Terror Bounty (12 page)

Rick wasn’t a fan of swimming in general
and he barely had ever gotten the nerve to step onto a diving board. But now he
didn’t have a choice, his life depended on doing the most insane thing in the
world.

He half expected his life to be flashing
before his eyes but, truth be told, nothing happened. He could only focus on
his body plummeting through the air, wind rushing against his face.

Looking down, he noticed that Olivia was
just fine and she was swimming out of the way. He lifted his knees so he wouldn’t
pierce the water like an arrow – he had no idea how deep the canal was and didn’t
want to hit bottom.

He crashed through the water like a
cannonball. He sank but promptly kicked his legs to rise. The water was
freezing and black. It occurred to him that he could drown, his clothes, his
jacket, it weighed him down. But after scissoring his legs one last time he
broke the surface.

“Ah!”

He gasped for air and spat the disgusting
water which tasted like gasoline and raw sewage. After a moment, he began to
relax. In spite of the cold, this was the first time he felt safe.

He spun around and looked up at the
building he’d just jumped from.
Christ
, this was more than 40 feet! No
one would ever believe he’d done that, not even his friend and professional
badass Titus Albarn, a decorated war hero.

While he pondered how he would spin the
stories and get free drinks for the rest of his life, he saw Dieter and his
partner stop by the ledge. Then they slowly retreated. Rick felt victorious a
second before the real implications dawned on him.

“They’re gonna jump,” he said.

Olivia nodded. “Let’s go.”

She swam toward the shore and Rick
followed her. Only she wasn’t really aiming for shore, she was going after one
of the boats docked alongside.

They gave it all they had and at long
last reached a white 20-foot bowliner. It said
Crownline
on the bow, it
was a nice little yacht, not quite a speedboat, the kind Rick had seen people
waterskiing with. Olivia agilely swung aboard and he followed after her,
grateful to leave the water.

As Rick landed inside, he saw Dieter and
the driver jump off the roof.
Shit
, this still wasn’t over!

He sat up and Olivia was at the wheel.
She’d found the keys and she was turning on the ignition. Nothing was happening.

“Please, start!”

She turned the key again and it still
wasn’t working. Rick looked around, there were a few houseboats but they would
be absolutely useless in a chase.

There was a small wooden boat, the kind
you saw on a peaceful lake in an old Italian movie – it said
Century
Coronado
in gold lettering on the side. However, it was too far and the two
goons had already set their sights on it.

Lines had been drawn, it was this boat or
nothing at all. Rick noticed it was moored and decided it might be a good idea
to remove the lines in case Olivia managed to start the Crownline.

“Start! Bloody start already!”

Dieter and the other man were now on
board the Coronado.

Rick pulled his gun out and aimed at the
two guys. However, before pulling the trigger he remembered that the revolver
was wet. If there was water left in the barrel it could split or burst. The
weapon could blow up in his face.

His eyes met Dieter’s across the distance
as he himself aimed his weapon. The same thing evidentially crossed his mind and
he didn’t shoot.

“Yes!” Olivia said as the Crownline ultimately
roared to life.

They pulled away from the shore just as
the Coronado did the same.

“
Nee! Hoerenjong!
”

There was a man running toward them, his
arms laden with shopping bags. He was apparently the boat’s owner and he had a
little bit of an issue with getting it stolen from right under his nose.

“Sorry,” Rick said halfheartedly while
the guy continued shouting obscenities in Dutch.

The chase was back on. Their boat had a
stronger engine but it was also bigger, harder to maneuver. For its part, the Coronado
was smaller and able to cut through the waves, zigzagging expertly. They were
evenly matched.

“Where are we going, Olivia?”

“Away.”

“Geez, thank you for clearing that up.”

Sitting in the co-captain chair, Rick had
to admire how this British woman was skilled at the helm. She turned the wheel
this way, pushed the throttle that way. She had done this before.

The boats were speeding along the canals
of the Venice of the North, avoiding collisions with houseboats and tourist mobiles.

Rick shook his gun, draining the water
out. It almost kept his mind off of how wet and cold he was.

“What do these guys even want from you? I
show up and your colleagues are torturing you.”

“They didn’t appreciate me giving notice
and leaving. They think I betrayed them, that I’m selling them out.”

“That really wasn’t nice of them.”

Olivia winced. “Dikmans isn’t a really
nice man.”

She did a wide turn around a barge and
they left the canal, entering the much larger Amstel River. And because it was
larger, wider, the traffic was also more important. Cargo ships were
everywhere.

The Coronado was still in tow, it was
gaining on them.

Up ahead was a bridge. It had a low
clearance and it was coming up fast. Rick glanced at the gauges they were
going… this couldn’t be right. They were going 50 miles an hour!

An imposing houseboat was right in the
middle of the river, about to block their way. Olivia’s face hardened and she
pushed the throttle.

“Hold on!”

Rick did so, bracing against the
windshield. They pulled off the maneuver, sharply breaking right and going
around the houseboat.

“Oh shit!”

Olivia recovered quickly, turning the
wheel as fast as she could, and they zipped right under the bridge. Rick was at
once ecstatic, relieved, and he felt like throwing up.

But Dieter wasn’t as proficient. He made
the turn around the houseboat but couldn’t recover in time. The Coronado
skidded straight into the bridge’s pillar.

Rick swiveled to see what happened. The
front of the smaller boat got smashed to pieces, damaged beyond repair.

“Yes!”

Dieter was getting smaller behind them
but it was still discernible that he was seething. He drew his weapon and fired
two shots but it was too late.

They had lost them.

Olivia swerved onto a canal and slowed
down when they were out of harm’s way.

