High-speed police zodiacs patrolled the harbor while bulky, humorless security officers paced the dock, discrete submachine guns folded under expensive suit jackets. Submerged lights illuminated the dark waters below, lighting the massive white-hulled queens from beneath. The dock was peaceful, quiet, and still. A few of the older guests had gone to bed, as well as a few of the early risers and the jetlagged. Though already two hours past midnight, the majority of the revelers had not returned with their entourages from an exclusive party at the extravagant citycenter Hotel Phoenicia.
The crown jewel of the collected ships gently rocked at the end of the long dock, as if every other yacht were but a court valet, and this the empress herself. Sleek lines suggested a vastly different intent of construction than the other bulbous, glitzy cruisers that surrounded it. This was not just any plaything of the ultra-wealthy; this was the Conqueror, the fastest superyacht ever constructed, a coiled spring, a loaded .357 magnum with a hair trigger. Her sleek 140-foot carbon fiber underhull gently rose and fell with the lapping waves, the moonlight glinting off the laminated strands of ultra-strong synthetics. The skin hid a true technical marvel of exactingly designed structural honeycombing, and her upper works were constructed of high-quality aluminum and ceramic composite, interrupted only by blacked-out lightweight privacy glass. Even while docked, her lines whispered sweet nothings of speed, a barely restrained surging velocity.
Clad in black diving gear, Dr. Nassiri concealed himself behind a rock jetty two hundred meters from the long dock. Jonah treaded water beside him, fussing over last-minute adjustments to the doctor’s buoyancy compensation vest.
“I told you I’d never scuba dived before,” Dr. Nassiri said.
“Yeah, well I figured you’d at least be able to put your flippers on the right feet,” Jonah said.
“Are you quite, quite certain no charter vessels will work for our mission?” Dr. Nassiri tried, but failed to conceal his anxiety.
“The Conqueror is the only ship in Malta that can outrun pirates,” said Jonah. “If I wanted to get myself shot, I would have gotten it over with in prison and saved myself a trip across the desert in a body bag.”
“So it must be the Conqueror?” repeated Dr. Nassiri.
“She’s a thoroughbred,” said Jonah. “She’s got twin Purcell engines and a TF80 diesel turbine making over 20,000 horsepower. She tops 80 knots at full speed, and the only thing faster on water is a US nuclear submarine. If the pirates catch us in that, we deserve to be caught. We need her… and she ain’t for sale.”
“She looks as if she could outrun a fighter jet,” admitted Dr. Nassiri, admiring the yacht from the distance.
A third diver surfaced in a wreath of bubbles. Youssef “Buzz” Nassiri, the doctor’s cousin, dropped the regulator out of his mouth.
“You pussies ready?” asked Buzz, glaring at Jonah.
Buzz, simply put, was a bully. He’d been a bully since he and the doctor were children, and would probably always be one. But if there was a place for bullies in this world, stealing a yacht likely was it.
Jonah ignored him, but Dr. Nassiri popped in his regulator and nodded. Just remember to breathe, he reminded himself.
The trio slipped beneath the waves, following Jonah. The American seemed even more comfortable beneath the waves than he did above, allowing himself long, lazy kicks, propelling himself forward with minimal effort. By comparison, Dr. Nassiri clawed and kicked at the water, trying to maintain his balance as he followed, dragging a large mesh dive-bag behind him.
Jonah did a long, slow barrel roll, turning belly-up to look at the surface, then flipped back again. Buzz followed closely, too closely, and Jonah aimed a sharp kick at his head, nearly knocking his facemask off.
Buzz waved his middle finger at Jonah, who shrugged in return and pretended the kick was an accident.
The underwater illumination nearest to the stern of the Conqueror flickered as the trio approached from just under the surface. Small bubbles drifted upwards through the shallow water, silently breaking as they surfaced. Jonah’s neoprene-encased hand stealthily emerged from the water, grasping the polished aluminum handrail to the stern sundeck. The wetsuit-clad American cautiously raised his head just above water. From below, Dr. Nassiri watched as Jonah pushed himself belly first onto the fine-grained teakwood deck and peeled back his wet goggles. The doctor following closely behind him.
The doctor’s pulse pounded, unpleasant quantities of adrenaline coursing through his system. He was jittery, paranoid. Strange to think his career depended on his ability to make snap decisions, to stay cool and dispassionate, and to operate with a steady hand on even the most traumatically injured patients, and yet stealing a boat unnerved him so completely.
It’s the rules, he thought. He’d always been the type of person who understood and adhered to the rules. It’s what made him successful. It’s what gave him comfort. As a surgeon, he could inadvertently allow a patient to die, abysmally fail at the repair of a wound or the removal of a tumor. But that was still within the rules. Stealing wasn’t.
After taking a moment to see if anyone had noticed his incursion, Jonah Blackwell wriggled free of his bulky air tanks and buoyancy-compensation vest, securing them in a hidden compartment underneath the deck and out of sight. He pulled a plastic Ziplock bag from his weight belt, and noiselessly dropped the lead weights onto the deck.
Wasting no time, Jonah tore open the bag, letting the squared-off polymer composite pistol inside tumble into his dominant hand. He pulled back the slide, racking a .40 caliber round into the chamber. It was a debate giving him the gun — not a debate Jonah was party to, but a debate nonetheless.
Youssef emerged from the water. Bracing his feet, Jonah reached into the water with his left hand and gripped Buzz’s forearm, pulling him onto the low deck. With more flash than necessary, Buzz rolled onto the deck, theatrically covering possible ambush points with an amphibious-modified Soviet-era bullpup rifle, complete with an integrated grenade launcher.
What a joke, Jonah had whispered to Dr. Nassiri when Buzz first proudly revealed his new toy. Is your cousin expecting underwater frogmen? Grenades for that piece of junk rifle hadn’t been manufactured since the Reagan administration.
Jonah had taken a disliking to Dr. Nassiri’s cousin from the moment they’d been introduced, despite the doctor’s glowing introduction. Buzz was ex-special forces, trained by Americans for Moroccan internal anti-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. A real hardass, as Jonah might say.
When he’d first met Jonah, Buzz didn’t even acknowledge the American, just gave Jonah an icy so-this-is-the-fucking-prisoner look that would have not been out of place at an all-girls prep school.
Buzz stripped his neoprene hood and shed his tanks onto the slipway. He was built like his gun, squat and ugly, with almost as many scars. He’d shaved his head that morning and glared at Jonah with open malevolence, anger flashing behind his dark brown eyes.