by Steve Berry
“Stay here,” I told Foster. “They’ve kept Coleen back as insurance to make sure this goes right. That’s okay. I’m keeping you and those envelopes back as our hole card.”
He nodded in understanding.
“Just stay put until I come back for you.”
He grabbed my arm. “Get her and Nate back. Unharmed. Please.”
“I will.”
Many times, I’ve been wrong in my life.
But never more so than at that moment.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I descended to ground level and hustled across the town square, crossing the wet pavement and entering the first of the many stores lining Main Street. I remembered from my previous visit as a kid that the shops drained into one another so it wasn’t necessary to go out of one, then back into the next. A clever marketing tool to keep people inside buying, it now provided me with a way to stalk my targets without being seen.
I zigzagged around display racks and merchandise counters, aiming my gaze to the right and out the doorways and glass storefronts. I was keeping pace with Oliver and Jansen on the sidewalk. There was no way for them to see me unless they stopped and entered one of the stores.
I chose the rendezvous point with a purpose. The bronze statue of a waving Walt Disney holding hands with his creation, Mickey Mouse, sat in the center of the park, just before the castle, at a busy crossroads. There should be plenty of people, though the rain might have thinned the crowd.
Occasionally, I caught site of Nate and Valdez on the far side of Main Street, staying parallel to Oliver and Jansen. They were all being cautious, which I expected. Looking back, I’m ashamed at my arrogance. I’d been a field agent for all of two days and I was making life-and-death decisions like I was a pro. Even worse, I was doing it with a cavalier attitude of a lawyer thinking that the worst that could happen was I lost the case. Sure, my client might stay in custody, or be taken off to prison, but I still get to go home.
Not here.
Losing came with the direst of consequences.
I kept moving.
Oliver and Jansen came to the end of Main Street and I entered the last shop, creeping over to the open doorway and watching as the four men regrouped and walked straight toward the Disney statue. I caught the waft of popcorn and cookies, which seemed oddly out of place with what I was facing. The rain remained a steady drizzle. People here had ditched umbrellas, nearly all of them draped in plastic ponchos with Mickey Mouse logos. My four targets had utilized neither, opting to just get wet. They stopped at the statue, which stood on a low dais surrounded by flowers. I exited the shop and stepped into the rain. Darkness had arrived with the suddenness of a drawn curtain.
Valdez saw me coming.
“No files or Foster?” he called out.
I came close and stopped. “No Coleen?”
The Cuban shrugged. “What can I say? I’m not trustworthy.”
“You okay?” I asked Nate.
He nodded. “I’m fine. Coleen’s okay, too.”
“Where are the files?” Oliver asked.
“Safe from the rain.”
“Odd choice of a place to meet,” Valdez said.
“Not really. I like Mickey Mouse. And all these tourists should keep us all under control. The last thing we want is attention, right?”
It had to be a little odd, though. Five grown men, standing in the rain, no umbrellas, chatting with one another. Discouraging was the fact that I hadn’t seen a single security guard or policeman in the past several minutes.
“What now?” Jansen asked.
I caught his contempt.
“You do what I tell you and we’ll all get out of here with what we want.”
“Who died and put you in charge?” Jansen asked.
“He is in charge,” Valdez said. “He has my coin and your files. Why don’t we give him a chance to produce both so we can end this.”
“I agree,” Oliver said. “But I have an added problem. The FBI has become focused on me, and I don’t intend to spend my retirement in jail.”
“You should have thought about that before you had Martin Luther King Jr. and Dan Veddern killed,” I said.
I caught the shocked expression on Nate’s face.
Oliver pointed a finger at me. “That’s exactly what I’m going to hear, over and over. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t order anybody killed.”
I pointed at Valdez. “That’s not what he said.”
“Is that true?” Oliver asked.
Valdez nodded.
I’d already decided to keep quiet about the copy of the recording Lael had provided me. That was my ace in the hole. “Do you have the original recording Foster wants?”
Oliver fished a small spool of the old reel-to-reel tape from his pocket. “Right here. You have the files?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“But you don’t intend to give them to us, do you?” Valdez asked.
“You know how to get them, and the coin. Where’s Coleen?”
“She’s here, in the park,” Valdez said. “Just not with us. I can have her brought to wherever, as soon as we conclude our business.”
“Bring her here,” I said.
I watched as Valdez reached back, thinking he was looking for a phone or radio in one of his pant pockets.
Instead a gun appeared.
He fired two shots into Nate’s chest, the bangs loud and out of place. Nate collapsed, falling back against a knee-high stone wall that encircled the statue, ending up sprawled spine-first over the railing and into the flowers encircling the dais, his legs dangling up in the rain.
Valdez then tossed the gun to me.
Instinctively, I caught it.
The bastard smiled.
I gripped the weapon, aimed it straight at him, and pulled the trigger.
Just clicks.
Again.
More clicks.
“Only two rounds,” he said. Then he pointed and yelled, “He has a gun. Run. Everyone. He has a gun.”
Bastard.
