The team sprang in pursuit. Around the top pool and down to the lower one, then circumventing its kidney shape. A straight dash toward the steps that led to the beach and a glance in the direction that Amari was running.
Brushed sand led all the way to the sea, a sparkle and a shimmer dancing atop the playful waves that ran between the mind-warping fronds. A small dock had been built into the water, where half a dozen small speedboats were moored. Amari raced toward the furthest.
“Crap,” Alicia moaned. “I can see where this is going. If I get seasick—” she yelled at the escaping men “—one of you is gonna be shark bait!”
Drake leapt down the steps and hit the sand running. Amari and his acolytes were already in the first speedboat, two of them unwrapping the thick rope that held it in place. Amari sat behind the wheel, looking straight ahead.
Refusing to believe he was being forced to run? Unable to believe it? Pampered. Veiled with untold luxuries. Pretending that he was just nipping to the shops for a pint of milk, millionaire-style?
The engine roared to life. Drake and the team arrived on the dock a few seconds later but the craft was already moving. Of the seven men sitting or standing aboard the speedboat, not a single one glanced back.
Drake shook his head. “Fucking loony toons town, that’s what this is.” He climbed carefully aboard a light blue speedboat, expecting and finding the keys to be in the ignition. “Press start,” he said and the engine roared to life.
Trainers hit the deck at his back and then Mai shouted, “Go,” and Drake pushed hard on the throttle. Water churned from the rear and the prow lifted a little. Bright skies glared down in warning but Drake was safe beneath his shades. Safe, but leaking sweat from every pore. He spun the boat and curved an arc in the water, blasting toward the center of the sea passage and the end of the frond. Was Amari heading out to sea? He hoped not.
“No signs of pursuit.” Hayden had been scanning the whole area. “Or cops, for that matter. Does anyone know what the hell is going on?”
“I could hazard a few guesses,” Mai said, holding on tight as Drake accelerated. “Wealthy parents, bored kid. Somehow develops a fixation. Has the resources to carry it all the way through to its unwise end.”
“Well, he’s clearly not under duress,” Drake shouted as spray flicked at his face. “Or any kind of stress. Hold on!”
The speedboat skipped a small wave, left the water and came crashing down with a bump. Drake hung onto the wheel as he flexed his knees to absorb the impact, and followed the getaway boat as it sped into the distance. At this speed they could clearly see the shape of the fronds to either side as they arced gracefully through the sea, artificial wonders and tributes to the ingenuity of man. Every rear garden led down to a private beach and a small jetty; every jetty held several types of craft.
Amari aimed straight for the center of the passage at first, then began to drift to the north as the frond’s outer edges appeared. Drake whistled as an enormous plot came into view, a mansion half built at the very end of the frond and surrounded by high walls and pre-grown palm trees.
“Now there’s a pad,” he said. “Whaddya say, Alicia? Wanna go halves?”
“Too bloody big. We’d never find each other.”
Mai coughed. “Not to mention . . . elegant.”
Drake rammed the throttle wide open, ignoring the knife-edge banter and concentrating on closing the gap to Amari. The lead boat hit a bit of chop, slowing it down whilst Drake luckily skimmed across a mirror-flat surface. Still, nobody turned around, all preferring to ignore the fact that they were being pursued. Amari started to pull his craft closer to the coast.
“Is he beaching it?” Beau asked.
Drake kept arrow straight, using every ounce of the speedboat’s power to get closer. The boats were evenly matched. It was Amari’s errant driving that allowed Drake to come to within twenty meters. After that though, the Arab gave the boat all of his attention, staying just out of the shallows and flicking the boat at a fast clip around the end of the frond.
Waves slapped Drake’s hull as he completed the same maneuver, not far enough out to sea for a proper swell, but the deep brine choppy enough to send Alicia both green and white.
On the boats raced, passing across the channel of the next frond and seeing another enormous space being cleared at its end. A three-story structure was already going up here, with the aspect of a hotel.
