Captain Flemming’s face is impassive, hand steady on the weapon.
“Oh, for real?” I sigh, overcome with weariness. “This is getting seriously old.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” he says.
“What’re you, a double agent?” I’m surprised by how conversational I sound. No panic. It’s like I’ve run out of fear and now there’s only mild curiosity left.
“No.” He shrugs. “Just a working man trying to get one end to meet the other.”
“That’s a pretty lame excuse.”
“You’re naive if you think I’m the only citizen involved in something like this. The whole world is corrupt. Doesn’t make me bad. Only average.”
“So that’s how you justify it?” I chuckle. “A tidy way to avoid answering for your actions.”
“I’m the only one I answer to,” he counters.
“Do you know these guys you’re working with? They’re criminals. They hurt people.”
Flemming’s expression is indifferent. “If I get my cut, I couldn’t
care less.”
I nod. “Sad for you.”
“I don’t care about that either.” He motions toward the railing. “Step over there, please.”
“Again?” I blow out my breath. “Not super original.”
“But effective.” Captain Flemming gives a tight smile. “Thanks for
the idea.”
“I aim to please.” I pad over to the railing and look down. The water churns black below.
“Climb over the rail,” he says. “If you’d be so kind.”
“You know.” I turn back toward him. “I don’t think I will.”
He cocks one eyebrow. “You realize I have a gun, right?”
“Yes, I do. But seeing as you’re going to kill me either way, I don’t think I’ll make it easy. You want it to look like an accident.” I straighten my shoulders, mustering the tiny bit of courage I have left. “So I intend to fight.”
“It won’t do any good. In this much water your body will never be found.”
“But maybe I can scratch up your pretty face on the way.”
Before he can shoot I charge, ramming my shoulder into his middle. Surprised, he staggers back a few steps but instantly recovers, lifting the gun as I wrench at his arm.
“Hey!”
The captain stops and turns toward the voice, armed but briefly stalled.
“Damon!” I gasp, flooded with relief so potent tears spring to my eyes.
Damon steps out of the shadows, gun leveled at the captain and eyes dark with fury. “Step away from my wife.”
Captain Flemming’s hands slowly rise as he backs up. Already he’s smiling at Damon, trying to talk his way out of it. “Look, Wade. This is a misunderstanding.”
“Looks pretty straightforward,” Damon says. “Drop your weapon.”
Flemming hesitates for only a moment before releasing the gun. It clatters to the deck.
Without taking his eyes off the captain, Damon asks me, “Jack, are
you okay?”
“I am now,” I say, leaning against the rail on feeble legs.
“You should really try to work with me on this, Wade,” Flemming says, talking quickly. “There’s money to be had. Don’t be an idiot.”
Damon looks unmoved. “I’m taking you into custody.”
Captain Flemming chuckles. “You really don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t?”
“How do you think we’ve pulled this off? Half the crew’s on the payroll.”
Damon flinches. “You’re bluffing.”
“Try to take me into custody. See what happens. My guys have been instructed to leave you alone until now. We let you poke around to get the Bureau off our back. But the second they know I’ve been compromised . . . We have contingency plans for this sort of thing.”
Damon considers for several beats, rattled. Then he steps up to the captain. “Captain Flemming,” he says. “You’re under arrest for—”
There’s a sharp ping! and a chunk of railing to my right explodes. I duck my head, startled, and then stare at the damage in bewilderment just as other pings! pock the railing directly next to me—
“Get down!” Damon drags me away from the rail, against the interior wall. Gunfire rains down where only a moment before we were standing, biting wedges out of the floor. Damon’s hauling me along with a shrill, “Run!”
Behind us, Flemming recovers his gun from the deck.
I can hear myself shrieking as the world is chipped away in near-miss gunfire around us. We run toward the rear of the boat, where the gangplank is already lowered for disembarking tomorrow.
There are shouts behind us as more crew members join the pursuit. Suddenly it seems like every uniformed individual on the ship is after us.
“They’re headed for the gangplank!” someone yells. “Stop them before they reach the gangplank!”
My legs are growing clumsy with weariness, but Damon urges me on. “We can make it,” he says—whether to me or himself, I’m not sure. “Please help us make it . . .”
I’m praying silently too as we close in on the gangplank—only a few yards now—
Then someone steps into our path.
Yuri is unsmiling, gun aimed.
We skid to a stop. The tears burning in my eyes finally flood my cheeks. Damon is staring at Yuri, panting hard while Yuri stares back.
“Please,” Damon says finally, his voice cracked with emotion. “Please just let my wife go. You can keep me. Just let her go.”
Yuri’s gaze shifts to me, his expression stony, then back to Damon.
After a moment, he lowers his gun.
Looking at me, with the tiniest touch of a smile he says, “For the leetle doog, Jeck.” Then he motions with his gun for us to run.
“Thank you,” Damon says fervently as he pulls me on.
Our footsteps slap the gangplank as we sprint down it. Behind us, Yuri is shouting to the others, “They run thet way!”
