Page 81 of The Atlas Maneuver

“You’ve seen her?”

She nodded. “She seems a lovely young woman. Happy. Full of life.”

“Where is she?”

“That is not for me to say. Ms. Gledhill will speak to you about that.”

“I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me what you know.”

Gledhill had likewise predicted resistance.

“The only way,” she said, “and I mean the only way you will learn anything about your daughter is for you to do exactly as I say. There is no other alternative. Ms. Gledhill told me that if that is not sufficient, you are free to leave and this will be handled in a different manner.”

“I can find her on my own.”

“No. You cannot. That trail has been wiped clean. There are no records to find. And I know this because I eliminated them.”

Another lie that Gledhill had instructed her to use.

Silence reigned.

Perfect.

CASSIOPEIA READIED HERSELF.

The lights from beyond the hull openings indicated that the divers had split up, one on either side of the barge. They apparently intended on attacking on two fronts, trapping her inside and making their spearguns that much more lethal. She positionedherself to the side of one of the openings. The beam outside was progressively brightening.

A diver was coming in.

Her gaze alternated between the two openings. One to her immediate right, the other across the barge’s interior on the other side, where that light’s intensity was likewise increasing. She slipped her flashlight back into her vest pocket and readied the metal strip she held tight in her right hand. Careful with her air. The deeper you went the faster you breathed. Stay calm. She’d only have a moment to use the element of surprise.

Make it count.

The end of a speargun poked through the hull gash first, followed by the light gripped in a gloved hand. She sucked in a long slow breath, conscious of the fact that she could not hold it in her lungs for long at this depth.

She waited, keeping a watch on what was happening outside the other opening. The diver closer to her was now about a third of the way in, entering ever so slowly. She reached out, grabbed the speargun by the barrel, and yanked the diver inside. He reacted to the attack, but not fast enough. She zeroed in on the hoses leading from his mouth regulator back to his rebreather. She released her grip on the speargun and wrapped her left hand around one of the hoses. Then, using the sharp metal like a knife, she sliced the hose, releasing a burst of air bubbles.

No way the diver could make it back to the surface.

He was a dead man.

And knew it from the wild look in his eyes.

She released her grip on the piece of metal and wrenched the speargun away. While he died she took aim at the other opening. Surely that diver had seen the erratic light beam and had to be wondering.

Yet he kept coming.

The light growing brighter in the opening.

She waited.

Aimed.

Then fired.

CHAPTER 44

CATHERINE WATCHED AS THE GOSHAWK CONTINUED TO ENJOY ITSmeal of fresh deer. What remained would be fed to the other birds. A car emerged from the trees on the road and motored up to the rookery. One of her employees climbed out, then assembled a wheelchair from the trunk. He then helped her mother from the rear seat and into the chair, which he wheeled onto the covered porch. Maddy rarely left her room, and almost never the house. But she’d insisted on being here. Her mother sat beyond the morning sun, in the shade, a wool blanket draped across her lap for the cool air. The birds had once been in her mother’s care. Her father was never interested in them.

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