The Handler Page 3

Chuck walked into the master bedroom suite, which was aft in the stern. Green reeds decorated a cream-colored comforter. He searched under the mattress. There it was.

  Finding the battery control underneath the master bed, he turned the switch on, and then pushed in the diesel knob. Rushing through to the main cabin, he found Maria fumbling through a cabinet. Her wet shirt clung to her shoulders, drips of water streaming down her long tan arms.

  “I found the key,” he said. “Stay down below and out of sight. We’re getting out of here.”

  On deck, Chuck studied the shoreline more carefully. He watched as seagulls soared across the sky, then fluttered down and landed on the yellow cliffs that flanked the cove. The cliffs narrowed to a beach of powdery, tan-colored sand. Behind the beach, a thick wall of green trees smothered the hills and provided a thousand hiding spots for a sniper.

  At the helm, Chuck released the steering mechanism that locked the wheel and rudder in place. He turned on the instruments switch, powering up the depth finder, autopilot, speed indicator, and G.P.S.

  Then he pushed the key into the ignition. It didn’t budge, and fear washed through him. It had to be the right key. He tried again. This time it fit although it slid in roughly.

  Gently, he turned the key. The starter turned over but didn’t fire up. The next time he tried, it sounded even weaker.

  “Dead battery? Come on, you old tramp! Help me out.”

  He turned the key again. Now the engine sparked to life.

  He inhaled the rich diesel fumes, as sweet as perfume. Life was good, at least for the moment. He scanned the shoreline warily. Chuck was confident that at least for now they were safe, but his eyes never left the shadows under the trees. He thought of the men that were on their trail. Every leaf that fluttered in the breeze had him ready to dive for cover. Chuck untied the line from the mooring buoy, and the boat slid out to sea.

  He eased the accelerator lever forward and put down a couple of spokes on the helm as he steered the rumbling sailboat out of the glittering blue-green cove. Once she was half a mile offshore, he relaxed a little. He was running against a 2-knot current, so the boat was barely moving. This was going to be a slow trip. Then he saw a helicopter running up the coast. No doubt they were looking for him, but he figured they were probably still looking for the stolen car or a man and woman on foot. Nonetheless, he decided to take cover and go down below until they passed by.

  When he stepped into the cabin, he saw Maria with her head down on the galley table. He could hear her crying softly. Two cups of tea were on the table.

  Chuck sat down across from her. She looked up at him with lovely brown eyes. He thought about the first time he saw her. She had been just fourteen years old. He’d met her on the streets of Madrid when she boldly came up to him and asked for money. She told him that she had run away from her parents. She had acted defiant and unafraid, but Chuck knew what the streets could do to a person. He knew she was out of her element. He took her to lunch and encouraged her to return home. She’d resisted, saying that he didn’t know her dad, and that she would never return. But after buying her a few lunches and asking her how she thought her mother would feel to lose her daughter, he’d finally convinced her to get off the streets and go home.

  Chuck thought of this as he sat across from the girl who was now a young woman. They sat for a while longer without saying a word. Waves rocked the boat, and water swished around the hull. The sound of the moving water echoed throughout the vessel. Chuck listened as the whirring of the helicopter blades faded into the distance.

  Maria smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. She took a sip of tea and gave Chuck a weak smile.

  He couldn’t believe it had already been eight years since he saw her last. It seemed like a lifetime ago, yet it was like it he’d never left her at all.

  He got up and grabbed a hat from the stowage locker and went back on deck. There he sat in the warm breeze and listened as the seagulls screeched in the sky. He watched as they rose in succession on the air currents, then dove and circled the waters in search of prey.

  Chuck began to rethink all that had happened leading up to this moment, but his thoughts were distracted when he saw a Spanish coastal patrol boat approaching. He pulled down the visor on his cap.

  “Don’t come up,” he said under his breath, loud enough for Maria to hear.

