Betrayal (31 page)

“But the explosive is still there,” Cassi said, panic apparent in her voice.

“Yes, but there’s nothing to set it off. Think of it as a hand grenade with the pin still in. It’s safe to carry around.” The thought of adding just don’t fart flashed across Odi’s mind, but he thought better of it. His sister did not always appreciate his humor.

He used a few more filters to dry out the congealed explosive further. “Is my memory right? Do the bolts on the door enter the frame on both sides?”

“That’s right.”

Odi began inspecting the frame, looking for the bolts between the cracks. “But not on the top or the floor?”

“I don’t think so,” Cassi said. “Definitely not on the floor.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. There are only two lamps.”

“Huh?”

“There are three ways to detonate most explosives: chemistry, pressure, and electricity.”

Odi took a brass lamp off the desk and its twin from the end table as he spoke. He removed the white shades, the shade supports, and the bulbs. He cleared everything else off Wiley’s desk and said, “Grab that end. We need to set this down in front of the door.”

Cassi assisted without question.

Once the desk was flush against the door, Odi took the lamps and laid them sideways. He lined up the sockets so that they were directly in front of the door bolts. Then he bent the lampshade and used it as a prop to get the level just right.

Once satisfied, he split the explosive in half and then halved it again. Cassi watched him pack one-quarter of the explosive putty between the door and frame at the location of each bolt, leaving a protuberance. With that accomplished he packed each empty light socket, again leaving some run-over. He laid the lamps on the desk once finished, and slid each carefully toward the door until the bits of explosive made solid contact.

“Bring me that extension cord,” he asked Cassi, pointing toward the desk. She did so and Odi plugged both lamps into extension-cord sockets. “Now comes the fun part.”

Being careful not to disturb the lamps, Odi trailed the extension cord into the bathroom, and then motioned for Cassi to join him. Once she was inside, he closed the solid door. “Crouch down in the corner with your knees covering your chest,” he pointed, “and plug your ears.” Cassi did not require any explanation. She rushed to do as she was told.

Odi placed the end of the extension cord over an outlet and then looked over at her. “Here goes …”

Chapter 56

The SS Norse Wind, Chesapeake Bay

W
ILEY
LOOKED
DOWN
at his hands as they gripped the yacht’s wheel. No white knuckles, no jitters. He had gotten through the Asgard confrontation distancing himself from the spasms of his own heart. He had frozen his emotions, and they had yet to thaw. It had still been the most difficult five minutes of his life. But he had known going in that the third-person approach would be the only way to get through it, and he had prevailed. He had prevailed without a hint of weakness because Stuart had been by his side.

Now that it was over and Cassi’s blood stained his hands, Wiley had expected to be feeling sick. He expected to be spending this boat ride back to the mainland retching over the rail while Stuart looked on in disgust. But he was not sick. He had not thrown up over the rail. In fact, he wanted breakfast. Looking from his hands to the mainland he felt only one emotion: relief.

Emboldened by this discovery, he allowed his thoughts to wander to the Tiffany box and the promise it held. It seemed a distant memory now, like a fond but forgotten childhood memory. He pondered this unexpected emotional twist, searching for deeper meaning as the Norse Wind cut through the waves. As they neared the marina, he figured it out. Cassi had been spoiling his dream. This was supposed to be the most magical time of his life, a time of self-realization and tremendous professional growth. Instead, he had been stuck in a quagmire of doubt, bogged down by worthless guilt. With Cassi gone he was unencumbered, free to grow. Her death had lifted a tremendous weight from his back. Destiny was once again marching by his side. He felt powerful, purposeful, and brave.

With Cassi and Odi both out of the way, he expected smooth sailing and clear skies—at least metaphorically speaking. The rising sun had ducked behind a thick bank of clouds shortly after it cleared the horizon. Now the temperature was beginning to drop.

He saw a dock boy standing ready, eager to be of assistance, and for a second his mind flashed to the Marines ever guarding the president. He saluted the boy and eased off on the engines. As the yacht dropped lower in the water, Stuart gave him a funny look. Stuart knew what he had been thinking.

Wiley looked at his thick titanium watch. It was early enough that he could still make it to the office on time.
 

While tossing a line to the dock boy, a shocking thought blazed through his mind like lightning from above. He let fly a panicked “Shit!”

The dock boy jumped back.

“What is it?” Stuart asked.

Wiley stepped back into the cabin and lowered his voice. “Can you handle the boat?”

“Yes. Why? What happened? What’s wrong?”

“We forgot the security video.”

Stuart’s jaw dropped.

Wiley stamped his foot three times on the deck. “Damn, damn, damn!” He looked at Stuart. “You have to go back!”

“Okay.”

“You have to go back to Asgard right now and get the recording!”

“Okay.”

“That video will show everything. You have to get it now. The panic room is engineered to withstand assault, but we used a lot of Creamer. If someone heard the explosion or saw the smoke they might have called the Coast Guard to check it out. You have to beat them to it. Hell, you have to be gone before they arrive.”

“Okay, Wiley. Get out of here. Go be seen in the office. I’ll take care of it.”

“The recorder is right above the monitor we watched. It’s in the cupboard on the wall. Actually, every monitor has its own recorder. You better take all the DVDs just to be safe. Plus, that way I can say I never got around to reloading the recorders after the last batch ran out.”

“Will do.”