“I could kiss you right now,” Rick said
as he leaned back into his chair. “You know that? I could really kiss you and
buy you flowers.”

She smiled but didn’t respond.

They slowed to a crawl as they went a little
further and pulled up to shore. It was beautiful, quaint. That’s when Rick
noticed a sign that read
Natura Artis Magistra
. It was a zoo.

Olivia turned off the engine but didn’t
drop anchor or even tie the Crownline. Then she snatched the revolver from Rick’s
hands and tossed it into the canal.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“You’ll get us caught with that. I
noticed you forgot your luggage at my apartment. Do you still have your
passport with you?”

He reached down his pants and retrieved a
travel wallet. “I may be new at this but I’m not totally stupid. I bought this
after you had me beat up.”

“Good, now let’s go. I have to ring
someone.”

She climbed onto shore and he followed
her.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was busy and
Rick hadn’t expected anything less. It was the fifth busiest airport in Europe
and a major hub for several airlines. The place was crowded and it didn’t make
Rick at ease.

There hadn’t been any news about Dieter
or Dikmans. They were presumably still after them and they could be anywhere.
For this reason, crowds didn’t make Rick more comfortable.

The only salvation in all of this was
that they were now dry. After leaving the zoo, they had gone shopping for the
bare necessities for the travel to come.

Now they were in a bar in the airport.
Olivia was restless, constantly looking around but Rick was too tired to ask
what was going on. Aside from looking out for the three Ds – Dieter, Dikmans,
and the driver – he just wanted to rest. He stared at his overpriced beer while
Olivia scanned everyone in the vicinity.

Finally, she stopped moving. She squinted
as she spotted someone across the concourse. Rick followed her gaze. She was
staring at an old man in a tweed jacket. He was at a bookstore, browsing travel
guides.

“Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Before he could say anything, she left
the bar and went to the man.

Rick observed while she talked to him.
She seemed to be asking something but he shook his head. She made gestures with
her hand and Rick could swear she was narrating the boat chase from earlier.
Then she leaned forward to speak more quietly.

The man shrugged and pulled an envelope
from inside his jacket. She took it and nodded as he told her one last thing.
It seemed grave and Olivia was somber.

She returned to Rick although she didn’t
sit down next to him again, like signaling that his drinking time was coming to
an end.

“Who was that guy?” he asked.

“We got two tickets to Cairo and I have a
new passport.”

“You have a new passport, just like that?”

“Yes, just like that. I have connections.”

“Apparently,” Rick said as he took the
envelope from her.

He pulled out the contents and she
snatched the passport before he could look at it. Maybe she didn’t like the
picture in it? Some people were like that. He glanced at the plane tickets.

“Coach. Nasty.” He looked at her
suspiciously. “You think your passport looks real enough to fool the customs
people?”

“I know it does.”

She took back the tickets from him and he
followed her out.

Apparently they were going to Egypt.

~  ~  ~  ~

Hertz was in his rental car, trying his
best to keep up with this little shithead Travis, when he got a phone call that
screwed up his plans.

“Yeah?”

“This is the office,” some generic intern
from Langley said. “Please find a secure line as soon as possible and call
back.”

“Goddamn it.”

He didn’t have to mind his language, the
kid had already hung up. He hated red tape and that’s what it was. He wondered
if Jemiolo had been the one to report him. It wouldn’t surprise him, this new
generation simply didn’t understand how things were done.

How things were
supposed to
be
done.

And it was even more infuriating that
finding a secure line out here meant going to the US Consulate – the embassy
was farther away at The Hague. In any case, he hated going to the Consulate. He’d
been there once and parking was a bitch. But he had to go.

After almost 45 minutes, he was admitted
inside and ushered into a private room with a secure phone. He called his
department at the CIA and he wasn’t surprised in the least when Sarah Utley
came on the line.

“Good of you to call back, Hertz. I was
beginning to be afraid you didn’t care about us anymore.”

He stopped himself just in time before he
actually said “cunt” out loud. She was his boss at the Counterterrorism Center.
She was a beautiful redhead but he still managed not to like her.

“I’m on the job,” he said. “Couldn’t this
have waited, Sarah?”

“No, this couldn’t wait because you’re
not on the job that you’re supposed to be on.” She took a deep breath like she
was trying to calm herself down. “You haven’t been reporting in as scheduled
and tracking you down hasn’t been easy.”

“That’s why I’m good at what I do.”

“Are you off the reservation again,
Timothy?”

Now it was his turn to pause before
speaking. She was already getting on his nerves.

“No, I’m not off the reservation.”

“Oh yeah? Because that’s not what I’ve
been hearing. I’ve been hearing that you’re going off script.”

“Sarah, my mission works, it’s going to
be successful. I need you to trust me on that.”

“It’s been nixed.”

“Bullshit,” he barked in the empty room.

“It’s not bullshit, it’s an order.”

“My original plan was perfect, Sarah.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s no longer a
course of action we can take. The situation is volatile here in Washington, we
can’t afford this kind of heat.”

“But…”

“There is no but, Timothy. You will
follow the modified mission parameters, you got me? You’re most definitely not
going through with Operation Blackthorne.”

“Listen…”

“Do you copy, Mr. Hertz?”

He pulled the phone away from his head
and walked a few paces to avoid saying anything he’d regret.
Double cunt
.

“Yes, I copy.”

“And do you know how to get back into the
hunt?”

“Yes, Rick Travis.” he said. “Rick Travis
is the key to everything.”

“I agree, keep that trail.”

“If he gets caught in the crossfire, it
doesn’t matter. Travis is expendable, it won’t be a tragedy if he ends up a
casualty.”

“We agree again, Timothy.”