  When the patrol boat swung close, Chuck waved. A patrolman stood at the rail, looked him and the boat over, then waved back. The patrol boat kept going and Chuck sighed with relief.

  As their sailboat skimmed through the deep-blue Mediterranean Sea, Chuck’s thoughts returned to how he’d ended up crossing paths again with a girl he’d known so long ago. It had all begun when a man with credible credentials contacted the US ambassador to Spain. He said that he had information about a plot against the US. He said that he’d learned about the plot from his association with a general, but wouldn’t reveal the general’s name or country of origin. Albert, the informant, told the ambassador that the plot was imminent and that there was no time to waste. He said it was urgent that he talk to someone immediately. The ambassador relayed the information to the State Department and told Albert that they would be in touch.

  At that point, Chuck was activated by his current employer, EREBUS, a super-secret spy agency. They asked him to get on the next plane to Spain to serve as handler of the mission. Chuck had started working for EREBUS after an incident in the mountains of Idaho with his previous employer, RUMAN. He’d switched allegiance to EREBUS after RUMAN made the mistake of using him as a human guinea pig in a bizarre psych ops experiment. They had seriously tried to mess with his mind. As a result, RUMAN ran into trouble on Jin Mountain and no longer existed. Chuck had seen to that.

  So now his new employer, EREBUS, had brought him in to handle the vetting and intelligence-gathering operation on this latest threat to America.

  A warm wind flowed over the bright blue waters, and Chuck glanced at the boat’s depth finder, which gave no indication of any subaqueous threats. He kept a hand on the wheel, but his thoughts hung on the last several days and all that had happened.

  Chuck had contacted a cut-out in his spy chain to meet with Albert, the informant. The man was a US college professor on a faculty exchange in Madrid. Steve was an amiable and passionate linguistics professor who had brought his young family to Madrid with him so that they could experience the wonders of another culture together. The family spent their weekends touring museums and attending the many carnivals of Spain. Chuck offered to pay the go-between professor well in exchange for his role in meeting with the informant. Steve agreed to the plan, and Chuck set up the meeting between the professor and the informant. The two met, but before Steve could relay the information to Chuck, he had mysteriously disappeared. Albert, the informant was found floating face-up in the Muga River. Then a few hours later the ambassador informed Chuck that he had received an anonymous threat warning him to watch his back. Lacking Diplomatic Security Service protection, Chuck advised the ambassador to flee to an EREBUS safe house, and promised him EREBUS protection until the situation was resolved.

  Having been assured that his asset was well-protected, Chuck had just arrived in Spain when the ambassador was assassinated. Chuck shook his head in disgust. How could they have not protected the ambassador? Chuck learned that Werther was on his way to Spain from the Middle East and was scheduled to arrive in Barcelona by ship that night. The man would have to answer for what happened to the ambassador.

  In the meantime, Chuck had been unable to make contact the professor. He had done a thorough sweep of the ambassador’s residence and office to see if he could find any clues to what had gone so horribly wrong. It was in the ambassador’s residence that Chuck had seen the lunch date scribbled on the calendar and noticed that it was to take place in an hour. It was the last thing the ambassador had scheduled in his life. Chuck went to the restaurant to see who the ambassador had planned on meeting, and that is when he saw her
. Maria. The girl from his past. How had she managed to get herself entangled in this ill-fated mess? he wondered.

  The sailboat cut a path through the bright glare on the deep-blue, sun-sprayed waters. A seagull circled in the cobalt sky and swooped down, skimming the pulsating surface, and snagging a fish with his beak.

  Chuck shielded his eyes from the bright reflection and glanced at the rugged coast of Costa Brava. Green foliage topped the golden-tan cliffs, and tree-covered hills spanned the horizon. He knew that on land trouble waited.

