Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [80]
Alice maintained her calm. “Pull the throttle back just a hair, then leave it alone.”
He set it, glad to have one less item to worry about. “Seventy feet.”
“Both hands on the yoke.”
The moment that he’d continued to hope would not come: It had come. “Forty feet.”
“Slowly now, pull the yoke back. Keep the wings in the center of the circle.”
He did. His stomach contracted to the size of a Ping-Pong ball. The water flew up at him. “Fuck. Twenty feet.”
“Bring the nose slowly up ’til you hit the water.”
The water was so close that Charlie could taste the salt. He fought an impulse to close his eyes.
A perfect shadow of the plane floated on the waves ahead, slowing, as if trying to meet him. The water was serene. He made out individual, sparkling droplets in a gauzy mist lofted by the waves, when—WHACK—the tail hit water, pulverizing his muscles, joints, and tendons. His face smashed into the yoke, forcing him to release his grip. With a whine, the left propeller dug into the water, throwing a mass of spray that battered the fuselage. The nose of the plane slammed down onto a swell, sending his body in different directions at once. Water rose over the front windows.
Finally, the plane settled afloat in a gentle drift, but not for long. Seawater rushed into the cabin.
“We should get out, don’t you think?” said Drummond, unbuckling his safety belt. He appeared rested, and unperturbed by the events of the past few minutes.
Charlie popped free of his harness. “Sure, why not?”
Drummond led the way out of the cockpit, fighting the influx of water to reach the cabin door.
Tugging the life raft free of its Velcro mooring and grabbing the vests, Charlie said, “Now we just need to reach land, which was too far to fly to, using two rubber paddles.”
Drummond pointed outside at the svelte yacht heading their way. “Actually, I think that boat is going to rescue us.”
Stanley sat below deck of Corbitt’s USS Perk in a startlingly spacious living room with taxpayer-funded, rich mahogany paneling and a copper-plated bar containing a transatlantic crossing’s worth of single-malt whiskey. Every fixture or component involved either precious metal or crystal—even the Kleenex, dispensed from a crystal cube within silver latticework. There was a fireplace, too, with antique brass andirons piled with logs that required a third look before Stanley was sure they were fake. The only reminder that he was at sea rather than in an English gentlemen’s club was the set of pedestals, in place of legs, to fasten the seats to the floor—a floor swathed in antique Persian carpet.
The captives sat in a pair of red leather wing chairs. Wet and bedraggled, they seemed far less menacing this time around. Drummond was struggling to stay awake. Charlie was so frenetic in his narration of their adventure that he could barely stay seated. “Your capturing us is the best thing that possibly could have happened,” he was saying. “I know that sounds crazy now, but let me tell you what we’ve learned.”
“The best possible thing would have been if we’d gotten to you before you sold the bomb,” Stanley said.
“Who was the buyer?” asked Hadley. She sat to Stanley’s left on the camelback sofa, facing the fugitives—her thousand-euro heli-taxi ride from Martinique would probably be overlooked by headquarters in light of their having coralled the Clarks.
She aimed a Glock at them. After her experience with Bream, Eskridge had finally granted her permission to carry. The teakettle’s purple imprint was visible on her forehead. The gun was unnecessary, though. Shortly after Charlie’s Mayday calls had enabled Echelon to pinpoint his whereabouts, a second helicopter had landed on Corbitt’s yacht, depositing four marines with enough weaponry to stage a coup on some of the area islands. The yacht resounded now with the dull thuds of their combat boots. The opportunity to stay on deck and “command them”—Corbitt’s words—ended his protest over his exclusion from the debriefing.
“When we last saw the device, Bream’s men were loading the washer into