by James Phelan
“She is your … señorita?”
Fox looked at the driver while waiting for a break in the traffic and then turned right onto Fifth.
“Yeah, amigo, she’s my señorita.”
Fox floored the accelerator and spun the wheel.
Secher settled into a comfortable drive along West 57th, heading for Riverside Drive. He loaded a full mag into the Sig Pro and unscrewed the silencer, placing it in his door’s storage holder. He flicked the radio on—Edith Piaf of all singers.
“Ha!” Secher slapped the wheel with a grin. “Fuck’n’ America!”
“Where are you headed?” the cab driver asked. He hung on tight as Fox ducked between lanes and oncoming vehicles. He even took the time to return a few of the obscene gestures from cut-off motorists.
“West 79th and Riverside,” Fox said, taking advantage of an opposing red light and driving down a relatively empty oncoming lane, overtaking the standstill they were in.
“This is your last turn before the park, amigo,” the cab driver yelled above the redlining engine and horns that blazed at them.
Fox wiped the sweat that ran into his eyes from his brow and cried out in pain from his shoulder. He yanked the wheel down as a result and grated his side of the cab along an oncoming bus, sparks everywhere.
The woman in the back screamed.
“Shit, you’re bleeding,” the cab driver said, looking wide-eyed at Fox’s shoulder. The tension in the cab stepped up a level.
“I can help,” the man said from the back seat. He leaned forward and inspected the wound.
“Clear exit,” he said, picking it for a bullet wound.
“That was 59th!” the cab driver said as Fox flew over the intersection. “You’ll have to take the Transverse through the park now!”
“Ahhh!” Fox yelled as the guy applied a folded handkerchief tied off with his wife’s scarf.
“Thanks—buckle up back there!” Fox looked the passengers in the eyes via the rear-view mirror and they sat back and obeyed.
Fox braked and took a gap in the traffic to get across the lanes. He took the kerb gently, not blowing his tyres out, and entered Central Park as rain began to fall.
“This is gonna get slippery.”
Secher pulled up out the front of the Matthews’ residence and looked up at the façade as he got out. The rain had picked up but he could just see her.
Kate was there. Looking down at him from the second-storey window. He waved, and she retreated behind the curtain. He didn’t like the look on her face.
Secher bounded up the stairs and was greeted by the doorman.
“Evening, sir, do you have—” Secher cut him short with a three-punch judo move that left him out cold. He dragged the limp body inside and into a broom cupboard before bounding up the stairs.
“Left!” the cab driver said as Fox spun the wheel full turn, the back tyres flicking up rivers of mud as they barely missed a sunken walkway running through the Sheep Meadow.
The cab was snaking wildly from side to side as the grass became a quagmire under the spinning rear tyres.
Central Park West loomed ahead, as a group of tourists clamoured out of the way.
“That was the park,” Fox said over his shoulder to the Japanese couple holding on to each other, the woman throwing up in the back seat as the cab went airborne over a stone step that threw the car over the sidewalk and T-boned into a passing Fed-Ex van.
Fox backed up a few feet and tore off again.
Secher knocked on the door again, this time with a hurried staccato. He fingered his Sig Pro tucked into the back of his belt.
Mrs Matthews answered.
“Oh, hello Christian, lovely to see you again,” she said as she opened the door. “Please, come in and I’ll let Kate know you are here.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Kate said, coming into the hall.
“Are you okay, honey?” Faye Matthews asked. Kate’s mascara was smudged under her eyes, her cheeks damp from tears.
“Fine, Mom, can you leave us for a sec?”
Kate watched as her mum walked into the lounge.
“You look—” Secher was cut off.
“I rang Lachlan about half an hour ago, confronted him,” Kate said, her stare absolute. “He said you worked for the French government, or at least a faction of it.”
Kate looked into his eyes, searching for some kind of reaction.
“Of course he’d say that, he’s a spy.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Baby, listen to yourself,” Secher said, taking another step so she was within reach. “Do you think a government official dresses like this? You’ve seen my house in Bern—you think a public servant can afford that?”
Secher noticed her soften just a little.
“I—I don’t know…” She wiped a tear on her sleeve.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, and took the last step and hugged her. “You know me. Come on, we’re going to get away from all this, today.”
He could feel her relax some more.
“Did you get it?” he whispered into her ear.
Fox leaned on the horn as a couple of cars in a fender bender ahead were taking their sweet time exchanging numbers.
“Get off the fucking road!” he yelled out the window.
They waved back as if to say ‘wait until we’re done,’ and Fox took off beside them, the side of the cab grating along both cars, causing far more damage than their original incident.
Kate leaned her head against his shoulder, letting him hold her tight. She took in his smell as she stared off into the ether. She didn’t say anything for almost a minute, and Secher allowed her this silence.
“Did you get the key so we can sail the world?” Secher asked again, clearly so he could be sure she heard him.
“It’s here,” Kate said, letting go slowly, her hands coming from around his back and brushing against the butt of his pistol. Her mind was still registering what it was as she pulled the encryption key from her pocket.
