Chapter Eighteen #2
Before she could react, the officer swung his right arm back and grabbed her hair with his hand.
He then bent forward, and Mia felt herself tumble over his back.
She hit the ground on her shoulder but rolled with it, letting the momentum carry her into a crouch.
By the time she was on her feet, the man had dropped to his knees, blood gushing from his throat, his eyes distant and confused.
Mia approached him, and his mouth opened in a silent gasp.
Mia yanked the knife free and stabbed him in the heart.
Seventeen.
She wiped the blade on the dead officer’s shirt, then returned the knife to its sheath.
Now comes the hard part, she thought as she grabbed the man by the wrists and dragged his deadweight behind a parked transport truck.
The man was heavy, and her hiking shoes scraped against the gravel as she pulled him with gritted teeth.
By the time she had him tucked out of sight between the vehicle and the building, her back and shoulders were burning.
She took a moment to collect her thoughts, then glanced at her watch. She was behind schedule. It was time to move.
She walked alongside the building, making her way toward its easternmost corner.
The far side of the building opened into a service yard.
Fifty feet to her right, mechanics worked beneath a set of harsh lights.
A garage door was wide open, and Mia could hear tools clanging from inside.
The start of the quay where the Rodman-55 was docked was twenty feet in front of her.
The boat was another twenty feet farther away.
Twenty feet of open ground followed by twenty feet of partial concealment. I can do this.
Now the question was, should she run and risk attracting attention, or should she move slowly, which meant she’d stay in the open for a few seconds more?
She looked in the direction of the workers.
None of them were looking her way. The high-speed patrol boat was waiting for her, no lights on board and no crew. But that would change soon.
Mia darted from cover and sprinted. She only stopped running once she reached the stern of the Rodman-55.
The boat’s hull was sleek, painted white and blue with a yellow-and-red stripe.
She climbed aboard, ducked into the shadows, and swung her backpack forward.
She grabbed her pistol, attached the suppressor, and inserted a full magazine.
She racked the slide, chambering a round.
Then she waited, listening for anyone approaching.
Satisfied no one was about to board the vessel, she approached the cabin.
She had come prepared with a lockpick gun in her backpack, but the cabin door wasn’t locked.
She slid the heavy door open and entered the cabin.
She was immediately hit by a sharp smell, a combination of diesel fumes, marine-grade oil, and the musty odor of something that had been stowed wet before being fully dried.
The patrol boat’s interior was bare bones but functional. There were five forward-facing shock-mitigating seats, a chart table, and a rack of communication equipment. There were also two flat screens next to the helm station. Mia assumed they were for the radar and the FLIR.
She moved forward, opened another door, and descended two steps into the sleeping quarters.
There were two low berths with thin mattresses, each with a blanket and a rolled-up sleeping bag at its head.
There was a galley on the port side with a microwave, a mini fridge, and a small sink.
Opposite the galley was the lone marine head of the boat.
It was cramped, with a metal toilet, a sink, and a handheld showerhead mounted on the wall above the toilet.
There was no luxury here, just a space built to allow the boat’s crew to crash between shifts.
There weren’t many hiding places, but she had done her homework.
She lifted the starboard berth. Underneath it was a storage compartment where rolled-up tarps and canvas bags were stuffed, their fabric still damp.
She pushed them aside, cramming them into a corner.
The compartment was hollow, made even more cramped due to the presence of the tarps and bags, but she wasn’t a big woman.
She’d fit. She climbed into the storage cavity and pulled the lid down over herself.
Darkness swallowed her and the air quickly turned heavy and sour, thick with the trapped smell of the wet canvas.
There was no light, no air movement, and the only sounds were the steady thumps of her own heartbeat and the faint creak of the hull settling in the water.
The space was too small to breathe properly, but she’d suffered through worse.
Mia adjusted the position of her suppressed pistol across her chest and lay still, knees drawn up, one shoulder pressed against the fiberglass hull at the bottom of the compartment. The space was barely long enough for her to stretch out if she turned sideways, but it was okay.
She didn’t need to be comfortable.
The life she’d been given after the wreck; that had been comfortable.
More than comfortable, she corrected herself.
Thanks to the Fisherman, she’d been granted a future, a new identity, and more importantly, a purpose. He had enrolled her in a private school in Florida, where she had learned English. Music lessons had followed.
“You have a gift,” he had told her after listening to her first piano recital.
And it was true. She’d gone on to become a world-class pianist before she’d turned twenty-five. There were articles about her, and even radio and TV interviews one could find online if one knew where to look, but she wasn’t famous by any stretch of the imagination.
And this was on purpose. With her talent, the spotlight could be hers anytime she wanted it. But she didn’t want it. She liked the piano, loved it, even, but the stage never stirred her the way an operation did. A Steinway couldn’t make her pulse quicken like a gun could.
She knew she wasn’t the only one working for the Fisherman. He had hinted once, and only once, at the breadth of his reach.
“There are more like you, Mia. Some are working in labs, some on trading floors, some sitting on the bench in federal courts. Some are teachers, chefs, professional athletes. Some are spies. We are everywhere, Mia. Everywhere. And together, we will make the world a better place.”
There had been only one operation in which Mia had worked with another operator. It had been in Aruba, when she’d killed the two shitbags who’d been stealing from their countrymen. She wondered if their bodies were ever found or if the sharks had gotten to them first.
Mia kept a private tally of her kills. She didn’t do it because she carried guilt, as guilt was for the weak and the unfocused, but because her mentor had drilled it into her from the start.
Never deceive yourself with pretty ideas, Mia, he’d once told her. You must quantify your impact, or it doesn’t exist. Count them. Own them. That’s how you know you’re shaping the world, not just surviving it.
Each number in her ledger was proof.
Proof that she was still fulfilling the purpose he’d given her.
Proof that she was still worthy of having been saved while so many others had drowned.
A gentle shift in the boat’s hull pulled her back to the present. Then she heard heavy steps thudding onto the deck above her. Mia’s finger settled gently beside the trigger.
The wait was almost over.