PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller (19 page)

8

As Cole stood in the swaying car of the big wheel, just a few degrees down from the top and facing toward the open harbor beyond, his stomach turned as he ran through what he was about to try and do.

It wasn’t that he was scared of heights. He might have been once, he supposed, as a boy; but such had been his spirit, even then, that he’d refused to give in to the fear and had instead faced it head-on, climbing trees and buildings until he could merrily run along the top girders of the local bridge, conditioned to ignore the nagging doubts that tried to tell him he could plummet to his death.

Those same thoughts were back now – they had never really left him, despite the more than one thousand freefall parachute jumps he had done back with the SEALs – but he did what he always did and mentally overrode them, wiped them out entirely as he focused on what he was going to do, not on what
if
something happened to him when he was doing it.

And so he looked out from the car ahead, toward the harbor; and then back down toward the plaza, where more police had joined the crowds. Cole wondered if the sharpshooters had arrived, and – if so – how much longer he had left.

He could hear the sound of someone on a loudhailer down there, trying to issue him instructions, but could only make out the odd word here and there over the wind.

The wind
.

It was his way out, the thing his plan depended on. It was ripping past him from inland, out toward the sea. It was the direction he needed, although he understood that if it was to change – or, worse, stop entirely – he would soon be plummeting one hundred feet toward a grisly death on the concrete below.

But he had no other choices now, he
had
to trust in the wind.

And so, leaving it in the hands of God, Cole took off his sports jacket and pulled himself up onto the metal railings of the Ferris wheel car.

And then, gripping hold of the end of a jacket sleeve with each hand, he bent his legs and jumped, propelling himself out as far as he could away from the wheel, out into the void beyond.

At first he dropped like a stone and his mind told him that he’d miscalculated, timed it wrong, the wind had dropped and he was going to die like Agostini before him; but then the wind caught, buffeting the jacket and catching it just right, pushing him further out from the Ferris wheel, out toward the harbor.

He continued to drop, but the wind catching in the billowing jacket slowed his descent and he drifted through the cold afternoon air across the plaza, the police still mere specks beneath him but growing bigger and bigger with each passing moment.

He heard the sound of rifle shots, felt the hot air of a high-powered round blaze past him, but then he was gone from the plaza altogether, over the harbor waters now, past the white yachts that dotted the dockside, the water coming up on him fast now, rushing toward him until –

Cole’s body crashed into the center of the harbor, just feet away from the moving boats that shuttled to and fro across the bay, his feet driving through the water hard, his body following. He immediately let go of the jacket – both to give the police a target as he escaped, and to make sure he didn’t get tangled up in it.

His instinct after the fall was to race back up to the surface and take a deep lungful of air, but he didn’t need to – he’d taken sufficient breath just before he’d hit the water and now needed to remain submerged, out of sight of the prying eyes which would even now be scouring the harbor waters for any sign of him.

He knew that the harbor would be crawling with cops, just waiting for him to pop back up; and pretty soon there would be choppers overhead, getting a bird’s eye view of the entire area.

But he knew they would focus on the harbor area, the shallow waters of the Old Port and the surrounding quays. As he propelled his body west through the harbor, legs pushing hard, he tried to calculate how far he could swim on the single breath he’d taken.

Back in the SEALs – and after that, when he’d still been living in the Caymans – when he had still been training hard, he had been capable of remaining submerged without coming up for breath for over ten minutes. It was far short of what the best people could manage, which was more than twice that, but it was normally good enough. However, staying submerged for ten minutes was much easier than staying submerged and swimming at the same time – the energy requirements were so much more, that the time possible was subsequently a lot less.

Still, he figured he could probably manage a couple of minutes of all-out, balls-to-the-wall swimming before he had to call it quits, potentially enough time to get a few hundred feet.

The cold was starting to get to him though, and he hoped that he wouldn’t become hypothermic. But he pressed on, passing close to the hulls of the stationary yachts that filled the marina’s several thousand berths.

