Serpent (19 page)

The time to test the regimen came on a particularly lovely day when the siren call of the river became impossible to resist. He hauled his sleek twenty-one-foot-long Maas Aero racing scull from the lower level of the boathouse he'd converted into his home just below the palisades in Fairfax County. Jockeying the light shell down the ramp and into the water was not difficult. The real adventure was getting into the slender boat without tipping it over.

His first attempt to row was pure disaster. The Concept 11 composite oars were featherlight, but with their ninefoot length and the weight and pressure of the blades against the water, Austin took only a few painful strokes before turning back in a cold sweat. His side felt as if a meat hook hung off it. He deliberately capsized the shell near shore, staggered into the house, and stood in front of the medicine cabinet looking at his ashen reflection as he popped painkillers that only slightly dulled the agony. He waited a few days then tried again. He favored his right arm, and the uneven strokes tended to send the scull into an unpretty series of connected arcs, but at least he was moving. Within days he could row without gritting his teeth.

Eventually the stiffness lessened. Today the only reminder of the assassin's lucky shot was the twinge he experienced during his warmup stretches. He felt good from the moment he slipped into the open cockpit, tucked his feet into the dogs bolted to the foot rests, and pushed the sliding seat back and forth a few times on its twin runners to limber up his abdominal muscles. He adjusted the "buttons," the collars that rest against the outrigger oarlocks, to make sure they were positioned to deliver the maximum power with each stroke.

Leaning forward, Austin dipped the blades into the water and gingerly pulled the oar handles back, letting the weight of his body work for him. The scull skimmed over the surface like a water bug. This was the best day yet. Any residual pain was overwhelmed by his joy at being able to row with a normal rhythm. He sat straight up, hands overlapped for easier pulling. Rowing slowly at first, he used a moderate forward reach and a long pull. At the end of each stroke he feathered the oars, turning them almost horizontal to reduce wind resistance, the blades inches above the water as they came forward. He grunted with satisfaction; he was rowing well.

The scull glided upriver as quietly as a whisper past the stately old mansions that lined the shore. The misty flower-scented river air that filled his lungs was like the perfume of an old love. Which in a way was true. For Austin, rowing was more than his main physical exercise. With its emphasis on technique rather than power this melding of mind and body was like a Zen meditation. Totally focused now, he increased his stroke rate, gradually unleashing more of the power in his broad shoulders, until the dial of the Strokecoach just above his toes showed him rowing at a normal twenty-eight strokes per minute.

Sweat rolled down from under the visor of his turquoise NUMA baseball cap, the back. of his rugby shirt was soaked with perspiration, and his butt was numb despite the seat padding of the bike shorts. But his senses were telling him that he was alive. The sleek shell flew over the river as if the oars were wings. He planned to row the first leg for forty-five minutes, then reverse and let the lazy current give him an easy ride back. There was no sense pushing his luck.

A blinding flash of light caught his eye from the riverbank. The sun was reflecting off the glass of a tripod-mounted spotting scope. A man sat on a folding chair on the shore peering into the scope's eyepiece. He had on a white cotton hat pulled down low over his brow, and the rest of his face was hidden behind the scope. Austin had seen the same man for the first time several days earlier and had figured him for a birdwatcher: Except for one thing: the scope was always trained on Austin.

Minutes later Austin made the planned turn and started downriver. As he approached the birdwatcher again he shipped his oars, letting the current take him, and waved, hoping the man would lift his head. The eye remained glued to the scope. Austin studied the birdwatcher as the scull glided silently by Then he grinned and with a shake of his head took up the oars again and pulled for home.

The Victorianstyle boathouse had been part of a riverfront estate. With its pale blue clapboards and mansard roof surmounted by a turret, it was a miniature of the main house except for interior modifications. Austin steered the shell toward shore, climbed out onto the ramp, and pulled the scull up and under the boathouse. He maneuvered it onto a rack next to another one of his toys, a small outboard hydroplane. Austin had two other boats, a twenty-two-foot catboat and a fullsized racing hydroplane, tied up at a Chesapeake Bay marina.

He liked the catboat's classic lines and history and the fact that despite its tubby hull and single sail it was fast, especially with the modifications he'd built into it, and could beat the pants off bigger and sleeker craft. The cat was weatherly too, and he pushed it to extremes of weather and distance just for the thrill of it. While Austin enjoyed the mental challenges of rowing and could sail a boat almost from the time he could walk, he had acquired a taste for speed early in life and raced boats since he was ten. His big love on his time off was still racing boats.

With the scull stowed, he climbed an inside stairway to the main level, then another short flight to the turret bedroom. He tossed his rowing clothes into a hamper and washed away the morning's exertions with a hot shower. As he toweled off in front of the mirror he examined the bullet wound. It had lost its angry redness and turned pinkish. Soon it would join the other pale scars that stood out against his walnut skin. All souvenirs of violent encounters. Sometimes he wondered if his body naturally attracted projectiles and sharp instruments the way a magnet draws metal filings.

Dressed in clean shorts and T-shirt, he went into the kitchen, brewed half a pot of strong Kenyan coffee; and rustled up a pan of bacon and eggs. He carried the plate through a slider to the deck overlooking the Potomac and watched the river go by as he ate breakfast. Still enjoying the cholesterol rush, he refilled a mug of coffee, then went into his combination study-den. He put a Coltrane CD on the stereo, settled into a black leather chair, and listened to Anton Sax's instrument sing in voices its creator could never have dreamed were possible. It was not surprising that Austin favored progressive jazz. In a way the sounds of Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and other artists in his extensive music library reflected Austin's own personality: a steely coolness that masked intense energy and drive, the ability to reach deep into his soul when superhuman effort was needed, and a talent for improvisation.

