by AD Starrling
Conrad went still. Images of the incident in Paris flashed across his vision.
‘The briefcase,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Nadica Rajkovic escaped with a metal case that Ridvan Kadir had given her!’
Shocked comprehension washed across the others’ faces.
‘They must be for the laser detonation devices,’ said Stevens.
‘Wow.’ Anatole shook his head in amazement. ‘You gotta admire them. The bastards are going to blow up the world by remote control.’
‘One more thing,’ added the grim-faced CIA agent. ‘Petersen heard an air horn just before the call ended. He thought the Rajkovics might have been at sea.’
A flicker of hope burst into life in the depths of Conrad’s soul. ‘Do any of the companies the Rajkovics own have links with the shipping industry?’
‘Not that we know of,’ said Connelly. ‘We’re checking them out anyway for connections to any kind of ship.’
Conrad swallowed a wave of disappointment. ‘That’s great. Let me know as soon as you find—’
A voice suddenly shouted excitedly somewhere off-screen.
Connelly’s head whipped around. ‘What is it?’ She stared over her shoulder. A man jogged into view. It was the Sit Room analyst.
‘You know how we put a call out to all the agencies investigating those forty-odd businesses we think the Rajkovics own?’ he said breathlessly.
‘Yes. What about it?’ said Connelly, impatient.
The man grinned. ‘FBI just came back with a doozy. They found an electronic fuel receipt at an abandoned brokerage firm yesterday. It was for a luxury yacht called “The Ariana.” She stopped over in Crown Bay on St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands.’
Conrad’s pulse speeded up. ‘When was this?’
The Sit Room analyst glanced at the paper in his hand. ‘Two days ago!’
‘Can we get satellites over the area?’ said Conrad urgently. ‘We need to find that boat. They probably have those remote controls on board!’
‘Already on it,’ said the Sit Room analyst with a sharp dip of his head. ‘We should have images coming through in the next few minutes. We’re checking to see if the yacht has an automatic identification system. It should be easy to locate them if they do.’
It turned out The Ariana did not have the tracking system installed.
Conrad paced the Learjet cabin while they waited for the NGA to work out a search grid based on the information they had obtained on the vessel’s average speed and a forty-eight-hour window from St. Thomas. Laura called Victor on her cell and asked him to put the immortals’ own satellite network into play.
It was almost an hour before a sharp-eyed Bastian intelligence analyst finally picked out the super yacht.
‘They’re in the Sargasso Sea, about 850 miles northeast of the US Virgin Islands,’ announced Victor.
They were in a conference call with the White House. Conrad stared unblinkingly at the white and navy-blue shape moving seamlessly against a cobalt background on the enhanced satellite video. A buzz of anticipation flared into life inside him.
‘Laura, can you ask the pilot where we are in relation to that yacht?’ he said quietly. He saw her startled reaction out of the corner of his eye.
‘Okay.’ She disappeared in the direction of the cockpit.
A slow grin lit up Anatole’s face. ‘Time to have some fun.’ The red-haired immortal’s gleaming gaze matched the thrill dancing through Conrad’s veins.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the Sit Room video link.
‘Hang on a minute!’ Connelly blurted. ‘You’re not thinking of intercepting them, are you?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ Conrad affirmed with a dark smile.
Connelly gaped at him. ‘You’re in a Learjet thousands of feet in the air over the bloody North Atlantic! How the hell do you think you’re—?’
‘We’re about seven hundred miles northeast of them,’ interrupted Laura as she came down the aisle.
‘Your closest land mass is Bermuda,’ said Victor crisply on the second link. ‘Connelly, I believe the US Navy has a Nimitz class aircraft carrier in the vicinity. They could have a Seahawk helicopter waiting at the airport on St. David’s island.’
Shocked silence came from the White House. Conrad suppressed a smile. Victor Dvorsky could still surprise him.