  Anger pulsated through his blood. He clung to the helm so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The ambassador and his body guard, the informant, and Steve the go-between professor—almost everyone associated with exposing the plot against America—had been eliminated or was missing. Steve had not been in contact, and Chuck had been unsuccessful in his attempts to find him. It seemed likely that he was also dead and gone, probably at the bottom of the sea. Steve’s wife was frantic. She told Chuck that he never came home from a meeting he had. Over and over again, Chuck reviewed the sequence of events in his mind. What had he missed? Where was the weak link in the chain?

  Maria came up on deck and sat down, her brown hair blowing in the warm breeze.

  What did she know? Chuck wondered.

  As he navigated to the south, the boat skirted stretches of coastline so rugged that he saw few homes, only yellow sea cliffs and forested slopes. In other areas, he saw multi-million dollar estates crowning the tops of harsh-looking ridges, and red tile roofs of white-washed homes peeking through steep forests.

  The boat continued to pound through the waves, and Chuck felt puffs of lukewarm spray on his face and neck. He licked the salt off his lips.

  “Maria, it’s time for you to tell me why you were planning on meeting with the ambassador.”

  She looked out over the water and was quiet for a moment. “We were meeting for lunch. That’s all.”

  “Come on, Maria. What’s going on?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How did you show up when you did? Who exactly are you?”

  “I’m the guy who just saved your life, the guy who helped you years ago, the guy who can keep you safe.”

  Maria returned her eyes to the sea.

  Chuck eased the wheel over and allowed the boat to angle toward the shore as they passed a series of coves on the craggy coastline. He needed to find a safe place for them to hide out for a while. They passed more jagged cliffs that rose from the clear turquoise waters to sharp serrated ridges. He motored past one cove that might have been a passable hideout under different circumstances.

  The landscape of this particular cove would prohibit a fast escape on land, and Chuck had other concerns. Bronze, oiled bodies were stretched out on the decks of pleasure boats anchored near the shore. He and Maria could not go unseen in a cove like this; nor could they blend into the crowd. Chuck eased the accelerator lever forward and felt the engine vibration in his feet as the boat motored on.

  Maria looked at him. “So how did you know I was going to meet with the ambassador?”

  “I didn’t,” Chuck lied as he navigated the boat to the next cove.

  “So you showed up just when I needed you? Like you did ten years ago? What are the chances of that? My dad sent you, didn’t he?” She swallowed, her lips pressed together.

  “Your dad? This is much bigger than just a family squabble. Now who was that guy at the café?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Maria, there are trained assassins on our tail. If you don’t help me out here, we may not get out of this alive.”

  Maria burst into tears and ran below deck.

  Chuck sighed and kept sailing. He motored into the cove. It was a narrow fjord slashed between golden cliffs, barely wide enough to navigate through. As the boat idled down the channel of clear green water, he reached out and touched the rock wall in a couple of places. He saw bird nests in some of the crags. A few tenacious little trees clung to cracks in the stone. The narrow inlet was empty and secluded and provided excellent cover. It would have been a decent gun-runner’s hideout during World War Two. It was, however, a fatal trap. There was only one way in—and one way out.

  As Chuck carefully turned the boat around, he called for Maria. She reappeared on deck looking scared, and Chuck could understand why. It was just that kind of day. He decided to change tact.

  “Maria, so tell me, what have you been doing for the last eight years?”

  She was quiet for a minute then said, “After you convinced me to return to my family”--she lowered her head--“I begged my dad to let me enroll at the International Institute in Madrid, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  “Why would a father deny his daughter that?”

  “I told you…you don’t know him.”

  Chuck thought about that for a moment. “So what did you do?”

  “Lived at my family’s ranch and took care of the horses.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing for the last eight years? What about dating? I’m sure a beautiful girl like you has plenty of suitors.”

  “Are you kidding me? My father never let me out of his sight. He wouldn’t let me or my mother go anywhere without him.”

  Chuck wondered if he had done the right thing all those years ago. Here was this beautiful girl, and she’d spent the last eight years of her adult life doing chores on a ranch for her father. It seemed as if the guy just couldn’t let his little girl go.

