Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [123]
The bridge itself was locked and barred. A yacht like this would have high security as a matter of course. The windows would be shatterproof and, judging from their thickness, possibly even bulletproof. There was no way in for him—none.
Pendergast crept along the slanting wall until he was just below the level of the toe-rail, where sliding glass doors opened from the sky lounge to the sky deck.
He reached into his pocket, took out a coin, and tossed it so that it clanked against the glass doors.
The man inside the sky lounge froze, then fell into a crouch. “Nast here,” came the guard’s whispered voice over the radio. “I heard something.”
“Where?”
“Here, on the sky deck.”
“Check it out,” was the response. “Carefully. Baumann, Eberstark, prepare to cover him.”
Pendergast saw the dim outline of the man, crouching behind the glass doors, peer out. When the man was satisfied the deck was clear, he rose, slid open the door, and stepped out warily, weapon at the ready. Pendergast lowered his head below the edge of the deck and, speaking into his own stolen headset in a hoarse, indistinguishable whisper, said: “Nast. Port side, over the railing. Check it out.”
He waited. After a moment, the dark silhouette of the man’s head appeared over the railing, directly above him, looking down. Pendergast shot him in the face.
With a gargled cry the man’s head snapped back, then the body slumped forward, Pendergast helping catapult it over the railing. It struck the main deck rail and became hung up on it, sprawled partially onto the walkway. Grasping a post, Pendergast vaulted up onto the sky deck as a burst of chatter sounded over the radio. Leaping into the empty hot tub, he crouched low. He knew two more men were on their way to the sky deck.
Excellent.
They came thundering out onto the deck almost immediately, one aft and one forward. Pendergast waited for the right alignment, then leapt out of the hot tub with a single shot to startle them; the two men, as expected, let loose with automatic weapons and one of them fell, killed by his partner’s crossfire; the other threw himself to the ground, firing wildly and ineffectively.
Pendergast disabled the man with a single shot, then leapt over the sky deck rail, dropping down to the main deck walkway below. Nast’s dead body afforded an agreeably soft landing. He then vaulted over the main deck rail, grasping hold of two uprights to prevent himself from dropping into the sea. For a moment his legs dangled over the water, the hull sloping gently away underneath him. With a quick effort he found a purchase with his feet on a lower porthole drip edge.
There he waited, clinging to the hull, below the level of the main deck, listening. Again, the radio told him what he needed to know.
CHAPTER 72
DOWN IN THE ENGINE ROOM, ESTERHAZY PACED, aware of a growing sense of confusion and panic, which mirrored his own internal turmoil.
How the hell was Pendergast doing it? It was as if he were reading their minds…
And then suddenly he knew. Of course. It was so simple. And it gave him an idea.
He spoke, for the first time, into his own radio headset. “Esterhazy here. Bring the girl to the foredeck. You hear me? Bring her there quickly. We need to get rid of her; she’s only an impediment to us now.”
He shut off the headset and signaled Falkoner with a shake of his head not to use his own.
“What the hell are you doing?” Falkoner whispered harshly. “Who are you talking to? You can