Chapter 25

Dover, England

“He’s a big bastard. That’s for certain,” Morrison muttered, and Steven flicked him a look.

They were sitting in the gravel lot beside the Dover docks, watching the man they had come to know as Rusty Parker as he went about tidying his boat. Rusty couldn’t see them through the SUV’s deeply tinted windows, but they had no trouble observing him as he stowed gear and washed the hull and deck of his catamaran with a hose.

“He might put up a jolly good fight, were you to have to knock his head about,” Morrison added.

“And why would I have to do that?” Steven didn’t like the gleam in the old man’s eyes. In point of fact, he didn’t like the old man. Unfortunately, he was stuck with him. For better or worse. And the longer this day dragged on, the more he feared it would be for the worse.

“To get information from him, naturally.” Morrison shrugged.

Not that Steven was opposed to bloodshed. In his previous line of work and his most recent endeavors, bloodshed was just a part of life. A part of the life. But he didn’t like it, and he tried his best to avoid it when possible.

“Why don’t we wait to hear back from Benton before we break out the Chinese water torture, hmm?” And right on cue, his borrowed mobile came to life inside his trouser pocket. After glancing at the number, he thumbed on the device and held it to his ear. “Tell me something good.”

“It took a lot of digging,” came Benton’s reply, “but when I looked into Rusty Parker, I found something you’ll probably think interesting.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Parker came into some scratch a few years back. Not an inheritance or anything, but a deposit of a quarter of a million dollars into his personal checking account.”

“Who gave him the money?”

“That’s the interesting part. It appeared to come from the National Marine Fisheries Service, but I couldn’t find out what the payment was for. Since the CIA likes to hide payouts to its players inside the budgets of other government entities, I followed a hunch and hacked into their database.”

All the hairs on Steven’s neck twanged upright. “You hacked into the bloody CIA? Have you lost your marbles?”

“Nothing fancy. Nothing deep enough to set off any alarm bells. But I tell you, even a rudimentary surface scan was difficult enough. Our government could learn a thing or two from the Yanks when it comes to cybersecurity.”

“Benton—”

“But that’s neither here nor there.” Benton pressed on quickly, reacting to the impatience Steven couldn’t keep from his tone. “I found a reference to Rusty Parker. His name is attached to a CIA file I didn’t dare attempt to download. But it was a big file. That much I could determine. Given the file size and the sudden influx of cash into Rusty’s account, I would say the gobshite did some work as a CIA asset.”

“Bollocks!” Steven snarled, his mind gathering all the pieces of the puzzle and trying to fit them together. “So the facts of the case are as follows: Number one, Rusty Parker likely worked for the CIA in some capacity. Number two, Chelsea Duvall planted a virus too sophisticated for you to overcome without first reverse engineering it, a virus the likes of which the U.S. intelligence agency has been known to construct. Number three, Miss Duvall was snatched out of my hands by what I’m sure were trained agents. And number four, the Ducatis Miss Duvall and her trained agent mates rented are parked right beside the docks where Rusty anchors his boat.”

Their friend in Scotland Yard had agreed to hold off on sharing the information about the location of the Ducatis with any law enforcement agencies until Steven gave him the go-ahead. It was no secret that Spider was using his pull with the authorities to apprehend Chelsea Duvall. But it was also no secret that Spider would far prefer that Steven take care of the situation himself if possible. “Is it just me, or does that all sound a bit too coincidental?”

“Right-oh,” Benton concurred.

“Did you happen to find Parker’s current address in all your digging?” It was obvious that Steven’s quarry wasn’t on Parker’s boat. But his intuition told him the same might not be true about Parker’s house. “Does he live in Dover?”

“Nope. Over in Folkestone.” Benton rattled off an address.

Folkestone, huh? The border agent had said Rusty led them on a merry chase from Dover to Folkestone and back again. Had Chelsea and the others been on Rusty’s catamaran, only somehow to slip under the Border Agency’s radar and make it back ashore before Rusty’s boat could be boarded and searched?

Steven supposed it was possible. Then, the memory of the way those blokes had moved when they barged into the penthouse had him moving that possible straight into the probable category.

“Thank you, Benton.” He thumbed off the phone and leaned between the front seats, quickly giving Ramón the address to Rusty’s house. Adrenaline burned through his blood. He was on to something; he could feel it. “And step on it,” he told the driver. “I want to have a look around before he”—he shot a finger gun toward Rusty—“gets there.”

Ramón glanced at Morrison in the rearview mirror, asking permission to follow Steven’s order with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.

“Do as he asks.” The old man flapped a consenting hand that made Steven grit his teeth.