The Exile (24 page)

Kealey drew Abby closer and appeared to nuzzle her cheek, brushing her ear with his lips. He could feel the small bulk of his ammunition rig between them. “You see him check us out?” he murmured without slowing down.

She nodded. “What do you think?”

“We're fine,” he said, giving her a lover's gentle and affectionate smile.

 

“So, Yasir, I trust all is quiet on the waterfront?” Saduq asked one of the two guards on the quay in Arabic.

Puffing on a Djarum Black, the guard gave an affirmative nod. “
Na'am, sayyidi,
” he replied. Behind him the yacht's sea stairs had been firmly secured to its starboard side and lowered to the dock.

Saduq stood in the warm breeze drifting off the bay, the spicy aroma of the clove cigarette mingling with the salt air. “A beautiful night is always to be savored,” he said and tilted his head toward the man and woman strolling up the street behind them. “Too bad the best of it is reserved for young lovers rather than men of our restless ambition, eh, Nicolas?”

Nicolas Barre glanced in their direction. “I hadn't noticed them behind us.”

“Perhaps it's because your thoughts have lingered on the blond songstress—we're not immune to romantic impulses, after all,” Saduq said with a laugh. “Come…. Let's get aboard before you're irresistibly drawn back to the hotel and her vocal charms.”

Barre turned from the couple. Saduq motioned for Barre to precede him onto the quay, and he did so, climbing the sea stairs to the deck of the
Yemaja.
A moment later Saduq followed, leaving only the strollers and his guards behind in the dimness along the dock.

 

As Saduq and his companion mounted the sea stairs, Kealey gave Abby's arm a soft tug, pausing under the pale silver glow of the half-moon to motion toward the bay. A casual observer might have thought he was pointing out a harbor beacon in the near distance, or possibly one of the constellations visible above the low horizon, its stars spilling across the sky as countless tiny sequins of light.

“You've killed before,” he whispered. It was not so much a question as confirmation.

She stood looking out over the water, her features becoming almost imperceptibly tighter. “Yes.”

Kealey couldn't have articulated how he'd known. To say it was something he'd seen in her eyes was oversimplistic, although that was part of it, and he paid close attention to what he intuited. But he supposed another part was realizing she wouldn't have gone along with his plan if she hadn't, because killing was essential to its success. He decided to leave it alone.

“Those guards on the dock will be armed,” he said. “I can take them. But I'll need you to distract the one with the cigarette.”

She nodded her head. “Okay, let's get on with it.”

Arm in arm, they walked the rest of the way up the dock, past the bobbing recreational boats, to the
Yemaja.

“Excuse me,” Abby said. “Might I trouble you for a cig?”

Saduq's guards had been aware of the couple even before their employer and Barre turned to board the yacht, but their attention had turned up a notch as they'd come within a yard or two of the berthing area.

His Djarum between his lips, Yasir looked at her in stony silence. He had understood her question perfectly but was interested only in seeing the pair move on.

Abby slipped her arm out from Kealey's and mimed holding a smoke to her lips. “Cigarette?” she said, tilting her head back in the direction of the Bonny Bight. “I must have left mine back there in the lounge.” She sniffed the breeze. “Did you know clove cigarettes were banned in the States? It's been a problem since I moved there….”

Yasir continued to ignore her with visibly growing impatience. Kealey could see a concealed weapon bunching the fabric on the right side of his sport jacket and, while looking at him peripherally, noted how his partner's jacket fell over a holster in the small of his back. Having the weapon in that spot would add at least a fraction of a second to his draw time.

Kealey turned to face the second guard, keeping his hand loose near his hip. “Sorry if we've bothered you, but—”

The Muela combat knife came out from under Kealey's Windbreaker in a blur, his right fist around its lightweight rubber grip even as he grabbed the man's wrist with his free hand, locking his fingers around it, pulling him forward and off balance an instant before he tried reaching back for his firearm. The black blade plunged deep into the man's throat, Kealey giving it a sudden twist, dragging it through the flesh as bright, warm carotid blood came out in a spurt. Then he shoved the man back hard with his forearm, plunging him into the dark water between the yacht and quay.

