Storm Surge: A Fast Paced International Adventure Thriller (Storm Thriller Series Book 3)

by Steven Becker

  Just to the side of a long grouping of docked boats, Mako saw a fishing boat tied to the seawall. He ran toward it, finding it unoccupied. From the disorder on the decks it appeared the boat had just returned from a morning trip and the crew was now trying to sell their catch to one of the local vendors.

  “Duck!” Saba called to Mako, who was looking around for the captain or crew.

  Just as he heard her command a boat passed by. There was no mistaking the passenger—Maldonado. Mako moved behind the wheelhouse to screen himself from the bishop’s view. Once the boat passed he moved away from the helm. Before he resumed his search, he noticed the key in the ignition.

  With the boat carrying Maldonado headed toward Longino’s yacht, he didn’t have time to find the captain.

  “Come on. We’re borrowing this one.” Mako cranked the key hard. The sound of the starter engaging the flywheel was like nails on a blackboard, and for a long second Mako thought the boat might be abandoned because of a breakdown. Just as he was about to release the key, the motor turned over and caught. With a cloud of smoke puffing from the old engine, Mako pulled away from the dock.

  Saba stood in the bow, calling in her Interpol voice to any boats in the way to move aside. Mako, focused on pulling away from the dock and accelerating, had a moment’s panic when he looked ahead and noticed the low clearance of the first bridge. Only a few feet above the deck, the canvas top would never clear it. Fortunately, one of the boats ahead either hadn’t heard or heeded Saba’s calls and Mako watched as a crewman, using a pole, dropped the top just as the boat passed underneath the bridge.

  “Can you lose this thing like that?” Mako called to Saba.

  She had seen it as well and, with only seconds to spare before he would either crash or have to stop, she dropped the Bimini top. Mako ducked as they passed beneath the first bridge. Once the second was in sight, he accelerated, hoping the clearance was the same. He almost had his head shaved, as the second bridge was set a least a foot lower than the first.

  Ahead they could see the harbor, the monster yacht standing sentinel over the smaller ships. The whitewater from the wake of Maldonado’s boat confirmed his intention. Even over the grumble of the old engine of the fishing boat, Mako could hear the sound of the anchor chain as it reverberated across the water, confirming what he already suspected: The ship would depart as soon as Maldonado reached it. Their destination was likely Rome. Knowing where they were going was little consolation. With every mile they grew closer to the Vatican, the Holy See’s protective bubble grew stronger.

  Mako goosed the throttle to get as much speed as he could from the engine. He had already learned the sweet spot where he could push it without flooding the carburetor. It didn’t matter, though. It was easy to see they would never catch Maldonado.

  They needed a new plan.

  55

  Key Largo, Florida

  Branches whipped against Alicia’s legs as she ran through the landscaping that separated the marina from the adjacent properties. She was moving in the direction of a big, bright strip-mall shopping center. It was as good a plan as any.

  Her first priority had been to avoid the first responders. She had to have faith that TJ was in good hands and there was nothing she could do to help, though she was grateful that Mac and Jen had offered to be with him. That assuaged a little bit of the guilt encompassing her.

  As she ran, the feeling of never being good enough, instilled by her mother, haunted her again, and she cursed herself for not seeing that there had been something funny about the adaptive divers. Growing up, she had learned to use the guilt as fuel for her fire, and now it burned hot within her. She was going to fix this.

  Putting TJ from her mind was harder than she thought. Taught at an early age to compartmentalize and control her emotions, TJ had gotten by all her defense systems when they met three years ago. Now, she realized how attached she was to him. It wasn’t a bad thing, but Mako and John were out there and they needed her, too.

  Breaking free of the shrubs, she stepped onto the pavement. Glancing down at her bare and dirty feet, she realized what the rest of her must look like. At least she had found one of Mel’s sweatshirts in the cabin of Mac’s boat, though finding a ride home covered in soot and slime might still be tough.

  A cab pulled up to a bar near the end of the strip center. The back door opened and a couple stepped out. Alicia sprinted across the lot, sliding into the just-vacated seat before the door closed. The driver turned around, giving her a weary look. There was no judgment in his expression as he asked where she wanted to go. Driving a cab in the Florida Keys, he had seen it all.

  Alicia released a pent-up breath as the cab rolled out of the lot. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it, and now tried to alleviate the symptoms she was feeling from lack of oxygen in her bloodstream. She recognized the signs, and began to breathe more evenly. Once her respiration rate was under control, she increased the length of her exhales to engage her parasympathetic nervous system. By the time the driver pulled into the small parking lot in front of the shop she had regained her composure.

  The driver waited patiently while she ran upstairs and punched her code into the lock. A moment later she returned downstairs with his fare and a large tip to ensure his silence.

  Alicia ran back upstairs. On the way to the war room, she grabbed her insulated mug with the dive shop’s name stenciled on it, and filled it with filtered water from the spout on the sink. She chugged the first glass, then refilled it and headed to the war room. They had stopped using bottled water at home and on their charters to help alleviate the plastics crisis; now, each diver was given an insulated mug they could fill from a large water cooler onboard. Passing the pantry, hunger pangs shot through her, and she opened the cabinet and grabbed a bag of chips.

