The Job

  Nick grinned and wagged a finger at him. “That would be telling. We might get to the shipwreck long before we inform you that we’re actually there, or we might let you know right when we arrive. The bottom line is that we’re not going to give you any information that could possibly help you narrow down a rough location on your own.”

  “I’m not that clever.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m sure you could hire people who are. They could make some educated guesses about where the Santa Isabel might be based on how long it took us to get there, the speed of our boat, the depth of the wreck, and, if we let you look out at the night sky, the positions of the stars.”

  “I couldn’t tell one star from another.”

  “We won’t be taking that chance,” Nick said. “Speaking of which, it’s time to get started.”

  He led Violante to the deckhouse on the stern, up a flight of stairs, and down a hall to a large cabin. There was a bunk bed, a bathroom, and a basket of chocolate bars on the writing desk. The porthole had been blacked out with paint.

  “I’m sorry it’s not as sumptuous as your home, but it’s the best we’ve got,” Nick said. “If you need anything, just press the call button and we’ll be right down.”

  Violante stepped inside and immediately felt claustrophobic. “How long will I be stuck in here?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  Nick closed the door and locked it.

  Violante sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the chocolate bars in the basket. Kinder Buenos, Snickers, Milka Huesitos, M&M’s, Milka Oreos, and Cadbury Tokkes. It might as well have been a basket of excrement for a man with his refined palate for chocolate.

  The list of good reasons for killing the Hartleys was getting longer. He almost wished he’d given Reyna his blessing to torture the woman.

  Reyna led Kate to a guesthouse on the east end of the property. The 1,400-square-foot one-bedroom bungalow was done in the same style as the main house and had a small kitchen and living room that opened out to the pool. The rear of the guesthouse overlooked a low wall and a sheer drop to the gorge below.

  The front door opened into a living room with a massive flat-screen TV above the stone fireplace and an open gourmet kitchen decorated with painted tiles. Beyond that, through the open door to the master suite, Kate could see a king-size four-poster bed.

  “This is very nice,” Kate said, setting her gym bag on the floor by the bedroom door.

  “The kitchen is fully stocked with food and wine. There are toiletries for you in the master bath and, for your entertainment, we have satellite television,” Reyna said. “You also have the run of the property, of course.”

  “As long as I don’t try to leave.”

  “Correct. There are cliffs on the east, west, and south sides of the estate and a high gate topped with razor wire. I’ve already searched your bag, and now I’m going to have to pat you down. I’m sure you understand. We don’t have the sophisticated equipment here that you have on your boat.”

  Kate held out her arms, and Reyna slowly and carefully ran her hands along Kate’s body. It was less a pat down than it was groping. The last time someone had groped Kate without an invitation, she’d broken the guy’s wrist and got an honorable discharge from the Navy. Breaking Reyna’s wrist wasn’t an option today since Kate was playing the role of geeky, greedy archaeologist.

  “All this really isn’t necessary,” Kate said. “I’m an archaeologist. Not Rambo.”

  “Of course,” Reyna said, “but I would be remiss in my job if I didn’t make sure you weren’t hiding weapons. After you settle in you’re welcome to join me for a swim. The water is relaxing.”

  “I think I’ll jog around the property a few times to loosen up instead.”

  “Feel free,” Reyna said.

  Kate changed into a tank top, shorts, and running shoes and set off on her run around the grounds. It wasn’t exercise she was after. She wanted to learn the layout of the property, determine the number of guards on patrol, and see where all the security cameras were positioned.

  She circled the property four times and identified several camera blind spots, which were the result of a system that was designed to watch for attack from outside, not from within.

  As she came around to the backyard for the final circuit, she saw Reyna, nude, doing laps in the pool. There were two towels out, draped over the backs of two patio chairs. One of the chairs had Reyna’s AK-47 propped against it as if it were an umbrella or walking stick. Kate walked over and stood beside the rifle to catch her breath.

  Reyna swam to the edge of the pool. “How was your run?” she asked Kate.

  “Energizing.”

  “You should cool off with a swim.”

  “I didn’t bring a suit.”

  “You don’t need one.”

  “I’m bashful.”

  “You’re afraid,” Reyna said. “I don’t bite. Unless asked.”

  Kate ignored the innuendo and casually picked up the AK-47. “Your boss isn’t here, so why are you carrying this around? There’s nobody to protect.”

  “There’s you,” she said.

  “There’s no one after me.”

  “Someone could try to take you away,” Reyna said.

  “You still think this is a plot to kidnap your boss?”

  “I think you’re the only leverage we have in this situation.”

  “So is it wise to let yourself be caught naked with your rifle out of reach?” Kate lifted the rifle and swung the barrel in Reyna’s general direction.

  Two red pinpoint laser dots instantly appeared dead center on Kate’s chest. She looked up to see a guard on the eastern edge of the roof targeting her in the laser-guided crosshairs of his sniper rifle. She turned and saw another guard standing at the edge of the house, aiming at her with a handgun with an integrated laser sight.

  “The guards like to watch me while I’m swimming,” Reyna said.

  “Boys will be boys.” Kate carefully set the AK-47 back down against the chair.

