Operation Sea Ghost (30 page)

This brought the same two pirates back. Nolan barked at them as soon as they appeared: “You want to save that girl? You want to ransom her? Then get her down here. And give her a life jacket.”

The pirates seemed confused about his orders, but they didn’t question him. They were too scared.

One disappeared but returned a minute later, and Emma was with him.

Nolan pretended to be engrossed with the engine—and he yelled at the pirates: “Tell everyone up top to strap in and hold on tight. I’ll try my best to get this running again.”

The pirates didn’t hesitate an instant this time. They went back up the ladder as quickly as they could.

Once they were gone, Emma fell into his arms. Soaking wet and crying, she would not let him go.

The boat began bouncing around the wild sea. Water was splashing up top and draining into the engine room. It hit the hot pipes, caused them to steam, and before long the steam filled the small compartment. But she did not let go.

Nolan managed to free one hand and replace two of the disconnected spark plug wires. The engine surged and the boat started moving a little faster through the gale.

Still, she would not let go.

They were being thrown all over the engine room, and when they stumbled together, she just held on tighter.

Finally, still without a word between them, they both sank to the dirty, oily floor, to ride out the storm together.

*   *   *

THE SEA GREW even wilder, and the wind began to absolutely howl.

The stolen fishing boat was made primarily of wood and aluminum, meaning it bobbed in the rough water like a toy. Nolan could hear the pirates running around up on deck, ignoring his orders to find a place and strap in. They were all drunk and obviously inexperienced in how to properly take a vessel like this through a storm. They had given Emma a life jacket when they brought her below, though—and at the moment that was the only comfort Nolan could find. If the boat broke apart and she had a life jacket on, then at least she had a chance to survive, small as it might be.

The storm grew even more. She was hugging him so tight, Nolan could barely breathe, but that was OK with him.

Finally, she spoke.

“You’re brave and you’re strong,” she said. “Can you share some of that with me?”

“Like I told you back on the freighter,” he replied. “
You’re
one of the bravest people I know.”

“But what did you think of me before that?” she asked him. “Before what happened happened? Tell me the truth…”

Nolan was stuck for a moment. It was a strange conversation to be having as a typhoon roared outside.

“I guess I thought you were the type of girl who’d sit in a guy’s lap even while he was standing up,” he finally replied.

She would have laughed had she not been so scared.

“I guess that’s better than you thinking I was someone who liked to pull the wings off flies,” she said. “Or stomp little bunnies.”

“It was never that bad,” he lied.

“I know it was—and worse,” she said as a massive wave hit the fishing boat. It was so powerful it seemed to knock them sideways. “I’ve done so many stupid things in my life—and I’m not that old. I’ve screwed people over. Ruined careers. Destroyed marriages. Lives. I was born to be a monster.”

“The best thing to do with those kind of memories is to just forget them,” he told her.

“But what if you can’t?”

“Then just get drunk,” he replied. “That’s what alcohol is for.”

Another massive wave hit them. It sounded like the boat would come apart at any moment.

“I guess I figured that out when I was about twelve years old,” she finally replied. “When I was a little kid, I used to hear a voice in my head. I thought it was God. Hell, we talked all the time, though He did most of the talking. I finally got worried about it and told my mother. She was an actress and she was making a movie at the time. I thought sure she’d send me to a shrink, but instead, she and my father decided that it was ‘precious’ and never did anything. I started boozing right after that.”

The boat was hit again by a huge wave. Nolan waited for the vessel to settle down.

“So what did this voice tell you?” he asked her. “Did it say you should become a movie star?”

“No,” she replied through some tears. “The voice told me I should save the world and do it some good—but I did the exact opposite. I became an actress.”

Nolan thought a few moments and said, “Someone told me once that when a person goes to sea, they should forget about everything that happened on shore. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did eventually. Do you know what I mean?”

She thought about it a moment and then nodded. “I think so,” she said, pulling him even closer.

“People can be whatever or whoever they want to be as long as they are fighting for something,” he said. “And you gotta take a stand. I mean, if you don’t believe in God or the devil, you’re never disappointed. But what fun is that?”

He actually got her to laugh at that one.

And about a minute later, the sea around them started to calm down.

They heard the rain stop. The wind died away. The thunder was gone.

The storm had passed quickly—and they had talked through almost all of it. The sun eventually poked through the cracks between the fishing boat’s beams. They were highlighted by the steam coming off the still-chugging Chevy V-8, giving the engine room a surreal noir look.

Finally Nolan could see her face again and she could see his.

He said to her, “Throughout those battles on the freighter, I smelled a bit of your perfume on me and I knew I would have given my life just to see you one more time.”

She replied, “I don’t know anything about war or politics—but I believe in you. And what you do must be right. You know, brave men are never forgotten. And like I said before, you
are
a brave man.”

He laughed. “Well, that might be true, but sometimes they don’t last long enough to be remembered.”

She looked him straight in the eye.

“I’ll remember you,” she said.

Nolan felt like he was floating in space. He was dirty, wet and wounded—yet nothing around him had any effect on him. He was lighter than air. He figured, it was now or never.

He went to kiss her—and just as their lips touched, there was a huge explosion.

It nearly knocked him out, the concussion was so bad.

All he could think was: Wow!

But then he opened his eyes and realized that this was not from the kiss—someone had fired at the fishing boat, and in fact a shell had come right through the hull, passed through the engine room and gone out the other side.

Before they could say anything, there was a second explosion; this one on the top deck. It shook the vessel from one end to the other.

Four pirates quickly appeared. Nolan had never seen these guys before. But it was clear they were all scared and angry.

They grabbed Emma and began dragging her away. Nolan tried to stop them but they began beating him with their rifle butts. He retaliated by stabbing them with his screwdriver, but this just made them beat him more.