The spacious room was an eclectic collection of the old and the new, authentic darkwood colonial furniture, and white walls hung with contemporary originals. Curiously for a man who was raised in and around the sea and who spent much of his life on or under the water, there were few nautical items. A primitive painting of a sailing clipper done by a Hong Kong Picasso for a China Trade skipper, a nineteenth-century chart of the Pacific, a couple of shipbuilding tools, a photo of his catboat, and a glass-encased scale model of his racing hydroplane.

His bookshelves held the leatherbound sea adventures of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville and dozens of books of ocean science. But the most hand worn volumes were those of writers like Plato, Kant, and the other great philosophers he liked to study. Austin was aware of the dichotomy but saw no oddity in it. More than one sea captain had retired inland after a career on the bounding main. Austin wasn't yet ready to move to Kansas, but the sea was a wild and demanding mistress, and he needed this quiet refuge from its crushing embrace.

As he sipped his coffee his eye fell on the brace of Mantons mounted on the wail over the fireplace. Austin had nearly two hundred sets of dueling pistols in his collection: Most of the pairs were stored in a fireproof vault. He kept the more recent acquisitions at the boathouse. He was fascinated not only by the workmanship and deadly beauty of the pistols but by the twists and turns of history that may have been launched by a well-placed ball fired on a quiet morning. He pondered how the republic might have fared if Aaron Burr had not killed Alexander Hamilton. The Mantons brought his mind back to the Nereus incident. What a strange night! In the days he'd been home recovering Austin had replayed the attack in his mind again and again, fast-forwarding, freezing action, and rewinding like a VCR.

After the battle the exertion and loss of blood caught up with Austin. He had barely taken a dozen steps before he could go no farther, collapsing in slowmotion and ending up in a sitting position. Captain Phelan had been the one to tell the crew all was safe. They came out of hiding, scraped Austin and Zavala off the deck, and carried them on stretchers to sickbay. On the way they passed the body of the assailant Austin had nailed with

a single shot from his dueling pistol. At Austin's direction they stopped, and a crewman with a strong stomach pulled the mask off the dead man. The face was that of a man in his thirties, dark-complexioned, with a thick black mustache, his features otherwise unremarkable except for the round hole in the forehead.

Zavala sat up on his stretcher and let out a low whistle. "'Tell me you had a laser sight on that old blunderbuss. A moving target in the dark! If I hadn't seen it I'd say a shot like that was impossible." ,

"It is impossible," Austin said with a rueful smirk. "I was playing it safe With a body shot."

As he explained to Zavala while their wounds were properly bandaged, his uncanny accuracy had nothing to do with his aim or the pistol's disreputable barrel grooving. In his haste Austin had turned the small pressure adjusting screw next to the trigger in the wrong direction and set the pistol with a hair trigger. Thank goodness for Manton's barrelweighted idiotproofing.

A oilcompany helicopter summoned by an emergency radio call plucked the wounded men and Nina Kirov from the Nereus and dropped them off in Tarfaya. Captain Phelan refused to leave his ship, and after the physician's mate had ascertained he'd be able to function on a limited basis within a few days, he stayed on to take the Nereus to the Yucatan. Within hours Austin and Zavala were on a NUMA executive jet that had been diverted to Morocco on its way to the United States from Rome. Nina hitched a ride on the plane to Dulles airport. The painkiller Austin was given knocked him for a loop, and he slept almost the entire flight. His. recollections were vague, but he remembered dreaming that a blond angel kissed him lightly on the cheek. When he awoke he was in Washington. Nina was gone, having caught the shuttle for Boston. He wondered whether he'd ever see her again. After spending a couple of days in the hospital he and Zavala were sent home, told to take their medication faithfully and give their bodies a chance to heal.

The jangle of the phone jolted Austin out of his reverie. He picked up the receiver and heard a crisp greeting. "Good morning Kurt, how are you feeling?"

"I'm coming along quite well, Admiral Sandecker. Thank you for asking. Although I must admit to being a little bored."

"Glad to hear that. Your boredom is about to come to an abrupt end. We're meeting tomorrow at nine to see if we can get to the bottom of this Moroccan business. I'm bringing Zavala in as well. He's been seen around Arlington in his convertible, so I assume he, too, is bored with inactivity."

Zavala, who drove a 1961 Corvette, mostly because it was the last model with a trunk, had used his time to tinker in his basement, where he liked to restore mechanical contrivances and create new technical underwater devices. As soon as he was able to walk without falling over he started working out at a boxing gym. Joe was never bored when there were women around, and he'd been making the most of the sympathetic leverage his wound got him.

Austin had talked to Zavala numerous times on the phone. For all the fun Joe was having, he was itching for action. Austin was telling the truth when he said, "I'm sure he's eager to get back to work, Admiral."

"Splendid. By the way I understand you're well enough to qualify for a spot on the Olympic crew team."

As coxswain, maybe. One suggestion, sir. The next time you hire someone to impersonate a birdwatcher, you might make sure he isn't wearing dress shoes and knee socks."

Pause. "I don't have to remind you that NUMA does not have the same pool of clandestine operatives that your Langley neighbors have at their beck and call. I asked Joe McSweeney, one of NUMA s bean counters from accounting, to quietly see how you were coming along. He passes your house commuting to work. Sounds as if a James Bond bug bit him and he took the job more seriously than I imagined. Hope you don't mind."

"No problem, sir. I appreciate your concern. It's better than having daily phone calls from headquarters."

"Thought you might think so. Incidentally Mac does know his birds."