  “See you for dinner. Sevenish?” Reyna asked.

  “Black tie?”

  “Come as you are. We aren’t formal here.”

  “No kidding.” Kate turned and walked back toward the guesthouse. The red targeting dots stayed on her until she was well out of reach of the rifle.

  Reyna remained in the pool and watched her go. She was certain Kate Hartley was dangerous. It wasn’t the playacting with the gun that was the tip-off, though that had been fun. When she’d patted Kate down, she’d felt not only how toned her body was, but how her muscles tensed up in a defensive response. She knew Kate wanted to strike and was fighting the urge. Reyna found that incredibly arousing, which made the desire to torture her, with pleasure and with pain, even stronger.

  She’d make another try at pleasure first, but if that failed, she didn’t mind going straight to pain. One way or another, tonight Kate Hartley would be crying for mercy.

  “The pirates took our ship and left me, and seventeen members of my crew, in the motorless dinghy in middle of the South China Sea,” Captain Bridger said. “We’d only been adrift for an hour or so when the storm hit and the boat was capsized by an enormous wave. Two of my men drowned. They were the lucky ones.”

  Violante knew it was nightfall even though he hadn’t been on deck. After all, he had a watch. He’d been escorted from his room and taken up a flight of stairs to the mess hall, where Captain Hollywood was waiting at a table for him. They shared a bottle of bad wine and a meal of fried chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Prison food must be like this, Violante thought. Something which he’d fortunately been able to avoid.

  The captain stared gravely at him with his single eye. “The sharks came after that.”

  “Did a shark eat your eye?” Violante asked.

  “A shark isn’t that dainty or selective. If one of those soulless black-eyed beasts goes for your head, he’ll take it clean off,” the captain said. “Like one of ’em did with p
oor Gilligan, a bosun’s mate, who was floating right next to me. We watched Gilligan’s headless body bob in his life jacket in the crimson water for hours, taunting us while the sharks circled and feasted on my crew. Seventeen men went into the water, only three came out.”

  Violante had lost his appetite when the repulsive plate of food had been set in front of him, but now all of Captain Cretin’s talk of blood and death had restored his hunger, and he found himself digging into one of the chicken legs.

  “So how did you lose your eye, Bridger?” He didn’t much care, but figured a gruesome story would carry him through his side dishes.

  “I’m afraid that’s too painful and horrific for me to talk about.”

  “It must be, if it’s worse than headless Gilligan and your crew getting eaten by sharks.”

  “You don’t want to know,” Nick Hartley said, sliding onto the bench beside the captain and setting down his own tray of food. “You’ll have to forgive the captain. He gets morose at night after a few glasses of wine.”

  “Because the darkness is as pitiless as a shark’s dead eyes,” the captain said. “And the wine as red as man’s blood on the water.”

  The captain picked up his tray and left.

  Nick shook his head. “Sorry about that. It’s not often that Captain Bridger has a fresh audience for his stories.”

  Violante thought he wouldn’t mind stabbing his fork into the one eye Bridger had left. “No problem. I found him to be entertaining. Are we there yet?”

  “You need to be patient,” Nick said. “It’s a virtue.”

  “I am not a virtuous man,” Violante said.

  Nick had to suppress a grin. Building up Violante’s frustration was a necessary but tricky element of the con. It would make Violante’s happiness more intense when he finally saw the treasure.

  The con was going perfectly. The only thing Nick was worried about now was Kate.

  After the encounter at the pool, Kate showered, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, and spent the rest of the day in the guesthouse, binging on episodes of Game of Thrones. She ate smoked salmon, assorted cheeses, potato chips, and chocolate ice cream. It was a hostage ordeal she wouldn’t share with Nick or Jessup.

  At 7 P.M., she walked to the main house and went upstairs to the outdoor living room. There was an enormous seafood tower brimming over with oysters, shrimp, and crab legs in crushed ice on the same patio table where the golden chocolate had been before.

  Reyna rose from her seat to greet her. She was dressed in a slinky black bandage halter top and shorts. She was barefoot. The AK-47 was nowhere in sight.

  “You must feel naked without your rifle,” Kate said.

  “You’re right,” Reyna said. “I do.”

  “I’m sure you have other weapons.”

  “All women do,” she said with a smile.

  Kate wasn’t sure if Reyna wanted to seduce her or kill her. Maybe it was both.

  “Help yourself to the seafood. It was all caught fresh today. Mr. Violante doesn’t like eating anything that has been dead for more than a few hours. The oysters are particularly good.”

  And supposedly they were an aphrodisiac, though definitely not for Kate. They looked like snot in a shell to her. Oreos were her idea of a culinary turn-on. And a Toblerone bar gave her ideas.

  Kate picked up a plate and took a few shrimp and some crab legs while Reyna poured them both sangrias from a large pitcher filled with sliced fruit.

  “How did you and Mr. Violante hook up?” Kate asked, taking a seat.

  “He wanted the best security in Marbella. That was me. Pretty straightforward.” Reyna swallowed an oyster and tossed the shell onto the table.

  “Where did you get your training?” Kate broke open a crab leg and sucked out the meat.

