“He’ll kill her and try to kill you no matter what we do,” Calvin said.
“That’s why we need to stall and control the situation as much as possible. He’s using Cait to lure me in.”
Calvin’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “And we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find him.”
“I never expected Cait to be in the middle, but he’s not the only one who knows how to set a hook.” He handed his phone to Calvin and opened the box on the seat next to him. He lifted out the scepter and held it up.
“Say cheese,” Calvin said. The phone’s camera flashed.
Hawkins sent the photo to Cait’s phone. Marzak wasted no time calling back.
“Congratulations, Hawkins. You have succeeded where I failed.”
“Dumb luck, Marzak. Here’s the deal. I give you the scepter. I get Cait. Alive.”
“You must think a lot of Dr. Everson to give up something worth millions.”
“It’s nothing to me. My mission was to find the treasure, not decide what to do with it. I’ll need time, though.”
“Make it fast. You’re not the only one who’s impatient.”
“True, but we are both realists. I’m in an airplane on my way from Colorado. We’re not due to land for another couple of hours. Pick a place for the exchange that’s not far from Washington.”
“I’ll call later with the location.”
Hawkins had no intention of improvising his plans last-minute.
“Uh-uh. Now or never.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, then Marzak said, “We will meet in three hours at the old Kurtz yacht. It’s on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Come alone.”
He gave Hawkins directions.
“I’ll be there with the scepter,” Hawkins said.
Cait’s phone went dead.
Hawkins had a determined set to his prominent jaw. “You heard him. We’ve only got a few hours to put this thing together. Marzak will spend that time setting the trap with Cait as the cheese.”
“He’ll be a lot more careful than the last time we met him,” Calvin said.
Hawkins placed the scepter back into its box. “Yes, but this little bauble has a way of clouding a man’s mind. We can use Marzak’s scepter obsession against him. And he doesn’t know about our secret weapon.”
“That’s good, man.” Calvin wrinkled his nose. “Only I didn’t know we had one.”
Hawkins cocked his ear to the soft snores coming from the sleeping women. “Actually, we have two.”
The old yacht had so many possibilities for an ambush that Marzak had difficulty narrowing them down. As he walked onto the rotting hull he focused on two potentials. The strategic and the poetic.
He scouted the woods around the wreck but it was obvious that anyone trying to come that way would have to cross the marsh and hack his way through heavy undergrowth.
Carrying a leather satchel, he walked out onto a rickety pier. Hawkins and his friend were former navy SEALs and a water approach was not out of the question, but the soft muck of the mud flats bordering the shore cut down possible access. Anyone coming from the bay would have to use the dock.
He retraced his steps and found a loose plank around half way back. He pulled it up, armed a small but powerful mine and slipped it under the board. The weight of a footstep on or even near the board would depress the pressure plate and trigger the explosion.
He went back to the yacht and strolled through the dining room. A few feet from the bar he detected a sponge-softness to the deck. He pried up several planks. A miasma of rotting plants rose through the opening. He explored the bilge with a flashlight, then he removed several supporting boards and replaced the single layer of deck.
In his mind, he created the poetic scene that would greet Hawkins.
Hawkins would drive down the only road, park, and walk into the yacht. He would be armed, of course. Marzak would be surprised if he weren’t. Hawkins would approach the bar with scepter in hand and fall through the deck to his armpits. Marzak would pluck the scepter from his hands and proceed to kill him after they had a talk.
Sheer poetry.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Though Hawkins was painfully aware that the gang of misfits at his command was no SEAL Team Six, he could not have been prouder, or more amazed, at the way they had come together in Afghanistan. But for all his brave talk about secret weapons, he knew that the rescue attempt needed the skills of an elite counter-terrorism team versed in the refined elements of assault, like the group that took down Bin laden.
Marzak was a ruthless and experienced opponent and the fact that he had a hostage complicated things exponentially. Cait would be caught between competing forces. Luck simply could not be part of the equation. Nor could blunt force.
Hawkins had designed dozens of SEAL missions. Some had succeeded. Some hadn’t. But every one of them was a work of art as well as an exercise in military science. He knew that a successful mission had to be a combination of desperate creativeness and painstaking planning.
“We’re going by the book,” Hawkins said. “First, Molly,” he turned to Sutherland, who was munching on her second blueberry muffin, “you’re intel. We’ll need an instant summary of everything there is to know about the Kurtz yacht.”
“I’ve already got a folder in my Prester John file.”
“Good. Narrow it down to what we need.”
Sutherland stuffed her mouth full of muffin and booted up her computer.
“Next, operational strategy. It has to be delicate. I’ve—”
Abby cut him off. “C’mon, Matt. You’re stating the obvious. We’re all very aware that we can’t bomb the crap out of the target and then send in the marines. The objective is simple. Get in. Neutralize Marzak. Save Cait. Get out.”
“That’s about right, Abby.” Hawkins silently cursed the insanity that had persuaded him to reunite with his ex-wife. “But if you’ll let me continue, I’ve already ruled out dropping in by fast-rope.”
“Not fast enough,” Calvin said. “Marzak would have too much warning.”
Hawkins said, “A land assault would be limited as well. Not enough options. My guess is that, no matter how I come at him, Marzak will use Cait to draw me in where he’ll have something nasty planned.”
Sutherland had been listening with one ear. Not taking her eyes off the screen, she said, “Here’s the CV on the yacht. Steel-hulled, built by Camper and Nicholson boatyard back in 1919. One of their early diesels, switching over from steam engines. It was a hundred-forty-five feet long. Here’s a photo.”
The computer screen showed a white yacht with a single smokestack, three decks and the almost straight-up-and-down bow typical of ships of its day. There were several photos of the luxurious interior, with its classic salon and spacious stateroom.
“How did the yacht get to Maryland?” he asked.
“After Hiram died his family sold it. It was used as a cruise boat on the Chesapeake, then went to a buyer who gutted the interior and turned the yacht into a waterside restaurant. The owner went bankrupt, the restaurant closed and it went into real estate trust. This picture shows the yacht in 1979.”
“Ouch,” Calvin said. “The old gal must have had some hard times.”
The paint on the vessel had peeled off and huge rusty blotches ravaged the hull like the effects of disease. The tall windows were broken. Sections of deck had been unevenly cut away with torches.
“Got anything on the restaurant interior?” Hawkins asked.
Sutherland clicked the computer cursor. “These photos are from a newspaper article.”
The grainy black-and-white pictures showed the dining room and the bar. Hawkins paid particular attention to a diagram of the restaurant’s lay-out.