Connelly opened and closed her mouth soundlessly. She turned to the Sit Room analyst. ‘Is that true?’ she asked stiffly. The man tapped a couple keys, checked the data on the screen, and nodded sheepishly.
Connelly’s gaze shifted to the camera. She glared at Victor before letting out an exasperated sigh. ‘Shit. I don’t even want to know how you know that.’ She chewed her lip as she mulled over the Bastian leader’s suggestion. ‘Goddammit!’ she finally snapped. She looked to the Sit Room analyst. ‘Talk to the Navy.’
Laura twisted on her heels and headed back to the cockpit.
They landed in Bermuda just over an hour later and taxied toward a gray Sikorsky Seahawk helicopter squatting at the edge of the tarmac. Conrad had just exited the Learjet when the pilot called out to him from the top of the steps.
‘There’s an urgent video call from Vienna!’ he shouted.
Conrad hurried back inside the plane, alarm shooting through him. He reached the onboard computer and saw Victor in the center of the link on the screen. The Bastian leader was standing at the desk inside his glass office, his expression grim. The command post below him was a hub of agitated activity.
Conrad’s stomach sank. ‘What’s wrong?’
Laura, Anatole, and Stevens appeared beside him, apprehension evident in their tense postures.
‘The investigators in Luxembourg found the primary borehole at the source of the disaster,’ Victor said darkly. ‘It was under a building belonging to one of the Strabo Corp. directors.’
Blood thumped dully in Conrad’s ears as he suddenly recalled Alison Williams’s words. These wells are likely to be beneath buildings. The Berkeley engineer had been bang on the money. They just hadn’t thought one step further.
‘Shit,’ he whispered leadenly.
Anatole swore under his breath while Laura scowled.
‘I can see from your expressions that you’ve reached the same conclusion I did,’ said Victor.
A digital map of the world flashed up next to the window. ‘These are the locations of all the companies owned by the Rajkovics.’
Conrad’s heart slammed erratically against his ribs as he stared at the display.
‘God! Most of them are in the middle of major cities!’ exclaimed Stevens, horror draining the color from his face.
‘Thirty-seven of them are, to be precise,’ said Victor. ‘That’s if you count Luxembourg as well.’
Conrad slammed his fist on the table. Frustration raged inside him. How could he not have foreseen this?
‘Franklin and the FBI mentioned that the premises they investigated in the last couple days were abandoned,’ said Laura bitterly. ‘The reason must be because the primary boreholes are underneath most of them.’
Anatole drew in a breath sharply. ‘Hey! Two of those sites are near the headquarters of the—’
‘I know,’ Victor cut in. He clenched his jaw. ‘I’ve already contacted the Crovir First Council. They’re sending teams out to the suspect location in Dresden to seek and destroy the laser device. We’re doing the same here.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the busy command center.
‘We’re clearing out anyway. There are hundreds of items pertaining to our cultural heritage stored underneath this facility, never mind the centuries’ worth of Bastian knowledge and intelligence data. We cannot let them be destroyed.’
The Bastian leader’s words were still echoing in Conrad’s he
ad when they crossed the tarmac to the helicopter. The Seahawk’s tactical officer greeted them at the cabin door and ushered them inside the aircraft just as the rotors started up. The gunner nodded an acknowledgement and indicated the communication headsets hooked to the wall. The tactical officer’s voice came through their earpieces seconds later.
‘We’re tracking the yacht,’ he told them. ‘We expect to rendezvous in approximately thirty to forty minutes.’
The Seahawk lifted off and rose rapidly toward the azure sky. After checking their weapons and familiarizing themselves with the equipment they would use to drop down to the boat, Conrad and the others sat back in tense silence.
‘Harry, you going to be okay?’ Laura asked a while later.
Stevens had gotten steadily grayer over the half hour they’d been in the aircraft. He nodded shakily and wiped a film of sweat from his face, his eyes straying to the open cabin door and the ocean below.
‘He doesn’t do heights,’ Laura explained at Conrad’s questioning look.
