He grunted in pain. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Unlike you, she didn’t respond to the default trigger word. She was beyond direction… It would seem she may even have regained contact with her conscience.”
I felt a surge of anger. “Fuck you.”
Rothmann looked up at me, and then smiled. I turned and saw that Gwen had picked up the combat knife. “You know, Wells, I think your reliability is questionable. At the current advanced state of our operation, that is inappropriate.” He ran his tongue across his lips. “Kill him, my dear.”
I’d been waiting for that. “Gwen, do you know that your father is dead?” I looked over my shoulder and saw that the knife had stopped a few inches from my back.
“What?” Her voice was suddenly that of a child.
“I suppose Gordy Lister made sure you didn’t see the papers.”
“No newspapers or TV are allowed without authorization,” she said emptily.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rothmann said, his voice was wavering.
“It happened here, didn’t it?” I said. I was going out on a limb, but the fact that Richard Bonhoff’s body had been dumped in the river was suggestive. “On board the Isolde.”
“No,” Rothmann said, “of course it didn’t.” But the fear on his face gave him away as a liar.
Gwen stepped up to my side. “Why?” she asked, her eyes damp. “He loved us. You should have let us contact him. We could easily have reassured him.” She leaned forward. “Why?”
“Stop!” Rothmann ordered, edging along the sofa. “Put down the knife!”
“Why?” Gwen moaned again. “He loved us…” Then she pushed past me and grabbed her Fuhrer’s collar. “If the river was good enough for Daddy, it’s good enough for you,” she said, then dragged him forward with surprising strength. When he was clear of the furniture, she put the knife to his throat and hauled him to the cabin door. “Don’t get in the way,” she said to me, over her shoulder.
I kept my distance, and then followed them out into the pale morning light.
Gwen forced Rothmann along the side of the boat till they were both standing at the bow.
“Barbarossa!” he screamed, then another word I struggled to make out-it sounded like “Gerty.” After that, he fell to his knees and screamed for help like any normal person.
I looked to my right. The guards at the gate had heard. Their boots thundered across the deck as they approached. I leaned over the side, reached for the package I’d taped under the pier and ripped it away. I tugged the mooring rope at the stern free.
“Cast off,” I yelled to Gwen. “Now!”
“Shoot the bitch!” Rothmann roared, before she clubbed him to the deck with the haft of the knife.
Shots rang out from the pier. I had the Glock unwrapped by the time the men were ten yards away. I fired at their legs and they crashed down. I leaped off the boat and ran toward them, kicking their weapons into the water and then covering them with my weapon.
“Gwen!” I shouted. “Can you start the engine?” I turned and saw that the Isolde had already drifted several yards away from the pier. I heard a movement and smashed my boot into the face of the gorilla who had fancied his chances. “Start the engine, Gwen!”
But she stayed at the bow, the combat knife at Rothmann’s throat. Looking closer, I saw blood on her chest-a lot of blood. At least one of the rounds fired by the guards had hit her.
I thought about trying to jump on board, but the boat was already too far away.
All I could do was cover Gwen’s escape. After all that had been done to her and her twin brother, and their father, it was the least I could do.
There was a curtain of mist on the reach that led toward the Potomac, so the Isolde was soon hard to make out. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, or if one of the figures at the bow had gone overboard.
Forty-Four
I let the guys I’d shot look after each other’s leg wounds-they seemed to have had the relevant training-and used one of their cell phones to call the cops. Telling the dispatcher who I was got me put me straight through to Chief of Detectives Rodney Owen. He came down to the marina quickly, several cars in his wake.
“Any news about the boat?” I asked, after the gorillas had been removed.
“We’ve got her. She was drifting in the Potomac, but there was no one alive on board.”
“So they both went over the side. I wonder if either of them is still breathing. The girl looked like she’d been badly hit.”
“Our people are all over the river,” Owen said. “They’ll find them soon enough.” He shook his head. “Marion Gilbert’s body was on the boat, as you said. Who’d have thought our medical examiner was a secret Nazi?”
“Not to mention serial killer. She fought against what had been done to her, but it really screwed her up.”
Chief Owen looked at me. “You realize I’m going to have to take you in for questioning.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough. How are Simmons and Pinker?”
“Versace’s still in a coma. It looks like Clem’s going to make it, though. They had a scare a few hours back, but he’s stable now. I spoke to him. Looks like you’re in the clear, but there are a lot of details we have to go through. The FBI’s on your case, as well. You’ll have to talk to them about the occult killings.”
I wasn’t surprised, but I had another priority. “Karen Oaten. Can I see her?”
“I’m sure you can, Mr. Wells, but I don’t know when.” He gave me an encouraging smile. “Why don’t we just take one thing at a time?”
“Okay,” I said. I was too tired to argue.
I followed him onto dry land. I was thinking of Gwen Bonhoff. If she hadn’t turned on Rothmann, I would be the one floating in the Potomac right now. I wondered if she had survived to make it ashore, or if the currents were carrying her body toward the sea.
Later it came to me that one of the reasons I hadn’t written novels featuring cops was the job’s never-ending bureaucracy. The questioning seemed to go on forever, though Chief Owen’s team had finished with me by midday. Then I was taken to the FBI building and grilled by Peter Sebastian and his people. Though Clem and Versace hadn’t exactly talked him up, I thought he was competent enough-thorough rather than nitpicking, but seriously lacking in a sense of humor. At least he wasn’t set against me any longer. Randy Bonhoff had been operated on and was expected to make a full recovery in time-whether he would come round from the coffining would be another story. He was still woozy from the anesthetic and hadn’t been told about his sister’s wounding or her disappearance from the boat. He didn’t know about his father’s death, either. I wouldn’t be volunteering to be the one who passed all that information on.
“All right,” Sebastian said at last, gathering up his notes. “We’ll get back to this tomorrow, but right now there’s somewhere we’ve got to be.”
I thought he meant the canteen, so I didn’t show much enthusiasm.
“Come on, Matt,” he said, giving a rare smile. “The Bureau’s putting on a party for your Karen.”
That was more like it. I’d have preferred to meet her in private, but apparently there were some important people who took priority. I borrowed a clean shirt from one of Sebastian’s team and then followed the FBI man to the elevator. When we got out on the top floor, we had to go through another X-ray machine. It seemed the bosses got a higher level of security, as well as a better view.
The party was already under way when we got there. The room was crowded by men in suits and the occasional woman in the female equivalent. I didn’t see Karen immediately. She was surrounded by people who were shaking her hand and patting her on the back. She looked calm and collected, as if she’d been at a health retreat rather than in captivity. I wondered if she’d been through what I had and how she’d got out. Then she caught sight of me and smiled, which made me feel better. I started to push my way through the mass of bodies toward her, but a blast of feedback from a microphone signaled the beginning of the formal proceedings. I kept on sliding past bodies toward the front as the FBI director started to talk from a podium.