  Water and food in hand, she pushed open the door of the war room and went directly to her desk. With her phone either destroyed or floating off Fort Lauderdale in the Gulf Stream current, she opened up a VOIP connection and clicked on Mako’s contact information.

  The electronic ringer sounded several times before going to voicemail. Alicia moved the angle of her chair to get a better view of the screen on her left, and typed in a string of code. A spinning wheel appeared on the monitor, and a few seconds later an icon appeared on a large map. With the mouse, Alicia zoomed in on the area, noting it was Syracuse. Moving in closer, she saw it wasn’t really in Syracuse, but the water off the coast. There was no doubt she had missed something over the last few hours.

  She typed a quick text and sent it to Mako, then followed the same procedure with John. The result was the same—voicemail. Tracking John’s location found him, or at least his phone, in the same area as Mako, but a half-mile or so further offshore. She left him a message and sat back helpless as she watched the two dots on her screen converge on each other.

  That helpless feeling lasted all of ten seconds, just enough to take a sip of water. Alicia’s mother had beaten that useless attitude out of her at an early age.

  Staring at the dots on her screen, she started to pull up the traffic and security cameras in the area. Though slower at it than TJ, she was still able to populate most of the screens with different angles of the market area and harbor. Though her focus was on the water, she couldn’t help but notice the group of people and first responders gathered around what appeared to be a body in the street. An adjacent camera gave a better view. A blond-haired woman she instantly recognized as Carlota Burga lay on her side with what appeared to be ... a swordfish bill through her chest? There was no sign of Mako or John, but there was little doubt this was their handiwork.

  Slightly relieved, she worked the cameras near the water, noticing nothing outside of the usual boat traffic. Looking through the database of available cameras, she noticed one that she hadn’t accessed, a buoy camera, used for a visual on the state of the seas and waves. It was a long shot.

  Clicking on the icon, she waited while the image buffered and
loaded. It took her a minute to acclimate to the camera angle, which was aimed from the open Mediterranean toward the shore, instead of the opposing view the other cameras displayed. There, in the middle of the screen, was a huge, gun-metal gray yacht.

  Alicia grabbed a screenshot and a few minutes later was scanning a file about the ship—and its owner. After reading it, even if the dot for John’s phone wasn’t directly on it, she would have suspected the ship had something to do with the journal.

  Her eyes panned the screens, stopping on the empty captain’s chair in the center of the room. Moisture clouded her eyes for just a second until she wiped it away with the back of her hand. She would not feel sorry for herself, it wasn’t in her DNA. Glancing at the screen on her phone, hoping for an update from Mac and Jen, she saw nothing and decided to call.

  Mac answered on the third ring. TJ was being treated. The word was that he would be okay. It would take some time for the burns to heal, and they would likely leave scars. Alicia was already imagining some cool tattoos to cover the injuries when, relieved, she thanked Mac for the update and disconnected.

  Turning her attention back to the screens, she saw John and Mako’s icons merge. Feeling excluded, she sat back, stuffing chips into her mouth, hoping the calories would jump-start her brain. She needed to find a way aboard the yacht—at least virtually.

  56

  Syracuse Harbor, Sicily

  Saba pointed toward the access door as it lifted into the hull, knowing it was the only entry point. A second later, the tender dock appeared, sliding over the water, ready to receive Maldonado.

  The best Mako could hope for was to disrupt their plans. He assumed, being armed with only the .45, they would be outgunned and outmanned.

  “I’m going to try and get on board,” Mako yelled over the engine noise.

  “You’ll never get in. They’re sure to have three or four goons waiting there, and I didn’t see any other openings.”

  As they approached, Mako realized she was correct. There was no time to circumnavigate the ship. He would have to trust her.

  Maldonado’s boat was only feet away from the dock. Two men emerged from the hull to help him aboard. From a quarter-mile away, Mako could see they were armed. The bishop’s boat coasted up to the dock and, without stopping, one of the men helped Maldonado onto the larger ship.

  Turning the wheel over to Saba, he moved to the bow. She maintained speed, halving the distance to the tender dock in a matter of seconds. A loud clank startled them as they passed the bow. Water streamed down from the anchor and chain as it locked into place. Simultaneously the ship shuddered and started to move. It was scary, even though Mako knew they were not in immediate danger. Ships this size took a long time to gather speed or stop.

  Passing amidship, they were within a hundred feet of the tender dock when the platform started to recede into the hull. Just as it disappeared, the door closed, leaving a smooth sheet of metal. There was nothing to be done now—except they were in a different kind of trouble.

  The flare of the hull concealed them from anyone wanting to fire on them from above. That was the good news. The bad was that the boat started to move much faster than Mako had expected. The sea churned and the yacht picked up speed as the huge propellers displaced the surrounding water.

  “We’ve got to get away from the stern. This close we could get sucked under.” Mako didn’t know if Saba understood, but she reacted quickly, swinging the wheel to take them on a course perpendicular to the ship. A space slowly opened between the two craft. They had avoided one hazard. Looking back, Mako saw they were not clear yet.