He considered emerging from between some of these yachts, pulling himself aboard one and waiting it out. But he knew that the police – if they didn’t find him soon – would order each and every vessel searched. Added to which, he didn’t know if the yacht he chose would be occupied or not. The possibility of capture was simply too great, and so he just carried on, lungs burning as he tried to put as much distance between him and the Quai des Belges as possible.

And then he felt the water moving in on him and he turned, losing propulsive forward energy as he did so but rewarded by the sight of a boat’s hull moving swiftly toward him; he instinctively slipped to the side as it passed by him, before pushing back up to grasp hold of the cables that secured the twin propellers.

He had to time it perfectly, careful not to put his hands too near to the propellers themselves; he had seen fingers, hands, feet, and even a head cut off during his career, and had no wish to become one of those statistics.

He felt the powerful wash of the twin props as his hands sought out the cables, but – even in the murky, dark water – his aim was true, and he clamped down hard on them, arms almost pulled out of their sockets as the boat ripped him along with it at the marina speed limit of four knots.

It was accelerating up to eight knots though as it left the marina for the main harbor, and the lack of oxygen was starting to send black spots across Cole’s vision, and he knew he didn’t have long before he would be unconscious; and unconscious underwater would mean
dead
not long after.

He grasped the cables tighter and pulled hard, his face bursting out of the water as it churned about him, choppy from the blades; and he breathed deep at last, the air sweet and merciful. But then water splashed into his mouth and he coughed reflexively, lungs heaving, and he thought he might pass out again; but then it was gone, and he took in more of the sweet air as the boat pulled him along behind.

He understood the risk of surfacing, but figured that his head and face would be effectively covered by the heavy wake left behind by the boat, which Cole now saw was a small yacht.

As he bounced about in the wash of the propellers, struggling to breathe as he was pulled hard through the cold water, he strained his neck to look forward, past the boat; and he was relieved to see that the mouth of the harbor was there, right ahead, the open sea – and freedom – just beyond.

His head went under for a few more seconds, and in that time, he felt the boat start to slow; and when his face next emerged, he was horrified to see a coastguard vessel up ahead, cutting off access to the sea beyond. They’d obviously got the message to close the harbor off until Cole was found, and had already started to stop boats leaving.

Cole knew he didn’t have much more time left – he had no idea how many coastguard boats were out there, and as the propellers slowed, he knew he was going to become more and more visible.

But he was so close; so very close.

He knew what he had to do and – head straining clear of the choppy water – he began hyperventilating, before breathing out hard, emptying his lungs; and then he breathed in a huge lungful of new air, readying himself for the last push, the final effort.

And then, lungs full, he released his grip on the propeller cables and once again submerged himself fully, kicking away from the yacht with long, powerful strokes.

Moments later he was passing within a few feet of the coastguard hull, so close now that he could almost reach out and touch it.

And then he was past, kicking hard out of the harbor and into the open water of the Mediterranean beyond.

Cole continued swimming hard for a couple more minutes, a few hundred feet, careful to keep close to the shoreline – as the farther out he swam, the farther back in he would eventually have to come.

But eventually he knew he had to come up for air, and so he did – face upwards, barely breaking the surface, so he could get air into his nose and mouth without having to fully expose his head. And he continued to repeat this process as he rounded the coastline – swim two minutes, stop and expose his face to the air, get the breath back and submerge once again.

A dozen repetitions and half an hour later, Cole figured he’d gone far enough and, after getting his air back by the upturned face technique, he slowly rotated his head to the vertical so that his nose and mouth were submerged, leaving only the top of his head and his eyes exposed.

He scanned the area, saw no coastguard vessels and only a handful of civilian craft. The nearest land was southeast and, calculating the distance swam and comparing it to the mental map of the Marseille coastline he’d memorized on the flight over, he figured he had rounded the promontory of Anse de Malmousque and was just a couple of hundred feet off the rocky coast of the Pointe d’Endoume, nearly a mile southwest of where this had all started, back at Café Corse.

