CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

 

 

 

Thursday, June 14

St. Julian’s, Malta

 

 

Payne opened his eyes in the starboard guest cabin and slowly focused on the two oval windows in the right-hand wall. Bright sunlight poured into the wood-paneled room, revealing two side-by-side bunks separated by a narrow gap and a stretch of beige carpet.

When Payne had crawled into his berth just before dawn, he had chosen the less-damaged mattress on the left and had fallen right to sleep. Prior to that, he had spent half the night on watch regretting what he had said to Marissa, and the other half regretting what he didn’t say. Although his therapy session with Jones had helped him to better understand his intimacy issues, he wasn’t ready to get involved with a woman he didn’t know.

Particularly one he kept arguing with.

Besides, he had more important things to focus on. There was a treasure to be found, Russians to be dealt with, and a hearty breakfast to be eaten.

But definitely not in that order.

Much to Payne’s surprise, he spotted a suitcase sitting inside his cabin door. It was the same suitcase he had bought (and filled) at the Point Shopping Mall and had left in his hotel room the day before. On a trip filled with luggage misadventures, this was the most curious of them all. He had no idea how his bag had surfaced on a yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Lacking the sustenance to think clearly, he half-assumed that he was still sleeping and the suitcase was just a figment of his imagination, but when he opened it up, it didn’t contain a mass grave of rotting corpses, a disease-ridden village filled with dying children, or any of the horrific images from his military career that had haunted his dreams at various times over the years.

Instead, it was stuffed with clean clothes and toiletries.

Needless to say, it was a pleasant development.

Payne grabbed a quick shower in the tiny bathroom before he went about his morning routine. Ten minutes later, he was wearing brand-new threads—a black T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, low-cut socks, and black tennis shoes—and ready for chow.

Fortunately for the safety of everyone on board, Payne detected the aroma of food and followed it to the galley, where he found Jones standing next to several cartons of takeout on a fancy silver platter. Payne glanced out of the glass-lined saloon and realized they had pulled up close enough to the rocky shoal behind the Corinthia Hotel to get ashore.

“Good afternoon, princess,” Jones said as he fist-bumped his friend. “I was just getting ready to wake you. I didn’t know if you’d want breakfast or lunch, so I ordered both. Call me crazy, but I had this weird feeling that you’d be hungry when you got up. Am I psychic or what?”

Payne nodded his appreciation. “Thanks for the food and my bag.”

Jones shook his head. “Don’t thank me. Thank the hotel. I didn’t want to leave my post while you were sleeping, so I called the front desk and said we had spent the night on the yacht and asked them to fetch some things from our room. They didn’t even blink an eye. Then they asked if they could do anything else to make our stay more pleasant. And I go, ‘as a matter of fact, there is’. I said we’re hungry and need some grub, and they say, ‘shall we bring it to the yacht?’ And I go, ‘hell yeah! Bring that shit out to the yacht.’”

Jones laughed at the memory. “At this point, I’m feeling like a total rock star, and they say, ‘is there anything else we can do for you, Mister Payne?’ Because, you know, I’m using your credit card, so I’m obviously pretending to be you.”

Payne rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“So I go, ‘my girl Marissa needs some new clothes’—because, she does. I mean, her dress was torn and covered in blood, and we don’t have time to drive over to her place. So she reluctantly gets on the speakerphone, tells them her size, and they say, ‘no problem.’ At this point, Jarkko is starting to get jealous, so he grabs the phone from Marissa and tells the hotel that his liquor supply is empty, which doesn’t faze them at all because we’re fucking rock stars on a boat. So he orders some really nice spirits—I’m talking top-shelf stuff that I’ve never even heard of and will definitely cost you a fortune—and once again, they go, ‘no problem.’”

Jones rubbed his chin theatrically. “Which got me thinking. I mean, they said ‘no problem’ for everything we requested, so now I’m wondering, where do they draw the line? I’m literally wondering, what could I ask for that would be a problem? I mean, these people aren’t wizards. There has to be something I can ask for that would actually cause them to say, ‘sorry, Mister Payne, we just can’t do that—that’s beyond our capabilities as hotel genies to grant you this wish.’ So I glance at Jarkko, who’s still holding the phone, and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing as I am. Somewhere in that depraved mind of his, he’s running through a list of items that are so outrageously forbidden that even he couldn’t obtain them on short notice.”

“And?” Payne asked, growing more curious.

“Obviously Jarkko is feeling the same rock-star vibe as I am, because that crazy bastard goes, ‘we require an albino tiger for a Viking blood ceremony.’”

Payne laughed. “He did not.”

“I swear to Odin, he did.”

“What did they say?”

“Jon, I’m not shitting you. There was a slight pause, then the hotel genie whispers, ‘does it have to be alive?’ Which freaks out Marissa but gets Jarkko so excited that he starts to chant in a Viking dialect that has been dead for centuries. So I grab my phone from Jarkko, who is now dancing with a kitchen knife, to keep this conversation going, and I say, ‘that depends. Give me an ETA for each scenario.’ And he goes, ‘2:00 p.m. for alive and 2:01 p.m. for dead’—which, I’m guessing, means the genie is going to kill the tiger himself.”

Payne kept laughing. “The guy called your bluff.”

“Here’s the thing, Jon. I don’t think the genie was bluffing. There’s actually a billionaire on Malta that has an albino tiger, and I truly believe in my heart that he was willing to drive over there and put a bullet in its tiger brain in order to meet our needs as a guest of his hotel.”

Payne laughed louder. “How’d it end?”

“Believe it or not, this genie starts pressuring me for an answer. He goes, ‘which would you prefer, dead or alive?’ Seriously, what kind of question is that? Who would actually say that to a guest? Well, you know me. I’m pretty quick on my feet, so I say, ‘we need time to consult the oracle.’”