Footsteps thunder in the opposite direction, across the adjoining deck.
“Thank you,” Damon whispers again. “Thank you, Father.”
I’m still praying my thanks as we hurry off the edge of the gangplank and onto the murky path along the shore.
We’ve nearly reached the cover of trees when two more men come out of the shadows. As I recoil, Damon says, “No, no! It’s okay! It’s Sully and Rod.”
Relieved, I recognize the two agents looming in the twilit path. Darkness smooths their faces to empty planes.
“Thank goodness,” Damon gasps, holstering his weapon. “It’s Flemming—he’s with them. He’s on their payroll.”
“Whose payroll?” Sully asks.
“Whoever is behind this.” Damon pulls me into his side. “He attacked Jack—tried to throw her overboard.”
There’s a momentary silence. Then Sully’s disembodied voice asks me, “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” I say, though I have the chills. “There are more of them.” I glance back at the ship. “There were three others that grabbed me and a girl on the crew—”
“They grabbed you?” Damon asks. I forgot this is news to him.
“Evelyn must’ve realized I was following her. She left, but the others . . . they’re dead.”
“Dead?” Sully repeats like he doesn’t quite understand the word.
“Yeah. Shot. Well, one of them might still be alive. I sent help, but then I ran.”
“How did they get shot?” Sully demands.
My brow furrows. “With a gun, I imagine.”
There’s a breathy chuckle from Sully, but it’s devoid of humor. “Yes, I figured as much. Who shot them?”
“I don’t know. I was halfway over the rail, and then . . . they were just lying on the deck. But no one came out.”
Slowly Sully turns his featureless face in Damon’s direction. “And do you know who shot them, Agent Wade?”
“I’ve no idea,” Damon admits. “I didn’t even know they got Jack until just now.”
Again there’s silence, and my stomach clenches. There’s something not right about this, though I don’t know what.
Damon must feel it too because he asks, “What’s going on here, guys?”
“Damon.” Rod speaks for the first time. There’s regret in his voice. “We’re going to need your gun.”
Perplexed, I look up at Damon, but he’s watching the two agents with equal confusion.
“My gun?”
“Yes. Just hand it over quietly. Please,” Rod says.
Damon wets his lips and swallows convulsively. “What is happening here?”
“Look, I get it,” Rod says. “She’s your wife. Maybe your guys got away from you—decided to make a move without you—”
“Or maybe they were acting under your orders so you could step in and look like the hero,” Sully counters.
“Either way,” Rod continues. “We need your gun now.”
“You think it was . . . me?” Damon asks slowly. “You think I’m the one who shot those men?”
“It would be understandable,” Rod says. This is a classic good cop, bad cop thing, but he sounds like this conversation is genuinely painful for him. “Can’t always control your employees.”
“My employees?” Damon repeats. He seems to be coming around to their meaning awfully slowly, like it’s just too impossible to contemplate. “So you think those men on board are under my command?”
“Let’s not play games,” Sully says. “We’ve known each other for too long.”
“Yes, we have known each other too long!” Damon agrees, and for the first time he sounds angry. “Too long for you to accuse me of something like this. Suddenly I’m a suspect because my wife was nearly killed?”
“We got word back from HQ,” Sully says. “Dax finally named the mole—their plug in the FBI.”
“Me?” Damon asks, incredulous. “He named me? ”
“Just before he died,” Sully confirms.
“Dax is dead?” I ask. “How?”
“Cyanide capsule in his cell.” Sully sounds entirely unemotional. “He must have gotten it off another prisoner or bribed a guard.”
“Or he got it from whoever questioned him.” Damon speaks quickly, like this has just occurred to him. “Who took the confession?”
“The confession?” Sully repeats. For such bold accusations, his voice is maddeningly monotone.
“Who interrogated Dax in the confession that named me—what agent was it?”
Sully seems to debate with himself and then answers, “McNair.”
Damon rocks back on his feet, so unsteady I take hold of him to keep him upright. “McNair,” he murmurs. “Edward McNair?” His expression is devastated.
“He’s on his way out here now,” Rod says. “He’s coming to take you in.”
“No, listen,” Damon says, and now he sounds desperate. “I know this seems crazy, but you have to believe me. McNair is setting me up.”
Sully snorts. “Well, there’s an old tactic—blame someone else.”
“McNair?” I repeat. “The top agent on the Vegas operation?”
“Yes,” Damon says.
I’m remembering Agent McNair with his soccer-dad looks and his gentle eyes and cannot reconcile that with what Damon’s saying. Soft-spoken and meticulous, McNair doesn’t seem like he’d steal abandoned change from a pay phone, let alone be a dirty agent. “You really mean McNair?” I ask him. “With the receding hairline and the pocket protector?”
“Yes, I’m serious.” Damon turns to the other agents. “Is Dax’s confession on record?”
“McNair was alone,” Sully says. “He’s a senior agent. He doesn’t require a babysitter.”
