Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
“I can handle getting the retainer to Walt,” Connie offers and I nod at her. “What are we transporting?”
“A Cycladic figurine. It’s only about fourteen inches tall, so easy to hide.”
There are half a dozen places on the boat to tuck it into in case we were to get boarded by any type of water patrol.
“What’s a Cycladic figurine?” Connie asks with interest. Marcus doesn’t care at all about the history or the art, only the paycheck. But Connie’s always curious.
“It’s an abstract figurine from the Aegean Sea’s Cycladic Islands. Made from marble, they’re usually abstracts of the female form. About five thousand years old.”
“What’s that puppy running?” she asks, eyes twinkling at the prospect because Connie cares about the money too.
“Three point two.”
“Nice,” she drawls, exchanging a toothy grin with Marcus. My cut on this particular transport is ten percent or $320,000 for a day’s work. I’ll take sixty percent and give forty to Marcus to split with Connie, and the kicker is that this is a smaller job. We’ve smuggled in works valued at over $20 million before.
Marcus leans back and stretches his arms, tossing his head left, then right to crack his neck. “So the route we’ll take is from Steveston down through Active Pass, around the south end of Pender into US waters somewhere between Stuart Island and Roche Harbor. From there, south through Haro Strait.”
I let my eyes roam over the maps, noting the patrol routes and using my years of experience to analyze the risks. “Yeah… that’s the best route.”
It’s one of the same routes we’ve run a dozen times in the last nine years. The same route that, four nights ago, put me in proximity to Voronin at the exact wrong moment.
Or rather, it was the exact right moment because I saved Josie’s life.
Neither Marcus nor Connie have brought up that night. We’ve talked about the piece, the buyer, the cut, the timeline and the crossing window, and we’ve all very carefully not talked about the woman I pulled out of the water.
Footsteps on the deck above have all of us freezing and Connie quickly pulls the maps from the table, spins toward the head, and slips inside to close the door. She’ll be hiding them in the small cabinet on the wall.
Marcus and I look at each other for half a second and his hand goes to the small of his back where his piece is tucked into his pants. I shake my head once and he casually picks up his tumbler for another sip.
The cabin door opens without a knock and Mikhail Sokolov steps through. Whoever is with him stays above.
Mikhail’s a dark Russian with nearly pitch-black hair and a pockmarked face that makes him look almost gruesome. He’s wearing a dark wool coat over a dark sweater, dark slacks, dark shoes. Everything about him is dark, including his eyes, the iris and pupils nearly indistinguishable.
He makes a very pointed move, pushing one edge of his coat back to tuck a hand in his front pocket, exposing a leather pistol harness on his chest. The butt of a Ruger peeks out.
Connie steps from the bathroom, wiping her hands on a paper towel as if she had just finished washing, and tosses it in the trash. “Oh, look… visitors.”
Mikhail’s gaze lands on Connie, slides to Marcus, lands on me. “Finn.”
“Mikhail.”
“You have a minute?”
“For you, always.”
I don’t stand up and he doesn’t sit down.
“Looking for some information,” he says, his Russian accent guttural and thick.
I lean back against the bench, elbow on the table. “What kind of information?”
“Tuesday night. North end. Somebody fired on one of our pickups.”
“Why would they do that?” I inquire.
Mikhail’s black eyes narrow on me. “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be here.” His eyes cut over to Connie who stands with her arms crossed over her chest. “The shots came from the water. A small craft with no lights.”
“Sorry,” I say, lifting a shoulder. “We haven’t made a run in several weeks. But I’ll keep my ears open.”
“You do that.” Those three words are a very pointed threat. “And if you hear anything…”
“You’ll be the first to know,” I promise, or rather, lie.
Lie through my teeth.
“In fact, you hear of anybody on the water that night, you tell me.”
“Understood,” I say with a nod.
He looks to Marcus, who understands the demand. “Got it, chief.”
Then Mikhail looks at Connie. “I’ll sing like a bird,” she promises.
We’ve all agreed too quickly, and he doesn’t trust us a bit. His eyes are like black pools of ice. “If you know something, and you don’t share it with us”—a small pause—“it’s the same as if you’d fired the shots yourself.”
“I know how this works, Mikhail,” I say, my tone glacial.
“I sure hope so,” he says, eyes cutting to Marcus and Connie before returning to me. “For all your sakes.”