The Book of Bones (Harvey Bennett Thrillers 7) Read online

  “I guess. I don’t know.”

  “And then the pilot. His face. Like he knew. About all of it. Did it on purpose.”

  “You think he killed himself on purpose? A suicide mission.”

  “Ben, we were diverted here. We switched planes in Barcelona. Why? Why not just refuel and keep going, same plane and everything? Nothing about that makes sense, unless the pilot wanted us on that plane.”

  In a flash, it all clicked for Ben. She was right. The plane change, the same pilot, the fact that he’d waited until they’d almost reached Corsica, until there was no one else around — no planes, boats, choppers. He’d done it on purpose, but that wasn’t the worst part.

  He looked at Julie, looked directly into her eyes. “It means he wasn’t operating alone. This wasn’t bad luck. It means he was working for someone.”

  She nodded. “Someone who wants us dead.”

  37

  Julie

  They swam to shore. The swim was cold, but easy — they were only a few feet away from a long, wide, shallow sandbar that carried them to shore. They arrived on an empty beach within a gentle cove, the idyllic village sprawling out on the hill above them. They’d decided the island was, in fact, Corsica, and Julie wondered if anyone in any of the tiny houses and buildings on this stretch of coast had seen the plane hit the water.

  Julie knew the crash wouldn’t have been from this distance, nor was there any smoke or fire or debris. By the time they’d hit the sandbar, the wing they’d left behind had also sunk out of sight.

  When she stood on the beach and looked out to the water, there was absolutely no trace of the plane. No one waited on the beach for them, and no one drove down to meet them when they reached the road.

  “Is Corsica part of Italy?” Ben asked. “Sounds Italian to me.”

  She shrugged. “France, I think? But I’m not sure. I think Napoleon was either born here, or he died here. Either way, it’s a detour, and I don’t want to make this trip any longer than it needs to be.”

  “Agreed,” Ben said. “Let’s get up and over that hill — looks like that’s close to the center of the island.”

  Ben was wrong.

  Even before they’d reached the top of the small hill, Julie could see a mountainous region, spanning the entire width of her vision, towering up in front of her. She tried to recall on a map how large this island country was, but couldn’t. They needed a way off this island, and more specifically, a way to Rome.

  “Uber?” Ben asked, seeing a car drive by that had the ubiquitous logo emblazoned in the vehicle’s front windshield.

  “We don’t have phones. Don’t you have to use an app for that?”

  “Ah,” Ben said. “Well, guess I’m glad I’m going old school.” Julie saw him reach into his back pocket and pull out a sopping-wet wallet. He let it drip off for a few seconds, then opened it. “Credit cards are waterproof, right?”

  “Any cash?”

  Ben shook his head. “Nope, nothing.”

  Julie snatched the card, then started walking. “I’d guess there’s a town one way or another. Let’s hope it’s this way.”

  Ben followed behind her, and within fifteen minutes they came to a small corner store and service station with a sign in French, then smaller text in Italian.

  “Guess we were both right,” Julie said. “Now let’s hope they take MasterCard.”

  The service station did, in fact, accept credit cards, and they had absolutely no issues purchasing a cheap, internationally unlocked flip phone and some snacks. Ben also purchased a cheap t-shirt that said ‘I visited Corsica and only bought this shirt,’ but Julie’s clothes had mostly dried already and she opted to keep them on.

  The total purchase seemed reasonable — the cashier rung it up in Euros — though it was impossible to know for sure without knowing the current exchange rate, but Julie didn’t care. The credit card was their lifeline, their access to the outside world. It would allow them, once they found a hotel or Internet cafe with access to the outside world, to eventually get a call out to Mrs. E and Archie.

  It took another fifteen minutes to find such a hotel, and since they were mostly dry and seemed to look like every other tourist they’d seen, the hotel staff had no problem pointing them toward a pay-per-minute internet-enabled computer.

  There, Julie fired off an email to Mrs. E and the rest of the team, using a secured webmail server they’d set up just for that reason. They’d discovered that they’d gone ashore near a town called Campomoro, so they scheduled a drive to the opposite side of Corsica, to a city called Porto Vecchio. Finally, Julie found a local ferry company that had scheduled boat tours available every hour, and one stop on the tour was a city on the Italian coast called Civitavecchia, which was only an hour drive from the Vatican. The ferry ride totaled just over 133 miles, and the crossing would take about five and a half hours.

  In all — if all went to plan — they’d be in Rome in under eight hours.

  A wasted eight hours, Julie thought. But it’s better than nothing.

  They booked the ferry and taxi, and within minutes an Italian man wearing a French beret and smoking the biggest cigar Julie had ever seen pulled up in a beat-up Toyota pickup truck. He puffed out a huge lungful of smoke, rolled his window down, then honked the horn.

  Julie and Ben watched this all from inside the hotel lobby. None of the hotel front desk staff seemed to mind, and they were heading out the front door by the time the man honked a second time.

  The ride was, surprisingly, informative and pleasant. The man’s name was Ricard, born in Lyon, moved to Corsica many years ago, and supported his family of three on taxi fares. He pointed out a few tourist locations on their tour around the southern side of the island.