He swam in toward the rocky outcrops underwater, careful even at this late stage that nobody should see him; and when he finally reached land he emerged slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, checking for people continually.

But the rocky shore was uninhabited, and eventually he was out of the water altogether; but still he kept his profile low, body hugging the rocks so that he didn’t silhouette himself to anyone that may have been watching from the civilian boats out at sea.

Two helicopters were sweeping back and forth above the harbor, but Cole didn’t think they would see him all the way over here; their attention would have been only on the Old Port.

Soaking wet and chilled to the bone, he crawled inch after painful inch up the craggy rocks, climbing ever higher until he reached a shallow concrete retaining wall. He edged up to it, still moving slowly, and raised his eyes above the parapet.

Beyond was a parking lot, half full, and his heart leapt in his chest; the cars provided a way out, just so long as nobody saw him.

And so he kept still and watched as a couple emerged from a newly parked car, paid for a ticket, put it back in the car and strolled off, collars turned up against the November chill.

And then he kept watching, lest anyone else pull in, or return to their vehicle.

As he watched, he pulled the Glock from his pocket and removed the magazine, stripping it by touch alone until he had the spring out, straightening the end piece as much as he could.

Soon enough, he knew he was alone; and, moving faster now, he leapt over the retaining wall and approached the nearest car, straightened spring in his hand, aimed at the driver’s door.

Using the makeshift pick, he had the door open in seconds, practically not much longer than it would have taken most people with a key.

It was not a moment too soon either; for no sooner had he slipped behind the wheel and shut the door than another car rolled into the parking lot, and then another.

But the occupants didn’t even look at him as he hotwired the vehicle with expert proficiency, continuing to ignore him as he pulled out of the space and headed for the exit.

He was safe for now, but he knew he couldn’t afford to relax; this was the moment when mistakes were made, when you thought the battle was over.

And so as he exited onto the street beyond, he kept his senses hyper-alert, on the lookout for anything – or anyone – that might cause him problems.

But, even as he observed his surroundings with a critical eye, he let his mind wander to the things he still had to do.

For although he had escaped the police at the Old Port, he now had to find a way of reconnecting with Elizabeth Morgan, and getting them both into Serbia.

For he was sure that the arms broker Radomir Milanović would be the man to provide him with the answers that he needed.

The answers that would finally crack this investigation wide open.

9

‘They’re in my home?’ Michiko asked in disgust, unable to believe what Vinson was telling her.

This was the second time that she had been called into the office of Bruce Vinson in the past twenty-four hours.

The first had been not long after she had spoken to her father the night before, when she’d told him about the Marseille connection. Cole had apparently told Vinson straight after, and informed his chief-of-staff that Michiko would be working on the project.

It had been clear that Vinson held his own reservations about her involvement but – to his credit – he ignored his personal feelings and promised her access to anything she needed in order to help Cole complete his mission.

She’d gone home soon after their first meeting, to shower and freshen up, as well as to get a couple of hours’ much-needed shuteye; but she was back in Forest Hills just a few hours later, collating the information on the Agostini crime family that the other analysts had developed during the night.

Back in her apartment, and then again on her way back to the Paradigm Group campus, she’d had a strange feeling, the same as a prey animal must feel when a predator is stalking them. She didn’t know what to make of it, but had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched. She wondered if it was Vinson, not sure that he could trust her. Did he have operatives checking up on her, making sure she wasn’t taking out classified material now she’d been allowed official access to the Force One databanks?

The thought galled her, but she’d not gone to see Vinson about it because she didn’t want to rock the boat, and nor did she wish to be taken off the investigation. Besides which, she had no proof that anyone had been watching her, and she could well have been wrong; although an adolescence spent with one of the most powerful criminal families in Tokyo had given her a certain amount of experience in such things, and she was convinced she wasn’t imagining it.

