Sea of Greed

It was time to deliver the good news. “Perlmutter’s friend said there was a countermeasure to the bioweapon. A counteragent, an antidote. The completion of which was the cause of the rift between the Israelis and the French in the first place. As it happens, I asked Millard how we could destroy the bacteria. His response was odd to me. He said they didn’t find it, it wasn’t there. At the time, I thought he was just confused, but now it makes perfect sense. Tessa’s people found the oil destroyer but not the counteragent.”

“Which means it might still be there.”

“Exactly,” Kurt said. “It’s not easy to search every square inch of a sunken vessel. Especially at that depth. And especially when you’re doing it in secret. For what they wanted to do, the oil destroyer was far more important than the counteragent. Once they had it, there was little incentive to keep looking for its antidote. But we have every incentive in the world.”

“I assume you’re still driving to the airport,” Rudi said.

“Halfway there.”

“Keep going,” Rudi said.

“We should probably expect trouble,” Kurt pointed out. “I think it’s time we broke out more than the standard-issue equipment.”

“I know what you’ll need,” Rudi said. “Don’t worry. You’ll have it. Just get to the airport and start loading. I’ll make sure everything else is waiting for you in Crete.”

48

ABOARD THE MONARCH

A DROP OF SWEAT meandered through follicles of thick, dark hair, trickling forward and down the side of a man’s face. It reached his chin, mixed with a drop of fresh blood and fell to the deck below, splattering in a microscopic explosion like a Jackson Pollock canvas wrought on machined-aluminum plating.

Joe Zavala smiled at the thought. Blood, Sweat and Tears, he’d call it.

He was facing the deck, supporting himself on his hands as if he was doing a push-up. His jaw ached from the pistol-whipping that had drawn the blood, but he was a fighter by nature and going all the way to the floor was something he refused to do.

“Ready for more?” a brusque female voice asked.

“To be honest,” Joe said, “I wasn’t ready for that one.”

Joe had endured a strange couple of days. At least he thought it was a couple of days. He couldn’t really be certain.

One moment, he’d been on the verge of escaping from the docking sphere in Tessa’s submerged production facility off Bermuda, the next instant the entire vessel shook and a wall of water had surged into the sphere and through the tunnel behind him.

Joe had pulled himself out of the water and onto the submersible, which was banging around inside the sphere. That kept him from being sucked back into the tunnel, but as he looked for Kurt and Millard, someone had clubbed him from behind.

By the time he’d returned to a conscious state, he was in the submersible, tied up and gagged like the men he and Kurt had left behind. The sub was descending into the outer hull and ramming its way out through the sliding door in the side of the ship.

When the submarine surfaced, Joe was hauled aboard the mystery freighter, which he learned was named the Morgana. He was kept in a dark hold, fed nothing and drugged when he started to complain about the accommodations.

Transfer to the Monarch happened the next night and, since then, his home had been a cargo compartment on the lowest deck of the plane. The compartment had been frigid when they were airborne, only to grow stifling and hot after they’d landed.

It was cramped, without any creature comforts or even a blanket, but it was better than the alternative.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Tessa told him, raising the possibility of that alternative.

Joe looked up. Tessa stood there, flanked by several of her men. One was a big, bearded fellow who Joe had seen on the freighter after his capture. The others were smaller and seemed better at taking orders than anything else.

“Get up,” Tessa demanded.

As Joe stood, Tessa snapped her fingers and another prisoner was dragged into view.

Joe recognized Priya instantly. “What are you doing here?”

Priya’s eyes fell as she spotted him. She didn’t say a word.

“She’s here because she was foolish enough to place this on the hull of my aircraft,” Tessa said. In her hand, Joe saw a geotracker. “We saw her, followed her back to the yacht and captured her. Just about the time you and Austin were blowing up my production facility. If you think you’ve stopped me, you’re sadly mistaken. I have other facilities and the need for that place is just about at an end anyway.”

“If we did you such a favor,” Joe said, “how about just letting us go and calling it even?”

“Because things are never even,” Tessa said. “You’re either winning or you’re losing and you and your friends in Washington are going to lose badly.”

Joe had no desire for a long conversation. “Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “What do you want from us?”