Stevens made a heaving sound.
‘I don’t think he does Seahawks either,’ the door gunner muttered as the agent lurched past him and emptied the contents of his stomach into the sea. Anatole shook his head pityingly.
The words Conrad had been waiting for finally came over the headset.
‘Target in sight.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The helicopter did a wide-arced swoop and bore down on The Ariana from the south. The vessel’s crisp lines came into focus, her navy blue hull gleaming in the sunlight. Powerful thrusters churned the waves in her wake, stirring up a foaming, white backwash.
Conrad frowned when he made out the black shape of the MD520N aircraft on the yacht’s sun deck. Figures appeared aft of the boat. A dim staccato reached them above the roar of the Seahawk’s rotors.
Anatole squinted. ‘Are they shooting at us?’
‘I’m afraid so!’ said the door gunner with a grin. He swung the barrel of his pintle-mounted machine gun, charged the weapon, and looked down his sights. ‘Ready when in range!’
The Seahawk dropped in altitude and reduced speed.
‘Two thousand meters!’ said the tactical officer.
Arcs of automatic gunfire greeted the helicopter’s approach. The bullets fell harmlessly into the water.
Conrad adjusted the staff strapped to his back and the M16 rifle slung across his chest. A familiar sense of calmness stole over him. He glanced at Laura and Anatole and observed the same cool composure in their eyes and the lines of their bodies. They were in battle mode.
‘One thousand meters!’ warned the tactical officer.
Though no shots reached the Seahawk, the helicopter came under increasing attack from the gunmen on The Ariana.
‘Eight hundred meters!’
‘In range!’ said the gunner a second later.
‘Fire!’ yelled the tactical officer.
The machine gun juddered as the gunner pulled the trigger. Bullets tore into the yacht, chipping the wooden decks and aluminum superstructure. Sun-lounger beds and armchair cushions exploded in a shower of sponge and foam. Splinters fogged the air. The gunmen fell back.
The Seahawk swung closer to the vessel.
‘Get ready!’ the tactical officer shouted at the three immortals and the agent. He raised his hand in the air as they swiftly discarded their headsets.
The gunner continued to lay down bursts of suppressive fire. Glass shattered below, fragments sparkling in the sun.
The tactical officer dropped his hand sharply. ‘And go, go, go!’
Conrad kicked the cord hooked to the external hoist over the edge of the open door, wrapped his gloved hands and feet around the thick cable, and fast-roped to the yacht. His boots struck the sun deck of The Ariana seconds later.
Shots sprayed the wooden boards several feet ahead of him. He raised the M16 rifle and returned fire as the others came down behind him. The gunmen retreated toward the stairs on the starboard side.
A cry suddenly shattered the air.
‘Harry!’ Laura screamed a heartbeat later.
Conrad’s head whipped round, fear squeezing his chest in a tight vice. Stevens had been shot in the leg. Though he clung grimly to the rope, the agent slid down too fast and hit the deck hard. He crumpled to his knees, his face a mask of agony. Laura rushed toward him.
‘No!’ yelled Conrad. ‘Cover me!’
She faltered.
Conrad raced past her and reached the crippled agent. He grabbed the man under the shoulders and heaved him into the cover of a large bed lounger. Laura turned and joined Anatole as he discharged his M16 at the armed crewmen on the opposite side of the deck.
Conrad ignored the hail of gunfire and tugged his gloves off, his pulse racing wildly. He pressed his left hand against Stevens’s bleeding thigh and unleashed his immortal powers. The agent released a hiss of pain as the bullet migrated forcefully back along its entry path. The bloodstained shot dropped to the ground while the immortal concentrated on repairing the torn muscles and soft tissues beneath his fingers.
He moved his hand down Stevens’s legs and fixed the two hairline fractures in his right tibia. The man suddenly relaxed beneath his touch. Conrad looked up into his stunned gaze.
‘That—that was—’ Stevens stammered.
