Hayward felt miserable. He’d never been much of a seafaring man, and he had finished donating to the ocean’s scavengers whatever might have remained in his stomach hours earlier, so it was down to dry heaves.
The Swan Song was large and sturdy, as ego-boosting harbor hot rods went. But he’d spent a good portion of the night—and just shy of half the vessel’s remaining fuel, if the gauges were to be trusted—getting himself far away from any nearby harbor and out to the open ocean. A stiff morning breeze pushed the water around in two-meter waves, and the Swan Song might as well have been a dinghy for all its steadying capacity. Hayward felt every ripple in his twisted, seasick gut.
The stench of Maria Ferdinand-Xavier’s blood was thick on his tongue and deep in his nostrils, and he wondered if he would ever be rid of it. He was certain her body was starting to decompose. The air was starting to take on an eye-watering, feces-and-methane foulness as the temperature rose with the morning sun.
He couldn’t exactly bob around the ocean with a murder victim, waiting to be picked up by some country’s coastal patrol. It turned his stomach, but he was going to have to do something with Maria’s body.
He removed his shirt, doubled the fabric over itself, placed it over his mouth to filter the stench, and tied it tightly in a knot at the base of his skull. He took care not to aggravate the sore spot from last night’s blow to the back of his head. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a damn sight better than breathing Maria’s unfiltered decomposition.
You’re going to have to search her body, he realized. There was a lot at stake, and it wouldn’t have been out of character for the Agency animals to use her body to make some sort of a statement. Gruesome as such a discovery would be, it might provide a useful clue regarding Katrin and Joao’s whereabouts.
Assuming the Agency animals hadn’t killed them already.
Hayward crowded the grim thought from his mind and busied himself freeing Maria’s body from the cabin seat. Maria hadn’t been a large woman, but rigor mortis had set in and the corpse was awkward and hard to move. He kept slipping on the blood on the floor of the cabin.
He was sweating by the time he’d removed her from the seat and positioned her against the bench spanning the starboard cabin wall. “I’m sorry, Maria,” he breathed. He took a breath and started his search. He inspected her body for markings of any kind, anything that might have held a message or clue. Laying his hands on her corpse felt disrespectful and inappropriate, and he second-guessed the decision.
But then he thought more about the context. They could have killed him hours earlier in the condo after he had opened the safe, but they hadn’t. Instead, they had merely knocked him unconscious, given him time to awaken and recover, then summoned him to the boat. Perhaps to witness Maria’s final moments. Perhaps to save her.
Perhaps to hear her deliver an important message about Katrin and Joao. Or to deliver a message to him from his employers. Maybe Maria was meant to be a messenger. Maybe he had fouled up her delivery by letting her die while he hid on the other boat, imagining bogeymen lurking in the dark.
He found no markings on Maria’s body. He began the grim task of a cavity search. Would they have defiled her in this way? Would they defile him by making him invade her corpse to retrieve their message? He gritted his teeth, vowing the most painful possible death for those responsible for this vile act.
He found nothing. He looked over her corpse again, just to be sure. No markings, no hidden objects. Just the hideous gash on her wrist that had drained her life.
He sat on the bench, rested his elbows on his knees, and let his head hang. The sun crested the cabin window’s edge, sending blinding beams into the cramped space. Bloody footprints were everywhere. Dark red handprints covered the control console.
“What a fucking mess,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar, but maybe he was onto something. He surveyed the bloody scene again. Maybe Maria hadn’t died to deliver a message. Maybe they had killed Maria to set him up.
But why? It made no sense. Why set him up for a fall when it would have been just as easy to do away with him themselves?
So it was back to motivation, he surmised. Help us get what we want, or we’ll do this to Katrin too. Maybe that was the message. As if at this point in his all-too-lengthy relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, Hayward needed any further reminder of what they were capable of.
“Fuck you,” he said.
He had another grim task ahead of him. He didn’t have the stomach to handle both the pitching sea and the cloying smell of decomposition. He was going to have to bury Maria at sea.
Hayward found a set of binoculars hanging by their lanyard from a nail next to the throttle quadrant. He used them to scan the horizon, to make sure there would be no witnesses when he let Maria go. He also wanted to make sure the boat was far enough from the shore to preclude her washing up on some beach anytime soon.
Satisfied, he hoisted her corpse onto his shoulders. Gas shifted in her gut and he retched. Then he righted himself, hauled her up the stairs, and set her gently onto the deck.
Hayward repositioned his grip to pull her toward the aft end of the boat. He wanted to lower her as reverently as possible into the water. His right hand tightened around her leg just above the ankle, and that was when he felt it—something small, hard, non-biological. It was just beneath the surface of her skin in the depression between her heel cord and ankle. It felt like a small cylinder, maybe half an inch long and an eighth of an inch in diameter.
Hayward made a small incision in Maria’s leg using his penknife, then used the flat of the blade to force the small object from beneath her skin.
He knew instantly what it was. He had to get it ashore as quickly as possible.
Hayward set his jaw and released Maria into the sea. “I will do right by you and your family,” he said, watching the waves toy with her shape until she was lost in the glare of the morning sun.
He searched the cabin, found a pair of trousers and a madras shirt, and extricated himself from his bloody clothes. The trousers were too short and the shirt was too big, but they would have to do. He tossed his soiled clothing onto the deck of the boat.
Hayward found the engine housing in the aft section of the boat. He opened the cover, located the fuel line, and severed it with his penknife. The smell of fuel assaulted his nostrils. He found it a welcome relief from the stench of blood and decomposing flesh.
He draped the severed fuel line over the deck, walked back to the control console, and pressed the fuel primer button. He heard the whir of an electric motor and the splash of liquid. The smell of fuel grew stronger. He held down the primer button for several more minutes until he could see liquid seeping down the stairs and into the cabin. The deck of the Swan Song was soaked with gas.
He lowered the Swan Song’s small excursion boat into the water and jumped in. It bobbed on the surface of the ocean as he fiddled with the small motor. It started on the first try. Hayward let the engine idle as he searched through the survival kit strapped beneath the seat. It didn’t take long for him to locate what he wanted: a cluster of signal flares.
He twisted the throttle, steered away from the Swan Song, and gained a little distance. Then he stood, steadied himself, and fired a flare into the pool of fuel on the Swan Song’s deck. Flames flickered and black smoke rose into the sky.
Hayward watched until the Swan Song was engulfed in flames. Then he opened the throttle all the way, steered toward land, and felt the cool ocean spray pepper his face.