It turned out, in the end, that she didn’t have to go and see Vinson about it anyway; for this was the exact subject of their second meeting, and one which had put her into an exceptionally foul mood.

According to Vinson, there
were
people watching her, but not his own. Far from it in fact, they were members of the FBI, working on the direct orders of Director Graham.

‘They’re not in your home permanently,’ Vinson explained to her. ‘But they’ve
been
in your home, searched it good and proper. Put some bugs in there too, no doubt.’

‘But
why
?’ Michiko asked angrily.

‘It’s a long story,’ Vinson said, before launching right into it, telling her everything he knew about the Vice President, Colonel Manfred Jones and FBI Director Noah Graham.

When he was nearing the end of his tale, he clicked open a sound file on his computer and gestured to it. ‘Now take a listen to this,’ he said, and in the next moment the office was filled with the sounds of Mason and Jones discussing the FBI surveillance organized by Graham.

‘Sons of bitches!’ Michiko spat, before her eyes narrowed in thought. ‘But how did you get this?’ she asked.

‘We’re not the nation’s premier spy agency for nothing,’ Vinson said with not a little pride. ‘We’ve been keeping a close eye on these people ever since we learned that they were keeping a close eye on
us
.’

‘Okay,’ Michiko said, ‘but what the hell are you going to
do
about it?’

‘We’ve been playing a containment game so far,’ Vinson said, ‘but it looks like it’s going beyond that. We may need to get more proactive.’

Michiko perked up. ‘I’m listening,’ she said.

Vinson smiled. ‘We might well need some of your computer expertise,’ he said, ‘if things get that far. But for now, I don’t want you to act any differently, don’t let on that you know they’re there; but don’t do or say anything revealing, either, don’t discuss any of our work back at your apartment, okay?’

‘Look,’ Michiko said impatiently, wondering now if this was just some ruse concocted by Vinson to keep her honest, ‘I’m a little bit tired of this constant insinuation that I can’t be trusted, that I’m damaged goods or something just because I worked for the Yakuza, because I was
forced
to work for the Yakuza. If my father trusts me, why can’t you?’

Vinson held his hands up to calm her. ‘I don’t trust anyone,’ he said, ‘so don’t take it personally. It’s not just my job, it’s my very nature. I’m naturally a suspicious son of a bitch, I can’t help it. If anyone else was in here – except maybe your father – I’d be saying exactly the same thing, believe me.’

Michiko nodded her head. She did believe him. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but we
are
going to do something about them, right?’

‘Yes we are,’ Vinson assured her, ‘we most definitely are. But with the president about to visit the UK, and with Mark following up the Serbian connection, we can’t afford to take our eye off the ball just yet. We need to keep our efforts concentrated on the task at hand, which is finding out just who exactly was behind those attacks in London, and why.’

‘You think the president shouldn’t be going?’

‘I think that politically, she has no choice. But from a security standpoint, she’s traveling into a situation which is unresolved. None of us believe that this was a lone wolf attack, which causes us to ask the question of if it wasn’t just a warm-up, the prelude to something even bigger.’

‘Why don’t the Brits call the memorial service off until security can be guaranteed?’

Vinson smiled again through his thick, bushy beard. ‘Maybe I
should
trust you,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘because certainly nobody who is so naïve could ever be working for the forces of evil.’

Michiko frowned, unsure whether it was a criticism or a compliment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When can security ever be
guaranteed
?’ he asked. ‘It’s an impossibility, unfortunately. We just have to work hard, and hope that we’re luckier than the people who work against us.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So the British will never call the parades off, because to do so would be to give the terrorists exactly what they want, which is to change our way of life.’

Michiko nodded, thinking about what he said. He was right, of course, unless . . .

‘Unless it’s just the opposite,’ she said quickly, mind working frantically as a new and terrible idea dawned on her.

‘The opposite?’ Vinson asked. ‘How?’

