He nodded and then cocked his head to the side, remembering the event. “Yes, it was quite painful. It’s never that bad when the professionals take them out. Of course, they aren’t using twisted metal from an old chair.”
It sounded gruesome, and her face portrayed that fact.
Diego waved a dismissive hand. “I’m fine. And the guards actually thought I was trying to kill myself. By the time they got in the next day and saw the blood, I guess they figured I’d had enough. The truth is I didn’t bleed that much, and I ended up getting a much more comfortable room as a result.”
Adriana’s voice was distant, coated in amazement. “So the chip is still there.”
He nodded. “It is.”
“So we can track him to his exact location.”
“Yes. But we’re going to need a boat. That’s how they brought me here. Took several hours too. Thought I was going to get seasick being kept in the dark like that with a hood over my head.”
“I can get us a boat, though I doubt I can get my security deposit back on the rental boat,” she joked. After another few seconds, she looked out across the black night.
“And we’re going to need weapons. I couldn’t see his entire compound, but I know he has at least a dozen men there at all times.”
“Not a problem,” she said, still gazing out across the water. “Not a problem at all.”
19
The GPS beacon blipped on the computer screen. Adriana’s father stared at the monitor with keen interest while she kept her eyes firmly locked on the horizon. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the wheel as she guided the yacht through the calm Ligurian Sea. Off to the west, a storm was simmering in the sky. Flashes of lighting briefly illuminated the towering clouds as they clashed together. To the east, the night sky was almost perfect except for an occasional wispy cloud that had gone astray from the western cluster. Billions of stars glittered against the black backdrop until they faded away in the light of the rising moon.
Getting another boat at such a late hour took some work and more than a few strings had to be pulled. But one hour and €20,000 later, they had a small yacht that would suit their needs. Plus, it had a Sea-Doo attached to the back platform, which would make getting to land much quicker since docking at Martens’s pier would be completely out of the question. Getting into his estate would require an operation of a more clandestine nature.
Adriana preferred not to be behind the wheel of a boat on the open sea at night. Few things made her uncomfortable. That was one of them. She wasn’t a seasoned sailor by any means, but she knew enough about the sea to have a deep respect for it. Things could change at a moment’s notice out on the water. She’d heard horror stories from a number of different expert sources. In the blink of an eye, the gentle rippling beneath them could turn into a violent liquid chaos. The sooner they reached their destination, the better.
Upon opening her computer and locking in on the chip her father had removed from his arm, they discovered that Martens’s getaway was on a small island off the northwestern coast of Corsica.
“That makes sense,” Diego had said upon realizing where he’d been kept for so long. “I could smell the sea from the room I was in. And the amount of time it took to sail here, that has to be it. That means they haven’t found the device.”
She’d asked where he’d hidden it. Diego responded with a childish grin. “The one decent accommodation they gave me was a toilet. I hid the beacon in the water closet, someplace I knew they’d have no reason to check.”
Adriana smirked. He was right. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d even removed the lid to any of her own water closets. Made sense Martens’s men wouldn’t bother to think something might be in one of theirs.
In the distance, a black mass appeared on the horizon between the rippling waves and the moonlit sky. The island of Corsica was more like the size of a small country than an island, and the two Villas saw it long before Martens’s private island came into view. They’d been driving the boat for the last four hours, carefully maintaining optimum speed to make sure there was enough fuel to make the journey there and then return to the Italian mainland after their stop. So far, everything looked fine on that front. They’d have more than enough to make their escape.
Diego looked up from the screen and sidestepped over to the wheel, stabilizing himself on the dash as he moved. When he was close to his daughter, he glanced down at the rucksack sitting on the bench behind her. “You’re certain that will be enough?”
She nodded. “It’s enough.”
He shook his head and stared ahead at the approaching island. “I don’t like it. I should be coming with you. Give me a gun. I can fight. I can help. You running in there alone, it doesn’t feel right.”
“I’ll be fine, Papa. But I’m not going to let you go in there after you just got out. Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.” She grinned, “I learned from the best, after all.”
He shrugged. It was true. She really had learned from the best, and Adriana wasn’t just talking about her father. From an early age, she’d been trained by some of the best fighting instructors money could buy. It wasn’t Diego’s intention that she become a killer. He wanted her to be able to defend herself against anyone who wanted to do him harm or needed information that he possessed. It was the nature of his job in the intelligence community. There was risk and reward. In the case of Adriana, he wanted to make sure she was never at risk.
As the yacht carved its way through the waves, he continued to stare off into the distance, remembering the sessions with her as a young child. Her first was when she was only five. She was much too young to use any kind of self-defense that required strength or body weight. So he’d taught her to use knives and small guns.
If another parent had heard that, they’d likely have called a local agency to have the girl removed from his care. But Diego made sure that she always knew the dangers involved with such weapons. Besides, the knives he started her out with were made of wood and the guns were loaded with blanks, just to be safe.
When she turned seven, Diego switched to live rounds and real blades. It was also when the instruction into fighting with her hands and feet began.
Diego recalled getting a phone call from one of Adriana’s teachers. At the time, the girl was only eight years old. According to the teacher, she’d flipped a larger boy onto his back and used a special grip to bend the boy’s arm into an excruciating position. Diego chuckled at the thought. The teacher had told him she’d seen it all and that a girl shouldn’t know how to do things like that. When the teacher asked where she’d learned it, Diego simply explained, “Television, I guess.”
The teacher was leery but accepted his answer. Later that year, Diego pulled her out of the school and started her with private tutoring instead.
His head swiveled to the right, and he took in the sight of his daughter, now a grown woman, commanding, strong, and resolute. He didn’t always agree with her choices. The life she’d taken on was one of adventure…and danger. But she was her own person and could make her own decisions. Diego refused to stand in the way.
In his younger days, he would have insisted on going into Martens’s island mansion with her, storming the gates and taking out the guards until they found the man responsible for the abduction. Now, however, his skills were best put to use behind a computer, at a desk, or in this case, making sure the boat was ready to leave when she made it out of the building.
If she made it out of the building.
The second thought gave him reason to pause and reconsider. Even though he was slow and his knees weren’t what they used to be, Diego’s fatherly instincts kicked in. He couldn’t let her go into that death trap alone. Could he? The reality was he would hold her back. It was pride-swallowing time, and Diego had to choke it down. Besides, he’d never been able to keep Adriana from doing what she wanted. He knew better than to stand in her way. She’d simply find another way to do it.