  Julie would have preferred that the trip was silent, with some noise-canceling headphones, in the cabin of a plane, but Ricard’s wasn’t the worst she’d heard. Ben, for his part, somehow found it soothing enough to nap while crunched into the extended cab’s backseat.

  She was exhausted but alive. By the time they reached the city of Porto-Vecchio, Julie wished they could get away with simply booking a hotel for the evening, ordering a glass of wine, and watching the sunset over the mountains of Corsica.

  But Reggie and Sarah were still out there somewhere. Garza was still alive. The Book of Bones was about to be in the wrong hands, unless they could get to it first.

  They needed to press on.

  Julie took a breath after they paid their fare, then exited the vehicle and began walking toward the ferry port. The taxi truck squealed as it peeled away from the building and launched itself full-speed back onto the highway. Ahead of her and close to the waterline, there were cars and people waiting to enter the massive double-decker ferry, and she could see steam rising from the surface of the water in front of the ferry.

  Ben grabbed her arm.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Over there,” he whispered, pulling her into an alleyway. He pointed with a nod of his head at a car that had parked on the opposite side of the lot. Three men, all wearing sunglasses and black jeans, stood beside the car. Their shirts were all different, likely an attempt at blending in with the rest of the tourists and Corsican population, but they were all tucked in tightly, and Julie — even from across the lot — could see muscles bulging beneath their sleeves. They were tanned, with well-kept hair, and they seemed to be from Europe or America.

  Worst of all, she saw the flash of a rifle as it passed from the hands of a fourth man, still in the vehicle, to one of the men nearest her.

  “You think they’re here for us?” Julie asked.

  “You want to stick around and find out?” Ben asked in return.

  She grunted, then pointed next to the ferry. “There. A smaller boat. Something faster.”

  “I like your style, Jules,” Ben said. They both began walking, heads down, alongside the edge of the parking lot near the buildings that descended toward the water. The ferry had begun
allowing people onboard, and the people milling about to their left began forming a line. “They’re going to be watching the line,” Ben said. “Assuming that we’re going to Italy by way of the ferry.”

  “Well, that’s a good assumption,” Julie said. “Since that’s exactly what we were planning to do.”

  “You think they followed us?”

  “No,” she said. “Otherwise they’d have already spotted us. I think it was your credit card. They can see our temporary authorizations, and they knew where to look for them — they’re probably the same people that the pilot was involved with. They brought the plane down, or convinced the pilot to do it.”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Then we’re definitely taking that boat. See the owner anywhere?”

  She shook her head and tried to keep up as Ben’s longer legs began stretching as he sped up. He reached the watercraft first, turned to help her into it, and once in she looked around.

  It relieved her to see a full canister of gasoline near the outboard motor, but she had no idea how much gas was in the tank. It would have to be enough.

  Ben reached down to pull the ripcord on the motor, and two things happened in that moment. First, the man who apparently owned the boat came flying around the corner of one of the buildings, screaming at them in Italian.

  Second, the four men who’d exited the vehicle were running on the opposite side of the parking lot, near the line of vehicles waiting their turn to enter the belly of the ferry. Julie saw them easily, their black clothing and sunglasses in stark contrast to the rest of the shiny, lighter vehicles around them. They weren’t running full-out, but she knew they’d be well within shooting distance before they launched from the dock.

  “Ben,” she said, her voice frantic. “Time to go.”

  “Got it,” he said. Finally, the cord pulled the engine over fully and the motor began sputtering, then came to life. “Let’s go!”

  Before she could hold on to anything, the boat shot out from its mooring and into the open harbor.

  “Ben,” she said. “I don’t know if this boat will make it!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The engine, the gas tank — I have no idea if it’s big enough to push us all the way there.”

  Ben looked at her, and she tried to think. There had to be a solution. There had to be a way out. She let her eyes wander around the area. The ferry loomed over them to the left, but that wasn’t what Julie was focusing on.

  Directly behind the small boat, lined up on the shore and close enough that she thought she could see her own reflection in their sunglasses, the four men lifted brutal looking assault rifles and pointed them toward their boat.

  And then they opened fire.

  38

  Ben

  Apparently their escape attempt had not gone unnoticed. Bullets pinged off the metal stern of the tiny boat, some hitting the water with a hiss and a small splash. Julie and Ben ducked into the center of the boat, but there was nothing there to block them from the gunfire. Nothing, in fact, at all.

  Ben felt a sudden pang of regret — they were being shot at by a group of trained killers wielding high-powered rifles in a minuscule boat with nothing to protect them, but possible worse than that was the fact that there was nothing but a five-gallon jug of gasoline inside the boat.

  No medical equipment, no communication gear, not even a fishing pole or life jacket.

  They needed to get away from these men, and to Rome, safely — or they wouldn’t get there at all.

  Ben navigated the smaller, sleeker boat around the massive ferry and got out in front of it, still crouching in front of the engine. He poked his head up a bit and saw that the four men were now three. One man had disappeared, but instead of reducing his stress, Ben had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  Where is he?