“What’s behind your back?” she asked as she raised the key for him to see.
117
NEW YORK HARBOR
“Captain, contact is rounding Long Island,” the sonar officer called.
“Chief, make it so and go to red,” the captain called.
“Aye, sir, going red.” The Chief of the Boat hit the klaxon and red lights all over the ship went ablaze. He picked up the PA handset. “Crew, this is the Chief, we are weapons hot, weapons hot, weapons hot.”
“Son of a bitch is headed for Manhattan!” The captain pounded the table and surveyed his bridge team, all looking to him for direction, none of them believing the chase had come this far.
“Find out where our damn navy support is!” the captain yelled at his radio officer before turning to his air commander. “Tell our helo if they lose her, it’s their asses I’m gonna chew! No one fucks with Manhattan on my watch!”
118
NEW YORK CITY
Secher’s eyes glinted at the sight in the palm of her hand. After a year of planning, months of groundwork, here it was. He had it!
“Sorry?” he asked as he reached for the key. His eyes shifted focus from the key to her eyes in the background.
“Tucked into the back of your trousers?” Kate’s eyes had a sharpness that he’d never seen before. He cocked his head, trying to figure it out, interested.
“Shall I organise a spot at the dinner table for you, Christian?” Kate’s mother entered the room. “Frank will be home any moment.”
Kate held Secher’s gaze.
His eyes shifted back onto the key.
“My phone,” Secher said.
“You’re a bad liar,” Kate replied, closing her fist around the key as his hand reached hers. He closed his hand tight over hers and turned to face Mrs Matthews.
“Thank you, Madame, but I will be taking your charming daughter out for d
inner.” He pulled Kate to him and her shoes slid across the marble floor.
“I think we’ll stay,” Kate said, pulling back on her hand, still stuck in his fist, his grip tightening. “You’re hurting me!” she said.
Her mother registered confusion as there was a noise at the door behind Secher, then Frank Matthews entered the foyer.
“Hey there, Christian!” Frank said in good humour, dumping his bag and umbrella in the stand, and turning back before he could register the scene. “It’s really starting to come down out there—”
Secher chopped his pistol down on Frank’s neck. He was down, out cold.
Secher pulled Kate into a headlock under his arm, his hand still clamped around hers. Mrs Matthews’ eyes went from wide horror at the scene of her husband on the ground to staring at the pistol in Secher’s outstretched arm. He was on her in a second, headbutting her in the face. Her nose erupted in blood, and he slammed the pistol grip against her forehead. Her head snapped back against the open lounge-room doorframe, and she slumped to the ground.
119
NEW YORK CITY
Fox did a handbrake turn at the front of the building, the rear end of the cab smashing up on the kerb as his door popped off its hinges and onto the ground.
“Thanks!” Fox yelled as he leapt from the still-rocking vehicle.
The cab driver and Japanese tourists were left there, shaking and sweaty.
Secher dragged Kate through Riverside Park, his hand still clamped over her fist that held the NSA key. His duffle bag from the hire car hung over his shoulder.
“What are you doing with me?” she asked, rain pelting down at such a force as to leave the park deserted.
“We’re sailing the world, my love,” he replied, striding through the rain towards the boat basin up ahead.
Fox came to the open door of the Matthews’ and bounded in, to find Frank on his knees holding a towel to his wife’s face.
“Shit,” Fox said, nearly slipping on the blood-covered marble. “Are you okay—where’s Kate?”
“I’ve called an ambulance and the police,” Frank said.
“He took her!” Mrs Matthews broke down. “Christian TOOK HER!”
“Where?” Fox said. He pulled the SOCOM pistol from his belt and chambered a round.
The Matthews looked up at him wide-eyed. Their second shock for the day.
“I need to help her.” Fox knelt down to their level, held a hand out to Mrs Matthews. “I’ll bring her back.”
Her shaking hand held his tight, and the parents read a familiar sense of protection in his eyes. It was a look they all shared.
“He took the keys to my boat,” Frank said. He went to the key bowl by the phone, slid open the small drawer in the hall table and pulled out a single brass key.
Fox stood and took it, knowing what it was for.
“Take Kate, she’ll catch the yacht,” Frank said. “Bring our daughter home.”
120
FORT GAUCHER
Major Farrell waited under the cover of a snow dugout, the seven men in his fire team doing the same.
“Sir, we’ve got company,” Jenkins said. “Snowmobile coming up the ridge to our south-east.”
Farrell clambered up to the lip of the basin, peering down into the mist. Through his binoculars he could just make out the fast-moving shape of a snowmobile climbing the incline, fast.
“They on to you?”
“I think we tripped a sensor,” Jenkins said.
Farrell checked his watch. Two minutes to impact from the air strike.
“Wait till they’re on you and take them. Cleanly,” Farrell ordered.
“Copy that.”
Jenkins moved to the well-worn patrol track he could see the snowmobile had traversed before, waiting at the top of the incline with another soldier on the other side.