‘Save it for later!’ snapped Conrad. He rose to his feet, pulled Stevens up, and jerked him close by the front of his tactical uniform. ‘I swear to God, kid, if you dare die and make Laura cry, I’ll bring you back just so that I can kill you myself!’ he threatened. Stevens smiled shakily and bobbed his head.
They stepped around the bodies of four gunmen and joined Laura and Anatole where the two crouched at the top of the staircase leading to the lower levels of the ship.
The Seahawk pulled up in the sky behind them and headed away from The Ariana.
Nadica paced near the outer doors of the main salon, a Glock 19 in hand. Zoran saw a shiver of rage dance along her limbs as she studied the damage inflicted to the yacht by the Navy helicopter. Gunfire sounded above, where the crewmen of The Ariana engaged the enemy who had landed on the boat.
Her knuckles whitened on the gun. ‘How dare they!’ she hissed.
Zoran’s gaze switched to the laptop in front of him. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘The explosives at the first four targets failed to detonate.’ He glanced at the remote controls inside the briefcase on the desk.
‘Is it Ridvan’s equipment?’ snapped Ariana.
Zoran shook his head. ‘No.’ Trepidation filled him. For the first time in decades, he felt they might not achieve their goals. ‘I think they may have discovered the locations of the boreholes.’
Conrad gasped and bent back sharply at the waist. The tip of a Turkish sword skimmed the air inches from his chest. He blocked the next two strikes with the handguard of the M16. The man on the other end of the sword glowered at him. Conrad’s eyes darted across the deck, his breathing hard and fast.
From the way the crew of The Ariana fought, it was obvious they were willing to lay down their lives for Mustafa Muhlisi’s bloodline. Judging by the array of scimitars and sabers that had suddenly appeared in their hands, it was also evident they were gifted swordsmen.
Conrad leapt out of the way of the swinging blade, dropped his rifle, and yanked his staff weapon from his back. He twisted the second ring and unsheathed the short swords.
The crewman’s eyes gleamed as he studied the shimmering steel. He raised his own sword and charged. Conrad warded off his strikes, the short blades moving seamlessly in his grip. The man growled and continued his relentless attack. Although he had talent, the crewman was still no match for the immortal. Conrad yanked the bloodied, twin swords out of the man’s body a moment later. The cre
wman crumpled to the ground, eyes wide in a pale face as he gazed unseeingly at the blue sky. The immortal scanned the deck beyond his still form.
Anatole had appropriated a saber from one of his victims and was fighting two armed figures on the other side of an external dining space. The blade glinted in his grip as he wielded it in deadly arcs.
Some eight feet to his left, Laura used the stock of her M16 rifle to deflect the thrusts from a large carving knife held by The Ariana’s glowering cook.
Conrad retrieved the sword at his feet. ‘Laura!’ he yelled and pitched the blade in the air.
She kneed the cook in the groin, raised her hand, and caught the sword by the hilt. A fierce smile flashed across her lips as she glanced at him.
Stevens stood braced near the port railing, his empty rifle lying at his feet while he clasped his FN Five-seveN in a double-handed grip and steadily picked off one crewman at a time.
Conrad grabbed his discarded M16 and cast the weapon toward the agent as he ran past him to the spiral stairs leading to the main deck. Bullets scored the treads when he was halfway down the steps. He cursed, jumped over the handrail, and landed nimbly on the floor below.
More shots winged through the air toward him. Conrad darted into the limited cover of the staircase as the bullets thudded into the steel frame. He peered through a gap in the structure.
Nadica Rajkovic stood framed by a pair of sliding doors some twenty feet away, the barrel of her Glock flaring repeatedly as she fired the weapon. Her face was livid with fury.
Conrad crouched behind the center pole of the spiral stairs and gripped the short swords tightly, blood pounding in his ears. Chips of wood rained down on him while he waited for the telltale click of the empty magazine. It came in a matter of seconds.
He rose and bolted across the deck.
