Page 83 of The Atlas Maneuver

He thought as much. Any local asset worth their salt cultivated sources at all points of ingress and egress. You never knew when those might come in handy. “Find out if anything from the bank is there, or on the way in.”

She worked the phone and spoke in Japanese, then ended the call. “A private jet belonging to the Bank of St. George landed thirty minutes ago.”

“How far out are we from the airport?”

“An hour.”

“Let’s go. Fast.”

CASSIOPEIA HAD TAKEN OUT BOTH DIVERS. ONE WITH A CUT AIR HOSE, the other with a spear to the chest. Bubbles continued to spew from the one man’s splayed hose, the other man drifting away, blood dyeing the water. Quickly, she took a look around inside the barge and determined there was nothing there. No surprise since this was a trap, not a treasure site. Her bottom time was at an end, so she fled the barge. But before surfacing, she found the second man’s speargun, which he’d dropped after dying.

She began her ascent.

Slowly, keeping her breathing steady, allowing her lungs to equalize to the changing pressure.

A quick check of the timer on the regulator indicated that she was past the twenty minutes of down time, but not all that much. Certainly not enough to cause concern. She should be fine for adirect ascent without a decompression stop. She reached the fifteen-meter mark and noticed something odd on the surface.

Two boats.

Nestled close to each other.

That meant they had company, which explained who would have retrieved the divers.

Trouble. Absolutely.

With a capitalT.

She realized her bubbles were giving her away. But whoever was here surely expected the two men to be the ones surfacing. Buying time and creating confusion seemed the smart play. So she removed her buoyancy vest, then unbuckled the tank, slipping it off her shoulders. She secured the vest to the tank, sucked one more breath, then let it go, watching it sink.

With the speargun in hand, she started swimming.

Up toward the boats.

CHAPTER 45

CATHERINE WAITED FOR AN ANSWER FROMLANAGREENWELL.

She hated everything about what was happening. Two people she thought close friends had betrayed her in a big way. Years of work and millions of euros had been spent on what was about to happen.

All now in dire jeopardy.

But for what?

“I could not bear the thought of Kelly succeeding. She’s shown me nothing but disrespect for years. And you, Katie, allowed it to happen because you valued her over me.”

Business jealousy? It couldn’t be.

People being people, personalities clashed. Usually, though, the consequences from such pettiness were only a nuisance. Unlike here. Where they had become a catastrophe. Thankfully, the situation might have come under control with the deal she’d made with Kelly. By now Kyra should have her in custody and be on the plane headed for Morocco.

“I tried to warn you,” Lana said. “I told you, repeatedly, that she could not be trusted. I despise her. Kelly is a reckless individual.”

“So, because of your hatred,” her mother said, “you sold yourself out to the Japanese? You are a liar. You may have started out doing what you did out of resentment, but you kept doing it for the money.”

Catherine glanced out into the meadow. The hawk was still feeding. She had to be careful and not allow the bird to gorge itself. “We were able to locate an account this morning in Singapore, in the name of the same nephew who was tagged to the cell phone. The balance is far more than we’ve ever paid you.”

“Which is another matter, all to itself,” Lana said.

Now she was curious. “Your compensation is generous.”