“And that doesn’t strike you as odd? That an interrogation of our only cooperating witness in a high-profile case wasn’t recorded? A conviction would be impossible to get without it on record.”
Sully sounds impatient. “No one expected McNair to get anything. He’s been questioning Dax about the mole for months. They didn’t record it because it was out of the blue. Dax agreed to sign a written confession but took the cyanide first.”
“Also convenient. They try for months to get a name and then the minute he allegedly gives it up he just dies?”
“He killed himself rather than risk something worse than cyanide happening to him,” Sully persists.
Damon snorts. “Something worse coming from whom? Me? I would be no threat to him at that point. And if he gave a name, he was in for a better plea deal. Why in the world would he kill himself then?”
“To avoid retaliation from his associates in Kiev?” Sully says. “The Solokov regime doesn’t look kindly on rats from its own gene pool.”
“If he was going to rat them out, he would’ve done it months ago,” Damon insists. “The Solokovs had no reason to wait this long to silence him. And giving up a rogue FBI agent wouldn’t matter to the Solokovs. They had no reason to care, so they had no reason to punish him.”
Sully’s silhouette shrugs. “Criminals aren’t always logical.”
“But something like this should be!” Damon insists. “I haven’t been close enough to the investigation to pull the strings behind this.”
“You were embedded in Carmella’s organization for years,” Sully reminds him. “You could’ve aligned with her then.”
“And then ratted her out to the Bureau? Why would I bite the hand that feeds me?”
“Carmella’s collar came right before the Solokov operation in Vegas,” Sully says. “Her downfall provided the opportunity to go after Dax and Slade—”
“Who you claim I was working with,” Damon interrupts. “Once again, I’d be turning on the people who were making me rich.”
Sully talks over him. “Taking out Dax and Slade created an opening in their business. It was a clever coup, using Carmella to betray them and then taking over their work in the States.”
“Yes, it was a very clever coup,” Damon agrees. “But I was in no position to engineer it. McNair’s been running this op from day one. He even did a stretch out of our offices in Moscow to keep eyes on the Solokov regime while he was gathering intel on Dax and Slade. He could’ve made contact with them then.”
“This is pointless, Wade,” Sully says. “Trying to turn it on McNair isn’t going to help you.”
“The logic points to him.”
“But the evidence points to you.” Sully takes a single step closer. “It’s not just Dax’s confession. We’ve uncovered correspondence between you and Slade—”
“Which McNair had every opportunity to plant—”
“Please, Damon,” Rod breaks in. Again, I hear how tortured he sounds. “Just come with your dignity.”
“Do you honestly believe this?” Damon asks him.
“I don’t know what I believe,” Rod says. “But we have to look into it. And things are going to be much worse for you if you don’t cooperate.”
“If I come now, I know exactly what will happen. I’m in a box for six months while McNair plants more evidence against me.”
“And if you don’t, you’ll look even more guilty,” Rod points out.
“Rod, you’ve got to listen to me.” Damon takes one step toward him, keeping me shielded behind him. “Even if you don’t believe it’s McNair, you’ve got to believe it’s not me. How long have we been friends?”
Quietly Rod says, “Don’t do that.”
Damon gives a choked laugh. “It’s the only play I have left. You’re a great agent, Rod. And I know what the evidence is saying, but you know me.”
Hushed still, Rod agrees, “I thought I did.”
“You still do. I’m the same guy who ran over a trash can and dragged it for three blocks during our first tour together. I’m the same guy who redid twenty pages of reports because you convinced me they had to be done in purple pen.”
Rod gives a smothered laugh that sounds like he might be on the verge of crying.
“You know me,” Damon repeats softly. “Please . . . just please believe me.”
There’s a breathless beat of silence while hope is caught, throbbing, in my throat.
Then, slowly, Rod draws his gun. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I can’t.”
Damon rocks again, like his old friend has physically struck him. I grip him as he sways on his feet.
“This is crazy,” I say, finally finding my voice. “It wasn’t Damon who shot them! He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t put me in danger like that!”
Sully says, “He obviously didn’t think you were in danger. He thought he could intervene fast enough. And who better to alibi him than his own wife? What better protestation of his innocence than you being threatened?”
“You’re . . . you’re wrong,” I stammer but don’t know what else to say.
“I wish I were,” Sully says.
He, too, is drawing his weapon. “Please hand over your gun, Agent Wade. Slowly.”
Damon looks over at him, blinking like he surely didn’t hear him right. Like maybe he’s dreaming and might blink himself awake. Tremulously he removes his gun from its holster and offers it to Sully.
Then—so quickly I don’t even register it’s happening until it’s over—he swipes Sully across the head with the butt of the gun. With the other hand he yanks Rod’s gun from his grasp.
Sully collapses, unconscious but breathing as Damon removes the gun from Sully’s limp fingers. Rod just stares at Damon, expression swallowed by the night.
Damon hurls both their guns far off into the trees. “I didn’t do this,” he tells Rod—one final plea of innocence.
Then he takes my arm and pulls me down the path into the jungle.