Page 80 of The Atlas Maneuver

The man seemed to grasp the urgency and found his cell phone, tapping the screen, locating the last number called, which he showed. Cotton locked the numbers into his brain. He then told the guy where he’d left the car he’d borrowed and retreated to the car with Ejima. “She’s gone. She made a call, then a woman came to get her. We need to know who she called.”

He told her the phone number.

Ejima found her own phone and made a call. He was fluent in several languages, another benefit of his eidetic memory, but Japanese was not one of them. He listened as she spoke, waited, spoke some more, then ended the call.

“That number is a Luxembourg exchange belonging to Catherine Gledhill.”

“Who is that?”

“The head of the Bank of St. George. Her former employer.”

Really?

What the hell had happened?

CHAPTER 43

CASSIOPEIA DECIDED THAT THE LIGHTS HEADED HER WAY WERE NOTcarried by pleasure divers. Especially considering the lack of other boats above when they’d arrived and the weather. Which meant these divers had been waiting and were coming for her. Which also meant that Rob Citrone was definitely a traitor.

She and Koger would deal with him.

But first things first.

The lights grew in intensity, then stopped, maybe twenty meters away, the sunken barge between her and them. The forms were more splotches than defined shapes in the water. But she caught the unmistakable outline of spearguns.

Aimed her way.

She doused her light and kicked hard, moving left, then upward in the darkness. She heard the swoosh as the spear propelled through the water and kept going past her previous position. The divers’ lights were aimed in that same direction. It was too far and would take too long to make it to the surface. They could locate and take her out before she found air. And even more pressing was the time. She was dangerously close to her twenty-minute limit.

So she opted for the barge and the openings in its hull.

Perhaps she could hide there.

She kicked and swam straight for a yawning gash. Her bubbles would give her away until she was inside, then the hulk itself would capture them. She was not concerned about other residents of the enclosed space. Thankfully the lake contained no sharks or other predators.

Only men with spearguns.

She kept her light off and entered the barge. She could make out a few shapes and wondered if any of those were piles of gold bars, but she dared not risk a look. The barge, about ten meters long, lay at an angle with its port stern embedded into the bottom. Other gashes marred the hull and offered more ways inside. Beyond, back out in open water, she saw the jerky beams of the divers’ lights. They’d most likely determined that she’d not surfaced, which left only one place she could be. She was unarmed and outnumbered, thirty-plus meters underwater, with her bottom time about to run out.

Not the best situation in the world.

But not hopeless either.

She decided to risk a look and switched on the flashlight, placing her left hand over the lens and diffusing much of the beam. A quick survey showed that the inside was littered with barrels, most open and empty. Nothing else of any interest or value caught her eye. Except some strips of metal, mostly intact, with sharp edges and little corrosion.

Which might work.

She grabbed one and extinguished her light.

KYRA WAS FOLLOWING THE ORDERS GIVEN BYCATHERINEGLEDHILL. Her usefulness in finding Kelly Austin had waned, but she still served a purpose by being Gledhill’s eyes and ears on the ground. And at the moment, her employer needed that service.

Her instructions were to deliver Austin to the Basel airport where the bank’s private jet would be waiting. No talking. Noquestioning. No discussion. Just deliver her, then both women were to climb aboard. The only exception to that was if Austin inquired about one particular subject.

“Do you know anything about my daughter?” Austin asked.

“I might.”

For all her attempts at aloofness, she could see that Austin was bothered by the surprising turn of events. So, per Gledhill’s instructions, she turned the knife. “She looks like you.”

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