David Baldacci: The Forgotten

She opened her eyes and looked up at Puller.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, reaching out slowly and touching his arm.

“Lot of that going around.”

“Am I going to make it?” she asked.

Both slugs were still in her. She’d lost too much blood. She was pale and weak and when Puller glanced at the doctor he looked grim.

But Puller looked at her straight in the eye, squeezed her hand, and said, “You’re going to make it.”

The human spirit was the strongest medicine on earth. And sometimes all it needed was a little encouragement to pull off a miracle. Puller had seen it countless times on the battlefield, and even been the recipient of such positive words when an IED had nearly ended his life in Iraq.

You're going to make it. Sometimes that was all it took.

She squeezed his hand back and closed her eyes as the painkiller the doctor administered took effect.

Puller stood and jogged back over to where Landry sat on the ground, her hands still secured behind her.

“Don’t forget our deal, Puller,” she said. “I delivered you Lampert.”

“Yeah. You can console yourself with that fact when you’re eighty years old and still in prison. And I don’t think they have paddleboards there.” He motioned to a soldier heading over to them, and flashed his creds and badge.

Puller said, “Sergeant, this woman is a prisoner of the United States Army until she can be turned over to local authorities.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sergeant trained his weapon on Landry.

Puller heard a noise.

He turned, at first thinking Lampert had reappeared and was trying to make a getaway.

But it wasn’t Lampert. It was Mecho.

He was running hard and already near the dock that led down to the beach.

Puller set off at a dead run.

He knew exactly what the man was going after.

Peter J. Lampert.

And so was Puller.

Lampert had run as hard as he could. It wasn’t easy with his cuffed hands behind his back. He was in decent shape, but not combat fit. He’d never fired a weapon in his life. He hired others to do that for him. He had never before had to run for his life.

He was paying for that now.

The sounds of the gunfire had stopped. All Lampert heard now was the breakers on the beach.

His boat was docked about a quarter mile out.

He would live to fight another day.

It just wouldn’t be in this country.

That was okay. He was getting tired of living here anyway.

He pressed his forearm against a stitch in his side and kept his feet pointed toward the dock.

His twenty-foot tender was out there.

He could see his yacht from here.

He believed he could manage to pilot the boat out to the yacht. If Landry could make it all the way out to the oil platform in a tropical storm, he could make it out to the yacht in calmer seas.

He had a knife on board that he could use to cut the plasticuffs off. Then it was a straight shot out. The tender was sturdy and the waves were diminishing as the winds died down. Yeah, he could make it.

He was almost at the dock when he saw it.

At first he didn’t register what it was.

But then it hit him.

He was looking at the conning tower of a submarine.

Rojas’s sub. He had mentioned it during the meeting on his yacht. It could hold lots of people.

So that was how the gunmen had made it to his estate. They had come by sub.

Now taking the boat was problematic. What if they came after him? The seas were still rough. If the sub struck the tender, capsized it, and he went into the drink? He would drown.

He stopped, still pressing at the dull ache in his side. He should have exercised more. The problem was his main form of working out was sex. Somehow it didn’t prepare you for long runs over uneven terrain.

He looked around desperately for another way out.

If not the boat, what?

The road out of his estate was not an option. Even now he could hear sirens in the air. He walked slowly along, parallel to the beach, thinking hard.

There had to be some way.

Maybe he should just chance the boat. It would be more maneuverable than a sub, wouldn’t it?

The fact was he didn’t know. But he couldn’t think of a viable alternative.

Then, as he watched, the sub started to sink into the water. It turned and, its tower still visible, rapidly made its way back out to sea.

Maybe they had heard the sirens too, way out there. Or maybe they just assumed that things had gone badly and they had better retreat.

Whatever the reason, Lampert now had his window of opportunity.

Lady Lucky had a steel hull. It could take the pounding of the ocean. He had crossed the Atlantic in it before. Once he reached international waters he would feel much safer. It would take time for Landry and the others to talk to the police. Warrants would have to be issued. Police would have to be sent out. By that time Lampert could be very far away.

He heard the sounds behind him, turned, and saw what was coming.

Frantic, he started running flat out for his precious boat and the open seas.

Lampert looked as though he had seen Satan himself after him.

And in some ways, he had.

Puller had caught up to Mecho and the two men ran side by side.

Mecho did not look at him or say anything to him. His total focus was on the man up ahead.

Puller and Mecho ran like the combat warriors they were. Not the fleetest in the world, they ran with a practiced motion, a fluidity that got maximum results with a modest output of energy. When you were in combat you often had to run. Mobile targets tended to survive. Stationary targets tended to die.

But when you stopped running you usually had to fight. The latter took a lot more energy than the former. Better not to waste all of it on the running part.

They were still neck and neck as they gained on their quarry. But Puller snaked ahead at the last moment and tackled Lampert.

The man went down, the wind knocked from him.

Mecho reached down and lifted Lampert off the sand with a violent upward jerk of his arms.

Puller slowly rose and watched the two men.

Mecho looked at Lampert and Lampert looked back at him.

Mecho’s features were stone.

Lampert’s were fear mixed with curiosity.

“What the hell is your beef with me?” he finally shouted.

Mecho threw him back down on the sand, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the photo. He held it in front of Lampert’s face.

“Do you remember her?” Mecho asked, his voice strained.

Puller kept watching, and waiting. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if Mecho decided to try to kill Lampert. The man was his prisoner, a potential witness against one of the biggest criminals in the world. Mecho was wounded, but then so was Puller. In a one-on-one all bets were off. Puller knew his skills and his limits and he wasn’t sure he could take the bigger man.

But then he might surprise himself.

The thing was, though, Puller didn’t want it to come to that.

Mecho was not his enemy.

Lampert stared dully at the photo.

“Uh, am I supposed to know this person?”

“Her name is Rada. You took her from a village in the Rila mountains in Bulgaria. Her and many others. That was my village.”

Lampert looked at Puller. “Is he serious? You think I’m going to remember someone like that?”

Puller stared stonily back at him. “Wrong answer, Pete.”

Mecho again lifted Lampert up off the sand, held him up with one arm, cocked his other arm back, and hit Lampert so hard that several of his teeth exploded out of his mouth. He flew backward five feet and landed in the sand. He hit so hard on his cuffed arms that he popped both shoulders out of their sockets.