CHAPTER IV.THE GREAT SECRET
Marcus stood on the bridge with the yacht's captain as the vessel closed the gap. A second blue flare hissed into the night sky from the Coya's deck, and as the target ship slowed down, the two men shared a cold look of triumph. The captain had followed the boss's orders, while Marcus had successfully tricked the larger vessel into a dead stop so he could board.
Few words passed between them. The captain's eyes scanned the black water for a few minutes.
"We're gonna need a solid lie for these distress signals," he muttered to Marcus, who was leaning against the rail. "Coast Guard don't play with fake SOS calls."
"Tell 'em the fuel line is clogged and the engines are seizing," Marcus said, never missing a beat. "Tell the engineer to kill the vibration so it looks real, can't you?"
"No time," the captain replied, squinting at the lights of the approaching ship. Suddenly he swore. "By Gad, Marcus! We're tripping! That ain't the mail-boat! That's the commercial freighter headed for Venice! We just flagged the wrong ship!"
Next second he screamed to the mate:
"Signal all clear! Fast! It's the wrong target!"
He slammed the engine-room lever to "Full speed ahead." Taking up the megaphone, the captain roared over the wind:
"Ahoy! Our bad! We got the engines back online! Thanks for the look, we'll hit you back one day!"
A string of angry Italian curses echoed back from the freighter. The captain of the other ship, pissed about the wasted time and lost salvage, cut his wheel and turned away in a cloud of diesel smoke.
"Man, we almost looked like amateurs," the yacht captain exhaled to Marcus. "You can't pull stunts like that at sea. I'd have bet my life that was her."
They headed to the comms-room, where the young tech had just pinged the actual mail-boat to ask her location. The reply came in through the headset. "We're eight miles off the Trieste docks. Resuming course."
"Eight miles! The passengers are gonna be on the ground before midnight, and we won't touch land until tomorrow."
"They'll have a twelve-hour lead on us!" Marcus snapped, his disappointment cutting through him like a blade. He turned and paced the deck alone. He'd been played by Joan.
Marcus was a kid who had survived the streets of the South Side without a scratch for years, a young architect who had stayed up until dawn building an empire while others slept. He didn't know "love," yet he'd played the role of a lovesick teen to get close to George's wife. The whole thing felt fake—a scene out of some corny movie. He'd pretended to be obsessed, and she had played her hand with honor. He had a hidden move in that fake romance, but her slipping away in the dark was an insult to his intelligence.
In that move, she'd declared war. And Marcus never let a slight go. There were older, harder men in the city who still regretted the day they crossed Marcus. His quiet, focused energy usually pulled people in, especially women who were tired of the loud, flashy types. Most smart women in the game liked a young boss who moved in silence; the kind of man who laughed at the loud-mouths, the domestic life, and the suckers working 9-to-5s for pennies. Some people were born for the hustle, and as street gypsies, they lived their lives moving from city to city, knowing every back-alley, trap house, and burner-phone spot. Marcus was exactly that.
When they finally hit the massive harbor at Trieste, the captain docked the Coya near the shipping offices. It was early afternoon and the workers were just getting back from their break. At a window in the big office, Marcus flashed some cash and asked to see the manifest for the boat from Corfu. After a short wait, it was brought out. Under the letter "C" was "Signora J. Caborn—London."
"You know where she's staying?" he asked the young clerk in Italian.
"Actually, yeah," the guy said. "I went on board when they docked. She asked me about a room. She looked stressed, traveling solo. I sent her to a friend of mine, Madame Pastore, over on Via Farneto, 168."
"Is she still there?" Marcus asked, his focus sharpening.
"I guess. She took a taxi there with all her bags," the kid said.
Ten minutes later Marcus was in a cab flying through the narrow streets past the old castle. He hit the train station first to drop his gear, then doubled back to the address. On the third floor, he found the name "Pastore" on a brass plate.
Madame Pastore, a woman in her forties, opened the door. When Marcus asked about Joan, she sighed.
"The lady came in late last night, slept a few hours, and was out by eleven. She got a telegram at the post office, I think. When she came back, she apologized and said she had to leave for London immediately."
Marcus's jaw tightened.
