But Stephanie still wanted to know, “Why am I taking you somewhere?”
“’Cause the Secret Service isn’t going to let just anybody drive me around.”
TWENTY-ONE
VENICE
Kim carried himself with ease and intentionally stayed back, following the American Malone through the enclosed gangway and into the luggage control area. Hana was ahead of him, closer to where the woman with the Tumi satchel was walking, both of them now out in a blue-gold morning on a busy concrete dock that accommodated water taxis. People seemed in motion everywhere, hopping aboard boats, luggage being handed down, orders barked then obeyed. Before leaving the cruise ship, he’d hesitated long enough to spot Malone bound down one of the two circular staircases and disembark, too. He was surprised to see him. Apparently the ploy in delaying him with Larks had not worked. Was he after the woman with the satchel too? Hard to say. But he had to know. So Kim had fallen in with the crowd and kept pace with the American.
He watched as Malone loitered, clearly following the young woman with the satchel. Hana remained off to his left, on the wharf that stretched twenty meters ahead, then right-angled and ran another thirty meters toward the lagoon. The entire dock sat at the end of a man-made inlet that also accommodated the cruise ship, which floated at anchor to his right. He knew Hana would follow on whatever boat the woman chose, gaining access one way or the other. No railing guarded the dock’s outer edge, the boats nestling close and transferring passengers at any available spot along its exposed length.
A woman tumbled over the side and splashed into the water.
Amid the confusion he hadn’t seen how it happened. People reacted, but there was little anyone could do as the wharf rose two meters above the waterline. The woman surfaced among the boats, one of the drivers coming to her assistance. That moment of distraction caused him to lose sight of the satchel.
He searched the crowd.
Then the woman carrying it reappeared.
She almost ran into him as she fled past, headed back toward the cruise terminal.
*
Malone was focused on both the young woman and Isabella Schaefer. A man in a ball cap and purple sweater had intentionally clipped Schaefer, sending her over the side. The move had happened in an instant, but was enough to take Treasury out of the game and alert him to the attacker’s identity. Anan Wayne Howell. No question. He had the man’s face frozen in his brain. And though the ball cap was there to hide features, he’d caught enough to confirm it.
Schaefer surfaced and seemed all right.
The woman with the Tumi bag never missed a beat, reversing course and heading back toward the terminal. Follow her? Or go after Howell? His orders were to find Howell. The woman had just seemed the best way to achieve that goal. His eyes searched the crowd and he spotted Howell, hustling across the dock among the passengers, the ball cap gone, a thin brush of black hair now visible.
Malone excused himself and elbowed his way past people concentrating on the water taxis. He was momentarily delayed by a stack of luggage being handed down to one of the boats. Howell was now a good two hundred feet away, on the far side, heading down the long edge toward the lagoon. A boat eased close and Howell hopped down into it. The craft jerked left and turned back for open water.
He heard a whistle.
Then another.
“Pappy.”
He turned.
Luke Daniels was on the water, at the helm of the same boat from last night. Two other boats blocked Luke’s access to the dock. Malone leaped onto the bow of the first one, then scooted across the low wooden roof that protected passengers from sun and spray. He jumped to the next boat and repeated the process. Luke was waiting at the stern of the second craft, and he hurdled to the deck beside him.
“Good timing,” he said. “You know what to do.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Luke reversed throttle, maneuvered away from the congestion, then turned hard right and powered up the engines.
*
Isabella was both angry and embarrassed. She’d been deliberately shoved. Worse, the woman with the satchel would now be long gone. One of the water taxi operators helped her up onto his boat. She sat on his deck, dripping water, then grabbed hold of herself and hopped back up to the wharf.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
A rookie mistake.
Her anxiousness had gotten the better of her. So much that she’d stopped thinking like a seasoned government agent.
And worse.
The documents could now be gone.
*
Kim allowed the woman with the satchel to pass, never giving her a look of interest. He kept walking ahead and watched as the woman who’d fallen into the water climbed aboard one of the boats. He stopped and glanced back, seeing Hana pursuing their target.
He retreated deeper into the crowd and made his way from the busy dock, back toward the bus and land taxi station, where Hana and the woman were headed. He hadn’t seen what happened with the person who’d fallen into the water, but it would have been easy to do. No railing protected the outer edge and there were far too many people around than there should be. Beyond the cruise terminal, their target with the satchel ignored any form of land transportation and kept walking, leaving the premises. The sidewalk was sparse, so following her could be a problem.
He found Hana, who was standing near a group of people.
“Where is she going?” he whispered in Korean, keeping his eyes on the woman as she walked away.
There were a few options. Certainly heading into town was one. The beginnings of the pedestrian-only portion of the island, which was 99 percent of the real estate, started just past the cruise terminal. The causeway leading to the mainland also began a few hundred meters away, so a car that way was possible. Then there was the train station, maybe half a kilometer to the north.
The woman crossed the street and turned left.
Now he knew. The ocean ferries. The terminal was in sight, a hundred meters away.