  “That’s classified,” Reyna said, and ate another oyster. “Where did you get yours?”

  “University of Washington, followed by a few years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.”

  “I meant military,” Reyna said.

  “I’ve never served.”

  “You’re comfortable around weapons. You weren’t afraid of the AK-47.”

  “That’s because it wasn’t pointed at me.”

  Kate had been counting down the minutes. She had a small window of opportunity to bug the house communications system, and that window was about to open. She grimaced and clutched her stomach. “Uh-oh.”

  Reyna raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think the crab is fighting back, or maybe I ate some bad cheese this afternoon. Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Behind you and to the left.”

  Kate already knew that. She’d seen it the first time she was here, and she’d spotted the bathroom window on her reconnaissance run earlier that day.

  She hurried to the bathroom, closed the door, and locked it behind her. The bathroom was huge, with two sinks and enough marble for a family mausoleum. She figured that she had five minutes, tops, before Reyna came to check on her.

  Kate opened the window, hiked herself up into it, and climbed out. She wasn’t worried about being seen by security cameras. They were all aimed to watch for intruders on the grounds and along the perimeter. She checked her watch one last time.

  There was a wrought-iron balcony outside the study and the bathroom, and an awning over the French doors that opened to the study. She climbed onto the railing, grasped the awning’s wrought-iron supports, and hoisted herself onto the awning, careful to put her weight on the support struts and not the fabric. She crawled onto the roof and went straight to the satellite dish. Crouching down, she slipped off her right shoe and slid the sole off, revealing a hidden compartment. She removed the thin thumb-drive-size bugging device that she’d picked up in Lisbon.

  She clipped the device to the cable that ran from the satellite dish to the house. The device was designed to bug the data stream and send a copy to the FBI using the same satellite that it was all flowing through. It was simple and ingenious. Jessup would be able to take down Violante and his whole organization with the information obtained from the bug.

  Kate slid down the awning, slipped back into the bathroom, and closed the window behind her. She splashed water on her face and flushed the toilet. She left the bathroom and returned to Reyna.

  “I’m going to skip dinner and go to bed,” Kate said. “I’d avoid the crab if I were you.”

  Back at the guesthouse, Kate found a large platter of golden chocolates on the kitchen table. She doubted it was delivered as a gesture of hospitality. More likely, it was a pretense so the guards could nose around and see what she’d been up to all day. Or maybe it was like a maid checking the hotel minibar. Maybe they were keeping track of what she’d eaten so they could deduct the cost from the $17.5 million.

  She settled herself onto the couch and switched on the television. She surfed around, looking for a show she wanted to watch, and fell asleep before she found one. When she awoke, the television was off and her father was standing at the kitchen table.

  “We’re going to have to work on your unconscious alarm system,” he said. “I’ve been here moving around for five minutes, and you’ve only now opened your eyes.”

  He was dressed in black and was studying the platter of chocolates.

  “I don’t see much difference between these and a Hershey’s Kiss except that you can eat the wrapper on these,” he said.

  “What the heck are you doing here?”

  “You told me to have fun,” Jake said. “This is fun.”

  “How did you get past the cameras and the guards?”

  “I came in through Violante’s secret escape tunnel. I found the hidden exit at the bottom of the gorge. It wasn’t hard to spot if you know what you’re looking for. The other end is right here in the coat closet.” Jake gestured to a closet beside the front door. “The whole closet is actually a small elevator. You turn a particular coat hook counterclockwise and off you go.”
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  “They’re holding me hostage in the same room as their secret escape route?” Kate shook her head. “How dumb is that?”

  “You didn’t know it was here, did you?” Jake said, taking a bite of chocolate.

  “No,” she said.

  “There you go. That’s why they call it a secret escape route.”

  She was glad to see Jake, but having him here complicated things for her, and it left Nick and the crew vulnerable.

  “What about the boat?” she asked. “Without you, there’s nobody in charge or watching out for the crew. And what about Willie? She can’t handle the boat on her own. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “Relax. They are all in good hands. Billy Dee has hijacked plenty of boats, most of them a lot bigger than this one, and steered them through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea with just two men. So this is a pleasure cruise for him. And Nick is on top of everything else.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Nick didn’t send me,” Jake said. “But he was glad when I told him where I was going.”

  “He wasn’t concerned that you were putting the entire operation at risk?”

  “He cares more about you than any operation.”

  “Only because I keep him from being arrested.” She saw her father sway and grab the table for support. “Dad? What’s wrong?”

  “Feeling sleepy … too sleepy. Gotta be the chocolates.”

  Kate rushed forward, catching her father before he hit the floor. She took his pulse and noted his color. He was out cold, but he wasn’t critical. His vital signs were all strong. She looked over at the candy display.

  Reyna had drugged the chocolate.

  At least she was fairly certain the candy wasn’t laced with lethal poison, and that her father would eventually be fine. There was no upside for Violante or Reyna in killing her. At least not yet.

  So why did Reyna need her helpless and compliant? There were only a few possible answers, and none of them were pleasant. The one thing Kate was sure of was that Reyna would be paying her a visit tonight.