  The motor grumbled on as they idled back up the channel. The color of the water reminded Chuck of a jade necklace he’d once seen for sale in the market of Taio O, China. He’d almost bought it for his girlfriend Lydia. That was before she left him and returned to Burma. He couldn’t blame her for that, though. Not considering his line of work. At least Lydia was now back in her homeland, and her daughter was safe. Chuck took a deep breath. The fresh scent of pine trees flowed over the boat and mingled with the smell of salt and diesel fumes.

  Maria looked up at Chuck. “I have always dreamed of marrying and having a family, but it just isn’t meant to be. My dad would never approve of anyone I wanted to marry.”

  Chuck figured she was right about that.

  “The only thing that my father did let me do was compete in horse shows,” she continued.

  “He let you? Maria, you’re a grown woman now. I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done without the horses. Of course, my mother has it worse than me.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “She is an amazing and beautiful woman. She’s descended from an important Russian family, although they were forced to relocate here during the Spanish Civil War. My great grandmother made the best of it and invested in ranches throughout Spain. We live on the largest one in Catalonia where we raise some of the best bulls in the country. They are highly sought after for bullfights. Of course, father spends more time in Peru than Spain these days. He insists that my mom travels with him. I don’t know how she puts up with him. Fortunately, he allows me to stay here and work with the horses.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Of course not. I’m always surrounded by his men.”

  Chuck was quiet for a moment. “Where’s the ranch?”

  “It’s just an hour north of here, near the French border. It’s a beautiful place right at the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains.”

  “Sounds like a great place to grow up.”

  She forced a smile and returned her gaze to the rugged coastline.

  When the boat was a quarter mile offshore, the bow splashed through the increasingly rough sea and Chuck felt the deck tilt under his feet as he continued navigating along the coast in search of a place to hide out. The cries of the seabirds, the creaking boat, and the clang of the cable against the mast—these followed the lone sailboat through the sparkling sapphire sea.

  Chuck glanced at Maria, who was sitting quietly by the rail. The wind blew a lock of brown hair across her
face. Chuck quickly scanned the distant skyline of Lloret de Mar. He noticed that several mega-yachts were anchored offshore just north of the town. No doubt the super wealthy had come to town to watch the Costa Brava Rally. Most likely, the yachts were occupied by the owners of the companies that had sponsored the rally cars. They were probably fuming over the disruption to their leisure pursuits. Chuck continued to scan the shoreline. He caught sight of a narrow cove and swung in. This cove was isolated, and the hills that surrounded it were forested. Other than a terraced vineyard and a single white-washed home up on the hill, the cove was empty. The stucco house, a quarter mile up the slope, appeared to be vacant. The windows were shuttered and the vineyard looked dried up. It would have to do.

  “Hold the wheel for me,” Chuck said to Maria.

  She got up and walked over to him. They stood side by side for a moment. The warmth of her skin filled him with determination to help her escape from the life she found herself trapped in. After all, if he hadn’t encouraged her to return years ago, she might have managed to make her own way in the world. She could have. No, she’d probably been safer at home with her parents. Maybe her dad wasn’t as bad as she made him out to be.

  Chuck handed her the wheel then went forward and kneeled on the bow. As he did, he surveyed the cove more closely. It was hemmed in by steep slopes on both sides. A small patch of beach lay at the base of the homestead. The house appeared to be abandoned. It looked like no one had cared for the vineyard in years.

  He figured it would be a good place to hide and keep Maria out of harm’s way while he made contact with Werther to find out what the hell happened to the ambassador, to see if there was any word on his missing man, and if anything had been done to find out what the plot against America was. After that he would figure out what to do with Maria.

  The beach was secluded from the rest of the coast. That was good. He needed just twenty-four hours to do what he needed to do. This hidden cove should be safe for that long at least, he thought.

  Chuck released the anchor, and its chain clanged on the metal groove at the prow. Then quiet moved over the cove again.