Steve Martini - The list

The List by Steve Martini

ALSO BY STEVE MARTINI

THE JUDGE

UNDUE INFLUENCE

PRIME WITNESS

COMPELLING EVIDENCE

THE SIMEON CHANtER

G. P. PUTNAMS SONS Publishers since 1838

200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

Copyright 01997 by Steven Paul Martini, Inc. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN 0-399-14261-4

Printed in the United States of America

PROLOGUE.

He held it to his right eye and searched for the telltale signs of heat, a wavy thermal image of someone hiding in the shadows on deck.

The old starlight scope was a relic from the 60s. He wished he had his night-vision goggles, but he didnt.

Vapors of hot steam coming from a pipe at the side of the ship threw up a ghostly green haze, its own kind of fog. He lowered the scope from his eye to reorient himself for a moment. Then he picked up the search, starting where he left off under the hundred-and-eighty-ton derrick that thrust skywardfrom the foredeck.

Do you see her? His companion hovered over his shoulder.

Not yet. He kept looking.

Maybe she made it inside already? No. She would have had to cross the open deck, and he would have seen her. Shes there somewhere. He kept looking, scanning along the deck. Occasionally he hit a bright light on the ship and the image through the scope flared out. He would have to squint, pick it up, and start scanning again.

You think hes on board ? Why else would she come here? The man with the scope didnt want to talk. It made the instrument move in his hands, turning his search into a maze of jittery phosphorous lines.

Lets just get her and go.

Its not that easy.

You think hes armed? I dont know. He doubted if the man would be armed He couldnt have been expecting them. Still, if he was armed, they would deal with it.

Whats that? What? There. He stopped scanning and focused in on a sliver of luminous green, like a fingernail moon, sticking out from the edge of a canvas tarpaulin just aft of the derrick.

was strong, but it was not boundless. She was tired, and tired people make mistakes. She had made one at the airport, and they had seen her.

Abby was running for her life.

She was pressed against the cold steel plates on the main deck, soaked through from the moisture of the fog and her own perspiration, hiding in the shadows created by the ships heavy equipment. Her eyes searched the dock for movement.

Out there, somewhere among the pallets and giant steel containers, she knew they were waiting, searching for movement, listening for sounds.

It was no delusion, she had seen them. Worse, they had seen her.

She moved just a few feet, slowly, crouching, hands in front of her, feeling along the steel deck until she was behind a stack of webbed life rafts covered by a canvas tarp. To move beyond this point would put her out on the open deck in clear view where they couldnt miss her.

Sooner or later she knew she would have to chance it. She had to reach mid-ship and the superstructure that led inside.

Morgan was here on this ship. She had to find him. She had to warn him.

She knew that they would kill him, just as theyd tried to kill her.

Only now without intending it, she had led them to him.

Her hope lay in the fact that Morgan knew ships. He would know his way around this one, perhaps a quick way off some avenue of escape they wouldnt be able to observe. Abby was sure of it. Together they would lose the men on the dock. As soon as they delivered the documents, it would be over. The two men would have nothing to gain by killing them.

Once the information in the documents was known, the contracts and the copyright, it would all be over. The documents were what they wanted, their entire purpose in killing Morgan. Without realizing it, Abby had made him a target.

GOT HER . zeroed in with the scope.

You sure? Yeah. He pointed to the gangway stairs that led from the dock up onto the forward deck. He looked up at the bridge to see if there was anyone on the wing. He checked it with the scope quickly.

It was clear.

Lets move. They scampered down the ladder. He put the scope in his pocket and followed the other man, behind a line of steel containers.

He felt in the back of his pants, the checkered handle of a nine-millimeter Beretta.

There was a line of cargo carefully stacked, two containers high beneath the huge dock crane, waiting for the stevedores in the morning to be loaded on another ship. The cargo was conveniently between themselves and the Cuesta Verde. If they stayed behind it, Abby would never see them. They would be on her before she could make a sound Surprise was critical.

Silently they moved to the corner of the last container. From there it was a hundred-foot dash to the base of the stairs, all of it in the open. For the first fifty he estimated she could see them from the deck, that is if she was looking in the right direction. After that they would be too close to the side of the ship to be seen. From there it would be easy, up the stairs and slip in behind her.

You first, the other man looked at him and whispered This was his job and he knew it, so he didnt argue. Instead, he slipped off his shoes.

Even rubber soles made noise on asphalt. He looped the laces together in a single knot and hung them over his shoulder.

His companion did the same. Then without hesitating, he darted outfrom behind the containers, his heartpounding. If she saw him or heard him, she would take off There were a millionplaces to hide on a ship.

He made it soundlessly to the stairs, then stopped and listened.

He heard nothing except the monotonous internal rumblings of the ship at rest, a motor here, and a generator there, distant rhythmic sounds unbroken by the patter of feet on the deck overhead. He looked back, then signaled for his companion to follow.

Twelve seconds later they were huddled together at the base of the stairs. Now they didnt talk. He wentfirst, two steps at a time up the metal staircase, gripping the railing as he went, carefully so as not to rattle the metal scaffolding supporting the stairs.

He was just ten stepsfrom the top, the gate in the ships gunnel, when he heard the clatter behind him, turned and looked. It hit two more times on the metal stairs before itfell with a thud to the dock below.

The knot on his companions shoes had come loose. The man was juggling the other shoe and finally managed to catch it.

SHE HAD BEEN lost somewhere in the past when the noise brought her back to reality. She whirled and looked at the stairs behind her.

It could have been nothing, the creaking of the ship against the dock, but Abby didnt wait to investigate. In her heightened state she bolted, instincts taking hold, running headlong toward the ships looming superstructure, her shoes echoing on the iron deck. She raced into the open companionway along the side of the ship and tried the first door she came to. It was locked. She tried pulling on the metal latch handles. She couldnt move them, frozen solid.

Now she heard footsteps behind her, muted heavy heelfalls on the iron deck, and they were coming closer.

She ran on, down the companionway. The next door was open, a dim corridor illuminated only by a single overhead bulb, underpowered.

She stepped over the threshold and reached behind her to pull the door closed. It didnt move.

The footfalls came closer. Abby stepped outside and looked behind the door, a large brass hook fitted through a welded eye that held the door open against the steel wall. She unhooked it, and as she did, she turned and saw them, two silhouettes against the glare of lightsfrom the dock coming toward her, runningfull speed into the companionway.