Douglas Preston - Cold Vengeance

Esterhazy spoke into his own radio headset. “A locked door is no impediment to Pendergast.”

“He couldn’t have gotten past the main cabin door without us seeing him,” said Viktor.

“Flush him out,” Falkoner repeated. “Captain, what’s our position?”

“We’re just coming into New York Harbor.”

“Maintain cruising speed. Head for open ocean.”

Viktor crouched on the flybridge of the Vergeltung , three stories above the surface of the water. The boat had just passed the site of the fast-rising One World Trade Center and was rounding the southern tip of Manhattan, the Battery on their left, lit up by a cluster of spotlights. The buildings of the financial district rose like clusters of glowing spikes, casting an ambient light across the water, bathing the boat in an indirect radiance.

Below him, the aft deck of the Vergeltung was softly illuminated in the glow of the city. Two outboard tenders — small motorboats used for coming and going when the yacht was at anchor — lay side by side on the port stern deck, each in its launching cradle, covered with canvas. There was no way for Pendergast to have gone forward without crossing the open deck. And they had been watching that deck like a hawk. He must still be back in the stern area.

Through the night-vision goggles, he saw Berger emerge from the main cabin, gun at the ready. Viktor lowered the goggles and raised his own weapon to cover him.

Berger paused a moment in the shadows, readying himself, then skipped alongside in the cover of the first tender and crouched behind its bow.

Viktor waited, his Beretta pointed, ready to unload at the slightest movement, the briefest exposure. He was ex-military and didn’t care much for Falkoner’s order to take the man alive; if this fellow showed his head, he’d take him down anyway. He wasn’t going to risk the others for a live catch.

Slowly, Berger worked his way alongside the boat toward the stern.

Viktor’s radio crackled, Berger speaking to him through his headset. “No sign of him behind the tenders.”

“Make double sure. And be careful: he might have slipped back behind the stern transom, waiting to jump anyone coming out.”

Keeping his weapon trained on the scene, Viktor watched as Berger crept from the first tender to the second.

“Not here,” came the whispered voice.

“Then he did slip back behind the stern,” Viktor said.

Viktor watched as Berger advanced to the stern rail, keeping to a low crouch. Then the man tensed and sprang up to full height, training his weapon on the twin swim platforms behind.

A moment later he dropped back down. “Nothing.”

Viktor thought hard. This was crazy. “Inside. He might be hiding inside one of the boats, under the tarp.”

Viktor shifted his gunsights to the tenders as Berger grasped the stern ladder of the first, swung it down, stepped onto it, and raised himself up. He leaned against the propeller shaft in order to lift the edge of the tarp and peer underneath.

Over the radio, Viktor heard a faint click, then an electronic beep.

Oh, Jesus, he knew that sound! “Berger—!”

A sudden earsplitting roar erupted from the tender’s outboard; Berger screamed and there was a shower of dark spray as his body was kicked sideways by the whirling propeller, his side ripped wide open.

After an instant of horrified shock, Viktor raked the tender with multiple bursts from his Beretta, sweeping back and forth until the magazine was empty, the rounds shredding the canvas and punching through the boat, riddling anyone who might have been hiding within. After a moment, flames erupted in the stern area of the tender. Berger’s body lay where it had fallen, unmoving, a puddle of black spreading out from beneath it.

With trembling hands Viktor ejected the empty mag and rammed another home.

“What’s going on!” came Falkoner’s furious voice over his headset. “What are you doing?”

“He killed Berger!” shouted Viktor. “He—”

“Stop firing! We’re on a boat, idiot! You’ll start a fire!”

Viktor stared at the flames licking up the canvas from the tender. There was a muffled thump and a shudder as more flames burst upward from the ruptured gas tank. “Shit, we’ve already got a fire.”

“Where?”

“On the tender.”

“Launch it. Get it off the yacht. Now! ”

“Right.” Viktor scrambled down to the main deck and raced to the tender. The man Pendergast was nowhere in sight — no doubt he was lying dead in the belly of the tender. He unclipped the stays fore and aft, threw open the stern transom, and hit the windlass switch. As the gears on the windlass hummed, the twelve-foot tender lurched back, sliding on launching rails; Viktor seized the bow and gave it an additional shove to keep it moving. When the burning stern of the tender hit the fast-moving wake, the water grabbed it and yanked the little boat off the deck, the chains snapping; Viktor was thrown off balance but managed to grab the stern rail, recovering quickly. The burning tender fell astern, spinning in the water, already sinking. It had taken the fire with it and most likely the dead body of the target. Viktor was vastly relieved.

Until he felt a stiff shove from behind, his headset yanked off simultaneously, and he went tumbling into the water after the burning tender.

CROUCHING AGAINST THE PORT SIDE of the remaining tender, Pendergast watched the burning boat disappear into the darkness as the waters of New York Harbor closed over it. The cries of the man he had pushed overboard grew fainter and fainter, soon lost amid the sounds of the yacht, wind, and water. He put on the headset, adjusted it, and began listening to the alarmed chatter. From it he created a mental image of the number of players, their relative locations, and their various states of mind.

Most revealing.

As he listened, he shrugged out of the movement-hampering wet suit and tossed it over the side. Pulling his clothes from the waterproof dive bag he’d brought along, he dressed quickly, then tossed the bag overboard as well. After a few minutes, he moved to the bow of the tender. The flybridge at the top of the boat seemed to be vacant. A single armed man was now patrolling the sky deck. From each end of his perambulation the man had a clear vantage point of the aft deck.

Pendergast watched as the figure on the sky deck stared out in the direction of the sinking tender, speaking into his radio. After a minute, he entered the sky lounge and began pacing back and forth before the wheelhouse, guarding it. Pendergast counted out the seconds it took him for each turn, then timed his own move, sprinting across the open main deck to the aft entrance of the main saloon. He crouched in the door-well, the overhang now protecting him from view from above. He tried the door: locked. The window was smoked and the saloon beyond was dark, making it impossible to see inside.

The simple lock yielded to a brief attack. There was enough ambient noise to cover his movements. Though the door was now unlocked, he did not yet open it. He knew from listening to the radio there were many more people on board than he had originally anticipated — Lowe had been deceived — and he realized he had fallen into a trap. The boat was heading for the Narrows and no doubt the Atlantic Ocean beyond. How unfortunate.

Unfortunate, that is, for the survival chances of those on board.

Again he listened to the chatter, building an ever-clearer picture of the situation on the vessel. No clue as to Constance’s whereabouts was offered. One person, clearly the man in charge, spoke in a mixture of German and English from a location with loud background noise — perhaps the engine room. The others were scattered about the yacht, all in place, all awaiting orders. He did not hear Esterhazy’s voice.