Wiley picked up his duffel bag and jumped onto the dock. He handed the dock boy a twenty and said, “You can leave us now. He’s going back out.”
 

As the boy ran off, Wiley looked back up at his coconspirator. “Don’t come back without that video, Stuart. You know what happens to people like us in jail.”

Chapter 57

Asgard Island, Chesapeake Bay

C
ASSI
CLOSED
HER
eyes and held her breath as Odi plugged in the extension cord. She heard a sputtering sound come through the closed bathroom door and wondered if it was the last sound she would ever hear. She had already survived one explosion of late. Was two too much to ask?
 

Odi tightened his grip on her shoulder. Then she heard a deafening boom. A hard rain of debris followed. It sounded as though a giant were whipping handfuls of pebbles against the walls. Cassi guessed that the stones were really glass shrapnel from Wiley’s desk.

Odi held her in place for a few seconds more until everything settled down. A wisp of smoke crept under the bathroom door as they waited. Cassi worried that the house might be on fire. Odi shook his head as though reading her mind. He said, “The smoke is just a byproduct of the blast. It’s not a threat.” Then he released her arm, stood, and opened the door.

The first thing she saw was a big hole in the wall in the place where the door had been. She shuddered at the sight, joyful though it was. The bomb that wrought that destruction had been inside her body. She would never feel pure again.

Looking around, she felt like an evacuee returning home after a hurricane. There were a thousand little rips in the black leather couch and pockmarks all around the walls. Cassi looked back at the door to the bathroom. Bits of glass were embedded like cupcake sprinkles all up and down the wood. The result was a cross between modern art and a medieval torture device, although structurally it was not damaged. The windows had also held. She realized that without Odi’s bomb, they would never have escaped.

“Let’s get out of here,” Odi said.

“You read my mind,” Cassi replied. “Just give me a second to swap Wiley’s wet pajamas for my regular clothes.”

While zipping up her jeans, Cassi had a thought that would not wait. She picked up her shoes and ran barefoot down the hallway to the security closet. She flung open the door to see six flat-panel monitors, each showing a different room. She found the recorder for Wiley’s study and rewound the video for thirty seconds. Before pressing play, she glanced upward in silent prayer. The monitor came back to life with the picture of Odi hurling the marble ashtray into the aquarium. This was better than great. It was fantastic. “I can’t believe they forgot this,” she called.

“What?” Odi asked, running to stand beside the closet door.

“See for yourself. It’s all here. What they did to us is all video recorded.”
 

Cassi sat down on the floor and quickly tied her shoes. Finished, she looked up at her brother and lost her smile. He looked pale. “What’s wrong?” She asked, standing up and ejecting the DVD.

“That video may cook Wiley’s goose, but it also blows my alibi.”

“Your alibi?”

“I was planning to wake up from a coma in Iran once my mission was complete.” Odi made quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke.
 

Cassi understood. She looked down at the DVD in her hand and thought about his situation for a minute. She had temporarily forgotten about Odi’s earlier murders. “We’ll figure something out later. Tempting though it is, nailing Wiley and Stuart is not our top priority. Stopping 10/12 is. To do that we have to get off this island. How did you get here?”

“Jet Ski.”

“Will it fit two people?”

“You bet.”

Cassi smiled. “Finally, we catch a break.”

Odi led her across the lawn in the opposite direction from the marina. They moved at a slow run, discussing strategy and the events of the last few weeks as they went. Once they cleared the manor house lawn they entered a deciduous forest. A few of the birches still had golden leaves, but most of the limbs were bare. It was beautiful and innocent, the polar opposite of how she should have felt, yet something about being there with Odi gave her hope.

Odi lurched to a halt after about five minutes. Cassi was surprised to find that the forest went right up to the cliff’s edge and realized that this was no place to be running blind. She peered over the edge and saw the Jet Ski below.

Odi said, “Oh shit.”

“What is it?”

“The keys are gone. I started to take them with me but then figured that they would be confiscated if I was captured so I left them right here on this rock as insurance.” He pointed to a flat-topped boulder. “Now they’re gone.” He bent down and began searching the grass around the rock. Cassi joined him, searching the side of the cliff as well. After a few minutes they decided that it was hopeless. The keys were gone.

“Do you think Wiley took them?”

“If he saw me coming he would have. But I don’t think he did. My money is on one of those crows. He pointed at three black figures on a neighboring tree. I thought I was being clever, but it appears that I was outwitted by a bird.”

“What do we do now?” Cassi asked

“Go back to the marina and wait for the Coast Guard.”

“What makes you think they’re coming?”

“I’m going for a swim.”

Cassi could not believe what her brother was proposing. “You can’t do that. You’ll freeze.”

“I’ve got a wetsuit, and the eastern shore is much closer than the western one. It looks like it’s only a mile.”

“Tell that to the sharks.”

~ ~ ~

On any other day, Cassi would have found Odi’s plan preposterous. Today it was de rigueur. After watching him disappear into the waves, she walked back through the woods. She heard every cracking twig and each rattling branch but no squirrels or birds. Even the crows were gone. The forest that only moments ago had seemed so refreshing, now felt dead. She found herself acutely aware of being alone. She knew that she had better get used to that feeling. The man with whom she had planned to spend the rest of her life was now destined for disgrace and jail. Or was he? She wondered, feeling a sudden chill.