DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (29 page)

Of course. It would be.

Tom O’Day led us along the upper deck away from the cabin where we’d left Sullivan still tied to his chair. I hoped having that note on his chest would dissuade him from trying to attract anyone’s attention. It was a fiendishly neat and simple device. I wished I’d thought of it myself.

I waited until we were out of Sullivan’s earshot, then gave Sean a brief rundown on events via the comms. Sullivan’s team might yet find and release him. No point in him being able to tell them we had a man on the inside. Sean responded with a brief double-click but no other comment.

I would have felt a lot better about the expedition if I’d managed to secure Sullivan’s weapon, but once his H&K had gone over the side the only thing he’d been carrying were spare magazines. Heavy enough to throw at someone but not otherwise useful—unless I got lucky with the next hijacker we encountered.

I didn’t want to count on that.

We found a stairwell, dropped a deck to the main restaurant area and crept inside. The restaurant was largely arranged in booths around the outer walls with a few loose tables dotted across the centre space. No doubt the fixed seating came in useful in rough weather—not that I could imagine the
Miss Francis
casting off in anything other than calm conditions. The skipper was probably on a cut of all the tips handed out. Violent seasickness would not make for a generous gratuity—or
lagniappe
I’d heard it called here.

There was a small bar in one corner near the door to the service entrance. We crossed to that and ducked behind it just in case of a cursory sweep.

“From here the galley is straight beneath us, another deck down,” Tom O’Day reported quietly. He nodded to the service doors. “Through there are the dumb waiters they use to bring the food up, and stairs in case the staff need to go fetch anything.”

I made a “wait here” gesture and inched across to nudge one door open, shifting around to peer carefully through the gap. Beyond were two large dumb waiter lifts, as he’d described. There was also a small prep area with a sink and a line of stainless steel tables where the food could be loaded onto serving trays and carried out to the waiting guests. It was bare and utilitarian, no frills, no fuss. I checked for cutlery, knowing I could make a useful weapon out of a table knife or a fork, but the drawers were empty.

To one side were more double doors with small windows in them. The doors had finger plates that were scratched and discoloured from the careless shove of numerous wait-staff hands. Always in a hurry, always against the clock. I guessed that those doors led to the service stairwell that went down directly to the galley itself.

I moved across to them, careful how I put down my feet on the hard decking. The doors both had clear panels at head height—wire mesh embedded in safety glass. I peered through. At an angle I could see straight down into the stairwell. As I watched, a shadow moved slowly and steadily across the area below.

I eased back, rejoined the two men behind the bar.

“Is it clear?” Blake Dyer asked, strain in his voice.

I shook my head. “Looks like there’s a sentry at the bottom.”

“Just one man?”

I looked at him. “That’s all they need.”

Especially with no weapon of my own
.

I looked at the bottles of spirits hanging from their optics above me. Any number of highly flammable liquids here—the makings of any number of improvised explosive devices that would clear a stairwell faster than just about anything. I thought of the hostages in the bowels of the boat. Fire was my last—and worst—option.

We crossed to the opposite side of the boat and moved out of the restaurant. Tom O’Day guided us to another stairwell. Alert for more guards, we slipped down it onto the next deck level and tried to keep out of sight.

Eventually, O’Day came alongside me and murmured, “If we go out and round we should be able to come at the galley from the dock loading entrance. Keeps us away from the bow area.”

The casino was in the bow. The galley was further back, where the only view to be enjoyed was the murky river rushing past at close proximity. The galley staff must have been able to hear little beyond the thud of the engines right behind them.

I nodded and we slipped out onto the side deck. We were low enough to hear the water slopping against the hull as we cleaved through it. The air was thick, damp, heavy.

I gazed out across the slide of the river, expecting to see nothing but distant lights glinting against the surface through the fog. Hoping that’s all I’d see, anyhow.

It was not.

I nudged Blake Dyer’s arm, waited until he’d nudged his friend’s. “We’ve got company coming up on our starboard side.”

Tom O’Day craned his neck. We could just make out the darkened shapes of inflatables closing rapidly on the
Miss Francis
. “Who in hell’s name is
that
? They called in reinforcements you think?”

“There you got me,” I said. “But I don’t think it would be wise to be caught out in the open when they get here, do you?”

We scuttled back the way we’d come, careful not to silhouette ourselves against the boat’s own lights. Fortunately, coming out of the misty blackness and reaching such a bright-lit beacon must have played havoc with the new arrivals’ night vision. There were no sudden shouts of alarm or recognition as we retreated.

Of course, that could simply mean they didn’t want to alert the existing crew to their presence. Just because we had one hostile party on board didn’t mean the newcomers were in cahoots with them.

One thing was for certain, though. Whichever scenario I plumped for I somehow doubted our lives were about to become any easier.

“What are you doing here, Castille?”

The voice belonged to the man with the New Jersey accent I’d heard on the casino deck. In person his voice was fuller and more rounded, all the upper and lower frequencies intact. It was still instantly recognisable.

It took me a moment to place the name he spoke, though. The drug dealer who’d been killed when Sean had been last in New Orleans—his name had been Leon Castille.

“Keep a hand through my belt,” I whispered to Dyer and Tom O’Day, handing over the Maglite. “If you hear anyone coming, haul me up and out of there, OK?”

They nodded. I crept across the side deck and lowered myself over the edge so I could hang down and see onto the deck below. I was almost instantly blinded by the deck lighting strung there. I shaded my eyes with my hand. At least nobody was likely to stare up straight into the bare bulbs and spot me. All I had to do was keep still, no matter what.

