by Tim Stevens
They launched the Sea Stealer at nine-forty p.m.
*
Estrada had collected Venn and Beth a little more than an hour earlier. She’d looked at Beth with concern, and Venn had given her a brief account about what had happened on the ward.
“We need to hit that ward,” said Estrada. “Find out what happened.”
“No time,” Venn said. “We got our thing in an hour.” He glanced at Beth, who was in the rear of Estrada’s station wagon. He’d intended to tell her what he was planning to do tonight, about the exchange for the Fuentes kid. But now, he decided that wasn’t a good idea.
So he’d told her, before Estrada had picked them up, that he was going to take down Brull that night, with Estrada’s assistance. He hadn’t gone into specifics, and Beth hadn’t asked.
They drove to Estrada’s office. On the way, she told Beth that she was assigning two cops, one male and one female, to take care of her until this was over.
“You can’t go back to the hotel,” Venn said to Beth. “If these guys on the ward really were after you, as this Harris guy said, then we can’t take the chance. We have to assume they know where you’re staying.”
The cops Estrada was assigning to guard Beth were ones she could trust. They’d accommodate Beth at an apartment round the corner from Estrada’s office.
Beth nodded. She seemed beyond any argument. Venn hoped the PTSD wasn’t going to become an issue again.
At the office, Venn hugged Beth tightly. She returned his embrace, hard, in a way that suggested she wasn’t doing it in a detached, going-through-the-motions kind of manner.
She looked up into his eyes.
“Take care, Venn,” she said. “Come back, will you? Come back to us?”
And she placed his hand on her belly, where he let it linger for the briefest moment.
“Yeah,” he said. “You bet I’ll be back.”
*
On the way to the docks where the Sea Stealer was berthed, Estrada said to Venn: “So this Harris guy. Sounds like kind of a pro.”
“Yeah,” Venn said. Beth had said Harris had shot all four of Brull’s men during their invasion of the ward. Put them down cleanly, as if he knew what he was doing, knew how to handle a gun.
“And your girl, Beth, said Harris told her he was interested in O’Reilly.”
“Uh huh.” Venn had been considering the implications.
Fil Vidal had called him back, around five-thirty p.m. He’d said, “Boss, there’s good news and bad news, though the bad is probably worse than the good.”
“Shoot,” Venn said.
“The good news is, one of my contacts knows a guy in the FBI who’s owed a favor by a British guy in MI5. You know, the UK counter-intelligence service?”
“Yeah,” said Venn. “I know.”
“Well,” Fil continued, “I made some calls. Schmoozed a little. Persuaded this MI5 guy to search for Mark O’Reilly in the British databases. MI5’s own ones, and the Metropolitan Police’s files.”
“And?”
“And, that’s where the bad news comes in. There’s nothing on the guy. He has no record. But here’s the thing. The MI5 guy says that’s weird. Because O’Reilly served in the Royal Navy in the early 1980s. And his Navy files aren’t accessible. Not even to MI5.”
“Huh,” said Venn.
“The MI5 guy says that usually means one thing,” Fil said. “If MI5 can’t access an individual’s service record, it means the individual is working for another covert government agency. That agency is probably MI6. The British foreign intelligence service. Their version of our CIA.”
“Whoah,” said Venn, glancing across at Estrada, who was hovering nearby. “You’re telling me this O’Reilly is a British spook? Some kind of James Bond?”
“Maybe,” Fil said. “Or maybe he once was, but is now retired.”
Venn thought about it. “Fil, thanks,” he said. “I think you’ve been more help than you realize, though I don’t exactly know how just at the moment.”
“Oh, and another thing,” Fil said. “Your James Harris? The one with the date of birth you gave me? He died in infancy. Whoever’s using his ID for the driving license stole it.”
Venn told Estrada. She looked weary.
“British goddamn spies,” she muttered. “As if things weren’t complicated enough.”
*
Now, in the car on the way to the docks, and to the end game - at least, that was how it felt to Venn - Estrada said: “So this Harris is a professional who’s after O’Reilly. And O’Reilly is a possible MI6 agent, either currently or previously.”
“Yeah,” Venn said. “Beth said Harris’s accent changed to British, so we can assume he’s a Brit. So maybe O’Reilly is a rogue MI6 agent, doing some kind of a deal with Brull, and this Harris has been sent here to bring him to heel. But he’s gotta do it in a clandestine manner, to avoid all the political embarrassment that would follow if a British intelligence operative was found in cahoots with a Miami gangbanger. So Harris is working outside the law.”
“Be a lot easier if he came forward,” said Estrada. “We’re on the same side, essentially.”
Venn stared out the window, at the city’s lights, the approaching glitter of the waterfront. “What the hell is Brull cooking up with O’Reilly?” he said.
Estrada glanced at him. “More to the point, what the hell are you going to do if Brull makes the exchange and takes you into his custody?”
“I’ll find something,” Venn said.
Estrada said, “I’m serious, Venn. That woman of yours needs you to come back. Like I said before, I’m guessing you’re gonna have kids with her. Maybe she’s even pregnant now. So you need to find a way to make this work. ‘I’ll find something’ isn’t good enough.”
