Hawkins took his time examining the yacht from stem to stern through the monocular, letting his gaze linger at each of the vacant windows. All was quiet except for the ka-chunk of a bullfrog’s bass against the soprano insect chorus. Hawkins started walking slowly toward the boat only to halt after a few steps. The phone in his pocket was vibrating.
“Right on time, Hawkins,” said the voice at the other end of the line.
“Hello, Marzak.” He squinted through the monocular. “This place suits you.”
“It appealed to my sense of the poetic. Dark and mysterious, like the human soul.”
“Actually, I was thinking about how it smells rotten.” Hawkins slid the scepter from his shoulder and held the jewel-encrusted relic above his head. “Let’s do the deal, Marzak.”
“Yes, let’s. Walk toward the boat and climb onto the deck at the mid-ships gangway.”
Hawkins lowered the scepter and slung it over his shoulder again. His hand dropped to his pistol holster and unsnapped the flap as he approached the base of the wooden gangway. He tested it with his foot to see if it would support his weight. The planks sagged and groaned, but didn’t break, so he continued onto the deck and stood in front of the doorway leading to the dining room.
The stench that issued from the dark portal was a combination of mold, rotted wood and bird and animal droppings.
This must be what the doorway to hell looks like, he thought.
Calvin was less worried about Marzak than the mud.
After he had surfaced and called Hawkins, he had slipped off his re-breather and put it and the Pegasus in the raft. Calvin hauled on the tow rope and pulled the raft with him through the saw grass until the water was less than half a foot deep.
It was no use, though. The muck was like quicksand. He pulled back until the water deepened and heaved himself onto the raft which sank almost to the bottom with only a few inches to spare.
He paddled through the grass until the front of the raft bumped into something hard. He reached out and found the edge of the floating platform that had been connected to the permanent dock. It rested on the mud with no room underneath for booby traps. The plastic foam pontoons sank even deeper into the mud when he rolled from the raft onto the platform. He placed the Pegasus unit and SCUBA gear on the platform.
He examined the old pier the platform had been secured to. The dock had once been level, elevated around four feet between twin lines of pilings, but now broken sections of planking sagged all along its length. He leaned over and looked at the underside of the stationary pier.
A red dot glowed beneath the dock. He rolled off the platform into the mud and slithered closer until he was under a small black box attached to a cigarette-sized packet of plastic explosives.
His eyes followed a wire that disappeared through the boards. Probably attached to a pressure plate device.
He checked for other booby traps and found none, and then he pushed himself back through the mud and climbed onto the platform. Calvin heaved the waterproof bag from the raft onto the floating dock and unzipped it, revealing what looked like a miniature tank.
The PackBot had been waiting at the airport as Kelly had promised. The machine was a mobile robot that had been developed by a company called IRobot and its first operational job was to probe the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Later, it was given to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Calvin and Hawkins had been introduced to it as a way to see into enemy caves without getting their heads blown off. But its most popular use was by soldiers who employed the tough little robots to clear away Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs as they were called.
The forty-two pound robot was about the size of a lawnmower without the handle, and it moved on polymer tracks that were designed to flip up and down, allowing the machine to climb stairs or rocks and even go underwater. Calvin unpacked the joystick controller and switched on the PakBot’s batteries.
With the gear removed, the raft might be buoyant enough now to skim over the shallow water to the shore. He radioed Hawkins with an update and then turned his attention back to the robot.
No SEAL operation Hawkins had ever been involved in had gone off without a glitch. Including this one. He thought he had prepared for every eventuality only to discover that he was wrong.
As Hawkins stood on the deck in front of the door to the yacht’s interior, Marzak called again.
“Welcome aboard, Hawkins. Come in. Don’t be shy.”
“Let’s deal out here in the open, Marzak. I want you where I can see you.”
“You’re being disingenuous, Hawkins. You’ve been using a night vision device. You’re also armed, no doubt. So what are you worrying about?”
“I jump at shadows. Sometimes I shoot at them.”
Marzak chuckled. “I’ll light the way for you. Keep your phone on.”
A moment later there was a soft flickering glow in the windows.
Marzak’s order to keep the phone on hadn’t been in the plans. Hawkins’ intention was to keep in touch with Calvin on their radios until the last second when he could signal that the time was right.
He had to alert Calvin that the plan had changed. He switched on the radio so Calvin could hear his every word and said, “I’m coming in, Marzak.”
Then he stepped through the doorway.
He saw the source of the light. A dozen votive candles were arranged in two clusters on the bar. One group of candles was burning at Cait’s head and the other at her feet. She was covered with a sheet.
Marzak had turned the bar into an altar. He stood behind Cait like the high priest at a pagan sacrificial ritual. He wore a sweatshirt with the hood over his head, intensifying the image. The candlelight reflected off the shiny blades of a long, two-edged knife he held raised in his hand.
“Where should I start carving? Would you like a wing or a leg, Hawkins?”
Hawkins kept his eye on the knife. Marzak could lop off Cait’s head in the time it would take to draw his pistol. He forced a laugh.
“Very theatrical. What are you supposed to be, some sort of satanic demi-god?”
Marzak pushed the hood back. Grotesque shadows danced on his face.
“Is this devilish enough for you?”
“Now you look like a creep out of a Grade B horror movie.”
Marzak’s smile suggested that he was more amused than insulted by the comment.
“I’m not the only one with a flair for theatrics. I recall the elaborate helmet you wore when you almost shot me down in Afghanistan. That was quite the close call. You nearly killed me.”
“That was my intention.”
Marzak chuckled and said, “Let bygones be bygones. Please step forward and hand me the scepter. Then I’ll back away. The woman will be yours.”
Hawkins clutched the scepter closer to his chest. “Not yet. I want to make sure she’s alive.”
“See for yourself.” Marzak moved back from the bar, putting himself at the edge of the halo of light.
Hawkins took another step toward the altar. He tried not to stare at Cait’s face. He had to be alert to his surroundings. The sacrificial offering, the candles, the sly tone of Marzak’s voice, all screamed the word trap at him. He had to stall until he figured it out.
“We’ve got more to talk about first, Marzak. The professor told me about the Prophet’s Necklace.”
“I’m not surprised. The professor seemed a man of divided loyalties. What did he tell you?”
“That the necklace is a string of sarin-laden explosives you placed near crowded population centers. And that you are the only one that can set them off. He called it connecting the strands and that it could be done with a phone call.”