A pulse beat later Kealey spun toward the one with the cigarette, the MP9 appearing from under his jacket. He jammed the forward end of its cylindrical sound suppressor between the second man's ribs and then moved between him and Abby and squeezed the trigger. The
flump
of the discharging weapon was louder than Kealey would have wanted, its removable tube not nearly as effective as what an integrated can would have done, and he knew the sound would echo across the water. But there was the slap of the current and the soft creaking of wooden planks and the openness around him—and, most of all, an element of surprise, which he hoped would buy him the small amount of time he needed.

The lighted cigarette spinning out of his hand, the guard went limp and collapsed around the barrel of the gun as the 9-mil round's kinetic energy burst his heart in his chest. Kealey bodied into him with his entire weight, pushing
hard,
forcing him off the dock and into the bay seconds after the first man had toppled into it with a dull splash.

Soft, swift footsteps came now from the direction of the parking area—Etienne Brun sprinting light-footedly toward him as they'd arranged, a B&T MP9 identical to Kealey's against his thigh.

Kealey made eye contact with him, sheathed his knife, glanced around to see Abby staring down at the water, her hair blowing about her face. Her posture was wooden, the tendons of her neck bulging out in tight, strained cords.

“Come on, let's move!” he said, placing his hand firmly around her arm to snap her out of it.

She took a breath, nodded. And then the three of them were bounding off the dock and up the sea stairs onto the deck of Hassan al-Saduq's yacht.

 

“Hell,
look,
” Martin said in the SUV's backseat.

Steiner saw him motion toward the Bonny Bight, flicked his eyes toward his window, and instantly spotted three large men trotting toward the dock through the tall, columnar trunks of the royal palms. Hurrying along Avenue de la Marina, they ran abreast with furious purpose…and there was no mistaking them for ordinary guests of the hotel.

“You think they're with Saduq or the pirate?” Martin asked.

“I don't know—but it's only important that we stop them.” Steiner slapped a clip into his submachine gun with the ball of his palm and heard Martin doing the same, his magazine locking into place with a metallic click. Then he set the gun down beside him on his seat and keyed the ignition.
“Hang on!”

He stepped on the gas, shot out of the parking space with a jolt, then swung the steering wheel to the right and pulled from the lot onto the pavement, his front end facing the curb. Gripping his door handle, he braked to a sudden stop between the men and the dock, grabbed his compact assault rifle, and lunged out of the SUV, keeping its armored body between himself and the trio. He had his ID holder in one hand, the rifle in the other.

“Halt!
Halte!
” He waved the ID holder at them. “Europol!”

The men held in their tracks, one slightly ahead of his comrades. Steiner kept his identification in clear view as Martin exited the right side of the vehicle. Using his partially open door as a shield, Martin angled his weapon at them over the top of its laminar glass window.

“What do you want from us?” one of the men said in English. “Let us through—”

“I'm afraid we cannot,” Martin said.

“What are you talking about?” The man motioned past him toward the yacht. “We have to get over there. Our employer is expecting us to—”

“That's enough bullshit,” Martin said. “Put your hands over your heads. All three of you.”

The men just glared at him.

“
Merde,
are you deaf?” Martin jerked his weapon upward. “Let's see your hands in the air
now.
”

The lead man's eyes continued boring into Martin as he finally frowned and raised his arms with slow reluctance. The other two followed suit a moment later.

Alert for any sudden move, Martin slid around his side of the car, his left hand around the assault gun's barrel, his right on the pistol grip, the back of its stock pressed into the hollow between his shoulder and chest. Out the tail of his eye he saw the sparse traffic on the street slowing down at the scene as drivers in both directions began to rubberneck. Then he became aware of something else—the warble of police sirens in the near distance. At least one of those gawkers must have phoned for the gendarmes.