“Sometimes the lion’s den is the best place to be,” Venn said. “The lions can get complacent.”
But he wasn’t sure he believed it.
*
At ten minutes to ten, as the Sea Stealer cut a churning furrow through the black water beyond the cabin window, Venn saw the solitary, stationary outline of a boat against the sky ahead, and he knew Brull had made the rendezvous.
Chapter 31
Brull took the call. It was Elon.
“Ship approaching,” Elon said. “Looks about the same size as our boat. I’m guessing it’s the one.”
“He said the name was the Sea Stealer,” said Brull. “Make sure that’s what’s on the side.”
“Roger that.”
“And stay on the phone,” said Brull. “Keep this line open.”
Brull stared out the window of the ship. The horizon was a distant, faint line, and he could see nothing traversing it. He was too far out to sea to have even the remotest chance of being able to observe what was about to go down, but he gazed in that direction anyway.
If Venn pulled some trick, and the forces of law and order descended on the boat on which Elon and his three guys were currently holding the Fuentes kid, then Brull was far enough away that he could flee without worrying too much about being caught immediately. He could write off Elon and the other guys - and Venn - as necessary business losses, and could proceed with the transfer of the cargo to O’Reilly’s cargo ship, which was hovering several knots farther out to sea.
Except that O’Reilly had introduced a wrinkle. He’d take possession of the cargo. But he wouldn’t deliver it to its intended recipient - the Turkmen, Popok - until Brull furnished proof that the man hunting O’Reilly, John Purkiss, had been killed.
And that was a tough one. Because Brull had no idea where this Purkiss guy was.
He decided it wasn’t an urgent priority. As long as the cargo was delivered to O’Reilly’s ship, the actual transfer across the Atlantic to Turkmenistan could wait a few hours.
The priority was to take possession of Venn, and find out how much he knew about the whole operation, and then kill him. After making him suffer, of course, for sneering at Brull, and disrespecting him.
Elon’s voice came from the speakerphone: “Flashlight’s started up from the other boat. Just like Venn said.”
“Okay,” said Brull. “Get the kid ready. Send one of the other guys with him on the rowboat. You stay there to receive Venn.”
Chapter 32
John Purkiss - whose driving license identified him as James Harris - watched the woman, Beth Colby, stagger out of the phone booth into the arms of the big man in the leather jacket, and he raised his phone.
It wasn’t his phone, in fact. He’d slipped it out of Dr Colby’s jacket pocket while he’d been supporting her as they’d escaped the hospital.
He took a picture of the big man. Sent it back to his contact in London, for checking against all the available databases.
The answer came back to him within ninety seconds. Joseph Venn. Current position Detective Lieutenant in the New York Police Department. Division of Special Projects.
For a moment, Purkiss considered approaching the man, Venn. But he decided against it, because he didn’t know what the Colby woman was telling Venn, and if she was portraying Purkiss as just another aggressor then Venn would probably attack him on sight, and that wouldn’t do anybody any good.
Purkiss had waited till Dr Colby had dwindled in his rearview mirror, before turning the car and following her. He’d tracked her easily, because she wasn’t trying to evade surveillance.
He watched her and Venn as they walked along the sidewalk, Venn talking on his phone.
They stopped halfway down, and Venn appeared to comfort her.
Ten minutes later, another car pulled up. A station wagon. Purkiss peered at the driver. He saw she was female, and possibly Cuban. He took a photo of the license plate, and sent it to his London contact again.
And he set off after the station wagon.
He hung back, allowing several cars between him and the other car, because he didn’t want Venn or Colby glancing in the mirror and seeing that their own Prius was following them.
The answer came back after four minutes. The car is registered to a Detective Lieutenant Lauren Dominica Estrada, of the Miami Police Department.
Purkiss watched the car pull up outside a police station of some kind, and Venn and Colby and the driver, Estrada, get out and go inside.
He opened the glove compartment of his car. Felt about inside, till he found a ballpoint pen.
He pushed the nib of the pen into the molar tooth of his lower jaw on the left-hand side.
Prized out the tiny metal bead, wincing at the lance of pain.
In a series of actions that were so smooth and fluid they might have constituted a single movement, Purkiss opened the door of the Prius and ran in his hospital pajamas to the station wagon and, finding the door open, wedged the metal bead beneath the dashboard and shut the door and headed back to the Prius.
He sat, and watched the station wagon, and waited.
The bead was an auditory surveillance device, one which Purkiss synched to his new phone - Dr Colby’s phone - by tapping in a code on the phone which granted him access to a remote, encrypted server. He’d originally intended planting the device on the boat O’Reilly owned, the Merry May, but he’d been cold-cocked before he’d had the chance.
Fifteen minutes later, Venn and Estrada emerged from the front door of the precinct house.
Purkiss watched them get into the station wagon.
He heard their voices, crystal clear, through the phone in his hand.
And when the station wagon pulled away, he took off after them once more.
*
He learned, in the next fifteen minutes, that they were heading for the docks.
That there was some kind of exchange going down.
That a man named Brull, who presumably was the head of the outfit O’Reilly was dealing with, was Venn’s target.