  “Ben!” Julie shouted. “There!” she pointed in the direction opposite the ferry, off the starboard side of their boat, and Ben followed her gaze.

  No.

  The man — Ben recognized his sunglasses and t-shirt from featuring a well-known cartoon character — was piloting a boat toward the edge of the dock where his team was waiting.

  And the boat was much larger than Ben’s. It looked like a small yacht, and Ben could see the twin engines’ wake jetting out from the rear of the boat as it slowed near the dock. It didn’t stop, however, and the three men were onboard and speeding up toward Ben and Julie within seconds.

  Their guns were still drawn, and they had Ben and Julie’s boat in their sights.

  “Crap,” he said.

  “Can we go any faster?”

  “Not unless there’s another engine hiding under one of the seats.”

  The ‘seats’ were nothing but planks of wood that had been screwed down across the width of the boat. Three of them, and none had anything underneath.

  “Nothing here,” Julie said. “Not even a rope. What’s the plan?”

  “Hope that we can get to Rome before them?”

  Julie’s eyes met Ben’s, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. We’re not going to outrun them. We’re not going to get to Rome before they reach us.

  Ben knew they needed another plan. Think, Ben. He’d once used a boat’s flare gun as a weapon, but that had been on land, and they didn’t have a flare gun here. He considered using one of the seats in the boat as a weapon — the slats of wood would be heavy enough to do some damage — but it would be a death sentence to wait for all four gunmen to come into close enough range to do anything useful.

  Julie was right in front of him now. “They’re not going to stop.”

  Ben frowned.

  “They’re not going to leave us alone until we — or they — are dead.”

  “Yeah, I picked up on that,” Ben said. “But we’re low on resources here. Who are they, anyway? I can’t imagine Garza would send out mercenaries to kill us if he wanted us to find the Book of Bones.”

  “He tried to kill us in Alaska.”

  “Fair point. But maybe that was just a warning, so we knew he was serious.”

  Julie made a face. “Still, I think you’re right. This doesn’t seem like Garza’s men. For one, his guys are always wearing black. These guys are wearing street clothes, and those terrible sunglasses.”

  “So hired guns?”

  “Maybe. But hired by who?”

  Ben didn’t answer, but he moved the boat out into the more open waters of the harbor’s edge.

  “I have an idea.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her explanation. “Turn to the left. Head back toward the ferry.”

  Ben gently swung the boat around, pointing it north and following the shoreline of Corsica. The ferry was about three hundred yards away, but it had begun moving in their direction. The other boat saw their maneuver and turned, cutting off their angle.

  “They’re gaining on us,” he said. His voice was no louder than a whisper, but Julie heard him.

  “I know,” she said. Her eyes were focused on the ferry.

  “We can’t just hide behind the ferry, Jules.”

  She smiled, then looked down at Ben. Then she explained their plan.

  “It won’t work,” Ben said. “It’s too risky.”

  “It’s the only plan we have. Besides, you’ve always wanted to try a James Bond-style boat chase.”

  “I didn’t think it would be like this. Bond always has some sweet technology or secret weapon.”

  She winked at him. “You’ve got me.”

  He sniffed and then looked back at their pursuers. The boat was gaining on them, but their own craft was moving faster than Ben thought. They didn’t have a lot of time, but he kept their vessel pointed toward the rear-end of the ferry.

  Julie sat down in front of him, and he looked directly into her eyes. “You know why I’ve been waiting to get married? Why I’ve been so reluctant?”

  Julie’s eyes widened. “We — we have to talk about this now?”

  He
shrugged. “We’ve got just enough time.”

  “We don’t, Ben. Getting cold feet is normal, but it’s going to take over fifteen seconds to get down to —”

  “It won’t,” Ben said. “It’ll take ten.”

  She looked at him, but didn’t speak.

  “I love you, Jules. More than anything. More than I ever thought I could love someone. But it’s true, and I always have.”

  “Ben, I love you, too. But we don’t —”

  “Hold on,” he said. “At least let me finish.”

  She nodded. She wiped her eye, but Ben couldn’t tell if she was tearing up from the conversation or the wind.

  “When I met you, I hated people. I told myself that because I wanted to think it was true, and I even started to believe it. I hated the idea that someone could become so involved with someone else that when they lost them their heart would be ripped out.

  “I’ve been through that, Jules, and I wanted to protect myself from it.”

  She nodded again.

  “But I learned — you taught me — that we’re humans for a reason. Or that humans were made to be together. We were, and it saved our lives. I decided I’d stick it out, see what it looked like to be together for a while. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? To eventually realize I was right all along and that being alone was really what I was made to be.

  “But then the CSO happened, and there wasn’t much time to figure that stuff out. I put in in the back of my mind, and just kept pushing forward. I didn’t think it mattered, but I realized that I was constantly still thinking about it. Still considering it.”

  “Ben… are you suggesting that you don’t want to get married?”

  “What? No — I didn’t mean that. I’m trying to say that it’s because of the CSO — because we’re together all the time… work, home, personal life, professional life — it’s because of all that, that’s why I want to marry you.”