She didn’t believe it would end so nicely for her, but there was no sense in showing that now.

“And what about your friends, the Africans?” she asked. She’d heard the argument on the motor yacht. She knew the name Djemma. “Won’t they be upset?”

He smiled. “You’re sharper than I thought,” he said. “Tell me, why do you think I shot that man back there on the boat and left him in the water to float away? Because he made me angry? No. Because he will lead the Americans to Djemma. He already has. An American carrier group is moving in position right now. They will force his hand. I will get my demonstration. And after that, he will be too busy with the barbarians at his gates to do anything but wave good-bye to me.”

She grabbed the water bottle, took another sip, and spoke. “I’ll look,” she said. “And if what you say is true, then I’ll tell them so. And maybe we can trade this water in for something more pleasant, like wine.”

She doubted he would accept the change in her as being anything more than an obvious ploy, but she’d seen the way he looked at her. She would do whatever she could to get him off balance.

52

AFTER THIRTY MINUTES in the glider, Kurt was nearing the tanker. The little green readout on the HUD had his airspeed locked in at 120 knots, and things were looking good. He could even see the tanker in the distance lit up like a monument of white marble in a sea of black.

Two miles out, Kurt released the cowling-like cover that Joe had locked into place. It flew off behind him, and the smooth ride suddenly reverted to a wild one, like cruising the autobahn at top speed in a Porsche convertible.

He slowed to 90 knots, and actually crossed over the ship at thirty-five hundred feet. A silent blackbird in the dark of night.

He continued forward for half a mile, and flicked on a rudimentary autopilot that would keep the nose pointed forward and the wings level. Satisfied that he was far enough out, Kurt released his boots and hands simultaneously and was literally sucked out of the glider.

In an instant he was free-falling and popping his chute.

The glider would fly forward for another four or five miles before splashing into the sea and disappearing from sight. A scout with night vision binoculars wouldn’t see it touch down, but if he were watching the sky he might spot Kurt Austin dropping from the heavens.

To reduce that possibility, Kurt was clad in black, and his maneuverable chute was black. At two thousand feet, swinging beneath it, Kurt turned in a wide arc and locked onto the approaching ship. He had one minute.

Thirty seconds later he was a quarter mile from the ship’s bow, nine hundred feet above it, and in the process of realizing a giant flaw in his plan.

The ship’s blazing lights had seemed like a boon from long distance, making it easy to spot the ship and hone in on it, but Kurt suddenly realized it could prove disastrous now.

The blazing quartz lights reflecting off the white-painted deck were almost enough to blind him. And far worse than that, he would be spotted the minute he touched down like a giant bat landing on a lighted patio in the midst of someone’s outdoor dinner party.

Realizing his mistake, Kurt pulled tight on the chute’s reins, slowing his descent. He drifted to his right, the port side of the ship, and continued to drop.

He could see only one way to land on the ship without being noticed. The last section of the main deck out behind the superstructure was unlit. He would have to pass up a thousand feet of flat space, circle in behind the ship, and hope to keep up enough speed to reach the last few feet of the deck there.

It seemed almost impossible. But it was either that or splash down in the ocean, call for a pickup, and float around for several hours, hoping not to attract any hungry sharks.

He drifted past the ship, four hundred feet high and wide to port. He had twenty seconds. As he passed the superstructure, he could see a figure on the bridge but no lookouts. He doubted anyone on the blazingly lit ship could see him. Their night vision would be nonexistent in all that light.

He started to turn.

Turbulence from the accommodations block caught him and threatened to spill the air from his chute. He recovered, and swooped in behind the boat.

Below him he saw the end of the deck and the churning white water of the ship’s wake. Beneath that wake, a pair of twenty-foot screws would be spinning at a hundred rpms, like a monster-sized blender just waiting to dice him up.

He angled himself forward, picked up some speed, and began dropping fast. He pulled hard on the lines, but it was too late. The wind whipping around the ship blew him backward. He missed the deck, and dropped farther, headed for the white water below and a grisly death.

He tried to turn away, but the swirling wind reversed, sucking him forward like a scrap of paper swept along in the wake of a passing car. The surge of wind threw him toward the aft end of the ship. He saw a flash of huge white letters reading “ONYX,” and then he was tumbling into an open space between the main deck and a deck beneath it.

The impact jarred him, and then flung him forward, as the parachute’s lines caught on something around the opening. He landed flat on his back and was almost immediately yanked backward toward the rail. The turbulent air behind the ship had filled the chute again, which now threatened to drag him off the deck and back out once again.

Backward, forward, backward. Kurt had had enough.

He hit the instant release on his harness, and the parachute was sucked out over the water. It fluttered and faded and finally vanished in the gloom behind the great ship.

He was on board. Despite all risks and logic to the contrary, he’d landed safely on the Onyx. He thought about Joe’s long list of warnings regarding what could go wrong and almost laughed. None of those things happened. But Joe had never once mentioned lighted decks, wind shear, and getting chopped up by the ship’s propellers.

Looking around, Kurt had to wonder exactly what he’d landed in. The dark open space reminded him of the fantail at the aft end of an aircraft carrier, the huge area between the main deck and the hangar deck.

A few ladders descended toward the water. A pair of hatchway doors looked to be shut tight, and to his left were a few ratty deck chairs and a bucket filled with cigarette butts. Fortunately for him, no one had been sitting out there, having a smoke, as he came in for a rather ugly landing.

Fairly certain no one had noticed his arrival, Kurt pulled off his helmet and disconnected the oxygen bottle. With a hard fling, he launched both out into the night.

He heard no splash. The wind and the wake of the ship were too loud for that.

With those items gone he moved to the darkest corner of the unlit opening and dropped to one knee.

Kneeling in the dark, Kurt slipped a 9mm Beretta from a side pocket and began screwing a silencer into the barrel. His senses were on overload. He listened for movement.

He could hear little beyond the throbbing of the engines and the hum of machinery. But before he could move, the handle on one of the doors turned. The starboard hatchway opened, and Kurt pressed himself farther into the dark like a spider trying to hide in a cracked bit of concrete.

Two figures walked out illuminated by the interior light until the hatch door slammed shut.

They walked to the rail.

“I can tell that you’re impressed,” he heard a male voice say, a voice he immediately recognized as belonging to Andras.

Unable to believe his luck, Kurt’s hand tightened on the Beretta. But then the other voice spoke, and Kurt recognized it as well. A female voice. A Russian voice. Katarina’s voice.