Wave of Terror

by Jon Jefferson

His eyes narrowed slightly. “I work for the FBI, remember? We know how to find people.” He gave a laugh—a smug laugh, it seemed to O’Malley. Then he turned and studied the road again. “Looks like nobody’s spotted us,” he went on, and O’Malley felt her throat tighten with fear.

  He’s part of it, too, she realized. It’s now or never. Him or me. She pushed herself to stand. Pain shot through her ankle again, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. Luckily, foolishly, he still had his back to her. O’Malley drew back in a windup, as if for a tennis serve, then realized that she couldn’t swing the tire iron overhead without snagging it on the top of the SUV’s opening; she’d have to swing it sideways. A forehand, then, not an overhead smash.

  “Professor Boyd,” he said, as her arm began to swing. “We should call him. Let him know you’re okay. See what the seismometers are saying.” But she was too late to hear his words, to hear their reassuring tone, to glimpse the open smile as he began turning toward her again.

  Given a few minutes—and a calculator and a few bits of data—O’Malley could have computed the force with which the tire iron was about to strike the FBI agent’s skull. But she didn’t have a few minutes, or even a few seconds, and she certainly didn’t have the strength to override the momentum that her fear and adrenaline had imparted to the heavy tool. Newton’s first law: a body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force . . .

  What O’Malley had—all that she had—was a nanosecond. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  She let go. Just. Let. Go.

  Released from the gravitational pull of her grip, the tire iron instantly attained escape velocity. Rocketing past Dawtry’s head, it spun away like some lopsided, one-way boomerang, sailing clear over the helicopter, clear off the edge of the cliff, and dropping from sight.

  “I can’t believe you tried to brain me,” Dawtry said again, O’Malley’s foot in one hand and a small spool of elastic bandage in the other.

  “I started to brain you,” O’Malley pointed out. “Then I realized my error, and I stopped.”

  With a dubious grunt, he finished wrapping her swollen ankle. “Lucky for me I said ‘Boyd’ just in the nick. The magic word that saved my skull. We both owe Boyd big-time. If he hadn’t given me the GPS coordinates for the seismometer locations, I wouldn’t have found you until too late. It would be you, not Iñigo, spattered on the rocks down there.”

  “Ugh.” She shuddered. “Okay, so now we hightail it out of here. Where to? What’s next?”

  Dawtry frowned. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Leaving her perched in the open back of the SUV, he jogged past the helicopter and continued to the edge of the cliff. Perilously close to the brink, he leaned over the precipice to study the rocks below.

  O’Malley’s heart raced. Don’t you dare fall off, she telegraphed to him. After a moment, he turned and picked up the battery and the seismometer—The instruments of my deliverance, she thought—and then trudged up the slope. To her surprise, he stopped at the helicopter and set them in the cockpit before rejoining her.

  “Hey,” she called, “what are you doing?”

  “We can’t leave these here. I’ll fly offshore a ways, drop ’em in the ocean.”

  “What? No!” He gave her a quizzical look; she responded by holding out her hands, palms up. “We need the data!”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “In spite of everything that’s happened, you’re still hell-bent on this triangulation project?”

  “Because of everything that’s happened,” she said. “Don’t you see? If we don’t set up this third gizmo, we miss our chance. Waste the opportunity.”

  He stared at her; O’Malley couldn’t quite read the look. Was it admiration or exasperation?

  After a moment, he said, “We shouldn’t set it up here. We have to put it somewhere else, where it won’t be found.”

  She nodded. “I passed another spot a couple miles up the road. Not quite as good, because it’s farther inland, but probably fine.

  Dawtry retrieved the rig from the chopper and set it in the back of the SUV, then helped O’Malley hobble to the passenger seat. Then he got behind the wheel and reached for the key. “What the hell?”

  “What?”

  “The brake pedal—it goes all the way to the floor.”

  “Oh, I forgot to warn you about that. Iñigo sabotaged the brakes. You have to use the hand brake. And the transmission. Cut the ignition, if you have to stop on a dime.”

  He turned toward her. “You’ve been driving these mountain roads with no brakes?”

