The End Game

The Ottones’ ship let out a bellow. We were both getting perilously close to it at this point.

Virgil looked back at me, worry on his face. “Go,” I said. “We have to make this happen or everyone dies.”

It was a fact I hadn’t quite considered, but that was seeming more and more true, now that I could make out a helipad on the bow of the Ottones’ yacht, a forest green chopper sitting at rest.

I was certain it was Nicholas Dinino.

If I didn’t get Alex Kyle and his men on that ship, there was no stopping Bonaventura from exacting vengeance, sometime, somewhere, for all of this. And if those men didn’t get on the ship, there was a good chance Dinino would kill Maria and Liz. Bonaventura most likely told Kyle to watch the boat, make sure I didn’t board it. Make sure I didn’t kill anyone.

Alex Kyle knew the truth. He knew what I was capable of and what I was unlikely to do, but he was following orders. We had to make it look like we were heading for that boat to do what we had to do.

Overhead, I heard the whooping of helicopters. The sky was alive with them now, television coverage beaming images around the world, but there’s a different sound between the nice choppers TV stations use and military transports.

Alex Kyle looked up, too, and pointed. And then turned and pointed at me, like a warning.

And maybe it was.

Fi’s cell phone rang.

“Don’t answer it,” I said.

Virgil’s cell phone rang and he just tossed it overboard. “I got the message,” he said.

The Ottones’ ship bellowed again. We had twenty yards between us and the Cobra, another three hundred before we were in the path of the cruise liner.

“Turn,” I said very calmly to Virgil, “put us right in the path of the ship.”

“We’ll have maybe fifteen seconds and that’s it,” he said. “This girl doesn’t do tricks.”

“That’s all we need,” I said.

Virgil spun our boat towards the Ottones’ ship.

My assumption was that the ship’s captain would make the only correction he could-back towards the Cobra, which it did. The Cobra was a gymnast; it would be able to draw back and around the big ship without a problem.

Well, some problems.

“Get us out,” I yelled to Virgil and he cranked us back towards Miami, the boat lurching, the engine spitting out more blue smoke into the air.

We could hear the engine on the Ottones’ ship sputtering. If the captain were smart-and if the Ottones’ employed him and he wasn’t in the tank to kill Maria and Liz, he was-he’d throw the engine into reverse and kill it, stopping the forward momentum as much as possible. Which is what it sounded like was happening as the engines of the big yacht ground audibly, the captain trying to get it to decelerate any way he could.

The Cobra was fast enough to get out of the way and then circled back around the lumbering ship. I watched the Cobra pacing the cruise liner, which had slowed considerably. Through the binoculars I could see Alex on the radio and his men standing upright with shoulder-fired spearguns aimed above the hull of the ship. They were dressed to rappel, which meant they were planning to board shortly.

“It’s too bad,” Fiona said.

“What is?” I said.

“That Alex Kyle fellow,” she said. “He seemed like the kind of person we might like in a different situation.”

“Maybe he’ll come back and try to sell some plutonium,” I said. I was still watching when he gave the signal and his men fired their spears into the deck of the boat. They weren’t shooting to harm, but to set up rappelling lines. Within seconds, Kyle’s teams was scaling the side of the hull.

“Nice form,” Virgil said.

“We never get to do fun things like that,” Fi said.

“I have a feeling this will be the last time these men get the chance,” I said. Just then a military helicopter swept down in front of the ship and hovered above the stern. Another came to the bow. There were three in the air now and I could make out a Coast Guard cutter screaming in from the east, another from the south. “I think they’ve just acted as pirates in the service of a Mafia boss.”

Fi’s phone began to ring and she handed it to me.

I looked at the caller ID. Restricted. Big surprise.

“Hello?” I said, as chummy as possible.

“Stay,” said the woman’s voice. “Enjoy the race.”

“I think I will,” I said and then tossed the phone into the sea.

Epilogue

When you’re no longer a spy, it’s important to understand that the people you love sometimes need to know that you, belatedly, are willing to deal with some of life’s larger issues with them.

Which is precisely what I was doing while sitting in the offices of Dr. Helen Miyazawa. My mother, Madeline, was sitting to one side of me, an unlit cigarette between her fingers. A stuffed Snoopy, portraying my father, was on the other side of me, and Dr. Miyazawa paced the room. Or at least I think she paced the room. It was hard to tell because all the lights in the office were off and the only illumination in the room came from a flashlight shot through a green marble on the doctor’s desk, which made everything look vaguely like a cave in Tora Bora at sunrise.