He was mimicking what I’d done to him at the Columbia, only this time there really was a gun. Jansen reacted, reaching for his own weapon beneath a jacket. Oliver stepped back, out of the way. The people around us had already heard the shots and could see Nate’s body lying in contorted angles at the base of Disney’s statue.
Shouts rose, fast and anxious.
People scattered.
I tossed the gun away and ran.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Nothing about this was good.
I had badly underestimated Valdez and Nate paid the price. Naively, I’d thought that no one wanted to make a scene. I’d wisely not displayed the coin in my pocket, keeping its whereabouts a mystery. I knew Valdez wanted the coin and Oliver the files. But Valdez seemed to play by a book that contained no rules.
I raced across the wet concrete, glancing back over my shoulder to see Oliver and Jansen rushing my way, all of us weaving a path through the chaotic crowd. Thankfully, Foster was safe, back near the main entrance, a long way from this trouble. I negotiated a wooden bridge and passed through an elaborate timber gateway labeled ADVENTURELAND. What happened back at the statue had not filtered to the people this far away yet. Everyone was still enjoying the attractions, moving in all directions through the drizzle. Buildings lined the concrete path to my right, trees and foliage to the left. I had no idea where I was going. This was a big place. Surely, plenty of exits. I could find one and just leave. I had the coin and the files. But there was still the matter of Foster and Coleen. They both needed my help, and I’d never run from a fight. Not then. Not now. Not ever. The one saving grace was the coin in my pocket.
But would that keep Valdez at bay?
Another quick glance over my shoulder and I saw Oliver pressing my way, but no Jansen. I kept going. Buildings stayed on my right, a potpourri of Asian, African, and Middle East architecture arranged in a calculated disorder. I caught the sounds of drums and squawking parrots
. I rounded a ride that dominated the center of the pavement in front of me and angled left. I passed the Jungle Cruise attraction, crowded with people, and spotted what looked like an old Spanish-style castle that housed Pirates of the Caribbean.
Then I saw Jansen.
Past the Pirates building, waiting for me where the pavement curved right and began to head out of Adventureland. Somehow he’d managed to double around and hustle ahead of me. It had to be from the other side of the buildings. I’d spotted more crowds through a couple of breezeways that linked this side with the other. Apparently, Jansen had been here before.
I banked left and passed through a collection of baby strollers parked outside the Pirates ride. I zigzagged through them and hopped over the last row, pushing through a wet hedge and finding a concrete walk that paralleled the Pirates building. This was not an area where the public ventured.
Both Oliver and Jansen were still on my tail.
Ahead I spotted a high barbed-wire fence with a gate leading out.
Padlocked.
To my right, a metal door opened from the side of the building and a man emerged. Probably an employee working on the Pirates ride. I found my wallet and held it up like a cop would, displaying credentials.
“Malone, from Human Resources,” I said, as I brushed past. Then I stopped, reached back, and grabbed the inside handle.
“Where are you going?” he asked me.
“To fire someone.”
I closed the door.
Outside I’d noticed that there was no way to get inside without a key card passing through an electronic reader. I could only hope that the guy I’d just bamboozled wouldn’t open it for Oliver and Jansen.
I stood inside a lighted, air-conditioned room that held a long metal table with chairs around it. On the wall hung a schematic of the building showing the waterways that wound through the interior carrying visitors on their way through Disney’s version of the 18th-century Caribbean. A whiteboard seemed to be for work assignments. I made a quick survey, spotted where I was currently standing, and plotted a route through the building to the nearest exit—which, to my delight, seemed outside the park’s fence.
Perfect.
I heard the door lever behind me being turned.
I rushed to the other exit and left.
The corridor beyond was dimly lined with a series of closed metal doors. From behind them I heard the murmur of a familiar song. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me. I was apparently behind the scenes, in the attraction’s maintenance corridors, a quick way to get from one place to another without anyone knowing the better.
I hustled forward.
Rumblings came from the other side of the doors, which sounded like cannon fire, and kept repeating. The door I’d entered from behind me opened. Jansen appeared. He held a gun. I darted for the next door, yanked it open, and lunged through.
More cannon fire thundered.
A shot rang out.
The bullet pinged off the door as it slammed shut on its spring-loaded hinges. A short walkway led onto a galleon, complete with sails, masts, and rigging. The music rang louder. The source of the explosions became clear: cannons on the ship “firing” on the visitors’ boats passing by on the water below. More cannons returned fire, in a mock battle, from a fortress on the other side of the dark, cavernous space, each blast accompanied by a burst of flame. Explosions from beneath the water tossed geysers upward, creating cannonball breaches. Cool air simulated a brisk ocean breeze. A robotic captain on the ship led the assault, shouting threats while brandishing a sword. More animatronic figures created the illusion of an anxious crew. I looked around and could see there was no escape off the galleon. I moved to the railing and glanced over the side.
Only water below.
The door behind me opened.
