The Malta Escape

by Chris Kuzneski

  “And yet,” he argued, as his passion started to rise, “our goal on this particular mission isn’t to write a thesis paper that will be approved by a board of faculty members or published in an academic journal to be admired by their peers. Our goal, in case you forgot, is to find a damn treasure—something we’ve managed to do multiple times without you.”

  Marissa winced, completely unprepared for a personal attack. But her shock didn’t last long. She quickly lashed back with a retort of her own. “I’m glad you’re so confident in your abilities. I’m sure your success in Greece and Mexico will come in quite handy when you’re staring at a document written in Maltese or trying to figure out why Grand Master Hompesch was writing letters to the emperor of Russia in the first place. Or did you forget about that part? Even if your speculation about Napoleon is correct, you know absolutely nothing about the next piece of the puzzle, and you sure as shit won’t be getting it from me.”

  Marissa punctuated her comment by turning angrily from the table, storming up the center aisle toward the helm, then opening a side door that spilled onto the foredeck seating area at the bow of the yacht. She was tempted to slam the door behind her to voice her fury, but it was thin and made of glass, so she simply left it open in a final act of defiance.

  Jones watched the whole thing play out before he offered comment. He turned toward Payne and shook his head. “And that, my friend, is why you’re still single.”

  “Screw you,” Payne growled as he picked up another scrap of bread and fired it against the wood-paneled refrigerator in the galley. In a yacht lined with windows, it was the only solid surface in his throwing range that he knew he wouldn’t shatter.

  Jones stared at him. “Keep it up, asshole, and you’ll be friendless, too.”

  “Uh, oh,” Jarkko said as he stood from the table. “Time to talk feelings. Jarkko doesn’t do that when Jarkko is sober. Besides, Jarkko has to pee. Boner is gone, but bladder is full.”

  Payne and Jones nodded, both of them realizing it was for the best.

  Neither would open up with Jarkko listening.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Ivan Volkov was filled with rage as he stared at the laptop computer on his private plane. His flight to Malta had been completely full of henchmen, but his journey home was mostly empty—all thanks to the Americans on his screen.

  During the past few hours, Volkov’s cadre of hackers had dug through surveillance video from Birgu and Valletta and had determined the identities of the smuggler’s bodyguards. Much to Volkov’s surprise, they weren’t bodyguards at all but famous treasure hunters, who had unearthed so many precious artifacts in the past decade that their discoveries were going to be featured at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

  Volkov took some solace from his defeat at the library when he discovered that Payne and Jones were also two of the finest soldiers that the U.S. military had ever produced. Both of them were rated as special forces-plus, a term that Volkov had never heard of until his hackers had unearthed a heavily redacted file from a joint mission with the CIA that had been leaked by a whistleblower to a dark web message board. Volkov had asked his men to get personnel files on the duo, but they claimed the firewall at the Pentagon was so far above their capabilities that it wasn’t even worth their time to try.

  Even Russian hackers refused to mess with Randy Raskin.

  Still, the Finn’s involvement with Payne and Jones was intriguing.

  Volkov doubted that two famous treasure hunters would be wasting their time with a Finnish fisherman in the National Library of Malta, unless the Finn was contributing something significant to their cause. And Volkov rightly assumed that their meeting in the library had something to do with the documents that he had stolen from the smuggler’s yacht—the documents that the Finn had received as payment from Sergei Bobrinsky.

  Despite the failure that Volkov had endured in Malta, he realized that he had actually come out ahead on the ledger sheet. Not only did he recover Bobrinsky’s payment from the Finn, thereby righting the original wrong, but Volkov was now on the trail of a potential fortune—one that seemed to be tied to his homeland, based on the documents that he had read.

  If so, Volkov didn’t care how talented the Americans were.

  In Russia, he would undoubtedly have the advantage.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Payne knew he had been an asshole to Marissa. He didn’t need Jones to tell him that. And yet, whenever Payne got worked up about something, Jones managed to slice and dice through all of the bullshit and the bravado to help him figure out what was wrong. Roughly half of the time, it was because Payne was hungry, but after watching Payne devour a multi-course Italian feast, Jones assumed it was something else—and he had a pretty good idea of what it was.

  But before he could lay out the specifics, he knew what always came first. It was almost as predictable as Payne’s appetite, yet it came from an organ slightly above Payne’s stomach.

  A heartfelt apology in three…two…one…go.

  “DJ,” Payne mumbled as the shame of his outburst washed over him. “I’m sorry for lashing out. I shouldn’t have yelled at Marissa, and I certainly shouldn’t have yelled at you. Neither of you deserved it. I just got…I don’t know. I just got riled up.”

  “No worries,” Jones said as he bumped Payne’s fist as a peace offering. “You’ve yelled at me before, and you’ll yell at me again. And that’s okay because I yell at you, too. Not nearly as often as you do—you’re like the fucking Hulk—but you know, every once in a while.”

  Payne cracked a smile. “Mostly during your period.”