Which, Martin thought, was not the worst thing for him and Steiner. The key was to play the situation to their advantage. The Interpol-EU antipiracy task force was under no obligation to coordinate its efforts with local authorities. A little finesse, then, and their actions here might be explained as falling inside the bounds of a covert investigation. But Hassan al-Saduq had not been charged with any crimes. The task force could not violate the law, and hijacking Saduq's yacht crossed lines Martin didn't wish to contemplate. Or explain.

He would have ample opportunity to consider that later, though. Right now he needed to buy Kealey and the others more time—and make sure these men stayed right where they were.

He glanced at Steiner, nodded for him to frisk the three while he covered him with his MP9. Steiner moved quickly from the SUV to where they stood, found a holstered Beretta under the lead man's jacket, and shoved it into his pocket. The second man had the same weapon at his side—and a Walther PPK in an ankle holster. He handed off both to Martin, who tossed them back into the SUV while keeping his rifle leveled.

“Who do you work for?” Martin asked them. “Is it Saduq or his sailing companion?”

Cold stares in return.

“We already have a good idea why they came here,” Martin said. “Tell us the truth and it might help you in the long run.”

The lead man snorted loudly, then spat in Martin's direction. Martin just smiled—it was more or less the response he'd expected. His greater concern was that a hurried glance over his shoulder had disclosed that the arms trader's yacht still remained berthed at the quay. He did not know if it meant the American's mad plan—if it truly could be considered one—had led to trouble for Abby and Brun, or if they simply needed more time. But he was hoping he wouldn't have to find ways to buy it for them and stall the gendarmes from going aboard.

Steiner, meanwhile, had disarmed the third man, producing a Ruger semiautomatic from under his blazer. He backed toward the SUV with it as the sirens in the night got louder and closer. Within seconds the police cars appeared, their roof lights flashing, shooting past Saduq's yacht as they arrived from the direction of the harbor.

It had not taken them very long, Martin thought, his back to the vehicles. But he had known their precinct house was close. Limbe was a small city, with its wealthiest citizens and visitors—and therefore those the police most diligently protected—concentrated here at the shore.

The patrol cars pulled up, their doors flying open, uniformed officers pouring out with their guns drawn. There might have been four or five vehicles. Martin was unsure of the exact number. He would neither lower his own weapon nor take his attention off the men on whom it was pointed to count them.

“Drop your gun!” one of the uniforms shouted.

Martin held out his identification in one hand. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“Captain Justine,” the gendarme barked. “Your weapon.”

Martin spared the gendarme a glance. Tall and husky, he was holding his regulation Beretta out in front of him, aiming it at Martin in a two-handed police grip.

Martin tossed his ID holder at him, heard it hit the ground. “I'm with Interpol, Captain. Léonard Martin. Since you couldn't manage to see my goddamned identification while I held it, feel free to pick it up for a better look.”

Justine bent to lift the holder from where it had landed near his feet, eyes quickly moving over it, then shifting to Steiner and the three men still standing with their hands up in the air.

“What's going on here?” Justine barked.

Martin took a long, deep breath and held it, wishing he had the vaguest notion of how to explain.

 

Aboard the
Yemaja,
the two deckhands had been raising fenders and pulling in lines when they heard the scuffling below on the quay.

Leading the way up onto the boat, Abby and Brun behind him, Kealey came off the stairs to see one of the hands turning from the rail toward the master cabin. His MP9 holstered, Kealey took one running stride after him, another, and then grabbed him before he could run in under the tail of the flybridge, clamping his right arm around his throat and hauling him backward while jamming a knee into the base of his spine.

The deckhand groaned in pain but managed to take a decent swing at Kealey as he was unwillingly spun in a circle. Kealey easily ducked the blow, bounced up on his knees, and punched him hard in the face, smashing his nose with his fist. As the man's legs folded, Kealey moved in to hit him again, taking no chances, delivering a second blow across his jaw, feeling it give at the hinge, then grabbing his sleeve and tossing him against the rail. The man slammed back into it before he crumpled to his knees, spitting and coughing up blood.