The snowmobile came to a halt at the peak of the lip, and the three soldiers disembarked. Immediately, the three of them looked at each other, holding their radio earpieces tighter into their ears. Before they could turn around to defend themselves from a threat, Jenkins and his SAS corporal were upon them, slicing the three throats before they could take another breath.
Jenkins removed the earpiece from a French corpse and listened, while his corporal dragged the bodies out of sight. He stopped his subordinate from removing the last body.
“This is Jenkins,” he called to the rest of the SAS soldiers. “They’ve triggered their alarm.”
“Copy that,” Farrell replied. “Base team, blow the relief valve.”
Farrell could see from his vantage point that the French company of commandos never stood a chance. As they were emerging from their barracks, the five GBU39 Small Diameter Bombs came crashing home.
Designed to penetrate up to 1.8 metres of reinforced concrete, the state-of-the-art weapons streaked in to their targets via differential GPS locating. While specified to hit a target within five metres of the designated area, the 110 kg bombs hit their targets right on the money, thanks to the SAS’s precision laser designators accompanying the GPS.
Within two seconds of the first guided bomb hitting home, the entrances to the compound were shattered, along with the two radomes and main defensive battery.
Before the shrapnel of the blasts even hit the ground, the SAS demo teams detonated their explosives.
The basin creaked with a muffled explosion that echoed off the cannon walls in the Mont Blanc range. The relief valve, set halfway up the mountain at a weak point in the base’s wall, acted like a pressure seal that released a steady stream of water from the frozen lake inside. Now blown, a massive geyser of water erupted into the sky.
On the road that snaked into the mountain, a ten-metre section disappeared down the steepest slope, the SAS squad there moving forward and securing the tunnel.
Farrell called in reports before giving the go-ahead to move down into the base. For now, Fort Gaucher belonged to the British Special Air Service.
121
NEW YORK CITY
Secher cast off the Matthews’ motor yacht and throttled up the engines, in the process knocking overboard the pilot of a smaller craft in the basin.
Kate struggled in the passenger seat that Secher had bound her to.
“My parents—”
“They will be fine,” he said, turning to her with a smile. The canvas canopy of the yacht rocked under the weight of the rain. “Nothing more than a headache,” he added, as if their ordeal were a run-of-the-mill occurrence.
“Who are you?” Kate asked.
“I am Christian Secher.” He smiled at her again as he wound out of the basin and onto the Hudson. He pushed the throttle up to its stops and the craft slowly picked up speed.
“I’m offering you a new life, to sail the world,” Secher said. He grabbed at his duffle bag and pulled out a wetsuit, changing into it as he spoke. A spare suit was still in the bag.
“But it’s up to you, of course,” he said. “I have the key—” he dangled the chain around his neck that he’d hooked the key on “—that will afford us our wildest dreams.”
“What is it for?” Kate asked.
The orange setting sun gleamed through the rain for a moment and lit up the wet Manhattan glass like a billion jewels.
“Come on!”
Fox started Kateup on the third try. The inboard motor coughed to life and thrummed to a throaty reverb. He put her in gear and tore off, the keel rising into the air from the force.
The rain eased for a moment and the sun glinted off the river. His instinct told him to turn left, but he did a tight loop, unable to see the yacht in any direction. They could be going right, up the river, to a waiting car. Fox throttled off for a second, whipping his head around desperately.
The warning horns of a ferry caught his attention, far off to the left, and he turned just as the Matthews’ yacht turned broadside to make way for the larger craft.
&nb
sp; Fox pushed the throttle to its stops.
He looked like death warmed up, blood splattered across his shirt and wet to the bone from the torrential rain whipping down. Visibility was low, and a sea mist was blowing in as Fox hammered the boat, getting airborne every few seconds as he hit the wake of several larger craft.
Secher was nearing Liberty Island when his windshield disintegrated.
He turned around—and saw Fox, in a small timber speedboat, bearing down fast, some thirty metres back.
He pushed the throttle further but it was fully open.
“Shit!”
“Got your attention, arsehole,” Fox said, wedging his SOCOM in the dash while he double-handed the steering wheel.
He was on the yacht’s tail now, and could see the back of Kate’s head where she was tied facing forward in the chair. The rain became torrential, the wind picking up from the Atlantic and whipping the waves over the deck of Fox’s boat, slowing him down.
Secher fired rapidly at Fox, but with both craft at full speed in the rough waters near Liberty Island, none of the bullets found their mark.
Fox closed fast on the yacht, and went portside as he watched Secher eject a mag and bend down to retrieve another.
“Kate!” Fox yelled.
She looked across and spotted him—he saw she couldn’t believe her eyes.
Before Fox could do any more catching up, Secher was firing.
Fox ducked and leaned hard on the wheel. Secher wasn’t ready, and he lost his footing as his craft was pushed across by the smaller timber boat.
Fox stood up on the chair of his craft, one foot braced on the framing of his windshield, SOCOM pistol in hand. He leapt onto the back of the yacht.