  As the yacht built speed it needed an extra push from the engines to put it on plane. The result was a huge wave, which loomed large over their small boat. The captain would surely be asking for all power. There would be several more waves behind the one currently threatening them.

  “You ever surf?” Mako asked, moving towards to the wheel, and glancing back.

  Saba followed his gaze and her eyes widened. “That?”

  She slid to port, allowing Mako to take the wheel. He’d ridden some waves in his time, but the behemoth behind them was not in his wheelhouse. What he did know was that they had to increase speed—quickly. If they could match the speed of the wave, there was a chance; if not, they would be gobbled up and swallowed.

  “Hold on!” Mako yelled. He pushed the throttle to its stop, failing to remember that the old two-stroke engine needed to be coaxed, not whipped. In response it started to stall. Mako released the pressure on the throttle. The engine sputtered back to life. He didn’t know it, though, because the ship’s engines were so loud it drowned every other sound.

  The wave was twenty feet behind them, and looked to be as tall. The best they could hope for was that it wouldn’t break. In the event it caved in on itself, they would be lost in the power of the white water.

  Mako gunned the engine again. This time he stopped just a little short of full power and, hoping for the best, looked back again. It was ten feet away and closing fast. He felt the wave pull the water from beneath the hull, sucking its energy and slowing the boat even further.

  The bow dropped. The angle was almost forty-five degrees, steeper than Mako had expected. In addition to his fear of being swallowed by the wake, they were now in danger of pitchpoling. Breathing in, he let his old surf training kick in. His father had berated him for spending so many hours on the water. Hopefully it would pay off now.

  This was the critical time. He needed to at least match the speed of the wave. Fighting his desire to push the throttle to its stops, he slowly accelerated. The engine reacted.

  Mako felt the energy of the wave take the boat. It didn’t matter what he did now, the ocean was in total control. The bow rose slightly and the boat took off. Mako could have shut the engine down for all the good it was doing. Despite the danger, a smile creased his lips, as the wake carried the boat forward, until a few hundred yards later, when Mako felt their speed drop slightly. It was time to figure out an exit strategy.

  Looking behind them, he saw several more rollers. As long as they didn’t take them beam on, they would be safe. With a firm grip on the wheel, he accelerated slightly to gain steerage, and turned about thirty degrees to port. The boat escaped one wave, and gently passed another one. It wasn’t until he felt Saba beside him that his tunnel vision receded. He had been so focused on the wave, he had forgotten everything else—it might have saved them.

  A different urgency overtook them as the seas flattened out beneath the hull of the fishing boat. Passing back under the bridge, they raised the Bimini top and returned the boat back from where they had taken it. Three men stood on the seawall with their arms crossed. Mako felt Saba reach for the pistol. He stopped her when he saw one of the men smile.

  “Son of a bitch. How you rode that wave! I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  The men tossed lines across the void and helped tie off the boat.

  “Sorry about that. We looked for you, but had no choice,” Saba said.

  They weren’t interested in her flirtatious appeal. It was Mako and the wave they were interested in.

  It appeared that a trip to a local tavern was in order, until Mako’s phone rang. He glanced down at the screen.

  “Alicia,” he said to Saba. As they walked away Mako could still hear the men recalling how their boat had surfed the wave.

  Syracuse, Sicily

  Mako and Saba sat at an outside table in a small cafe. They had wanted to leave immediately and track down the ship, but Alicia had brought them back to earth. There was no boat in the harbor capable of running down the behemoth. They would need to wait until the destination was certain and fly there. She was tracking the vessel’s route on one of her screens, giving Mako and Saba real-time updates to its course. The yacht was headed north, leading them to conclude the destination was Rome. There had been a chance they would continue on their tour of Caravaggio’s paintings, or rather murder sites, as they were i
ntertwined. That would have led to Malta, where the painter had spent a few years prior to Sicily—until another murder caused him to make a remarkable escape from the dungeons of the Knights.

  “We know where they’re going. It has to be Rome,” Mako said.

  “Not so fast,” Alicia said. “Sending you a link.”

  Mako’s phone pinged and he opened the web address showing the boat traffic in the area. She had placed a circle around Longino’s ship.

  “Do you see it?” Alicia asked after a few minutes.

  “Yeah, they’re heading north, like we thought.”

  “Again: not so fast. If their destination was Rome, they would be making a beeline for the Straits of Messina. Instead of the direct and deep-water route, they are hugging the coast.”

  Saba leaned over the phone for a better look. “Catania. They’re going to drop Maldonado off.”

  “The international airport.” It was where they had flown into several days ago.

  “We need to go after him,” Mako said.

  Mako knew from the tone of Alicia’s voice he was being impulsive. “Maldonado has the journal, that’s ink and paper. It’ll survive and now that the painting has been replaced he won’t destroy it; he needs it. I’d be a little more concerned about John and Faith.”

  Mako hadn’t forgotten about his father and the girl. Still feeling the endorphin high from his ride on the wave, he was thinking he was Superman.