  “Just for the last twenty miles.” He stared, and she told him about her stop at the observatory and her encounter there with Iñigo, skipping over the part about their brief make-out session. “He tried to talk me out of poking around in this. I figured he just thought I was crazy, or a pain in the ass. Me and my big mouth—spilling the beans to one of the bad guys.”

  “Hey, look on the bright side,” he said. “You got us a huge clue—and lived to tell the tale.”

  She flushed. His use of the word “us” gave her a rush of validation. First Boyd, now Dawtry: she was finally being taken seriously.

  It took Dawtry a while to get the hang of using the hand brake instead of the pedal, but after a few nail-biting, careening turns, he mastered it. O’Malley guided him to a secluded ravine a few miles away, and with her calling instructions from the car, Dawtry placed the seismometer and powered it up. “It’s alive,” he said. “Transmitting data.”

  He hurried back to the car, and they shared a celebratory high five. She began writing an email to Boyd, to confirm that all three rigs were up and running, but halfway through the first line, she groaned. “Well, shoot.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My phone just died. I left the charger at the hotel this morning.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Dawtry said. He dictated an email, so she could hear the message, and hit “Send.”

  “So,” she said. “Now what?”

  He frowned. “It’s complicated. We’ve got two vehicles. I have to return the helicopter before dark, but you’re in no shape to drive. I guess we have to leave the car.”

  “We can’t,” she said. “Remember? We have to pretend we weren’t here. I can drive.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “You can’t even walk.”

  “I don’t have to walk. All I have to do is put a little pressure on the gas pedal. And, hey, silver lining—I don’t even have to step on the brake!” He shot her a dubious look. “Really,” she insisted, “I’ll be fine. If it’ll make you feel better, you can tail me all the way back to Santa Cruz.” Without warning, he pulled over and parked, although they were still a half mile from the helicopter. “Why are you stopping here?” she asked.

  “Prove it,” he said. “Show me you’re able to drive.”

  “God, you’re as stubborn as I am,” she muttered. “Okay, I’ll show you.”

  He got out and came around to her door, then helped her limp to the driver’s side and get in.

  She drove slowly, wincing whenever they came to an upgrade that required pressure on the gas pedal, but when she stopped beside the helicopter and shot him a challenging look, he shrugged. “Okay, you pass,” he said. “I wouldn’t send you on a trip across the US, but you only need to make it back to Santa Cruz, which is pretty close.”

  “Want me to pick you up at the airport?”

  “Sure,” he said, but then he shook his head. “On second thought, maybe that’s not such a great idea.”

  “How come?”

  “Might be better if we meet up someplace touristy, so we blend in.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Like I said, we don’t know who the other bad guys are, or where. And so far, there’s nothing here that connects you to me.” O’Malley glanced toward the precipice where she had fought with Iñigo. Dawtry followed her gaze and grimaced. “Well, nothing they know about yet. Keeping quiet about it buys us a little time.�
��

  She turned back toward him. “So is this goodbye? You fly off into the sunset, and I never see you again?”

  He snorted. “Are you kidding? Somebody has to keep a close eye on you.”

  “But didn’t you just say we shouldn’t be seen together?”

  “I didn’t say we shouldn’t be seen together. I just said you shouldn’t fetch me from the airport.” He looked thoughtful for a moment; then a slow smile spread across his face. “I’m here as a tourist. No reason I couldn’t go to some touristy restaurant and strike up a conversation with a good-looking fellow tourist.”

  She nodded slowly. “There’s a Cuban place, Habana, in the center of town. Looks touristy. Maybe even fun.”

  “See you there. Act like you don’t know me.”

  She narrowed her eyes but grinned, too. “You’re sneaky. Probably a good quality in a spy.”

  “I’m not a spy,” he said. “I’m a federal agent. Or a former federal agent. Who just happens to be doing clandestine stuff. In a foreign country.”

  “Like I said. A spy.”