“Oracle? What oracle?”

“Come on, Jon! I made that shit up to buy us some time. I don’t want this tiger-killing genie to think we were just messing with him or else he might spit in our food, so I told him we’d call him later with the oracle’s decision. And do you know what he says? He goes, ‘no problem.’”

Payne grinned. “Of course, he did.”

Jones nodded. “So, now you have a tough decision to make.”

“Decision? What decision?”

“For one reason or another, Jarkko is under the impression that you’re the oracle, so you have to decide if we want the tiger to be dead or alive.”

“Easy choice. No tiger at all.”

“Well, good luck telling Jarkko that. He’s pretty excited about the ceremony.”

As Jones finished his story, Marissa emerged from the forward cabin and crept up the stairs. She was wearing a red-and-white sundress that wasn’t really her style but fit better than the other clothes that had been delivered by the hotel. Although she had dressed up for the library meeting the day before, she had viewed it as a professional obligation. She typically preferred clothes that hid her curves and flawless skin, all in hopes of blending in with the crowd.

Payne saw her appear from the steps down below and literally gasped at the sight. He instantly forgot about Jones and the albino tiger. His sole focus was on her.

“Wow,” Payne said as he walked over to greet her. “You look amazing.”

She blushed. “Really? You don’t think it’s too girly?”

“No,” he said. “It’s perfect. You look perfect.”

She smiled and greeted him with a kiss on each cheek. “That’s how we say hello in Malta.”

Payne practically drooled over the scent of her hair. She had been injured in a gunfight just yesterday, but somehow managed to smell like strawberries. “Great tradition.”

“Did you eat?” she said as she made her way toward the galley.

“Of course not. We were waiting for you.”

“Then I’m flattered. David led me to believe that your stomach doesn’t wait for anyone.”

“It doesn’t,” Jones assured her. “And if he tells you otherwise, he’s full of shit. I’ve seen him cut in line in front of an admiral in order to feed the beast.”

Payne laughed. “That was one time on an aircraft carrier, and he was taking too long to decide. I mean, he could keep track of the entire Northern Fleet in his head, but he couldn’t choose between beans or potatoes. Give me a break.”

“See,” Jones said as he pointed at Payne. “These are things you need to know. Truth be told, I’m not really his friend. I’m more like his keeper. An unpaid keeper.”

“Says the guy who uses my credit card more often than I do.”

“I’m not doing it for me; I’m doing it for you. If you don’t use your card, you may lose valuable reward points and money-saving perks. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

Payne patted him on the back. “Well, thank you for your service.”

“Speaking of thanks,” Marissa said, “thank you for the clothes. I didn’t want to do it, but David insisted. He said time is a priority, now that the Russians have Jarkko’s documents.”

“He’s right,” Payne said. “I wish I hadn’t slept so late, but I guess we can figure out our next step over brunch. That is, if Jarkko’s around.”

Jarkko heard his name and trudged up the stairs. “Don’t worry. Jarkko is coming. But Jarkko has bad news.”

They could tell from the look on his face that he was upset.

Marissa walked toward him, concerned. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head. “Jarkko did what Jon suggested last night. Jarkko make phone call to colleague who gave collection to Jarkko to see if he told Jarkko’s name to Russians. Unfortunately, colleague couldn’t come to phone because colleague is dead.”

Marissa gave him a quick hug. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry to hear that. Were you two close?”

He shook his head again. When he couldn’t get Bobrinsky on the phone, he had called a mutual acquaintance for insight. “Not friends like Jon and David, but business associates. Jarkko did business with Sergei for long time. He a good man. A family man. And that is what makes Jarkko angry. Jarkko look online for details, and Jarkko sees his family is killed, too.”

Payne cursed as he absorbed the news. “When did it happen?”

Jarkko pulled out his phone and looked at the article on his browser. Although he had read the story twice, the details were still sinking in. “On Saturday in Estonia. Apparently, Russians go to Tallinn and kill him and family in famous tower.”

Jones pondered the news. “Why was he in Estonia?”

Jarkko shrugged. “If Jarkko has to guess, Sergei takes family to Estonia to run from problems and start new life. Jarkko tell you yesterday during soup that Sergei is good man with large debt. His wife gets very sick, and Sergei borrows money from wrong people to help with cure. When Sergei can’t pay, he gets desperate. That is why he gives collection to Jarkko. Sergei likes Jarkko and makes sure Jarkko gets payment first. Perhaps this upsets man with larger loss. Jarkko does not know this for sure. This is just Jarkko’s guess.”

Payne gave it some thought. “Your theory makes sense. I knew there had to be a reason why the Russians came after us with so much anger. They attacked us at the library. They shredded your yacht. They even tied a corpse to your stern. Obviously that goes beyond a simple treasure. They were attacking you on a personal level.”

Jarkko took a deep breath. As he did, he trembled with emotion. “Jarkko is so sorry. Jarkko did not know this would happen. If Jarkko knows, Jarkko would not risk lives of friends for stupid treasure. No treasure is worth friendship, so Jarkko thinks it’s time to say goodbye.”

“Fuck that!” Payne said as he marched over to Jarkko and looked him straight in the eye. “This is not your fault, and we are not going to abandon you in your time of need. You’ve dealt with Russians even more than I have, so you know damn well that they aren’t going to stop—not after we killed so many of their comrades. They’re going to scurry home to Mother Russia, multiply like cockroaches, then come after us with everything they’ve got.”

Jarkko nodded in agreement. “You are right. They will not stop. They will keep coming and coming until we are dead or we cut head off snake.”

Jones stared at him. “Does the snake have a name?”

Jarkko nodded. “It’s Volkov. Ivan Volkov.”