Amari threw his boat down the next channel. Drake breathed a sigh of relief because he’d already noticed it was the last. Beyond it sat the crescent breakwater and then empty, open sea all the way to Iran.
Now a hard left turn, the boat heeling, the passengers holding on with white knuckles, spray coating them from head to toe. Amari cleared the turn perfectly, much to Drake’s annoyance, but then the man had probably done it a thousand times. He followed the boat as it drifted toward the beach around the final frond and noticed a bridge up ahead; a concrete structure carrying a monorail that spanned the entire waterway.
“Maybe he’ll hit it,” the Yorkshireman said despondently.
“Don’t worry.” Alicia patted him on the shoulder. “He has to stop sometime.”
“Oh, that really helps.”
Gradually, a new structure began to take shape on the right.
“Oh bollocks,” Drake said. “I think I see his intentions.”
They all did, and anxiety set in. Until now, this chase had seemed destined to have only one ending. Amari couldn’t outrun them. But now . . .
The sprawling Atlantis Hotel rose high and multi-colored, encompassing most of the last frond by itself: thousands of rooms, restaurants, shops and a waterpark. Thousands of people. A million places to hide. If Amari got a head start on them in there, he and his people would be gone.
Drake gave it his all, choosing the slackest water and the widest arch through the bridge. He inched closer. Their quarry was only twenty meters away, still ignoring them. Drake blasted through the bridge just as a monorail passed above; he saw the faces of people staring down through the glass. To all intents and purposes this was a boys’ race—nothing more.
He twisted the wheel hard as he cleared the bridge, skimming the bottom of the craft across a flat surface and closing the gap to under twenty meters. Beau rose to his feet and approached the edge of the boat as if preparing to jump.
Alicia laughed. “Are you serious?”
“No. But I am ready.”
Drake saw they were angling hard toward shore now. Another jetty stuck out just ahead, but Amari ignored it and rammed the speeding boat up the sandy beach. The men inside must have been talking at some point, because they all hung on for dear life and then rose as momentum decreased. Drake went all out, hitting the beach at full speed, taking the jolts and trying to stand even as they plowed practically sideways.
“She’s gonna roll!” Hayden cried.
Luckily, she didn’t. Even so, Beau leapt gracefully from the tipping, sliding craft, landed like a cat, and took off after Amari’s men.
“Hate to say it.” Drake struggled down to the beach. “But that French bastard has skills.”
The way ahead was at best dubious, masked by hundreds of planted trees, meandering walkways and doors leading to different wings of the hotel. A huge pool dominated the center, sun-loungers and tourists arrayed ten deep all around it. Bars, rental huts and coffee shops added to the SPEAR team’s misery, all adding to the potpourri of distractions.
Drake spied Beau disappearing around a bend up ahead. He reached the place just in time to see the Frenchman run into a totally unexpected tree branch to the face. One of the acolytes must have stayed behind to take Beau out. Brave, ballsy, and incredibly naïve.
The Frenchman did stagger, even covered his eyes, but it was the slippery paving—wet from a recent watering—that sent him to the ground. The acolyte ran off. Beau nursed a bruised nose and a twisted ankle.
The team kept up the pace. Knots of tourists slowed them down. Sunlight
bounced off the high hotel walls. The team were shocked when they turned a blind corner and ended up facing Amari and his six pals who were waiting just outside a small side entrance to the hotel, every man holding a small handgun.
“You will back off. Leave us alone,” Amari said.
“Amari is right,” another piped up, voice almost failing. “We haven’t hurt you.”
Drake pulled up, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised but taken aback all the same. “Haven’t hurt . . . how insulated are you people? Do your parents know you’re not in your rooms?”
“We answer only to the Master. Other than that, we do the same as everyone else. We party, drink lots of water, socialize and sunbathe.”
Drake wanted to plug his ears. The sheer ignorance of it staggered him. But he plucked on a likely thread. “The Master talks to you often?”
