alexis demanded. “You’re not gonna drown. Not just yet, anyway. You’re too important to HIM!”
Genevieve looked at Alexis as two Frogmen dragged her towards the exit. Her mouth set hard; bile rising in her throat. “Sit tight, Alexis. We’re going to get you back to us — that’s a promise.”
The man holding her throat laughed. “That’s cute. Real cute. I doubt it’s true though — not once you see where we’re taking her. No one’s coming for her.”
“No?” Genevieve said. “Are you sure about that?”
The now-boiling saucepan of minestrone soup bubbled over, sending hot splutters of scalding water on to both her and her attacker’s legs and arms. Genevieve threw herself backwards as they were both burnt. In the process, her right hand gripped his dive knife, which was attached to his chest by a short nylon lanyard.
“Shit!” The Frogman held her tight. “Stupid bitch tried to burn me. Pretty stupid. What did you think you were going to do, use the boiling water to disarm the five of us?”
The other men laughed at her.
“No. Of course not.” Genevieve shook her head meekly. “That would be impossible with a pot of boiling water.”