If some eggs had to be broken, that was sometimes what it took to make an omelet, and Monroe had no sympathy for collateral damage. He wasn’t given to introspection; there would be time enough for that on Judgment Day.
Until then, he would follow orders.
Today, that meant turning over a man who’d done his country proud with the SEALs to the Indian police — a man who was guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that he’d recently become rich and celebrated didn’t alter Monroe’s decision. He would do what was required to keep his secrets, and if this Everett Spencer had to pay the price, it was out of his hands.
He opened another file and studied a photograph of a young Spencer, in his early twenties, hair clipped in a buzz cut, steel in his gaze — a poster boy for the SEALs, had they desired one. Monroe scanned his background and reread three newspaper articles about his startling South American find. In the clipping photos, Spencer stood by the side of a younger man with the slacker look of youth these days, his arm around the man’s shoulder as both beamed at the camera, instant billionaires from their good fortune.
“Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted,” Monroe whispered, and then closed the file and slid it into a desk drawer, his attention required now on other matters — this one a foregone conclusion. He stood and marched to the door, his posture ramrod straight, and called for his secretary; his meeting with Pakistani intelligence was only minutes away. “Get the Jeep warmed up. I’m on my way!” he said, and with a final glance at the photo of his younger self, swung the door open and stepped over the threshold, a man who did his duty with the fearless determination of a bird of prey.
Chapter 18
Running footsteps sounded from the houseboat deck as Drake and Allie scanned a website while seated at the dining room table. The door burst open and Roland stood in the gap, an alarmed expression on his weathered face and a handheld police scanner in his right hand.
“We have to get out of here. The cops will be here in two minutes,” he warned.
Spencer hurried from the bathroom, his newly darkened skin shining with perspiration. “How did they find us?”
“I don’t know. But they did.”
Allie darted into her bedroom and returned with her bag a moment later. Drake scooped up her tablet and handed it to her, and she dropped it into a zippered compartment before turning to Roland.
“Where to?”
“We can’t drive out of here. There’s only one road, and they’ve already got a car watching it,” Roland said. The scanner hissed with static, and then a voice spoke in Hindi. He listened to the burst of jabber and shook his head. “They’re almost here.”
Allie turned to Drake and Spencer. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll find another way. How about footpaths?” Spencer asked.
“No, they all terminate at the same point on the road,” Roland said.
“Follow me,” Drake said, and rushed past the Frenchman into the sweltering afternoon sunlight.
Spencer and Allie were close behind, and they quickly eyed the other houseboats; any occupants were inside, out of the heat. Brown water foamed around the hulls in the mild current, and Drake’s eyes settled on a skiff tied to one of the houseboats upstream from them. Its hull was scarred, the paint blistered from the river water, and a few inches of leakage rolled in the bottom of the craft as it tugged at its line.
He pointed at the boat. “That’s our way out.”
Spencer nodded. “How do you want to do this?”
“Only one of us needs to climb aboard and untie it. Then we can get in from here.”
“I’ll go,” Spencer said, and before Drake could say anything, he was loping down the gangplank.
Drake eyed Roland as Spencer made his way onto the neighboring boat. “What about you?”
The Frenchman shrugged. “They aren’t looking for me. I won’t have a problem.”
Allie appeared relieved. “Good. I don’t think that thing could fit four of us.”
The sound of motors from the dirt road drifted to them, and Drake urged Spencer to greater speed with a stage whisper. “Hurry up. They’re almost on top of us.”
Spencer piloted the boat to where Drake and Allie were waiting and lashed the skiff to the railing with the bow line. Allie tossed him her bag and hopped aboard. The small craft rocked crazily, and then Drake was by her side. Spencer cast off the line and pushed the boat as hard as he could into the channel.
“No oars,” he explained as they drifted away.
“Figures,” Allie grumbled, and Drake motioned to their houseboat.
“They must have tracked Carson’s phone somehow,” he said.
“Crap. I should have thought of that,” Spencer said. “Of course. If they suspected I had it…”
“Why didn’t they come sooner?” Allie asked.
“It wasn’t on,” Drake explained. “I powered it up at the morgue.”
Spencer held out his hand. “Let me have it.”
Drake obliged, and Spencer shut it off. “Throw it overboard,” Allie suggested.
“No. We might want to use it later, as a decoy. If I toss it, we lose that option.”
“Are you sure?” Drake asked.
“Waste not…” Spencer felt around in the bow and freed a greasy tarp that stank of fish and rot. “Get down as low as you can. We can’t all stay out of sight, but since I supposedly look like a local, maybe they won’t pay any attention to me.”
Allie made a face and Drake took the tarp from Spencer and pulled it over them. Spencer sat in the stern, holding a fish net and pretending to work on it. From the corner of his eye he watched the houseboat and was rewarded a minute later by the sight of at least twenty uniformed police with submachine guns encircling the boat.
“Looks like we got out just in time,” Spencer said. The boat had drifted sixty yards and was in the middle of the river, moving downstream at a leisurely clip. “What I wouldn’t do for an outboard.”
“Can they see you?” Drake asked.
Spencer’s mouth barely moved. “They’ve got their hands full right now, but yes, it’s just a matter of time till someone looks over.”
“What should we do?”
“Prayer’s never a bad idea.”
“Seriously, Spencer,” Allie chided.
“Not a lot we can do if they decide to open up on us with their guns. Then again, there’s no reason for them to if they think I’m a lone fisherman.”
“So it comes down to luck?” she asked.
“Most things usually do.”
When they were a hundred yards away, Spencer could see that the cops on the boat were obviously agitated, and several of them pointed to the skiff. One of the men had binoculars, and Spencer caught the glint of sunlight reflecting off the lenses as the spyglasses were brought to bear on him. Spencer fingered the net, staring at it with intense concentration as he tied an imaginary knot, and then held it partially up, as though inspecting his work. He could only hope that his disguise would carry the day, and then his heart caught in his throat when he remembered the dye box and supplies in the houseboat garbage.
When the police did a thorough search of the boat, they would find it, and even the dimmest would quickly figure out what he’d done. Sweat pooled beneath his arms as he willed the boat faster, all the time pretending to be engrossed with the net.
The skiff passed a group of locals washing their clothes in the river, seemingly oblivious to the drama playing out upstream, as well as to the questionable cleanliness to be had from the muddy water. Spencer waved at them and returned to his project, hoping he would be dismissed as benign by the police.