Below me, further along the lower deck, I could see a group of men. From the way they stood it was difficult to work out who was part of the original raiding party and who were the new arrivals. But something, I realised, was just about to come unstuck.

Not good—for anybody.

“This wasn’t part of the plan,” New Jersey said. He was a tall, spare-framed man, wide across the shoulder the way mercenaries tended to be—the good ones, anyway. Their lives depended on their level of fitness and they worked hard at it if they wanted to survive for long.

He had ripped off his balaclava leaving slightly long pale hair sticking up at sweated angles from his head. It did not add to his air of command.

By contrast, Castille—the man at the centre of the newcomers—was altogether too sleek, too smooth. His complexion was olive, almost Latin, his hair slicked back with enough gel to gleam in the lights like the coat of a wet seal. Despite climbing off an inflatable in the middle of a foggy river he was wearing a black suit complete with a waistcoat. It might have been expensive but there was some kind of glittery thread woven into the fabric that made it look cheap. Despite tooled boots with a heel, he was still shorter than the man from New Jersey, a little softer around the middle, but no less dangerous for all that.

“On the contrary,
cher,
” he said. “This was always part of
my
plan.”

As soon as I heard his voice, the whole of my body tingled in reaction producing instant goosebumps.

It was the man from the scrapyard near the Lower Ninth Ward. The one who’d brought down the Bell. He’d wanted one of us then and hadn’t succeeded.

I put it together—the name, the determination. Only one name popped: Baptiste. He’d tried for the ball player once already—maybe twice. I was pretty sure now it must have been Castille’s men in the parking structure next to the hotel, as well as downing the helicopter.

Baptiste. And there was nothing I could do about it.

“C’mon, Castille,” New Jersey said now, sounding tired. “We had a deal—”

“And I intend to keep my side of it, but with certain . . . alterations.”

New Jersey let out a snort of breath. “And if I say no?”

From where I lay, looking down, I saw Castille smile and spread his hands. He had small hands, the fingers slim and delicate.

“Come now,
cher
, let us not fall out over this. After all, I have allowed you use of my men for this enterprise, no?”

New Jersey glanced around him as if realising for the first time that he was surrounded by more unfamiliar faces than trusted ones. Just for a second his hands strayed towards the MP5K. It dangled from its shoulder-strap like Sullivan’s had done. The men around him tensed in automatic response. His hand stilled.

“What do you want?”

Castille smiled again. It was not a pleasant smile.

“I can see you are a reasonable man,” he said. “I want simply for you to bring her to me.”

New Jersey hesitated. Clearly he did not need to ask who the other man meant. He knew. So his hesitation was caused by . . . what? I ran through half a dozen different emotions before I came to it.

Dread.

New Jersey was a mercenary. He was prepared to kill if he had to or he would not have survived long in that profession. On occasion he might even have been prepared to act as an executioner—if Sullivan had been telling us the truth, they had come aboard intending to kill Tom O’Day as part of the deal.

But some of the toughest mercs I’ve ever known can suddenly develop a squeamish side when it comes to killing women and children. And by bringing this unknown woman to Castille, I realised, he knew he was condemning her.

He closed his eyes just for a moment as if in brief prayer. Maybe he was just considering his options and coming to the conclusion he didn’t have any. Then he jerked his head. A couple of the men behind him turned and hurried away.

My mind flitted to the hostages. To the only woman they’d separated out from the others—Autumn Sinclair.

I could not for the life of me imagine what connection Castille might have with Tom O’Day’s protégée. We’d hardly spoken, but nothing she’d told me had set any alarm bells ringing.
No
, said a cynical internal voice,
you were too busy being flattered by her attention . . .

For maybe a minute, the men below me stood in silence. Occasionally, as the
Miss Francis
hit some kind of cross swell, they swayed slightly to keep their balance. Castille looked faintly bored.

We were turning, I realised, feeling the boat cant slightly, the buffeting of the river alter in character. We had reached the extent of our outward journey and were slowly coming about. Somehow, the thought did not reassure me.

I lay quiet on the deck above, my head and the tops of my shoulders exposed beneath the railing to get the best view. If there had been a moon, a clear night sky, I would have been plainly visible. But out beyond me the darkness of the river merged into the fog that surrounded us. The atmosphere closed around me like a clammy fist, comforting and suffocating in equal measure.

I felt the reassuring hand through the back of my belt, not knowing if it was Blake Dyer or Tom O’Day who had a grip on me. I realised it didn’t matter. I trusted them equally.

Eventually, I heard the click of heels on the deck beneath. They approached New Jersey from behind. He did not turn to watch the woman approach.

As the footsteps neared the group they faltered, just for a stride, as she caught sight of who awaited her, then came on with renewed purpose. So, she knew Castille and had decided either that she was not afraid of him or that she would not allow herself to be afraid.

I saw legs first—not in gold but in a silver floor-length dress. I slithered forwards another inch, just as the woman stepped forwards and I saw her face for the first time.

Ysabeau van Zant faced Castille with her head arrogantly tilted and a small smile flickering around her narrow mouth. If she had found her ordeal this evening harrowing in any way, it did not show.

Ysabeau van Zant.
Parker’s report had hinted that she was behind the hit on the drug dealer, Leon Castille. He had to be the son or brother of the man standing in front of her now.