Utter disbelief and scorn poured out at him. “The Master talks to no one. His legacy will remain intact. At. All. Costs.” More one-word sentences.
Drake couldn’t fathom the depth of idiocy—or rather the extent of fanaticism—he was seeing. But the guns—they were certainly real and required addressing.
He backed off. “No problems here.”
Amari already had his hand on the door. “Do not follow us into this hotel. We do not want to hurt you.”
Drake allowed them to leave, still astonished at the turn of events and the lack of attendant mercenaries. The cult clearly preferred to work from afar, directing operations with a wave of a sheaf of thousand-dollar bills and reluctant to shake hands with their unwashed employees. When the last man disappeared into the darkened interior, he followed.
Hayden held him back. “They’re desperate men, deep down.”
“All the more reason to corner them,” he said. “And I don’t see a man among them.”
The team filed through the same door, into the hotel. A welcome blast of air conditioning struck their exposed skin, almost as good as the relief from the constant blue glare of the skies.
Amari and his acolytes stood dead ahead of them, staring down an inner hallway with guns drawn. Hotel guests milled between them.
“I warned you!” Amari screeched.
“No—” Drake managed to cry.
The sound of gunshots drowned him out.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Torsten Dahl found himself, unexpectedly, in a coffee shop in Zurich. Sabrina Balboni had been allowed her freedom to help catch Webb, and had been directed to head for the Swiss city. Now, the rest of the team had traveled after, knowing that where Balboni was so too would be Tyler Webb.
And the mercenaries. Let’s not forget about those.
Dahl believed he’d had his fill of these so-called soldiers of fortune lately. From Arizona to New York they’d plagued his every waking hour, and then even during a much-needed vacation in sunny Barbados they had attempted the unthinkable—to hurt his family. Dahl didn’t think any hired killers survived that day,
Balboni, to her credit and desperate need to stay out of prison, had played her part well. She’d taken the time to convince Webb even though he already respected and revered her skills. And she knew her job, which at the moment was all about Webb. She knew her Saint Germain history.
Zurich was the place where, according to old accounts by various public figures including Sir Francis Bacon, Saint Germain had founded Freemasonry. The Count had spent some years here, perfecting that particular formula, before transplanting it to Venice and also Paris. Dahl cared about none of that now. He only cared about stopping Webb.
“Any contact?” he asked Kinimaka.
The Hawaiian held the cell that was Sabrina’s point of contact. “Not yet,” he said. “Shoulda implanted that tracker, brah.”
“Too obvious. And Webb wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he found it. I believe she’ll come through.”
Kinimaka scrunched his face up, the old CIA suspicion still evident. “She’s a thief. Why the confidence in her?”
“She’s not just a thief. She is different. Proven in most ways and lacking in just a few. I believe she’s redeemable.”
The Hawaiian laughed. “Like your new girlfriend? Careful, Dahl, you’ll end up surrounded by your own sympathies.”
“Kenzie is not my girlfriend,” Dahl said crossly. “Stop believing everything Alicia tells you.”
Hearing her name, Kenzie looked over from the table beside them. “Talk to me, boys, not about me. So, when are we setting off after this screwball thief?”
Dahl swallowed a harsh retort. “We allow her to settle in, gain Webb’s total confidence, and then she will call. Have faith.”
Kenzie grunted and returned to staring into the black depths of her coffee cup as if she could read their future in what grounds remained.
Dahl stared into space, ignoring the comings and goings all around. Since Barbados and the terrors his wife, children and he had been put through by his old enemy, his life had been through more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Johanna, at first willing to try again, was already starting to pull away. The children were holding up well, bouncing back with a vengeance, and not even suffering nightmares after their ordeal. There was always a silver lining, he thought, even where the storm ran deepest.
It seemed there was nothing more to do, or try, short of quitting his job. Even then, would an initial euphoria turn to dust once whatever kind of new life they made grew mundane and he began to miss his true calling?
