Hana had reconnoitered the decks in Venice after they’d boarded, preparing in case a hasty retreat became necessary. Before leaving the cabin, they’d set fire to the bedsheets, towels, furniture, and their extra clothing. The blaze had quickly gathered strength. He admired her ingenuity. What a perfect distraction.
They’d made their way up two decks to where the ship’s lifeboats hung from davits. Compact and modular, each vessel was about five meters long, totally enclosed, painted a bright orange and white. Winches controlled their release, the controls at deck level, easily accessible.
Fire alarms sounded throughout the ship.
He stared out toward shore. A storm was brewing. Thick clouds had begun to leak rain and an easterly breeze, cold and cutting like a scythe, kicked up whitecaps. They were several kilometers west from Zadar, just past a series of archipelagoes that shielded the harbor from open sea. He approached one of the control panels where lights flashed, the switches surely activated by the alarm. They were labeled in Italian and English. People rushed past him on the deck, no one giving him any pause. He flicked one of the toggles labeled LOADING. The davit pivoted out, then its winches lowered the boat to deck level. Hana led the woman inside the enclosed cabin. He followed. He assumed there were controls inside for deployment—and there were, a set nearly identical to the outside control panel.
The ferry had slowed to a near stop.
He activated DROP and the lifeboat lowered quickly.
The moment the keel struck the turbulent water he flicked RELEASE, and they were free of the ferry.
Hana laid the woman on one of the shiny, high-backed benches. The interior was roomy, able to hold maybe twenty or more people. He watched as Hana pressed a button and the engines fired. She then threw open the throttle and spun the wheel.
And they were away.
*
Malone sprang to his feet and motioned for Howell to come, too. No way that a fire alarm had just happened to go off. The entire ferry shuddered as the screws changed tempo and reversed. Raised voices came from some of the crew who ordered everyone to stay calm. He made his way outside. One of the deckhands rushed by and he asked in Italian, “What’s happening?”
“Fire below.”
“Jelena,” Howell muttered.
He agreed. This most likely involved her. Then he noticed something aft. One of the lifeboats was dropping on its winch lines to the water. No command to abandon the ship had been given. He raced that way and arrived just as the boat freed itself and motored away. Its side hatch lay open and a face appeared, just for an instant, before an arm reached out and closed the portal.
Kim Yong Jin.
“I thought you told me there was nowhere for him to go,” Howell said.
“I was wrong.”
His eyes studied the remaining lifeboats. Why not? Worked once.
Howell seemed to read his mind. “Not without Jelena. I’m not leaving her.”
He was not in the mood. “You can either come the easy way or come the hard way.”
And he meant it. He’d beat this man unconscious and throw him on the boat if he had to. Howell seemed to sense there was no choice and nodded.
He pushed the younger man ahead of him and they rushed to a panel that controlled another of the lifeboats. Smoke had begun to bellow from the bow of the ship. People rushed back and forth, panicked at the threatening sight. A uniformed crew member appeared and yelled in Italian for him to get away from the controls. He ignored the command and lowered the boat to deck level, motioning for Howell to hop inside. The crew member pushed his way through the crowd and wrapped an arm around Malone’s neck, yanking him back.
He had no time for this, and jabbed an elbow into his attacker’s ribs.
Once. Twice.
The neck hold released.
He spun and slammed his right fist into the crewman’s jaw, sending the man to the deck. A few of the passengers bent down to help. He used that moment to hop into the lifeboat and slam the hatch shut, locking it from the inside. He found the interior controls and hit the DROP button.
They fell fast and settled in the pitching surf.
He released the winch lines and started the engines.
*
Isabella exited the taxi, while Luke Daniels paid the driver. They’d made the short trip along traffic-clogged streets in just under twenty minutes. Their travel bags, along with Malone’s, had been left in lockers at the airport. They’d worry about them later. Right now, that ferry was their primary concern.
Zadar seemed a study in contrast. The suburbs were more modern with industrial parks and commercial zones, the old town filled with churches, monuments, and Roman ruins. Its historical center, a matrix of red-tiled low-slung buildings surrounded by thick stone walls, occupied a rectangular-shaped peninsula about three miles long and a mile wide, which jutted into the bay. A causeway connected it to the mainland. On the landing approach to the airport she’d noticed that the harbor was sheltered from the open sea by a series of islands, arranged in rows parallel to the coastline. The crenulated outlines of deep coves and inlets marred their shores. They stood outside the old town walls, at the peninsula’s tip, where ships docked. That storm she’d feared had arrived, a cold, gray murk enveloping. The bare limbs of nearby trees shivered in a stiff breeze. Out in the bay, a mile or so away, she spotted the ferry and heard a siren.
“That’s an alarm,” Daniels said.
Smoke seeped from the ship’s forward section, quickly seized by the wind. Something was wrong. They spotted a lifeboat drop to the water and motor off.
“I’ll give you two-to-one odds who’s in that boat,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“My bet is that’s Kim’s escape. He had to get the hell off that thing before it docked.”
“How did he manage to steal a boat? That should not have been possible.”
“Are you that na?ve? Or just stupid? It’s everybody for themselves out here. You do what you gotta do.”
“I don’t work that way. Never have. Never will.”
He shook his head in seeming disgust.
Another lifeboat dropped to the water.
“And I know who stole that one,” Daniels said.