  Jones shook his head. “Wow. Just wow. Your apology was going so well until right then. Sometimes you make it really tough to stick around. Good thing I love your plane.”

  Payne groaned in regret. “Sorry, man. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Bad time for a personal insult. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  Jones started to stand. “Hold on. I’ll go get my list. It’s pretty substantial.”

  Payne smiled. “I bet it is.”

  “Actually,” Jones said as he sat back down, “I’m far too tired to go over the whole thing. If it’s okay with you, why don’t I jump right in and focus on the good stuff?”

  Payne nodded. “Proceed.”

  “As far as I can tell, you aren’t hungry.”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “And despite the late hour, you don’t seem overly tired.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “No.”

  “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  “Can you breathe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it raining?”

  “What?”

  Jones repeated the question. “Is it raining?”

  Payne glanced outside. “No.”

  “Okay,” Jones said, seemingly satisfied. “Then my original theory is correct.”

  Payne stared at him. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re acting weirder than usual. Maybe I should go and talk to Jarkko instead.”

  Jones shook his head. “Jon, you know better than that. Never insult your therapist.”

  “You’re not my ther—”

  “You know damn well I’m your therapist. Now shut your mouth and pay attention, or you’ll be alone for the rest of your miserable life.”

  “Truth be told, I’m really not that miserable.”

  “You will be if I put my foot up your ass. Now shut the hell up and listen to me, or I swear to God you’ll be shitting laces for a week.”

  Payne didn’t like it, but he shut the hell up. He knew better than to mess with Jones whenever he got feisty. Although Payne would bludgeon Jones in a clean fight because of their sheer difference in size, Payne realized that Jones was a crafty fighter—some would even say dirty—who was willing to do anything it took to take down his opponent.

  “Good,” Jones said. “Obeying me is the
first step to happiness.”

  Payne tried his best not to roll his eyes.

  Jones continued. “Just to be clear, I wasn’t being weird when I asked you those questions. I was merely ruling out your basic biological needs in order to determine the root of your outburst. Both of us know that food and sleep are big triggers for you, but since you aren’t hungry or tired, we can rule those out for now. You aren’t cold or thirsty, which means you have warmth and water, and you’re breathing okay, which means you have air. Then I asked if it was raining to see if you had adequate shelter, which I’m guessing you do since you’re on a multi-million-dollar yacht. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re only lacking one basic biological need.”

  “Which is?”

  “Sex.”

  Payne shook his head. “I told you, man, I don’t swing that way.”

  Jones snapped. “I wasn’t offering.”

  “How am I supposed to know that? You said obeying you is the key to happiness, then you tell me I need sex. If you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you think—”

  “Speaking of shoes, remember what I told you earlier?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be shitting laces for a week.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Fine! I’ll shut up. But I’m only doing it to shut you up.”

  “Are you done?”

  Payne nodded but said nothing.

  “Good,” Jones said as he took a deep breath to calm down. “Now where was I?”

  “You wanted to bang me.”

  “Come on, man! Be serious. Or this session is over. Which also means this mission is over, because if you don’t apologize to Marissa in the correct fashion, she certainly isn’t going to help us. Not after your ridiculous outburst. Or did you forget that?”

  Payne grunted, but he knew Jones was correct.

  “Fine,” Payne muttered. “Proceed.”

  “When was the last time you had a girlfriend?” Jones asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not a one-night stand or a one-week fling, but an actual girlfriend?”

  Payne growled. “You know the answer.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  Payne growled louder. “It’s been a while.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because I’m a picky bastard.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  Payne stared daggers. This was unlike their typical sessions. This one was cutting deep. “You better get to your point real quick before I actually hulk out. Because if that happens, the mission won’t be the only thing that comes to an abrupt end.”

  Jones stood his ground. He was one of the few people in the world with the courage to do so, and he was doing it for a good reason. He sensed his friend was close to a major breakthrough, something that had been holding him back for years. “No worries, Jon. I can tell I’m upsetting you with this particular approach, so I’ll change course just a bit. Why did you join the Navy?”

  “Excuse me?” he said defensively.

  “Don’t get me wrong. You made a great choice. I swear, I’m not insulting the Navy. I’m just curious. I mean, you came from a wealthy family, so you certainly didn’t need a scholarship. Your grades were exceptional, so you could’ve gone to Pitt or Carnegie Mellon while living in your family mansion. Or you could’ve gone away to school and partied your ass off. But you didn’t. You chose the hardest option of all. You went to Annapolis. Why’d you do that?”

  Payne shrugged. “You know the answer. My grandfather thought I needed discipline.”

  Jones shook his head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You weren’t a troubled kid in high school. You were the golden boy—a star in football and basketball with a great GPA. You never got into trouble. You did volunteer work. You were every teacher’s wet dream. And don’t even try to deny it. We’ve spent way too much time together to lie about our pasts. You know my shit, and I know yours. So why the hell did your grandfather send you to the Naval Academy?”

  Payne shrugged again. He truly didn’t know.