So here he was in the heart of Zurich, in the middle of another job and trying to find a solution to his marital problems. Not easy when the other half of the solution sat thousands of miles away.
Zurich itself was an impressive city. Located at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich it had been called the wealthiest city in Europe as well as the city with the best quality of life. Theatres, art galleries and museums were in abundance, bringing tourists from all parts of the world. Gathered around him now were an eclectic bunch: backpackers, business men and locals pecking away at computers.
A standard cellphone tone caught his attention. Kinimaka stared at the screen before nodding and holding it to his ear.
“Yes?”
Dahl watched his face as the hustle and bustle around them went on uninterrupted. This could change things. Set them in motion. The Hawaiian’s face remained impassive for a while and then a telling reply.
“Where is it?”
Dahl felt a surge of energy and smiled at Smyth. At last, movement. This would help occupy their minds, divert their attentions.
Kinimaka nodded as he spoke. “We’re on our way. We’ll try to—”
Clearly then the line went dead as he stopped talking and stared at the screen. “Hope she’s okay,” he said, and then let out a long breath.
“And so do I,” Dahl said. “But stay tough with her, Mano. Don’t forget we have the means to test her too.”
The merc they’d questioned in Paris earlier had listed all the places both he and his fellow goons had been tasked to guard. They had that list now, and would be matching it closely with what Sabrina gave them in the future.
“I have coordinates. It’s not too far but—” He looked downcast.
“What?”
“She said something like—‘bring your skis’.”
Dahl could understand why Kinimaka might look so glum. “Shit, and you find it hard to walk in a straight line.”
“I know.” No protests came from the Hawaiian side.
Smyth knocked on the table. “So, get the coordinates tapped in. Let’s scope this bad boy out.”
Dahl watched Lauren push her laptop into the center of the table. She had been researching Saint Germain and Zurich, and the history of Freemasons. The wealth of lore and hearsay surrounding the Count, however, was challenging and quite fascinating.
Considered a secret agent of King Louis XV of France he appeared to have gone with a British commander to India to actually fight the French, highlighting an incredible talent for being able to go bac
k and forth with leaders of warring camps and nations. An agent, a spy, a “singer who plays the violin wonderfully, composes and is also completely mad”, according to Horace Walpole.
In Freemasonry he was considered not so much a Mason, but a member of the Higher Brotherhood. Modern-day Masons tried to distance themselves from involvement with the Count, citing the ridiculous accounts surrounding his alchemical discoveries, great feats and long life as proof that the man was an utter charlatan.
But Lauren pointed out the stark facts: kings courted him; battle commanders traveled with him; composers sought his company, theaters his compositions. He facilitated the marriage of a Dutch princess to a German prince, to establish a “fund for France”. All statements of fact.
Why?
The Brotherhood called him an Advanced Adept, and many branches still did not deny him. His intrigues, travels and successes certainly pointed to a man of power, moving within influential circles and swaying minds.
Dahl was more interested in the place he’d stayed whilst visiting Zurich. “Lauren?”
“Yeah, it’s up here.” She jabbed at the screen where a 2D map of Zurich was displayed. Mountains marched beyond the lake and the city, some snow-capped. Lauren’s fingers tapped at one of the tallest.
“We have a GPRS locator?” she asked.
Dahl nodded. “My old job. Never go anywhere without one.”
Kenzie tapped him on the shoulder. “Um, except Barbados, eh?”
“That was different. Stop jabbering.”
He ignored the bleat of protest, listening as Lauren suggested a simple route to a location close to the foot of the mountain in question.
“Webb’s there now?” he asked.
Kinimaka nodded. “Like a virus that can’t be shaken.”
“Kenzie.” He stood up without looking at her. “Get the check.”
*
Sometime later around lunchtime, the team crowded out of their rented minibus, opened the rear hatch, and took a look at the assorted clothes and implements they’d thrown there. Only Dahl and Yorgi sported smiles.
“Don’t worry,” Dahl said. “It looks more cross-country than hill climb. A totally different kettle of fish.”
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