“What’s up?” Karl asked, once Roddy answered.
“Our people boarded the Russian merchant ship,” Roddy said.
Karl sucked on his beer as he waited for his Agency contact to continue.
“We believe the missile is a modified SS-20. An updated version with extended range.”
“I believe my father mentioned that,” Karl said, trying not to sound too smug.
“Well, your father is a smart man,” Roddy said.
Now, the obvious question had to be asked. “What’s my next assignment?”
“Take some time off in Aruba. I suggest you take a boat or flight to Bonaire. I hear that’s even nicer.”
“How many days will the Agency allow?”
“After what you just got done,” Roddy said, “I think we can give you at least a week off.”
“And what about Maya?”
“As you know, she’s a contract worker. If she wants to continue, we’ll have to find a job for her.”
“I’ll talk to her about that this week,” Karl said.
“We’ve never met, but I’ve seen photos and have to assume she looks pretty good in a bikini.”
He glanced over to Maya. “Yeah, she does. Anyway, I need to get going. We’re killing a couple of local lagers.”
“Carry on.”
They both hung up at the same time, and Karl wandered back to their table. Two more beers later and the bar was ready to close. The three of them stumbled back to the oil company SUV, where Karl found their duffle bags hiding in the back end.
Saying their goodbyes, shaking and hugging, Ruiz finally drove off, leaving the two of them standing near the waterfront. They had only a couple of hours now before they caught their boat.
“What do you want to do?” Karl asked Maya.
“Other than sleep?”
“There’s a bench down by the water. You can rest there.”
They walked down the pier, with Maya using Karl for stability.
Just then a dark figure hopped off the back of a boat and started walking toward them, his hands deep in his pockets. Karl stopped, took Maya into his arms, and gave her a passionate kiss.
“We have company,” Karl whispered.
“Following us,” she responded.
Karl kissed her again, twisting her body so he could also see behind them. She was right. He slipped his hand to the small of his back and grasped his gun. Maya also found her gun.
The men now were within easy shooting range.
“Take the one you see,” Karl whispered.
“You got it.”
Karl’s target made the first move, his right hand coming out of his pocket and revealing his handgun. But Karl beat the man to the draw.
Back to back, Karl and Maya fired almost simultaneously. Both of their targets dropped, their guns settling at their sides.
Now what?
Karl rushed toward the man he had just shot and rolled the guy over. He was the Venezuelan intel officer who vaped constantly. When he got to the other man, Maya had the man on his back. This was the one with the unibrow and thick mustache.
Glancing about, Karl realized that there was nobody else around. Without leaving finger prints, he collected the guns and threw them into the harbor. Then, with Maya’s help, the two of them dragged each man to the pier and shoved them into the water.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Karl said.
Still, their best bet was to get out of Venezuela on the fishing boat. Maybe it was already in port, he thought.
Maya was shaking now as they headed down toward the end of the pier.
Then Karl remembered that the Venezuelan had just jumped off the last boat at the end of the pier. As they got closer, Karl could see that this was the boat they had taken from Aruba days ago.
Drawing his gun again as he approached the back of the fishing boat, Karl stepped carefully forward. A partial moon reflected off the small harbor, giving Karl a little light to find his way.
As he got to the back of the boat, he could see a dark figure near the entrance to the cabin. Scanning the scene for any danger, Karl finally stepped aboard the vessel, his gun still vigilant.
Moving to the dark figure, Karl kicked the man’s feet. But during his Army days he had seen a lot of death, and this man would never pilot this fishing boat again. To confirm his suspicions, he checked for a pulse. Nothing. Rolling the man over, he positively identified the boat captain who had brought them from Aruba to Venezuela.
“Is he dead?” Maya asked, still standing on the pier.
Karl found his phone and turned on the screen to see the man’s face better. “Yeah. Someone choked him out.”
Stepping aboard the boat behind Karl, Maya said, “Yeah, you just killed the guy who did this.”
Maybe, he thought. But the man was too stiff to have just been killed.
“Now what?” she asked.
He thought about the two men who they had been forced to kill. There was no way Karl wanted to try to explain those to the Venezuelan authorities. Officially, neither of them were sanctioned to be in this country.
“Have you ever piloted a boat like this?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Me either. But there’s a first time for everything. Untie us. We need to get the hell out of here.”
“It’s still dark.”
“This boat has navigation,” he said.
“What about our friend?”
Karl glanced down at the dead man. “Burial at sea.”
Maya holstered her gun and then went back onto the pier, releasing the lines from the cleats and throwing them back to the fishing boat.
Meanwhile, Karl went inside to the controls. First, he checked to see if the pilot had filled the fuel tank. “Good to go on fuel,” he said to Maya.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” she said.
“What’s the hurry now?” he asked.
“We have company on the pier. The police.”
Karl glanced toward the area where they had just shot it up with the Venezuelan intel officers. Two officers with guns drawn were searching the area, their lights swishing back and forth. If they found the blood spots where the men had dropped, that could quickly lead to the discovery of the bodies.
Pressing the start button, the engine cranked over a couple of times without kicking in. Finally, the engine started and Karl kept it as close to idle as possible. He clicked on the GPS navigation and scrolled through saved locations, finding the port of Aruba. Now he punched in that destination and waited for the satellites to triangulate.
“They’re coming this way,” Maya said. “We need to go.”
Karl pushed on the throttle gently as he turned the wheel to keep from bouncing off the edge of the pier. Once they were free from the slip, he gave the engine a little more power and the boat slowly crept out toward the breakwater. As they got closer to the breakwater, he could see that this would not be a smooth crossing. High seas awaited them.
38
Russian President Anton Zima sat in the small war cabinet room a few doors down from his office and waited for the video conference with his officers in the field. Only two others were in attendance. To his left was Pavel Bykov, the Minister of Defense, General of the Army, and head of the GRU. To his right was Boris Abramovich, First Deputy Director of the SVR — the foreign intelligence service.
Once Zima was sure the three of them were alone in the room and electronically secure, he clicked on to his first call. Appearing on the screen were SVR officers, Sergei Zubov and Polina Kotova.
“What is the situation in Venezuela?” Zima asked.
Sergei’s eyes shifted toward his female counterpart and then back toward the camera lens. “Sir, as our report indicated, we believe our site in this country has been compromised.”