The rain slashed down like a first-class hotel shower with good water pressure, and the blue-and-white-striped canvas roof on the shuttle boat didn’t do much to keep the people under it dry.
Michaels was soaked by the time he got on the craft, as were the other “tourists.” The rain came in almost horizontally when the wind gusted. The spider silk vest he wore under his shirt didn’t help anything.
Next to him, Howard yelled, “I’ve left the pilots watching the crews of the two birds and two other troopers guarding the barge crew. They just developed serious radio and com trouble.”
The way the boat was bobbing up and down, pitching and yawing, the helicopter crews were the least of Michaels’s worries. There was enough light here to see the whitecaps and foam blown from the waves. He tasted salt then yelled, “Nice night for a boat ride!”
Whichever trooper was operating the engine cranked it up, and the shuttle, built to hold sixty people and only half full, moved away from its moorings against the barge. The motion got worse. Anybody who was prone to sea-sickness was going to be giving up everything they’d eaten for a month. Fortunately, that wasn’t one of Michaels’s afflictions.
The boat rocked and shook, pitched dangerously, but with its back finally turned to the wind, straightened out a little. It was still a long way to the ship.
As the boat slogged through the four-foot seas, Michaels’s virgil buzzed against his hip. He’d left it on vibratory mode. Good, since he’d never have heard it in this wind and rain. He grabbed the unit. The caller number ID didn’t mean anything, and the little screen was blank, no visual. He held it to his ear so he could hear better.
“Hello?”
“Alex, it’s me.”
Toni!
“Babe, what—?”
“Where are you?” she cut in.
“On a boat heading for the ship,” he said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thank God. Listen, I’m on a public phone. Jay was right, about everything. The balloon goes up tomorrow. I’ve got all the details. I’ll call again later, but right now, I’ve got to go. I love you.”
She discommed.
A malignant worm roiled in his gut.
“What?” Howard said.
“Toni. She’s in some kind of trouble. Enough to risk calling on an open line. She says she’s got the evidence we need.”
“My God,” Howard said.
“Hurry this thing up,” Michaels said.
Howard made a hand signal. The boat’s engine roared louder, but it didn’t seem to move any faster.
Santos couldn’t figure it out for a second when he saw Keller lying on the bed. What, had she screwed him stupid? He was just lying there, no shirt, in his pants, curled up in a ball. Was he afraid Santos was going to beat him again?
“Keller. Keller!”
The man whimpered. “Don’t! I didn’t mean to!”
Santos strode to the bed, reached down, and grabbed Keller by the hair, jerking him up. “What are you whining about?”
“I didn’t mean to!” he said. “She beat me. She made me tell her!”
Santos turned to look behind him. “Tell her what?”
“About Omega!”
Santos let go of Keller’s hair and slapped him with his free hand, but only once, then ran back to where he had left the woman.
She was gone, of course.
He looked out into the hall. No sign of her.
Santos pulled his com from his belt and thumbed the emergency button. “This is Santos,” he said, when security answered. “There’s a woman on board, short, black hair, maybe twenty-eight, thirty, calls herself ‘Mary Johnson. ’ Dressed in jeans, running shoes, a black T-shirt. Find her. Find her now!”
The officer at the boat moorage was amazed. He looked at the boat with its drenched tourists. “You must be crazy to come across in weather like this! Somebody’s head is gonna roll!” He looked at the boat’s pilot. “And who the hell are you? Where is Marty? This is his shift.”
The pilot grinned and shoved his Walther pistol into the officer’s belly. “Marty got sick. If you behave yourself, you won’t catch what he’s got.”
The officer froze; his face went white under his rain hat.
“Let’s move it, people!” Fernandez said.
Michaels was first up the ladder.
Toni had solved the problem of where to hide by running past doors until she found one that was open. She slipped into a passenger cabin, saw a maid cleaning the room, and stepped into the bathroom before the woman got a good look at her.
In Spanish, Toni said, “Hey, you can leave that,” she called out. “Come back later please, okay?”
The maid said, “Esta bien, Senñora,” and left.
Once the maid was gone, Toni checked out the cabin. No computer, so she couldn’t try to upload the disc into a Net Force receptacle, or even some friend’s mailbox. Damn!
She couldn’t stay here long, she knew. Santos would have put out an alarm by now. If somebody asked the maid if she’d seen a norte americana, maybe Toni’s speaking Spanish would throw them off. Maybe not. But the ship was rigged with surveillance cams all over, and she didn’t want to let one of those see her. Alex had said he’d be here in a few minutes. If they were about to start some kind of operation, all she had to do was stay hidden until it was done.
That was all.
Michaels looked at his watch. In ten minutes, everybody on the assault team was supposed to be in position. In fourteen minutes, everybody would put on their specially augmented LOSIR headsets, and sixty seconds later, they would pull guns, fire off explosive charges that would blow open secured doors, and, in theory, take over the ship before anybody could wipe the computers. He had already slipped his headset from the bag John Howard had given him, and had it tucked away in his shirt pocket, ready to go.
But — where was Toni?
Michaels went belowdecks, and wandered the halls, looking. There were some security types with headcoms of their own moving around purposefully, and he was sure they were looking for Toni. Or maybe they were looking for tourists carrying bags. He slipped the bag with the gun in it behind a potted plant as two of the men approached him.
Unfortunately, one of them spotted the bag. “This yours?”
Michaels looked at them. “What? Never saw it before.”
One of the guards picked up the bag.
Alex didn’t want them opening it. Quickly, he said. “Hey, you looking for a little brunette?”
The man about to open the bag stopped so suddenly he almost fell. “You’ve seen her?”
“Yeah, she came out up on the deck. Back by the swimming pool.”
“Thank you, sir.” The man took off, talking into his com.
That would help, Michaels thought. As long as Toni wasn’t hiding out at the swimming pool. But this was bad. He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes.
Santos didn’t know what was going on, but he knew the little secretary was not what she pretended to be. He should have known. Those legs didn’t belong to somebody who sat on her butt all day. This woman had moves. He was getting stupid to trust what he saw.
He had to find her. She was a spy, and if Keller had rolled over and given up the operation, it could mean big trouble. And as much as he hated to do it, he had to tell Missy.
When he found her in her office and did, she was not pleased.