All the while, Emma was screaming and crying as they carried her up the ladder way.

“I will remember you!” was the last thing Nolan heard her say.

One pirate stayed behind. He was the fiercest-looking one of them all. He pointed to the engine and screamed at Nolan: “Make fast, now!”

Then he, too, hustled up the ladder.

Another shot came in. This one blew off a large chunk of the hull just in front of the engine. The resulting hole was so large, Nolan could see out onto the water. About 1000 feet off their port side, a police boat was firing at them. He could clearly see the flashes coming from its deck gun.

“Make fast … now!” another pirate screamed down at him.

But Nolan did the opposite. He knew this was their only chance to get out of this thing alive. So he pulled out all the spark plug wires and the engine ground to a halt. A few seconds later, the fishing boat stopped moving.

Nolan tore off his battle suit top, ripped off his white t-shirt from underneath and frantically started waving it through the hole in the hull, hoping to attract the attention of the police boat.

But whether they saw him or not, he would never know, because they fired their deck gun again and this shell exploded on the other side of the engine, effectively cutting the fishing boat in two.

The boat’s fuel tank went up a second later, blowing Nolan right out of the engine compartment and high into the air. He stopped in midair just long enough to see the fishing vessel sink in a ball of flames. Then he came down and hit the water hard, plunging at least twenty feet under, before he was able to stop himself.

He madly fought his way through the turbulence to get back to the surface. But when he reached the top again and looked around for Emma, all he saw were the dead and the dying amidst the smoking remains of the fishing boat.

He began swimming through the burning wreckage, searching for her—but then he noticed the water was snapping all around him. The police boat was now just 100 feet away and they were machine-gunning anything that was moving in the water. As there was no way they could tell him from the bad guys, they were shooting at him, too.

He had no choice but to swim for it.

He went under and with all his might began swimming away. When he surfaced again, the police boat was circling the wreckage, still firing into it as if doing it for sport.

He looked around and saw there was an island about 1,000 feet away from the scene. With tears spilling out of his one good eye, Nolan started swimming toward it, Emma’s last words still ringing in his ears.

It was not an easy go. The current carried him one way for a while and then the other. Though the small island was always right ahead of him, it never seemed to get any closer.

But then came a shift of tide, or a lucky wave, or something else, because one moment, Nolan was close to going under for good, and in the next, he’d been thrown up on the island’s rocky beach.

Still, he couldn’t move, he was having trouble breathing and he could barely feel his legs. He had water in his lungs and his stomach. He began throwing up and didn’t stop for a long time.

Only after this nausea finally passed, did he try to crawl further up on the beach, but his legs still didn’t want to work. No matter how hard he tried, he was stuck in the same position.

He thought: “I meet the girl of my dreams—and
then
my life is over? Thanks for nothing, God—you bastard.”

And at that point, he just gave up. Emma was gone. He was out in the middle of nowhere. And the tide that had swept him up onto this beach was now about to overwhelm him and drown him after all.

So, he stopped trying to move.

He stopped trying to breathe.

For Snake Nolan, it was finally time to die.

21

Monte Carlo
On the waterfront

TWITCH CHECKED THE clip in his handgun for the third time in the past ten minutes.

It was still full, as it was the last two times he looked.

He knew he was obsessing, but he couldn’t help it. They were sitting at an outdoor café on the Monte Carlo waterfront. The large travel bag was on the table between them—with slightly more than fifty million dollars inside. Anyone with a bigger handgun and younger legs could make off with it in a snap. That fact alone was driving Twitch nuts.

But Batman did not share his concern. He was still glowing from his fantastic streak of luck at the gaming tables. He’d made the $50 million-plus in less than two hours, all by taking hits at blackjack when it seemed suicidal to do so.

Twitch wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself. It was almost scary the way Batman had gone about it. Staring into space before a big hand, eyes glazed over, not moving, as if in a trance. Twitch knew there was a secret behind how Batman was doing it, yet his colleague had chosen not to reveal it to him.

But even that didn’t make any difference at this point.

What was important now was what to do with the money.

“We know the gagnant is being played at midnight tonight,” Twitch said, once some nearby patrons had moved off. “The question is,
where
will it be played? That’s just about the only thing Bobby Murphy never told us.”

Batman had been thinking about the same thing ever since they’d left the last casino.

“Remember back on the yacht,” he said now. “When Audette first heard about the pirates making all those phone calls? He said some were to the Stazi guys in Bad Sweeten and some were to the top casinos here. But he said one call was to the Prince’s Palace. The place the Monaco Royal Family lives.”

“You think the gagnant is being held there?” Twitch asked. “That’s pretty far up the food chain.”

“But why else would mooks like the Tangs call there if it wasn’t?” Batman replied. “I doubt they dialed a wrong number.”

“OK, so let’s assume it’s at this palace,” Twitch said. “And we know it’s being played at midnight. And we’ve got the money—though it might be giving up fifty million in hand to get a hundred million in the bush, which is insane. But I guess that’s where our patriotism comes in. Still, how are we going to get into the game?”

Batman replied, “Murphy did say, while most people send in the entry fee and back it up with a surety, if someone walked in and had the cash with them, they wouldn’t turn them away. They must figure if he’s connected enough to actually know about the secret game and has the money to play, why not let him in?”

“Are you saying we go … uninvited?” Twitch gasped. “Walk up to this palace and just knock on the door?”

“That’s our only option,” Batman replied. “We try to fake our way in and see what happens.”

Twitch checked the time. It was almost 11:30
P.M.
In his own little world, nothing was
too
crazy. But this was coming close.

“We’ll need better clothes,” he finally told Batman. “We can’t go dressed like this. But I don’t think we’ll find a tuxedo store open right now.”