I darted right and hid behind a cabin that rose from the deck. I peeked around the side and saw Jansen creeping across the walkway and onto the ship, gun in hand. I waited until he was on the deck then pounced, kicking the gun from his grasp. He whirled and cocked his right arm back, but before he could land a fist I planted my head into his chest. We hit the deck hard and rolled toward a row of animatronic crewmen who faced toward the water. Electrical cables snaked a path across the deck, out of sight to anyone not on the galleon, and I wondered about the voltage.
We rolled, tight in each other’s grasp.
I shoved Jansen off me.
He sprang to his feet.
More cannons fired.
I stood.
He egged me on, motioning toward himself with his upstretched fingers. “That all you got, Malone?”
He stood near the rail, beside the ship’s captain who was ordering the cannons to be fired at will toward the boats below. I decided to oblige Jansen and rushed toward him, burying my shoulder into his chest and wrapping my arms around him like a linebacker leveling a quarterback.
Momentum drove us forward and over the rail.
We fell.
The cannons extended out from the hull, readying themselves for another round. We plunged downward. Jansen led the way and his right rib cage slammed into one of the protruding barrels.
Then it “fired.”
Which was not all sound effects. Real flames erupted from the barrel’s end, probably thanks to propane.
Jansen screamed.
His body shielded me from the few seconds of heat, but I caught a little singe to my arms. We rebounded off and splashed into the water. My grip on Jansen released. The water was cold and only chest-deep. Jansen came to his feet and lunged for me, slipping his arm around my neck from behind in a lock vise. A boat passed by a few feet away, loaded with visitors.
The pressure increased.
He was strangling the breath out of me.
I jabbed my right elbow into his side, the one that had struck the cannon, hoping some damage had been done.
And it had.
He winced in pain.
His grip released enough for me to break his hold and shove him away. But Jansen knew how to handle himself. He pushed off the concrete bottom of the waterway and launched himself at me. I had twenty-plus years on him in age, but the guy could fight. The people in the boat were mesmerized by what was happening.
Cameras flashed.
To them we were an exciting live-action part of the show.
Jansen tried to swing a fist my way but I stopped the jab and planted one of my own, which only seemed to enrage him. I had already felt metal rails beneath the water, surely a track that guided the boats on a designated path through the attraction. Here it veered close to the galleon for the cannon attack, then swerved to the far side toward the fake fort.
Jansen was not backing off.
He kept coming.
Another boat emerged into the hall.
Looking back I’m not sure what happened, but something snapped inside me. Up to that moment in my life I had never intentionally harmed anyone with, as the law says, malice aforethought. But up to that point I had only been a lieutenant in the United States Navy and a lawyer for the Judge Advocate General’s corps. For less than two days I had been a special operative to the Justice Department. People had been continuously trying to hurt me, for one reason or another.
Enough was enough.
I pounced on Jansen and grabbed him by the throat. His arms came up in an attempt to shove me away. I brought my knee into his gut, the water cushioning the blow, but enough force remained to get his attention. He resisted, which sent us careening through the water.
I faced toward where the next boat was coming and could see it approaching, the people inside fixated on our brawl. The robotic captain in the galleon continued to yell orders for the cannons to fire at will.
And they did.
More thunder and fire erupted from the hull. Explosions from beneath the water shot up a few feet away, most likely pneumatic from compressed air. Jansen was not letting up. I could feel the metal track with my right foot. The boat kept comin
g toward us at a steady pace. I decided to use it to my advantage.
Ten feet away and closing.
Jansen’s eyes were filled with rage.
He’d come to kill me. No question.
Five feet.
I still had his throat in tight lock, which allowed me to swing him to the left just as the boat arrived, the mass and speed of the hull pounding into the back of Jansen’s head with a sickening thud.
The people glancing down were shocked.
One woman screamed.
I yanked Jansen back and let go.
He floated still in the water.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The boat passed.
People sitting at its stern stared back in astonishment. I left Jansen in the water. He was not my problem anymore. More boats appeared as I sloshed my way toward the far side. I hopped up to dry ground and found myself in a town square where a hapless soul had been captured and was being repeatedly dunked in a well as animatronic pirates kept asking him the location of the town’s treasure. I sought refuge behind the well and noticed that though it appeared solid, it was only foam board painted to seem like stone. At least I was out of sight from the boats.
My breathing was quick, short, and hard.
I willed myself to calm down.
The first wave of people who saw me and Jansen fall from the galleon would surely report a problem when they came to the end of the ride. Security would then come to investigate. But that wouldn’t be for a few more minutes and I really didn’t need the hassle of being arrested. I decided not to hang around and darted to my right into the buildings that backdropped the scene, hoping to find an exit door behind the fake town. The music continued to play and the lyrics were beginning to get on my nerves.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
I hustled through an open archway and found a metal door leading out, similar to on the galleon. My breathing had calmed. My clothes dripped with water. I left the Caribbean and reentered another of the bland hallways, this one stretching left and right in a straight line. A stairway began its ascent a few feet to my right. I was deciding on which way to go when I heard movement from the left.