  He shrugged and gave a nod that might have been a slight bow. “As you wish.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Again, O’Malley scanned the people crowding the bar at Habana. Again, she failed to spot Dawtry, and her anxiety ratcheted up another notch. Had something gone wrong? Several times on her zigzag trip back to Santa Cruz, she had glanced up and seen the helicopter. Mostly, it had meandered just off the coast, with occasional detours inland, up this or that dizzying ravine. When O’Malley had turned off the coast highway and entered the labyrinthine streets of Santa Cruz, the chopper had leveled off and made a beeline for the airport.

  But that had been nearly an hour ago, she saw when she checked her watch for the umpteenth time. The airport was close—five miles? ten, tops—so it shouldn’t have taken an hour to land, turn in the keys (do helicopters have keys?), and catch a cab back to town.

  Had he crashed? Oh God, please not, she thought; then she shook her head at her obsessiveness and foolishness. From what little she’d seen, he was a damned good pilot—could every FBI agent fly a helicopter? Was that part of the training? She wished she’d been able to hitch a ride back to town with him, riding shotgun five hundred feet above the spectacular scenery, instead of creeping along the asphalt, juggling the gearshift, the hand brake, and the infernal gas pedal, which sparked a volley of pained profanity every time she pressed it.

  By now she was feeling better. A quick change of clothes at the hotel had helped reboot her mood, the ibuprofen was easing the pain, and the mojito—her second—was helping her not give a particular shit about the ache anymore, anyhow. “Buy you another?” murmured an unfamiliar voice in her ear. O’Malley jumped. She swiveled and saw a florid, beefy-faced fellow—a Brit? Australian?—leering at her. “Uh, no, thank you,” she said, and turned back toward the bar.

  “Fancy a bit of convo?” She shook her head, but he wedged himself into the infinitesimal gap between her and the next patron. She felt something pressing against her side, and she glanced down and was horrified to see that it was the man’s belly.

  O’Malley held up a hand. “No, really. I’m not looking for company.”

  “But you found some anyway, didn’t you, love?” The man laughed—a bleary, beery laugh—and she realized that he was drunk in addition to being rude and revolting. “If you want to win friends and influence people, there’s nothing like a firm bum in tight white jeans.”

  O’Malley felt jostled by more contact, then felt a squeeze, and she realized that the man had put his hand on her. He was touching—no, squeezing—her ass! “Hey,” she yelled, winding up to slap the shit out of him.

  Strong fingers suddenly caught her wrist, holding her arm. “Honey,” she heard Dawtry call over the din. “So sorry to keep you waiting. I thought I’d never find a parking place.” Still holding her right wrist, he wrapped his other arm around her left shoulder in an affectionate and casually possessive gesture, then leaned forward and kissed the back of her head. “Hello, mate,” he said to O’Malley’s unwanted suitor. “Thanks for watching out for the wife. Can I buy you—” But Dawtry’s offer was choked off by his sudden fit of coughing—racking, consumptive coughs, which nearly doubled him over. He lurched sideways, put one hand on O’Malley’s back, and reached with his other hand for the drunken Brit’s shoulder to steady himself. “Sorry,” he wheezed, then launched into another coughing fit. “Coming down—rrrhhhnnn—with some damned bug. Screw those mosquitoes, right, mate?” He set about snorting and clearing his throat with such force that O’Malley half expected him to hock an oyster onto the bar.

  The beefy man stared. He seemed to be contemplating taking a swing at Dawtry, but another round of wheezing seemed to settle the matter. The Brit slouched away, crimson-faced, muttering words that sounded like “bloody Yanks” and “quarantine.” Dawtry coughed a few more times, driving another person from the bar, then straightened up and turned to O’Malley. “You okay?”

  She stared. “I’m fine. But you? You sound like you’re dying.”

  He winked. “I’m not dead yet,” he said in a broad British accent.

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘I’m not dead yet.’ It’s crowded and loud in here—we should go someplace quiet, where we can hear each other.”

  “I heard you,” she shouted. “But, mister, you got some ’splainin’ to do.”

  He leaned closer to her, so he could speak in a normal tone. “I just didn’t want you to start a bar brawl,” he said. “We’re blending in, remember?”