  So Jones voiced it for him. “He sent you there because you needed a way to funnel the rage from the death of your parents before it chewed you up and destroyed you for good. He knew you didn’t need beer pong and sorority girls. You needed to be a part of something that would help save lives and protect people, since you were unable to save theirs. That, my friend, is why your grandfather sent you to a military academy instead of college. Not because you needed discipline, but because you needed to fill the hole that your parents left behind.”

  Payne instantly knew that Jones was correct.

  Somewhere deep inside, Payne had known the truth all along.

  However, hearing the words out loud had made an impact.

  So much so, that Payne found it hard to breathe.

  Jones grabbed a bottle of water from the far end of the table and slid it to Payne, who nodded his thanks before he opened it and took a long sip. Despite Payne’s revelation, Jones knew they were only halfway done. He still had to get his friend to understand his earlier outburst, which was connected to the same psychological trauma that had occurred when he was a child.

  Jones also knew he had his friend’s attention. And even though he was reluctant to dump so much on Payne at one time, Jones realized that they had to work through this issue, or else the entire mission was going to blow up in flames.

  “Believe it or not,” Jones said in a calming voice, “that hole in your life did more than drive you to greatness in the military. It’s also the reason you push people away. You do everything you can to discard potential loved ones from your life before they can leave you, and it all goes back to the loss of your parents. It’s merely a mechanism to protect yourself.”

  Payne nodded in agreement. He knew that to be true.

  Jones continued. “For as long as I’ve known you, the only woman you’ve ever let into your life—and I mean really let in, where she got to see the good, the bad, and the ugly—was Ariane Walker, and when that didn’t work out, you quit trying to find love.”

  Ariane had been the first and only love of Payne’s life. She was smart, beautiful, funny, and self-sufficient—everything he looked for in a woman. And even though he hadn’t proposed, he was getting ready to when she was abducted by a group of sadists who were hell-bent on revenge. They had taken her and several others to an isolated plantation in Louisiana where the prisoners were brutally tortured until the secret motivation behind their selection was revealed.

  Payne and Jones had ultimately managed to save the abductees and punish the criminals involved, but the near-death experience had changed Ariane’s priorities. She had immediately quit her job in Pittsburgh and moved to Colorado to be next to her sister and recently born nephew. Payne knew how traumatic the situation had been for Ariane and had done his best to make the long-distance relationship work, but in the end, she had chosen her family over him.

  And it had haunted him ever since.

  Payne stared at Jones. “What does Ariane have to do with this?”

  Jones started to laugh but managed to bite his tongue. “Come on, Jon. I could practically see sparklers in your eyes when you met Marissa, and that paled in comparison to the fireworks in hers. I swear to God, I thought the two of you were going to spontaneously combust.”

  Payne grinned. He hadn’t felt an instant attraction like that since—

  “Shit,” he said aloud, suddenly understanding the connection.

  Jones nodded. “In the therapy business, that’s known as an aha moment.”

  Payne rolled his eyes. “You aren’t my therapist.”

  Jones laughed at that. “Aren’t I?”

  “Fine!” Payne admitted. “You’re my fucking therapist. But I refuse to pay for this session since you only calmed me down to keep the mission alive.”

  Jones theatrically put his hand over his heart. “Dude, that hurts. And if you truly believe that, you don’t know anything about me at all. I would neve
r go against my oath as a therapist for something as mundane as a mission. However, I would definitely do it for your plane.”

  Payne laughed. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

  Jones stared at him. “Why are you still sitting here?”

  “Where else would I—”

  “Seriously?” Jones said, cutting him off. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  “Marissa! Right! Almost forgot.” Payne started to stand before he sat back down. “And what am I supposed to say to her?”

  “Oh my God! I do have to spell it out for you.” Jones shook his head in disbelief. “Start with an apology—a sincere apology without insults of any kind. Then take it from there.”

  Payne stood. “Right. I’ll be back in a flash.”

  “No!” Jones blurted. “Don’t come back in a flash—unless she tries to stab you or something. You’re on a yacht. The moon is out. Use it to your advantage.”

  Payne nodded. “Good idea.”

  “Oh, and Jon?”

  “Yeah?”

  Jones glanced at his watch and noted the time. “On your way out, send in my next patient. I want to talk to Jarkko about his drinking problem.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Marissa felt like a total idiot. She couldn’t believe that she had stormed off like a petulant teenager over a comment that was technically accurate. The truth was that Payne and Jones had done more for history over the past decade than all of her former professors combined. And even though the duo’s methods were far from traditional, it was hard to argue with their results.

  They weren’t risking their lives to write a research paper.

  They were searching for a long-lost treasure.

  And thanks to her dramatic exit, she had blown her chance to help.

  She cursed under her breath as she stared at the surrounding harbor. From the cushioned seat in front of the helm, she could see the rising grandeur of the Corinthia Hotel on her left and the neon lights of Dragonara Casino to her right. But as her gaze swept along the waters of St. George’s Bay, she wasn’t truly seeing anything.