And Purkiss also learned that Venn and Estrada knew O’Reilly was probably MI6, and that he, Purkiss - though to them he was still James Harris - had been sent to apprehend O’Reilly.
O’Reilly was somebody Purkiss had known, vaguely, a few years earlier, when Purkiss had still been with MI6. The man had retired from the service four or five years ago, and had started up his boat-hire firm here in Miami. But former MI6 operatives never really got away, and Purkiss’s employer began to check out O’Reilly’s activities, and decided that there were signs he wasn’t entirely above board.
As a former Navy man and keen sailor, he had extensive knowledge of the shipping routes across the Atlantic and into the Caspian and other seas in Central Europe. And anybody with that kind of knowledge, who started plying their trade in a place like Miami, came under suspicion.
Purkiss knew O’Reilly was up to something, and was dealing with some element or other of underworld crime here in Miami. He just didn’t know the details.
But he was getting closer to finding out.
Chapter 33
Venn peered across the black expanse of the water, and saw the rowboat bobbing beside the hull of its parent vessel.
Estrada lowered the binoculars. She passed them to Venn.
“Yep. That’s the kid.”
Through the glasses, Venn saw a blurred, ever-moving image of a man - shaven-headed, of course - with his arm round the neck of a small, pale-faced boy. The kid didn’t look as terrified as he had done on the video, but he was probably numbed by now.
“Let’s do this,” Venn said.
He climbed down the steps into the rowboat.
He gripped the oars, tested them for weight. Turned to Estrada.
She gripped his shoulder, briefly. “Goddamn it, Venn. Good luck.”
Venn began to row into the vast, engulfing darkness.
*
The other boat drew near at a little beyond the halfway mark. Venn realized he’d been rowing too fast, and had gotten there too soon.
He slowed.
The kid’s white face was the first detail he noted. The white face, and the black, wide eyes.
As the boats passed, Venn stared at both the kid, and the man holding him.
The kid didn’t meet his gaze.
The man stared into his eyes, hard, like he was challenging him.
And suddenly Venn had had enough.
He’d assumed there’d be a sizable welcoming committee on the boat he was rowing toward. But he also assumed they wouldn’t kill him then and there.
Rather, they’d deliver him to Brull on the mainland. And that afforded a window of opportunity, between capture and handover, during which Venn could assess the situation and come up with a plan. One which would allow him both to take down Brull, and escape.
But now, seeing the young boy with his dull, blank expression, and the hard-faced mobster who was escorting him, Venn had enough.
He waited till he’d rowed just past the other boat, till their ends were five feet apart.
Then he let go of the right-hand oar and pulled out his Beretta and shot the shaven-headed man through the head.
The guy tipped over without so much as a scream, plunging into the water with a splash that almost, but not quite, drowned out the crack of the shot across the surface.
The tilting of the boat threw the boy sideways and into the water, though the rowboat righted itself.
Venn lunged, grabbing at the kid, seizing a limb - arm or leg, he didn’t know - and hauling so that the wriggling, dripping child emerged from the water and Venn managed to haul him over the rim of the rowboat and fling him to floor and lie over him.
He said, “Hector, my name’s Joe. I’m a friend, okay? I’m gonna get you back to your mom and dad. Just stay down there, you understand me?”
The boy’s one visible eye, white and terrified, seemed to understand.
Venn put the Beretta within reach and grasped the oars and began to haul ass, turning the rowboat back toward the Sea Stealer.
Chapter 34
Elon yelled through the speakerphone: “He’s shot Rico, he’s shot Rico. Venn has the kid and he’s hea
ding back to the Sea Stealer.”
“Son of a bitch.” Brull slammed his fist into the cabin wall. “Shoot him. Shoot them both. Kill him and the kid.”
Through the speakers, Brull heard the hammer of gunfire. He heard it live as well, far fainter, carried across the surface of the sea.
“Dammit,” Elon snarled. “He’s just out of range.”
“Then close in,” shouted Brull.
“We’re turning and heading after him,” Elon said. “But he’ll get close to the Sea Stealer before we’re in range. They may have guns on board.”
“Okay,” said Brull. “I’m coming.”
“Boss, you think that’s wise?” Elon broke off to call to one of the men with him. He came back: “You need to stay out of this.”
“The hell with that.” Brull signaled to the skipper of the ship, indicated he wanted him to head toward the mainland. “This asshole has dissed me for the last time.”
Brull reached into his coat pocket and drew his gun. A Heckler & Koch, precision German engineering. With a full magazine, and a spare in his pocket.
Venn and the snot-nosed kid were history.
Chapter 35
John Purkiss had, in the last hour, obtained a new set of clothes to replace his hospital pajamas (courtesy of the contents of a dumpster next to a residential block), had picked the pocket of a slightly tipsy middle-aged man who was taking a stroll with his equally merry wife along the promenade, stealing the man’s wallet (though he’d return it by mail in due course, with the contents fully reimbursed), and had procured a speedboat from an all-night rental firm.
He’d listened in on the bug he’d planted in Estrada’s station wagon, and had followed Venn’s and Estrada’s movements to the docks and beyond, watching them boarding the boat, the Sea Stealer.