  “I don’t mean ’splainin’ about keeping the peace,” she said. “I mean ’splainin’ about the quotes.”

  “What quotes?”

  “The movie quotes. A while ago, you said, ‘As you wish’ and ‘I don’t think that word means what you think it means.’ Dialogue from The Princess Bride. Just now you said, ‘I’m not dead yet.’ Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So start ’splainin’. Have you been stickin’ your nose in my DVD drawers?” Was it her imagination, or was she starting to slur her words—and were those words veering toward inappropriate innuendo?

  He laughed. “Those were my big brother’s favorite movies. Those, and that Christmas movie about the kid who wants the BB gun.”

  She slapped Dawtry playfully on the chest. “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” His chest felt solid, and she felt a powerful urge to thump it again. Shit, O’Malley, you’re looped, she thought. Two mojitos on an empty stomach. Poor planning.

  He leaned back and seemed to study her face. Could he tell she was wasted? Apparently, because he said, “Let’s go get some food.” He flagged down the bartender and gave the man a twenty-euro note, gesturing at O’Malley’s empty glasses. The man nodded and half-heartedly offered to bring change, but Dawtry waved off the offer. “Can you walk?” he asked O’Malley.

  “I’m not actuarially looped,” she protested.

  “Actuarially?”

  “I’m not,” she insisted, her voice indignant.

  “I was asking about your ankle,” he said, “not impugning your sobriety.”

  “Impugning? Impugning? Ooh-la-lah, Agent Fancy-Pants.” She made a swishy, flipping motion with her hand. “Say, cowboy, do they teach you those big vo-caballero words at the FBI Academy?” She leaned close and added, in a confiding murmur, “I can walk just fine. I brought an umbrero from the hotel. It keeps off the rain, but works like a cane.” She giggled. “Oooh, I made a rhyme! I’m a poet, but you didn’t know it.”

  “I still don’t,” he said drily. “Where is this camouflaged crutch?”

  “This what?”

  “The umbrero—where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know that my favorite color is blue. And I know that to maintain airspeed velocity, a swallow has to flap its wings forty-three times a second.”

  “African or European swallow?” She blinked, but before she could answer, he added, “Truly, you have a diz
zying intellect.”

  God, he’s smart, she thought dizzily.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dawtry spotted the umbrella—the “umbrero”—leaning against the wall just inside the doorway, but he shepherded O’Malley outside without pausing to snag it. For one thing, he had his hands full with her; the weak ankle and the strong cocktails had undermined her ability to ambulate, and Dawtry couldn’t handle anything extra. For another, there was the risk that she would insist on carrying the umbrella herself, and he could envision all sorts of problems with that scenario, including (but not limited to) her inadvertent skewering of some unlucky passerby’s eyeball. You’ll skewer an eye out, kid, he thought.

  Directly across from Habana, Dawtry noticed another restaurant, La Placeta. It had a cluster of outdoor tables, as well as indoor dining on two levels. It was close and easy, but it looked fancy—the customers appeared affluent, and therefore unlikely to take kindly to a couple that included a slightly wasted woman. Besides, he reasoned, a walk might help O’Malley sober up.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked O’Malley.

  “At the airport.”

  “The airport? Why did you park at the airport?”

  “So I could get on a plane, silly. Can’t drive here from Baltimore. We’re on an island.”

  Dawtry closed his eyes briefly and prayed for patience. “Not your own car, Megan. The rental car, here in La Palma. The SUV with the bad brakes and busted mirror. I flew the helicopter back to the airport, and—”

  “I saw you,” she said, nodding. “You’re an amazing pilot. Is that what makes you a special agent?”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “No. Only extra special agents can fly.” Her eyes widened. “I’m kidding. I learned to fly in the army. I was a helicopter instructor for a while, until I decided to join the Bureau.”

  “So you’re a G-Man and a GI. What else?”

  “That’s about it. Anyhow, we need to find your car. Your rental car—that white SUV.”

  “That white SUV—what a piece of shit,” she said. “The damn brakes don’t even work.”