"London!" he hissed. A few minutes later he was back at the station, finding out the express train for Paris had left just an hour after Joan had checked out. She was already half-way to the next capital.
He hesitated. Should he wire the station-master in Vienna and have a message handed to her on the train? No. Joan had a lead, but he'd hunt her down wherever she landed—Paris or London. She wasn't playing straight, which confirmed his suspicion that she was part of the leak.
He checked the sleeper-car logs and confirmed she'd booked a berth for Paris at the last second. The next train wasn't until midnight, so Marcus hit a hotel, grabbed a quick meal, and then followed her trail. Before he left, he sent a coded text to an address in Paris—a "business" message that carried a much darker meaning.
Through the night, as the train roared north, Marcus stayed wide awake in his bunk. The guy above him was snoring loud enough to shake the walls. In the morning, after passing Vienna, he grabbed coffee as the train sped toward the border. The day was long and gray, the way it always is when you're chasing someone across a continent.
When he finally pulled into Paris, he was met by a sharp-looking Frenchman who looked panicked.
"I got your text, but I was out of town! She left before I could get here. She's gone to London."
Marcus paused. Then he grinned.
"No," he said. "Not the direct way. I know Joan better than that." He checked his watch. "A hit on Dover will be too late. If I'm right, she'll jump the boat and take a long way into the city. A girl named Vera did that play once, remember?"
"I know, Marcus," the Frenchman said. "She's slippery. You worried about her crew?"
Marcus laughed out loud.
"Worried?" he echoed. "When have you ever known me to be worried? I don't think I even know what that feels like."
The Frenchman shrugged. "She might be a problem."
"That's my problem," Marcus snapped in French. "Either way, she was slick to get out of Trieste. I bet she jumps off at Dover and burns her trail. She's done it before."
The Frenchman nodded, and they hit a cafe for thirty minutes. By the next train out, Marcus—the traveler who was known by name to the stewards—took a seat for the ride to the coast.
At Dover, after another coded text, a thick-set man who looked like an ex-dockworker met him on the platform. They barely spoke, but Marcus looked disgusted. He muttered a few cold words and caught the train to Victoria Station.
He went straight to his safe-house in St. James's, where his man Drew was waiting. After a shower and a change of clothes, he hit the phone, talked for a minute, and told the person on the other end to get over there.
Fifteen minutes later, Drew—a guy who had been Marcus's shadow for ten years—brought in a tall, lean man in a gray coat. The visitor wore thick glasses and looked like a fed.
"Yo, Sandy," Marcus said, greeting him. "Grab a drink. Just got back from a long run—all the way from Corfu."
"Yeah, we got the word," said Alexander Paton, taking a seat. "We got the wire from the islands and the one from Paris."
"Then why the hell didn't you pick her up?"
"Because we couldn't. The lady never touched English soil."
"Bull! She left Paris for the coast. I know that for a fact."
"She never showed at Boulogne or Calais. We had eyes on both."
"What about the other ports?" Marcus asked, his face turning to stone.
"We watched them all. We got the photo, we got the names. The passport guys were looking, but she hasn't landed."
"I don't buy it," Marcus said flatly. "I know her reputation. If she wanted to be in London, she's here. She could've hopped a boat to Jersey and come in through Southampton. She knows you guys don't watch the local ferries."
"Maybe," Paton admitted, "but I think she realized she was being followed and went to ground somewhere else."
"You guys at the Yard have some wild theories, Sandy," Marcus laughed. "I don't see it. The man got away from me, and he's definitely here. Then his wife slips past me to join him. But where? That's the move."
"We gotta find 'em," said the detective-inspector. He was one of the top guys in the Special Branch—the political unit at Scotland Yard.
"Yeah, I know. But London is a big maze for two people trying to stay lost," Marcus said. "You know that better than me."
"True. But we've seen this before. We never miss, Marcus. People always gotta come up for air eventually," the detective said, lighting a cigarette. "We just wait."
"We can't wait. This is time-sensitive. If they move first, we're done."
"Is it really that deep, Marcus?" asked the officer, whose job was hunting conspiracies.
"Deeper than you know," Marcus replied. "But I can't give you the full breakdown. It's a secret."
"A secret?" Paton asked, surprised.
"Yeah," Marcus said. "A secret—even from you, Sandy."