In the background, sirens blared, the irritating noise echoing through the short canyon of storefronts and pubs. The sound got progressively louder as he took a left down an alley. He skidded to a sudden stop, nearly running straight into a police officer.
They’d cut off Petrov’s rear exit.
“Hold it right there,” the officer commanded.
This man was much younger than the cop Petrov had seen on the top of Bargate. While that could make things slightly more difficult in a fistfight, Petrov found that inexperience often crippled men of that age. He took a wary step forward, keeping his hands in front of him, palms facing out.
“I don’t want any trouble with you,” Petrov’s voice carried smoothly through the alleyway.
“Don’t move!” the young cop yelled. He removed a Taser from its holster and held it out at arm’s length.
Petrov tilted his head to the side, as if amused by the nonlethal weapon. He took another step forward. “I’m telling you, I’m not the one you are looking for. I heard shooting up near the castle wall, and I panicked.”
The policeman faltered for a second, slightly lowering the weapon. “Stay back,” he ordered. “We were told to secure the area.”
“I understand.” Petrov continued to speak in a calming tone. “You’re just doing your job. And I am in no mood to be electrocuted today.”
The cop lowered his weapon farther, disarmed by the convincing story. Suddenly, his radio crackled. The voice on the other end gave the description of the muscular Russian, almost to a T. The realization hit the young officer too late as he tried to raise his arm holding the Taser.
Petrov was too close now and lunged at the cop. He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him forward, using body momentum to jerk the arm over his shoulder and snap it down. The joint cracked at the elbow, and the cop let out a scream that would have put a young schoolgirl to shame.
The weapon clacked on the asphalt. Petrov kicked the man in the back, sending him sprawling with his broken arm. The Russian then picked up the weapon and fired the leads into the policeman’s back, the officer’s body gyrating as the voltage pumped through him.
Petrov dropped the weapon and took off again, headed to the end of the alley. As he reached the end of the thoroughfare, another policeman stepped around the corner. His face barely had time to react with shock before Petrov smashed the man’s larynx with his forearm, never losing speed as he did so. He didn’t look back to see the cop drop to his knees, grasping at his throat.
He turned right and pushed ahead, down a slight hill toward the pier. The one in front of him was marked Pier 7. His man had said to look for the number 3, a blue hull.
Reaching the dock, Petrov paused for a second to look down the gangway. To the left, the numbers went up. He took off to the right, still running hard despite his thighs burning from the exertion. Dark clouds rolled across the sky from the west, spitting sprinkles of rain down onto the dock. Ahead on his left, Petrov saw the blue-and-white fishing boat, along with his two men hurriedly preparing to leave. He cut left down pier 3 and forced himself to sprint the last thirty yards to the boat. The sirens blared from the town behind him, just over the rise.
Petrov leaped over the edge of the vessel and onto the deck. The thing was little more than a small whaleboat, but it would do. If the police were clever enough to check the wharf, they would blend in with all the other boats, especially considering several were making their way out to sea. He scurried into the pilothouse. One of his men was at the helm, awaiting orders.
“Let’s go,” Petrov ordered as he tucked behind the rear wall of the pilothouse.
The man at the helm eased the throttle forward. The engine grumbled underneath the deck. The water foamed and gurgled as the little vessel started inching its way forward. It felt like an eternity to reach the end of the pier, but when they did, the pilot steered the boat into line with three others that were heading out to sea. The single windshield wiper thumped quietly, working hard against the falling rain.
Petrov risked a glance back at land. He made out a few shapes of uniformed officers scouring the hillside and the periphery of the docks, but pursuit never came.
He sat down on a wooden bench affixed to the wall and leaned back for a few seconds. His legs still burned, but he didn’t complain. The other member of his team worked busily on the main deck, pretending to be preparing nets and lines. Only an acutely trained eye would realize the man had no idea what he was doing.
Once Petrov caught his breath, he addressed the pilot. “We’ll need to get back to land quickly.”
“Were you able to get what you came for?” the pilot asked in an American accent.
Petrov shook his head, staring forward through the windshield. The breakwater appeared off to port and open water beyond the bay. “No. They got away with it.”
“Any idea where they might be headed?”
“Not yet. But their car was rented from a company in London that uses antitheft tracking systems.”
The pilot knew what he was getting at. “Perfect. I should be able to hack that without much trouble.”
“Good.” Petrov stood up and looked back again at the diminishing wharf. Off to starboard, beyond the breakwater, a solitary pier jutted out from the rocky shore. He pointed at the protruding structure. “Let me take the helm. We’ll head for that pier. We can get back on land from there. You have your laptop with you?”
“I never leave home without it,” the American mercenary said with a sly grin.
Petrov stepped to the oversized wheel and took over. “Find out where they are going.”
The man obeyed and opened his laptop. The screen blinked to life, and he connected a smartphone to the USB port to provide hotspot Internet access. “Where are we going to get another car once we’re back on land?” the American asked, never looking up from his screen.
“You let me worry about that.”
Chapter 20
Jim parked the SUV behind an unoccupied cottage. The For Sale sign out front made it a perfect place to lie low while Tommy worked out the cipher. The small, cream-colored home featured a quaint garden in the back. The steep roofing was covered in dark ceramic tiles. Thick shrubs wrapped around the front yard and stretched down both sides of the cottage, providing a little extra privacy for potential residents. The shrubs were one of the reasons Jim had chosen the place to hide while Tommy did his thing.
Even with the key, the code was extremely complicated, and the translation of it came slowly. Tommy’s eyes darted back and forth between the image on Adriana’s phone and the one on his phone’s screen. Due to the size of the key, he had to occasionally scroll up or down depending on which letter needed to be found.
“I’m glad you’re good with these things, buddy,” Sean said, staring at his friend as he worked out the cipher. “I don’t really have the patience for it.”
Tommy wrote down another letter in a little notepad. He’d been working on it for the last fifteen minutes, and already had a significant portion of the translation complete. “I’ve always loved puzzles,” he said in a hushed tone. “And this one is particularly interesting.”
Sean kept a wary eye through the windshield, just over the driver’s shoulder. He hoped that the man he now knew as Nicholas Petrov would have been apprehended by the authorities. Escaping Bargate would have been tricky. Sean and his companions narrowly escaped before the police arrived. Even if Petrov were able to get away from Bargate, he would have been seen, and police all over the region would be alerted to his presence.