‘What if the terrorists – whoever was behind the three killers, whoever hired Khan – didn’t want the Brits to change their way of life? What if they
wanted
them to show that they haven’t been cowed by what happened, that they would stand up to the threat and not be bullied? What if they
wanted
Britain to have a memorial event?’

Vinson now nodded as well, the ramifications immediately evident. ‘Then the memorial event
itself
might well be the primary target,’ he said, finishing off Michiko’s train of thought. ‘That’s why they picked the school, such an horrific target, such a terrible thing, so that it would cause such moral outrage that a memorial – supported by leaders from all over the world – would almost be guaranteed.’

Michiko’s face was ashen as she thought about what would happen if the memorial parade, or the later service, were subjected to an attack. The president of the United States herself would be there. But there was no proof; not yet anyway.

‘It’s just a theory,’ she said noncommittally.

‘Yes,’ Vinson agreed, ‘but it’s a damned good one. It makes too much sense to be ignored.’ He stared at his desk, deep in thought. ‘I’ll speak to Abrams about it, of course, O’Hare too. But the president won’t change a thing, and O’Hare – despite his own desires – will be forced to go along with her. We’ll tell the Brits too, but it’ll be just the same story there – security’s fine, they’ve got everything sewn up tight as a drum, you know the routine.’

‘Yeah,’ Michiko replied, ‘but security can never be guaranteed, right?’

Vinson smiled, although his eyes were still distracted with concern. ‘Indeed it can’t,’ he said. ‘You’re learning. We’ll just have to hope that Mark comes through. Where is he now?’

‘He and Elizabeth Morgan – the MI5 agent who was also involved in that shooting – are on their way to Serbia, I sourced them tickets for Hungary and they’re going to make their own way from there across the border.’

Vinson nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Get back to work then, do what you can to help them.’

‘Yes sir,’ Michiko said, standing to leave.

‘And Michiko?’ Vinson called after her when she was nearing the door.

She turned back and raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

‘If you get a chance, look into that Morgan woman. I don’t know anything about her and – like I said before – I’m a suspicious son of a bitch.’

‘I’ll do that, sir,’ Michiko responded, before turning on her heel and leaving the director’s office.

It was time to go to work.

The man watched the news across several different channels as he sipped his black tea, read the reports in various newspapers and across many websites.

There was to be a memorial parade through London just as he had hoped – just as he and his people had
planned
– and the details were now being made public, which meant that it was seriously unlikely that they would now back out of it. If they were to do so, the loss of face would be intolerable to them.

And it wasn’t just a parade either – there was going to be a candlelit memorial service too, nearly a hundred thousand people crammed into the confines of Wembley Stadium, just a short walk from where his faithful killers had carried out their business with such beautiful efficiency.

The thought of what was going to happen next, the event which had been made possible by the actions of those men, was wonderful to him, a masterplan of such sublime beauty that it would be talked about for years, for
decades
, to come.

The episode with Khan had been unfortunate, and had not played out quite the way he had planned; but at least the man had been silenced before he could talk.

Even dead, Khan was still a part of his plans; but it was important that the investigation of Khan would lead the British authorities to the group that hired him only
after
the next phase had been carried out, and absolutely not before.

The next phase had to go ahead unchallenged.

This character Mark White could prove to be a problem, he considered. Who was he exactly? Officially, he seemed to be a liaison officer for the FBI; but his source seemed to suspect that White was something rather more than that, and this was troubling. He was not a man who liked the unknown.

White was following the trail of Khan now, apparently; but how far would he get, and how quickly?

His fate would depend very much, the man decided, on how these two questions were answered; if White found out who Khan worked for
after
the next phase of the plan had taken place, then he would actually be helping matters.

If, however, White did better than expected, discovered things too quickly and threatened to stop the plan before it came to fruition, then there would be no choice.

He would have to be killed.

And if White discovered not just what the man
wanted
to be found, but the
real
truth?

But the man just shook his head and chuckled to himself.

That
, he knew, would be simply impossible.